CSB296: DRAKEWASHING

I

have I've already started my last stream by Screaming Mustard.

So

my only question is: does Paige know that her time has arrived?

I gotta be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I keep seeing people say it.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm going to assume.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's it's on the new album.

Um, so let me, yeah, so, so, so I'll give you the Cliff Notes on it, right?

It's a very good album.

It's awesome.

There's a lot of good shit on it.

And there is

some absolute banger tracks, one of which is a titular track TV Off,

which is going to likely be the

single, a major single.

It's hot.

It's got a lot going on.

And there's a nice little beat switch-up in the middle of it with a little build-up.

And then,

you know, it feels as if Kendrick is, for the most part, he's past his bull.

He's past the the bullshit.

He's doing his own thing.

But there's these little hints and little references to the things that we have to acknowledge.

One of which is mustard on the beat hoe.

And as soon as you hear that, Kendrick jumps in and screams at the top of his lungs with the deepest hatred in the world.

Mustard!

And he holds it as the beat gets started.

And then,

you know, gets into the turn the TV off, turn the TV off kind of chorus, does another verse, and then for the second time around, just in case you didn't hear him,

from the depths of his soul, mustard.

So

you're telling me that

you're telling me that you think the TV off is going to be a really popular song this year?

I think people are going to be screaming mustard in the streets and people are going to either be confused or going, yeah.

You know what, Willie?

Yeah.

Despite the fact that in the coming months, you may be in fact right, and that I'm going to be seeing video after video of people in public places, pools, barbecues, clubs, parks, places of work, and just randomly on the street screaming mustard like you just did.

Yeah, I don't think that's actually that popular.

I think it's actually fake.

I think that is a falsehood

be perpetrated

upon your eyes and ears.

Oh, no.

Are we going to send the lawyers to stop people?

Hey, stop screaming mustard.

Everybody, stop getting hype.

All right.

All right.

Listen, listen.

We'll get there.

We'll get there.

Believe, like, it's the, the, you know, the posts are set.

We can, we can, hey, let's enjoy the trapes through the flowers.

All right.

Um, it's so, it's just, to me, I'm just like, oh, the word mustard it has stonks at an all-time high.

So,

again, I don't know what that means for Paige, but I hope she can find a way.

So, she's been listening to the album and I haven't.

Okay.

But, like, we're not playing it around the child because he's at the word acquisition stage.

Okay.

And so, I

don't want a fucking incident.

Okay.

The last thing we'd need is the child screaming mustard as well.

Yeah.

Followed by,

you know, everything that comes out of that.

Yeah, yeah, anything else.

Yeah.

Need to talk about none.

But I don't think she's gotten there because she hasn't mentioned it to me.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well,

it's great.

It's a whole lot of fun.

And...

There's a lot.

There's a lot that has happened since and just

and back and forth.

But,

you know there's a level of of like there's yeah obviously there's like there's skits and bits and things where he just drops it at like 9 a.m.

and then the next day just drops a video unceremoniously just yup bam it's out here it is right you're big enough you're popular enough you can ignore the rules of how you send things out you can just make things a surprise

and Kendrick Lamar, I also believe somewhere, because he could have held on or not for however long he wanted with this.

I'm thinking that at least part of this was:

okay, look, when I do a Super Bowl halftime show, we can't do certified pedophiles six times back to back for the entire time.

We have some new songs.

Like, we're gonna get the entire stadium to say it, right?

But we can't push it and have it go back to back to back like the pop-out.

So,

let it go down and maybe even a second time, right?

And then let's have some new music for everybody.

But it is going down, make no mistake, you know?

I think we've recovered from the absolute nuclear devastation that was Janet Jackson's nipple.

You know, I never thought that we as a people would be able to, you know,

rebuild after

everything, all the damage that caused, but here we are.

And

how's Kendrick going to get 60,000 bots into the Super Bowl to sing the song like that?

That's that's aren't people going to notice?

That is, in fact, a feat.

You know, that's quite, that's going to be quite a challenge.

Um, and I have seen people popping up.

Um, you know, Black Twitter's had a lot to say, and has been like, there's been people popping up going, Oh, um, about half of those are me, by the way, Your Honor.

That, oh, all those streams, Yeah, that was me.

I'm responsible for at least a half of those.

I admit it.

I have not stopped, you know, fucking rocking it since.

And then, of course, there is the, you know, hey, look, and like, and now with your shot comes your chaser.

It is the whitest thing Drake has done, is what they're calling it.

How does a man reach up through the grave dirt and grab some more and just scoop it onto himself

and then lean back into the dirt?

So we talked about a lawsuit like six months ago.

And we talked about how, one, it would be the ultimate bitch move.

It would be the most...

And I vividly remember saying that he would be more respected if he just shot Kendrick than if he filed a lawsuit.

I mean, right?

So here's the bit.

I ultimately think that the

most embarrassing outcome of a rap beef up until now has been machine gun Kelly.

Yeah, I was about to say where he quit.

Getting just completely ousted from the genre, right?

Self-imposed exile is ultimately the most embarrassing bit.

You're like, damn.

Completely wrapped out of a career.

Reinvented himself successfully as,

you know,

a

creator of baby's mama music.

You know, like, just

like love ballads and shit.

So that has been, that has been the bar.

But

now

you've got this, the brand new level.

That is, I am filing a lawsuit.

against your production company and your labels and

UMG because

stop making fun of me.

It's getting too popular.

I think you're artificially boosting, not like us.

It didn't get that many hits, though.

It didn't get that many plays.

So I want to be super clear because I've been reading about this all morning because this, this, this, this rat beef, the hatred in it is so, it's, oh, I love it.

I'm going to hyper-fixate on it.

So there's no lawsuit.

That's, that's the one thing that's actually super, super like being taken away.

There's no lawsuit.

This is called a

pre-action legal filing or something.

Basically, he's forming some,

he's taking lawyers and he's forcing people at Universal

Music Group to give him depositions that he could use for a future lawsuit.

I am establishing the groundwork here to show you that I am trying to get this accomplished within good faith.

Yes.

So that

when it comes to conflict later, Your Honor, I've proven that I tried to resolve this amicably.

So basically, he's forcing the people at UMG

to

have to talk to him to give him information for a possible lawsuit.

And the claim is that

UMG and Kendrick Lamar conspired to artificially inflate the popularity of Not Like Us via botting and targeted

production, and

that they all worked together to make sure that the song was as big as it was.

Now, let's ignore the fact that

Kendrick just appeared with the song that appeared to be completely produced by himself in his house with his friends out of nowhere.

And it showed up on his fucking YouTube channel and shit like that before it hit spotlight.

Well, whatever, whatever.

So, the point,

somebody on the subreddit really summed it up incredibly.

This is from Jag176,

who found a tweet by Uno Deuce Raps.

Drake, there is a song calling you a gay, deadbeat pedophile who runs a sex trafficking ring with 500 million streams on Spotify, to which Drake's pre-legal response is, it doesn't have 500 million streams.

And that was yesterday.

Yes.

Yes.

This morning, like an hour and a half ago,

they filed the same.

A second plane has hit the tower.

The same pre-action legal, not quite a lawsuit

stating that Kendrick Lamar and the

Universal Media Group or Music Group.

I think it's music group.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

conspired to defame him and knowingly did him harm for things they knew were false,

which

if Kendrick had in the song

Aubrey Drake Graham is a kiddie toucher and he, I saw him touch a kid and he is guilty under the law, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, okay, maybe, because that's tough.

But he said he was a creep.

And he and he's creepy around little girls.

And in Discovery, they're going to pull up the footage of Drake making out with a 17-year-old in front of hundreds of thousands of people going, yeah, that was good.

I like that.

And

dating girls on their 18th birthday and making super good, good friends with a bunch of 10-year-olds on reset.

Play it for the jury, Your Honor.

Yeah, I saw, like, there's,

there's pics, there's like photos of like Millie Bobby Brown in like recent photos.

She was, and she, she kind of, like, looks like she's, like, you know, she looks very mature, like, like, middle-aged almost.

And, like, she skipped past like a young woman stage straight into middle-aged because of drake just to get her to get away from that

it's crazy how like from tailor-made to bitch made one man can be and to then pretend like to have this energy about him because he also won on an xqc stream and was kind of like oh it takes uh facts to take me down not not fiction and not stories or whatever and to basically continue this this idea of being unbothered and just being like we celebrate

it's a good time and it's like you can't pretend he doesn't live rent-free in your head till the end of time it's this is this is half a year later it's done it's done and like you're you're doing this in light of someone else releasing their own thing over here, right?

That's the bit.

It's like, you can't even like say that this just came out with the timing of like being, you know, unrelated or whatever.

You are 1000% percent in your feelings crying maulding like ripping apart the studio because people are celebrating and enjoying the new kendrick album and you can't handle it and the same level of introspection that should have stopped you like eight or nine fucking steps ago can't kick in now and the people around you that should have stopped you from filing this or thinking that this was a reasonable thing or a smart thing to do at least for rehabilitating your image where everyone was kind of like all right dude dude just go disappear you still have a career but it's gonna be rough from here on out Those people are not here to stop him and he doesn't have the thing that we all see right now which is like you're making it so much worse why do you keep making it worse you know and all you had to do this is like the ultimate proof that he has no one who cares about him in his life nothing around no one right and like again you see the wild shit with like the type of like all that shit with the dad stuff and you're just like yeah there is nothing to to to just give him that little kitty kitten paw on the hand to say, Stop posting, you know?

Um, because you wait until literally the day after the new album to come out and go, nah, that last song was bullshit, though, right?

So, okay, hey, I don't think this has anything to do with Kendrick's new album.

I think it has absolutely nothing to do with Kendrick's new album.

I think it has to do with the fact that in the second week of November, Kendrick Lamar received five Grammy nominations for Not Like Us.

And Drake received zero.

Sure.

Because it takes time

to grab a lawyer and do and fucking build this shit up.

There's no way he did that in two days.

You can, you can, you can say that, but I'm going to respectfully disagree because I also think that while pretty, while wisely the album is pretty much, it's not really focused on any of that shit it's like there's overall the biggest signature of like the beef and everything has just been like the the the type of beats he's he's using there's a there's a not like us sound that kind of is becoming a more distinct thing to to kendrick the sound that i'm gonna use for a bunch of my music going forward is the drake is a pedophile like that's that type of yeah that harmony you know it kind of comes together with the potato

right we're gonna be that's gonna be a new unique identifier It's like a lame motif.

A lay-motif of Drake being creepy.

You know, it's kind of like when we got to the Sgt.

Peppers, kind of like, you know, when we went a little hippie with it, we kind of got experimental.

We stopped doing the Ed Sullivan show.

It's like that.

It's that Drake is a pedo era, you know, like we're getting into that sound.

But the album leans into that and it leans into the Black Panther album kind of track sound a bit more than the old like jazz rap kind of experimental shit, you know, which was awesome, but it's just, it's like a different thing.

So that's clearly like the biggest part of it.

But if you want to talk about direct, one of the tracks as we were waiting for, as we were expecting on the album is just called, yeah, heart part six.

AKA, that last thing, that last response never happened.

We just erased it from history and we continued and we didn't lose a beat and now the new album, every album Kendrick releases has a track called the heart part one two three four 5.

And now the new album, Heart Part 6.

That's it.

And the timeline is corrected.

You know, we have King Crimsoned your entire response out of history.

I don't remember Drake's responses.

And that is,

Drake don't remember them.

It is a benevolence that we are wiping that memory away.

It is a benevolence.

It is a good thing for him that we forget that he even did that.

There is no mercy in this erasure.

I hope this lawsuit happens because it'll be funny, but I also hope that it happens because I am imagining a conversation between the type of person who always gets what they wants.

and a lawyer who is asking them a really specific question, which is, are they going to find weird shit in Discovery?

I

mean,

okay.

And Drake will go, no.

Okay, now listen.

Now, hold on.

In real life,

probably not, probably very boring and

in

and a very non-entertaining conclusion to this legal procedure.

In Fun Time world, in awesome timeline, the court needs to go, well, hold on a minute.

If you're saying these lyrics are false, then we need to seek out proof to confirm that why were these, why were these made?

Can we, are there exhibits that we can drop objections on here to say, well, Your Honor, in fact, we have sub-receipts and we don't have reasonable doubt enough to say that these things did not occur.

So, but like, straight up, like, okay, so to pro they have to find, they have to find a

piece of evidence, which is

a guy who was working with Kendrick or Kendrick himself saying out loud, yeah, I know all that shit is fake, but I'm saying it anyway because it's funny.

It'll hurt his reputation, right?

So they're not going to find that.

Instead, they're all, well, well, why did you say that about Mr.

Graham?

Your Honor.

And like, yay!

That little face that Phoenix Wright makes when the question mark goes,

you're like, Your Honor,

why would the prosecution's client say, I expected the Epstein angle?

For what reason would he have expected that angle?

The judge is like, oh,

good question.

Like, if it went to a court, Edgeworth, any response?

If it went to court, we could have a New York district judge sit there and say it was reasonable for Mr.

Lamar to assume that Drake was a pedophile.

Oh, case clothes.

Yeah, so it's look, it's gonna be, it's gonna be this like fucking, even, and the worst part is like, it doesn't matter what the outcome of these steps are.

Like, you've just, you've cemented it.

It's over.

It's done, you know?

And way to just underline the overall, like,

the feeling that is, you know,

I mean, we covered a lot of it last time it came up, but it's just, this is, there is a part of this thing that is a battle for the soul of hip-hop, right?

It is like, it is, it is ostensibly just the realest shit, authenticity versus production fake and connections and industry

plants, et cetera, whatever, you know.

And like, to then use this as your way out of sorts, to try to find the legal angle to be like, no, I need to suppress them algorithmically and get the courts to pay damages for whatever, when you just you refuse to acknowledge that like

everyone is fucking on that shit.

It was the bop of the summer.

You have to just feign ignorance and then create a world where no, you didn't take that damage.

And again, it's very telling to see him on the recent pop up on the streams as well and kind of like be like, yeah, living my best life.

Nothing happened.

Everything's great.

Everything is fine.

And it is an absolute train wreck inside, you know?

And he did release like some some experimental, like, stuff out in going into different genres as well.

And kind of, you know, just whatever, doing whatever you can do.

But I just think that, like, this is the point that anybody that found themselves in this situation with a half a reasonable brain would be like, you just got to lay low.

You just got to lay low.

You have to wait for this to go away.

And, like, realize that the people that care about you are the people that just want to dance and they don't give a fuck about what's actually happening or what you're saying or what's going on.

They just want to hear it in the club.

And you just.

Wait, wait a second.

How could he be suing

Kendrick for the information that he fed to Kendrick?

Oh, we set that shit up, did we?

Yes.

Yeah, didn't you?

Yes.

Wasn't this all a big master plan?

Right,

right, right.

Of course.

Yes,

the Grand Owl plan.

We put people in

your surroundings and and and and also

right meanwhile like anyway you want to talk about just like if you're gonna go like bar for bar and go uh your honor aka daddy mommy he said mean things about me

mr uh mr graham it says here that you said uh Kendra Kumlamar viciously beats his wife in in in the prior song is that accurate and like like literally like where are we going with And that was, that was a lot more direct

than the, the, the creepy pedophage.

Yeah, it's, it's, it just, and it always, there's all, like, you just kind of take a moment to think about, like, how we got here.

And it's just because

everyone in this industry heard

Kendrick drop a bar that was just going like, yo, I'm pretty fucking good.

I love all y'all, but I'm, I'm, you know, I'm coming for you.

I'm the best.

But I, you know, and they were all like, yeah, okay, good shit.

Let's see what you got.

And one dude was like, oh, oh, yeah.

I really got to say, man, like the fact that is you're dead on.

That is absolutely the beginning of this.

And like.

I'm the best might be the most common brag in every form of art that has ever been.

I'm the greatest of all time.

There is no equal that no one could beat me in fucking what.

Like,

it's just, you're just, you're just talking, you know, you're just chirping.

And then to be like, no, you're not.

It's me.

I'm the dragon.

Yeah.

No, everyone loves to see a child get fucking spanked like this.

An adult child is getting.

absolutely washed.

And now he has too much money to like, yeah, to ever...

It's like, okay, this is the, and this is kind of the sad, depressing part, but there's a lesson that you kind of learn from Kanye, right?

Where, and it's like, Kanye is just, who the fuck knows?

He's in space, right?

He's gone.

But like, the whole bit about not having anyone around you and like getting rid of anyone around you who could have talked to you about this type of thing.

And like, he's basically just like,

you, he's, you, when when you have so much money that, like, you can't possibly hit the bottom,

there's a place you're supposed to fall and land on and go splat.

But if you have enough money and success before the fall,

you never really hit that bottom.

So you keep sticking to the delusions because

you're being kept afloat, you know?

Do you want some real fucking conspiracy nonsense about what you just said?

Oh, boy.

Do you want to fucking just dig into the fucking weeds?

I mean, no, but like, what the fuck?

All right, so Drake announces a new concert with horribly overpriced tickets.

I'm sure you saw that, where tickets start at $500 a seat.

Drake also is a victim of what's called the Drake curse.

Are you familiar with the Drake curse?

No, I do know that there's the Australia tour shit that he was talking about, but

what's that?

So the Drake curse is that Drake is a prolific gambler.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Massive, insane debts.

Catch up.

Drake has a win rate of under 15%.

He is measurably worse than a coin toss.

He is an anti-yes lock.

Yes.

If he will always post his bets, and whatever he does, you do the opposite,

right?

Generally speaking.

And his locks are like, yeah, they're always death.

and the stream I was talking about that he did where he was being salty with XQC was a I'm pretty sure it was a stream with like the stake gambling company and stuff because he owes so much money that he has to do promotional shit for the gambling company.

So, yes, absolutely, this is a known thing.

So, like, yeah, no, they're, they're, that, like, I don't know the math.

I don't know any, I don't think even Aubrey knows the math, but there's a

there is a confluence of possibilities that this lawsuit is because he owes a lot of people some money.

Nah, man.

Al Pacino always wanted to be Duncachino.

He enjoyed doing that role.

I don't know.

He actually did seem to enjoy doing that role like a lot.

People got to get paid.

And Drake is 1 million percent parlaying his shit into oblivion.

Make no mistake.

Yes, that is there.

There is a long red number right there.

I will say there's a detail that we left out earlier that most people know, but if you're not aware of, it's really important to this pre-legal action or pre-trial, whatever the fuck it's called,

because he's going after UMG and Kendrick Lamar for fucking him over.

Of note is that UMG is also

his music label.

He's suing the company that he works for.

That

is not going to be good

for his negotiations

at the next time he's at the table.

Well, we'll cross that bridge after we burn it down.

You know?

No,

it's the unraveling.

It's bad decisions.

And again,

I mean, where I was ultimately going with the Kanye bid was just that, like, yeah,

no bottom means that you can just make worse and worse and worse decisions.

You're just falling forever.

Forever.

And you'll never hit the ground.

And all that happens is everyone is like, okay, we're just going to go over here.

And, oh, what's the latest insane thing?

That's cool.

Like, it's just exhausting to even bother.

Who knows or cares what's even going on with him anymore?

And, like, that's what happens.

I remember seeing.

You can't possibly make another.

There's always a worse decision you can keep making.

I remember seeing a, and this is not the kind of thing that I look for, but the world brought it to me.

I remember seeing an interview with Kim talking about Kanye and the kids and and just her describing what it's like to run damage control for your ex-husband because like he the kids are separated from dad but he's on TV yeah yeah yeah so like you you wanna you don't want the kids to be like dad's an insane psycho person

so you're running control damage control for a person that you won't let your children and that's that seems fucked there's there's the there's the literal there's the public images and the money and the business part, and then there's just like, for your children's sake and, like, sanity.

Is dad crazy?

You know?

That seems rough.

During one of the, I mean, and yeah, I think, like,

I think North was like rapping or part of the, one of the more recent events or concerts and stuff.

And you're like, yeah, there's, what are you going to do, man?

It's, that's...

Like, that's your dad, you know?

It fucking...

Anyway.

So,

all this to say that, like, here we are.

This has gotten to the point where we're hearing these stories, and he thinks this is the right move to make, and no one's stopping him.

Therefore, if for a second you think, oh, and that'll be the end of it, right?

It'll just

the spiral continues, you know.

So, so it will be years of just he's either going to be told to not go through with the lawsuit, or he's going to lose the lawsuit, and then that will also not be the end of it.

I mean, I just like, I'm looking forward to a point, however many years from now, where,

like, there's like, we're like 18 or 19 stories deep of just Drake flopping around, turning into a corncob.

And, like, when asked for comment, Kendrick is like, who?

Like, what?

You know what this feels like?

You know that kind of guy who you knew in high school who would instigate a problem, and if someone retaliated, he would escalate it times a million.

Yeah, right.

So, like a guy who starts a fight, and when the dude fights back, says, I'm going to get my friends to beat you up tomorrow, right?

But in this situation, and in some situations, that doesn't happen because people are like, no, what are you insane?

And the dude's just going to hold on to it until his fucking dying day.

Can you believe that fucking asshole fought back when I hit him?

In the old folks' home, yelling at the the nurses,

you know, like as the lights are closing in, still holding on to it.

Yes.

That motherfucker.

And you just happen to pick the one that, like,

I mean, there are, like, there are many rappers out there, and there's always a couple that are just, like, you know, pretty serious.

There's some that don't crack punchlines.

This is one that refuses to smile.

Kendrick, like, is so, he is so locked in at all times.

There is not an ounce of levity to be found.

Man,

I think, hence, you're rapping like you're trying to free the slaves bit, you know.

Uh, to go after a guy like that who also loves the Lord

like

like Kendrick loves Jesus, he, his, his armor shields him from all threats, crown of thorns.

You know,

fucking, I can fix it though, right?

Says Jimmy

Drake washing.

I can.

Oh.

All right.

Curly.

Curly was up to you to tell me that girl was 14.

This is your fault, Curly.

Oh, man.

He can fix it.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

I can still, we can still be heroes.

There is a non-zero percent chance that someone who lives in Drake's house, just in general, is just going to come forward with just a fucking bunch of dirt or videotapes or something.

Like something.

I don't know.

I don't know.

That man should not trust anybody in his life.

I mean, he hasn't, like, so far, like...

It hasn't devolved to the like absolute tweet storm breakdown, you you know, like the stream of conscious.

We haven't hit that level yet, but that's the final breaking of you know the like the deepest barriers when you hit terminal dogma.

Like is when there's no one left or nothing left or no procedures left to you know what you know what I'm gonna pull up my fucking phone and tell people what I think.

We're going live.

We're hitting we're going on live.

Let's go.

Oh my god, dude.

Oh man.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

God, this, if, if Drake had come out and been like, wow, that's a really good song.

It's really funny, too.

And then

dropped it,

shit would be over.

It would be done.

Silence.

It'd be a funny little hip-hop thing.

Like.

Like, I'm thinking about the feeling I get sometimes where I see some stupid comment go by and I'm just like, ignore it.

And you're like, oh, God, that's annoying.

Anyway.

And then I go like, what the fuck are you talking about?

And then everyone's like, dude, just ignore it.

And I'm like, yeah, all right.

And then I'm like, well, what do you even, like, that feeling of why do I even bother?

Like, and just not, like, that times infinity times a million of like, you have to imagine each step along the way, there's that like, oh no, it's getting worse.

Oh, no, it's all good.

Why is it getting worse?

Why are people more against me?

Why is it not back to the way it used to be?

Why is everything not Galchesta?

All facts aside, it's because Kendrick is making better music than you are.

Like,

facts aside,

if Drake was, on that beef, if Drake was putting out way better songs, it would not matter what was being said in those songs.

The one thing he had and has and was his power from the beginning was the power of the summer bop, right?

It was his summer.

He would always release tracks that were just

instant, instant played in the club, instant, instant, like, you know,

everybody's dancing to it.

Doesn't matter what's going on.

Doesn't matter what it says lyrically, who gives a fuck?

It's just, you know.

So the words put together nice and make me happy in my brain.

Yeah, it's the same.

You hear it coming out the car, speakers, you know, you're hearing the sound of the distortion of the glass shaking and vibration and the woofers going, you know, and that's how you listen to it, basically.

It's always been that.

So, yes, when something comes out that is actually more substantial and catchier, holy shit, what have you got?

That's that's a complete disarming.

Anyway, um, so yeah, GNX is pretty good, um, and that's a lot of fun.

And uh,

uh, hey, I, I, I look, I look forward to the

loud mustard-ass screams that we'll be hearing from here on out.

I look forward to Drake sitting down to eat a hot dog and putting ketchup and relish on it and then looking

and just going, ooh!

I can't believe,

like, there are two thoughts that I have on this, like, that are just sticking in my chest.

The first one is: I remember talking to you about reading an

elementary school teacher describing, a Canadian elementary school teacher describing how the day Not Like Us came out, their Ontario school inverted from a Drake school to a Kendrick Lamar school literally overnight.

Yep.

And like elementary school students, you're, oh, you're fucking cooked.

That is so, oh my God.

But the second thing, and the funniest thing in the world is

again, over and over, every time Kendrick does anything, anytime there's an accusation,

always

goes for the wrong thing first.

That song's not that popular.

And also, I didn't do any of that shit.

Like, always,

always in the weird wrong order that shows what you care about.

Yeah, I think...

Okay, you know it's bad when it's not even like while there is a significant amount of Kendrick winning people over that is occurring where they're like, oh shit, yeah, let's go.

I'm on, I'm, I'm done, I'm with that.

There is also a significant amount of just trying to run away from the fucking citizen app dots that are landing

by being an OVO, you know, stand, by being in the Drake crowd.

You need to dodge bullets just standing around.

You're like, fuck this, I'm out.

Right?

You don't even necessarily run over to Kendrick.

You're just like, I can't be standing next to this shit.

What the fuck is he doing?

I don't want to be associated with this.

That's it.

You know,

that's the kicker.

It's just like, even in the absence of Kendrick music, you're running away because of all the fucking Drake news.

So, also, bluntly, like this lawsuit or this pre-action, whatever the fuck it's called, it makes him look super guilty and super creepy.

Like,

the lady Doth protesting a lot.

Like a lot.

An owl

getting shipped to maximum security on Rikers.

Yeah, so

that's fun.

It's always nice to

see

someone

in able...

unable to understand why they're taking L's,

just piss and shit and moan and flail on the ground.

You know, whether that be because of you know the

other song just being better, or whether that be because people can see how many players of your active game are online.

But we'll get there, I suppose.

It's not fair that

Steam shows the active players.

Oh, I don't know about that.

I don't know what you're referring to about that.

Oh, I'm

guessing, guess which company is upset that

people can find out how many active players are?

Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Okay, I'm closing the chat.

I can't see the chat.

Okay.

Guess is this a big company?

A video game company is not happy that Steam allows you to see active players, and that means that their investors can't take can take get the numbers themselves and they can't go and massage them or tell them their own numbers for active players and they're considering trying to get Steam to not show the

active concurrent players.

Okay, so like

my

gut deep down in your heart, part of it.

My gut is Ubisoft.

Oh, you named it.

My second one was gonna be EA.

Don't even bother.

Don't even bother on the mark bullseye.

Stop showing how many players are playing.

Oh my god, dude.

This is over that Prince of Persia shit.

In one.

Actually, no.

Oh, it's about, what, the finals or whatever the fuck?

It's about Star Wars.

Oh!

Dude, I've never seen a Steam front page ad for a patch.

Man.

Like, that.

Did you see that?

It was like Star Wars Outlaws.

Now, patch 1.4.

Hey, hey, cyberpunk.

He fixed a bunch of bitches.

Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk.

Right?

Intrissel.

That was the DLC.

Intrasal.

That was the DLC.

The game is true.

Yeah.

But,

yeah, dude.

They

are not happy that people can see for themselves.

Eat fucking shit.

Yeah.

Tried it.

So I'm going to segue slightly.

So we made fun of the Epic Game Store, and Tim Sweeney's like a fucking dweeb, right?

And

they're like, we're going to make a better store than Steam and all that shit, right?

So since then,

the Epic Game Store, to my knowledge, has not added any new features and they still don't have a shopping cart.

And their store pretty much works out the way that it does.

But since that whole kerfuffle, Steam has added better Steam input support.

They added family accounts so that you can just share every single game that you want for everybody in their fucking house and all that shit.

It's incredible.

It's super, super useful.

And then they just had Steam Recording come out, which I have tested.

It is better than Shadow Play.

It is a better recording solution than Shadow Play.

And it's auto-enabled for every single fucking game you play on Steam.

Yeah.

And I mean,

in echoes of this and such, there's even the bit where

last week, the 2K launcher has just been shut down and removed from every single game that used it.

Okay, Wooly, what is your personal experience with the 2K launcher?

I have not used it once, ever.

Okay, so I had forgotten.

Remember when we talked about the front end?

I dropped a toothpick.

Remember when

we talked about the front end?

Like, which is the worst?

You play

all this stuff?

Forgot about it.

The 2K launcher is actually.

So like, 2K doesn't have like a store.

It would just be a launcher for some of their games.

Actually, the worst one because it would drop your performance by like 40% for no matter what game.

The very first thing you would do when you installed XCOM was go to the Nexus and get the mod to bypass the launcher.

Okay.

It would make Civ

five.

Civic.

Civ 5 had a Civ 6 had a specific

and it would like run bad despite the fact that it's fucking Civ.

What do you yeah?

And it's like it's literally exclusively because of the launcher.

The launcher was just bad.

And it wasn't that it took resources, it was just badly made.

It was just

suck up your fucking cycle.

So I'm reading that they shut it down and they're pulling it out of everything.

It is gone now.

And that includes like games that used it.

It says not just on Steam, but on Epic, which is like, okay, so you had games that you would boot on Epic Game Store that would then launch this separate 2K launcher, and then you have to go through that procedure as well.

Like, that's batshit.

I cannot, like, as somebody who played, I think, every single game that used the 2K launcher,

it was like, I would say it's like enough to knock a full point off the game.

It was that bad.

Wow.

Yeah.

Every time a bad launcher dies, a classic game gets its wings.

Like,

it's just, we don't have enough of these types of stories, you know, on a regular basis.

But the fact that 2K is actually giving up here is like, okay, cool.

That's what.

That's nice.

Anyway, anyway.

It's awesome that that launcher is not there.

Makes me want to load up XCOM 2.

Not even joking.

That bad.

That bad.

And like, you could probably look at the chat and, like, am I crazy?

Or was it that bad?

Because I remember it being that fucking bad.

Terrible.

Terrible.

Okay.

Okay.

So, yeah,

more on a lot of this when we get to the news, but

let's jump to the weeks a little bit.

Fucking you.

You beside me.

So bad.

Oh, my God.

Fucking hole in one, bro.

Hole in.

But anyway, enough about Drizzy.

Let's talk about Dizzy.

Oh, have you been sitting on that?

Or did you just think of that?

I just thought of it.

Oh, that's good.

She's pretty cool.

I noticed you put Dizzy on your schedule again for this week.

Oh, well, that was just a mistake.

Oh, was it?

That was just a mistake.

Oh, okay, because this morning I saw him like, wow, he must be really into playing Dizzy in Guilty Gear.

yeah uh i'm gonna need to fix that bb l dizzy bbl dizzy uh yeah no no no we're gonna be playing um rivals of a uh rivals uh of aether too yes uh actually

um but uh yeah no she's she it's interesting to introduce a character that has again the the those wings of light that crazy shit that just sucks your life off all that but was say jam right is it just win more

it is and you can, if you don't, if yeah, you can get hit quite easily if you don't know what you're doing.

And if you're not good at running away, then like it's a challenge, right?

But she's got a lot of good keepaway zoning tools, but it's like

she

could not have had those tools in previous versions of the game.

But this patch has made the game nutty that they're ready.

The groundwork has been laid for this character to have this type of tool.

So, what you're saying is that when we saw Dizzy, we're like, how the fuck is this character going to exist in Guilty Gear Strive?

And the answer is, she's not going to.

She's going to exist in Guilty Gear Strive bullshit edition.

The strive you know is gone.

This is a new thing.

And but on the on the

as a side note, all those pot changes and stuff, it turns out they made him better.

So oh, yeah, I know.

Yeah, okay.

So all the muscle memory that's gone and the stuff has ultimately, it's a wash.

It's okay.

But he's, they made everything else strong.

He's, he's good.

That's always what I want.

I like it's always like hey did you know this weird trick this character can do is actually really good like how about you just remove that shit and just make the character better in general please um in terms of wacky bullshit stuff though they added the 3v3 mode officially and

i gave it a shot and it's cra it's just it really yeah yeah it's like okay we're making a new mode and they had the the bones for it because when you did arcade or story you'd have these little 2v2 matches against the the the computer sometimes, or 2v1 matches against the final boss.

And so they just kind of went, all right, well, we've got the infrastructure.

What if we actually let it connect and let people play online?

And like,

there's a part where they went, okay, we can make this real if we want to, right?

We can make it real by having you tag in and out of, you know, a team of three, other people you're connected to, and they can also choose when they want to jump in and do an assist.

But in order to stop you from taking it too seriously, they're like, and here's some items, and

here's some like complete batch it, like extra abilities you can get.

Here's something that lets Patemkin do an air dash.

And you know, like, let's just make it completely nonsense.

You can't try to take it seriously, even if you tried.

You know,

you're not allowed.

You're going to have to deal with someone jumping in and putting a lightning strike over you or a bubble that hits you if you jump or whatever.

So

it's wacky in that way.

And then it's also kind of unique in that you can't tag back and forth.

Once you switch to somebody, it's the most complicated tagging system I've ever seen in any fighting game.

Typical fucking guilty gear, right?

So

you connect and you're three people on the same team.

You all pick your character.

You have your starter, your middle, and then your anchor, right?

And you can also choose what profile of like fighter you you want to be.

Because if you're like, oh, I'm an anchor, you can have a bunch of items that are good

for people who are last in line versus people who are good for starting out or whatever.

And you can only tag to another person once in the round.

You can't go back and forth.

You have to choose the moment that you want to switch the other person in.

And like, you don't just hit the tag button.

You have to request it and they have to accept it while you're fighting.

So you're playing fucking weird.

You're playing fucking weird.

And then your two other teammates have the ability to jump in and drop an item, jump in and do an assist to help you, or they can request a tag or you can request a tag.

That takes too long.

And then once they confirm the handshake, you now are both on screen for about like seven seconds, 2v1ing

the person on screen.

And it's like that,

it's just batch it.

It's the um

uh blaze blue crosstag battle levels of like you're dead, you're just it's in you know, but like you're paying attention to, if you're just in the background, when your items are gonna restock, when your assist is gonna restock, and like when the handshake happens, there's a little like vignette that pops up around the sides, and you're like, oh shit, and you're just you're just overwhelmed with nonsense, man.

It's it's just so, it's crazy.

It's batch it.

Um, and yeah, of course you can pick the same character three times.

So you can get nine.

You can get

just nine behemoth typhoons.

Just kind of like,

you know.

Or the classic, like three, like you have three Nago Ryukis and the team name is three fucking Nagos.

But

the person whose name is Nagos went in second and fucked it up.

So it's team three Nagos fucking.

That's great.

That's great.

That's great.

Very, very funny.

And ultimately, you know, a mode to be forgotten in the annals of history.

But hey, it's there, and no one can say that after a couple years they didn't add new features.

Guilty Gear Usaka is fucking just crawling back up to just spray some of its shit all over Strive.

Yeah, well, at least that shit came out and is not being

fucking

whatever the hell happened to Mortal Kombat 1 DLC.

So,

you know, God bless it.

It sucks how Mortal Kombat players don't like to play Mortal Kombat.

That's unfortunate.

It's a huge shame.

It's a huge shame.

You know, it would do a lot better, and things would be a lot better for that game if

people enjoyed it.

Hey, I have an idea.

The next time they make a Mortal Kombat game, they should make a version of it that people will want to play

for longer than three hours.

Oh, here we go.

Yeah, yeah, we all know the bit.

Pat's going to say they should make the game good.

Fucking good.

I mean, it looks like Netherrealm right now is saying that they should have made the game good so then they could sell more DLC.

How tired are we of the same fucking bit every time, Pat?

We get it.

Yada yada.

It'd be good if Mortal Kombat games were good.

It would.

Listen, I played the fucking shit out of like the majority of Mortal Kombat games and I never thought for a second they were good.

I thought they were cool,

which they are.

And the problem and the thing that always sucks is that this is the other shoe dropping.

This is the other side of the peanut butter jelly sandwich to the trailer came out and has and has eclipsed the views of every other fighter in one.

It's like, yes.

Because it's cool.

Yes.

There's murder in that fighting game.

And that amount and that and the

the moment that trailer ended, it left all minds and all consciousness and just went by the wayside.

It is a fatality collection.

You watch the Mortal Kombat exists so that up-and-coming YouTubers can get some promotion on their new channel by posting the fatality compilation first.

And

you can get some big content speculating about which guest stars are going to pop up.

Right?

You get to do a little bit, you get to do a mini version of what Smash Brothers does during the,

you know, fucking Oscar season.

Who's the question mark going to be?

Anyway.

So yeah,

Strive is alive in the game.

Dude, the only piece of Mortal Kombat content I have seen in a month was a singular TikTok that was like, we finally found out which killer is underneath the scream mask in the news.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We found out.

Did you find that?

It wasn't gameplay.

It was like, ah, which character is it, actually?

Oh, well, there's three of them.

And like,

which one?

Like, they, they, there's two characters that they, which mysterious Mortal Kombat characters.

Oh my god, it's.

I have no idea who this is, says Lex Luthor, pulling off the fucking.

It's the guy from Scream One.

Wow.

But also Cobra.

And also Kira.

Remember Cobra and Kira?

Holy hell.

Wow.

Remember the guy from Mortal Kombat Armageddon that looked like Ken?

Yeah.

It says a lot that, like,

the two things that I've seen about fighting games in the past week.

No, no, the two of three,

but have been.

Oh, Mortal Kombat's not going to get any more DLC.

And the other side is Street Fighter players going, please let us buy more costumes.

Please, please let me buy more costumes.

Are you just going to do outfit four?

Yeah, come on.

I mean, I think they, so the comparison of like where the costumes were at in five by this point is pretty unbelievable.

It's obscene.

Like, unbelievable.

Now, the thing, of course, is that, like, think about that going towards all the avatar costumes, right?

As a redirect of those funds in one way.

And then, second, there's that other bit where we know that Five was in a much more desperate recoup the cash situation and pushed a lot of that forward faster because they launched at half fucking mast

and with a lot of money missing.

So

they were in a very dire straight situation, you know, by comparison to six.

That being said, yeah, people are

tromping at the bit.

But

what was I just saying before that?

Oh, yeah, anyway, whatever.

So, you know, that's nice.

That's great.

and and um

Mortal Kombat is

doing what it does.

Meanwhile, um, fucking

games like Uni or Aether are kind of just regulated to more or less getting ignored.

And you're not going to get your game award nomination.

Get the fuck out of here, you.

No, what, what, what, because people like people?

People enjoy this?

Fuck off.

Get out of here.

Fucking who cares?

Um, all right.

Anyways, beyond all of that,

talked about GNX for a little bit.

Talked about Dizzy.

I

have gotten a good bit further into Metaphor.

How much further?

I am running around Brialhaven

waiting

waiting for the day to infiltrate.

Have you...

So which day to infiltrate?

Okay.

The one under your control or the one out of your control?

I

the there is an infiltration day that is out of my control that I'm upcoming.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

So that's.

Did you do the first part?

No.

No.

Oh, just just, I mean, just the

first setup.

But yes.

Okay.

So metaphor.

I'm going to talk.

We're talking about town three Brialhaven.

And everything before that.

So some spoilers for metaphor, towns one

and two, and

a three.

So, that's all fine and dandy, but

here, let me just make a little note to pop up.

Oh, yeah, for folks.

All right.

So,

town two.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

It's very strong.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

That was a really strong

second place to go chapter.

Impressions are

as follows.

Fuck everybody else.

Heisme should be the captain.

We should all be following him and doing what he says.

he's fucking incredible.

Heisme is the best character that the Persona team has ever made.

I can't believe that moment and like just the realness

of how that situation is

carried, carried by

him and his emotional intelligence and his fucking

everything.

Everything about him.

Like I'm like, I don't know what happens from here on out, but I'm all about this dude.

Um,

so

yeah, this is a moment.

The game is interesting in that, like, it's going balls out in some ways that

I'm surprised by because you know, persona has always had those moments where we've laughed at it for being like, hey, uh, disrupt society, but not too much, don't get everyone upset, win them back on your side.

Harmony is important, you know, but and the idea of like the chained chained worker just seeking emancipation, but you have to, but you have to seek, you know,

approved emancipation that as long as everybody is, you know, hitting up your fan site and saying they like you, then it's okay, right, to fight the system.

But

here,

they're like in the middle of being like, all right, so, you know, we see what the metaphor is, we see what we're setting up, and we're getting these candidates that are vying for the and we're fucking we're fucking roping up the anti-racism gang, right?

And then you're and you're getting, but in the middle of that, you're getting people like down with taxes.

And the game's like, I don't know if that's a really good idea.

Does that do they do they know that like things might be pretty bad and that they can help people actually?

That guy is so fucking wild.

I love him so much because he's like, Yeah, down with taxes.

And the crowd's like, yeah.

And he's like, and then laws.

And the crowd's like, oh.

I'm like, oh, wow, look at the balls, though, on them for going, like, having you, your, you know, anime protagonist standing up there going, actually, I think helping each other is pretty good.

And he's like, nah, and you, and you're like, huh, okay, you're just, we're just saying it then.

We think driver's license are a good thing.

We're just, we're out and out.

Yeah.

We're confirming that that works.

Okay, cool.

Um,

and and so that's that, you know, then you kind of have that going down.

And then everything with just the setup leading into

the human beneath Martira and Joanna and Morris and all of that.

And

you're getting your scumbag that's running away going,

you can't catch me.

Right.

And you're like, oh, you fucking, you're going to get it.

As you expect, right?

That's all fine and dandy.

Oh, look at that piece of shit.

And you almost can tell it's like, okay, he's such a piece of shit and we're so annoyed at him that he's automatically going to get his on the other side because, like, he's carting children in a fucking wheelbarrow, and you're just like, oh, you have to go.

Like, this is insane, you know?

Whatever.

You can't exit this situation alive.

The story won't survive it.

He's doing it, and he loves it, right?

Um, but you hit Joanna, and you hit what I think is their best handled from the games I've played

like

pushing your ethical and moral dilemma

not dilemma because the dilemma the answers are clear but pushing very clear pushing your um

your concepts of uh punishment and

uh rehabilitation and um

uh uh you know everything

in between to the limit right

And

you get this fucking phenomenal exchange of just

all the

dead kids you are fighting to save and this person who was so grieved, Joanna, who was so grievously wronged, coming from a justified place in her head because she has a horrible thing happen to her.

But you have to, of course, you know, internalize and understand that one horrible turn does not excuse or beget or justify another.

And it feels as if a lot of media fail to hit the right points.

They'll just kind of steamroll one way or the other or kind of cop it out a little bit, you know.

And I often am left feeling like, God damn it, I wish I could say what I wanted to say here.

And people have gotten on my ass too for being like, Willie's a bit too like up and

righteous about like punishment and all these things and stuff.

And

I feel as if

I get more bothered when

there isn't anyone in the story to say the things you're thinking, you know?

And Heismei just walks up and you're like, we're going to kill this human.

It's got to die.

That's not a question.

Oh, it's eating like 100 kids.

It's late.

That's bad news.

I'm sorry, but that's not up for negotiation.

But he is there as someone who is actively grieving his lost child and has been through not only the same situation that she has been through, so he has that emotional intelligence to it, but he's also like, and this is not like 100% clean, but he is almost able to speak on behalf of the people who are victims back in the village at this point.

Right.

And him standing here to be able to express, I know, I get it, I understand, it's the worst,

but you know what this is.

And to just force that moment of acknowledgement, like

when she actually cracks and breaks and gives in,

I'm like, I believe it.

I believe it.

Like, he, he, he, a character like him existing to talk down the villain moment where it's born from a real justified, like, understandable moment of anguish.

I don't know that I've encountered that in any other media recently.

It was unbelievably strong.

It's really fascinating because Heisme is perfect because he endured a similarly outrageous tragedy and

is like ruined by it.

It's the defining moment of his life and it's the worst thing that could ever happen, right?

And you get to have a character on the same footing.

Tell her you can't use that as as a justification for this.

You can't.

But the reason it's perfect is because Heisme is also not perfect,

despite

that, like Heisme is still really racist towards Peripus.

Like, he doesn't like them.

Okay.

And like,

who can blame him?

But he's not feeding them to a monster under his castle.

Right.

Right.

I need to get a little bit more out of him.

But like, it's quite clear that

he's had enough moments of introspection to like, yeah, to arrive at the place he's at, you know?

And then, of course, when you're hearing about the Parispus story from Katarina,

you're going like, oh, they're just

signing up to jump in the wood chipper?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Right.

So, yeah, it's incredible.

It's just,

It's a moment where

I feel like

a protagonist delivering half-platitudes with three options of text is just never going to get there.

No, you need somebody to actually talk it out.

And like, it helps because, like, okay, what's the deal?

Okay, you're going to come with us and you're going to confess all this shit, which is super typical of

particularly Persona team, right?

But, like, they kind of add just enough, like, okay, she was deranged.

Like, she was having a full-scale psychotic break and had totally detached from reality.

And these events have, like, snapped her out of it.

Yes.

And I'm thinking of the version of this where there is no Heisme.

There's just, you know, Teen Adventure Squad going,

no, Joanna, this is wrong.

You know, that's not your kid.

And then she goes, oh, what have I done?

Oh, terrible.

And then we just

glaze past it.

And you don't go for two seconds to like any thought towards anyone who's now a new victim as a result of this.

And that's where I go crazy.

That's the shit that makes me go, fuck that.

That's that writing sucks.

That bothers me.

That's where I go off, you know.

And that's where people go, oh, well, he's going on his thing again.

I'm like, yeah, because you're not giving the gravity to the fucking victims in the situation.

And I hate the

so much much in writing.

I think the game goes way out of its way to make that gravity inescapable because when you run into them

in the prison or in the dungeon, you stop them from finishing pulling a cart full of children to be fed.

Like you actively stop the process in progress and like save like a half dozen kids.

And then when the dungeon is over, you walk back up to to town and everyone's like, I don't know what's going on, but I hope I'm glad it's over.

I hope we find out what happened soon.

And then you do the reveal happens.

And then there's people around town that are actively like,

this isn't going to bring my kid back.

I thought my kid was kidnapped by a fucking ne'er-doel.

I didn't, oh, fuck.

And you're just like, yeah, like this is what.

This is just take the time to actively play it forward and don't glaze over it with fucking bullshit.

We got to get to the next dungeon writing, you know?

That's what I appreciate, man.

The weight of that shit.

The effects are felt, you know?

It's really really well done, man.

And like you're kind of in this situation too where like I kind of was curious about that moment where you're like you get to choose like oh I choose to trust Joanna versus I choose to protect the people of the city and it doesn't really me have a meaningful difference whatsoever the game just plays it out the same way in both situations.

It's a false choice.

But they understand at that point, too, that it's like, yeah, the nuances here are quite subtle.

You can be in exactly the same place and think, let's carry out the exact same actions,

but

you're way less...

actually not trusting, but like you don't get over the fact that

you wronged way more people in your grief and we can't let that go versus being like,

you seem genuinely contrite, and I'm somebody who thinks that maybe there's, you know, a way around this, or maybe we can find an answer here.

And that's a much more complex discussion to have between players.

But they have

Galaka go, wow, you're way too nice for your own good, right?

After that option.

And then, of course, because like, you know, the spirit of

the writer's pen, the karma of the writer's pen comes full fruition.

And

you kind of know that it's like, oh, there's no way a character, especially the way she's talking,

there's no way they let that go, you know, like

regardless of where you fall on it yourself, the agency will be removed from the player as to whether or not a character like that should survive.

And it'll be done by someone being more extreme about it.

Thus you can rally around that.

And you know that's going to happen.

Yeah, so you get to brawlhaven and like you know she just gets fucking killed immediately as soon as she's done talking and like there's the wide variety of of responses that you can have for the player and one is like yeah no this fiction this setting would not be able to continue to be taken seriously by the player if she managed to survive this event yeah like that is such an outrageous like you're hanging parapas for fucking using an unauthorized gun for talking.

Can eat like 200 kids?

Are you fucking insane?

Well, well, and so this, but this is where also like status in society might carry some weight.

But, you know, you kind of have this moment of a forced hand and it ends up being, yeah, tactical

and so on.

But like, um,

it, but it really, it's just like, it's a, it's a very interesting way of kind of confronting that and leaving it in a place where

I actively am like, I don't know, right?

Because you know,

I've said it before, but like with mouthwashing, Hulk Hogan.gif.

You know what I mean?

I'm holding my ear out, like, oh, oh, yeah, brother, there's that sound.

I love it.

But here, you're like,

I don't want,

like, I feel like basically what I end up feeling here is

what plays out is

understandable, but but the only thing, if anyone of those parents back in Martira had anything else to say about this,

let those words carry infinitely more weight than ours, right?

That's the bit.

And even Heisme, who's like speaking and relating on that level, let anyone who just lost their fucking child from that town have anything to say about this.

And that should carry, that should carry us forward.

Yeah, the

three reactions you get from people in town are, I don't know what to do, get her out of here and kill her.

Like, like, so

by and large, those people got what they wanted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

It's, it's incredible how it handles that and pushes right up against those limits and like, you know, tests every little bit of those things.

And like, while I'm watching it go down and like, you know, you hit that point, kind of like with Morris, where you're like, okay, like, you're all, I, you almost have a dispassionate amount of like, okay, well, you just got to go and that's that, right?

Oh, you're, you're not even going to survive through the fucking pre-fight boss cutscene, man.

You know, and then, and then you're done.

And then Heisme walks forward and starts talking and then just literally, like, walks it back.

I'm, I'm so impressed with that character.

And I haven't even, I don't even know what the rest of his link is about, you know?

But phenomenal, phenomenal.

Can you stallpark it from here?

I'm sure I can.

I'm guessing, you know, we're gonna,

you know, hang out with the memories of the child, you know?

Yeah, that's it.

That's, that's what, that's what his bond is.

Um, but that is a fucking strong

second town, uh, second chapter.

And then, yeah, now we're, we're, now the game is getting interesting and we're playing again, you know, but like it does feel,

I do feel a bit of a like

whatever this plays out to be, that's the most emotionally resonant moment, and that might continue all the way to the credits.

I don't know that anything can hit as hard as that hit.

Heisme's Final Bond is pretty rough.

Okay.

Okay.

Though I will say,

and I don't want to get too deep into this, I had a bit of a

laser target on my chest for the entirety of Heisme's storyline.

Of course.

Due to the time that I was playing it.

Of course.

And it is extraordinarily

like cruel of the world that his tribe is called a Yu-Gif

and he constantly talks about it.

Right, right, right.

And it was just, the timing was so direct and so on the nose that it was like, oh my God, I can't believe it.

I mean, like, well, the thing is,

you have two angles on it because you all already know.

One is what happened, and the other is, oh, my little baby boy, he's so perfect.

So

I'm also just like

really impressed with Atlas and how they

seem very adult and mature.

I'm thoroughly, thoroughly like, wow, you did an incredible job here at something that I was very ready to be JRPG, you know?

And it would have been just like, yeah, well, you know, whatever, that's it.

We establish a new character.

We move on, yada, yada.

It struck.

It absolutely fucking, you know, struck a chord.

It hit.

So

now we get to Brylhaven.

Now let's completely invert the game's entire structure.

Yeah.

Let's reverse the structure and be like, yeah, do the easy thing, whatever you want.

And now you got to wait.

You got to hang out with your friends now.

You must.

You must hang

because you don't control the infiltration.

Yeah, for sure.

Really, really strong there.

Some other stuff that I'm just noticing and I'm thoroughly enjoying is like anytime, okay.

So, first step is you talk to a character and they've got a portrait, and you go, ooh, all right,

right, okay, right.

Kind of, you know, as you do in persona and such, very classic.

And then you're coming back decades.

Yeah, and then you have, you know, you have enough moments, you have a story, you have a bit, whatever, sub quest that plays out.

And then the camera cuts to the side angle handshake cam.

You're like, oh, they're facing each other.

It looks together.

There we go.

The camera gets ready for the

friends now.

It gets ready for the handshake.

And Amarty getting excited by it.

The mega powers.

You got fucking Will Metaphor being like, oh, I don't know if we should.

I don't know.

Yeah.

That's fantastic.

Speaking of Brialhaven, by the way, just

is that street vendor that just has one item a day, just selling the best items in the game every day?

Because it feels like every single game.

He sells a lot of good fucking shit.

If you go there on Waters Day, he sells rings that increase archetype XP.

Well, that's the first thing I bought.

First thing I did was on day one, I'm like, oh, God, this is some grifter on the street talking up shit.

Yada, yada.

And I'm like, dude, get to your store.

And it's like, no, no, no, there is no store.

I'm offering you one thing.

And then Galaka's like, I don't know, might be a ripoff.

And I'm like, yeah, okay, let's go.

No, it's actually incredible.

It's amazing.

Right.

So he, I got that from him on day one.

And then on day two, I got

the ring that

it just has resistances to like everything.

Or, or no, what was something else?

phenomenal um to give to somebody and i was like why is all the best shit coming off of.

Okay, so

I'm going to stop you right there.

The stuff you get from him when you get there is incredible.

I am really, really deep into the game.

I have a countdown on my stream titles now for how many days remain is where I'm at.

And the game's itemization is really good.

You can assist anything that's like pink or gold as like an accessory or an item, they start to do really cool and interesting things

that make your party super strong.

Like itemization in that game is very powerful.

Okay, yeah.

What did I, I got, uh, yeah, I saw like one of the first gold items was the, you get it for like the, the, the dragon's thing quest, the medicine from the dragons, like fruit or whatever.

Um,

but um, yeah, no, one of the, like, literally the second ring was like on raining on days where it's raining, everything crits.

All physical attacks crit.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

That's fucking insane.

What are you talking about?

What do you mean that's what that does?

Yeah.

So

I'm kind of just like, all right, that's where my money is going.

And I guess I'm curious because, so yeah, I've been, you know, did my maxed out merchant and I've been.

But by the end of the game,

you are getting items you can equip on your character that feel like balatro jokers okay yeah that's that's that i've been trying to figure out how to say it yeah because they allow you to fundamentally break break the rules of how the game functions

i mean early on i got that double turn one and it's like okay you still use an icon oh that thing is

who gives a shit about that fucking thing yeah holy fuck well so then i'm like oh look here's an ability that you roll the dice and then you might get randomly more icons and so far every time i've used it it's given me like three more turns.

Well, that's pretty good, isn't it?

That's not bad.

Um, but now that, but I do wonder, I'm like, okay, so now that you got like that, for example, um,

is there any real point to faker and commander

after you extract that best skill?

Uh, I see my coworker,

right?

The the

the main benefit to

um

so it's a it's a it's a you know for whatever it's called it's a persona game right it's an SMT game and uh buffs and debuffs are powerful and uh the commander line

has like

extraordinary full party buffs that that go and go and go and the faker line has extraordinary debuffs so like I'll give you a mechanical spoiler The upgrade to Faker learns Debilitate as a regular move.

Okay,

okay, okay.

So it's not the initial class.

It's where it goes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But also the that initial class with its with its like actual buffs is very strong.

Debilitate is all four down, right?

Debilitate is everything down.

Everything down, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, right.

So that makes a bit more sense because I was like, I could use a Macau card and I have the commander ability that's like buff everybody for two ranks and drop them in the front row.

Yeah, that thing is fucking incredible.

It's really, really good, but I'm like, I don't want to sacrifice an entire character's ability to attack for that, you know?

So, um, so yeah, um, you, you know what, man, at some point you might.

Because, like, I have the party layout that I have right now.

I have a character that's for buffing, I have a character that's for debuffing, and I have two characters that are to do damage.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because if you stack your whole party to the maximum with buffs and you debuff the whatever you're fighting to the maximum, it's like you have 10 people on your side of the table.

Like you are so much stronger.

And this is where I'm starting to go, I wonder if the game is balanced in a way where, you know, there's some S-links you have the ability to go heavy on, but some you don't, right?

Um, so I walk, I just got pugilist, and I'm like, motherfucker, I have to go at the game's pace for hanging out with Katarina.

I can't get this line any further.

I was super mad when Galaka was the mage

archetype because Galaka is like the mona where you get like the last unlock for the last two mage archetypes in like the last 20 days of the game.

It's the plot.

The plot is going to let mage and brawler, you know, go at their own pace and like that's like

that sucks um

but at least you know i guess well you know there's there's there's other interesting enough stuff going around but like i want to go heavy into that one you know um uh you you can uh so there's only one rule for that and it's you can't hang out with somebody two days in a row That's the only and very rarely for the party, you'll have to hang out on the Gauntlet Runner.

Like, it'll just go like, do that over.

Yeah.

And then you have like the, the, the stat thresholds of like three, four, and five.

Um, but like, yeah, no, like I, I was like in Brailhaven, like I was like, you know what, Stroll, we're going to become best buds.

And Stroll was like completely fucking maxed out by the time I was done with Brialhaven.

Okay.

Um, and then it's like, you know what, Alonso or Cuckulus or whatever the fuck your name is?

Um, you're going to be like the second to last fucking link I finished in the entire game.

Yeah, that's the thing is I'm like as much as I would like to see where your story's going.

I'm not that interested in buffing out, you know, Faker.

I similarly, I'm my, my, so here's the thing.

I haven't been playing, um, I haven't been playing Heisme as ninja.

I've been playing as thief.

I've been playing him as Gunner, you know.

Um, so I also did that when I was at that part of the game.

Right.

So I'm having these things of like, I want to go hang out with little Maria.

I want to go, you know see what she's up to but i don't really care about buffing healer right now so hold that hold that l kid i'll be back if you're would you would you like a very minor mechanical spoiler that will save you literally dozens of hours of grinding please

so

everybody's starting archetype is very similar so do you know did you get the thing where you can see what people's s-links are or what the rewards are yeah you notice that the very last thing is unlocks a new heroic embodiment?

Yeah, you get a yeah, exactly.

You get a new line.

So everybody's final archetype is somewhere along the lines of their starting archetype.

So you can go in every direction you like to grab anything you want,

but eventually you'll probably want to like zero back in to what that character started as.

Yeah.

Okay.

And

the requirements for that

involve the nearby similar things.

So like I'll use stroll as the single example.

Stroll, I would recommend, learns some commander archetype levels.

Hmm.

Because he will eventually need those.

I mean, my stroll is currently like, I mean, he's the one who made it to Pugilist first.

And he's.

Yeah, I mean, well,

me was Alkenberg.

But like, he's one-shotting things

non-stop with the HP damage strike, you know, hits.

So,

yeah,

I'm kind of feeling it out right now.

I'm going based on the dual techs.

I'm going based on which two can do one thing and then the other two can do another thing, and those two can have synergy with each other, you know, is overall the goal.

But no,

I'm, yeah, I'm really enjoying that, but I'm starting to feel this kind of torn bit of like, ah, I can, you know,

the things I mechanically want are not necessarily the stories I want to push, you know, but yeah, but that's always been the case.

But here's the thing: they're all pretty good.

Like, like, like, so Alonzo, let's take Alonzo, right?

I saw a lot of people really like Alonzo's story, and it goes in a lot of interesting places, but I wasn't like super in love with the faker archetype,

and I was not super in love with the rewards that he gets um

side note i saw the last one is you can do research to reveal enemy weaknesses oh so you don't do research you just know every enemy weakness okay but you also can like restart a fight after learning it yeah you know so but like you know them right away right right like you just go into a fight and you know them um but the rank seven upgrade is new items available from the magic shop

right and like the secret shop the one that's only open at night and i was like you know what that doesn't really appeal to me.

How good could those accessories be?

Oh, yeah.

They could be pretty good.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

They could be like game balance annihilatingly good.

Okay.

Because, I mean, the igniters that get added to Brigitta's shop are pretty nice.

Yeah, no.

Okay.

And then you look at like Bardon, and you're like, well, maybe I'm not the biggest fan of the commander archetype or maybe whatever.

Hey, the ability to run away from every battle with a 100% success rate is amazing.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I haven't done that much or needed to,

but.

Hmm.

Okay.

Like, there are no, like, clear-cut losers.

Like, your party members all get very similar abilities, and they're all pretty good.

And then of the extended cast, like

they're all pretty great.

Okay.

Something that's, I would say, kind of unique to how this game is playing out, though, is I feel like I rolled through P3, 4, and 5 with a, like,

Jack of All Trades, Master of None approach.

You know, I had all personas that had all the dines and all the, you know what I'm calling.

Yeah, I didn't do that at either in this game.

Yeah, well, in this game, it feels like, what's your mission?

What's the area?

Build for that.

Go.

You know?

Well, because you can go talk to the informant and he'll just tell you.

Yeah.

And like, they want you to do that.

They actually are like, it feels like they're discouraging you covering all your bases too much.

You know?

Even like a mage, which would have been the old game's version of like, oh yeah, you've got every element covered.

So the backup.

You can't help you have a backup when you go fight goblins because they fucking wreck your ass.

They're like, no magic allowed, you know?

So exactly.

Yeah, that's it.

It's specifically asking you to build around the mission you have, and there's not going to be a ton of general fighting in the game, you know.

They also do something really smart where, um, so you have you have a party of four, which really changes the gameplay quite a lot, and you'll get five and six, et cetera, right?

Um, but the game pushes you to start using the new characters because of the experience bonus thing that your old characters probably got from you hanging out with them.

So by the time I finished

Brylhaven, Stroll was completely maxed out, which meant he earned just as much experience in the front as he did out of the party entirely, which is like, well, I might as well use the new party member who doesn't have that.

Right.

Okay.

And so every time I went to a new area, I ended up swapping out an old person and moving in the new one.

Benching people

who are maxed out in S-Link

nets the same rewards for not using them.

And like they're still getting archetype XP in the background, so they're still feeding the new people.

Okay.

Okay.

Are they creating

thousands?

Yes, they are.

Thousands.

Absolutely.

Pillars.

100%.

Fuck.

Okay.

So if you like, listen, you get that final party member pretty late, and they are starting with one archetype.

Right.

But you have six other party members that can feed them them if you like leave

for like a full fucking dungeon.

They're going to catch up.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Got it.

Cool.

That's pretty much that.

That's coming along.

Near the end of Metaphor.

I'm like, I'm doing like the cleanup before going to the final dungeon.

And

that game.

Oh, it's good.

That's what I would like to say.

Yes.

I finished every single Bond in the game with 16 days to go.

And now I'm just doing side quests and optional dungeons and shit like that.

Yeah.

No, I had my eyebrow thoroughly raised, and I was kind of like, oh, this is a fun, little clever thing they're setting up with the whole, like, let's artificially create democracy bit, you know?

But the Heismei

like thing has like I've sat up in my seat for that section of the game and I'm like, okay, okay.

I don't even ex I'm not even asking you to approach this level

here forward.

You've, you, but you've earned my respect regardless.

You know, the, that, if that is the, if that's where we, we, if we don't approach anything there,

again, that's okay.

That's a highlight.

Um, nice and early.

The emotional content of the game is extremely solid, though I think Heismei is the highlight.

I think everything to do with Heisme is the absolute highlight.

The plot content, the very typical persona team twists and turns,

pancake shit

that they always do,

there's a lot of them.

There's a lot.

There are a lot of pancakes

in this game, and they are all rock solid.

They are all like, ooh, ooh,

like slap my knee, go, what?

Kind of shit.

Okay.

Well, that's excellent.

Yeah.

And I will say that, like, that's the liberty of, and I think, I think, like, manga kind of teaches this, but the liberty of creating a death game closed rule system that's mysterious means that you can, like, just the revealing of the rules and all that bullshit is extremely important.

How does this work?

In and of itself, exactly, right?

Can I bend these rules?

Can I break these rules?

Can other people bend them?

Do other people know that they can break them?

You know,

I'm still, like, I think I talked about this last time, but like, with like this or Gantz or I mean, and I even count Attack on Titan.

It's like, whenever, whenever there's just a, like,

like,

the whole situation is

a larger power has created a locked system that you cannot escape from.

It's going to, yeah, you're going to, it's a, it's a, it's a cheap and easy way, but you get fucking pulled into it every time.

It always works.

It's the same old trick, and it fucking gets me every time.

Anyway, that's

there's a there's a couple of moments in the game where you're looking at what's going on, you're looking at the calendar, and you're like,

oh, that's gotta, that can't be on purpose.

It's like, it's very on purpose.

It's a metaphor.

Okay.

It's a metaphor.

Okay.

What else did I do?

Holy shit.

I've been playing a lot of metaphor.

That game's great.

You know what?

Actually,

I was.

That was my week.

Oh, you had more of them.

I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I got distracted.

I distracted myself.

No, no, I was just scropping it up, actually.

The recent

parts of Rise from the Ashes, Case 5, and Phoenix Wright have been

quite the interesting turn.

You get fucking the introduction of Gant,

who is a hilarious new character.

I didn't realize Slayer had just waltzed up onto the stand.

Fun.

Fun designs flying to the extremes.

Season orange with the white hair, right?

Orange Slayer.

Yeah, okay, I remember Gant.

And

it is quite interesting to see the power of dual screens.

3D rotating the evidence.

Ooh, two murders in one time.

You can really

feel how that was a new case for a new platform.

I'm reminded of when Lonely Island did

the boo, which is like the OC, and I think they did the boo 3D, where they're like,

I'm having a sip of this Coke.

And they're holding the can up to the camera.

Like, it's just,

yes, yes, this is on the DS.

We are doing 3D.

It is dual.

Dual screens, two things, twin, dual destiny happening now.

Dude, that's crazy.

You know, you can feel, you can feel fucking Phoenix guiding your stylus, you know.

It's a thing.

But yeah, no, but still,

that's all fine and fun.

And I also have these moments of like, like,

you can feel the characters talking to the future.

You know, like, there's a point, there's a point in the beginning where, like, Lana Sky is

going, like, oh, well, let's see you in a couple years and see how you do then, you know, when shit hits the fan and see what kind of man you are.

And I'm like,

I know that Phoenix goes hobo at some point, so you're literally just pointing at the fucking sign.

You know, you're just, it's not, it's not very subtle.

Because remember, that fifth case for Ace Attorney 1 was written after Ace Attorney 3 was done.

Yeah, it's 4, you know, the beginning of the new trilogy.

So

that's fun.

And

that's pretty much it.

So we're going to be continuing with Phoenix Wright this week.

And I'm going to do a quick one-off day with Tactical Breach Wizards.

Didn't get to it last time.

That game's great.

You will like that game.

That game is for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm putting a little bit bit of Shogun Shodown as well, which is super

also up the alley, and I wanted just a nice little turn-based day.

So I've gotten further in that, and I want to kind of like revisit it, show that off, and get it some attention.

So yeah, more Phoenix Wright, more

Shogun Shodown, and Tactical Breach Wizards this week on the channel.

And this Saturday, ignore my typo schedule, we're going to be playing Rivals of Aether 2

over on Wooly vs on Twitch and on YouTube.

Alright.

What's up?

You know what?

Let's take a bathroom break first.

Okay.

BRB.

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Okay.

Man, I am anxiously looking forward to

how many

associated acts and hip-hop stars are going to be like

hanging back and waiting and seeing how this flows out because

it does kind of feel like, you know, there are times when someone goes up and says, or starts some shit or says some shit, and like, you're like, oh, you got your homies coming up to bat for you.

And it kind of has been thinning out.

But when your final fucking

like flails on the ground are like Kira-esque, as you're like, no,

me though.

Yeah, maybe I don't want to catch a stray lawsuit here by going, yeah.

Or no, fuck all that.

Fuck the legal, fuck the business, fuck the actual streams and all that.

Street cred.

Just your currency in this business is also street cred.

And whether that was bought and purchased or genuinely earned, which is the major difference between these two artists, you are bleeding it out with each of these flails and,

you know, pissing and shits and moans.

So

I don't know that you can ever really pick it back up.

You know, you can recover a lot in terms of street cred.

You can also wait long enough for the new generation of people to not even know about

the old shit, right?

There are people

that are still around.

Chris Brown is still around making music somehow.

It's crazy.

that there's a whole new fan base of people that are just young enough zoomers that straight up are like, I don't know what, I just listen to the song I hear.

You know, they're like, you just wait the clock out on shit like that.

It's insane, right?

So, in some ways, waiting oftentimes

just lets you coast, no matter how embarrassing, no matter how stupid, or fucking criminal your shit can be.

And it feels like each of these just resets the clock and makes it harder and harder to get away from it instead of just shutting the fuck up.

Yeah, I wouldn't fucking touch that with a 10-foot fucking pole.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If I was in that.

So, you know, understandably,

you wait and see.

All right.

What's going on?

All right.

Games this week, not much.

Went back and I've played more metaphor.

I went back and I started playing Boulder's Gate 3.

I tried out the adjustable party mod that lets you roll with with like 11, 12, like every single party member in the game simultaneously.

And there's an accompanying difficulty mod.

Worked really well.

I'm super shocked.

It even also showed me how the game works in that like you go into a cutscene and only loads in three characters, but it clearly loads in the three characters that are priority responders to any given scene.

Okay.

Right?

So like it actually works totally flawlessly, except for the fact that anything over like five or six six characters constantly gets stuck in the environment.

And I don't mean like you're jumping off a ladder, I mean you start a fight, and like Lazelle can't get to the front because there's like seven people in her way that she can't clip through.

Okay,

um, so we know that, like, in terms of

the game's ability to handle the weight of that kind of mod, the game can split screen, and it's got, so we know that it's possible.

Um,

what happens if you split screen with that on, though?

I don't know.

I have no idea.

In fact, the mod says it's not tested for split screen.

Perfect, yeah.

Okay.

So

it sounds like an immediate fucking

so yeah,

I'm toning that down to like five people so that they can actually move through the goddamn environment.

Aside from that, didn't watch all that.

And it's like, not like kind of a slow week for me.

Aside from one thing

that did happen,

which is we are now in a new stage of my life, in which prior we were in the baby having stage, and now we are in the baby who can walk around the house stage.

It happened.

So, how did it happen?

So, for months, for like four

months,

the boy has been like running running around the house with like a little stroller like a little like a like a like a toy stroller yeah and like sprinting around and i'm like and he's doing it with like one hand on it and i'm like you don't you don't need that you could just do it if you wanted but every time we'd be like come to dad dad or go to mama or you know whatever he would go oh and he'd like move he'd like his leg would tremble and he'd go to lift it up and he would sit down on his butt and then crawl forward.

And I'm like, oh my God, you just don't want to do it.

You just don't want to do it.

And then the other day, me and Paige were like, we got a new microwave and we're putting the legs on and we're like, you know,

messing in with it on the counter, right?

And Paige turns to her left and he's just walking towards us.

Oh, just happening.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

And he's just doing it.

Like, we did not see him take the first step.

We definitely saw him take steps two, three, four, five.

Did he notice you noticing and then drop?

No, no, he's just like, oh, okay.

Like, oh, shit, they kind of walked right over.

Yeah.

All right.

There you go.

And now, and now it's a flip side.

Like, he'll either stand up or like walk like 10 steps or crawl because crawling is still faster.

Um,

but yes.

Okay.

So we're in a new world now.

We, and, and we're also in the new world in which the child can tip full over from standing onto the floor.

Yeah, there.

and then be super mad about it okay okay

but i mean it's got to learn how to fall good

next week you know next week jotaro and dio just

full strides

uh like me and paige it's one of those things it's like one of those things that sucks as a parent but you just got to eat it where you're like i want to protect my perfect little baby boy and make sure nothing bad ever happens to him right uh so we were looking at those little backpacks you can get for a baby and you strap the backpack on and like straps across the front so they can't take it off.

And it's like a backpack that if the baby falls, it's got like backwards, it's got cushioning and shit so that it's like a pillow for when they fall.

And I asked, I asked

some

people at like the, we asked some neighbors and I looked online like, should I get that?

And the answer is no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No.

You should actually not get that.

Falling is important.

That's a lesson.

Well, yeah, because when the little, when your little man is 20 pounds and he falls backwards on his head, that's not the same as when he's four years old and he's 50 pounds or when he's an adult, right?

Kids got to learn when the masses and gravity affecting him is low, that falling directly backwards sucks and that you should not let that happen.

Yeah, no, the stakes are currently low as well.

So that's the time to internalize this stuff.

Like before the inverse square law starts to make falls suck shit,

got to learn to not do it.

Like I can see there being extreme situations where certain parents that have like kids that are like

it's for you know like they need that little extra or something.

That's one thing.

But for basic development and stuff, yeah, you don't want to rob any of the important lessons you get by failing, you know?

So

So there's a part in toddlerhood where you discover what kind of baby you were dealt, right?

Because

one and two-year-olds, they all start doing one or many couple of things.

They fight or they hit or they bite or they climb or they run away from you.

You know, like the toddler nightmare that you have been gifted.

And we are now aware of the toddler nightmare that we have been gifted, and that is climbing.

We have a climber.

Okay.

Every single thing he can get a hold of, he wants to get to the top of it, which has led to just a lot of like, oh,

just no.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Just mirror's edge music playing in his head.

And that makes sense.

I was a climbing child.

But so that's fun.

Walrus.

That's going to be real fun.

Okay.

Okay.

That's been pretty much it for this week.

I did beat Horizon.

and I did something when I beat Horizon that I have not done in ages, where I did 100% of all of the base games content, and I got to the quest where it's like, okay, go fight the final boss.

And I'm like, well, I should try the DLC.

And then I got one mission into the DLC, and I'm like,

no.

No, I'm going to go fucking beat the fucking final boss.

Really?

Because I was done.

I was just, I was finished.

I was completely done.

If I had been like, I'm not going to beat the final boss until I beat the DLC, I would not have finished it.

Kind of thing.

Was it the quality of it or just you were emotionally?

I would, no, I was done.

I was like, because you get to the DLC and they're like, here's more collectibles.

And I'm like, I'm, no, I don't want to.

Also, I'm at level cap already.

I have every skill in the entire game.

So,

and then I beat the game and it ends really well.

And I was like, wow, that was great.

I don't think I ever want to even see Horizon ever again.

Okay.

Like, okay.

Like, like, I was like, that was a great experience.

That is a great game.

I really enjoyed it.

That it ended on a really good thematic and emotional level.

And I thought that the final sequence was really cool.

And then at the very, very, very end, you get the post-credit where they're like, no, what if there was a sequel?

And I'm like, man, I don't give a fucking shit.

I don't give a shit.

It's interesting because you're experiencing something I was thinking about with like

the full Elden Ring into Shadow of the Erdree run.

Oh, yeah, no, I don't.

Back out to Final Boss is

not the way I would want to experience that game for the first time or ever.

I

am really happy having it the way it was done, which is time gap, DLC,

you know, and revisit.

There is an absolute exhaustion point I hit

upon

if I were coming to this game much later where

I'd have to just be like, okay, we get access to the new location, but fuck this.

We're out.

So for Horizon, it has a really specific problem that I've been talking to other people about.

And the problem is endemic to the

setting they have created.

So the setting they've created is very interesting visually, like the robot animals and all that.

But the way they built the way their story works gives them a problem that exists as soon as you are past the base game, which is

the huge amount of the plot is being carried along by the mystery.

How do we get to tribes with robot dinosaurs?

Is the question that you are asking the whole game?

And then you get all that information in a very clear, well-told, concise way, and it's super interesting.

And then you are left with the most boring, like all the things in the past, all the how do we get here, is super fascinating and super interesting.

All the things that are happening now, bored to tears.

Couldn't care less.

The politics of the fucking Sun Kingdom and the fucking Nora Matri, who gives a fucking shit?

It's all

solved the mystery.

Now that I have solved the mystery,

and they're like, do you want to go up north and hang out with the Banuke?

No, I don't give a shit.

The part of the game that was interesting is done now.

It's the second.

It is done now.

That's the reason to play the game is the setting has you going, huh, what's going on?

Yeah, a million percent.

And like the second game gives more to that,

but it doesn't give like there's no second mystery.

No, no.

Right.

Exactly, exactly.

And so it's like, this should have been a one-time game, but because of video games and franchises and Sony, it's, you know,

right?

It's just

like fucking you could only

care.

You could only learn about the post-apocalypse once.

I'm looking at someone say that I'm wrong, and I'm like, I'm saying that I don't care anymore because I found out the mystery.

You are wrong.

You are wrong for what you said, though.

That is incorrect.

Oh, okay.

So, hey, so, okay.

The second mystery in the second game is who started the problem in the first game.

I don't care.

That's not interesting.

Your opinion is incorrect.

The part that's, ah, how do I get a robot dinosaur?

That's really, really interesting.

Okay.

I mean, I do, as...

A person on the outside here,

that was my question.

It was, hey, how's the twist?

A couple weeks ago, because of.

Oh, it's great, fuck Ted Farrow.

Because that's that's the answer.

But I'm ultimately just like, yeah, like the thing I think about, the only thing I think about besides that game is being a large, it happens to be a Sony AAA franchise, you know, like that's that's flagship, but it could have easily just been a random indie game where you're still just like, oh, yeah, how'd we get here?

What's the, what's the, what's the mystery of the world, you know?

So

yeah, it's, it's, it's great.

And I would say Death Trending is a pretty good example of like, how the fuck did we get here?

But even after you get those answers,

even after you get those answers, you're like, okay, but what the fuck is that?

Yeah, no, like we have only, like, you said, how did we get here in Death Stranding?

And like, a guy who beat Death Stranding and obsessed over it for months, I'm like, I'm still not like 100%.

And part of that.

How we got here.

And part of that is also why,

why did we get here?

Why in this particular way?

You know, the threat could have been a lot of different things, but why does it manifest in this particular?

And it's Kojumbo, shut up.

It's because of the genius, Kojumbo, and whales and shit.

But yeah, like the, it is a really strange thing where, like, one half of the story is told so much more interestingly than the second, than the other half of the story.

And

one half of that story is the one that's going to continue on into future games, and it's not the right one.

Ah,

okay.

Weird.

Overall, yeah, I really, really liked it.

And the other thing is like Horizon.

Laguna is not on the box.

Squall is.

Yeah.

Horizon Forbidden West, it plays better and it's gotten, you know, it's mechanically more interesting.

And it's like, absolutely.

But like, I'm fucking super burnt out on Horizon style of gameplay.

And I think I, I don't know if I described it here or on my stream, but Horizon has like a really specific problem with the way that its gameplay works in that you have all these enemies that have complicated parts that you shoot off with various like elemental arrows or weapons,

but then you solve encounters.

Like you discover the weak, because like robots have hard counters by your weapons.

And so you discover that you can solve combat encounters.

Like there is a correct method to defeat every enemy in the game.

I feel like that happens to every overworld game, though.

I feel like by the end of, you know, Tsushima or any of these things, you're like, you delete the struggle.

Okay, so Tsushima's a really good example.

So in Tsushima, like, you have like, do I want to stealth them, or do I want to shoot them, or do I want to fight them, and all the tools within, right?

In Horizon, you're going to end up fighting a robot, but what I mean by solve them is, for example, the big T-Rexes, the big showpiece T-Rexes that you see, the Thunder Jaw,

you use your rope to tie them down.

And then after you shoot them six times with that and they can't move, then you use the sniper arrow to blow off the cannon off their side.

Then you pick up the cannon and shoot them for 40% of their health.

Then you tie it down with your ropes again.

Then you use the sniper thing to tear off the other cannon.

And then you shoot them for 40% of their health, and then you find the one

canister that you can shoot with an elemental arrow, and that'll take out the remaining 15%.

And then you shoot them with your high-powered remaining arrows, and you kill them in like 45 seconds.

That sounds cool, though.

Like, it's good to find those learning to do that is cool,

but I fought like 10 of those, and that situation was solved.

Like, I would encounter these as boss fights, and I would go,

okay, well, bam, ba-ba, then this, then this, then this.

It's done.

Like, it's over.

Like, learning to fight them is cool, but if you play enough of the game, you discover that, like, every everything has a like defined solution.

Okay.

That's like kind of like a microcosm version of what Monster Hunter becomes, though, right?

No, it's not.

Because monsters and Monster Hunter are super tough and they last for a really long time.

Yeah, you got to do multiple rounds of these

chunks of life until

they run away.

They also vary up their attacks constantly.

Okay.

Where like

it is

a system of hard counters.

And a system of hard counters means that you discover the hard counter and then you do it.

And the gameplay then boils down to executing on the method that you know how to do it.

Did you play Doom Eternal?

Yeah.

Okay.

You remember the difference between Doom, where there were things that were good against enemies, and then in Doom Eternal, there were things that killed enemies immediately outright?

Yes, yeah.

That's the difference between Monster Hunter and Horizon.

Problem solver.

There's a good way, and then there's a right way.

Okay.

I thought that at the highest levels, like Monster Hunter was like an artful, like, just you go in and you know exactly what the behavior is.

No, you are thinking of the gift that Sun High Legend would post.

That's what you are thinking of.

I mean, they're so on point.

They are.

But no, like high-level monster hunter fights are just, they're a mess.

They're boss fights.

Gotcha.

You're still cardiac.

They're closer to a character action game than they are to a graceful dance.

You're not perfectly getting those guard points and

the crumples then.

No.

Okay.

So when you do get the perfect guard impact impact or whatever, you're like, oh my god, that's incredible.

It's the most amazing thing ever.

Oh my God, it's amazing.

Damn.

Okay.

But yeah, man,

like

Horizon just doesn't appeal for a long-term franchise the way that Ghost does.

Well, and you were also like kind of like running marathon sessions on it, right?

Like, yeah, of your own volition, this would have been slowed out a lot.

Oh, it took me over a month to do it.

it.

I didn't, I was playing like maybe an hour a day.

Okay.

You know, like it,

like,

I did not like beeline this over a weekend.

So like, I got like a fairly

representative,

like normal consumer fucking like length playthrough on this.

The only difference was that I actually went out of my way to do absolutely every side piece of content that existed in the game, which was a massive mistake.

Yeah, that's Tsushima is way better.

You've got to make that value proposition in your own brain and decide.

Tshima is way better, by the way.

Like, as a Sony first-party open world game, like, um,

the side content in Tsushima is like

valuable and interesting and beautiful, whereas the side content in Horizon is like 60-70% like collectibles.

I would also say that Tsushima is interesting in the present moment all the way up until the end.

You know,

I can absolutely follow the idea of like, we've seen the places, we've learned the things.

We're just like waiting for the last dominoes to fall at this point and like losing its luster on the way out.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Horizon has like a real death knell part where you've solved the mystery and they're like, go fight the final boss.

And any content that you do in between those two moments is just like

this big, like,

and also to talk shit, like massive shit about the final boss of Horizon Zero Dawn, it is a normal enemy that has been made stronger.

It is not a unique robot.

Oh, that's, that's, that's.

It is, it is.

Like, the sequence is pretty good, but the actual final boss is a normal enemy that has been made, like, more resilient.

how is it not just a walking robot man

i don't fucking know that is really don't that is a really complex encounter that you have to go through a bunch of different forms i was expecting a really gigant like a super dinosaur i was expecting robot man like that's weird okay all right i guess

uh but that's that's that's what's been going on with me, with one exception that will probably get into the news very shortly, is that

I had a really strange experience.

I was doing a sponsored stream for a Kickstarter called Inaya.

And as I was doing that,

people kept coming into the stream like they had, like...

like I was a suicidal person and they found my reason to never kill myself.

Just over and over and over for hours, people just sprinted into my chat and going,

Hey man,

did you see that new Virtua Fighter shit?

Like, I like they were pulling me back from the cliff's edge.

Okay, so we're just gonna

reach into

this week's stories because, yeah.

Virtual Fighter V Revo has been announced, and much to everyone's surprise,

they really just went, sorry for the last one.

We're doing it over.

Here's some rollback for you.

I think it's really fascinating that we had that talk about Virtual Fighter, and you're like, Pat, what would you change?

And I was like,

rollback?

And you're like, no, but what would you change?

And I said, nothing.

I don't want it.

Which led to me having conversations on my stream and on social media where people are like, well, what if Virtual Fighter never comes back?

Because people like you want to keep it boring.

And my response was, as long as a version of Virtua Fighter V comes out that has rollback, it can die the day after that happens because we have a good Virtua Fighter game that you can play with good rollback.

And, um,

And then that is what this is.

Yeah.

It's exactly what I asked for.

And there's always a balance patch accompanying, right?

Yeah.

like they love that.

It has been over a decade since the last balance update to Virtual Fighter V.

But it is a clean

we're sorry for that last version.

Don't worry about it.

Here's the one that you can get now, and it's going to be on Steam.

And did you notice the developer listed?

Yes.

So isn't that a good question?

When we last talked about Virtua Fighter,

I

said

purely in my own head canon that the only person that cares about Virtua Fighter over at Sega is somebody on the RGG team who was responsible for making a Virtua Fighter V

storyline in Last Judgment and who pushed for them getting a super hyper accurate version of the game to exist in PC versions of the like a dragon Yakuza games.

And sure enough, here comes RGG as

the developer of your new Virtual Fighter game

with assist by Sega AM2.

Of all the playable arcade games in the Yakuza franchise, like, what is the most contemporary in second place to Virtual Fighter V?

Like,

Sonic Fighter.

Like, hang on,

you know, outrun

fucking literally everything from the 90s and then VF5.

So

Spike Out Battlestreak?

Virtua Fighter 2?

I don't know.

Yeah.

But

you know, but like case in point,

this is the modern game that someone is fighting for and constantly keeping alive.

And they put out the trailer for VF5 Revo with

a new version of Virtual Fighter V's old credits theme sung by the gentleman whose name I cannot remember right now behind all of your Sega AM2 classics,

such as Rolling Start,

a man with

a man singing exclusively in English with the thickest Japanese accent you are likely to hear.

People in chat are saying his name is Takanobu Mitsuyoshi.

G-A-M-E-O-V-E-R.

Same over.

That man is the sound of 90s Sega arcade games.

And the sound of, and the jingle of putting your quarter in.

Biddler.

Amazing.

Great stuff.

So

this is exactly what I wanted.

Oh, and to answer, well, I mean, we said it, but we didn't actually answer the question.

When you look look at the developer on Virtual Fighter,

it says Rio Gagotoko Studio.

And with Sega AM2, because it has to be Sega AM2.

But Yakuza Team says we made this shit happen.

I love Virtual Fighter, said at least one person.

It is ours now.

We have taken it.

And

there were rumors that there was a new Virtual Fighter game coming out, and there were rumors that it was going to be Virtual Fighter VI.

And then this came out and or been announced.

And apparently, it's quite soon, though they haven't put a date yet.

And so then it becomes, well, is

that the Virtual Fighter game?

Is Virtual Fighter 6 not happening?

And

Ruvelmonger over on YouTube.

who I was not aware of, but whom loves Virtual Fighter and knows what the fuck he is talking about.

He loves it.

He's a big fan.

So he is even more for real than I prior thought.

Put up a quick video in which he described how

disgraced fake person Leaker Midori

had

old tweets about Virtua Fighter VI

that got copyright claimed by Sega like a day ago.

So those tweets were probably pulled from their ass and made up,

but were close enough that Sega copyright claimed them, therefore proving that Virtual Fighter VI is coming.

Shout out to the Barbara Streisand web approach, where you just make a bunch of bullshit tweets and shoot them out into the e-side.

See which one gets claimed.

And you see the one that gets pulled down.

That's your dividing rod.

You know, that's how you figure it out.

Yeah.

It's whichever systems go dark is where they are.

So in his video, he's made a couple videos about Virtual Fighter, but I totally agree with Rufalmonger that we will be able to see the distance, sorry, the kind of ideas they're going to go with for Virtual Fighter VI when we get a hand on the balance changes they're doing for this version of Virtual Fighter V.

And I'm going to continue to believe that the reason for

no obvious Kiryu and Tekken is because there's a much more obvious place to put him.

There is a

That would be a big departure for the style of Virtua Fighter is to have a guest character.

How's Terry Bogart doing?

Terry's great.

He's hanging out in a place where guests don't usually hang out.

The world has changed.

I don't know if Kiryu counts as a guest now that I think of it.

He's the curator.

He's the guy who's like, they've been renting

a room in his house for the last fucking 10 years.

I know, but it almost feels like him being in Virtua Fighter would be like an in-universe event in like a track.

I mean,

they put you into this fucking video game.

Can you believe it?

Well, and the thought is that he's not alone, right?

The thought is that it's Cure You plus like, you know, the top four.

So,

and

then

you get to add one random new martial artist with shorts on and another guy who happens to be from Boston.

You know, like there, that's your that's your actual.

Do you know what the absolute ultimate would be?

Because I saw some people saying like virtual fighter needs a boxer.

Oh, because it doesn't have a boxer.

Has a kickboxer, but doesn't have a boxer.

No queen.

Yeah, that's true.

And I said, I pointed out that I don't think they're ever going to do a boxer because 30% of that game's buttons are kick, to which the response is, we'll just make the kick button on that guy different punches.

You know what I mean?

But that's not how Virtual Fighter does things.

It's probably more likely that he would just not have a kick button at all

and just have block and punch.

So, like Steve Fox, it works in that interesting sense because there's four buttons to play with, and you can have two punches and then build around these two weaves.

when you have one punch and one kick like the kit becomes goofy as fuck like he's got punch and guard there is no third button yeah like yeah um

no i think i think the road is either two punch buttons or you go or you fox d fox it but it might be a little bit too like um obvious in terms of the inspiration so you know it could also just be like a stance thing you know but uh yeah boxer would be a lot of fun for sure um And there's some other styles that could get some representation in there,

but they're going to be dry.

They're going to be dry.

Maybe they'll splash a little bit of style on it.

But

like, you could do stuff with the camera to make it more dynamic.

Make it more exciting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The second costume can be a little more fun.

You know, not too much now.

So I'm very interested in seeing

because i i'm of the opinion that virtual fighter has never had a chance in the modern fighting game sphere because

um like the one time it did get online play the online play was really bad and the second time it got online play the online play was really really bad

um

and that's we've been like decades out from Virtual Fighter games coming out regularly.

So like we're in this new generation of people going like, maybe I could try Virtual Fighter.

Maybe I think it is cool and I like it.

So, there was a time I remember when Dead or Alive, Tekken, and Virtu Fighter kind of had not the same type of headspace, but they were in a competing zone with each other.

Yeah, they were all like, you know, rivals.

They were buddies.

Yeah.

And Soul Calibur was like making a break for it.

Soul Calibur was taking off quite a bit

and going in its own direction.

But

it definitely feels like, you know, through persistence and spectacle, Tekken has now put itself at the forefront and is far and away in just a completely different realm.

A new Virtual Fighter, I think, would be destined for a small but consistent corner,

and it would stay there.

It would just be a small specialist corner in the way that, you know, some anime games have a little corner that we're describing as well.

And that's about it.

But like you said, if it's playable, if it works,

there will be a number of Japanese players that have been

waiting that will shake off the fucking dust.

That have been percolating.

Oh, yeah, those bones will reanimate and they'll find a way to get back over there.

Make no mistake.

Fudo will get in and they'll keep it alive and healthy as well, as best they can.

There will also be some kind of crazy-ass arcade release to, you know, to arcades that barely exist anymore.

But they'll, you know, find a way to move one of those Purakura machines over and stick a VF6 cab in.

So I think Japan is kind of your best bet for a scene.

I saw Max talking about this, and I have to agree with him very strongly.

In my opinion, the main problem with Virtual Fighter is that you release a game at full price or with some caveat, like bad online.

And

that stops people from trying it out because Virtual Fighter is is fun to play.

It's definitely not fun to watch or stylish or whatever, but it's really fun to play if you actually get to sit down and play it.

So the worst thing that Sega could do is release this game for like more than $20.

True.

Like,

$20 is the right cost for Virtual Fighter 5 Revo.

But also, don't start huffing copium in terms of thinking like, oh, well, every bad version has been an excuse to not have to test it honestly.

And the expectation is, and if people really got a a chance, it would catch on fire because it probably would.

That's not cope.

No.

If everyone was forced to play every fighting game once, Virtual Fighter would be the most popular game that's ever been.

And League of Legends would be

a spot in the distance, and no one would even know.

And everyone would just be talking about Wolf and Vanessa and Jeffrey and Lau all day.

Because it's the best one, and it's the easiest to learn, and it's the simplest to play with the least buttons and the most depth, and it's just the best.

And everyone would know that if they actually sat down and played it

just turned the dial turn the knob on that fucking valve um yeah and now sega realize that they have the best fighting game franchise that's ever existed and just sitting there and they can just put a they can put one out and they can just make a virtualion dollars And it's going to be great.

And Virtual Fighter VI is going to make 2XKO look like a child's game.

And

then everything will be great, and all problems will cease to exist, and racism will be over because we'll just be too busy playing Virtual Fighter.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

Like, what do you...

Sure, man.

Can I just say, by the way,

for anyone that hasn't been just, you know, keeping a little eye over on it, but like, how fucking sick is it that like Maximilian is just like,

nah,

I'm making my own Marvel.

Like, he's just straight up bankrolling infinite and beyond.

He's taking Marvel Infinite, getting the modding team, and we've talked about it a couple times before.

And, like, so we've been getting some updates and seeing some builds and how that thing's looking.

And it looks so cool and pretty and colorful and fun.

And he's just like, yeah, I'm making the one I wanted.

You know, it's really, it's really pretty funny because there is like a direct tie-in from the way that I was just acting to the way Max is dealing with Marvel Infinite.

Yes.

Because he streamed that game a lot because he loves the way Marvel Infinite plays.

And he got tons of flack from people that are like, why are you playing this garbage?

And they were super rude about it.

And like, Max, this game is shit.

Like, you're just coping.

And this feels like Max going, I'll show you fucking cope.

Just dragging the game into the future and just polishing this and finding someone who can make it look pretty and like giving people the version of the game that existed in his mind and his heart.

And people going, oh, wow, actually, Marvel Infinite.

Oh, now that it looks good.

There was a prolonged era we don't need to go back to, but I remember what I was saying on a regular basis that the gameplay itself is pretty fun.

And a lot of people were like, dude, shut the fuck up.

You're coping.

Right.

Well, the coping wasn't a word at the time, but you're just like, why are you going to bat for this bad Marvel game or whatever?

And I'm like,

it's not the gameplay element, right?

And

that's one of those things where, like, yes, with some fucking awesome

just artwork design and re-approaching

how it's presented, how it looks, the sounds, they're getting new music made.

You know, all of that shit was like phenomenal

and makes a huge difference.

But like

anyway, it was a, it was a game really could have made a really great Marvel Infinite if they just spent more time on it.

Like, there were tournaments running for it, and, like, I was competing and going and entering and playing and keeping up with it gameplay-wise, while hating the way it looked, while wanting the missing characters to be there, there was that bit where I'm like, but they did really have something going with this 2v2, you know?

And it felt really annoying to try to explain that to people that were just checked out on that possibility, because they're like, nah, but ugly Chun Leaf Face.

And it's like, I'm not defending the ugly Chun Leaf face, but don't pretend the 2v2 tag system here isn't working, you know?

But ultimately, I just, yeah, this level of like, throw a giant wad of cash, grab a bunch of fucking modders, and just make it your goddamn self.

It's a fixer-upper, you know, and spending the time and the money to flip

this fucking house into something worthwhile.

And low-key, low-key, like, I don't know, I don't know that he'd like say it or anything.

And I know, he didn't tell me anything.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm just pulled from your mind.

I'm inventing bullshit here.

So, all right, let's see.

But I feel like there's a little bit of like,

and what, Capcom?

I'm fucking max

what?

And what?

Say something.

Capcom's usually been pretty good

about leaving fan projects alone.

Yeah, usually, usually.

You know, this is not a.

What's the example I just had?

Anyway,

there's a couple of those that have that have not gone that have not gone

well.

However, literally everything with Pokemon ever, you could just say.

Certainly, certainly, yes.

But there is that absolute level of just like,

yeah,

you're going to fucking

swing here

in this

a pillar of the FGC?

Nah, you fucked up.

Let it happen.

Take your lumps, eat your fucking Cheerios, and when you're ready, announce the next one.

We'll be happy and ready and waiting for it.

Everyone will be excited, but in the meantime, you sit the fuck down and let the fans do what they want.

There's a little, just as, I'm getting a little bit of and what energy, you know?

That's it.

That's all.

Yeah, I believe that.

They weren't gonna put Virgil Zero outfit in that, you know, in the game.

They're not gonna.

They forgot about that.

Right?

The specific one from the crossover for with

whatever it's called, cross dive.

You know, that's all fan love, man.

So, fun stuff.

Infinite and beyond.

Um,

okay,

so uh,

yes,

we've touched on on Revo.

Good stuff.

It's actually up on Steam.

You can go to the page and and wish list it even.

Um

so we touched earlier on it, but uh there is in fact

uh word that Ubisoft is not too happy about the concurrent player accounts being visible in Steam.

And there is some internal discussion about seeing if they can ban tracking services from reporting on those numbers so that they can provide investors with their own data.

Yeah, they can't.

Yeah.

Well, so, you know, getting Steam to change their entire policy seems insane and likely not the case, but I think they're wondering if they can pull out as an entire publisher or developer and go, everything we release, hide that, or whatever.

The thought process here, of course, being that because the unsuccessful launch of Star Wars Outlaws has caused a significant fall in all Ubisoft shares, they need to damage control as aggressively as possible.

Yeah, that's just not going to happen.

Likely not.

It's not going to happen.

And, you know, if you are amongst those who are in the lower than expected number of active players, I sure hope you're not running running it on Windows 11.

Well, yeah, which just broke all Ubisoft games this morning.

Because, as it turns out, a second further fucking ongoing issue is

basically all Ubisoft games are having a massive issue on Windows 11 update, where it causes games to,

I mean, straight up just crash, not display at all.

And it's

like a black screen.

Due to a black screen, or in some cases, like an epileptic seizure causing flash

frequency,

flickering, and shadows just in screen space and all that stuff.

Turns out, upon further investigation, that like it's, as you would imagine, not just an Ubisoft issue, right?

It's across a lot of other things.

It's affecting World of Warcraft.

It's affecting OBS.

Lossless scaling.

It's affecting a lot.

And

it seems like basically stopped the rollout.

So if you have, if Windows detects that you have any of those programs, any of those any Ubisoft games installed, it won't force the update.

So consider that as a potential way to kryptonite fucking forced updates away, right, mind you.

But it seems like the problem stems from something going on with the updates to DX, right?

So

they changed DirectX GI

to require a type of non-standard display support

that old things or things that were made that don't have support for, it's called MPO, just result in these fucked up

crashes.

So it just made a new thing that a lot of old things don't have mandatory for and

goody.

It's a complete fuck, like it's completely Microsoft's fault.

Like it's it's it's dumb.

But yeah,

that is going on at the same time.

This Ubisoft thing is like extra funny because this is right after they came crawling back to Steam.

Right.

So, like, this is when they just started to go like, fucking fine.

Oh, my God.

Day and date games with Steam.

But if they're day and date,

that means that you'll see.

Because, like, okay, you put

like Prince of Persia Lost Crown on Steam, right?

Well, that game's actually eight years old.

Most people bought it and played it through you play.

So if the numbers are really low, that doesn't really mean anything.

But Star Wars Outlaws,

that's real numbers.

That's 2,400 peak.

Yeah,

because as you're saying that, I'm like, wait, I feel like that rings a bell.

I'm like, yeah, no, there was an article on PC Gamer that's literally called Ubisoft Comes Crawling Back to Steam.

And like the article photo is just Gaben just on a lounge chair.

Just

feed me my grapes position, you know?

everything that I have heard and spoken to about Ubisoft from uh at Ubi and from other developers is that Ubisoft is like burning down right now.

That it is all hands on deck, and boy, they are

hinging their future successes on Assassin's Creed Shadows.

We'll talk after the podcast.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Um,

so that's happening.

Uh,

what else is going on?

Well,

um, hey, Cyber Proyect,

Cyber Proyect, excuse me, CD.

That's not a real thing.

CD Proyect.

CD Project has confirmed that, hey, Cyberpunk 2077 has topped 30 million copies sold, and Phantom Liberty expansion has sold 8 million copies, and things are going swimmingly.

That's great.

So fuck it.

New Netflix animation project.

Cool.

Happening.

Does not say

sequel or anything like that.

Just

probably be a completely different story.

Yes.

Doesn't say trigger either, mind you.

Yeah, it could be anybody.

Yeah, could just be a brand new 3D, more game art style looking thing.

I really hope that after Cyberpunk, they like re-examine the way they develop games because

I have played every single CD Projekt game except for I think Thronebreaker

on release for like 10 plus years.

And they are all super fucked up, but like they started to get like

super fucked up with Cyberpunk.

So like it would it would be nice if they could release a game that is not just, like,

super fucked up on release.

Project Orion is confirmed, right?

Is that the Witcher 1 remake or the

4?

No, that's the sequel.

That's Cyber Pro.

Okay, so that explains why

the icon is not a wolf, it's a fox.

Oh, because if it were Witcher, it would be.

Yeah, no, Geralt's story is done.

He's old and he's tired.

Yeah.

I'm

pretty sure who I know who that main character will be, but

who knows for sure.

You know who that character will be,

but do you know who any of the characters in the Concorde Secret Level trailer are?

No, I don't.

Why is that?

Do you think?

Do you hey, hold on.

Why

kids love the the taste of cinematic?

Do you think

that Concorde's secret level doesn't have any of the characters from Concorde in it?

And there's a whole lot of characters.

There's like

15, 20 faces that flash in that trailer.

Like, they show off a lot of people and they end the trailer with a character select screen of portraits.

And not one of them

are from the game that came out, it would seem.

Or at least as far as

that the case?

Or so I'm told, at the very least.

Yeah, I don't

think as any of those other Concords, I would not want to tell an untruth.

It is my

opinion

that the secret level.

Oh, you think?

You think so?

Is that what it was?

That is what I think: is that this is a trailer for their season two DLC characters.

Oh,

man.

And that this was going to be a big triumphant announcement

of the next batch of characters coming to Concorde.

The last shot lines them up as if it were a character select screen.

Also, the final line

is Discover Concord.

And it's like, bitch, how?

How?

Motherfucker.

Oh, no, not the trailer.

Not the high-budget trailer for season two.

So, like,

I don't have anyone I can talk to about this,

but I would love to know if Sony tried to get this canceled.

Like, if they, like, because when I heard about this, I'm like, if it was, if it was me, I would want to fucking shelve that episode and delete it.

No, no, not after the animation work, not after the part of it, it's part of an anthology.

Only it is telling you to go buy a game that doesn't exist.

But it's also a self-existing thing.

Like, you know, no, not if it was built as an ad.

It's built as an ad, but it's also part of an anthology series.

It's both.

It's, it's marketing and it's a, it's an episode of this thing, you know?

So somebody in my chat named Jazuzu, when I talked about this, described it as holding a birthday party for someone who had killed themselves.

I mean, you, you made a much more fucking fucked up version of that analogy last week or the week before.

Oh, I don't even remember.

You said something about

a baby shower for a stillborn, I believe.

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

Yeah, no, that's cringe.

They should delete that.

They should say they lost it.

As much as I believe that that would have been the winning play for

Uzumaki.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's five characters in a row.

They'll just stand in there and just.

yeah,

so

it's it's uh

the idea of it being the season two reveal is is a wild one.

You just okay, so you just gotta you just gotta go with, you know?

Okay, so here's here's where's where

I'm gonna draw my line in the sand as to whether or not they should have canceled it.

If the last like five minutes of that episode is like a call to action to go play Concorde,

then they should really just have canceled it.

No, you like, like, that's insane.

You obviously change the text to be like, rip Concord, rest in peace, Concorde, 2024, 2024.

You know, like, yeah, that, like, what is there to say?

Is what it is, man.

If you couldn't.

What if the last line is like, boy, guys, we have a really big adventure ahead of us?

Will you cut the cord?

Oh, man.

Just a character looking dead center into the fucking camera, just going, I'm going to live forever.

A fucking screen that shows you the question mark, reveal, trail,

progression release for each, each, uh,

each character.

The roadmap.

The roadmap, thank you.

Like, the roadmap screenshot fades in.

That's what I was looking for.

Yes.

Anyway.

Buy Concord now at participating retailers.

I mean, the thing is, is that at the very least, that makes sense because otherwise you have, like, it doesn't...

You can't imagine they started this project and went,

we're going to not have anyone you recognize in it.

quote-unquote recognize

in it

from however early on, right?

It makes it makes much more sense that this was a

potential tease of sorts.

You don't go back and swap all the models out at the last second and re-render that shit.

So,

anyways,

that's going to be like, welcome to the Concorde.

I can't wait to see what all of you new guys can do

when I get the fucking hero shot.

Well, there's some other cool stuff around.

It doesn't have to all be misery.

There is a spiritual

successor style

Parappa the Rappa and Umjamer Lamy.

Oh, I love those games.

Type of game that is in the works called Scratch and Melody.

And it looks pretty fucking cool.

The art style is also reminiscent of

fucking, god damn it, the the

rhythm heaven games.

Check this shit out.

Yeah, I saw this earlier today.

Super cool looking.

And, you know, the song in particular has these two characters kind of facing off in a duel and going super Saiyan and doing, actually doing like kind of fighting game moves at points and stuff like that.

And you're hitting the rhythm notes in the same way you would in in a Parappa-style game.

Yeah, just

really dope.

Put it on your wish list.

Keep an eye out.

Coming soon.

That's cool, man.

Yeah, it looks like a lot of just high-effort animation and hand-drawn art and stuff as well.

So

throw that up there.

And also,

if

you have room on your shelf,

Piggyback Books just announced a Metroid Prime 1 to 3 visual retrospective.

Cool.

Which is,

I think, the first art book/slash making of for Metroid Prime that exists, because Nintendo usually takes their sweet time or doesn't approve a lot of that type of stuff.

So,

yeah, it has one.

So, this is coming out in, I think, alongside with Remastered.

or in lieu of Remastered.

So,

check that out as well.

Just looks like a pretty book.

And

I

in particular want to call attention to the fact that Metroid Prime 1, 2, and 3, if you've only played it on the trilogy disc, you did not get to experience the individual game UIs or front ends, rather, which were

incredible.

Some of the best front ends ever deleted because of the trilogy disc.

It's such a tragic thing.

You know,

one and two in particular are incredibly strong.

So, yeah, check that shit out.

That's dope.

I mean, we pretty much hit the

other points earlier in.

So that's all I was going to bring up.

The only other one was

Microsoft said, fuck it.

Avatars can go.

They are officially killing.

Mass refunds.

With yes, which is like, hey, a lot of people spent money on that, on cosmetic shit.

That's a good move.

Is that an Xbox?

Xbox

One PC and XS series.

No, no, I mean, are avatars an Xbox?

Avatars are Xbox.

Okay.

Have you seen these

fucking Xbox ads they're doing?

You ever see the bottom of an Avatar shoe?

No, no, no, not that.

I mean, the This Is an Xbox fucking ad campaign?

Yes, I'm think.

Yes, I did.

I did.

It's always good when you run an entire campaign around the confusion of your brand and the fact that people can't quite parse what the product is and which version you're selling.

It's fucking great.

It's fucking awesome.

Oh, my computer is an Xbox, is it?

Oh, okay.

Oh, cool.

I guess I don't need to buy an Xbox.

Thank you.

Because I have an Xbox.

Turns out.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Bro, I don't want Microsoft to leave the console market.

PlayStation's going to get so shit what they do.

You need a balanced trifecta of companies fucking up and tripping over their dicks.

Yeah, man.

It's equilibrium.

There always needs to be two on the floor for the one standing going, oh.

Now that Nintendo's saying we're doing our own thing, we're not even talking to you guys.

Yeah, you know, the one standing alone, it looks so incompetent when you don't have two crawling on the ground with their lunch everywhere.

So

anyway, yeah, and we talked about the MK1 DLC getting canceled, right?

So that's pretty.

That's still a rumor right now.

It is.

It is a rumor.

It is.

It's not a rumor that people don't enjoy playing Mortal Kombat.

That's the God's honest truth.

And Mortal Kombat and Virtual Fighter are like the absolute opposites.

You could not get further from each other.

They're like the one million.

Every single aspect of one is the inverse on the other.

It's incredible.

It's actually kind of incredible how antithetical they are from each other.

Yeah.

All style, all

glitz and glamour.

No style

at all.

It's like none.

Anti-style.

Anti-style.

Just basis.

Basics.

Fundamentals.

Alright,

if you enjoyed Mortal Kombat, let us know over at castlesuperbeast at gmail.com.

No, that's not true.

That's a lie.

Ignore that.

Castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

That's castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

Stylent.

You know,

I think the Yakuza characters might be a little too exciting.

They are.

They literally are.

For that roster.

So

Majima can't be in a virtual fighter game because he has a knife.

It's too much seasoning.

Too much seasoning getting added here.

Let's blend this out a little bit.

I was going to say something.

Oh, last but not least,

apparently there's a new Steam controller coming.

It's being shipped out to manufacturers.

Word?

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's the thing.

Have you used a Steam Deck?

Yeah.

Steam Deck's great, actually.

Yeah,

it's much better.

I still have some issues with it, but it's way better.

Yes.

Yeah.

So

I would love to see the third attempt at that because I would love something as good as this PlayStation controller that has those little

touchpads.

I mean,

if if you can hit a much more reasonable price point, that'd be nice, you know?

But

I do have a Steam controller plugged in as basically an active keyboard downstairs for one of the things.

But yeah, yeah.

I also like

some of my Steam Deck usage is not using the default controller anyway, you know?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

All right, what do we got for emails?

All right.

We got one from William over here who says, Dear Mr.

Castle and Sir Beast,

mouthwashing, despite requiring basic reading comprehension, has been a massive success managing to break into spaces usually dominated for mascot horror and backrooms.

Oh, side note, by the way.

Yeah,

there are.

Mouthwashing is obviously taking off and getting more popular, and it's hit the point where there are people shipping characters.

Yeah, that's the wrong game for that.

And it's like, if you can't catch how tone death

shipping characters in that game is,

there's no saving you.

There's no saving you.

You're lost.

Your soul is lost.

There's nothing that can be done.

It's too late.

Time of death today,

right now.

I do say, however, we have to thank the shipping Frecazoids over at AO3

because

they did give us something of note, which is the naming convention for all characters going forward forever, such as Jimmy Mouthwashing.

Oh, God.

Okay, is that where that came from?

That's where that came from.

Okay, Sand's Undertale.

Yep.

That's where that came from.

Gotcha.

It came from AO3.

Gotcha, gotcha.

And it just leaked out.

Well,

anyway, back to the email.

And then it retroactively attached to people like John Halo.

Well, yeah, that's great.

That's fantastic.

We need that in the world.

I just,

like,

it's okay to interface and enjoy things without shipping characters in them.

There are other ways.

There are other ways to

enjoy your media.

Oh, by the way, actually, breaking news.

that I'm to bring to the, I have it on good authority from a local Fallout television show enthusiast that set photos of what is clearly going to be the Novak Motel from New Vegas have been spotted in Bakers, Nevada.

Oh, season two photos?

Yes.

Okay, okay.

And of note is that

that motel in New Vegas, all those motel rooms only have the one bed,

meaning that there will have to be,

there will have to be a sequence in which two people argue over a bed, possibly in a passionate manner.

And kiss.

Thank you, Jork Report.

Dude, I tuned in to Paige's stream the other day, and she was in the Novak Motel, like scoping out all the beds and couch situations in every room.

So as I was saying, please, no, Jork Report mouthwashing.

Please.

Don't do that.

No, no.

Well, unless you want to consider the mouthwashing, the jork report of mouthwashing.

Let's just not.

Which is don't.

Let's just not.

Let's just not.

Really cool hidden details, though, in that game, by the way.

Like the Ludo board, it changes as the game goes on.

I did not know that.

And the pieces and where they're at and what's going on with them reflects the state of affairs.

I bet you could play that game 10 times in a row and find something new every time.

Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of discussion about things that are like some

not so subtle and more subtle, like kind of a thing, things that you can learn about it.

Like the, yeah, the obviously like you have like little pieces, like, oh, here's Daisuke's piece.

It's just starting out.

He's only got one on the board.

Other people are a little more experienced.

And hey, look, some pieces are knocked over.

And oh boy, what's going on over?

And then, yeah, and it updates throughout the whole thing, you know?

Incredible stuff.

Anyways, back to the email.

Despite requiring basic reading comprehension, mouthwashing has been a massive success at managing to break into spaces usually dominated by mascot horror and backrooms.

The streamers and YouTubers are covering this one thing, but the true evidence that the Talparis crew

have entered the indie gaming mainstream is the most suspicious award possible.

A terrible bootleg has hit the iPhone.

Take a look at this shit.

We've got

okay, okay, hold on.

I need to see on this.

Let me see if

I can get this going.

I would like to see this fucking boy.

Oh, boy.

There is an iPhone garbage mouthwashing.

Okay, let me see if you can see this.

Okay, I got to blow myself up here.

Experience the joy.

So, mouthwashing survived the mouthwash crisis.

With a little screenshot of Curly's face, get the app

and experience the joy of unique crew members.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Explore a

spaceship filled with violent zombies.

Fight to survive as Jim, the co-pilot, and rescue wounded captain in this retro PS1-style horror.

And here's the crew sitting around the table looking like in some just absolute.

There you go, right?

Amazing.

I love it.

Amazing.

My favorite part is how it's 12-plus years old, which means they just modified an existing entry of some other shit they were shoveling.

Oh, absolutely.

absolutely um you know so uh yeah yeah yeah um

and there's there's again there's more and some touchscreen controls as well and shit so

what is the worst but most accurate measurement of success I think you nailed it honestly

I think when you see like garbage ballotro

iPhone copy pop up and somewhere around the world some asshole goes let's get that attention while we can before they make the official one, if they ever do.

Yeah, that's how you, that's it.

That's the sign.

I, to this day, refer to him as Genius Kojumbo.

Like,

that, that Death Stranding shit.

Oh, the fucking.

The age meant 12 and up.

Never mind, my mistake.

Yeah.

The fucking Skull Girls 2 Deadly Airport.

Deadly Airport, baby.

Skull Girls 2 Deadly Fucking Airport.

And I'm just thinking, I'm thinking about.

Oh, people are pointing out renaming your game to

Helldivers 2 and pushing that live on Steam.

Man.

Man, I think back to fucking Street Overlord, in which it's like, wow, Street Fighters really made it.

They're fucking throwing Ryu and Chun Lee on these fucking gas station dick pills.

Heart attack gas station dick pills are getting in on the Street Fighter branding.

Man, Street Fighter's hot as fuck.

Incredible.

Yeah.

That's, it's, it's, you know, it's the next level of parent confusion marketing, really.

And, and, like,

the, the only saving grace is that it's never just a plain, obvious, bad rip-off.

It's got to be hilarious.

It's got to be barely comprehensible in Global.

Well, the faster it's made, the better it is.

And what we have now is that we have an existing shit game, and we're just going to staple, like, just enough of the new thing onto it.

So it's just totally incomprehensible.

Thank God it's always hilarious, you know?

Like, if it was just Skull Girls 2 with some bad zoomed-in screenshots and sprites dropped in, and it wasn't Deadly Airport, then what the fuck would we even be talking about?

But Deadly Airport's just funny by itself.

Incredible.

I think Bellatro was like the worst one I've encountered in recent memory because

before Bellatro went up on the App Store, you'd search for Bellatro and there'd be like 10 fake but real looking Bellatros.

So I remember the first time I I looked and there was only one and it was like garbage fucking

it was Balatro poker styled poker style adventure.

And then there was one that was like it had the app look and branding and everything, but it was Balatro tips app.

But you didn't know it was a tips app at first, you know?

And you just, you get away with all the scuzziest shit.

Take the money and run until the official thing happens.

But yeah, the fact that it gets up to that level, it's a sign of your success.

You know, it means you made it.

100%.

All right, here.

Imitation's the sincerest form of flattery.

It's true.

DSG says, hi, boring woolly, and other definition of boring Pat.

With Pat's...

I just said, dull, man.

What the fuck?

With Pat's love of boring Virtu Fighter, I was thinking that the tendency of various genres and franchises to up the ante and add more,

even if it was super polished and fun, you'd be hard-pressed to find people excited for a game that was like the World Warrior and had eight characters with two or three special moves.

Do you still have any franchises or genres you'd love to strip back in gameplay or features and focus more on fundamentals?

So, what other games besides Virtual Fighter should take this boring approach?

I have one right away, and

the boring one is still still flashy,

but this has been something I've been saying for a long time.

I prefer slow monster hunter than fast monster hunter.

There are two types of monster hunter games, and I prefer the slow ones.

The one I know is the fast one?

The one you know is the slow one.

Okay.

Like the the like like uh um what's it called?

Rise and and sunbreak that is like Marvel to

World Street Fighter.

Gotcha.

Okay.

World is where it departed.

Yeah.

Okay.

Or right after that, rather.

Also, I prefer Street Fighter to Marvel.

I want it slow, please.

Thank you.

Okay, so like for me, I want the entire design wrapped around that concept to the extremes, though.

If I want slow, I want samurai fucking showdown.

Yeah, you want it glacial.

Grab the fucking dial and turn it all the way up or all the way down.

Give me slow.

You want the kind of game that if you were to be announcing it and there was a controller malfunction, that you think they're just playing high-level footsies.

Samurai Shodown.mp4.

I think that that moment says way, like, like, ha ha, Woolly, he didn't notice.

But, like, no, I think that really says way more about Samurai Showdown and the way Samurai Showdown fucking feels.

All of us.

Everybody went, oh, shit, wait.

They're not playing.

Great, great moment.

I have

two thoughts come to mind.

One is pretty obvious, and we've kind of touched on it a bit, but Inscription certainly had

some feeling to that, right?

I did not hate

where it went, of course.

I remember you, we talked about this quite a bit.

I did enjoy a lot of the follow-ups there.

And they did eventually add the bit, but, you know, there is that thought of like, oh, yeah, but the first version of this was certainly the best version of it.

That was a really, a really clear thought.

And then,

I don't know, Nidhog.

What are you talking?

Wait, what?

What are you talking about?

There's only one Nidhogg, isn't there?

Yeah, what are you talking about?

I apologize.

Are you talking about the stages?

Like, you prefer the first stage over the the cloud stage?

My mistake.

Excuse me.

It's fine.

It's fine.

And here, last one, also, again, apropos of Virtu Fighter.

Crashy says, just add, there's no new just add rollback in the shooter space going on right now.

Excuse me.

There is a new just-add rollback in the shooter space going on right now.

It's gyro aim.

Yes, okay.

The reason gyro players tend to shill so hard for it is because of the accuracy.

As mouse with no aim assist is a huge pain in the ass to use third-party programs to make it work, it'd be nice if games outside of the Switch just natively supported it, like Fortnite or Call of Duty.

As veterans of the rollback wars, how do you feel, or how do you go about convincing devs to make tech advancements into standard features other than just shilling on Twitter?

Not just gyro advancements, but in general, like backpedals or Hall effect sticks.

Hall effect sticks?

Damn.

So

gyro

is

better.

It is

notably more accurate.

Like, I mean, you've played Splatoon, right?

We debated this back with Splatoon, and I remember I was like, you can aim really quickly with that shit.

It

actually speeds the process up a lot.

There is a problem, though, with gyro aiming.

And the problem is very simple.

And that is

old guys like me

spent decades playing shooters a certain way or one or the other.

And gyro

has a unique issue that mouse and keyboard and controller don't have.

Whereas if I'm not used to gyro,

like the way that I hold a controller, like I, it basically becomes like uncontrollable and my camera flies all over the place because I don't play games with my hands perfectly still.

Right.

Right.

It's interesting because...

Like, okay, I'm reminded of like,

remember Street Fighter originally had sensor-sensitive buttons where you got your strength of button by hitting it harder?

I do.

The first machines were literally tap it for a long time.

I never got to use that machine because it was broken, because people would smash the shit out of it.

Oh, I mean, they barely

made a few of them, anyways.

They're super rare, but they were, yeah, they were always broken.

And it's it's but it like it reflects the idea of like, well, in martial arts, you would hit things with impact, and that's what's being reflected in the game.

Here, real aim in real life is being is becoming a part of gameplay, but is it inferior or superior to the current things you're being asked to do?

You know, if gyro does make your aim superior, then

it overtly does.

It's like you have to lean in that direction, you know?

Like,

it's kind of an inevitability if it's something that allows people to play more accurately, faster, and better.

It's just, can you design around the fact that some people are not going to use it?

And if so, is it just a mouse and keyboard versus stick, thumbstick situation where you're like, you know, keep up if you want to, but it's going to be fucking rough if you don't.

So

I gave gyro like a proper college try during the no build season of Fortnite where they added it.

Maybe they had edited it before, but I gave it a shot.

And I would go into, you know, a match and be moving around and be like, so you can set it to only activate the gyro when you're aimed on site, which is the only time you would actually want to use it usually, usually, right?

And I would shoot this and shoot that.

I'm like, wow, this is objectively way more accurate on every state because it allows me to flick my hands like I was using a mouse instead of having to deal with the acceleration of

an analog stick.

It's wrist control accuracy versus thumb control.

Well, it's not even, it's not thumb control.

It's just like the, you don't have to drag.

You can accelerate however fast you want.

You You don't have to deal with like cursor acceleration or movement speed for an analog stick, right?

But but I mean, the but the space to accurately position yourself with the mouse is much larger versus the tiny space of a thumb stick where you need to do a whole lot more in a smaller group, uh, a smaller and um, so I was like, this is so much more accurate.

This is, I'm gonna give this a try.

And I played about 10 games, and what I discovered is that despite its incredible accuracy, I could not hit the broadside of a barn.

I could not hit even one person.

I just like, I don't have it.

And so I switched back to using the analog stick and went back to like almost win immediately.

And it's just like,

it's too late for me.

As someone who's accepted my place in the past with mouse and keyboard, right?

Where I'm like, I can use mouse, but keyboard I just hate.

And, you know, the thumb pad that I bought, the hand pads, the thing on the side, has been the best experience.

It's been the most comfortable I've been with that stuff.

But like, I like the feeling of playing with the controller in most cases.

You know, I know that I'm being left in the dust there.

Gyro is just one of those adapter die moments, I think.

And anytime we face one of these, where,

yeah,

it's like hitbox, right?

Like, people are moving to hitbox, not just because of

a preference, but they're like, I can actively charge better and be more accurate and do more.

And like at that highest, highest level, when that fraction of a second makes a difference,

you get the benefits out of a hitbox that you don't get out of a normal arcade stick.

Like, yeah, but old arcade machine memories, though, you know?

But it's like, yeah, but what's that worth when you're in this 0.01%, you know, or whatever, right?

So, yeah, you just, it's an adapt or die moment, I think, is the case.

But if people are, if devs are not getting it into their games yet,

the first ones that do will set the trend.

So, one of the things about this is like he compared, or the writer of the email compares it to rollback.

And there's kind of like a core difference here:

rollback is about certain games functioning at all.

Like

having a playable match that even correctly functions as a video game.

Whereas this is a control option that is like superior to an existing control option, but it's not like the existing control option doesn't work in the way the delay-based net code just doesn't work.

Yeah, it's a nice quality of life value add, like the ping system in things.

It's better when it's there than when it's not, you know?

But no,

that's interesting, though, to see that like right now we're in a situation where some things have embraced it, but others haven't, and everybody is now on the on the positive side of it.

I do remember the argument during Splatoon, though.

I do remember the like, nah, fuck that shit.

And when it's like poorly done and you're doing Star Fox and you're kind of like, this is not what I want it to be, you know,

it muddles the waters a bit.

But design a game for it, certainly, instead of adding it in retrospect.

And I think you can.

Like, I played Splatoon with the gyro for a while, and what I discovered is that after a while, it hurt my wrists.

And I was worse.

Okay, interesting.

So, like, I'm like, oh, cool.

I'm doing bad, and I can't relax because I'm in pain.

I thought Splatoon was a really great training wheel for it because aiming is very you have to aim at the floor, not your opponents, as much, you know, like primarily.

Most of the gyro you're using to cover a surface area, and then you aim at the person coming up to you for quicker moments, as opposed to all of it being snap gyro.

You know, also, for me personally, I would not want it to be any more than like, let's say, 45 degrees of movement.

You know,

I would not want to have to use gyro to aim my controller 90 degrees at somebody coming from my left or some shit like that.

Like, that is super annoying.

Well, the usual implementation is analog for large scale movements and gyro for fine-scale movements,

right?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Um, cool, yeah, that'll do.

All right, have a good week, everybody.