Tri-Force of Titles

This is a head gun podcast.

Hey, so, you know, we're a video game podcast, and you know how video games oftentimes have subtitles.

Yeah.

Yep.

I was thinking get played should have its own subtitle.

Ooh.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I would love if we could, like, get a new angle on marketing, maybe get our name out there a little bit more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, just this year, we got Claire Obscure, you know, know, Expedition 33, which has a subtitle,

Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Colon on the Beach, Donkey Kong, colon Bonanza.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So, like, get played, colon, Matt's quest.

Fuck, that's really good.

That's pretty good.

In a lot of ways, it is Matt's Quest.

Yeah, I'm trying my fucking best over here.

It does.

Not always succeeding.

And I like how it, you know, puts you to the forefront of,

like, if we think of the show as, like, something Matt's having to do,

it makes sense.

If I had one knock against it, and maybe this is me being humble, it's that it's not really just my quest.

I do think about this as a three-person endeavor.

I don't want to be necessarily the star or the face of it.

That's nice of you, Matt, and that's appropriately humble.

And that actually brings me to my pitch, get played, colon, the dawn of Matt.

Okay.

I mean,

I think to many, this is probably a lot of people's first encounter with me.

I'm not known from something else.

This is probably the thing that I'm most known for.

I think anything you're being pretty humble.

People, I love your comedy bang bang appearances.

All right.

All right.

So then maybe not that.

Maybe I've got one.

Get played colon last mat standing.

That's really good.

That's actually, yeah.

I mean, look, all of these are really, really good.

I guess.

The thing that I would be maybe concerned about is then carrying the weight of all mats on my shoulders since I'm the last one.

I have to be sort of the last

by default, which is kind of a lot of pressure.

How about get played, colon, Matt's agony?

Now, so far, I will say of the ones that have been pitched, this one concerns me the most

because it sounds like I'm going to have a hard time.

And that's, I'm not really trying to have a hard time.

I mean, but, you know, to be honest, in some episodes, maybe you are having a hard time.

I'd say in most of them, I'm having a hard time.

Okay.

Well, I'm worried.

We're trying here, Matt.

No,

I appreciate it.

It's, you know, isn't it something?

I'm I'm shooting down a bunch of ideas.

I'm not offering any myself.

Yeah, I was fair.

But it's fine.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's a fair collaboration.

Yeah.

How about

get played?

No, that's fucking.

That sucks.

No, say what I don't want to hear it.

Yeah.

The three friends that talk.

Oh, it sucks.

Get played, colon.

The three friends that talk.

How about

just inspiring something here?

Get played, colon, the two friends, and also Matt.

Okay, well, now now that's sort of none of them have been rude so far.

This one's rude.

This one's sort of.

Well, you're included in it.

You're kind of spotlighted on it.

Get played, colon, Matt's Mad.

Mad Matt's kind of good.

Oh, Mad Matt is good.

Matt, Matt, Matt's Mad.

Mad Matt's Mad.

How about Matt Played?

Matt Played is really good.

That sucks.

That sucks to hear.

Matt played.

That's tough.

Get.

I think we got it.

We are mysterious yet evocative and add unnecessary colons as we select our triforce of game titles this week on Matt Played: colon get.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heatheran Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger.

That's me, Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premier Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about names.

That's right.

Titles.

The phrases that are uttered by an executive committee when they are describing the game that you are going to play.

You know, the title of our very show has changed over the years.

That's true.

It was How Did This Get Played?

And then before that, it was, Can You Believe How Did This Get Played?

And over time, it's been simplified.

We Sean Parker it down to just get played.

That's the core essence of the brand.

That's right.

And let me tell you something.

We're going to do a couple other things like Sean Parker, I think.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, we're gonna start Napster and then Spotify, and just everyone's gonna be mad at us all the time.

Okay,

hook up with some college girls.

Yeah, that's yeah.

I mean, if it happens, it happens.

I would

be fine with us starting.

Like, I know there's been a lot of dunking on starting brands that are adjacent to podcasts over the last few weeks.

But let me tell you, if you guys want to go on, like, to start

a file sharing service or a subscription-based skateboarding company or a

let you know, if you want to do like a flavor, like a thing, a powder that you add to cola to make it a flavor, that could be interesting to me because we all love drinks.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big beverage guy.

I get two beverages by my side right now, as do you, as do you, Matt.

I mean, you're also making in very intense fists.

Are you all right?

I'm riled up.

He's practicing for holding two drinks.

I'm glad he's practicing.

I'm all for us attaching our name, either the name of the podcast, our names individually or both to some sort of product, no matter how much of a scam it is, because we're in a world beyond consequences.

Yeah.

There's only upside now.

Yeah.

If you can make a little bit of extra money, it like might as well.

Scam planet.

Scam planet.

What if we did like, what if we did like cool sunglasses?

Yeah, I mean, I'd be down for cool sunglasses.

I mean, because, like, what's the harm in that?

You have a pair of like get played branded sunglasses and they're cool.

And, like, that's just, you just have them.

That's what I'm saying.

Can we, can we, just from, you know, shits and giggles, can we say that they are blue-blocking sunglasses and also make them extremely dark?

Yeah.

So that it opens up your pupil really big, but they're not blue-blocking, and it just lets us lots of blue lights.

More in.

Yeah, that seems all right.

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

We also do have actual merch you can do it.

Yeah, we do.

That's actually good.

Kinshipgoods.com slash get played, baby.

We do.

We do.

But I would, let me pitch it again.

It's a powder.

Yeah.

So let's say you're at this store and you're like.

Any powder?

I'm in.

I'm in.

It's like, oh,

I want a cherry Coke, but there's no cherry Coke here.

I'll pull out my cherry powder and I add it to Coca-Cola.

It makes it taste exactly like a cherry Coke.

Okay, so it enhances plain sodas to some, to add some sort of flavor burst.

Previously, the plain soda, simply undrinkable.

It needs needs to be cherry.

Well, no, like if you like, imagine you carry around a, like a variety pack in your pocket, right?

Or you get like a fold-out little kit of like, uh, you know, like element packets, like those little, like little, or, uh, or single-serve honeys, right?

So you got it, you've got a few in your pocket, or if you're a lady, you got it in your purse because we aren't allowed to have pockets in our pants.

No.

And

it's like you go to the, you go to the store and it's like, oh, they've got root beer.

But you know what I've got in my pocket?

Yeah.

So I've got vanilla.

okay so i could add vanilla to this and make a vanilla root beer that's pretty good

and and sorry to interrupt no please my favorite flavor of coca-cola that is no longer available is oreo cookies and cream coca-cola which was fucking phenomenal

i remembered liking it but the fact that it's your favorite is um to put it as kindly as i can derange

the best flavor there's ever been so what if you have like a cookies and cream packet and it's like oh i could add this to root beer?

That would be delicious.

I could add this to cream soda.

I could add this to Coca-Cola.

Have you ever done the Coke Freestyle Machine?

Yes.

Yeah, of course.

It doesn't have Oreo.

It doesn't, of course, it doesn't have Oreo.

Yeah, I've also turned on a light switch.

What are we, what are we asking you?

Hold on.

Yeah.

I wasn't asking you.

Because, I mean, I know that

you're getting the

you're like wheezing the juice polyshore style under that fucker and getting all every combination you could possibly get.

But I'm just saying

you have access to a bunch of variety.

Like

not to not to say that we shouldn't do this powder.

The freestyle machine kind of eats our lunch, unfortunately.

I think on that.

But how often are you at a freestyle machine?

I'm more often at a grocery store.

Yeah, no, yeah.

It's good.

It's an interesting point.

And by and by this, also, by this measure, I think that Doritos powder should be sold in packets.

That's really good, actually.

No, yeah, Doritos powder.

Like put it on your popcorn.

Doritos flavored popcorn.

Put it on your popcorn.

Bake a chicken.

I really bake a chicken, put a fucking Doritos powder on it, put some

ranch flavor on the outside of raw chicken.

I think, I think, and this is, this is going to be a long walk, maybe.

Yeah.

You know what a tuna melt is.

It's tuna and cheese, right?

Yeah.

It's delicious.

Horrid.

Horrid.

What?

It's a horrid combination to me.

Never had it before.

Can't speak to it.

The idea of fish and cheese to me is brutal.

You've never had a fish, like a filet of fish sandwich-a fish delight, you mean?

Yeah,

it has cheese on it.

Yeah, no, I've never had that.

Wow.

And I think, and here's

what I'm going to say.

And you can fill in the blanks however you want.

I think anyone whose favorite sandwich it is is disgusting and shouldn't be the president.

I mean, that last part kind of

made subtext text there.

That's my favorite McDonald's.

What no?

Grant, I'm sorry.

You can't be present.

I'll no longer be writing you in.

I think the

I get your repulsion because on paper, yes, fish plus cheese sounds gross.

I have had it in certain combinations, and I really don't, I like, I really don't like a lobster mac and cheese.

I don't feel like that would be.

Not for me.

Not for me.

But a tuna melt, weirdly, it all kind of comes together.

So on that note, Dorito's powder on tuna fish sandwich, probably incredible.

Could be good.

Because how often do you have a tuna fish sandwich?

You have a little Dorito next to it, and you're eating them basically at the same time.

It's a good combo.

Yeah, that's me at Jersey Mike's.

But are you, are you having it?

Are you talking like the Doritos nacho cheese, or are you talking like a cool ranch?

I'm talking about Doritos nacho cheese, but assuming that it comes in a powder form, you could have like this, the spicy Thai, you could have the like all of the different flavors of Dorito.

The salt bird, the taco, the powder, and in powdered form, you carry it around little packets and you shake it on stuff.

That is a get played presents Doritos powder.

Look, look, I'm in.

I just feel like maybe my only issue is Doritos is going to be like, we don't get anything out of this.

Yeah, you, it just isn't.

You're not really an ad for us.

Attaching Doritos to your brand is way better for you.

We can just do this.

We don't use anywhere.

We can't set people on our end, actually.

Well, then maybe we, because they clearly haven't done it, even though they've been a brand for forever.

This is what we do.

Everyone knows it's Doritos powder, but it's just called

like make your food get played or something.

That's a terrible pitch, but it's like

level up your food.

Get seasoned.

Yeah.

Get seasoned.

And yeah, it's like the equivalent of, you know, when you get the Dr.

pepper ripoff that's called like Dr.

Star or Dr.

A Plus.

It's like, you know, it's clearly a pepper soda, but it's not the real thing.

You come up with

a

clearable approximation of nacho cheese.

Yeah.

This is what we should be doing.

We should just be doing rip-off sodas.

What are we doing?

People buy Dr.

Star.

It's, I think.

Watermelon Sprite.

Yeah.

That sounds good.

That sounds fucking good.

Let me tell you guys.

I hate watermelon, and I know that that's a good combo.

And see, this is why I'm glad Heather's on board because she's not just pitching for her own self-interest.

She's pitching flavors that everyone's going to like.

They must have cucumber sprite overseas, right?

I'm sure that's been done.

They've got sprite plus p now

sprite plus p

yeah haven't you seen the ads well maybe that's the the one near my house is that somebody has crossed out the the t and just wrote p that's a good joke

wish i thought of it i'm fucking furious

because it looks

it looks like pit it does sprite plus tea is pretty good i was a little bummed that it wasn't caffeinated yeah that is a little little bit of a letdown.

Although, how much caffeine do I need?

I mean, not any, but can you imagine?

I know.

You're nice and refreshed from a sprite, and then you got a little zip because you got a little caffeine, baby.

That would be a little bit of a differentiator for it because it's, you know, it's the all the sprites are caffeine-free.

So, if like, hey, there's one, there's one sprite varietal that's got a little bit of a caffeine kick, that would be nice.

I got this to say, maybe, about sprite, and maybe this is going to be controversial.

I don't know.

I think all the sprites are good.

All the sprites are good.

I kind of think maybe all the sprites are good.

Watermelon sprite.

Watermelon sounds good.

I mean, yeah,

I'm trying to think of a bad one.

That's a little tougher.

Banana sprite.

Because, like, you don't really get refreshed from banana.

Yeah, how many banana beverages are there?

I guess, I guess, you can have like a banana in a smoothie.

Yeah, it's kind of a thicker drink.

Right.

In Japan, they got banana milk at the 7-Eleven, and it is so fucking good.

It's

milk is thick, though.

And you're not getting refreshed from milk.

Refreshing banana sprays.

Something about it sounds colder.

Yeah.

Like a banana.

Ice cold.

We can't go down this road.

I was about to say, banana is colder than milk.

We're in trouble.

You're in trouble.

This is the video game podcast.

We're just in trouble.

And it's like we're doing

banana is colder than milk.

But you kind of agree, right?

No, what?

What are you talking about?

Banana is definitely warmer than milk.

Banana is a member of a room temp.

You're keeping your bananas in the water.

As as a flavor.

I kind of get what you're saying.

I kind of get what you're saying.

And the same, like, kind of like the like talking about like the temperature of light almost, a cooler light versus a warmer light.

It's like kind of a cooler flavor.

I get that idea.

Okay, thank you.

Because

milk is a warm flavor.

Like plain milk is a warm flavor.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Strawberry is a cold flavor.

Banana is slightly colder than milk.

Just to remind the audience, today's topic is triforce of Title.

So if you thought we lost it,

we're still, we know exactly where we're headed.

That's right.

And it's straight for the wall in a terrible wreck.

Running full speed.

RC, our producer, Rochelle Chen Ranch, do you,

do you, you're talking drinks.

I feel like you mentioned one that you're a fan of earlier.

We were talking about previous, before the pod started, something you were sipping on.

I know you like the Nojito, which is the spin drift flavor.

Yeah, and then we were talking about the guava, the island punch, the island, yes, island punch flavor, spin drift.

That's a lot of fun.

That's look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say more about it.

Spin drift, if you're listening, we'll do the ads.

We'll do them.

What's a spin drift?

Spin drift.

I mean, it's a delicious, refreshing, sparkling water.

Oh, it's that is that that thing over there?

Yeah, it's like a La Croix with a little, but it's actually got fruit juice in it.

It's got fruit juice in it.

It's really good.

But this one, the island punch one is,

I've been calling it the summer drink.

Okay.

And I think it's the summer drink.

It might be the summer drink.

Ranch, your initials, RC.

It's a,

there's an RC cola, Royal Crown Cola.

Have you ever had that?

I've never had it, but I have heard of it.

I'm so glad we finally got to this.

Has Ranch ever had RC?

Initials are RC.

Have you had RC cola?

It's a natural question.

Yeah, if there was an HC cola, I'd try it.

There should be.

It could be.

It could be our brand.

Hi-C, I guess, is

Hi-C is, but definitely Jason.

We had Royal Crown because my dad liked it and it was cheaper.

We had RC Cola in the house as a kid, and I did develop a fondness for it.

Not bad.

Still exists?

Don't worry, Ranch.

We'll get you an RC.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

We'll get you.

We'll get you sipping an RC and note.

And I bet you'll be drinking it and you'll be like, I do wish this was vanilla.

And that would have been a place for us for our powder packet.

And I know that I remember the origin of your nickname being from a dream, right?

So a friend had a dream that your nickname was ranch and then it stuck.

How do you feel about it?

I don't know if this has ever come up.

Yeah.

How do you feel about ranch, the dipping sauce?

I think we have discussed this.

I like it.

It's good.

Yeah, it is good.

I have no qualms with it.

Do you know that in Holland,

cool ranch Doritos are not called cool ranch because they have no concept of what ranch flavoring is?

Right.

So they're called cool American.

It's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

It may be the most proud to be an American that I am.

The other countries don't have a concept of this flavor.

This shit's ours.

Maybe USA.

USA.

I've seen that before.

I feel like there's a redded image I've seen is like the American section of a UK grocery store.

And it's all just the worst shit imaginable.

It's like Pop-Tarts, Twinkies,

fucking chocolate syrup.

Yeah, all my favorite foods.

Velveeta.

Have you had a Pop-Tart in recent memory?

I have, but for content.

Oh, yeah.

Man, I loved it.

I had a Pop-Tart not that long ago.

Which one did you have?

It was like the Raspberry Frosting one.

That's like a...

The Blue Raspberry one?

No, just like regular Raspberry.

You got to track down the Blue Raspberry.

It's a promotional tie-in with a Fantastic Four movie.

But yeah, you got to give that a go.

They're a lot of fun.

They've got like

laser etchings.

I mean, the technical, it's not that sophisticated, but they've got like art of the Fantastic Four on the frosting.

Can you imagine them using a laser on the Pop-Tart?

They might use a laser.

I don't know how they do it.

You know, I wonder if there is a sugar-free Pop-Tart.

Nah,

I would assume that they would

come around the corner on that tech because why not?

Maybe not by Pop-Tart.

Yeah, it is good technology.

Maybe not by Pop-Tart, but I bet there's another brand that's doing like a Pop-Tart type thing that's like a protein-loaded, sugar-free dough.

Finally, you're doing sugar-free jams, and it's like, yeah, because fruit is already sweet.

Yes.

I don't need sugar in my jam.

So I can have peanut butter and jelly again.

It's the best.

Oh, great.

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I, Matt.

I got the undies.

And I loves them.

Cause guess what?

The The old undies, I gone back to them one time in a moment of weakness, right?

Laundry Day.

All my meundies are in the freaking wash.

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What are we talking about?

We're talking, it's Triforce of Titles this week.

We all know this.

Yeah, it's the Triforce of Game titles.

We're talking about some of

our favorite titles, irrespective of their connection to the actual game's content.

Resident Evil Merchant, thank you so much for barging in there.

You know, I typically cue you up.

I got somewhere to be.

I feel like you can just

in a play and they're not listening to the other actors.

I was listening.

I just know that they have to say this next.

Tick, tick, tuck, dunk.

I gotta go.

I got somewhere to be.

What are you talking to?

Yeah, yeah.

What are you doing?

I'm seeing Jurassic World Rebirth.

Oh, how about that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got a friend in it.

You have a friend in the movie?

Yeah.

An actor?

No, one of the dinosaurs.

Well, I mean, so an actor.

It is a dinosaur actor.

What?

No, no, no, no, no.

No, it's...

What?

No, no.

So the dinosaur didn't know they were in a movie?

No animal knows they're in a movie.

That's a good point, honestly.

No animal has ever acted.

You watch Airbod and you're like, that dog doesn't know what the fuck is it?

No, it doesn't have no concept.

The dog from Anatomy of a Fall is one of the greatest actors I've ever seen.

That is a good dog.

That's a sad dog.

That is a sad dog.

Oh, that's a good movie.

That's really,

I think.

I don't want to spoil it.

I don't spoil it.

He doesn't know he's in a movie, though.

I guess that's fair.

The dog.

What, the actors?

The dog.

No, the dog doesn't know what he's doing.

Yeah.

No.

What if the dog, instead of doing what he did in the movie, just like licked his asshole?

Well, I mean, he might have during some takes.

They just didn't use those.

I'd like to see the real asshole take of an animal movie.

I just asked it like it's like a really serious movie, and then it just comes over to this dog, and he's just going to town on his ass.

Yeah, I'd like to see it.

The old dog asshole kind of Manchester menace team.

Now, what are you guys playing?

I have a question for you real quick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're friends with None of the Dinosaurs.

We can all agree the dinosaurs in these movies are computer generated.

What?

Yeah, I imagine they're largely computer generated, but

I think there is some practical stuff that you maybe don't even sense.

I don't think you understand how you okay,

Matt.

I hate to break this to you.

Yeah.

I was once computer generated.

This is what I was going to ask.

I was going to ask, so wait, because because you're from a video game.

Yeah.

Are you computer generated?

No, I'm real.

You're real now.

Yeah, it's Roger Rabbit rules.

Okay.

It's much like the process that brought qbert to life in pixels yeah he got it he had to get fucked alive he turned in yes he turned into a there was a physical incarnation in our world then was turned into a uh a a very uh a sexy uh like barbarian lady and then josh gad um impregnated her yeah well anyway so yeah all of us cg we all work on the same circuit except dinosaurs don't know they're working yeah why did they have to make qbert into the lady Like, couldn't they have just brought the lady to life from the game?

What lady?

Because I think it's

they just like the joke of Josh Gad fucks Qbert.

That's probably that old.

They probably worked backwards from there.

Yeah.

And maybe they were like, okay, well, then we have to then sort of like, who are they going to get?

He's not just going to fuck Qbert.

Yeah.

Like the, like, he has to, it has to be like a form that this character would be attracted to.

Who, like, in this, in this, in this, in, you know, who are they going to license for this?

I bet you Qbert was cheap enough.

They're like, he just turns into a hot lady.

Instead of being like, oh,

we're getting Laura Croft.

Is the implication dick in the nose?

Is that?

I was not familiar with any other orifice that Qbert may or may not have.

I just don't know how those are

what happens there.

And if this is...

Dick in the nose.

Is it a nose Cloaca, like one orifice that handles everything?

Is that what's going on?

Can you imagine if your nose...

Oh, God.

If your nose was your mouth, what's your ass to rush your dick?

I'm having a rough time today.

I was just about to say, do you imagine if you shit out of the same thing you smell with?

That'd be horrible.

Yeah.

It'd be a fucking nightmare.

I'm glad you stopped yourself from saying that.

Those are.

Yeah, you still said it.

My brain is bad today.

I don't know what's going on.

I'm scared.

When his anatomy, I mean, like, he's turned into a sexy lady that Josh Gadd is horny for.

When that happens.

And he fucks it again.

He turns into this high fantasy lady.

Yeah.

Well, no,

I don't think he previously fucked Qbert.

I don't think so.

I thought he

was fucked lady in Cubert.

He fucked Qbert in hot lady form.

Yeah, I think that's what's going on.

Oh, I thought he fucked Hubert, and that's what made her into a lady.

But he stayed, but he saved.

He saved.

That's kind of an insane thing to think about, because I think you were here when we watched the movie.

I must have been distracted.

I thought that was the story they were telling.

You were looking at your phone.

Probably.

Why is it wet?

It's like...

It's like Princess and the Frog Rules.

That's what I said.

That's what I said.

I did.

I let it.

Put the dick in.

I let him become a lady.

It's so funny that it's like the only part of the movie I have a problem with.

The rest of it is fine to me.

Honestly, a good, good film.

They could have done a, I think

there was enough meat on the bone that they could have gone back for a sequel, I think.

They really could have mined that IP.

You know, speaking of IP, Resident Evil Merchant, your game, your source material has some great titles.

Resident Evil in

English, and then in Japan, Biohazard.

Yeah.

Yeah, Biohazard.

And I forget which territories have Biohazards and which territories have Resident Evil, but they're both quite evocative.

I was in the new one.

It's like Resident Revil,

but the V is like a number.

I think it's Resident Evil Requiem, and the Q is a nine.

Whatever.

You're away after I have fired.

I just, I don't know, I know nothing about that series anymore.

No, it's okay.

You're better than that.

Yeah.

Okay.

You were in the most notable and acclaimed individual.

Thank you.

I think that's true.

You can hang your hat on that.

I do.

You ever talk to that big lady?

Big lady?

You think if you fuck her, she turned into a Qbert?

Jesus.

So it's sort of reversed?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Do you ever?

No.

Okay.

Nick Walker, what are you playing?

Resident Evil Merchant, thank you so much for asking what I'm playing.

You know, I don't have something super topical, but I'm fine to tee off here because we're just fucking around anyway.

So in terms of what I'm playing, I picked up a puzzle book by

a Slovenian game designer named Blaz Urban Grosser.

I apologize for butchering name.

Mostly, this designer mostly makes analog games in print.

And this was a recommendation by a friend of the show, past guest, Eva Anderson.

There's also a version on Steam that was released in December called Lock Digital, which I've been messing around with because I have the physical book.

But I don't want to muss up this thing.

Oh, why?

Because it's just such a nice little piece

of art here.

So it's basically like the size of three by five note cards.

And it's,

a spiral bound for easy

flipping here and for laying flat.

But I'll circulate this and you can see what it is.

Basically,

it's a

and just to talk about this, the lock digital real quick, which is the Steam version.

It does have some nice simple aesthetics and is just a really good translation of the way the puzzles are, but it's presented, you know, with just a little bit more bells and whistles.

It is the slim volume of paper and it's this charming, challenging word puzzle game where you're solving grid-based

word

puzzles in an invented language.

And it's one of those things where it's like, so you'll see if you start from the beginning, and actually I can go back to that when it comes back my way.

But if you start from the beginning, it's like, it just sort of teaches you some very simple rules in terms of how it works.

You're filling in certain letters and then blank spaces get get shaded in and that sort of leads to

that just keeps getting heightened and progressed.

Can I read the introduction?

Yeah, go for it.

Do you pronounce it Lok?

I've heard it called Locke.

Locke are a fresh new kind of living beings that spawned in the middle of a vast, incomprehensible world.

Help them understand their surroundings and guide them toward expansion of their civilization.

This book consists of handcrafted puzzles to solve.

Besides solving puzzles, you're also required to figure out most most of the rules by yourself.

You'll need a pencil and an eraser.

You can also cover the pages with transparent plastic sheet that's included and draw on it with a dry erase marker.

That's cool.

Yeah, and I do have the plastic sheet, but I just, I don't have a dry erase marker, so I've not gotten that direction.

But I will say this.

I really like like just like it being just such a fundamental game design.

I read this book a while back, A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Rafe Coaster is the author.

And its thesis is basically that game design is an act of teaching and then allowing the player to apply that knowledge.

And you think of any game you've played, like it's like, you know what, inside, which we covered in the podcast, is a really good example.

You're like, hey, here's a new, here's a mechanic.

This is how this works.

Take this to

its logical conclusion.

Okay, that section is done.

Now here's a new mechanic.

This is how this works.

You know, you sort of are,

or Super Mario Brothers level 1-1, of course, is just such like, here, we're just going to teach you how everything works.

And then you're going to apply it throughout the game.

This is the same sort of thing.

You're just like being taught these rules and then as it progresses,

yes, you can pick up new rules either from being told what they are, but like, yes, a lot of it is coming from inference because it is intentionally obtuse, but that's part of the fun.

And I don't know, it just, it's, I really like it.

And it's also made me want to get more into like more analog designs, more stuff that's on paper.

I used to have this magazine I got as a kid.

I think it was just called Games.

And it was all like, it had like word searches and crosswords, but it also had things like this, which were just sort of like a little bit more arcane, a little bit more

invented, you know, and not these off-the-shelf designs.

They were a little bit more bespoke.

And then also things like lateral thinking puzzles and visual puzzles.

And I don't know.

It's just kind of fun to work with it, work this shit out in paper in the same way, solo, in the same way it is to like play a physical card game or play a tabletop RPG.

So yeah, that's what I've been playing.

So is the physical book the same thing that's on stage?

It's the exact same design.

It's just like a basic

like a direct translation of it.

It's really neat.

Yeah, it is really, really rad.

Because it also feels like a design document for the game.

Yeah, that's what's cool about it.

Because there's not, I mean, I can't think of another video game that could be printed and put in a book and you would get the same experience out of it.

That's really unique.

But I think a lot of games could be that.

I mean, like, it's like, you know,

visual novels a lot of times are basically just choose your own adventure books, right?

Like there's a print execution of something like,

you know,

How to Fool Boyfriend or something that we've covered.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's like, it's like that,

I think there are ways to render designs in this very basic way.

And again, that's just, that's just kind of what I, what I admire about it.

I know that there's an Elden Ring

board game.

Okay.

I don't know how it functions or what it even looks like to play it, but that idea is scary to me.

A game that's like hard to a board, because board games are already the level of entry for some board games is already pretty difficult because you got to make sure everyone's paying attention and understands the rules and stuff.

Now it's a game that's like impossible to play.

Yeah.

Sounds kind of crazy.

I'll have to look into it, though.

Yeah, it's pretty neat.

I mean, one of the Larian games, I think it's Divinity Original Sin 2 as a tabletop version, too.

And I'm just kind of like, I like, kind of, I don't know if I'd ever actually get into it, but I'm like just kind of curious about

how it works.

When I was a child,

my grandmother had the Pac-Man board game, which was a board game that was like, imagine two boards stuck on top of each other, so it's got a thickness to it.

And then there are drilled into the top board lots of holes.

So there are divots in

the board.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And then like a cribbage board or something.

I don't know what that is, but sure.

And then you would put marbles in each of those divots.

So the entire board was a huge stat, like lines and lines of marbles, like the maze of Pac-Man.

And then your player token was a big Pac-Man with a hole in the bottom of it.

And every time you would move, you would stomp onto each of the marbles and eat the marbles that would get stuffed into your Pac-Man.

The problem is the action of stomping on the board would sometimes unsettle all of the marbles on the board.

Oh, so yeah, if you're slamming it too hard, then the whole board's fucked up.

Yeah, yeah.

That's really funny.

Yeah, it was not an enjoyable game to play.

And you have to make your own, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Yeah, just like that.

That's what we did.

Matt, what are you playing?

I'm playing three games right now.

Three?

Jesus Christ.

It's tough.

I'm having a hard time.

I'm having a hard time.

Who's doing this to you?

Society, certainly.

Wow.

It's all out of my, you know,

I can't be responsible for this.

I'm still chipping away at Hollow Knight.

I've abandoned

what I was previously doing in favor of going back to the earlier parts of the map and finding new places to traverse with my new abilities.

And that has now gained me an additional mask.

So instead of six masks, I now have seven on my way to an eighth.

And I've also collected other

shoot, what are they called ranch when you get like an item that's like a that's like a it's almost like they're almost like boons kind of but they have a name for it in the um charms

yeah charms so you get these different charms

and so I have some I have some really boss ones right now I have this one that like

when you get attacked thorns like come out of you and that does like a lot of damage to

to the to the enemies.

I love the concept of thorns in general.

I just remember in cat like i the first time i really clocked with them was in diablo 2 when you could have like a thorns aura as a paladin yeah and it but they they nerfed it but at first it was like so op it was like 1700 like damage to the enemies based on what they gave you and so you could just like tank your way and and just kind of vampire survivors your way through uh through dungeons thorns are really cool because they're as intimidating as like they look very intimidating and they also actually do hurt So, like, uh, there is something about them that is, you're like, I already know not to mess with this.

They're too crazy.

It also, for me, it just evokes Christ, which I like.

I'm just thinking,

we're always just thinking about Christ.

I'm more thinking about him.

You just wish he was evoked more in a game.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know what?

It shouldn't have happened.

They shouldn't have done that to him.

No, yeah.

Messed up.

But I like, I, no,

I think it's cool conceptually, the idea of like, I'm going to take damage, but you're going to take damage in return.

Like, that's like, I don't don't know.

It's just, it's just an interesting give and take.

What about, like, the ability to, like,

I feel like this might be like a druid class type thing where you could have, like, this sort of like plant druid that then has, like, tentacle thorns.

That's pretty fucking scary.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of the, the, if druids have thorns.

Maybe they do.

Maybe it's, maybe it's, like, a new kind that I just made up.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So I'm doing, I'm doing that.

I'm working my way back toward where I was going, but I, I, I still don't think I have enough masks to.

How many masks did you end up with, Ranch?

Do you know?

I think

eight, but then you can.

There's also charms eventually that

attempt the temporary.

I've got the temporary ones.

I've got some of these temporary ones too.

I'm afraid to use them because they're temporary.

Then you have to go buy them again.

And I feel like sometimes,

I mean, geos are everywhere, but sometimes you could lose enough geos that then it's like I like sometimes you gotta grind for geos, which is like the currency within the game okay uh I'm playing Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 plus 4 and I I I I I bought the switch 2 version okay and my my thought there was

just for portability's sake

it runs perfectly wow wow 4k 60 frames per second on switch 2 docked and in handheld wow it's fucking gorgeous and it's great and it's a lot of fun and I felt like I got really good at the game again when I was playing one OnePlus 2.

And I'll occasionally still dip back into OnePlus 2

remake.

But like,

I did not play Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 very much when I was a kid.

3 was probably the one I spent the most time with.

So it's exciting to see these levels again.

But I'm like having to relearn.

It's almost like relearning the game, even though I have the muscle memory of playing the game, but like the maps are like, I'm relearning the maps again.

So

I'm basically kind of starting at zero again, and I feel like I'm bad at the game.

But I'm having a lot of fun with it.

And I know there's a lot of talk of in Tony Hawks Proskater 4.

This remake sort of, I mean, not sort of,

did away with what made Tony Hawks Prosker 4 very unique was that it had an open world structure.

And instead of the missions that you get at the two-minute start of the clock,

they were just around the area.

And you go up to skaters and things and get missions from them.

That's not in this at all.

Instead, they've adopted the two-minute timer structure.

But the maps are still pretty big, so you can increase the time limit.

You can increase it up to like an hour, I think.

Oh, wow.

And then just kind of go around the map and still do the challenges the way you would do them.

But I haven't gotten into four yet.

So I'm still playing three.

So I'll see how that's going.

But I think they really nailed it.

It's a really, really great package and it's a lot of fun.

And some great new songs in there, too.

And I like, I like, I like making a character that kind of looks looks like you in any game.

That's the fucking best.

It's so fun.

Yeah.

I mean, I've been able to do that my whole life.

Just like, you know, oh, like, I like when there's, especially when there's a lot of clothing options, you can sort of like, this is kind of what I would wear.

Yeah.

Right.

That's like, that's, that's the best.

That's so much fun.

Um, and I'm playing, I'm playing Death Training 2 still.

And

it's just fucking nuts.

I was saying to, I said this in the group chat.

I was in a cutscene and some characters that are new to the series,

Rainy and Tomorrow, were having like a little conversation.

They were kind of like brushing each other's hair.

And my wife comes in and goes, so this is what you're doing?

And it's,

those two characters are so great.

I really, really love Rainy.

I think I've seen, I've experienced in-game all the things that I've seen of the game.

Oh, wow, great.

Uh, whether that be in like trailers or in the at the event that we went to.

Yep.

Um, so I'm so now everything else beyond this point is like new information to me, which is very exciting.

Um,

and I'm still just having a lot of fun making deliveries.

I'm like so slow to move on to whatever the next thing is supposed to be.

Right.

Because I'm just like, okay, well, like, I'll just make a, oh man, there's a fucking

you get this,

you can get these upgrades to your vehicle to like the truck.

Yep.

One of them is like a machine gun and the other one is a

sticky gun.

So like when you're driving around, you can pick up, you don't have to get out to pick up lost cargo.

Yeah, you auto pick up and store in your pickup truck lost cargo.

Sometimes I'm not even doing, I'm just driving around.

I'm just like driving around, just being like, if I find something great,

great.

But if not, I'll just drive, baby.

And it's, uh, it's, it's, I've upgraded my batteries.

Yeah.

This,

they're

if they were trying to beat the allegations that it's a walking simulator, they kind of done it because I kind of only been driving.

Wow.

I kind of been driving the whole time.

Yep.

The car is good.

I usually don't like the cars.

I like the cars.

The cars, you know what?

I have one complaint about the car that I did voice and it didn't get a reaction from you guys in the chat.

It's okay.

Which was?

Wait, what?

I put this in the chat.

Nobody said anything about it.

And it's okay.

Wait, hold on.

Let me find it.

What was it?

This is weeks.

I mean, maybe not weeks ago.

This was like a week and a half ago.

What was it?

Just say it.

You should be able to honk the fucking horn in the truck.

You did say that.

Hold on.

Let me see when you sent this.

I didn't have a feeling about it.

I kind of feel like Nick will agree with me once he reads it again.

No, I'm looking at it.

I'm trying to look at it in context.

So here's the thing:

this is,

here's what I will say in our defense.

It was a tangent from another thing we were talking about.

Yeah.

And it's maybe too hot of an idea.

So, so it got Heather sent the link of a mysterious life form found on a ship that docked in Cleveland, which was about a glop of goo

that

was not damaged by a blowtorch.

And looks like tar.

And looks like tar from Death Stranding 2.

Ranch is clarification: it's literally something out of Death Stranding, a lot of black goo.

They call it tar in the game, and they don't destroy it, and it comes from the water, and that carries dead whales with it.

And Max says, I wish you could honk the horn of the truck when you drive.

Something that, to be fair, seems like a complaint I would always have no matter what.

Yeah.

But yeah, sometimes I'm like,

I'll be driving and I'll click in one of the sticks to be like, maybe this time it'll do it.

I'll just always be trying it.

Well, I'm just knowing it doesn't do it.

I feel like the way you honk in this game is, I'm Sam.

I'm Sam too.

But imagine you're driving around.

Don't be so serious.

Honk.

Honk.

That'd be so good if you could just honk.

Honking is really fun in video games because there's generally no consequences.

It would be funny to honk at a BT.

It'd be great.

Oh, I saw a, you know, how you get little notifications and stuff.

There was one that was like,

a courteous BT destroyed a car or something like that.

I was like, what does that?

Who's that for?

And my favorite one is,

my favorite little alert you get, I was saying, is

Sam's skills improved based on his experiences.

Yeah.

I'm like, great.

I love it.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's an all-time game so far.

This is an absolutely true story.

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Heather, what are you playing?

I've also only been playing Death Stranding 2.

It has been a light gaming week for me.

There was no Fortniting.

It was only Death Stranding 2 when I had the opportunity to sit down in front of my PlayStation 5 Pro.

I have not progressed the story that much.

I think I'm in chapter 6, maybe chapter 5.

I'm not even sure.

Because all I want to do is extend the roads and extend the monorails.

And I have extended the monorail to an area that

I have not, I don't even know when I'm going to unlock where I've extended the monorail from.

I don't know what.

Like,

I'm also seeing creatures that

I had not seen previously in this game.

Whoa.

Because all I do is drive to where the next monorail station is, find out how much stuff I need, drive all the way back

to town.

Because

also, there's no, I'm not linking anything.

I'm just setting up the monorail system for later use.

Yeah.

Same with the roads.

Building roads.

Looking for where the road station is, making sure, like I zoom out on the map.

I'm like, God, the road's got to go that direction.

Zoom in.

Um, what this also means is that I'm often fighting guys who are much, much stronger than the weapons that I have,

which is so much fun.

Yeah.

I'm on, you know, brutal difficulty, but there's a sniper rifle in the game, and very few things are more satisfying than sniping somebody in the face, and it knocks their armor off of their head.

And then they get freaked out, and you have a very small window of sniping them again before they alert their base.

Yeah.

And because these dudes

also, I don't know, Matt, if you, like, I went through an area of dudes that were like using drones on me.

And I was like, yeah, I had something like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because also I didn't know what it was.

It was just like an alert.

And I was like, oh, what's happening?

I don't know.

I don't recognize any of this HUD element.

No.

But I had to build the road through where

they were.

So I keep, I had to kill everybody.

Not kill.

I guess I'm tranquilizing everybody, though.

I do go up and kick everyone in the balls as I walk by.

It's so good.

Feels unnecessary.

Sometimes I will just like headshot one of them just to see if it doesn't do anything.

Yeah.

I've only killed one guy and it was on accident.

I ran him over with my car after I tranquilized him because I didn't really think it would do anything.

I'm betting I could kick somebody in the balls to death, but I haven't tried it.

That's how I hope to go.

Just like smiling ear to ear.

But that's all I've done is infrastructure in Death Stranding 2 because I'm also

nervous about the game being over.

And so I really want to just like slow play it as much as possible.

I have not gotten any time to play in Death Stranding 2, and I'm really disappointed about it because I've been looking forward to it and I've just gotten very busy.

And I've also, when I have limited chunks of time for gaming, I've either been doing like things like lock which are like you know easy to just jump in and out of um or Balatra which I am continuing to play obsessively and

I've gotten

just a Balatra update I've gotten gold stakes on a couple of decks now I think I'm gonna go

I was just like this is gonna take a while but I think I'm just gonna go for the achievement to get gold stakes on every deck because I'm just like why why the fuck not because I can generally complete one run in one session and then you know as you get towards

the, the, the thing I really like in, and, and roguelikes is, uh, roguelikes is when you have like there's, there's a threshold up to which where you can, you can complete each run.

Like basically, if you know how to play the game well enough, you can complete a run just by playing correctly and playing efficiently.

Like you just kind of get to a point where like I can guaranteed finish a run.

But then, you know, there's obviously a threshold, like the heat levels that you keep adding in in Hades where you either have to be super good or you just kind of have to hope RNG is on your side at a certain point.

And as you start to get it up to like purple stakes and above, the game just starts being actively unfair.

And you just have to hope you get like kind of the so like you can you can win

and people who are better at the game than me than the you know can can win more frequently, but like like sometimes things just kind of have to go right or you can play pretty much correctly and efficiently, but you can still completely

you know fuck up your run just because you didn't get the right cards.

Oh, speaking of card games, I have been playing Pokemon Card Game Pocket, which is fine.

But the person I want to shout out is my mom.

Wow.

My mom's been playing Pokemon in the Card Game Pocket.

She has no experience in card games.

And she's had to learn every, like all the concepts of how these games work.

And she is now in Ultra Ball 3 in this season's ranked

Pokemon.

She's also a free-to-play player.

She won't, and she does not, I don't think, knows how to spend money on a game.

Good.

That's good.

But,

but she's on her way to Master Ball for this season.

And I'm kind of really impressed.

Yeah,

it's cool that that's possible without spending money.

Yeah.

Like, that's, that's, I think, maybe then the mark of a good game.

Yep.

I installed a, I had, like, you know, when Super Mario Run was new, uh, I had that on my phone and I showed it to my nephew and he's like, oh, can I play?

And like, like, sure, yeah.

And somehow, like, immediately spent $10.

I was like, how did you you do that?

Uh, hey, uh, I, uh,

speaking of shouting people out, I want to shout out Ranch because you have been playing Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

I have.

What is your experience?

Like, it seems like the game really has its hooks in you.

The first 10 hours, I was so fucking confused.

But then I watched a couple of YouTube videos about how, like, the whole leveling up system works.

And yeah, now it's just super fun.

And I'm I'm like loving the story.

And the story is really good.

The combat is also really fun, too.

It's like you're doing enough.

Yeah.

Like it's like engaging enough, but you're not like, I'm constantly button mashing.

Yeah, it's like it's like the, it's, it's interesting to compare, contrast that with Final Fantasy VIII Rebirth, which I'm probably repeating something I said in the podcast before, but it, but it's like

they're two wildly different approaches towards making a turn-based system or a menu-based combat system more active.

And so you basically have the real-time with pause, Final Fantasy VII, Remake, Rebirth System, but you're still selecting menu options.

But then you have a pure turn-based system, but then it's got like a lot of interactivity

and timing-based enhancements to your attacks that you can do that make it feel very engaging.

I don't know.

I really love the combat system.

Another game, like Death Trying 2.

I just ran out of time to fucking play, but I really, really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

You're going to stick with it?

Yeah, the story so far is like pretty mind-blowing.

So is this a game?

The story is great.

Is this a game you're streaming or is this a a game just for you?

Just for me.

How about that?

I love it.

Yeah.

And you're playing it on the deck or were you playing it on?

Xbox on PC with the Xbox controller.

Oh, okay, great.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, it is on Game Pass.

Game Pass that Nick got for me.

That's right.

There we go.

Man,

Game Pass is good.

Wow, it sounds like we're really nice to rank.

Really, really nice to rank.

And we're going to let her try RC Cola.

That's actually really nice of her.

Ever since we started talking about RC Cola, I kind of wanted one.

Yeah, I was like, where can I track one down?

Is that a liquor store near the studio is going to have it?

I was like, I probably won't.

You got to go to Ralph's and we're going to have to get like a two-liter.

Yeah, and then you got to, then I got to get, I commit to a 12-pack of RC cola.

I don't need that much.

Do we fill out like a, can we just make Anya get it or something?

Hey, Anya, can we get RC cola for the office?

Can we get one thing of RC one time?

And then fucking

Chef Kevin's drinking it and we get all pissed off.

Somehow it'll be such a huge pain in the ass to try to get like RC Cola to the studio for a bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But

we'll say that,

I don't know, Rachel Bilson wants it or something.

Do you have anything you're particularly responding to, like story-wise, character-wise, art-wise?

I think my favorite thing about the game is it's so beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's just like crazy looking.

And then, yeah, the story, lots of mystery.

I love it.

It's good.

And everyone's hot.

I guess it's a good thing.

It is a pretty horny game.

And this, you know, it's neither here nor there.

Somebody don't got no shoes on.

There is a barefoot lady, which I have no complaints about.

But

there's also this, there is an element of, you know, it's everyone's in their 30s.

It's fine.

Yeah.

You need to be people who are older.

I'm glad you're playing it because...

Just from a JRPG thing, it's just like, so often it's like a party of teenagers.

It's like 15 year olds and 17 year olds.

It's like, I don't know, it's kind of nice to be playing a game with some

grown-ups.

That's kind of what I like about Sam is that he's kind of just like an older guy.

Yeah, an older guy.

This is like me, just like alone and miserable.

Fuck, I got to do this fucking job.

So what's this game about?

It's a guy who does his job.

He's like really good.

It's a sad old man.

I'm glad you're playing it, Ranch, because I know that there are plenty of people listening to this show who are mad at us for not playing it because there's just too many games.

We did cover it.

We covered it a little bit.

We just bounced it.

We just didn't finish it.

We didn't cover it too much.

I do intend to finish it this year.

Yeah.

I just like, I don't, well, I don't fucking know, man.

I wish this was my only thing.

It's not my only thing.

I got other shit I'm doing.

If somebody would match the amount of money that I'm paid to work

and just let me play video games, I would just play video games and the podcast would be better for it.

It would just be better if some mysterious, you know, wealthy benefactor decided to finance our lives.

That'd be pretty great.

Let's say the Frito-Lay company was like, hey, we have this Dorito seasoning that we'd like to affix the get-played brand to, and that will be enough to finance your current lifestyles.

We don't need to live large.

I just need to pay my rent.

Yeah, I'll say this.

Because I know that these people with a lot of money, these billionaires, like to attach themselves to already controversial figures that are already wealthy and bad.

You have the opportunity to do something huge and go the other way and like attach yourself to good, nice people who just want to play video games and leave everybody alone.

Yeah, kind of zig where the other guys zag.

Why not?

Yeah, it's okay.

And if you've done this previously, perhaps maybe you were the aide to a certain political figure who then got mad at you and fired you.

You could, you could, you could bankroll us for a little while.

That's all right.

I don't know.

Get X.

Get Grokk.

Get Grokked.

So, yeah,

I guess there's a line from where we take the money.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

I'd have to say, I was just kidding.

I would never.

Hey, let's talk about our triforce of titles.

We're going to have triforces of power, wisdom, and courage.

We're each going to build our individual triforces.

We're each going to select three game titles that we think fit these labels.

Just to go through some past Triforces that we've done when we've done this format: NPCs, Triforce of NPCs, Weapons, Triforce of Mounts, Triforce of Sound Effects, Triforce of Cubes, Triforce of Trilogies.

I also feel like I couldn't find in my notes, but we did Triforce of Luigi's at some point.

We did Triforces of Luigi's, which was not confusing to anybody.

I do just want to point out, too, I was looking at my notes on my phone here and I see

that

Rochelle loved my message that I wish you could honk the horn

of the truck when you drive and then replied to it, ha ha.

During the record?

Yeah.

So I do feel vindicated in this way.

Thank you, Ranch.

Who would like to start?

Should we start in a more abstract, like a more general sense?

Like what makes a good title?

What do we like about title?

Like, because for me,

I think this partly came from so many titles are so fucking bad.

Yes.

And they're just sort of like,

there's an unnecessary subtitle.

There's too much verbiage.

It sounds generic.

It doesn't evoke anything.

It doesn't make me understand what the game is about.

Like, it's just a...

There's a word salad issue with modern game titles.

Yeah.

They kind of almost overthink it into sounding like nothing.

I feel like the jumping off point for this last week was Intergalactic the Heretic Prophet.

That's just like a wrestling nonsense.

And, you know, but the thing is,

with anything, this is true with bands as well.

And I think I heard it probably first when doing improv on like Herald Night at UCV or something.

Because you have so much agony over what you should be called, like what your name should be,

the name of your improv team or something, or the name of your band or whatever.

And nobody cares about the name.

The name doesn't sound bad if you're good.

I was on an improv team with Nick Weiger for many years.

And when we first formed, there was some discussion about what our name should be.

I was a real,

real proponent of the name a bank.

Yeah, I really liked a bank.

Because

I wanted us to be announced with, ladies and gentlemen, a bank.

Hey, everyone.

We're a bank.

We got a one-word suggestion.

But we ended up being called Last Day of School.

Yeah.

Which was

cheerful.

But a good name.

And a little bit of trivia about

that

show.

We had a Facebook page.

Yes.

And it was at the height of Facebook.

So

everybody liked.

Last day of school.

We literally had millions of likes.

Millions and like so many.

Like 7,500 million likes because who doesn't like the concept of the last day of school yeah and so it'd be like you know like we post like a group photo and then there would be like a kid commenting like a literal sixth grader like math sucks

but we'd also get like who are these assholes

uh years and years ago i remember on the um on the lost subreddit for the TV show Lost.

Okay.

I remember being subscribed to it and somebody posting

help finding wedding band in this location.

And everyone's like, oh no, I'm so sorry.

This is for a TV show.

And then the person was just like, God damn it.

Fucking

fucking TV.

We thought it was just a lost and found from the world.

I have my own list and we'll get to it.

And I feel like a lot of my titles, my pics are either like very simple or

like a little bit uh you know ornate but poetic you know what i mean it's like it's like almost like like it's it's almost like you want to be at one of two poles

yeah because like gosh i mean not what i don't want to discuss them too much before saying them i guess but yeah because sometimes you get the ones like we've mentioned already or you get some there's just some really really great ones that just really sell you on exactly what the experience is going to be.

And I think that, I don't know, like maybe more so than any medium you have an opportunity to do something like like that with a video game because like, I mean, I guess Breaking Bad is like a cool title.

You understand what the show is about if you hear the name of, you know, of the show.

Yeah.

And just to be clear on this one,

at least my perspective, I'm picking titles separated from the content of the game.

Like I like, like, what does the title say?

And obviously, you're going to like certain games more.

And you're going to, like, if you like a game, you're going to like its title more by association.

But I'm trying to like create some sort of of separation in my brain and just like talk about the title in and of itself and what it accomplishes.

Yes.

All right, let's start with Triforce of Power.

Anyone want to start?

I'll go.

Wow.

I'm going to blow up my note app here.

Oh, great.

I didn't recognize my fucking face.

God damn it.

Fuck.

Ranch, let's head it around all this.

It's going to be really embarrassing.

Fucking madness.

This is on the top.

Fucking damn it.

Are you kidding me?

It's right.

Michelle just fucking his phone and didn't recognize my fucking face.

You just mean you'll just turn your fucking phone on.

I think you can turn the face.

The face recognition off.

Again, Ranch, let's just edit all this out.

It's making Matt look really bad.

Right now, it's my social security number.

You looking at?

For my Triforce of Power.

And Ranch, cut all this.

For my Triforce of Power,

I'm picking a game that...

Or picking a title, rather, of a game that I actually have not ever played.

Wow.

But the title to me evokes power because it's so strong.

It's a strong title.

It's an intriguing title.

Okay.

You hear these five words and you're sort of like, oh, interesting.

I wonder what's going on there.

It sounds like a really cool video game.

Okay.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

I love Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

I think it's a

great game.

I mean, that's like, that sold me a PlayStation 1, that, and

Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil.

But like, that was, I I think, the second game I ever got for my PlayStation 1 was Castlevania Symphony Night.

Fantastic game and all-time Metroidvania.

And basically, the reason Metroidvania exists as a genre is because that one,

that's the first Castlevania that kind of follows that format and comes on the heels of Metroid and Super Metroid.

Symphony of the Night is an awesome subtitle.

It's really good.

Castlevania also sounds really cool.

And I also like that the Japanese title is just Dracula.

That That is really good.

Yeah.

I think this is a good idea.

Basically, what I'm saying is a longwooded way of saying, I think this is a good pick.

I was really nervous that you were going to dislike it for some reason.

No, no, no.

I think it's great.

It did seem like you were setting up.

Yeah.

That being said, which is a nick.

Yeah.

Well, because,

no,

that being said would be it's tough to pick from among the Castlevanias because you've also got like, you know, like Aria of Sorrow.

It's also very cool.

You've got a,

what's the DS one?

Is it

Dawn of Sorrow?

Dawn of Sorrow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just like it's.

I got to get into Castlevania.

I love all the titles of these games.

Good franchise.

Good franchise.

Yeah.

Symphony of the Night.

Excellent game.

I got to do it.

Harmony of Dissonance.

What's the...

I'm trying to.

Yeah, that is pretty good.

Dissonance is good.

Rondo of Blood.

Rondo of Blood is really funny.

But see, but you take these subtitles.

I feel like I have a theory about the subtitles with this franchise.

These subtitles only work attached to Castlevania.

If you take any of these and put it on another game, it's dog shit for some reason.

Halo, Aria, of Sorrow.

Well, that one might work.

It just, yeah,

like

Symphony of the Night is so, there's something about it that really only works with Castlevania.

It's interesting to look at the whole timeline of Castlevania's because they use the

colon and the subtitles so often.

From the second entry, Castlevania 2, Simon's Quest, Castlevania 3, Dracula's Curse.

There's also a Castlevania 2 Belmont's Revenge, which I think was the Game Boy version.

Yes, that was the Game Boy version.

But then, yeah, all the ones that ones we talked about, Symphony of the Night, Legacy of Darkness, Circle of the Moon, Really a Game Boy Advanced Game, Harmony of Dissonance, Ari of Sorrow, Lament of Innocence.

But then there's also Super Castlevania 4.

Do you think in the territories where Castlevania is called Dracula, the subtitle is Dracula, Castlevania's Quest?

Yeah, that's probably the call they make.

They just replace the Dracula with Castlevania there.

The Simon with Castlevania.

That's probably what they do, Matt.

Good call.

What is the Japanese title of Super Castlevania for?

Son of Super Dracula 4.

Akumajo Dracula.

Fuck, that's cool.

That's really cool.

It's pretty good.

Great pick, Matt.

What's your first pick for Triforce of Power?

Well, I took this task as a call to

celebrate titles that could only be in video games.

Like,

if it could sound like a movie, then to me, that doesn't make it powerful

because it could be a movie.

Like, you don't hear it and you think video game.

So, for me, I'm really, I'm really leaning on

video game sounding titles.

And for me, the game that most represents power

is a fighting game.

Um, and the title is Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boroto.

Oh, shit.

Pretty good.

Um, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto is the fourth game in the Ninja Storm franchise, which is a Naruto fighting game.

Shippudan is the

grown-up version of Naruto.

It's like the second major arc of Naruto because you have Naruto and then he came back as Naruto Shippudan.

So Naruto Shippuden is already effectively a subtitle.

Ultimate Ninja Storm subtitle.

Yeah.

Four subtitle.

Road to Boruto subtitle.

So this, to me, is a powerful.

It's like you hear that and you're like, that can't be anything but a video game.

Yeah, it's an assault because every other word, you're sort of like, it's done.

Nope.

And that to me, yeah, that to me is representative of what

power is in a title.

It's just a barrage of words that can only mean video game.

Nick, what's yours?

They say, you know, you shouldn't put a hat on a hat, but then if you add like four more hats, it starts to work out.

This has been reminding me of maybe my favorite video game title of any game.

Yeah.

Peter Jackson's King Kong, the official game of the movie.

Well, then, Matt, you're going to love the rest of my list.

What is more powerful

than a straight-on declaration?

Holy.

Than a statement of purpose, than a full-on thesis.

Oh, man.

And for me, that comes from a PlayStation 1 game,

a puzzle game.

Oh.

Where you play a sentient domino.

The title is No One Can Stop Mr.

Domino, Exclamation Point.

Holy shit.

The Japanese title, also very powerful, Do Not Stop Domino Kun.

Wow, cool.

No one can stop this guy.

That's pretty good.

No one can stop Mr.

Domino.

And here's the thing.

How do you respond to that?

I was like, hey, man, I believe you.

I'm not even going to try.

But also, dominoes, I feel like.

famously stopped all the time.

They fall in one direction and like, that's it.

But you could think of the unrelenting momentum of a chain of dominoes and the domino effect, as we, as we call it.

Who do you think was the first person to do that?

Because every time I see a bunch of dominoes falling, I have to stop and watch it all the way through.

I love it.

That's not their intended purpose either.

There's like a game called Dominoes that people play.

Yeah.

And someone was like, hey,

let's stand these some bitches up on end and see what happens when we tip one over.

Yeah.

And then I also, I love the sound.

It's a good sound.

It is a good sound.

Oh, man.

Man, have you seen the like ready-loaded dominoes that come on like a track?

And so you can tap them down and they go, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Then you can pick up the track and go, shoop, and they all stand up simultaneously.

And then you lay the track back down.

Yeah.

It's like speed dominoing for setups.

Yeah, I messed around with some of the, I like, it was, that was one of those weird things where like at my elementary school, they had those in like the tray of games when it for when it was rainy and we had to take recess indoors.

And I sort of remember messing around with those and being like, this isn't fun.

Cause you know, because like part of the fun is like actually setting it up.

And here you just sort of like, because it's so efficient, it feels like I'd rather be wet outside.

That's me?

Yeah.

Some rain freak.

What are you talking about?

Look, I love being in the rain.

I know.

I also, I actually know the dominoes you prefer.

Yeah.

Two mediums for $5.99.

In this economy, come on.

And man, it actually would be devastating to learn that they've raised the price.

I haven't checked.

I'm sure they must have, right?

Are they still $5.99 for a medium?

$5.99 for a medium.

But there's no way you can get a medium pizza for $5.99.

What are you talking about?

Speaking of, you can't get a cheeseburger for $5.99.

Man, I want to know.

The world is horrible.

High money is like $7.

No,

I want to know

how much a medium pizza at Domino's costs.

I'm looking it up right now.

Watch it be $13.

A criminal amount of money.

Okay.

Going to dominoes.com.

You don't have the app?

No, I don't.

No, I don't have the app.

It can even swipe a screen.

It's on the home page.

So are we going with a default?

Just a default medium.

Delivery or carryout?

Delivery.

Okay.

I'll do carryout to compare.

I can't.

I got to fill out all this shit.

I can't even look at the price.

I got you.

We're doing a medium hand-tossed.

We're doing no garlic crust seasoning.

All right.

I guess that's on by default.

And we'll just do a cheese.

Okay, add to order.

Normal bake, pie cut.

No extra cheese.

Let's just get a baseline here and we'll go to our cart.

If you guessed $13,

you went under $13.99.

This is.

Because we all know what I'm talking about.

They had the deal.

That was like two mediums for $5.99 each.

I don't have any idea about this deal, but I believe you.

I used to feed myself with this.

This is the deal now is two or more medium, three-topping pizzas.

I'm looking at coupon wizard,

but they're $10.99.

Everything's so fucked.

It's that's yeah.

It's, I mean, in the 90s,

McDonald's cheeseburgers, I think, were 99 cents.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe cheaper.

Yeah.

Man, everything's horrible.

It's pretty rough.

But you know what's not rough?

Game titles.

That's right.

Should we move on to another one?

Next up, Triforce of Wisdom.

Matt, you're up.

Okay.

So I did this one a little bit differently than the other ones.

Okay.

Because I think

while

for these,

I'm mostly thinking of singular titles.

Yes.

For this one in particular, I went with the franchise and the titles within the franchise.

And if that's not allowed, I'm kind of in trouble.

I think you make your own rules here.

So

here's why I picked

particular franchise for wisdom because these titles to me,

at the very least, Evoca.

I see what they did.

Okay.

You have to think about it a little bit.

Yeah.

It's a little fun for everybody.

And the series that I'm choosing for the Triforce of Wisdom, the Ratchet and Clank series.

Okay.

Some of the titles being Rift Apart,

Up Your Arsenal,

Going Commando,

Size matters, and quest for booty.

Kind of wisdom in the sense of being like wise asses.

Yeah,

kind of being a little cheeky.

A little cheeky, yeah.

Being a little uh

okay, I see what they do.

Yeah, I get that.

When you're a kid, my age, well, when I was a kid, when these games were coming out, and then even the most recent one,

Rift Apart, I'm sort of like, I see what they did.

It's pretty funny.

It's a lot of buttons.

Is Rift Apart a butt pun?

I think it's fart, like ripped a fart.

Wait, really?

I think so.

I finished that game.

I never put that together.

Rift apart is supposed to be ripped a fart.

Yeah, I think so.

I don't believe you.

Is that your interpretation or did you just read that somewhere?

No, I feel like I talked about it with Jordan.

Jordan Morris.

I think we talked about it.

Rift apart is ripped a fart.

Yeah.

I don't know if I care for that.

Well, it's a little too rude.

Yeah, I mean, the other ones are a little bit more subtle, you know.

Quest for Booty is subtle.

That one is like a character's name is Booty.

I'm looking for it.

Yep, yep.

But I think those are all really funny.

And like, I don't know.

I just like those games.

And it's, it's, I thought one of these Triforce pieces could belong to an entire franchise.

And that's a, I feel comfortable with that one.

And that was Wisdom?

That was Wisdom.

Ratchet and Clank, also like a great title in and of itself.

Oh, yeah.

The Buddies.

Yeah.

For Wisdom, I went with a game title that requires knowledge.

It requires thinking.

It requires you to sit down and be like, what is this?

And that is near replicant

version 1.22474487139.

Wow.

Again, that's near replicant version, near replicant ver

period.

1.22474487139.

That's the official title of this game.

Now, what do those numbers mean?

Well, it's an approximation of the square root of 1.5.

Whoa.

So wisdom is required to even understand the title of this Near Replicant game.

Wow.

What does that mean?

In the context of Near Replicant?

I don't know.

I haven't played enough of it.

Is it like it's like a mid-entry between a first and second game?

It could be.

I don't know anything about those games.

Yeah, I never played them.

I have a model kit for one of them, but I have not.

I need to sit down and really give some time to Near Replicant.

I keep being told it would be one of my favorite series.

And it certainly has an extremely passionate fan base.

So

that is my title for wisdom.

My entry for wisdom.

Again, if someone wants to give us money to just play video games and then we can cover all this stuff, we can dig into it.

We can stop doing our other things.

We can just focus on this.

But right now, if you're slapping your leg and you're saying, Heather hasn't played Near Replicant yet, I'm slapping with you.

It's kind of on you, actually.

It's actually your fault.

Yeah.

In many ways.

Stop slapping your leg.

You're on a horse.

Yeah, yeah.

Stop.

It's going to go faster and faster.

I'm not doing gambling ads by choice.

I'm doing my boner pills ads on spec

just for fun.

I have a pick that is perhaps a little bit less fun than either of yours, but I just feel like it's such a great title.

And this is a franchise that all of us have played a ton of, and I think fits in nicely with wisdom.

Um,

and because there is this kind of a wisdom to these words just being paired together, and my understanding is that they, they're the, you know, the origin that's given to this title is somewhat,

you know, apocryphal, uh, but it

more came from it just kind of sounding sonorous, just like from the these words sounding nice together.

But these words are a great pair, and they're, they're, they're, you know, they're effective in terms of evoking what the franchise is and all the different ways it's spun out.

This is kind of

a straightforward no-brainer or one for me.

Final Fantasy, my pick for Triforce of Wisdom.

Very good.

The apocryphal story is that Sakaguchi, when he created Final Fantasy, it was like he'd been making some games he wasn't really passionate about.

And he's like,

this is my last

go.

If this one doesn't work, then I'm just out of the business.

Apparently, that wasn't true, but it was a nice, you know, it was a nice story that was circulated for many years about the origin of Final Fantasy.

But just what a great fucking title.

You were saying that it was apocryphal and then said what it was.

And I immediately thought, oh, that's nice.

You should just say it's true.

Yeah, that's like that's fine.

Like, you should be able to lie a little bit.

I'm lying all the time.

What

you said?

I was the funniest guy ever earlier.

Should we go straight into courage?

Yes.

Triforce of courage.

So,

what is courage?

What is it?

Some might say it's the ability to not be afraid.

Yeah.

If they want to describe it like incorrectly,

you might say it that way.

Sure.

For me,

video games are scary.

Some video games are scary.

It's true.

Yes.

And sometimes these titles, they kind of clue you in to, hey, this might be a little scary.

Okay.

Or this might be a challenging experience in some ways.

Yes.

And sometimes you can accomplish a lot with just two words,

two different scary words.

And these two words to me that encapsulate courage.

And actually, you need courage to play these games, I think.

Because you're going to fail.

You're going to fail a lot.

My pick for Triforce of Courage.

Demon souls.

Wow.

Because you're on one hand, demon, scary word.

Souls, you're kind of like, I actually don't really know what to do with that.

Yep.

But it could be scary.

Yep.

You go in, you're playing this game.

It's not necessarily a horror game, but I find myself being scared playing this game because you find yourself in many tough situations.

Back against the wall, fighting for your fucking life.

Yep.

And the game is hard.

And you need courage to power through and to

persevere and to succeed in this.

In all of these games, all these souls-born games.

Yes.

Ring, Elden Ring.

Matt, you said demons souls, right?

I said demon souls.

Is it demons?

It's demons.

So it's multiple demons.

I can't think of anything scarier, actually, than one.

But it's possessive.

It's his soul.

It's not demons.

It's not demon.

It's demonstration.

It's demon souls.

Yeah.

Souls.

Because of the S trail going into the S, a lot of times it gets says it's demon souls, but it's demons souls.

Either way, it's still very scary.

The idea that this singular demon can possess multiple souls.

Yeah.

Demon's soul haunting.

Also, the beginning of like, you know, the souls born genre as we know it.

S an important game, such a significant game.

Obviously, Dark Souls has more reach and influence, but it does not exist without Demon's Souls.

I'm curious why you went with Demons over Dark.

Because Dark Souls is pretty damn good, too.

Dark Souls is good, but demon is

a little more evocative, it's scarier.

Yeah, I can handle the dark.

I'm not a fucking baby,

all right.

I'm not afraid of the fucking dark, yeah.

Demons, though,

I mean, I mean, look, not ideal, yeah, no,

not ideal.

Don't want to, don't want to tempt them by saying I'm not afraid of them.

But I turn the lights off in the studio, you just start shrieking,

hands full of piss,

like a water balloon.

How dark would it have to be to be pretty?

There's like a level of dark that you'd be uncomfortable.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, if you go in a sentry deprivation tank, it's dark, so dark that you can like see the inside of your skull.

Yeah, but I'm not like afraid.

I'm not afraid to be like dark in my own home or something like that.

I've been in fucking like dark-ass caves and like Boy Scouts.

Yeah.

I remember there was a day

in Boy Scouts.

They were like, we're going to take you to like a super dark cave where you can't see anything.

And then later on, I was like, why do they do that?

You're missing a memory.

Yes.

Heather, what's your Triforce of Courage?

Well,

my final video game title in this Triforce of Titles is a game title through and through.

And in fact, it is such a game title that just naming your game this takes courage because it cannot be a title given to any other.

You would never read a book with this title.

You would never listen to a CD or hear a song with this title.

You would never see a movie with this title.

Yeah, you had me, I wouldn't read a book.

And the title is for courage

from the fighting game from 2008 to 2011.

Melty Blood Actress Again, current code, colon, hologram summer again, comma.

try Hermes Blackland.

What on earth?

That is the full title of this Melty Blood release.

Melty Blood, Actress Again, Current Code, Hologram, Summer Again, Tri Hermes Blackland.

I remember when I first heard of Melty Blood back in the day, I was just, like, it's one of those things where it's like, that can't have been translated correctly.

But I guess that's just, that is just what it's called, Melty Blood.

Well, Melty Blood.

They certainly committed to it.

Melty Blood.

And they committed to every other word in this title.

This goes back, just going back to our Domino's discussion.

This is a thing that's happened in chain restaurant verbiage in the past 10 to 20 years, which is they used to say melted cheese or melting cheese.

Now they say melty cheese.

I guess that's what's focus tested best.

But it's just like, that's so fucking dumb.

Why do you say, why is Jack in the box saying melty cheese in their ad copy?

Why is Carl's Jr.

Hardy's talking about melty cheese on the Western bacon cheeseburger?

Is it so, I bet you it's so that if they're present, if they present you food where the cheese isn't basically liquid, they can't be like, it said melting, it said melting cheese.

It's not in the act of melting anymore.

It previously melted, perhaps.

Melty could be a little bit more of like a, it's kind of a catch-all, but I think there's also maybe something to just like melted sounds past tense.

So people, so like melty sounding a little bit more active.

Yeah.

Whatever, whatever, whatever the marketing side has figured out, it's just like now we have to deal with melty.

Probably at fucking Domino's.

They're talking about melty cheese on their pizza.

Let me open up the app again.

Sorry, keep going, Heather.

His favorite.

His screen time pops up: nine hours in the Domino's app

per day.

Just looking at it, not even ordering, just looking at it, understanding the functions.

Imagine sitting next to somebody on the train who looked like Nick, who was just staring at the Domino's app and just pressing different options.

I'd totally understand it.

I'd be like, Everybody, you know what?

The pizza tracker is sometimes the only thing we got.

Okay, click the first specialty pizza I clicked on: a hand-tossed Philly cheese steak.

Try your new Parmesan stuffed crust, premium buttery-flavored dough stuffed with melty cheese.

You called it.

Wow.

Nick, this is real.

This is, I'm going to attribute this to your expertise from your later podcast, Doughboys.

You have your finger on the pulse with food.

You've that to be able to call that is honestly, that was amazing.

Yeah, that felt like I was watching Babe Ruth point to the stand.

Yeah,

that was like watching Will Hunting solve a math equation.

It was incredible.

Yeah.

Babe Ruth in terms of body type.

No, yeah, you're shaped like a chocolate bar.

I mean, I don't know.

It's about.

Anyway, that's my title for courage is that insane word salad of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 words.

Jesus Christ.

For the title of that game.

What kind of game did you say that it is?

Fighting game.

It's a fighting game.

I've never played the Melty Bloods.

And also a visual novel.

Okay.

I've never played The Melty Bloods.

As a fighting game enthusiast, have you ever seen the player?

I did play them at the arcade.

They were on the Naomi board.

That delicious Sega look.

Yes, yeah.

The Naomi board, which is basically the guts of a dreamcast.

Yeah.

So I did play it in the arcade, but I did not play it beyond that.

And it didn't stick with me.

Yeah.

Well, can you read the full title one more time?

Melty Blood Actress Again, Current Code, colon, hologram summer again, comma, tri-hermes, blackland.

Fuck.

That's like a phrase to like activate like a soldier.

Nick, what's your courageous title?

You know,

what takes some courage is having a job at a triple-A studio working on AAA games and deciding to walk away from it with your partner.

to move to another country, to make your own indie solo dev games and then to have those games come out and be

generally regarded as triumphs.

That's what Lucas Pope did.

And he is responsible for the game and the title that I give to my Triforce of Courage.

I think this is just such a wonderful title for a game that evokes exactly what it's about.

Papers, please.

Wow.

What a fucking title.

Yeah.

Tells you exactly what the game is.

Yeah.

And

it's such a like, it's not, you know, an immigration office simulator, which I think would, you know, a lot of times someone would take that approach.

It's just like, no, this is, this has some poetry to it.

I think it's just,

I think it's just such a great title.

And I really like it.

Good game, too.

And a great game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

An excellent game.

Lots of fun decisions.

Go to the back of the line.

This is wrong.

Yeah.

Get out of here.

This is wrong.

Shall we recap about my three picks, my Triforce of titles?

No one can stop Mr.

Domino, Final Fantasy, and Papers, please.

My three picks for Triforce of Power, Castlevania, Symphony of the Night.

For Triforce of Wisdom, it's the Ratchet and Clink series.

Rift Apart, Up Your Arsenal, going Commando, Size Manager's Quest for Booty, just to name some of them.

And for Triforce of Courage, Demons, Souls.

Great.

For Power, Naruto Shippuran, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, Rota Boroto.

For wisdom, Near Replicant version 1.22474487139.

And for courage, melty blood, actress again, current code, hologram, summer again, tri-Hermes Blackland.

Those two in a row?

What a nightmare.

Do I speak English?

Yeah, to hear words that you actually know, but in an order that you've never heard is shocking.

Truly disorienting.

Do we want to shout out any honorable mentions from our long lists?

Because

I have a few that

I would like to shout out.

I don't know if anyone else has any.

I got a couple.

But yeah, but you know,

one word title, fantastic title, tells you exactly what the game is about.

And it was such an impactful game.

Doom.

What a great title.

Doom was on my list.

And similarly, another FPS and one that I like more than Doom.

you know, and

I also like these games more than the Doom franchise, but the Doom is also a great title.

But Half-Life, I think, is just another great title.

Yeah.

On my list,

the aforementioned Resident Evil and Biohazard.

I think both titles work really, really well.

Super great titles.

For power, I think...

God of War Ragnarok is pretty fucking cool.

And also just God of War is an awesome title.

Yes, because you just kind of know, you're like, okay, I'm going to be fucking with some stuff.

This is going to be crazy.

I think Twisted Metal is an incredible title.

It is a really good title.

Yeah.

For exactly like what it is to

do a car wreck

game is, that's good shit.

Yep.

And Shadow of the Colossus, I think, is a great title.

Great, great title.

Really good title.

I had it on my shortlist, and I was thinking of picking it.

I kind of vacillated because the Japanese title is Wanda and the Colossus, which is also a good title.

And I always was kind of like, is Shadow the Colossus?

I don't know.

I'm just talking through my own thinking here, but it like it almost kind of feels like they were trying, they like, is it a little try-hard to make it Shadow of the Colossus instead of Wanda and the Colossus, which is a little bit more, you know, abstract, but it also is like a really poetic sequence of words.

So maybe it's an okay localization.

I don't know.

I'm just, I'm just torn on it because I like it, but then I'm also like,

it's, it's.

Because it's changed from what the original is.

I don't know how I have trouble wrapping my mind around it.

I know I'm not making much sense, but whatever.

What else is new?

The two titles that didn't make my list that were on my short list are Infinite Undiscovery.

Oh, yeah.

Which,

look,

when you're playing a game, you want to find things.

Yeah.

So for a game title to tell you

forever, you won't.

Yeah.

Is pretty courageous.

Pretty fun.

Pretty fun.

And then

in terms terms of another courage one, it's got brave in the title.

Bravely default flying fairy.

Yeah, that's really, really good.

Pretty good.

Otherwise, just to shout out some

totemic games.

You know, we talked about Chrono Trigger on the podcast.

Great title.

The Last of Us, I think, is also just a great title.

The Sims, a great title.

The Typing of the Dead.

Yeah.

That's an awesome title.

But But my actual honorable mentions were Baba is you,

Tactics Ogre, Let Us Cling Together, and Untitled Goose Game.

Untitled Goose Game's great.

That is really, really fun.

And just in terms of seriously calling out a great fucking title, Perfect Dark is a great title.

And I just want to pour one out for the team that got disbanded, that was working on the reboot.

But Perfect Dark sounds awesome.

It's a fucking great title.

Is that game just never coming out?

It's just never coming out.

Maybe we could attach our brand to it and we could do it.

Get played presents.

Yeah.

Perfect dark.

Dog shit.

Everybody hates it.

What a horrible industry.

I know.

But then it's just like.

Name a good one.

Yeah.

It's not specific to what we cover.

Any topic you're talking about, you're just talking about fucking the people in power are absolute ghouls.

I'm sure the people in the Doritos flavor industry are like, God, this fucking job sucks.

Yeah.

I think Bioshock is a cool title.

Oh, it is a great title.

Bioshock's a great title.

Too scary for me, though.

Don't like those games too much.

A little too scary for me.

Yep.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

Let's do a segment.

I'm bringing back an oldie but a goodie.

And I'm tying it to a release that's coming out later this week.

Oh, okay, great.

Donkin Kong Bonanza comes out later this week.

Oh, it does?

Jeez.

Yeah.

Man, I can't fucking wait.

I'm so excited.

You're going to be playing four games soon.

My life is really hard.

I'm scared about what's going to happen.

Because one of these.

The thing about Tony Hawk is that I'm not feeling pressured to, you know,

finish that.

I'm just playing it.

But since Donkey Kong Bonanza is coming out, I thought,

why don't we visit the Beastiery?

I'm going to name some enemies from the Donkey Kong series, and you have to tell me if they're real or if they're fake.

This one's always hard.

This one's hard.

But

I'm ready for the challenge.

Let's go.

Let's do it.

Okay, this first one, Army.

What?

Army?

Army.

Like the word Army, like Navy?

Army.

Like Army, Navy

Air Force, Marine.

Yeah, is this spelled like,

what's the spelling of it?

It's spelled A-R-M-Y.

A-R-M-Y.

Army.

This sounds like it could be like a mini-boss.

The thing is, in a lot of the Donkey Kong games, it's like you're not learning on screen what these things are called.

You have to refer to a wiki or a manual

to know the canonical names of them.

I'm going to say Army is not real.

I'm going to say it is.

Because why would you start off with a negative?

Heather's correct.

Army is real.

They're like little armadillo guys.

Oh, that's what they're called.

Okay.

I know the armadillo guys.

Yeah.

I didn't realize they're called armies.

Heather has a point.

I have a point.

Zinger.

Zinger.

I hear Zinger and I can, I'm picturing something.

A lizard type of enemy.

I'm going to say real.

I'm going to say real is a lizard.

Okay.

It is real.

They're from Donkey Kong Country.

So both of you get a point.

Heather has two.

Are these the Stinger guys?

I think so.

I didn't get, yes.

Wait, you didn't find out what they are?

Well,

I had a list in front of me and they had pictures that I thought I should save the pictures because I know I'm going to get asked about it.

Got it.

And then I didn't save the pictures.

I'm having a hard time.

Ranch, can you look up Zinger of Donkey Kong Country and let us know

what type of species it is?

Ranch, can you do the job Matt was supposed to do?

There's a lot of these.

I'm going to send the list to Ranch, actually.

You're going to make her do this?

It's a wasp.

Yes.

That's what it is, a wasp.

I'm not going to make Ranch do it.

I'm just going to, just so she has the list ready to go.

Arce, you ever play a Donkey Kong game?

I have not.

Wow.

But you know who Donkey Kong is.

I know who Donkey Kong is.

Is the, I mean, because we have our segment, obviously, Dude Ranch, where we name some dudes and we

see if you know about them.

Where are you in the Donkey Kong canon?

Did you know any other characters?

No.

You don't know, like, Diddy Kong.

Oh.

Yeah.

Did we do a Dude Ranch with the Kong?

We might have done it.

We did.

I know we did a Triforce of Kongs at one, but that was another one we did.

Look, we've done a lot of Kong content.

Yeah, and there's more to come.

I got to say, we're not going to ever stop talking about the Kongs.

Okay, so Zinger, it's two to one.

Here we go.

Next one.

Necky.

Necky.

I'm trying not to metagame it.

Because

we get two positives.

And I was like, well, naturally, a negative would probably be

what's likely to be here.

But I'm trying not to metagame it, trying to take each one individually.

Necky.

Does not sound like

bad guy to me.

Yeah, I don't think Necky is real.

Oh, incorrect.

They're from Donkey Kong country.

Wow.

I think they're like ostrichy or something.

They look like a

eagle.

Oh.

This isn't the mount, is it?

It's...

No.

Oh, okay.

I know what this one

is.

Okay.

I remember the Necky.

All right.

Next one.

Here we go.

All right, so still two to one.

Two to one.

Leggy.

Leggy.

again trying not to metagame it but now i'm like is this going to be a thing where they're all real is that going to be what his angle is

isn't this something he thinks i have an angle he's he's like trying to play as if you're the riddler

he's like what's he hiding no leggy leggy again i mean i was wrong about necky but leggy sounds fake i'm gonna go with a reel so we can give nick a chance to tie well you don't need to do that i'd do it

the game is tied Leggy is fake.

I thought Army, Necky, toss a Leggy in there.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Next one.

Knickknack.

Knickknack.

I'm trying to picture what Knickknack could be.

I'm going to say fake.

I'm going to go real.

It is real.

They're from Donkey Kong Country 2.

Wow.

It's like a bag of garbage.

They're like little gnats.

Oh, yeah.

I remember these guys.

Great.

Okay, next one.

Heather is now falling behind.

Yeah, that's correct.

Three to two.

Nick's in the lead.

Can we say, just for, because it's Donkey Kong, can we say that we each have bananas?

So I got three bananas and Heather.

Okay, yeah, no, yeah, you're right.

Wait, no, you're absolutely right, Nick.

Nick has three bananas and Heather has two bananas.

Great.

See, now the game's kind of good.

No, this is good.

I like it.

Okay, and you know, so we'll see how whoever has the most bananas.

Yeah.

Whoever has the most bonanza.

who has the most bananas wins this bonanza.

That's right.

Okay, next one.

Clang.

Oh, yes.

Clang, clang is real.

Is real.

It's fake.

I made it up.

What?

Wait, really?

I made up Clang.

I'm thinking of a guy.

I'm thinking of a metal-mouthed enemy.

I made up Clang.

But Clang is not real.

Wow.

I was certain Clang was real.

I made it up.

Wow.

Tied.

Three to two bananas.

I mean, not tied, but still.

The score stayed the same.

The score is tied with itself because it didn't change.

Clump.

Real.

Clump.

Clang?

Clump.

What an amazing podcast.

Clang.

Fake.

It's real.

The score is tied.

Again, three bananas apiece.

Three bananas apiece.

Clump is an alligator

with big titties.

He's a busty alligator with an army helmet.

He's from Donkey Kong Country.

I'm sorry, Donkey Kong 64.

Rather.

I think he's from Donkey Kong Country 2, actually.

Oh, is he?

Yeah, I think this may be an up-rez photo, but he might appear in other ones as well.

Right, yeah, because I was just looking at it.

It looked like a 3D model, but I guess they do use the 3D models rendered in 3D.

All right, still anyone's game.

Dan Spider.

Dan

Spider.

Sounds like it could be be a mini boss.

It also sounds like some shit that Matt would make up.

Dan Spider.

Is there a Dan Spider in the

Donkey Kong franchise?

I'm going to say fake in order to give credit to Matt.

I'm going to say real.

Dan Spider is real.

Yay!

He's from Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.

It's just a spider.

He doesn't even look interesting.

Dan Spider.

what else

feels like they gave up on naming yeah i don't know dan spider donkey kong jungle beat again just like went with such a cool design because there was donkey kongo which had the the the dk bongos they're using and then they make a platformer that you play with the bongos

So that's such a cool thing to do with the hyperspecific.

Four bananas.

Four bananas for Nick.

Three bananas.

How many more do we have left?

Quite a few.

Oh my God.

Quite a few.

We'll do a handful more because I just think some of these names are funny.

All right, great.

Davy Bones.

Davey Bones.

Real.

Fake.

It's tight again.

Four bananas apiece.

Heather gets it.

Davey Bones is from Donkey Kong King of Swing.

Davey Bones sounded real, but I was like, it sounds too real to be real, if that makes sense.

That's kind of like a pretty clever pun, but I overthought it.

Davey Bones is good.

Yeah.

And I liked the way he looked, too.

Yeah, he did.

More than Dan Spider.

Didn't even try.

Dan Spider.

Just looks like a...

You at least expect him to look like a guy.

Or like have funny eyes.

He's like a regular spider.

Maybe give him a hat.

I don't know.

A spider with a hat.

I'm sort of like, that's Dan Spider.

Yeah.

Anyway.

It's like seeing a spider in some guy's bathroom.

And he's like, hey, what?

And you're like, yeah, there's a spider in there.

And he's like, oh, yeah, that's Dan Spider.

It's a regular ass spider you can name Dan Spider?

What are you talking about?

He's like, he's not even doing anything interesting.

No, he's making a web, catching flies.

Yeah.

It feels also like the mistranslated name to a spider-man movie

coming soon marvel cinematic universe dan spider um colonel pluck

colonel pluck

could be a chicken could be a chicken warrior guy sounds like a boss i'm gonna say no i think i think uh i think he's real

He is real.

Nick takes the lead.

Five bananas to four.

He's from Donkey Kong Country Returns.

He's got like a no eyes chicken.

I don't like it.

You look like he plucked his eyes out, it looks like.

Yeah, I don't like it.

And you know what?

Nick's the winner.

Hey.

All right.

I get all the bananas.

I love it.

Some of the funny ones we missed out on are Sassy Sasquatch and Ghost Rope.

Ghost Rope and Ghost Book.

I tried to come up with a fake ghost one, but I couldn't come up with an idea.

Ghost Book is good.

Pretty good.

I can't wait to play Bonanza.

Me too.

I'm hyped.

You should eat a banana on Friday when it comes out in preparation for it you know i eat a banana every day yeah you do it every single day i will do it because i eat a banana every day you eat you both eat bananas every single day

this morning i eat a banana every day before bed because i've heard that they ate and sleep really

i guess i didn't eat a banana yesterday i had two bananas

you guys in his fucking donkey kong bonanza era over here that's this week's get played our producer is rochelle chen ranch yard underscore underscore sard uh ranch you still streaming silent hill too i am Still chugging through.

What's your stream schedule?

Or is it kind of irregular?

It's kind of irregular right now, but right now I try to do

afternoons on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Nice.

Check Ranch out, twitch.tv slash yard underscore underscore sard.

Also our social media.

Our music is by Ben Prenty, BenPrentyMusic.com.

Our artist by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

Get Played Merch, as mentioned earlier, kinshipgoods.com.

And check out Get Animate, our sister show on Patreon.

Matt, what are we watching this week?

We're starting a new series, an all-new series

entitled,

is it Birdie Wing?

Birdie Wing Golf Girl Story.

Yeah, Birdie Wing Golf Girl Story.

And it's exactly.

Talk about titles.

Yes.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly what it sounds like.

There's a lot of crazy stuff in it or anything.

I guess.

I'm having a lot of fun, and we'll certainly be having a lot to say about it over at patreon.com slash get played.

Uh, the show is on Crunchyroll if you want to watch, watch along.

And you know what?

Hmm, who got played?

You know what?

It was me.

I'll take one.

Okay, take one.

It was me.

Yeah, thanks, Matt.

It's very big of you.

Yeah,

boom.

That was a hit gum podcast.