Grand Theft Hamlet

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All right, thank you so much for coming in.

We're really excited to see your audition.

As you know, this is for a brand new car.

It's called

the GX7.

And so if you just want to read the coffee,

we'll start from there.

All right, here we go.

Do you want me to slate or anything?

Yep.

My name is Manapadaca, and here I am auditioning for voiceover in GX7 Commercial.

Here we go.

Thank you.

What is a car?

What does it mean to be behind the wheel?

Shifting into first gear, second gear, third gear.

Reverse.

Neutral.

Drive.

What does it mean to drive?

What is a car?

What is this?

Four seats.

Four wheels.

Who even came up with this?

GX7.

Pre-order today.

That was a fantastic read, really.

Thanks.

I was kind of in my

John Ham bag.

No, it was excellent.

And that's sort of the energy that we're looking for.

Hey, what are you guys doing over here?

Hey, what's going on over there?

What is this?

What is this?

What are they doing over there?

What are you guys up to?

Who are you?

We're just having having an

audition.

We're just doing an audition

for a car commercial.

What do you think of this?

Check this out.

Look at this.

Look at the thing I'm doing.

He's just giving a thumbs up over there.

We're not programming yet.

Look at what I'm doing.

He's like, okay, now he's like spanking his own ass.

Look at this.

Check this out.

Thanks.

Thank you, sir.

I like this?

Well, sir, I'm gonna...

I'm fuck you.

Okay.

I fuck you.

Whoa, what the hell?

I fuck you.

I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.

I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.

Thank you.

Okay, well, I'm so sorry about that.

That's okay.

Things have been a little wild out there, but my life as an actor is very hard, so that was like kind of, you know, just part of the course.

You know, you were really cool as a cucumber under pressure there.

I would love to just do one more take.

I really think you nailed it.

And honestly, you know, it's not my thing to say here, but I do think

you're first in line for the part.

Sold in the room, folks.

Why don't you do one more take?

Don't be as married to the

script this time, so you can go a little off script if you want.

Yeah, have fun with it.

But keep that tone, and let's hear

one more

and slate up top take for the GX7.

Okay, this is Matt Abadaka.

And here I'm auditioning for

the GX7.

Here we go.

Hey, I'm back again.

Hey, fuck you.

Hey, fuck you.

Hey, fuck you.

Hey, I got a katana.

Check this shit out.

Ouching, fucking, ouching, ouching, ouching.

Ah, fuck!

You like that?

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Comfort, class, and speed.

Hey, watch me do this.

Fuck you.

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I got a rocket launcher.

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Watch this.

I can suck my own dick.

We alas poor Yorick and know him well as we discuss Grand Theft Hamlet this week on Get Played.

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, Heather Ann Campbell, with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

Oh, that's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Oh, hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about a strange little documentary about some hopers, some dreamers, some theater nerds who also put on a show in a game.

Yeah, I mean,

you know, it's a

this is an interesting one to discuss

because

we'll get into it and I'll save the bulk of my thoughts, but I was not expecting to have such an emotional reaction to this movie.

I did not know what I was going what to expect going in.

I'm watching this thing.

I'm like, man, this is really kind of, kind of hitting me pretty like hard.

We'll talk about it.

Oh, yeah, you seem absolutely baffled by it.

I'm gobsmacked by this.

Rochelle Rochelle Shenner, producer Ranch, did you watch Grand Theft Hamlet?

I did watch it.

Oh, you did watch it?

Okay, okay.

Well, we'll

get your thoughts when we get into it.

But yeah, this episode is for a heads up for all our listeners.

This is a banked episode.

This one's going in the backlog.

So recording this one a little bit in advance.

But we are still going to go through the, you know, the business of the show.

Anything that's

spoken about on this show that bears any resemblance to any current events

and or

persons in the news, It's completely coincidental.

It's not intentional, and we don't mean it.

We recorded this before the thing, and you know what that means.

But this was recorded before then.

Now we could release this at any time, and it just could be true.

We could release this one next week.

So we thought since we are a little bit ahead in the calendar, we would would take a look back in time and ask the question we sometimes do, which is, what were you playing?

What were you playing?

What were you playing?

Ask me the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here asking my friends what they were playing back when they were playing Grand Theft Auto games.

So

what were you guys playing?

Something just occurred to me actually.

Because we're not being shy about this being in the in the in the backlog.

Yeah, sure.

Is there a world this comes out after Grand Theft Auto 6?

I guess it's possible if we really think it's going to hit a 2025 release date, which I, yay, could happen.

It could happen, but I don't know, but it's totally possible.

There's a possibility that this comes out in Grand Theft Auto 6 is huge.

And we're like, we have nothing to say about it.

To be clear, we're recording this in 2018.

Pre-the announcement of the PS5 port.

Gosh.

You know, I'm...

What were you playing?

So, yeah, I, you know, Grand Theft Auto was a, is, is huge.

Obviously, Grand Theft Auto 5 is like the biggest video game, probably, right?

I wonder.

I feel like it's probably still Minecraft, but

if you take into the monetization of Grand Theft Auto online, it may very well be

GTA 5 in terms of revenue.

I don't know.

My very first Grand Theft Auto, which I think is probably the same story for a lot of people, was Grand Theft Auto 3,

which was

a totemic

game for the PlayStation 2 lineup, certainly.

And just for games, I think going forward.

With what to do in a three-day with what to do with a within a 3D environment that you can do anything in is

really just just opened up games, I feel like.

And that game was so exciting to me.

And I was thinking about this on the way over here today, actually, because I played that game

not right when it came out, but I ended up getting like a greatest hits copy of it at some point.

I played it a lot in my uncle's house, but never like with any actual seriousness in terms of completing the story.

It was more just like me driving around, just kind of just wrecking havoc and

just having a blast.

You could just do that in the game.

That game took me years to beat

because I almost didn't really know that you could beat it.

I didn't really know that, like,

at that time, a lot of the games that I was playing were more mission, like, you know, singular mission-based.

There wasn't really like

an example of a game that was like a completely open environment where you have to sort of go around the world to find the missions.

It was more like, oh, you know, start screen.

Here's a new mission here or a new level, rather.

It was all levels was kind of like the games that I was more used to, or, you know, things locked behind cutscenes or whatever, and then kind of move on to the next area.

So, this was like a completely new type of game for me to play, where I had just no experience navigating a map where the objectives were just all over the map.

Yeah.

And so, it took me actual years to finish it.

I remember

getting to the conclusion after

not playing it for a long time and having saved like before what I had realized was the final mission of the game

and had a very unsatisfying

time finishing the game because I was like, wait, it's just done now?

I'm just done.

And obviously, you can just kind of pick it back up and keep playing or whatever.

But I was like very surprised that I had only one thing left to do.

Yeah.

And then finished it.

Yeah.

Very, very.

But I think a great game, but not even my favorite one.

We're so lucky on the PlayStation 2 to have three banger Grand Theft Autos.

And I think San Andreas is probably everybody's favorite.

But Grand Theft Auto 3, I think, like one of the most important games of the 21st century in terms of like what it you know, first off, it just is just breaking through fully into the mainstream and being one of the games that made that took ga video gaming from being like a a pastime for kids, analogous to a toy, to something that adults

could could consume shamelessly and talk about.

But also, like, it just, just what you were talking about, like the

relative non-linearity of it, the freedom of movement,

the freedom to just sort of like make the game your own, the playground/slash sandbox approach, which everyone, that was the buzzword everyone was using for the whole decade afterwards, was sandbox, sandbox, sandbox.

Yeah.

Not that it's the only, like, like there were other games that attempted that, but it was the most successful one.

A lot of times, that's what is more important.

I still remember the weapon, the get-all-weapons code.

Games used to have cheat codes that you could do to like, you know, cheat.

Yeah, you would enter in a sequence of

gestures on the on the control pad, or sometimes you would enter in like a like a password save would be like the word that you use.

Yes.

Or you type something into the console on PC.

I'm trying to remember the Doom ones.

What was the, it was like id,

what the fuck was it?

KFA or something like that?

What the hell were those called?

Could be an I mean, I don't know if that's like a full episode, but a cheat codes is like an interesting topic.

in kfa yeah it gives a player full health ammo weapons armor and keys uh the the all weapons uh code for grand theft auto which is a very important code to know if you were just going to be going around being bad and not really playing the game was r2 r2 l1 r2 left down right up left down right up wow holy yes i'll remember it for the rest of my life was that no that was the one that gave you all the weapons my favorite in grand theft auto 3 was the one that gave everybody weapons oh that's cool like it gave everybody rocket launchers.

And like almost immediately it would become like just constant explosions.

And my friend and I would put in that code and just see how long, like we would time how long we lived

because that was the fun of it.

I liked getting a tank.

Like there was a code that you can get a tank and a tank would just fall out of the sky and you just kind of just drive around in a really slow tank, but it's doing massive damage to everything around you.

And then your wanted level goes up so high because you're not supposed to be driving driving a tank at all

and it would just become fun to see if they could stop you at all or not.

Yeah, I remember the that the moments that like I was playing with roommates at the time and the moments that we were like all we're all gathered around the TV just seeing what would happen like you know one person driving and then everyone else just reacting but just like the moment I

learned that you could do a drive-by shooting and pulled that off for the first time and just gunned down a bunch of civilians and everyone just like exploding in laughter.

I can't believe this isn't a fucking game.

The tank was another thing when you finally get, you know, when you can get your,

you know, your wanted rating up to like five stars or six stars or whatever the fuck, and the National Guard is coming after you.

It's just like such

an escalation of chaos that you just weren't expecting in games at that time.

And I know that like this game

in these games have always sort of been a bit like controversial, right?

Like they're like, these are, you know, they're poisoning the youth.

They're, you know, they're showing all these violent images to kids and stuff.

And I hadn't really thought much about that until you just said what you said.

Yeah.

And it frightened me.

Yeah, 100%.

Oh, a drive-by shooting.

That gives me an idea.

This is one of those things.

I love video games.

I'm obviously not someone who thinks any art should be censored, but yes, kids should not be consuming these things because they just imitate what they see.

Yeah.

A kid will watch a wrestling match and then try to do that wrestling match and their little brother and injure them horribly.

I watched on the Disney channel.

Yeah.

I mean, this is the thing.

it's, everyone says it's like violent video games and stuff, but it's literally anything.

It's anything.

Kids just want to imitate what they see.

I, there was on the Disney channel, they used to do these things called

like Disney in Concert.

So it'd be like a popular boy band or a popular like singer or any kind of group on the Disney channel performing a concert.

This is 1997, 1998, sort of like the apex of InSync's popularity.

Like they're brand new.

They're huge.

They're the most popular thing.

They're on the Disney Channel performing concert.

Two of the guys orchestrate this move where one of them grabs the other one's foot and helps them do a flip in the air.

And I'm watching that, and I have two brothers, and I was like, we can fucking do that.

And so I'll be like, I was like, I'll be the flip guy.

I'll be the guy that does the flip because I want to be the cool one.

I'm going to do that because the flip.

So I get about halfway in the air

and fall face first on our carpet and get a rug burn from like the tip of my nose to like the bottom of my mouth base.

And the next day is picture day.

Oh

and I'm in like the third grade.

And so my third grade photo is like a scab like an oily scab because I have like neosporin on my face.

Burning my face on our rug.

Wow.

Wow.

But I never did anything Grand Theft Auto.

Never did any of that kind of stuff.

But if you'd been exposed to it at an earlier age, you might have tried to, you know,

break into a cop car so you get a shotgun or whatever.

That's where they are.

That's where they are.

We learned that.

The two things I remember, they were both from the daily show, the Jon Stewart Daily Show, which at the time was so central to the Zeitgeist.

It was so, like, you know, such a pop cultural happening.

The two moments I remember when Grand Theft Auto 3 specifically broke through to that show where I was like, oh, this is a show that never talks about video games.

It's always just talking about, you know, whatever's going on in politics.

And now this is so big that one was Jon Stewart had Seth Green on and Seth Green was just like breathlessly talking about how much he enjoyed this game and was describing how you could hire a prostitute,

you know, have sex with them in the car and then kill them and get your money back.

And Jon Stewart was like, what the what?

What is this game?

You know, he's like, totally like, and then the other thing was

The

was

Lewis Black was doing a segment on just like how games have gotten I think what the point he was making was that games have gotten horribly violent, but they're just like a reflection of how frustrated we are.

And he talked about state of emergency, which was another game that came out at the time that did not have, was not nearly as good, not nearly as fun as Grand Theft Auto, but had

people were excited for it because it was just another game that embraced anarchy and chaos.

It was more of a time attack game.

It did not have the freedom that was, it was one of those things where people realized what they liked about Grand Theft Auto was not how violent it was, because this other game that was similarly, similarly violent, similarly going into crowds and causing chaos, but it was a different sort of gameplay structure.

What they liked was the freedom that you're afforded by the way

that Grand Theft Auto is presented.

But it was him talking about state of emergency in Grand Theft Auto III.

And it was just like, this is kind of crazy that this is

happening.

Do y'all remember any other.

Sorry, you're going to say something.

Well, I was going to say that I was not, I did not like Vice City or San Andreas as much as I liked 3 at the time.

And that was because

3 has a silent protagonist.

And it's also strange to remember, this is just a side note, that Grand Theft Auto III came out like a month after 9-11.

And

they had to take out the Twin Towers from the game, which is just a crazy thing to like wrap your head around, is that the game had to be like last minute patched internally in order to take out the World Trade Centers.

But anyway.

My favorite part about Grand Theft Auto III was that the protagonist was silenced.

So when my buddy and I would play it, we during all the cutscenes would just talk what he was saying.

And so they'd be like the other guys would be like, yeah, I need you to go uptown and show these guys something or what for.

And then you'd cut to him and he'd just be silent and we'd be like, do you have anything to eat?

And like, we would just make him like

a real psychopath.

That's so cool.

In order to justify like what he was doing, it'd be like, like, do you have any pets?

And then, like, you'd hear the other guy, the other guy being like, yeah, you gotta we're gonna give you a gun we're gonna give you a crew we need you to go up there and take care of business and cut back to the guy and he'd be like i i what i want my pants like just like whatever jokes we wanted to like throw into his voice that's so funny and then

there was something about the

next

uh games where the protagonist was angry and it made us less comfortable playing it because we weren't playing it as an angry guy.

We were playing it as like a man without a mind.

Like, that was our projection into the Grand Theft Auto world.

So, when, like, in the next games, when you'd shoot somebody and, like,

you know, Nico would be like, yeah,

that's fucking right, or whatever the fuck, like, it felt bad because I was like, no, that's not, I wasn't angry at that guy.

Yeah.

There was definitely a choice starting with Tommy Versetti in Vice City, which I really like Vice City.

And so much of what I liked about the Vice City is it's you know, it's a refinement of the of Grand Theft Auto 3, but just also like just aesthetically.

I think just like that Vice City,

I just think like the look of it is so cool, and I think the soundtrack is so you know.

You're gonna get you some like white linens, Duhog.

I could absolutely pull that off.

You would crush that.

White linens and a Ferrari?

Yeah, fuck yeah.

Just a little bit of cocaine in the nostrils to live it.

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You're right, Heather.

And I never really thought about it.

I mean, partly with Vice City, I think initially it was like, oh, here's a way we can cast a celebrity in the protagonist role that didn't necessarily become a running thing through all the games, I don't think.

But like,

you know, it was like...

It more just was a way to beef up the

voice cast initially, but then there was also like, oh, what kind of person would be this character?

Well, I guess a complete psychopath.

It would be someone who's either insane or is just like, you know,

has completely lacks empathy and is completely comfortable with violence.

That's why the

three protagonists in Grand Theft Auto V to me are so interesting because they're sort of all

three parts of like what that type of person would be kind of where like Trevor is obviously the extreme end and is a full psycho and like has like a rage power that makes him more that makes him invincible and able to shoot better

and then Michael and oh

the other fellow Franklin Franklin

are like Franklin's the most mellow he's kind of just doing it to kind of like get by and Michael is like doing it to save his own ass and Trevor's just like let's just fucking go I'll just do anything and I

I

I think I think San Andreas is probably my favorite

I think it's a lot lot of people's favorites.

Because it's like, I mean, the soundtrack is so great, too.

And that one really expanded the map.

Like, you had a whole region, not just a city.

I liked having to take my guy to the gym or making him chubby.

That's fun.

But then I really, but five is so great for it being this,

you know,

this huge now online

live service thing is so baffling to me because that's the part of it I just have not touched.

I think the story of five is really fun.

The gameplay is good.

And like, I think it's great.

So it's like, it's so funny to me that

it has this second life, second, third, fourth, fifth life as this online only experience.

It's crazy to me.

I think it is such a cash cow and I think for a lot of people, they're complete opposite.

They've never touched the base game.

They've never touched a single player experience and only play online, whether they're doing some, whether they're like role playing as a cop or whatever, or, you know, it's like whatever they're doing i feel like there's a lot of people who this is their one game that they play and it's also this is their social experience with their group of friends which is something that was clearly at the heart of grand theft tamlet which we'll get into um yeah grand theft auto three that's a that's a

i again extraordinarily impactful game and a game i certainly played the shit out of when i got it i i i'm i wanted to ask the room if there's any other cheat codes you have committed to memory.

I mean, for me, it's obviously the Konami code.

I love code.

Down, down, left, right, left, right, BA star.

I remember this is a short one, but the, um,

I think it was Akari Warriors to get another,

uh, to, to get a free continue.

It was A, B, B, A, I think, on death.

I mean, Super Mario Bros.

was the,

didn't you press start and A at the same time?

Yeah, you hold A and press start to get to continue.

Yeah, that was a kind of a hidden thing.

Wow.

Yeah,

the elaborate, lengthy button combinations, a lot of them have evaporated with my brain.

Yeah, because I remembering a lot of like type-in ones, though, too.

A lot of my early internet

time was looking up cheat codes for video games.

Sure, right.

Just like, I don't know what else is even on here.

I had no idea.

And would just like wait.

And I've told this story before where I had my mom, I got like an action replay, which is like a Game Shark or whatever.

It's kind of the same thing where you can put a game into this longer longer device into your Game Boy Advance and run the game and type like you could input numerical codes that then would you know impact the

game plan however which way you want so you could get like you know

99 master balls you can make it so that you can encounter a charmander if you want or something or what you can select you know Pokemon based on the code like oh my encounter is going to be this now yeah I remember the first version of of one of those things came out the game genie or the NES, and like Nintendo was like filing lawsuits to take it.

These companies have been vigorously pursuing anti-cheat since the Stone Age of gaming.

So I emailed my mom a link to this website and just asked her to print it out for me.

Cause I was like, I know we can't be on the internet all the time.

Right.

Because it was dial-up and it costs money to do that at the time.

And so I sent her the link to it so she could print it out at work.

And she got in so much trouble because

she was like, I didn't realize it was going to be 200 pages.

But she did it for me and I love my mom.

Heather, what were you playing in a GTA sense?

Well, I did play the, I think I played Grand Theft Auto II was my first Grand Theft Auto.

It was the top-down kind of looks like an RC car game where you were just like driving around in a city doing these little tiny missions.

It didn't really stick with me.

And then, of course, played Grand Theft Auto 3 and was like, this is incredible.

I can't, like, again, I know I just said it, but him being a mute protagonist was so funny because the difference between going up to somebody and punching them on the street and then they turn around and they're like, What's your problem?

And you say nothing

is so much funnier to me than like every other protagonist immediately is like, Yeah, yeah, get the fuck out of my way or I'm walking here or whatever.

Um, I

have played played all of them.

Four was my favorite because I liked Nico.

But the truth is, I haven't beaten any of them since three.

Like I

spent less and less time in the worlds as

the games went on in part because

I didn't find them in

like I played Grand Theft Auto V and drove to my neighborhood and saw my coffee shop.

And I was like, what am I doing?

And like, I drove to the PCH and drove down by the ocean.

And I was like, I should just get in my car.

This is so fucking stupid.

And

I think that if, you know, if

like the reason I spent like infinity hours in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is essentially a Grand Theft Auto game, like it's just a big open world where you can do whatever the fuck you want, is because I have no access to those spaces or those like

like a car like there's i can't ride a horse here in the in the real world but i can drive a car and in theory if i wanted to i could buy a gun you know it it just it wasn't like enough of a um

a fantasy for me to to enjoy it and then i also found the jokes tedious Like I was like, none of these jokes are making me laugh.

They're more like taking my time.

So i i i i i don't know i i i wish there was a toggle to play a mute protagonist because i think it would be more fun

uh for me if if that was an option i will buy six the day it comes out i'll probably get some kind of

special edition where i pay like 20 extra dollars to get a jacket or whatever inside the game um

and i i can almost assuredly think i'm gonna play it for like two weeks and then be like i don't like the way this makes me feel.

Which, again, as a connoisseur of violence, you wouldn't expect me to have that, that experience of Grand Theft Auto, but I really don't, I don't enjoy them.

I think this, that part of this, part of my reaction to Grand Theft Autos is just me just getting older, my taste changing a little bit, because like, yeah, I thought Grand Theft Auto III was like the greatest, you know, funniest thing in the world.

And then as the series progressed, yeah, I just got, I think I got progressively less interested with each entry.

But when Grand Theft Auto V came out, I mean, I didn't, again, like you, buying all of them, playing all of them.

But yeah, I didn't, I didn't feel any sort of drive to finish the story of Grand Theft Auto V.

And I just kind of like found a lot of the Grand Theft autoisms of it

kind of tedious, like you were saying.

Like I'm just like, okay, at this point, I've seen.

how many versions of, you know, it's big O tire, but instead it's Big D tire, you know, and it's, and the logo looks like a dick, you know, or whatever the fuck it's like like everything that it's it's that every joke is on that level you know what i mean so you can imagine me laughing my ass

i'm busting up playing that it's it's also that tone that that that made it so that i stopped playing red dead redemption which was like i was enjoying so much yeah but the the tone that like the even the like timber of the way people speak to you in the game where it's like yeah, you get out of here.

Like that kind of like NPC fucking talking to you was grating as shit.

Yeah, everyone's a little annoying.

Yeah.

I also just, and this is just a general thing of just like, I don't necessarily love how Rockstar games, this, this extends to, uh, uh, you know, to Red Dead.

Like, I don't necessarily like how they control.

I find them a little bit cumbersome and I find like the UX a little bit cluttered.

That said, I mean, it's the staggering designs extraordinarily impressive, The scale and scope of them, and

what they're able to do is

really something.

But, like, yeah, I don't necessarily love, I can appreciate these games.

I don't necessarily love actually playing them all that much.

I thought I'd talk about the original game you cited, Heather, the original Grand Theft Auto.

I don't know if I've ever played Grand Theft Auto II.

I played Grand Theft Auto 1 on PC and also played one of the London expansions that was like a period once, like set in 1960.

So, Grand Theft Auto came out in 1960.

Grand Theft Mobile.

That's what they called it.

Yeah, they, or Grand Theft Mobile.

Because that's what they call cars there.

I think so.

No, that's what they call phones.

What is he talking about?

Sorry.

I'm a bit knackered.

Is he saying that British games are played on mobile phones?

Is that what he's saying?

I just fucked up.

You did great.

This came out at 97, I think, for PC.

DMA Design pre-Rockstar is the developer.

Definitely kind of a, I'm not sure how much, like, I was thinking back on this, Heather, and it's like...

It is kind of a Street Fighter I in terms of, not exactly, because Street Fighter II obviously fixes everything.

And then also Street Fighter I, you can look at it and see where the series progresses all the way up to the modern.

Whereas you look at Grand Theft Auto I, you look at footage of this weird top-down game with a camera that's zooming in and out with fairly crude art direction.

Depending on how fast you were going and why it would zoom in and depending on how fast.

And I always, which I found it really unappealing and also sometimes just straight up nauseating.

But you can kind of see it, but it's really just the driving and the violence.

And then that some of the specifics exist, like Liberty City and San Andreas and Vice City from the beginning.

Really kind of, you know, talked about playing some of these modern rock star games.

I don't necessarily love how they control, but I really did not like this, how this one controlled because it was kind of that tank control movement where you're, you know, you're, you, uh, right and left, instead of moving you left and right, rotates you, like it rotates you in place and then up always moves you forward.

And that also ties in with this was the era where it was largely pre-USB

and a PC, a PC was largely pre-USB.

And then also like, you know, you certainly weren't at a point where you just plug a console controller into a PC and just have it work.

So if you were playing this kind of game on PC, you were probably playing it with a keyboard.

I remember playing this with a keyboard and that adds its own sort of inelegance to it.

I did have a couple PC game pads.

I had like a Microsoft Sidewinder, but like they were all like kind of janky.

None of them felt as good as like a, you know, like a Sega Genesis controller or

an N64 controller.

And

I had like a Gravis game pad too.

Or the other alternative was to have a joystick, but playing this kind of game with a joystick never felt right.

Um,

all that is secondary to the actual experience of playing this, which there was a lot of fun to just the anarchy and chaos of it, and that you could just be so brutally violent.

And as opposed to there were some games that existed just for the sake of being violent.

Uh, what the one I think was Carmageddon, and the Carmageddon you could like drive through and like get blood on your windshield, and that was a whole thing.

It was just like that was a game that was meant to be super duper gory, but this one actually was a little bit more playable than that.

It just wasn't just pure violence.

I remember things like you would get missions from a pager, or you'd run to a payphone, and like the payphone would, like, the mob would

tell you to do something.

And yeah, just it all was just basically about progressing through linear levels.

Like you had some freedom within this individual level, but there were discrete levels where you had an objective in each level to get a certain amount of money to advance to the next one.

So it was very much kind of like a prototype, kind of proof of concept sort of feel to it.

And it was more of sort of a cult hit than an actual, like, you know, than the mainstream breakthrough that the series would ultimately,

you know,

become.

But it, and it was kind of an interesting artifact.

You ever watched any of this footage, Matt?

You ever seen any Grand Theft Auto one?

I've seen some only because I think there was a Grand Theft Auto for the Game Boy Advance that sort of went back to that style.

That one's really like a pretty impressive achievement because they basically got Grand Theft Auto just running on, it might have been Game Boy Color.

And they just got the whole game running on it because they were just so good at optimizing the system at that point.

Yeah, we're kind of seeing here.

You sort of see the top down, this kind of shitty character model running around,

getting into cars that, yeah, again, just kind of the bones are there when you get into it.

That zoom is rough, though.

The zoom is so,

I just don't necessarily even understand it.

There was a choice.

There was a camera angle

or, you know, a camera height, rather, I guess.

Yeah.

That just kind of scaled with the direction that you were going.

That would be preferable, I think.

Yeah, it's just kind of dizzying.

But I don't know, like, kind of seems like a cool game otherwise.

Like, it's kind of interesting that it's so different than what it is now, obviously, working within a 3D space.

Well, and yeah, and you see.

I did it on PlayStation 1.

There was a PlayStation 1 port, yeah.

And, and, you know, you see kind of things like you, uh, the, you know, the different neighborhoods coming up.

When you get into a car, the name of the the car is on screen, which is a thing that obviously gets retained throughout the series.

So, you know, it's it's uh it's certainly the DNA is present.

I like getting a big, like I got getting a fast-looking car, like a sports car in the in the Grand Theft Auto games.

That's always kind of fun driving around in a real crazy-looking car.

Yeah, sure.

You know, I know it's not gonna happen because we've seen the trailers, but it would be wild if there was a way to play

Grand Theft Auto 6

where you were just like walking around, like if it was a life sim, like if you could play a version of it that was more like Animal Crossing,

because if they really wanted to give you the option to do anything, and so many of these games, like Pokemon has like plant growing, you know, like that, that there is the main game that you can play, but like, if Grand Theft Auto VI allowed you to like

be like, you know what?

I want to, in a Yakuza-style way, I want to own a club and I want to max out that club's stats, and that's how I'm going to make my money in this world.

And that the story didn't actually have an ending and it wasn't even built to have an ending, that would be kind of interesting.

That would be interesting.

And is this club perchance a hostess club?

Yeah, sure, why not?

And I can like meet all the different hostesses and like they have different stats and I can like train them.

You're saying that like a mischief maker, but

I'm bored.

I'm not sure.

Could you

100% that side quest like you did before yes yeah could i just like can i just focus on that part of the game yeah i take all the hostesses out on dates to improve their their skills yeah okay cool that's cool sounds awesome yeah i'm in he's in he said yeah

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Yeah, let's talk about this.

Should we talk about this movie?

This is a British production that had a 2025 release in the US came out very very early

in the new year.

It was directed by Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls, who also appear as themselves in the movie, in a way, which we'll get it to.

And Mark Oosterveen is the other central character.

So much of the movie is about Sam and Mark's relationship.

They are both two actors

who are out of work because of the ongoing pandemic at the time they're making this movie and at the time they're embarking on this project.

And then Pinny is a documentary filmmaker who is also Sam's partner, who ends up becoming a central part of

this movie, this production and this film as well.

It is entirely composed of footage captured in Grand Theft Auto online, and it is

almost entirely audio that is just captured from their in-game mics.

So it is...

So much of this is just like kind of watching people play Grand Theft Auto and just talk to each other and kind of dick around.

Going back to what I was saying earlier and why I feel like this movie kind of had some emotional resonance for me.

COVID lockdown was such a crazy time of all of our lives, such a weird, like bizarre shared trauma we all experienced, where we were all just completely removed from life as we know it, where all of our connections were upended, where, you know, we could not go to the

things that gave us, you know, any sort of purpose, that we could not see the people who we cared about.

And we were all like like in isolation.

And, you know,

I'm married, so I, so my wife and I at least had each other, but a lot of people, including Mark in this movie, are just all alone and they just have nobody.

And I feel like this movie, I was like watching this, like, this is really capturing what it was like for all of us just to have to lose our minds because we were told we couldn't do anything.

Yes.

And we were, we, and we were all just kind of captive, you know, to this ongoing epidemic.

And like, like, that's what I just feel like there's been very little art exploring that in an interesting way or in a way that actually makes me remind me of what that feeling was like.

I

completely agree with this because I had the same reaction to it.

The only other thing that I've reacted to

in this same way, and it's half that experiencing it, but then also like the,

I guess, for lack of a better, more enlightened

phrase for it, it was like the actual, the jealousy of making it

is

the only other thing I reacted to in this way was

Bo Burnham's inside, actually.

Oh, sure, yeah.

Because that, to me, came out at a time where we were all, that was still a very fresh wound,

the trauma of COVID.

And,

you know.

I know that that's like not everybody's favorite thing.

And maybe it's like

cringe for somebody in comedy to be uh like jealous of somebody else's work in comedy maybe um but i that it really i've been a massive fan of his for a long time and like watching that was like oh like he took this horrible thing that happened to all of us and like made something interesting and good out of it

and is not is dealing with it in the same way that we all are but he like made something and then so these guys these people in this documentary

also made something because they just just almost had like no choice, kind of like they were like, We want to, we want to do this because it would be fun, but we also know that, like, this is like the only thing that we can do, kind of, right now.

So, we have to do this.

And they have a hard time doing the documentary is about them having a hard time doing it.

There's specifically theater actors, I think, is part of it.

And so, theater actors in London.

And so, this is, there's just like nothing more impacted by, hey, you can't gather in groups.

They can't get on stage.

They can't rehearse.

They can't have audiences.

So, So they're just basically their entire sense of purpose is,

you know, taken from them.

And so they're like, how can we express ourselves

the way we know how

given our given these restrictions?

And they choose to do it through Grand Theft Auto Online.

My experience of pandemic was

except for the fear of catching the thing,

was so positive.

I was so happy.

I was so relieved.

I feel like

being in public is such a stressful experience.

Like, even being here and recording with you guys, while one of the great pleasures of my life, when I go home after these records, I immediately get in bed and like feel sick.

And

it's not because of your jokes.

It's because like it is extremely taxing for me.

And so, like, my

experience, when I think back on the pandemic,

if I can divorce it from the experience of being scared of the virus and, and, and, the, the, and the waves of empathy and fear I felt for like people who had it, for the, uh, for the sort of uh, dissolving political uh experience of being an American, for like uh, the George Floyd experience, for all, if I can pull it away from like what felt like a catastrophic collapse and just and just experience it as my my in like I don't have to leave the house it was fucking paradise yeah and

watching this I was like boy, you guys seem like you're really blue about this thing that like you are you are like making friends online yeah and you are like making a kind of a cool thing and you're meeting people and you're forging these relationships relationships that i would forge later on in like the extended pandemic era through fortnite yes like like i i was like this is kind of not a neck like i would not have had a negative experience doing and existing in this thing yeah does that make sense yes it does i think but i think that also this is some of this is is unique to you because like i did not share that at all that feeling at all like during the like i felt like completely stir crazy i felt like i was i was locked in one of three rooms in my shitty apartment i fucking hated it and i I wanted to get out all the time.

And so I felt like I was losing my mind.

I was definitely one of those people who did not have a good response and got deeply depressed and way more anxious and developed a huge drinking problem all during the pandemic and none of it was going well.

So like, like, I think there are, there, there are people who it just just, it, it completely fucked them up.

Um, and I don't even think I, I took the worst of it.

These, these guys, I will say to what you're saying, Heather, these people in this movie are making the best of it.

Yeah.

And And they're making the best of a bad situation.

And that's part of why I'm having like an emotional response is like, oh, this is really cool that they like, they were in such a shitty place.

They were playing this game.

Clearly, there's a point where it seems like this, this, one of these people is just basically living in this game and to the point where he's kind of neglecting his family.

But they are like, hey, how can we come up with some sort of creative outlet that allows us to express ourselves?

And what they settle on is

doing this production in a very roundabout way.

What were you going to say, Matt?

I was going to say that I think that's what I mean by the jealousy of it:

I see what they did, and I'm sort of like, oh, I could have experienced it this way.

Like, I could have done it, I could have done it this way instead, instead of,

you know,

sinking,

which ultimately was fun and good for me,

you know, 14, 15 hours into Animal Crossing, the day it came out.

So

here's what I will say: we talked about

the comedy of Grand Theft Auto.

I watched this with Ali, who does not play these games.

And again, I'm kind of numb to a lot of these jokes, but she's watching it.

And it'll be like a building that's a bank, and it says like Goldman Ball Sacks.

And she's like,

she's like, it's like, that's stupid.

And she's laughing.

And I was like, you know what?

That is kind of funny.

I get it.

Like, if I'm not like, I haven't seen like a thousand of these jokes, I understand the novelty of it.

Yeah, yeah.

But beyond that, what I will say

I was reminded throughout of like just what a funny game it is, not because of the jokes that are necessarily seated in dialogue or in signage,

but like just like the chaos that can happen.

Because like the funniest things that happen in this movie are things when like someone is trying to

conduct an audition for

Grand Theft Auto, and then, or I'm sorry, someone is trying to, they're trying to do an audition in-game for someone to perform like Ophelia and Hamlet, and then like the cops show up and just start shooting people.

It's funny.

It's funny in two ways, right?

Because like there's like sort of like things that happen that like, you know,

are triggered by your behavior in the game, right?

Right.

So like it's gonna, the game's gonna respond to it if you, if however you're playing within it.

But then also you have the added chaos of other human beings interacting with it and not taking it within the spirit that you're trying to conduct it with, too, which was so funny to me.

Yeah.

Like, there's like, I mean, and we, we, I will explain exactly, I guess, what it is, but there's like a guy at one point who comes in and he's like an alien.

Yeah.

He's like the funniest guy in any movie I've seen in the last like three years.

So he was so funny to me.

So a big part of this movie is like they, it starts with these two characters, or I'm sorry, these two actors, Sam and Mark, and then Penny, who's there kind of documenting it all and interacting with them.

And they have the idea of staging something.

They go to the theater that's in Vinewood, which is essentially the Hollywood Bowl, and they're like, what if we stage something here?

That's their initial thought.

And so they decide to conduct auditions for

people who play the game who want to act in this production.

And

they kind of have this call to action.

It's not very successful at first, but then they start getting some responses.

And some of them are like, hey, this is a person who's like either a hobbyist actor or they're a legit out-of-work actor.

There's that one guy they discover who's originally going to be Hamlet and then he books another role.

And so he has to drop out into a separate role.

But like you're watching some of these characters audition with emotes that they're doing with the Grand Theft Auto characters and their own voices.

And it's just like, man, this person's like a really like compelling performer.

This is like a really talented actor, you know, and and then.

But then there also be people who just like walk up and are just like, hey, what is this?

And then you start interacting with them.

But some of those people like become their friends and stick around.

And one of them is that guy.

And I can't remember the character's name but but he is he like yeah his he has like either an alien or like a a like a fish man sort of like skin that he's using and he shows up and he's like uh like i'm from tunisia you know english my second language uh he does do an audition for it but he does like a a passage from the quran is what he performs and actually i was like oh this is this is this is pretty compelling as well but he doesn't ultimately end up acting in it but he just wants to hang out with them and kind of like ostensibly does security yeah so like he'll just hang out with them, but then he just all like he says on it, I oh, I have ADHD, so you know, I have a hard time focusing.

So, they'll just be like, you know, doing some some rehearsing some scene, and they'll just be in the background, like, just doing an air humping emoji.

He was, he was so funny, wonderful.

And then at one point, they're just like doing a rehearsal, and he just like shows up in a fighter jacket.

Like,

we, you know,

have pursued comedy and like have been in comedy for many years in our lives.

That guy's funnier than all of us.

He was so funny.

Well, it's also at one point they talk about how that

the budget of what they are doing

is, if it were to happen in the real world, would be like.

Like, I mean, they reference Elon Musk, but it's like, unless you had nearly

infinite money, you wouldn't be able to put on the kind of production of Hamlet that they're that they're doing with blimps and like

So part of what's funny live ammunition.

Yeah, right part of what's funny about the world of Grand Theft Auto is that a guy showed up in a fighter jet like it and and if this world was balanced in a way where that could happen It definitely would happen.

Like if we, if any of us could have a fighter jet, if I talked to my wife, you could have one.

Well,

you would do it.

I talked to my wife once about how I didn't want to go to my high school reunion.

And I was like, but if I did, I'd want to land in a helicopter.

And I feel like that's the kind of joke that the Grand Theft Auto universe allows because it's, I don't know, it's.

Not everybody can get a fighter jet because you have to make up the money in Grand Theft Auto Online to be able to get the fighter jet.

But once you have it, yeah, you could land at the Hollywood Bowl.

Why not?

Right.

So, yeah, it starts off, and they're like at first going to do a stage production and then they're basically like, wait, why don't we, what you're saying, either they're like, why don't we embrace the production value that is afforded by being in this virtual world?

And so they start figuring out how to stage things.

And, you know, well, we're going to stage this monologue on a yacht or whatever.

They basically have each act of the play, or maybe each scene within an act is a different set piece in a different part of the world.

And so when they ultimately stage the production at the the end, they're having the in-game audience that's following them,

the player characters who are watching,

who are participating as audience, like going from location to location.

And then a Twitch stream is also watching them as they're doing various things.

Like, yeah, that, like what you were saying, jumping onto a blimp for a certain, for a certain sequence.

And it's all really cool.

And

it's like they really thought about it from a staging standpoint.

And then also some of it goes wrong, which is also like funny in its own way.

Super super funny.

But then, also, like, while they're making it too, like, they have these, like

it was, it was just interesting because, like, they had these sort of like tough friendship moments, though, too, where, like, you know, the world is starting to open back up at a certain point, and people are starting to drop off and lose interest in the project a little bit because of other work opportunities and stuff.

And then, the one guy who is

partner is the documentarian, uh, was like, maybe we should just kind of, you know,

stop and maybe pursue actual work or whatever.

And the other guy, who says himself that he has nobody, is like, This is all I have, and like, this is like it's fucking bullshit that you want to like give up and not do it.

And that was like sad.

That was like, I don't know, that like really broke my heart.

Yeah, really.

This is the this is Mark is the actor, and he plays Polonius in the play, and he's also, you know, one of the guys just producing this production.

And then it's like,

yeah, he says at a certain point, he's like, during lockdown, he goes to his aunt's funeral in

the Netherlands, and he's like, that was my last surviving relative.

Like, I have no one.

Which is like a crazy thing to think about.

And so that's the isolation is compounded by the fact that he feels like he doesn't have any sort of

familial bonds anymore.

And yeah, this, this, again, this, this, this creative work is, is giving him purpose.

Yeah, there are, there are those moments when they're like, they're, they're going to stop it or things are falling apart or whatever,

which, you know, all feels very real, but they see it through to the end.

This project that takes, it feels like two full years.

It's like, is it from 2021 to, or does it start in 2020?

I feel like it's 2022 when they actually produce the thing.

I think that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, it's a, it's, it's a lot of rehearsals and it's a lot of recruitment of

talent and then also just like figuring out way when to coordinate or when to schedule everything, which is its own logistical nightmare.

Yeah, it's a Dippo

is the actor who's originally going to play Hamlet.

He gets a job

in some production, so he can't fully commit to it, but he still wants to be a part of it.

He plays Laertes.

And so Sam, Mark basically talks him in and is like, you have to play Hamlet because someone has to be here for every rehearsal.

You're the only person who's going to be available for it, and I can't do it.

Yeah.

And so he reluctantly ends up taking the lead of this.

I like that he said that he couldn't do it because of the type of British guy that he is.

Like the, he's like, I don't sound, you sound a little more regal than I do.

Yeah.

And I was like, that is, I was, I would have liked to hear his version.

It would have been kind of funny.

That's a very British thing to be a super, like, hyper-aware of all the class signifiers of your particular accent.

That is the shit I can't pick up on.

But yeah, they're

all sound so silly and stupid to me, too.

There's a portion where he's rehearsing to be Hamlet that I asked

Ranch to pull up as a clip

so that we could all listen to it because

it upset me.

And it upset me enough to take me out of the film as sort of like a viewer.

And maybe you guys will watch it and you'll be like, oh, get over yourself.

But it bummed me out a little bit.

And I'd like to share the moment with you guys from

when he's rehearsing to the to be or not to be monologue

and talking about life and death.

It's a big question, isn't it?

To be or not to be?

To exist or not to exist?

If your life's terrible and unhappy and there's no joy or love in it,

is it

better, braver, to soldier on and to

stick around like a schmuck?

While you just get kicked in the balls repeatedly over and over again and nothing ever goes right for you?

Or actually

is the brave thing to do, the smart thing to do even, the sensible thing to do, just to end it all?

Because

at least then you have a shred of your dignity intact.

Suicide's more of a male thing than a female thing, much more so.

Okay, so that's the clip.

Um

Shakespeare is like a pretty massively universal

deconstruction of like the the experience of being human.

Yeah.

And it bummed me out that the guy was like,

the questions that Hamlet ponders

are questions that men ponder

and not women.

And I felt so like,

you know, sometimes,

look, I don't, I don't, god damn it.

I don't want to say these things because I don't,

I don't like painting, like, I don't like taking out the bucket of paint and painting a target on my fucking chest.

But, like, sometimes being a woman in a game space feels a little bit like I'm in a space that doesn't belong to me.

And I long ago have given up on the, the, the, the feeling of trying to prove myself in a game space or like that I have to prove myself in a game space, especially now that, you know, like there are so many women that I play with when I'm playing Fortnite.

There are so many, like, it is no, it is, it is culturally

dominated by the voices of men.

But in

actual experience, it is a very,

I think, evenly split playing place.

So watching this and being like, oh, it's Grand Theft Auto and already having that sort of spider

sense constantly tingling when I'm watching a game space, especially one that is, in this case,

the protagonists of this story are effectively two dudes, right?

And they're playing Grand Theft Auto and they're playing it to play Hamlet, but they're

to suddenly feel

like

asked through this, through this point of view to exit the theater space as well.

really took me out of the movie and bummed me out because it was like this very casual admission of like, I don't think women wrestle with big thoughts.

And it sucked.

And I was like,

until that point in the movie, I was like, so on board with these dudes.

And then I was like,

like, we would never accept a casual, like,

like, othering of any particular race in a sentence like that.

Like, you would never

accept the

status of your protagonist of a film if he was like, I think this is more a problem that, you know, Mexicans don't think about.

You'd be like, what the fuck?

Like, what?

And for him to like slice out an entire gender when it comes to

the puzzle of existence, it blew.

And

it really, it bummed me out.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's totally fair to say.

My reading of what he was, the point he was landing there was specifically directed

at suicide.

And because he's talking about suicidal ideation, but the act of suicide itself is

statistically overwhelmingly like a male thing.

Like men are like, you know, way more like something four times more likely to commit suicide than women.

You know, it's like, it's like 80% of suicides are men.

So I thought

my reading of that is that I thought that's what he was talking about, was specifically the act of killing yourself.

It's possible, but like,

and sure,

like, okay, you could be like, well, more men kill themselves than women.

I don't necessarily mean that.

That does not necessarily correlate or imply that women don't think about it.

Right.

Yeah.

Like the difference between taking an action and the action of thought,

especially when you are deconstructing it through the lens of Shakespeare, feels like it is saying the thought of the thing

is

the exclusive

purview of one gender and not the other.

Like,

fine, you know, like, there are a lot of actions that dudes take in the world that are, that are, that the actions themselves are more likely to be dudes.

But I, I don't know.

It was, it, for me, it was because it was couched in the, in the wrestling, the existential quality of whether or not to exist

versus whether or not I

don't know.

I see your point, Nick, but I

think that that is a generous reading of the moment.

I might be giving this guy a little bit too much credit because I have a lot of empathy for someone, you know, talking extemporaneously at length and tripping all over their own dick.

But I do think that that is like a

I totally get what you're saying.

And I think that might be him trying to grapple with the psychology of it in a kind of inelegant way.

And

yeah, I don't know.

Hopefully he was just talking about suicide and not trying to dismiss the

existential concerns of

people of other genders.

Yeah,

that said,

I do feel like when this ultimately gets to the third act and when you get to see the production played out, I do find that really, like, I do think it's dramatically, really satisfying.

And I do think like the way that that is.

that is rendered is very fun.

I do like also that it deals with the aftermath of just like they have this multi-year project, and then they're like, hey, let's go to this club.

They go to a club that like one of the actors owns and they go and hang out there.

Or one of their, yeah, one of their friends, I think, who's just like observing the play owns in the game and they go and hang out there.

And then afterwards, the two leads are just kind of like, well, what now?

It's like, this was their whole sense of purpose for like, you know, two years.

And they're just like, oh, it's over with.

I don't know.

But they end up winning like a

BAFTA.

I don't know what it is.

It's some kind of a like theater award.

They do win a theater award for staging the production in-game.

So the third third act of it is sort of like what I thought the whole thing was going to be.

I thought so, too.

I thought we were just going to see Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto, but no, it's largely an exploration of them deciding, should we do this?

Why are we doing this?

Showing it's so much more difficult to do than they expected.

And then finally, they're able to land the plane to some degree.

Because

as somebody, you know.

As somebody who enjoys games and

like watching YouTube and stuff, I don't watch a lot of people playing games.

I don't watch playthroughs really of games.

And I, you know, I'm very, always very flattered whenever I stream Twitch that people want to watch, but it's not something that I do.

I've never really watched somebody on Twitch.

Man, I love that shit.

I get games for watching people who are like super good at a game.

And I also just like speedruns in particular.

I've talked about it.

Just like, I love watching.

I'll watch a speedrun.

Like, when you send like a speedrun, I'm always, I'm seated.

I do like to see that, but I'm not going to sit down and like, okay, let's, what's who's on Twitch right now?

Let's see what I'm going to watch somebody play a chunk of this game that I'm interested in or whatever.

But I've always, I've always been interested in, partially because of our friend Sean Diston's interest in Machinima.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

He's telling me all the time, he's like, you've got to see what people are doing with this stuff.

It's so crazy.

People are just making full-ass movies

in Engine with, you know, with the Grand Theft Auto assets and stuff.

And so I...

When I heard about this, I was like, I can't believe a theatrically released version of

what Sean's been telling me about for years is happening, not realizing that it was actually a documentary about

the thought of even doing this

and the documentary about the execution of

trying to do it.

And ultimately, I'm happy that it's that because I, you know, I don't know if I could have watched a full...

I don't know if I would have watched a full version of it.

Yeah, that's what I thought it was in for.

And I was like, all right, this might be a chore.

It might be a little bit like what charming, but I think it's going to get a little bit old.

But

no, that's, I don't know.

This is part of why it, like, I found it kind of really connecting with me.

It's just like,

this is,

it's so much more about just like the psychology of the pandemic, which again was so impactful for me at first.

I had to think about when

while watching this,

obviously a much smaller scale, but I had a pretty solid DD, weekly D ⁇ D hang on Zoom

that just sort of like abruptly ended when things started opening back up.

Yeah.

Didn't finish the campaign.

Everyone just kind of went back to work and like started like doing their stuff.

Or, you know, and we just never picked it back up.

Good group of guys.

Great group of guys.

Kept me really,

you know,

sane.

during that.

But yeah, like it's just when when everything started went back, quote unquote, went back to normal, it was kind of like, oh, all that's done.

All that, all that stuff is over.

We're not doing any of that stuff anymore.

And

some might argue that we should have tried to do that for a little bit longer, at least.

We're never doing it again.

No, hey, here's the thing.

I'm never doing that again.

Never.

It'll be so funny what, like, if bird flu hits or whatever the fuck, how or has hit.

Or has hit, but if that's the thing, by the time this episode comes out, how little we're going to lock down now.

It's going to be like the complete opposite of the lockdown.

They're going to mail birds to our fucking house.

Yeah, that was like a, I don't know.

So to see that sort of,

I hadn't seen that depicted.

Yeah.

The loss of

consistent, nice

hang.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Taken away.

Yeah.

Which was in, which was interesting to see.

And I think that,

you know, there's been there have been movies that are being made

about the pandemic that have been, I think, unsuccessful in

depicting the psychology and the mental state that people were in actually during that time.

And this is like the thing that I think actually captures it the most of anything that I've seen.

For sure.

It's very impressive work to me.

That's what I liked about it more than

the Hamlet of it, although I did find that stuff really interesting.

Ranch, you washed this down.

What did you think?

I also was pleasantly surprised it wasn't a whole production of Hamlet.

But yeah, I think my favorite parts were the people that they met and just like how funny all of them were.

And like I died

when

that first lady who was like on her nephew's account.

Oh, yes, yeah.

Ran in and clearly had never played a video game before and like accidentally punched that NPC and like everyone like had to like come protect her.

I love that.

And then that conversation where Dippo was like breaking up with them.

Yeah.

And then he was like, oh, train.

And he just dipped out of there completely.

He just gets on the train in the game.

Yeah.

Thank you for that shot.

Yeah.

Thank you.

The moment where they all got on the blimp for that like pivotal, pivotal staging and like something happens and the blimp falls on the side

very funny very fucking very grand theft auto funny it's also funny to think about we talk about this all the time like the story of the character of the game yeah yeah you're at this

this weird uh you know presentation of hamlet and then your blimp fucking popped and you fell and died

uh any other thoughts i really liked there's a very small moment where they're trying to figure out where to stage something i I think it might be the to be or not to be a monologue.

And they

try it on a stone in the ocean because it's like, oh, maybe this is cinematic.

But then the tide starts rising.

And I was like,

that's a funny moment.

If that had been like in a movie,

that would have been just a very funny environmental moment.

Yes.

Yeah.

I liked, I loved all that.

The stuff that they had to figure out, like, obviously, like, how to navigate within the game and like get people who aren't interested to not come near them and like just antagonize them and stuff was always really fun uh yeah they they they clear as it progresses they clearly had figured out like kind of how to talk to me like oh don't shoot me don't shoot me don't shoot me here's what i'm doing i'm doing a play you know

really really funny and um

i just like i like that this is like the only we'll never see something like this again right

because it's like a one-time thing that it's like oh it's kind of interesting that this hadn't this very thing hadn't been done yet because there was no no reason for it to have occurred.

Yeah.

And now this will likely never happen again because there's just no reason to tell a story in this particular way.

Yeah.

So I just was like really taken with it, just like as an experiment, as like a, as a, as a film, I thought it was really cool.

Before the pandemic,

there was a company, I think it was called Jash out here.

Oh, yeah, I know, I remember Jash.

That was funding experimental theatrical experiences in virtual environments.

And they asked Miles Stroth and I to do an improv show in a full VR rig that had minimal hand and body tracking.

And so Miles and I were in separate rooms

in full VR rigs with cameras on us and stuff.

And they set up a virtual space that had multiple instances.

So like everybody was watching the same stage and we were projected into the stage environment in all of these different instances of the comedy club.

But because there were only like 15 seats in the comedy club, then if more than 15 people show up, they would duplicate the comedy club and there'd be additional seats.

And so

I have these memories of doing a show inside a VR on a stage where also they had like

just slightly

not mapped things quite correctly.

So Miles was about a foot and a half to two feet taller than me.

So like my experience of doing the show was looking up at like a giant.

But even though there were no guns in the in the VR world,

people

loved coming up onto the stage.

Oh my god.

It was all they wanted to fucking do.

And they had like a security guard there who would be like, you get one one warning because there's a possibility somebody would like accidentally like click to the wrong and

place.

Um,

and you'd be like, you get one warning to get off the stage.

So, like, half of the time we're doing the show, there would also suddenly be another person in the on the stage with us going, like, hey, guys, what do you want to do?

And then they'd like disappear.

Oh, my God.

But this, that, that is, is

that the trailer for that experience is that they gave us a virtual green room to sort of like try and figure out what it was like to like read each other's expressions in this virtual space.

And we did like half of a scene to be like,

can you tell what I'm doing with my hands?

Can you see the space work?

Should I even bother with space work?

But people were coming in the green room.

So like random people would just like walk into the green room and like either start yelling or like, oh my god.

And so, like, I felt a lot of like when I was watching this, I was like, Yeah,

I'm having like flashbacks to my experience of like trying to do a virtual space performance.

And I can't believe that they got such an enormous group of people to follow them from location to location.

And not grief them.

That was the

real success of the production: convincing a group of people to be a part of a thing.

Yeah, 100%.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

Okay.

I got a little segment.

It's a pixel chart.

Wow.

All right.

Bet you didn't know I had this coming here.

I certainly did not.

And it's a Grand Theft Auto pixel chart.

So

I'm going to put a little slant on this, and I'm going to introduce everybody's favorite type of rules.

Price is right rules.

Okay.

So I want to see if we can nail down the top five highest highest-grossing Grand Theft Auto games

and closest without going over wins.

Oh, so we're guessing the number.

We're guessing how much money

the game has grossed?

Unit sales.

Unit sales.

Yeah, not money.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Wait, so

not the number of units sold, but the amount of money for.

No, the former.

The units sold.

Oh.

Because

I have a chart right here.

Lifetime unit sales of selected games in the Grand Theft Auto franchise worldwide as of November 2024.

Okay, so assume number one is Grand Theft Auto V.

That's right.

I will get the ball rolling.

I am going to say,

I don't know if this is wildly low or high, but I'll say 61 million units.

Okay.

I need to

divide, and I don't know how to do the math.

I want to divide 1.5, no, I want to divide $2.5 billion dollars by

$70.

Because I think they made $2.5 billion in physical unit sales, but I don't know how to do that math.

And

anybody listening, when I come up with a number now, will be like, oh my God, she's so dumb because I've already told you what I want the math to be.

So I'm going to say,

what did you say?

I said 61 million.

I'm gonna guess,

and there were 160 million PlayStation 2s.

I'm gonna guess.

Which shouldn't factor in because it's about Grand Theft Auto 5.

I know.

Okay.

But I'm thinking, what is the maximum video game

machines sold?

I'm gonna guess

110 million.

Heather is the closest.

Wow.

But it's off by 95 million units.

It sold 205 million units as of November 2024.

It's a lot of copies.

It's a lot.

That is.

On PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess that's the thing.

It's been on three generations now.

Yeah.

So it's just that

it's on everything.

Just printing money.

Now I want to see what the math was.

Hold on.

How many copies has Minecraft sold?

That's what I want to know.

I don't know.

Five.

Us all just like silently looking up numbers on our devices.

You'll Google that number.

I'll Google this number.

Uh, Ranch, you ever played a Grand Theft Auto?

You ever gotten any of them?

Um, I played a little bit of GTA 5 with my college boyfriend, yeah, which I thought was fun because I kind of knew where I was going.

I know my way around here.

I was, I would have, if I'd done the math correctly, I would have been so much more wrong.

Uh, Minecraft 300 million.

Wow, Okay, so that's that's pretty good.

I'll just say what the next one is.

Is it a mainline series entry?

It is.

So it's got to be four.

Or is it San Andreas?

It is San Andreas.

San Andreas is number two sales.

How many units sold?

What was it?

Wait,

what was the previous one?

What was

205 million for Grand Theft Auto 5, but that's also like the probably the second biggest after Minecraft, right?

So, okay, so

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was a PS2 exclusive for

a while.

I'm going to re-up 61 million units.

Okay.

101 million units.

Both over.

Wow.

27.5 million units.

Holy shit.

So it increased its sales over the the previous top-selling entry, which was a massive success by a factor of 10.

Yes.

That's how huge Grand Theft Auto V is.

Wow.

Okay.

Insane, right?

All right.

Is the next one also a mainline series?

It is.

So is the next one four?

The next one is four.

Okay.

And what did we just, what was, give us a center dress.

26 million?

It was 27.5.

27.5 million, so it'd be less than that.

I guess I'll keep guessing first.

I'll say 18 million.

20 million.

Heather's the closest.

25 million units.

When we saw the Grand Theft Auto 4.

Do you remember when he was that Xbox exec at the time, but he showed he got a Grand Theft Auto 4 tattoo to reveal that Grand Theft Auto 4 was going to be multi-platform?

Yeah,

I do remember that.

Was it Peter Moore?

Who was that guy?

Gosh.

I don't know, but imagine him today.

I think it's still kind of cool to have a Grand Theft Auto IV tattoo.

It's pretty funny.

I don't know if it's cool, but it is funny.

I don't know if it was cool then.

The next one, then I'll just gonna say it was Peter Moore.

Peter Moore.

Granted, and look, I'm sorry, look at this guy with this tattoo.

That rocks.

It is kind of good.

Oh, wait,

the fucking paba bad covered up the tattoo.

That's so funny.

Yeah, he also just knows he has no other one.

He has no one.

No, that's his one tattoo.

His Grand Theft Auto 4.

In the font.

Yeah, in the font in white.

Bold choice.

Rocks.

Somehow whiter than his own skin.

Next up, number four.

All right.

Is this Vice City?

It is.

Okay, Vice City.

And

give us the numbers again going down from one.

205 million.

Okay.

27.5 million.

And 25 million.

25 million.

I keep undershooting it.

But I don't know.

Did Vice City crest 20 million units?

I feel like San Andreas was so much more of a sensation.

It came out later in the game's lifespan when there was a bigger install base.

I'll go first.

Go for it.

14 million.

Sell more than 14 million units.

14 million.

I'm not going to price his right it.

I will say, I will take a real guess and say 17 million.

Nick's the closest.

Wow.

17.5 million units sold.

Okay.

And finally, number five.

Number five is three.

Number five is three.

So

these are just mainline entries.

But I would guess also probably none of the DLC, none of the Chinatown Wars or the Ballad of Gay Tony would possibly be in the top five.

Yeah, because those wouldn't be selling one-to-one.

And then also the

other ones on this list that are not in the top five are Grand Theft Auto, Liberty City Stories,

Vice City Stories, which were PSP games and then ported to PlayStation 2 and then so on.

Give us a sales for those, but when we when we when we finish this off okay, okay, so Grand Theft Auto 3 sales.

I will say

17.5 was the Vice City.

That's right.

This game was still fucking huge.

I'll say 12 million.

Nick says 12 million.

14 million.

Heather takes it.

Wow.

14.5 million.

Wow.

Which I believe makes our game a tie.

Did I get any other right?

I thought I just got the one.

I think you got the one.

Maybe Heather wins.

All right, whatever.

I forget that when I'm reading the games, I'm supposed to also be keeping score.

But sometimes it's not about winning, it's about the information.

Yeah.

That's right.

What did Liberty City stories and Vice City Stories sell?

See, this is what I'm talking about.

It's about the information.

That's right.

Liberty City Stories sold 8 million copies, which is pretty good.

I feel like for a PSP

game that is eventually ported.

And then Vice City Stories 4.5, which again is not bad.

PSP exclusives, yeah.

Did you get the PS2 port, like you're saying?

Yeah, but like, I feel like,

I don't know, anything above like 3 million in this era of games is pretty good.

And then to have a from 27 million to 205 million is just unbelievable.

It's kind of crazy that they and they've still probably made less from selling retail units than they have from people just spending the game,

spending money in game.

Really, really crazy.

Economics of this shit is so crazy.

Hey, that's this week's Get Played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen, Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, you can find our merch, including apparel, hats, stickers, etc., at kinshipgoods.com.

Link in the show description.

Also in the show description, you can find our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gum, back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and also our Patreon exclusive show, get animated, where we're watching series, we're watching movies, and we're talking about them.

You can check that out at patreon.com slash get played.

And you know what?

The big incident got played.

Because we didn't fuck with that.

We don't like that.

That's right.

Whatever it is, we didn't like that.

That thing, get out of here.

We didn't get played.

Scram.

Unless it's illegal to say anything bad about the thing, in which case we like the thing.

And then, actually, unless, except if the thing is actually good,

then we like it.

Then we like it and we got played.

But then if it's bad, we don't like it.

So the question then is to play or not to play.

That was a head gum podcast.