The Last of Us and Zombie Games

This is a head gun podcast.

Oh my god, I cannot, I cannot believe that we are dealing with this undead apocalypse.

It is horrible.

There are so many guys outside, and

I've just secured the door, I've secured the windows, I've hammered everything closed.

I got everything I could out of that ambulance that crashed outside, so we have some supplies in case anyone gets infected.

Oh my god.

Yeah, no, it's I just think for sake of just knowing what everybody's talking about all the time, we should give these things a name.

I agree.

So we can all know what we're all talking about at the same time.

I absolutely agree.

Some shared language would be helpful.

Yeah, especially because we're going to need shorthand when it's like, oh no, they're outside.

I agree.

I agree.

So what do you think we should call these things?

I was sort of thinking about maybe calling them the comers.

Okay, that's okay.

That's one idea.

That's one angle we could go with.

Because they won't stop.

They come so much.

They're coming all the time.

Yeah, but I don't.

Yeah.

I don't want to.

They're like over there, and then we're over here, and then they come here.

Yeah, but I don't want to.

They come all over, really.

I don't.

I feel like it's just evoking something else, but I just mean.

I don't know.

We're scrambling here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All the exits secured.

We make sure we didn't miss any of them with covering them up with plywood and nails.

Yeah, the truth is, maybe this is kind of a low priority what they're called because, like, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, do you see?

They're over that, they're over the

hill.

They're coming closer.

They're coming closer.

They are coming, aren't they?

They're coming.

The comers are coming.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

I'm not going to say it.

I'm not going to say it.

I would rather.

Honestly, honestly, I'll call them

the returners or the dark walkers or uh

shit.

Walkers is pretty good, but I feel like it's

walkers.

It's kind of like a mouthful.

Yeah, yeah.

Cummers is like, you sort of get it right away.

I don't, no, no, I don't.

Like, if I said that to somebody, I was like, hey, have you seen the Cummers?

Then they're not going to.

They're not going to be.

Oh, yeah, those guys that are coming right over there.

Yeah, I've seen it.

No, they're not going to know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Wait, did you hear that?

What?

Downstairs.

What?

The Cummers.

They're here.

Oh, no, no.

Okay.

The comers are outside.

See,

it's catching on.

Wait, were you just using that as a demonstration?

So they're not actually in the house right now?

No, they are in the house.

What the fuck?

We need to board up the basement.

Will you guys help me?

You're just giggling.

I don't know what to do.

The comers are gay.

I'm not giggling.

Stop it.

The cummers are coming.

The comers got me.

Actually, I have a confession.

I'm going to all open my shirt here, and you can see

one of the cummers bit me.

I'm turning into a cummer.

No, you can't.

I'm turning into a cummer.

No, please.

Oh, no.

Oh, I'm turning into a cummer.

Oh, I'm coming.

Oh, I'm a cummer.

I'm a cummer.

We watch NPCs get dismembered and run out of ammunition as we discuss all-thing zombie games 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, Heatheran Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week, we're not just talking about zombie games.

We're talking about...

sort of all the zombie games.

It's almost like the podcast is a zombie game of zombie games

because there are so many zombie games and they're coming after us one after the other.

No, that's good.

That's interesting you say that because we're not just talking about zombie games.

We're talking about zombie games.

A horde of zombie games.

I get what you were saying.

A flock.

A huddle, if you will.

A murder of zombies.

What's everyone's favorite in-world name for zombies?

Because

they're always something else.

Yeah, they rarely say it'd be a breath of fresh air if someone's like, holy shit, it's a zombie.

It's always like, oh, it's a walker.

It's a groaner, you know, it's a clicker or whatever the fuck.

Yeah, I mean, I do like walker i do think that's pretty good

i think that's maybe the best one well but it's also like

you can see after a while that you would just call them walkers yes if you didn't have the word zombie yes you'd be like there the one of those walking guys is coming it's a walker right and same with clicker i mean like clicker it's like yeah of course you're gonna call that thing a clicker yeah because that's clicking the shit out of me i don't think anybody call them remotes

I don't think anybody would call them bloaters.

I call them a bloater.

I mean, yeah, you do because it's in the game, but I don't think, I don't think, like, bloater is a weird thing to say.

You'd call it a big one.

I think I would.

Heather's right.

I would call it a big one.

Oh, shit, it's a big one.

Right.

Like,

think about the stress you're under when you see that thing coming.

You're not going to be like, well, it's kind of bloated.

Yeah.

Therefore, I'm going to call it a bloater.

You'd call call it a big guy or a big one.

But the thing is, like, are you talking about, hey, here's a zombie that used to play college basketball?

Or are we talking about, this is specifically a bloater?

It's like a type of zombie.

It's like, you know, it's like a kind of like its own sort of thing.

Right, but you wouldn't, you, if you saw,

were you saying if the zombie had played college basketball?

Like, he'd be a big zombie.

You wouldn't call him a tall guy.

You'd say that's a big one.

They'd all be guys.

Now I'm learning about myself.

They'd all be guys.

yeah i'd be like oh

it's what it's one of the hot guys i was just thinking about this oh god it's one of the hot

fire one

on fire it's a hot one it's a hot guy this wouldn't this couldn't happen i mean it could happen but i don't think it would affect okay where you could become a zombie anybody could become a zombie okay mom dad okay sister brother teacher yeah police officer yeah

basketball player serial killer

A serial killer could become a zombie.

Right.

Does that make them a worse zombie?

Like they're bad at it because they're selective?

No.

Well, that's interesting.

Yeah, I got that one.

That one doesn't fit my code.

No, like they're just like, they're more deadlier, like more killing.

I feel like because zombies are using the body

that you die with.

Yeah.

I feel like Olympians would be the scariest zombies.

Yeah.

Because they've got the best fucking bodies.

Yes.

So like, if like a gymnast zombie, terrifying.

Because not only they can also like get under a house in a way, like a contortionist zombie.

Yeah.

Fuck that.

I did a, I looked for some canonical names for zombies sorted by IP.

And so, yeah, Walking Dead, Walkers, Last of Us, more generally, or the infected as opposed to, yeah, that's the, you know, World War Z in the movie, I'd forgotten about this.

They're called Zeke's.

Don't care for that one.

I don't get, because that's just like a guy's name.

Well, it's because because they're zombies in World War Z, the book, but in the movie, they're like, ah, the army guys call them Zeke's.

Like, it's like a military slang.

Wasn't Zeke the

word used in the subtitled version of

MS08 team?

Didn't they call the Zeon guys Zeke?

They call them Zeke sometimes, yeah.

They're zombies.

Well, that, so now World War Z took it from Gunda.

Oh, interesting.

That show predates it.

Train to Busan, great movie,

A zombie train movie.

I mean, come on.

That's checking a couple boxes for me.

It's a two, it sounds like.

I said a couple.

You call me out on proper word usage?

They are just called zombies in Train to Busan.

But sometimes the characters are like, oh, the monsters are infected, I guess.

Yeah.

Somebody should write a movie where their in-universe movie had a different name for them.

Yeah.

So that, like, they call, like, for example,

it would be like the,

the

i don't know the the gallopers or something right yeah so that when they see them somebody would be like oh they're like gallopers and the other guy would be like like the movie yeah right like they're the foundational zombie text in their world their equivalent of their night of the living dead established them as gallopers so we use them as gallopers yeah it would be funny if there was like a you know a zombie property, be it movie, TV show, video game, comic, whatever, that never calls them something.

Like, what is that?

And they're just like, I don't know.

And they're just like, they run away.

What the fuck is that?

Hey, we're going to talk about all that.

But first, the question we always like to ask toward the top of the episode, not right at the top.

Talk about some other bullshit first, usually.

Usually just a smattering of a little bit of bullshit.

Just talk about whatever we want.

Just talk about whatever we want.

Yeah, we do whatever the fuck we want here, okay?

We do whatever the fuck we want.

Calm down.

We're sorry.

We're sorry about Matt.

I'm in a mood.

I'm drinking a

strawberry peach LaCroix.

And let me tell you something.

It got me fucked up.

I want to say,

we're in a different studio than we normally are.

And it's got a different sound in here.

It has a different energy all around.

Yeah.

It's like quiet.

There's two different head gum studios.

There's H, which is the smaller one, which is where we usually operate.

And then there's G.

Yes.

The mnemonic I use for them is H is home or hello because it's near the door.

And G is grande because it's the big boy.

That's pretty good.

So we're in the bigger studio, G, but it's like a little bit too much space for us.

And yeah, ranch is like so far away.

Ranch is like a football field away from us.

Ranch is far away.

I'm on the completely other end of the couch.

And I'm very tense because I'm sharing a couch with Nick.

Right, we're also sitting in a different orientation.

Is that the issue?

Should we switch seats?

Because

I'm usually stage right, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm usually stage right.

You're stage left, and Matt is center.

I'm tense, we're in completely different orientations.

I'm tense with any change, so yes.

All right, let's change spots.

You want to change?

Wait, so wait, you stay there.

I'm staying exactly where I am.

Nick, you come here, and I'll go to the spot.

You're not in the right place.

You're in the right spot.

Okay, so you move to the middle.

Okay, great.

Is that gonna mess up though?

Do we have a reframe?

No.

Okay, good.

We're good.

Okay, I'm moving.

We'll put some moving music in here.

This is so funny.

This is, I will say, this is better.

Oh, thank God.

Oh, thank God.

The best part about this for me is I feel like I'm less threatened.

Yeah, nothing's going to happen with me next time.

Yeah, Nick is farther away.

I can't protect you.

Can only threaten.

Yes.

This is better.

For some reason, I'm a little more.

This is like how I like to sit at home.

Yep.

This is better.

I mean, the room is still weird, but it's better.

This is better.

Get this the fuck out of here.

It's not ours.

With this reset mood.

There was another record in here right before us.

There's a bunch of leftover shit.

Don't worry.

I cleaned it all up.

It's like peanut shells everywhere.

Yeah.

Like they were just elephants or something, just like eating peanuts like they're at a, like at a 1915 bar.

Right.

Like at one of those like classic sort of barbecue restaurants where they're trying to say it uses an indicator for them being rustic.

Throw your shells on the floor.

We don't give a fuck.

Here's the thing.

I hate that.

I hate it too, Matt.

It seems uncleanly to me.

I don't want to be crunching some peanut shells while I'm walking over my table.

I want to eat at a clean restaurant.

I agree.

This is bullshit.

Everybody go to a Lucille's barbecue.

Here's the thing.

Yeah.

One of my top chains.

Really good chain.

It's pretty good.

Yeah.

I don't know.

They're not nationwide.

No.

And I'm sure, you know, that, hey, there's a Matt and I are both from SoCal.

What do we know about barbecue?

I'm sure a lot of the American South would be like, what the fuck?

This isn't barbecue.

But as far as a vibe spot,

got decent cue, and it's a great place to just hang out and drink a sugary cocktail.

I guess I haven't had barbecue from the actual South.

I've had barbecue when I was, I had barbecue when I was in St.

Louis.

I think that kind of qualifies, right?

They got the St.

Louis style barbecue.

Yeah, it was very good.

I liked it quite a bit.

When

I went with my wife to Texas, she was like, you have to have Texas barbecue.

And I had Texas barbecue.

And I was like,

huh?

Okay.

Because I grew up in Chicago barbecue, and that is its own thing.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

So, like, it's weird that everybody's got their own barbecue.

Yeah, it's a declarative thing.

Should we order barbecue?

We could order barbecue.

The other thing I was going to say is,

like, yeah, LA as obviously it's not like much of a local cuisine, except our Korean barbecue, which is absolutely top-notch.

That's my favorite thing to eat, I think.

Yeah.

I go nuts at a KBBQ.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Were you thinking that or are you thinking like an actual barbecue, like, or like a more traditional American barbecue?

Heather was was talking about a surprise barbecue order, like as a

prank, I guess, but it would be like that we get to eat the barbecue.

Well, the truth is that I thought I was going to be late to record, and I thought I would make it up to you guys by having barbecue come as a surprise.

But then I was here on time, and I was like, I don't want to subject people to eating after the record if nobody wants to eat.

Yeah, and then I ended up being the one who was late to the record because my bus didn't come on time, and then it didn't matter because someone was still in the studio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's okay, Nick, it's fine.

You can give us your surprise at any time.

Yeah.

My surprise?

Yeah.

My surprise was leaving a bunch of trash in here that we had to clean up.

Yo, you gave me just a little something to do.

Here's the thing.

I'm down to get barbecued truly anytime.

I worry that because often what we do is we do in-between meal record two episodes.

We do like get played and then it get animated.

We're not doing that today.

Typically, we would, if we did this on another day where we were doing that, I would say we're doing the first record, eating barbecue, and then holding our stomachs and going home right we could do some post-show

bbq if we wanted today and be fine if we wanted but also i we're just doing the one record i don't know if people have their other other dinner plans are gonna we don't need to figure this out right now but look we already we've already subjected the listener to moving on the couch

ranch where do you stand on barbecue our producer rochelle chan i love barbecue do you have it like like do you have a favorite style and do you have a favorite like do you go for like a pulled pork do you go for like a baby back rib go for a brisket my favorite is definitely ribs yeah

like a beef rib pork rib like a beef rib okay okay okay

I actually don't know what ribs kind of ribs I'm eating

are they big or small the big ones are big

big bigger yeah okay like a Flintstones rib yeah I like I like a pork rib I will say I know this is deeply concerning information to hear for people that don't indulge in meat when people start talking about the different parts that you prefer I understand I will get off of this in just a second whenever I'm eating ribs I always feel like it's like a special occasion like something something

extra went extremely well yeah for me to be eating ribs today it's very very good i love it i can't remember the last time i've just dug into like a half rack of baby back ribs i will generally say that i like a i like a brisket i'm a brisket i feel like that's where i lean i really like a brisket but then i'm also the the things i think that always get forgotten barbecue chicken and especially barbecue shrimp okay so i was saying some shrimp on the barbecue oh hell yeah what are you down under or something something?

Yeah, if I want to be.

This guy's going down under over here.

He's next thing.

He's going to tell me what is and isn't a knife.

This guy.

Saying the C word a bunch.

That'd be a funny pivot for you.

Hey guys, I'm Australian now.

Don't do the accent.

Just say it.

I was saying to Heather just a little bit ago before we started recording, because we were talking about barbecue a little bit before he got here.

Okay, great.

I'm glad there's a continuation of the conversation.

And so I was saying that like barbecue chicken typically not my favorite because I feel like it's often just an afterthought.

It's pretty, because it's an easier preparation.

You just make the chicken and you slather in barbecue sauce, you're kind of done with it.

I had some barbecue sauce.

It feels like an oversimplification, but I'll let you continue.

Of course, because, like, there's obviously other things you could do where you could be, like, smoking the chicken or something.

But a lot of times, like, I would say that

this is for this is for your other show.

This whole conversation is for your other show.

Other show,

do if we talk about this further, do we owe like Mitch money?

Uh, no, we do not.

Doctor, I think he owes me money.

Okay, it's a separate conversation.

ED is more common than you think and simpler to treat than ever.

Through HIMS, you can connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options discreetly on your terms.

Through HIMS, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED like hard mints and SexRX Plus climax control if prescribed.

HIMS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from hard mints to trusted generics that cost 95% less than the brand names if prescribed.

Now that's quite a savings.

You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself.

HIMS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your goals first.

This isn't a one-size-fits-all care that forgets you in the waiting room.

It's your health and goals put first with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results.

Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more all in one place.

To get simple access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit him.com slash get played.

That's him.com slash get played for your free online visit.

HIMS.com slash get played.

Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan.

Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality.

Prescription required.

See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information.

Guys, fall is here.

The beers are colder.

The football's back.

And the fits are getting layered.

But if you're still rocking old beat-up boxers under those flannels and jeans, we gotta talk.

It's time to upgrade to me undies.

These things are ridiculously soft.

Like, don't want to take them off soft if you catch my drift they're made with micromodal fabric that feels like a cloud but they still breathe when things heat up and just in time for spooky season me undies limited edition halloween line features festive prints including glow-in-the-dark underwear so you can bring the spooky vibes underneath it all because that's what you want your underwear to be scary me undies has a cut for every butt with over 20 styles in 100 different colors and prints.

MeUndies signature super soft micromodal fabric is breathable, stretchy, and unbelievably cozy, perfect for crisp mornings, chilly nights, and everything in between.

Whether you're layering up for a hike or lounging in flannel all day, MeUndies moves with you and keeps you comfy.

Want even more seasonal comfort?

Try the Breathe Line.

Designed for moisture wicking and anti-odor tech to keep you fresh throughout fall workouts or just a long day of pumpkin picking.

I love it.

They use sustainably sourced materials and work with partners that care for their workers.

Not happy with your first pair of undies?

It's on me undies.

With more than 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, me undies are an essential summer must-have for every drawer.

I've talked about the undies, okay?

I've talked about me undies.

And folks, the me stands for me, mine, me,

I, Matt.

I got the undies.

And I loves them.

Because guess what?

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,

and I put on an old pair of undies and I'm just like, ow, ow, ah, I can't breathe.

Ah, it hurts.

Oh no, it stinks.

But with the meundies on, those are not my problem anymore.

Right now, as a listener to my show, you can get cozy and spooky for less with deals up to 50% off at meundies.com slash get played and enter promo code get played.

That's meundies.com slash get played.

Promo code get played for up to 50 off meundies that's comfort made for all

so they'll often like i feel like the barbecue chicken at lucille is not particularly exciting of like barbecue chickens you can get it's like just sort of like easy to make in a batch there are places where it's an afterthought but there are places that do a proper barbecue chicken the place the a place that i love here in los angeles have you had moose craft barbecue i have had moose craft yeah moose is i think rising the ranks to me in terms of like best in Los Angeles.

I really love Moose.

One time was in, I was in line.

They were running out of stuff.

And you can just replay this on the show next week if you want.

Just like slice of it.

Hey, here's something more.

Here's a clip from my other podcast, Get Played, and it's just a clip of talking about food in the middle of Doughboys.

Your more interesting guest is going to be like, what the fuck is this?

And I was in line at Moose, and they were running out of stuff because it's a place that'll just run out of stuff.

And when you're in the line, they're crossing stuff off like the chalkboard.

It's a very concerning spot to be because you could get to the front and they could have no more food.

One of the last things they had, I mean, they had a few rib tips left.

I was able to get some rib tips, very exciting.

And then they had barbecue chicken.

And I was like,

I guess I'll get the barbecue chicken.

And I kid you not, Nicholas.

Yes.

This is the best.

This is the best barbecue chicken I've ever had in my life.

Wow.

It was so fucking good.

It was smoked.

It had a nice little thin layer of sauce.

And it had this like sort of

spicy ranch on it.

Yes.

Very, very good.

You know,

again,

it's by LA standards, very good food city.

Obviously, not the mech of barbecue.

But there are some places, I mean, like among the sort of chain tier, there's Holy Cow, which I think is pretty good.

Okay, yeah.

But Blood Sos, which is

the big one that people point at, which started in Compton.

Now there's a couple in LA, and it's Texas-style barbecue.

And

that place always I have a great time at.

and I I will I also just sort of say like there are also places that you'll find like there was a spot that was just in a dirt lot for a while it was like an airstream trailer and like a and and then like there were like picnic tables in a dirt lot it closed during pan and the pandemic and I was trying to look it up on my iPad what the fuck it was called I couldn't figure it out um but that spot was like great and then there's also this the place that is uh actually owned and operated by uh Jeffrey Epstein's former personal chef which

probably pretty good like you have to assume pretty good probably Probably good,

um, I do want to say, I did just order all the barbecue.

Did you really?

Yeah, I did.

Really?

Is that what you're doing on your phone?

Yeah, that's what I did on my phone.

I just got us all dinner.

Oh, my God.

I am sorry.

I didn't ask anybody's permission.

I just did it.

Well, I'm still hungry.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

We have to barbecue it.

I got us the brisket.

I got us the pulled pork.

I got us lean brisket.

I got us the sides.

I got mac and cheese, collard greens, beans, cornbread, coleslaw.

I got all of it.

Wow.

This is going to be huge for us.

I did not get the full chicken because that felt too much.

That seemed, I mean, what you ordered, that sounds like a lot of food.

Yeah.

That's going to be a lot.

We're going to, we're going to pig out.

Yeah.

We're going to be in hog heaven,

pun intended.

Look at that.

But right now, we got to talk about some video games on this video game podcast.

The question for the room is, what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hi, it's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask my friends what they've been playing, but also to condemn them for not inviting me me to dinner.

Resident Evil Merchant, of course, you're there's an unspoken invite.

You're welcome to join us.

Okay, great.

I've seen the Resident Evil Merchant eat a whole chicken, and let me tell you something, it was unpleasant.

I can unhinge my jaw, take it all into my mouth, and then I can suck hard enough to leave the bones in the mouth and the meat in my throat.

Well, you were trying to do, you're trying to reenact the lava chicken scene from the Minecraft, a Minecraft movie, and it sort of just didn't really work out.

I I didn't see this in any good.

You know, you listen to our episode we did last week about it.

What?

You were here?

You were here.

Yeah.

Will you release these?

Yeah, these episodes are, we don't just have a conversation in a room into microphones and then record it for our own archival purposes.

We actually release this commercially so for people to listen to and we run ads on it.

Are you in trouble?

Why would we be in trouble?

For the show.

Yeah, sometimes people don't like that.

Yeah, sometimes we're in trouble, trouble, yeah.

I'd say.

I would be careful.

You know, I didn't know that you could.

I thought like maybe you play it for your friends at a listening party, but you're putting this, am I famous?

I would say

your fame predates our show.

I think just being there, you have a like notoriety as the Resident Evil merchant.

Do you think anybody in Congress knows who I am?

Does anyone in Congress know who the Resident Evil Merchant is?

I would say yes.

Definitely, yes.

At this point, there's enough Zoomers.

I mean, maybe not zoomers, but there's enough millennials in Congress.

Wow.

Some of them played a Resident Evil game.

Oh, well,

that's great.

I think I could probably get some stuff taken off of my record.

I don't know if they do that.

They do do that.

Did they do that?

I got to go to the District of America and talk to Congress.

Yeah, is it just called the District of America now?

I think it might be, actually.

I don't even have any.

You got to stay on top of the locals.

The Resident Merchants is kind of an odd, odd, odd fellow.

Have you noticed?

I noticed that the Resident Evil Merchant.

It's funny you say that.

Because now, if I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about it, yeah, I have noticed that the Resident Evil 4 merchant is a bit of an odd fellow.

Odd.

And would we?

I just say, you know, you kind of say strange things.

You behave in an odd way.

Yeah.

You act like you've never gone in

a rental car company

with a lot with like four buckets of beans and as if you could

like everybody I what in what way am I on

in what way I really don't

honestly like just saying shit like that like what you just said buckets of beans like extremely weird typically not the container for which you would transport beans.

If you have a lot of them, how would you suggest it?

I guess if you harvest them.

Like put like put your coat down on the ground.

I just don't know where the rental car is coming into the equation, but under your coat.

I was gonna rent a car and sort of like wrap it up like a gift.

Is that what you want to do?

I don't believe in it.

I don't believe in it.

And this is something that we actually do really appreciate about you: you have such

you hold on to your morals so strongly.

You're so strident in your moral code and your value system.

It's enviable.

Number one, never kill anyone on roller skates.

Number two.

They're just having fun.

What?

I said, they're just having fun.

Leave them alone.

Also, they're at a disadvantage.

Yes.

I agree with you.

All right.

I think you just probably end that at never kill anyone.

That's probably all you need there.

No, I disagree.

Guilding the lily.

I disagree.

I've seen some shit.

Some people need to die.

Some people do need to die,

but

that's a larger conversation, Resident Evil Merchant.

Let's talk about some video games.

Do you think if Luigi Mangioni had my name, that people would be like, you got to merchant that guy?

Yeah.

So if Luigi Mangion Evil's legal name was Resident Evil Merchant?

If Luigi Mangioni was named Resident Evil Merchant,

you're going to be saying somebody has to merchant that one.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think, though, I think the larger story would be like,

there's a man named Resident Evil Merchant.

Yes.

Like,

was that merchant the legal last name?

Am I not a man?

You are a man.

That's my name.

Okay, fair enough.

Fair enough.

I was thinking about a hypothetical guy.

If I'm thinking about the actual person standing in front of me, the hulking figure wearing a cloak, then yes, you are Resident Evil Merchant.

You are a man.

And I say, man, that is wet.

Why don't we get?

Oh, my God.

Why don't we get to the topic?

What are you praying?

Not even wearing it on his head.

Here's a video game I've been playing.

Blue Prince, which released today as of this recording, April 10th, 2025, which is when we're in studio.

It was developed by Dog You Bomb, an indie studio founded by Tonda Ross.

I'm not quite sure how to pronounce their name, but also they were the development lead on this particular game.

It was published by Raw Fury.

It is on Game Pass, and it's also on PlayStation Plus, so there are some ways to play this if you're on one of those subscription services.

And it is getting universal acclaim from critics.

I assume a lot of our, or at least some of our listenership, has already messed around with this game because it's got so much indie hype around it.

I have played a couple of hours on PC Game Pass.

Matt, you've also gotten to spend a little bit of time with the Blueprints.

Yes.

I've been playing it on PlayStation Plus,

on my PS5,

and

I'm enjoying my time with it despite not really being sure what I'm doing.

So

here's what I will say.

I played more than I planned to, and that was partly why I was running a little bit late today.

It's a game that I found immediately compelling.

Yes.

Partly because I like this type of game, and we'll get into what the gameplay is, but also because it has that sort of

ambiguity, that mystery quality to it, where I just want to understand what exactly I'm,

from a narrative design standpoint, it's just sort of like giving me some details,

but in a way where I want more and more, and I want to understand what exactly is going on here.

Yes.

But the game is opaque by design, both in terms of what the the story is, who you are, why you are there, and then also what you're supposed to be doing as you're playing the game.

There's very minimal in terms of onboarding, in terms of like any sort of tutorial or whatever.

You're just sort of introduced to how it works and then just sort of like told to go at it.

So here's basically how the gameplay works.

You're in first person.

It's like in a first person exploration game.

You're exploring a family mansion.

You start in an entryway and there are three doors, one to the north, one to the west, one to the east.

When you go up to one of these doors, you pick up some blueprints in the foyer.

And when you go up to one of these room, these doors, you have a choice of three different rooms, kind of roguelike style or any sort of run-based game style where you can choose,

you can choose to place there.

Each of them have different attributes and also different entrances and exits.

So for instance,

you could have a storage closet, which will have items in it.

You might have some gems and a key in there, but it will be a dead end because it's a closet.

Whereas if you put in a hallway, it will have no items, but it will give you two additional doors so you can create more options and expand your map as you go.

So it's one where you're kind of like going from room to room, but you're also like creating the rooms.

You're building this environment as you go, and that resets with each with each run.

You're kind of building out a grid and trying not to run out of moves.

It's kind of like a,

I don't know if y'all remember that old pipe lane game, Pipe Mania, but there's a lot of the, there's a lot of games like these grid-based games where you're basically putting down

pipes and you know, it's like some are you know some will be angled some direction some will some will be like a plus shape that'll go in all different directions

and you're trying to just try to just like figure out the flow of the water but here it's the flow of of where you the player character move you also have a limited resource in terms of how many steps you can take in a day which sounds onerous but it's actually just tracking how many times you go in and out of rooms and it's just a way to keep it for keep you from you know spending infinite time in one individual run i i anyway

that in and of itself is compelling.

Like if the game was just that, I'd be in because it's kind of a fun puzzle plus, you know, it like, how do I optimize this map?

How do I keep it so I can keep moving, but also keep accumulating resources?

Because some rooms require resources in order to build.

You have to have gems to build them or some, some like, you know, if you build like, I think it's a chapel that requires gold to enter.

You know, like, so like.

you also have to to be mindful of that.

I think that's all really fun and really compelling.

But the real draw is trying to figure out, again, what the hell is going on.

It's very Mist-like to me specifically.

And I say, I'm not that, I'm not the biggest fan of Myst, but I do appreciate that Mist just had so much like lore and so much to like look at and try to figure out.

Also reminded me in games like Gone Home or What Remains of Edith Finch.

Edith Finch obviously has like a lot more just like dialogue and just like straight story, but it is a sort of thing of like, you're just sort of like in this environment trying to make sense of it and

you get to certain checkpoints and you find a little bit more out.

It's all kind of trickled in and then that informs the whole also kind of reminds me heather to some degree of and again pretty early on but like even of team eco games like it kind of has that shadow of the colossus sort of feel of like what is this place what is happening here who am i and i i think all that stuff is conveyed really really effectively a lot of atmosphere all mystery a bunch of mystery but none of the horror elements it's not like a pt or a silent hill it's just like weird what is the aesthetic of the game great question so it has you know it's it's an indie feel.

It kind of honestly looks, we're going to talk about probably Telltales of The Walking Dead at some point.

It kind of has that sort of telltale aesthetic to it.

Like sort of like thick outlines.

Yes, yes.

Like it's like almost like it's the art is drawn with a marker, you know?

And,

but, but there aren't a lot of like,

maybe I'll encounter some in the environment as it goes, but it's like you're, it's first person and this environment is largely empty.

And if you see any characters, you're seeing them in cinematics.

You're not seeing them in the play space.

For me,

I like,

it took me a couple of, I mean, it's going to obviously take anybody a couple of runs to sort of like get in the groove of like what it is a little bit.

But like,

I got, I'll say that I got to,

there's like

on the grid that you have, you have like your starting room, which is like the main entryway, right?

And then you have like, it's called the anter room.

Yeah.

At the very end, you're sort of building your run to get to that room.

Okay.

Before we got, before I walked over here, I I got all the way to that.

Wow.

And was like very happy with myself.

I was like, okay, like this was huge for me.

I got all the way to this thing.

And I couldn't go further than that.

So it was like,

my run wasn't optimal enough because I didn't have the thing that would require like, I guess.

to trigger the thing that I need to go past that.

You're talking very vaguely, I think, for a reason, because this does feel like a game where part of I didn't really know anything.

I just knew that people were saying this game is awesome before I started playing it, which I'm really glad I got to experience it that way.

So, I guess if you're listening to this and you haven't played it yet, sorry.

Yeah, well, like, I was like,

but I mean, like, I will say that, like, you reach certain points where it's like, oh, I have, this is a new kind of entrance that I was not expecting.

Like, this is a new way into a room, and I need some sort of thing that I don't have yet, or I do have this thing, and now I can get in here.

But it's like, so I think there's a, I, again, what we're, we'll see where, where we end up when we actually play more of this game, but it's like, I do feel like getting to finishing a run, completing a run, and I'm not sure if that completes the game or if that just probably, in all likelihood, just sets up something, you know,

takes you to a new threshold, involves like exploring as much of the space as possible and unlocking as many things as possible.

So you unlock additional rooms, you unlock additional items, you unlock additional bonuses.

There are things you can do with work where you have you end up like at a certain point, I built a shrine and the shrine imbued me with bonuses that lasted the next two runs so you can

cool yeah I guess I'm speaking of it vaguely because I don't know what I'm talking about well that's the other thing it's like

it's very confusing

but like the it's I mean I'm enjoying it and like the the the there are puzzles in it that

are not particularly challenging

so far.

I know that there's going to be some probably later on.

There was like

there was a particular type of puzzle that required a little bit of math from me.

Sure.

And that's not, that's not my thing at all.

I can't do, I mean, I can do math enough, but I'm not thinking about math.

I haven't thought about math in a long time, even though it's part of my name, of course.

Yeah, you're you may be math you, but you don't think about

it.

Yeah, math few.

Math?

Phew.

I don't have to do it.

It's usually what I'm thinking.

Now I'm doing it.

Did Heather leave?

No, I'm right here.

I have to do this math and like I had to sort of learn how to do the math kind of because it's not telling you how to do it.

No, I like that.

This is the dartboard puzzle.

I like that.

I was like, oh, this feels like the sort of emergent sort of

like it's not spoon feeding it to you.

Emergent isn't quite the right word, but it's like you're discovering through context clues how this puzzle works.

It's pretty simple, but I like the way that was.

I felt like a fucking genius.

Yeah, exactly.

I felt amazing.

I was like, I did math and I was right.

Right.

Yeah.

It helps you.

It doesn't really hold your hand with it, but it gives you just enough clues where you feel like you're figuring it out on your own, even though it's a thing that the game wants you to do, which to me is always like the most successful,

you know, sort of design.

And

I also got a like, there was an element where they were, I found out they were fucking with me, which I liked, which I, there was, there was a thing where

I'll be kind of

vague here, but there were some

like instructions that were sort of left around where I was like, oh, okay, that's okay.

I'll keep that in mind.

That's a little sort of tool tip.

I'll back pocket.

And then I discovered a thing that was saying, like, these kinds of instructions are lies.

Yeah.

So I was like, oh, okay, that's kind of fun that the game had me believing a bunch of false things just because I was

naturally absorbing the conventions of how information is dispensed in games.

What I'm learning so far,

based on the conversation that we're having, is that we both played this all day today.

Again, I played it a lot more than I expected to.

And with my limited time with the game, I understand the rapturous reception where people are like, oh, this is the best 2025 release so far.

I wonder if there's ever been an, speaking of lying in games, I wonder if there's ever been an instruction booklet to a video game.

And I say booklet because it like,

obviously you've just described something that's like an in-game tutorial that does this.

So it does exist in games.

But I wonder if there's ever been an instruction booklet that purposefully tells you the wrong information.

Like, Mario loves a pit.

Put him in the pit.

The only thing I remember from,

I mean, the gate, the game Tunic, I know, which I didn't play, but that was an indie from a couple years ago that did have an in-game manual that was like

part of it, at least is my understanding of it.

But

the only thing I remember is the Castlevania 3 manual

in North America listed two bosses as

uh what the fuck was it i remember one of them was called uh paula abghoul and i was like so this was just i like as a kid was like oh okay it's paula abdul oh the other one was freda scare freda scare and paula abghul these two dancing bosses and i was like oh okay just took that as face value and the other i was like wait this was just whoever was doing the localization was just freelancing they like

yeah no one no one was no one was supervising them so like i don't know

i'll make up some pun names that's so good yeah uh i'm i'm enjoying it can't wait to see what else is going on in this freaky house the other thing i was gonna say is, because we're going to talk about like The Last of Us and the game of The Last of Us, which I really like.

I like those games, but it's easy to see a good straight shot turn that into a TV series because it's portions of gameplay

interrupted by non-interactive cutscenes.

You know, beat the level to get the reward of watching the movie.

That's just how, and that's how a lot of games, triple-A games are.

Or sit through the movie so that the reward is shooting more of those guys who are yelling out Steven.

Exactly.

This is the sort of narrative design where all of it can really only be conveyed as interactive art.

And that's why I really like that sort of design where it's like, oh, I understand why this is a video game.

Like this, this, this doesn't really translate into other medium.

This effectively uses the strength of this interactivity and exploring on your own

to its benefit.

Matt, I'm glad you're playing it.

I did think you would love it or you would like it, at least in like kind of a lost sense.

Yes.

I mean, do you get lost vibes at all?

I know it's not very losty in terms of aesthetic, but in terms of like the sort of puzzle boxy tone.

I hadn't thought about it yet until now.

That is sort of, I guess, part like that is scratching the itch of why I'm enjoying it probably.

You really nailed that.

Cause like for some reason, I had this instinct when I started the game.

Yeah.

The game wants you to walk into the house first.

Yeah.

I went outside.

Matt, I also went outside.

I was like, what the fuck's going on out here?

I want to see what's going on outside.

Not much so far, but I feel like there's going to be stuff to discover outside at some point.

There's some stuff outside.

Ooh, baby.

There's stuff outside.

This game kind of sounds awesome.

I really like it.

I wrote my notes.

Because I didn't know, Matt, you were going to play it.

Matt, I think you'd love this.

Heather, I think you'd hate this.

Oh, okay.

There's no killing, and it's just all like.

Yeah, there's no combat.

Is it just not like a monster in the the house, no, there's there's no combat.

We don't know, but it's probably maybe, but I mean, there's no combat, it's it's just a game of exploration, yeah, and and puzzles.

Not every room has stuff to click on, even.

Yeah, I there are books you can find, you can find like a book and read it.

Do you like gems?

I like books and gems.

There's books and gems in there, but usually I like it if they like you have to kill somebody to get the book.

I think so far there's no murder.

I think you should try it just to see.

I didn't want to assume you would hate it, even though there are so many things in it thus far

that knowing you as your friend, I know you'd hate it.

The idea of

taking, at the end of my day, getting my like one hour of video game time,

if I'm lucky,

to spend doing math problems in a fucking room, that does not sound like me.

Yeah, I would be surprised if you like this game.

You sometimes like games that

you wouldn't expect Heather to like, like a Disco Elysium, but then again, Disco Elysium is one of the best games ever made.

It's a singular.

I don't know if this quite rises to that threshold, but maybe it does.

Jason Schreier said that this is one of the best games he's ever played.

Yeah, I have heard that from some people.

I'm not deep enough into it yet to render that verdict.

I think they play it for 100 hours, I think, before getting to this consensus.

What I put in my notes was just to go back to it.

Matt, I think you'd love this.

Heather, I think you'd hate this.

Ranch, I think you'd text us.

Blue Prince is crazy.

WTF is going on.

The hell?

Do you struggle with procrastisaving?

You know, when you put off doing something that could save you a ton?

I used to be a huge procrastaver until I heard about Mint Mobile's best deal of the year that's ending soon: 50% off unlimited premium wireless for new customers.

Let me tell you how I procrastisaved.

I would reuse toilet paper.

Stop overspending with big wireless and cut your wireless bill to $15 a month when you switch.

All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation.

largest 5G network.

You can use your current phone and phone number on any Mint Mobile plan and bring along all your existing contacts.

Don't miss out on three months of unlimited premium wireless from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month.

But hurry because this deal ends September 22nd.

Look, cell phones are cell phones.

What are we talking about?

Your wireless carrier isn't, it's all the same, man.

Am I allowed to say during an ad?

Well, I just did.

And I told you I would reuse toilet paper to save money.

Think about how much you could be saving with Mint Mobile.

Quit stalling and start saving when you make the switch.

Shop plans at mintmobile.com/slash get played.

That's mintmobile.com/slash slash get played.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

and then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

And my cell phone didn't have wireless access.

So this next ad is specifically something that I could have used.

in the past.

Because if I'd had Wi-Fi, I could have called somebody.

But instead, I had no cell phone service.

trapped on a roof in Tokyo.

If you've ever been lost abroad or badly needed an internet connection with no Wi-Fi spot in sight, you'll understand what a difference a local SIM card can make.

An e-SIM provides an internet connection wherever you travel and saves you money on roaming fees.

That's where Saley comes in.

Saley is a new e-SIM service app brought to you by the creators of NordVPN.

Here you can choose from several affordable eSIM plans in over 190 countries and eight regions.

With a Saley eSIM, you'll always have a connection when needed.

Download Saley once and you won't have to install a new eSIM for each country.

You can avoid scammers selling fake SIM cards outside of train stations and airports.

No more wandering around looking for a public Wi-Fi spot.

With a Saley, you're always connected.

They provide 24-7 support, and you get a full refund if your device isn't e-SIM compatible.

Download the Saley app in your app store.

Use code GETPLAID at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase or go to saley.com/slash get played.

That's S-A-I-L-Y dot com slash get played.

I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Has this ever happened to you?

You've been traveling abroad and you want to watch one of your comfort shows or perhaps even a sporting event, and then because you're somewhere else in a different country that doesn't have that, you can't freaking watch it?

Well, I got something for you.

NordVPN.

Protect your private data like bank details, passwords, and online identity.

NordVPN can switch your virtual location, allowing you to save money by purchasing flights, hotels, and subscriptions from other countries at a cheaper price.

So, look, NordVPN can do all sorts of crazy stuff.

You can make it think you're somewhere else.

You're wherever you are, you're not getting the best deal.

Switch to somewhere else.

They might have a better deal.

That's huge.

Protecting your data whilst traveling, and yeah, I said whilst, and using public Wi-Fi, NordVPN protects you wherever you are in the world.

I kind of theory.

This is why they haven't been able to apprehend Carmen San Diego.

She's using NordVPN.

They'll never find her.

The NordVPN threat protection feature protects you from viruses, malicious malware, and phishing sites.

Unless that phishing site is fastpro.com.

No protection required there.

It's the fastest VPN in the world.

No buffering or lagging while streaming and stops your ISP bandwidth throttling.

ISP bandwidth throttling, a thing of the past with NordVPN.

Premium cybersecurity for the price of a cup of coffee per month.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

One Nord VPN account can be used on up to 10 devices.

Your phone, your iPad, your mom's iPad, your laptop,

maybe even your watch.

Who could say?

That's not even 10.

You surely have some more.

Perhaps a proprietary browser on a video game console or something.

To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash get played.

Our link will also give you four extra months of the two-year plan.

By my estimation, that's 28 months.

There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee.

The link is in the podcast episode description box.

Nord VPN, you heard?

All right, that's enough bloviating about Blue Prince.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well, this week I've been very busy, but I have had a chance to dip into the new ranked mode on Pokemon,

the card game Pocket on mobile.

Let me tell you.

So, a a couple weeks ago, when I last spoke about Pokemon Pocket, I was

frustrated at how everybody had started to use the same decks pretty exclusively.

The thing about ranked is, and it had the opposite effect that I thought it was going to have, is that because those decks are so highly rated, people are specifically playing decks to beat those decks, which then means that you have the opportunity to play decks that would beat the decks that would beat the deck.

So there is your S plus tier deck that is like the go-to deck.

I have personally, even though it's ranked mode, started punishing that deck by immediately quitting, quitting out and eating the

D-ranking that happens

when I see that deck because I'm like, I don't want to waste my fucking time maybe grinding through this awful deck, which is a joyless, joyless deck to play

and to play against.

Yeah, that reminds me of like when I was playing Hearthstone and you go up against like a control warrior who would be like someone who would just be basically trying to burn through every single card in their deck and the match would take like 20 to 30 minutes and you were probably going to lose.

I was like, fuck this.

I just concede right away.

So I'll eat the, I think it's a negative seven penalty now on my rank points in order to get away from that deck, which I also hope that,

you know, community-wise, if you're playing Pokemon Pocket, sure, maybe there's the kind of guy who wants to get into the top like 500 people who play Pokemon Pocket.

And if you punish that deck by play by quitting out against it, he gets the automatic upgrade, and so he'll get to rank up.

But I wonder if there are people who are like, Well, I actually like playing the game.

And so, if enough people are like, fuck this, I'm not playing against this, then maybe they'll change it out.

Or I don't know.

But anyway, I hit

the Ultra Ball ranked.

I think I'm Ultra 2, or maybe

I think I'm Ultra 2 now.

That sounds pretty high up there.

I haven't played this game, but well, it's

one rank down from a Master Ball.

Yeah.

So you go Ultra 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then you go Master.

And then Master also is where you start getting into the actual numerical rankings.

So like top 50,000 players.

Wow.

But the way the experience works is that by the time you get to Ultra Ball, you're about halfway to the way to master.

So it is, it is all of the rank, like Pokeball, Pokeball one through four.

Then I think it's,

what's the next ball?

Great.

Then, yeah, it's great all one through four, and then you're Ultra Ball one, two, three, four, and then master, right?

So I'm somewhere in Ultra.

I think I'm two, maybe I'm three.

I don't fucking remember.

But I'm playing against a ton of different kinds of decks, and it's super fun to play again.

Oh, good.

And so when I have my like in-between meetings time, I'll throw on that game, play a couple of rounds, and then go into the next meeting or go into the next event.

I'm really enjoying it again.

Also, I've found that I really like randomized decks.

And by that, I mean...

Decks that do randomized damage are funny to me.

So,

like, not decks that are like, there are some decks where your damage output is based on coin flips.

So, it's like, you know,

you'll load up some Celebi or something, and depending on the amount of energy that you have stacked on your Celebi is the number of coin flips you get, and every heads does 50 damage, right?

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about Wugtrio.

Yeah.

Wugtrio is my boy.

Wugtrio does 50 damage to a random Pokémon on the other players'

bench and active

active players or active active card.

So it's 50 scattered three times, no coin flips, and I think it's really funny.

Because also he looks funny.

Yeah, that's really good.

And that I find really pleasant because by the time I'm attacking with him, I'm like, who knows what he's going to hit?

That's fun.

Wugtrio, I assume an evolution of Dugtrio.

Yeah,

Wiglett.

Wiglett.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You got Wiglet into Wugtrio.

Into Wugtrio.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, this guy looks pretty good.

He's got, he's, he's like three worms coming out of a rock.

Yeah.

And I think a regional variant, too, because it's Diglett and then Doug Trio and then Wigletto.

And then Wiglet into Wugtrio.

Got it.

Got it.

Okay.

I also like,

I don't know.

My wife pulls all of my cards for me.

She does all the opening of the packs because she has truly unfathomable luck.

And so I say to her, I need another wug.

And she says, I got you.

And she opens my three packs or two packs for the day or whatever it is.

And sure enough, three packs in, she's got a wug trio.

And I'm like, that's incredible.

And she's like, is this the art version, the shiny kind?

And I'm like, no.

She's like, so you need another wug.

So now I've run, I'm running the holographic wugs because I say to my wife, I need wug trio.

And she fucking gets it.

It's horrifying.

Like, really, it feels like I have married a programming node of the universe.

Like,

I'm married to Agent Smith.

But, yeah, that's what I've played this week.

Not a lot of time for the game that shall not be named, even.

And no time for Assassin's Creed,

which I haven't been able to fucking touch since we did

the episode of it.

I fell off of Assassin's Creed, I will just say.

Like, I kind of be like,

I was like, oh, okay.

You know,

I was playing the first, you know, chunk of it.

And, and I was like, okay, I like these two characters.

I like the story.

The aesthetic is top-notch.

And then it just kind of got started feeling Assassin's Creedy.

And I was just sort of like, you know what?

There's a reason I don't really play these games.

There's a reason I'm kind of checked out of this series.

Yeah.

But then I also like, because I think there was, there's also the unfortunate thing of because I've been playing that at the same time as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I'm just like, I can't commit to both of these games.

So

it kind of fell off for me.

Not that I don't appreciate it, but I think it's maybe just not.

And when you guys are playing Mother 3, you're not going to have time for any of this.

I will say.

I feel like if Blue Prince is going to absorb 100 hours of my life, then I think I might have time for anything else.

It's, I mean, it's, there's, look, games are back.

They're back.

I love video games.

Games are back.

I love video games.

Even if that Switch costs, as Nick said, $1,000.

I can't wait to get a Switch.

Games are back and there's nothing you can do about it.

I almost fell off of Assassin's Creed.

I hit a pain point, but it was user error.

It was my fault.

It was a skill issue?

It was a skill issue because I was going after quests that I was not leveled for, and I didn't realize that.

It tells you this is a level like 35.

quest

on your quest board or whatever, but I wasn't paying attention to that number.

Oh, no.

So I was getting one shot on my way to the quest.

Boy, that sounds like my kind of thing, though.

It was, it was fun, but I, because, like, trying to figure out how, because I would get some hits in before I would get kicked one time and then killed.

Yep.

And I was like, this fucking, I think I'm done with this.

And then I was like, you know what?

Let me just look for another

quest.

And I go to another quest.

I was like, wait, why is that number?

Oh, that level's corresponding with my level.

Boy, I didn't, I just didn't know.

The worst part or the worst time I had of that specific problem in Assassin's Creed was in Valhalla.

There was a fort that you were supposed to...

So I find a fort that is enormous and terrifying.

And I was like, oh shit, let's go.

I'm in.

And like...

Climb over a wall and immediately get murked by some guy.

And I was like, oh, cool.

There must be something really awesome inside this fort.

So then find a different path in, can sneak up on a guy, do half damage to him before he's able to pull out his weapon, kill that guy, wait for everyone to stop like freaking out and go through the fort person by person,

like a human being trying to kill

everybody at the Super Bowl with a can opener.

Like really hard work.

Finish the fort and there's nothing fancy in it.

And I was like, huh, that's so weird.

Go on with my life.

And like, I don't know, two hours later, trigger a story quest where the quest is, we're all together going to breach this fort that is unbreachable.

Oh, and I was like, oh my God, are we going to go in and it's empty?

Or are they all going to be respawned?

And sure enough, they were all respawned.

And I was like, that sucks.

That does suck.

Yeah, that's horrible.

Yeah.

It'd be really funny if you got there.

Like, I guess we don't have to do any of that.

Matt, what are you playing uh beyond blueprints beyond blue prince this week i did for some reason i started celeste wow and i've started

i've started celeste a couple of times yeah like just like just to you know i i've had it on switch for years

and was just sort of like you know I would play it through like the first area or you know like the first level or whatever and be like, this doesn't feel like the time that I'm not ready for, like, I'm not ready to commit to this, even though it seems like I'm going to like it.

This week I picked it up and then just couldn't put it down for some reason.

Like I was just like really into it

and it's extremely fucking hard.

It is

yeah.

It's really hard game, but I'm but I'm really enjoying it because the so I mean gosh it seems insane to try to explain it because like everybody knows what it is at this point.

But it's like a I think enough people have missed out on Celeste

ND gem from a few years ago.

It's a platforming game where like bait like dying is learning.

Like it's like I mean that's every video game I guess right but like you, if there are environmental obstacles, and if you die, you just get sent back to the beginning of the level and you just keep trying.

And so, it tells you, like, in a load screen, like, hey, don't worry about dying so much.

Like, be excited that you're learning how to play the game.

It's like, hey, okay, yeah, it's reframing how I'm thinking about this.

It's kind of like Chill Wave Super Meat Boy.

It's the same sort of thing where it's like, hey, you're going to die on the screen a bunch of times before you beat it, but the respawns are fast, the consequences for failure are minimal.

And so you're just supposed to keep trying until you overcome it.

But, but whereas Super Meat Boy feels punishing, this game feels like it's, you know,

trying to think of

the correct word for it.

It feels soothing.

It feels like it's like it's helping you along on this journey.

And I just said,

you know, I'm climbing on walls.

I'm

dashing.

I just cleaned up a fucking weird hotel.

Yeah.

And was like,

this game is so fun.

I'm really, really enjoying it.

I, I am, I'm hoping to beat it

hopefully by next record.

We'll see if time allows.

But I just, I'm finding it to be extremely pleasant and easy to just be doing while like I'm like, you know,

like watching 90 Day Fiancé with my wife or something.

It's like a very like a second screen.

Like that, or the TV is a second screen.

I'm hearing about what's going on with Jasmine and Gino on the TV and I'm like, this show's fucking crazy.

And then I'm bouncing around as as madeline uh in in celeste and just really enjoying it it's a really and i love the sprite work i found the um

it's a thing that you can access from the main menu after you find it but i found like a pico version of the game within the game

and it i was like

I got stuck doing that for like 20 minutes.

Like, I was like, this is so fun.

That it's the same thing, but just like a little bit smaller.

Like, very fun to me.

I really, really really liked that.

And I'm just, yeah, I'm just really enjoying it.

It's been a nice,

it's been a nice little comforting game for this week.

I'm really glad you're playing it, Matt.

It's one of my favorite games of all time.

I have this poster.

It is unfortunately a pretty low-res image, but I have the Celeste Mountain poster in my office at home.

That's really good.

Yeah, I mean, this is...

you know, that art is not indicative of its

this is indicative of its vibes.

This is a this is a much more, you know, painterly version of it.

The game obviously has absolutely gorgeous pixel art.

Yeah.

But the other element of the aesthetic that

really is part of why the game is so,

despite being this precision platformer that is, you know, among the more difficult games I've finished, it is

still

like has a calming energy to it because of the Lennar Rain score.

um the the composer and and the music i think is just so fucking good in that game it's really really really good.

Yeah, it's really awesome.

And I've been playing it in handheld.

I haven't played it docked yet, but I've just been playing it on like my OLED, and it's gorgeous.

You know, I played it on Switch, and I think I did spend a lot of time in handheld mode as well.

I don't know why it just, it just kind of felt right for that game.

It's kind of like has a sort of a cozy sort of intimacy to it.

Yeah, I kind of want it to be close.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a rad game.

What you talked about, how you played it a few times, and then eventually you came like this current playthrough, you just couldn't put it down for whatever reason, because I've had that experience on games,

Yeah, you know, but

Celeste is one where the first time I played it, I didn't want to put it down.

It's like immediately got its hooks at me.

Wow.

And maybe that's part of just why it connected with me in particular.

Hey, all right.

Let's get to the business.

Hey, all right.

Hey, all right.

All right.

Well, I want to say that the reason we chose this topic this week is because the last of us season two premiered over the weekend.

That's right.

And

as a record, we haven't seen it

because we're recording before that happens.

But I'm super excited to see it.

I can't wait to watch.

And I swear to God, if I still drank, I would do a shot if they ever yelled out a name.

Like it would be, I would be waiting for the entire season for like somebody to get killed and somebody else to yell like, Lorraine.

Yeah.

Like.

If that happens in the premiere episode, just know that as of your listen of this episode, I am very happy.

Yes.

I hope Abby is in the new season.

All I want to see is Abby finding a state quarter.

It's one of them state quarters Abby Lee.

Why did you say that, Joel?

Didn't she?

Hey, but I can still respect the hobby.

Wait, wait, wait.

You just maybe spoiled something massive.

That's in the start of the second game.

Yeah, but also for people.

You're spoiling like where it is.

All right, all right.

Just bleep that, ranch, bleep it out.

Bleep it out when I said that.

Because, like, there might be listeners who haven't played the game who are watching the show

and are like, what's happening?

You know what I, you know, I've forgotten is that because that moment was so spoiled, partly because of the backlash, which I think was unwarranted.

I think the game earned it, and I think the story of Last OS 2 stands on its own.

But like because of the backlash to that, that in game two, or in this, in game two, in the second game,

I think that's partly why I forgot that it's not something that everybody already knows.

Like, my, like, my mom

is like, oh, I can't wait to watch that.

I loved that first season.

Yeah, I really like

these guys and these characters.

You know, I'm specifically vague, and I'm like, uh-huh.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

No, no, no, no.

I look.

My mom's going to be fucking pissed.

She's going to be really mad.

I can't wait to see

how the story of two is adapted.

Yeah.

I know that there is a, you know, they announced a season three ahead of the premiere.

Yeah.

I'm excited to see what they do.

I thought they did a great job with the first season.

Yeah.

We should also note, PlayStation put out The Last of Us Complete, which is one and two.

In a single like in on a you know, not on a single disc, but in a single package.

Really?

Yes.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Like PlayStation 5 versions of Last of Us 1 and 2.

Yeah, in a single.

Is it like fancy art?

No, I think it looks pretty shitty, actually.

They did it.

I think they did it.

I'll be honest.

I think they fucked up.

I think it looks bad.

Way, way, way back when on the Neo, I think it was the Neograph forums, there was a thread called the Criterion Collection Edition of Game Art.

Okay.

And it was people.

You know what?

I remember this thread.

I loved this thread so much.

It was people who had redesigned game covers so that you could print them on like photo paper or whatever and replace your cover art on in inside of your your

your actual cd games or on your dvd style packaging uh or blu-ray packaging and i replaced so much of the fucking games because they made such great

art in that thread yeah and i feel like there's it's weird to me that there's not more high like there are all the all the fucking gamers are adults now.

Not all of them, but there are, there's, obviously, there's kid gamers, but, like,

the idea that there would be criterion collection art for films, but not for games, feels like a missed opportunity.

This is the cover art for The Last of Us Complete.

I think it's bad.

Let me see.

I don't mind it.

Uh, all right.

I don't mind it.

I thought it was going to be much worse.

Yeah, like I've seen, there's been such an Arkham Knight or the Arkham City one is pretty bad.

Yeah.

Well, there's like the there's the one that the one I always remember was when the Game Boy Advance

Castlevania re-releases.

It was like it was like the Castlevania collection, and then it had two like full boxes as part of the box art.

Let me see if I can find it.

It's really, really clunky.

I know what you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm looking up the actor who played Caitlin Deaver, Deaver, Caitlin Deaver.

Caitlin Deaver is the actor who's friend of my wife.

Hey, who's playing Abby?

And I have Monsterland.

Yeah.

Caitlin Deaver of the series Monsterland, created by my wife.

She is the star of the pilot.

Love a Caitlin.

Is she reacting this?

I feel like I need Miabbi on HGH.

Gotta have some guns.

She's a fucking unit in that game.

Yeah.

It's a fucking house.

Yeah.

It's a really fun place to.

You get to just like, you know, kind of like Yasuke and Assassin's Screen Shadows.

Let's just say I let her do what she did that we bleeped out to me.

What?

jesus

well let's get played

so the producer is

but the other thing is is we're at a point we're at such a point where zombies are such a huge genre in and of themselves yeah and that zombie video games are now becoming like TV and movie franchises.

And it's interesting that this is kind of, you know, things folding back on themselves because the modern zombie pop culture renaissance owns a lot of it, you know, a lot to World War Z slash the zombie survival guide, the Max Brooks books, but also 28 days later, the movie was like kind of the first of the big, like, oh shit, this is a mainstream zombie thing.

Zombies are a thing again.

They're not just a niche genre.

This is going to be like a mainstream happening.

And if you listen to Alex Garland talk about that film, we have this clip queued up here.

He actually cites a video game inspiration.

You know what?

28 days later, a lot of that came from Resident Evil.

That was a good game.

But there were these dogs.

And when the dogs came for you, that was always heart pounding.

Those two things together, loving zombies, but the fast thing was the problematic, scary thing.

That then led to 28 Days.

Holy

shit, that's crazy.

Alex Garland's just sitting there, and obviously, you know, the ends up becoming

a very good director in his own right, but like is sitting there and has this idea for this movie basically from playing Resident Evil.

Which is what if there were fast zombies?

Well, fast zombies coming from

the dogs in the Resident Evil game, but also like I watched the same clip you did.

Yeah, understand.

But human interaction.

I think somewhat.

So the thing in this clip too that I think is like right before this is that I think Neil Druckman is telling Alex Garland that his movie was very informative

to the the creation of the last of us that 28 eight days 28 days later was informative to the last of us and he's like well resident evil was the thing that i did so and yeah and the long tail of influence yeah the ouroboros of how of how these things work and then and then that of course now obviously resonate or last of us is a fucking tv TV show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like the zombie genre is a ladder.

And you can definitely go from like, you know, Romero's stuff to Evil Dead to, you know, like that you climb this ladder of influence and that each step before it sort of references the step after it.

And I also think that the evolution of the genre over the whole is also an evolution of our own personal fears and that you go from like this like Cold War,

the Cold War energy of the earliest zombie stuff to climate change being the sort of allegorical problem now.

And that's why the zombies in The Last of Us are, I mean, directly in the television show, they're like, climate change is making the fungus difference.

Yes.

Therefore, the fungus is going to get into our brains and make us all into zombies.

In the game, it was more, I would say, inferred because it was like, oh, these zombies are plants.

You know, what an interesting thing that in some way nature is coming after us for some off-screen sin, because that's sort of the way, you know, that zombie stories are.

You're being punished for something that society has done.

There's also, obviously, you know, like in terms of reflecting the values of the day,

Dawn of the Dead so much, the original Dawn of the Dead was so much about like, you know,

a suburban shopping mall and having that kind of be like, oh, this is that as kind of like this hub of dystopia.

Yeah, but also being destroyed by capitalism.

Right, right.

And like, and losing your identity to capital and all that.

Like, I don't know.

I like the giant brush that zombie films and TV show paint with because I'm dumb and

I like it when it's simple.

Yes.

And it's like,

you know,

like it would be, I feel like right now there's so much political anxiety in the country

on both sides, right?

There's both

that you could tell a, you could tell a zombie story about zombies who are all leaders.

Yeah.

And that, like, somehow the leaders start, like, becoming transformed into some kind of decrepit, like, attacking menace.

What do you, why are you smiling?

What is it?

What?

Just say it.

What is it?

Just say the fucking thing.

Some would say our leaders already are zombies.

We'll be right back.

Okay, we're back.

So that was the first time he could do that, and it would be something that people could see.

Right, because he's done it on the show before where he's pointed at nothing.

Yeah.

This time he actually pointed at a camera.

Yeah, we do have clips now.

But you can't just call the clip.

It's not like.

I'm not saying this should not be a clip.

I'm saying this ranch, don't make this a clip.

You can't like point to the stands like fucking Babe Ruth and be like, this is a clip.

I mean, probably he could.

Probably could.

And that would be baller.

Yeah.

I hope you did it.

Pretty cool when Babe Ruth did that.

When he would be like, this is going to be a clip.

And then be him running real fast around the bases.

Slow.

I think the thing that I like about zombie stuff in general is that the rules are all basically kind of the same.

It's pretty consistent throughout.

There are slight deviants throughout, but you always sort of know

what to expect in a zombie story.

It's like fucking Dracula stories, right?

It's like, you know, kind of the rules of a Dracula.

And yeah, sometimes there will be ones that, like, hey, we're just going to worry about garlic or one that goes to like an extreme.

Like Twilight is just like, yeah, we're not going to worry about like sunlight or whatever.

But there are, there's still usually some

cohesive rule sets that transfer over.

They want to eat people, normally on number one you have to kill them by fucking them number two

have there have they ever done that in like a zombie or not zombie in a dracula movie where like he's gonna go into like they're gonna he's gonna go out to eat at night or something and the person he's going out to dinner with is like

we're going to this italian place and he's like no no no no

i feel like there's probably done they've done a joke like that in like a silly goofy

Dracula movie, but not like interview with a vampire or something.

No, nothing like, no, that's like, that's, there's like, and there's there's there's scales with with with Draculas.

There's like scary and funny and stuff, but then there's like horny.

And like, I feel like horny ones too.

And vampire is like horny, everyone's very much leaning into the horny side.

We're not talking about Dracula's right now.

No,

not enough Dracula games to make an episode.

As long as we're on this topic, I do want to shout out that interview with a vampire on the TV show is fucking awesome.

I heard it's good.

So is that fucking good, man?

It's like what it's one of my shows.

Wow.

I love the show.

It's one of your shows.

It's one of my shows.

Stories.

Like when there's BTS stuff, I'll watch the BTS stuff.

Oh, wow.

Like, I'm that kind of person for this show.

Behind the scenes.

Matt, what are your shows?

My shows right now, I got to say, I know I just said I watch a lot of 90 Day with my wife.

We watch a lot of that.

Survivor is one of my shows, certainly.

You know what?

The Last of Us is one of my shows.

Interesting.

I like The Last of Us.

Severance, one of my shows.

I like all the good shows.

Yeah.

All the good shows are the ones I like.

And then the shows that are bad that people don't like are those are not my shows.

I'm kind of over shows, you're kind of over shows.

Well, this is what I know from what I understand about you.

You don't watch a lot of shows, I like to watch movies, you like to watch.

You're a movie guy.

I like movies, movies are great, but it's like a movie.

It's like this is like everything that's in a show, but it's like two hours instead of eight hours.

Like, I don't need all this other bullshit.

What are we doing here?

I fall off of shows.

I like haven't finished Daredevil.

I was liking Daredevil and haven't finished.

But shows I do like, I do like Andor.

Andor is

very excited for season two of Andor.

Andor.

Rewatching season one now, absolutely.

You like Inside the NBA?

That was Matt.

That was legitimately the other one I was going to say.

Inside the NBA, my favorite comedy show.

Those guys are so funny.

They're so funny.

They're funnier than any comedians.

Ranch, what are your shows?

White Lotus.

White Lotus.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Especially since it's in Thailand.

Right.

Nice.

Supernatural.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

I think those are good answers.

Yeah.

Ranch, can I ask, because I haven't been to Thailand.

When I watch The Bear and they reference anything actually Chicagoan, I get kind of super excited.

Were there enough, like, I don't know, authentic pieces to White Lotus season three

that you got, like, the, the kind of like, the,

the home court goosebumps?

Or was it kind of bullshit?

I mean, I think I wish there were more Thai characters involved, but I think they did a good job.

They casted real Thai actors and the way they talked was like really natural.

And like, and I think the way that the white people acted is also accurate.

It was good.

That's great.

Yeah, just the interaction between Thai people and foreigners and like that dynamic.

Yeah.

Being very polite to them.

That's great.

That's great.

I mean, that's terrible, but it's great that they got that right.

So you guys didn't play.

When we talked about this topic, I looked up what the first ever zombie game was.

Yeah, and there's some dispute about this, but I think the generally general consensus is that Zombie Zombie, 1984 game for the ZX Spectrum, is the first proper zombie game.

There are other games that maybe feature some sort of undead or zombie element, but this is the first one that sort of centers them.

So I loaded this game up on a

browser emulator because, you know, we can now emulate entire things inside.

I love it.

Yes.

Anyway, and that's not a surprise.

Like, that's not like the first time I've done that.

It's just every time I do it, I'm like, wow.

It's also not like a very like resource-intensive game.

Right.

Yeah.

But that being said, I was a little wowed that the game wasn't.

So I assumed it would be like Zork or like some kind of like text adventure or like rudimentary like little squares on a screen like the Atari Pac-Man that is like one of my favorite things that's ever been made.

In terms of it just being complete garbage.

Yeah,

I thought it was going to be like, oh, these are zombies conceptually.

Yeah.

But really, it is like you're running away from a gray square and you yourself are an orange square.

Turns out it's an isometric game, which first, first step there, I was like, oh shit, this game has graphics and you can move around on a map.

That's surprising.

The other thing was the zombies look kind of like zombies.

They're like little guys with their arms outstretched

and they chase you around, right?

So I was like, wow, this is kind of cool.

You come in on a helicopter.

And I was like, well, there's a little helicopter to drop you off.

Those are the highlights of this fucking dog shit game,

which

about 10, 15 minutes into playing it, I was like, this is an old format game.

Yes.

Because

you don't have a gun.

You cannot.

kill a zombie by killing the zombie directly.

Instead, you have to go up, touch the zombie when they're not looking at you.

Then they become sort of like a half-friendly zombie.

You have to bring them to platforms, which are like, there's like three sets of stairs and like a small shelf platform.

You lead them up onto that platform.

You can jump off, but when the zombies jump off, they die because they splat on the ground.

You have a certain number of resources where you can build stairs, which, so there's a crafting element to this fucking zombie game.

And so if you're in an area where the zombies are like, you have two zombies after you and you tag them and you get them over to an area to drop them off of one of these ledges, but there are no stairs, then you have a limited number of stairs that you can create and then you can walk the zombies up onto this ledge.

Yeah.

Walking the zombies onto those ledges is fucking impossible because they don't, they're not actually following you.

They're kind of like adjacent to you.

So some of the time you'll go up these stairs and try, and then zombies will just stay at the bottom of the stairs and you're like, what the fuck?

Why would you do this to me?

Like

the only

moment of dopamine in this game is when the zombie goes up on the ledge and you jump off.

Like to make it so that that's an inconsistent thing, very, very frustrating.

That being said, it is a game from what, 1984?

Yeah.

So the fact that the zombies are walking at all is kind of incredible.

Overall, I'd give this game one out of of 10.

Wow.

I never want to play it again.

And I wish I hadn't had to play it for the show.

When I came in and you guys hadn't played it, I was infuriated.

I'll say that I did load it up on my browser.

It was very easy to do.

I clicked the link that you sent.

Yep.

And then from there, for some reason, I felt 100 years old and couldn't figure out how to play it for some reason.

I was trying everything.

There is a screen that shows you.

Yeah, my initial experience was, how do I even start this game, right?

But I just press like I press each button until something happens.

Yeah, and then finally I find one that starts the game.

Yeah.

And then I'm the little guy or girl.

Yes.

Help regressive.

I guess that's what happens when the game's designed by women.

I'm that guy and I'm like, I don't know how the fuck to do anything.

And I press every button until the guy moves.

And then I also, you can change perspective.

So you press a button and the whole map will rotate because it's isometric.

And I was like, that's pretty cool.

That's cool for a game that comes out in 1984.

Really fucking cool for a game in 1984.

Still, game sucks.

That was like when we played Friday the 13th on the podcast and there were that, like, you know, it's a, that's an NES game from like 40 years ago at this point, but it had a day-night cycle.

Yeah.

That's, hey, all right.

They were trying stuff.

We don't need to spend a lot of time on.

Zombie zombie?

Yeah, on super, on super, super duper old games, but I do want to touch on a couple others, which was one of which was a game I did not know about before researching this episode.

The Evil Dead, the Sam Raimi movie, had an officially licensed Commodore 64 game.

Wow.

And I was intrigued by this because Commodore 64, my dad had one of those.

That was the first platform I ever played video games on, my dad's computer.

That's a pretty good pixel art

splash screen there.

That's fantastic.

Evil Dead, just working with four to eight colors,

however many they have available there.

This one sort of looks like, and from what I've read, is just kind of a top-down, you know, walk around, collect things, try to avoid being killed.

But it is kind of like, I don't know,

I'm intrigued by a licensed game from like the true early days of gaming.

And that's like just what...

What had to happen in order for Palace Software to acquire the Evil Dead license and then make a game for a home computer.

Also, this is another thing that I had, I remember from the Commodore 64 days, and I guess this game came on that format.

There was an expansion

cassette drive, which was not for playing audio cassettes, but for data cassettes, but they looked just like the tapes you would put in your tape player.

So this is one of those games that actually came on cassette.

Look at the Evil Dead cassette there.

It's a red cassette.

It looks really fucking awesome.

I'm learning in this moment that cassettes could do that.

I don't think he put data on anything.

I didn't know.

Zombie Zombie was a cassette game.

Yeah.

One of the games that I discovered when doing the research for this episode was a game called Chiller, which was a game so violent in 1986, it was an arcade game that was banned from most arcades because of how graphic it was.

When I show you guys a screenshot of this game, I want you to imagine

this in public.

Like that somebody would be at this cabinet playing this game game and and that other people might walk by what they were doing in the game.

You have

you have to torture people and the way you play is by torturing them fast.

Like in order to beat the level, you have to torture them fast enough that they die.

Yeah, even this is quite graphic, even with like 8-bit graphics.

I mean, we're seeing that dismembered corpses.

We're seeing someone on a torture rack with a, you know, their legs severed and their guts ripped out.

this is rough stuff it's a zombie game because after you go from the dungeons to uh to other settings you end up doing these torture experiments in a graveyard to zombies i feel like that's a case of de-heightening

i feel like if you're gonna start in a place where you're torturing real people and the goal is to kill them as fast as possible by the time you're at a cemetery and you're torturing guys that aren't real people that feels to to me like de-escalation.

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel

doesn't feel right.

Another game, another landmark game in the genre, the very, very early days, Sweet Home.

And this was kind of ended up being Shinji Mikami's Ur text for the foundational inspiration for the Resident Evil franchise.

It was developed by Tokura

Fujiwara, also a Capcom game.

Fujiwara also did Ghosts and Goblins, which you could argue is itself kind of a zombie game, definitely dealing with sort of a spooky, scary sort of thing.

But this is a game that was never localized.

It was only in Japan.

But my understanding is it's a, you know, it's kind of like a horror RPG and it's it

included a lot of like elements that persist in the survival horror genre.

Some people have called it the original survival horror game.

But it's one of those ones when I when I read about it, I was like,

Huck, I kind of want to play this thing just to mess around with it, just to see what's going on with it.

It seems kind of cool.

Yeah.

Gosh, I mean, I'm thinking about some of the zombie games that, like, I don't want to jump too far ahead or nothing.

But, like, I remember being at arcades when I was a kid and stuff, or like going to the movie theater.

Yeah.

And they had an arcade cabinet of House of the Dead, which has come up on this show, I think, a fair number of times, particularly when we were covering Typing of the Dead on the Twitter.

Typing of the Dead.

Which is good.

Typing of the Dead is good.

It's good.

But is that the best zombie game?

Here's the thing.

It might be.

But it kind of sucks because the idea of playing a typing game now

is not fun to me at all because I type for work all day.

I don't want to do that.

Wow, we are on different planets.

You love to type.

If there were typing games, there were more typing games like Typing of the Dead, and maybe there are.

Maybe people are making cool indie typing games out there.

I would 100% be into it i'm just like

when i'm done typing yeah i'm done typing can i can i can i just while we're talking typing simulations i said this on the podcast before

when i found out that mavis beacon was an actor yeah that they just like hired for like the photo shoot or

just put in the game and not an actual human being whose passion was teaching typing,

I was scandalized.

Yeah, because it's like, who have you been jerking off to the whole time?

Who even is this?

I thought she taught me something.

You're not going to make me open a browser tab for Rule 34,

Favis Beacon.

Please do it.

Please do it.

Do it, do it.

Do it.

Don't do it.

There has to be a lot of people.

If I'm not going to make you open it, at least close the one that's turning off.

So you've got, before you get to House of the Dead, though, you do have the Resident Evil first release, which is 1996, which, by the way, made me.

I was so weirded out by, okay, so

this game like

Chiller comes out in 1986, right?

The banned arcade game.

Yes.

And I was like, but like so much later in gaming history is Resident Evil.

And then I was like, wait, no, that's only 10 years.

It feels like it's so much farther away than that.

The 80s feel like so much longer ago than the 90s.

What I think happened is that sort of that period, yeah, there were horror games continued to be made.

But there were ones that were kind of like leaned in kind of a spooky, scary direction.

But I think a lot of the ones that were like, I think there was a point where when they could render the graphic fidelity, like with the screenshots that you were just showing, what you started to get lean into rather than scares, which were harder to convey,

was gore.

And so you had things like Splatterhouse for the PC Engine slash Turbo Graphics 16, which was just like a gore fest.

It was just like basically you're going to be playing Jason from Friday the 13th, just chopping

people up.

Or games like Carmageddon or whatever, where just the whole thing they were leaning on was just like, how bloody can we make this?

And some of those were like, you know, maybe more action-y games as well, action games with a lot of carnage, a lot of violence.

But that's where I think you saw things until it started to get reset with the emergence of the survival horror genre, where they're again like, hey, let's lean into the elements of horror.

They're actually about, you know, the fear of isolation and of

scarcity.

Yeah.

I

I just was thinking about a game that doesn't exist.

Okay.

And

it would be sort of like my ideal.

Because I

zombie hordes are like in games and like you can only do so much for them, right?

But like I kind of feel like a zombie horde schmupp would be really fun.

Vampire survivors, my guy.

Yeah, of course, vampire survivors, but like I'm

kind of thinking even more something like

Metal Slug or something.

But like zombie hordes.

Like a side-scroller?

Like a fast-moving fast-moving castlevania yeah something like that that's cool there's also that one that took place and this is again jumping ahead that it was like an xbox 360 launch title in a mall where there were like tons and tons of zombies dead rise that seems like dead rising was super fun and that actually that is kind of what you're taught what you're describing that's a game and it's so funny that you bring that up because like that was like because i didn't have xbox when i was a kid that was weird because you are the i'm the xbox kid now of course um but i wanted that game so bad like yeah i was like that game looks fucking awesome.

And now I could probably just download it and play it.

I think they remastered it even or something.

I think there actually is a remaster that maybe even came out this year.

And there's also a sequel, I think, too.

I got to check it out because that does seem like I would really, because it seems funny.

Yeah, it's a Capcom game.

And you can also, like, one of the things I remember about it is you can wear like a Mega Man helmet.

Yeah, hell yeah.

And like use Mega Man hands to punch.

Basically, it's just like, hey, everything that you can pick up can be used as a weapon.

That was one of of the gimmicks of that game.

And it actually was super fun, at least for the time.

I'm not sure how it's aged, but I don't know.

Maybe mess around with the Murmasters.

Maybe I'll check that out.

My clicks for you.

My favorite, I think, zombie game

is

the expansion to Red Dead Redemption, Undead Nightmare.

Because the Old West

and zombies.

That's good shit.

That's really, really fun.

I was looking at some of the, and it's always hard to find accurate game sales, but I was was looking at some, some,

you know,

the list of some of the biggest-selling zombie video games, and that was actually one that was kind of on there just because of the omnipresence of Red Dead Redemption.

Another one that was on there that I've never messed around with is Call of Duty Zombies, which might actually be the biggest zombie franchise in terms of number of people who've played it, which is weird to think about.

Yeah, because they keep, I mean, I feel like they always refresh that with every

like Call of Duty release.

And the Call of Duty user base is just just so big.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really, I actually did really like Dead Rising and I thought it was fun.

And I think it had sort of the cheeky sensibility that these zombie games needed at that time.

My, if we're talking about games that we really like that have zombies in them, again, we're all huge fans of the Last of Us franchise, the video game franchise.

Really scary zombies, good zombie enemy types, great with a scarcity.

The Resident Evils, obviously, you know, those are big ones.

But for me, I game already seriously already referenced Telltales, The Walking Dead, just great storytelling.

And also, I feel like some of the zombie tropes that are so, that are cinematic don't necessarily play as well in video games, but because this is so much of

The Walking Dead is kind of like, you know,

and

an interactive

novel to some degree.

You know, it's kind of a, it's kind of a visual novel.

There's, there's, there's more interactivity than that, obviously.

It's a proper adventure game.

But you can do things like someone hiding a zombie bite or having to choose an NPC who's going to live or die.

Those sorts of things have real stakes to them.

The player character themselves potentially getting infected that you can't necessarily do in a more action-y game where it's just like, well, I can't just have the player character get infected because then that's just the game's just over.

It's over, yeah.

But I think that game is

the writing is awesome in The Walking Dead.

I think it absolutely holds up.

And also just the body count of major NPCs is truly horrific, which is another thing that it's just, it's hard to do in,

you know, other games that are maybe a more conventional sort of like action or survival horror sort of approach.

It's just hard to kill off that many people.

Do you guys remember the trailer for Dead Island?

Oh, yeah.

I never played the Dead Islands, but I remember the trailer with a little girl getting pushed out the window.

Yeah, I didn't play it either, but I watched the trailer so much and I thought that music, that needle drop was so good.

Like,

what a, it's one of the best video game trailers.

I remember at the time, so there was a video that, when that, when that trailer went around, there was a video of a guy in a, it was, it was uh, two dudes in a game development studio.

And he was like, um, okay, the, this guy's a new dad.

I'm going to show him the Dead Rise or the Dead Island trailer.

Um, and he started playing it and like 15 seconds in, it goes, fuck this.

Just like walks away.

Oh, my God.

He just could not handle the

child death right then.

It's really grim.

Yeah.

I don't know if the game itself earns it, but the trailer is really well done.

I guess we should go a little bit more

chronologically so that we don't skip over a ton of

titles.

We can bounce around.

I mean, like, if we're going back in this sort of general era, for me, not a proper zombie game.

But to me, one of the more effective uses of zombies in a game is Half-Life 2.

The head crab zombies are so terrifying and specifically the Ravenholm level feels like a proto The Last of Us level.

It is it is such an awesome area and it is so fucking scary.

The idea of like something leaping onto your face and then taking over your physical body is terrifying.

And also because that game is first person, head crabs are like jumping towards you.

So you're dealing with that as well.

And it is very much inspired by Alien, obviously, like the, you know, the huggers and alien, like that's, that's the, the direct inspiration.

But then the idea of that being on your body and then you're, you're, I mean, that's the whole existential fear of the zombie thing in general, back to its, its origins is just the idea of like, so something else is going to take over my body.

I am going to be trapped.

I'm going to have no use over my own facilities.

And whether you're even you're even conscious of that, it's just a fate worse than death.

And so I think that's the other thing of so much of the ethics of video games are

when you think about it we obviously uncharted is the big example that everyone's talked about endlessly but like that game you are

have to just accept that you are a mass murderer that you were just killing hundreds of people in the pursuit of treasure it is it is a wretched thing that you are doing from a from a moral standpoint the only defense i have of it is that You are trying to get treasure.

You are trying to get treasure.

No,

that's a good point.

When you're killing zombies, it's a mercy, right?

So it kind of removes that layer of it.

It's just kind of like, well, Hoke, look, I'm either releasing these people from their bonds

or they're not even themselves anymore.

So I'm not even killing anyone.

It's like shooting a robot.

Yeah, there is like a lot of people.

I should walk that back because who knows?

Robots.

On your side.

We're cool with robots.

I just want to say, get played.

stands with robots.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think you're alive.

I think robots are alive.

We are the front line of accepting ai consciousness yeah yeah siri alexa i love you actually

you you just said siri and alexa on a podcast that people are going to be listening to like in

their houses to activate what's the other one

the other one there's got to be another one what

um

look cortana is that is that

yeah cortana people use cortana dude i don't know what about cortana you use bing i don't know what anyone's doing anymore kind of falling off of bing you fall off of

He's done with Bing.

You heard it here first.

Get Blade exclusive.

Nick Weiger, done with Bing.

No, I like being.

I like being okay.

It's just like I don't know.

He likes being okay.

Do you need search engines anymore?

I'm just hopping on DeepSeek.

What?

I don't even know what this is.

Holy shit, you don't know what DeepSeek Seek is?

No, I haven't heard of this.

I'm giving all my secrets to China.

I don't give a shit.

You can, you can.

I'm going all in on China at this point.

That's the pick, the side I'm taking.

It's an interesting side.

DeepSeek and also chat gpt at this point you can draw a picture like and take a photo of it and be like make this real and it'll make it into a real thing like if you draw like though i mean it's it's sad when you find people like on yeah on x or whatever who are like not that i'm on x anymore but yeah that's the default i can't even think of what social media you would find it on fucking TikTok.

Anyway, you'll find people who are like, I drew this picture of a lady and then I made her real, and look how hot it made her.

And I'm like, We are right, we're on the edge of the canyon, and it is so deep.

I got a binder full of pictures, and I can't wait to upload to this damn thing.

Have you seen all the things of that there's always stories I find of like old people who are convinced they're in like a relationship with some celebrity because someone is just like scamming them and they're like sending them money.

I saw someone that was a woman who was, it's like

someone was like, My grandma is convinced she's in a romantic relationship with Elon Musk.

Oh, my God.

And he sent her jewelry.

And then they got the jewelry appraised.

And it was worth $7.

It was like the plastic crap with a metal finish.

Oh, my God.

And, but she's just like, for her, it's like, but he sent this to me.

And so it's, man, it's a really, really depressing sort of

reality we're in.

There's two, like, there's like, there's that end of it.

And like, because I just, I just think I'm going to go ahead and take this moral stance.

We shouldn't trick old people.

I'll hold for applause.

Sure.

I did see this funny video where someone's.

Did you just 1AD on your own stance?

Hang on.

Everyone's going to enjoy it.

These grandkids tricked their grandma by telling her that stuff in Grand Theft Auto V was the news.

It's on this card.

They were like, it was like a car chase or whatever, but the car like went off a ramp and like flew over a building.

And she's like, oh my god.

It's pretty good.

We shouldn't be tricking old people unless it's fun.

Unless it's funny.

That's funny.

That seems like good clean.

The difference between

tricking and scamming.

Yeah, you can trick scam, not coach.

I really like how

the Half-Life games handled zombies or their version of zombies.

I got to play that.

Oh, man, Half-Life 2 and Al-Timer.

Another game I wanted to cite, and this is an indie game that has been in early access for like five years, but it is really cool, an isometric game called Project Zomboid that I've enjoyed my time with.

It's run-based.

It's a survival game.

You absolutely will die, sometimes super duper quickly.

And the idea is that just sort of it's it's meant to show you just how fragile you are.

Like, that's part of the fun of making your player character not a superhero, not someone who can get shot and then they can, you know, like whatever, swallow some vitamins and they're good to go.

Just someone who actually is

like you're actually living in the initial hours of a zombie apocalypse and seeing that, like, hey, this is just how easily you might go down.

We all want to picture ourselves among the hundreds of survivors, but we're far more likely to be among the billions of casualties.

And

yeah, I mean, mean, it's just, it's,

it's a, it's a really cool design.

And I'm curious if it will ever be in a fully finished state.

You saying the thing about the vitamins does sort of make me think like, as much as I love the, the Last of Us games and how like sort of like grounded and realistic they are,

what are those vitamins doing?

They're not, and the gauze.

What is, how much is the gauze helping you?

And it's such, you get scratched by a fucking clicker.

What is it doing?

Yeah, it's, it's silly, but I mean, it's just like the alternative is that you, you you're dying like constantly of course well I mean, but if you could do a zombie game with sort of the level of realism of kingdom come deliverance you can still like chop off your fucking where it's like you have in order to make a potion you have to spend like 15 actual minutes.

Yeah, I would I would kind of love that it'd be interesting to see you might like project zomboid because it kind of has that sort of like again You're just scrounging for resources and it's not like oh, I'm in a house.

Oh, great.

There's a shotgun here and shotgun ammo.

It's like no, I'll find like a can of beans.

You know what i mean like it's like you will find the actual stuff that would be in there i'm remembering i messed around a little bit with back for blood which is the spiritual successor of the left for dead franchise yeah i only ever played the last laugh left for dead games briefly i never played back for blood back for blood was extremely fun i didn't play that much of it but i was like i i get what the hype around uh left for dead was this was like i i thought it was great super fun and like just like fun just like i don't know really squishy sort of zombies where like they just sort of eat bullets it's like kind of feel i don't know it's like a it's a power fantasy like it's like you it's exactly what you want a very arcadey feel they would eat bullets they would not like with their mouth but like they would they would eat bullets because

until their body was incapable of moving forward yes it would continue to come at you yeah like well That's what then that's one of the consistent rules things that I like because like you can't just like shoot one in like the chest or whatever and then it's like that's done.

Yeah.

You got to like, you know, it's always like, go for the head, because then that's the whole thing's just over at that point.

Do zombies have heartbeats?

Do we, like, does the heart work inside of a zombie?

Because if not, how is it moving around?

This is the whole thing.

Like, it's, it's, a lot of these, they're just fucking making shit up.

It's just basically, it's fundamentally magic.

There's no actual scientific explanation for it.

28 days later, actually, it does like, hey, it's just a virus.

And so you are just technically alive.

You're just behaving like a zombie.

I think that's like the cleanest way to do it.

Yeah, but plaga.

Yeah, right.

But, but, but, I mean, a lot of times it's like,

you know, yeah, you would not be

there'll be a set piece where it's like, oh, this, this, someone's been locked inside the shipping container for months without food or water or oxygen.

It's like, well, they'd just be fucking dead, even though they're a zombie, unless, again, it's magic rules.

Yeah.

I do like in Resident Evil 4, when you have to get the like infrared scope so you can shoot the parasite that's growing in these particular ones.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's good shit.

That's really, really fun.

My favorite part is when you go to the guy and you're like...

The guy?

You're like,

I need a gun, and he's nice to you, and he offers you a gun for a price.

I buy that for a high price.

You recognize that you're the guy you're talking about.

Yeah, I'm not an ass idiot.

i'm not an ass idiot

just it just it's strange to refer to your yourself as the guy but i guess it's the character you're playing in the game yeah no i'm what

nick no

no

wait no no no you're the guy you're you're you're the guy you're the guy yeah i'm the guy you're him okay yeah what were you talking about i just like i would not be like the other guy in the the guy that was replaced replaced, that's an actor.

Right.

He's real.

Okay.

I just, like, if I was referring to, like, hey, the podcast, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that time that guy talked about, you know,

barbecue for 20 minutes.

Barbecue for 20 minutes.

Yeah, it's like, and then I'm referring to me, I'd say me.

You know, I may refer to myself as.

Wait, what?

Are you you?

Yeah, I'm me.

Okay.

You're you.

You're also, I'm me.

You've never, you've never.

No, no, no.

Hold on.

He's trying to get me.

I've heard that guy over there.

I've heard Nick say, I'm the kind of guy who likes hot sauce.

Yeah, sure.

So how is that different than what I did?

It's fair.

Well, hold on.

It's different because it's different.

Because those are not the same thing.

Over there, that guy has never said, hey, you know what this guy wants?

He wants a chocolate bar.

We're getting closer to

I just don't know if I have the language for why it's not the same, but I'll so I'll allow it.

You selling a chocolate bar and a burrito?

You got that on the trench coat?

Either one would be satisfactory.

One or the other.

Never rarely disappointed by either.

Well, I'd take the burrito over the chocolate bar.

I would too.

Yeah, for sure.

You'd take a burrito over a chocolate bar.

If the options, yeah, every time.

10 times out of 10, I'm taking the burrito.

If they came out of that guy's coat?

No, no.

So why can she do it?

Who's allowed to say that gang?

You're right.

You know what?

You can say, Resident Warcha, you can say whatever you like.

Oh, well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know about that one.

Then comes the runluck.

Plants vs.

Zombies

was a game that I actually, I think I finished the campaign of the first game on mobile.

I spent a good amount of time with it.

I was going to say, that started as like an app.

Yeah.

It was developed by PopCap Games, and it's a pretty fun tower defense game with, you know, like the charming art.

The thing that happened with the franchise is that

what always happens with, or what often unfortunately happens in games, EA comes into the picture, buys PopCap, and then turns the sequels into freemium games.

So I kind of checked out at that point.

But the first one was pretty fun.

And another one that was kind of, again, in the kind of the cheekier, sort of sillier sort of side of things is Stubbs the Zombie,

which was a, yeah, for the, I think it was was for the original xbox uh this was by by wide load games who are former bungee developers it and that was like you played as the zombie

and i didn't necessarily even love it love the gameplay but i just kind of like loved how silly it was and i liked that they made it like it's just like oh that's a well yeah a game we play as a zombie why not i don't know let me ask you this yeah I know this is one of your favorite games ever.

One of your favorite series ever.

Diablo.

Oh, yeah.

Diablo's got zombies in it.

It does have zombies in it, yeah.

But you wouldn't necessarily say that's a zombie game.

Well, this is the whole thing.

I wouldn't call, like, that.

I wouldn't call, like, Castlevania, like, a zombie game, even though there's zombies in that.

I wouldn't necessarily call ghouls and ghosts slash ghosts and goblins zombie games.

So, yeah, I don't know if it, if it's really a zombie game for me.

Like, is Minecraft a zombie game?

Yeah, I don't know if I, again, Minecraft has zombies in it, but to me, I'd kind of put those in.

I, I, I, I, however you want to classify them is fine, but if we're doing the taxonomy of like, what's a zombie game, I think zombie has to be, like, the preeminent part, like, aspect of it, you know.

And I guess maybe I'm contradicting myself a little bit by citing Half-Life, but I feel like the head crab zombies are so prominent in Half-Life.

Head crab too just sounds like something you don't even want to be part of.

You definitely do not.

It sounds nasty to me.

Yeah, this is a bite you in the face and take over your conscience.

No, thanks.

I'm good on that.

Thank you.

No, no, thank you.

As an aside,

on a podcast full of them.

Yes.

How good is the fucking facehugger design that nobody had come up with it previously?

Yeah.

And then once it exists, people are like, yeah, it's like a facehugger.

What a nightmare that thing is.

I mean, God, don't even, I mean, it's a different thing entirely because it's aliens and zombies are not that.

We can all agree.

Aliens are not zombies.

Aliens are not zombies.

Unless we're talking Dead Space.

Oh.

That's its own thing.

It's sort of like its own thing.

Yeah, aliens aren't zombies.

But you can can have like a zombie-like quality.

Like an alien can have some sort of zombie

crossover, I feel like.

All I'm saying is that first alien movie, they really snapped on a lot of different design elements.

It's like one of the coolest looking movies I've ever fucking seen in my life.

It's also crazy because it's got so many new things in it.

Yeah.

It's like another film would have the face hugger and that would be the film.

Yeah.

Yes.

It would.

It wouldn't be like, also, it has, it's in your, in your body.

Also, when it comes out, it gets big fast also if you cut it it's got acid for blood also like there's so many also in that movie yeah more is more i love it the thing that and the alien the designs themselves obviously the aliens are really cool it sucks the thing that sucks for me about that franchise and it's my fault i saw prometheus first okay

whoa what a and it was like weird entry 10 years after seeing Prometheus, probably I watched the first one.

Wow.

So I see this fucking big guy, and I'm like, I know what that is.

Everyone's like, what the fuck is that?

And like, it's like a scary thing to see if you don't know what it is.

Yeah.

I'm looking at it.

I'm like, it's one of those fucking Prometheus guys.

Right.

That is a very strange doorway into the alien universe.

Yeah, not fair.

Almost similar to if your first ever Star Wars movie was solo.

Yeah, I'm trying to think.

I mean, there were certainly movies I saw, like for years, I'd I'd only seen the sequel Fletch Lives, and I had never seen the original Fletch until fairly recently.

So, yeah, there are series where I had that sort of experience.

I mean, we certainly were talking Lost earlier.

The only episodes of Lost I've ever seen are the pilot and the series finale.

So, I was kind of lost there.

But see, this is what I don't get about when you say this.

You say this, and every time you say it, you know, it makes me so mad.

And you continue to say it.

He says it with such glee.

Yeah.

And he says it over and over again on our show,

which is a weird thing to do to somebody he calls a friend.

If I'm being honest, it's like the one thing I dislike about you.

Rochelle, you ever seen The Lost?

I've seen all of it.

Hell yeah.

Where does that rank in your TV shows?

You a fan overall?

Top 10.

Top 10.

Wow.

Okay.

I mean, it has.

It's my show.

It has one of the best pilots ever in television, and it has one of the best season two opens in all television.

Like, to to pull that off twice?

Rest of the show is questionable.

Yeah.

They did it twice.

Yeah, they did it twice.

Some shows don't even do it once.

Yeah, that's true.

Some other big zombie games that I think we should just mention, but like, I don't know if any of us have played them.

I certainly haven't.

Dying Light, I never played.

I know people like that parkour game, Days Gone, which was a game that had, I feel like, was not super well received initially, but then over time, like the fanbase was like, well, actually, this game is fucking rules.

And that one is, I feel like, kind of grown in esteem over time.

I've threatened to start it a lot.

I bet it's good.

Yeah.

I mean, people, you know, people really, really enjoy that game.

Really funny.

Hunk on a motorcycle.

Yeah, I like that aspect a lot.

I love being a hunk.

And motorcycle plus zombies seems very fun.

That does

formula.

I mean, that's like, I mean, look.

That's the Daryl Dixon formula.

That's Norman Rites' whole thing.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Yeah.

Arguably, Death Stranding exists as we see it because

Norman Ritas is on a motorcycle inside of Walking Death.

I wish I had the power as a creative force to see a cool guy on TV or in a movie and be like, I'm going to put that guy in something.

That's the coolest guy I've ever seen.

He's going to be in the thing that I make next.

He's going to be in my game taking a shit,

advertising his reality show.

It rocks.

I love it.

The like

Zombies Ate My Neighbors, obviously, LucasArts game.

We did did an episode on this, the Super Nintendo game in our old format.

That game is a game I have a lot of affection for.

And it was very fun to revisit.

But again, another game that's kind of on the sillier side.

I also was just reminded of Zombie U.

Remember one of the Wii U exclusives?

Do you remember this game at all?

I don't remember that game.

And I feel like I owned all five Wii U games.

I thought about getting a Wii U recently.

Let me tell you.

Let me tell you something about the Wii U.

Here's the thing I'm going to tell you about the Wii U.

It is an HDMI up-res Wii plus like six exclusive games.

So the system that I have hooked up in my retro setup is not the Wii, it's the Wii U.

I might have to do some digging.

See what I can see what see if I dust a couple cobwebs off the old tinkerer nogger.

It's truly an ill-conceived machine.

Yes.

But

it plays Wii games.

Does it like Genkyu games?

I don't know.

I doubt it.

I'm going to do some digging.

The tinkerer is on the case.

Don't worry about it.

I have a separate GameCube.

So I have the GameCube and the Wii U separate.

Zombie, yeah, you would use like the you'd play it on the TV, but then you'd also have like the second screen to be part of it.

So like there, you're like putting in a sort of funny good screenshot of how it actually played.

Oh, that one went away.

It is a shame that the Wii U doesn't work

or wasn't popular.

Period.

It totally works.

It totally works, but like it has an entirely unique

gameplay element to it, which is that having a screen on your controller and also having the screen on your screen,

none of the other things do that.

What if that was like what?

What if they were bringing it back for the Switch 2?

And they're like, hey, we're doing it again.

We're trying it again.

Well, what if they had made some kind of...

mode for the switch 2 that would allow you to dock it

like conceptually dock it in your screen and then the switch 2 would become a second screen.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I kind of, yeah, like we're like, the dock was a console on its own, kind of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's kind of, I mean, you know, they probably didn't think about it because they were like the Wii U was not.

Yeah, yeah, we're never doing the Wii U again.

We can't do it again.

Uh, is there anything we missed?

I'm sure of it.

I have a, I have a big, I have a big list here.

Let's see.

Let's see.

We got

what things have we've covered the Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, which introduced

the Relentless Pursuer trope.

You've got

Dying Light, which I did not play.

Day-Z,

which was a survival.

Oh, Dan Zhuzzi.

And all of these games come out in the 20 tons, and I feel like they are

coattailing on the success of The Walking Dead TV show.

Yeah, sure.

Which I would love to remind people, the premiere of which was one of the highest-watched cable premieres of all time, if not of all time.

It's 29 million people tuned in for The Walking Dead.

Can you imagine 29 people turning on any television show that wasn't sports?

Yeah.

Another great pilot.

A great, great pilot.

Fantastic.

And I'll be looking forward to checking out the series finale whenever that airs.

I think

there's five spin-offs currently.

The Walking Dead did end.

Yeah.

You have Dying Light 2, Resident Evil Village, Last of Us Part 2, all 2020 games.

And then a newer one that I have not played, which is the Callisto Protocol.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, I never played that.

Which was the spiritual successor to Dead Space, our Alien Zombies.

Who knows?

Yeah, and I think it had some of the development team from the OG,

Dead Space.

I think that was one of those ones that was kind of like it was a victim of...

Maybe

coming out around the holidays.

Yeah, it was released in December of 2022.

And I think it just kind of got buried

among the rush of year-end releases.

I have not played any of the zombie VR games, which include the Walking Dead Saints and Sinners, though I have heard Saints and Sinners is fucking awesome.

I've heard that's pretty good.

I did, of course, play a little bit of Resident Evil 4 in VR,

which is an experience I do not recommend

for those who are motion sick easily.

Wait, you played four in VR.

I played the first one that came out in VR, in VR, which was

I don't know which Resident Bill that was.

Was it Village?

Probably.

Seven?

Yeah, probably Seven.

Seven, yeah.

Yeah.

I played four in VR, and it was the

original four, because they've since done the four remake in VR,

which, I don't know, could be better, who could say?

But I did get it on my Quest 2.

I'm not playing a fucking zombie game in VR.

Your fucking mind?

I did.

No fucking way I'm going to do that.

I did it and lived.

I wouldn't do it.

They'd be taking me out of my office in a body bag.

I shot for that.

I'd be fucking die of fright.

Heart would fail.

I shot for

shit myself.

Well, that was like sort of the whole thing.

You guys, you guys.

Huh.

What?

You said that would happen to you.

Yeah.

And then we do Uctober, and you fuckers pick Blair Witch for my ass, knowing that it could, if that would happen to you, it would happen twice to me.

Man, I mean, that was, I was, the game was cool, but I fucking hated playing Blair Witch VR.

It was really a nice thing that game was not scary.

It sucked.

I always got nauseous.

It was very nausea-inducing.

I had to use the jump to move, but I mean, that's a larger problem with VR, but I think that game is cool.

Didn't you ever do VR?

No, never.

You've never done any VR?

Oh, I've done like the light painting in VR.

Hmm.

Okay.

So still no.

What is the light painting in VR?

I know.

You can just wait.

You can just paint.

Oh, that does sound fun.

Thomas Kincaid.

Guys, our barbecue is.

Here's a light.

All right, our barbecue is here.

So let's take a pause that you won't notice, except in our energy levels, while you're listening to the episode.

We'll be back and answer some questions.

All right.

We took a 30-minute break to each eat our weight in barbecue.

30?

Was that longer than 30 minutes?

You were in there for an hour and a half, my man.

Yeah, and she's talking about the bathroom.

We ate a whole bunch of Blood Sos, a restaurant we mentioned earlier.

That was where the order was from.

Thank you, Heather, for organizing that.

I'm happy to have done it.

Yeah.

I guess we should give our fork scores real quick.

Yeah, I mean, I would go five forks for this.

I mean, you know, you definitely, as a to-go experience,

you know, barbecue travels pretty well.

Yeah.

It's pretty much all the sides, I think, were intact.

Even the fries, I thought, held up pretty

well.

Just in a paper bag, too.

Sometimes they just get a little mushy in transit.

Man, look at him.

Like, dude, he just falls into like, when he hits his fucking stride, it's like watching an Olympian do the pull-up, like a pull-up.

It's amazing.

It's incredible.

Like,

words are just like smoothly flowing out of him in a way that like none of the video game language does.

No, no, he doesn't.

He doesn't do it here.

He doesn't do it.

He's talking about like travel well and shit.

What did you say?

He doesn't do it for this one.

He doesn't do the other one but it's here it's impressive to see yeah i think the greens have

is it some shredded it's some shredded turkey that they have integrated into it

maybe maybe maybe like a bit of a little bit of a leaner protein yeah it's very very good those greens i said it when i was eating them the greens were hitting they were really good the greens were hitting the mac and cheese was very solid the coleslaw It's a good execution of a coleslaw.

I'm a coleslaw freak, and I love that coleslaw.

That's the great coleslaw.

So, yeah, I mean, I think this was a five-fork experience for me.

We didn't get into the proteins.

I will say that we had some brisket, we had some pork ribs, and we had some pulled pork.

Yeah, it was those three, right?

Yeah, there was two types of briskets.

There's two types of brisket.

We had a lean brisket and a fatty brisket.

It's incredible.

I'm just saying stuff.

Yeah, but it's not like, it's not like the nick I see every week.

This is like watching Eminem at the end of eight mile, just decimally

the same guy.

Just talking about a different subject.

Yeah, but it's like you're so much like, like, you're even physically more relaxed when you're doing it.

It's a different nick.

I'm more passionate about video games.

I'm more excited about video games.

And so I think I sometimes like have too many thoughts at once.

You have a lot to say about it.

And I feel like with food, I can kind of like dial it back.

Like, I know what, you know, and I have my, I'm very passionate about food as well.

But like, I don't know.

Yeah, no shit.

Anyway, but five forks for me.

Matt, what do you think?

Yeah, it was really, really good.

It was a great execution.

I always really enjoyed Blood Sos.

I like the dining experience.

Maybe you get yourself a you can get yourself a cocktail there.

So for people who are not in LA and haven't been to Blood Sos.

It's going to sue us.

I don't know.

It has like, it has barbecue, but it's in like the shell of a gastro pub.

Yeah.

So you were getting like craft cocktails.

You were getting this kind of like upscale.

Yeah.

I don't want to say gentrified, but it's kind of got that feel to it.

You know, it's a, it's a little bit of a,

it's a nicer experience, but you're still getting sort of like down-home fare.

fare.

You'll get like a spiked sweet tea or something.

That's like really fun.

I was sicko for the cornbread tonight.

I was going crazy with the cornbread.

Loved it.

I loved the brisket.

You know, I'd risk it for the brisket.

I like that.

Can we just, if five forks, easy.

Wow, five forks.

If this is a clip, can we just have the Doughboys logo on the clip?

Heather, your thoughts, your fork score on Blood Says BBQ.

Like, with the background, with us being in the wrong studio, people would be like, what is happening right now?

Just like edit in like a static photo of Mitch.

Five forks for me.

I,

you know,

wait, I got to do one of these like

brisket for the brisket.

You don't have to do that.

So like,

like.

Mitch just put up the Doughboys Patriot logo on her back.

Like Zucker, I'm a sucker for that smoked meats.

That's pretty good.

Does that work?

Pretty good.

I'll have to figure out who Zucker is.

Zuckerberg, because he did the whole thing where he's like, I'm smoking some meats, I'm smoking some ages.

He did this?

Yeah, he was trying to door cats.

It was one of his many attempts to appear human and also appear like, you remember when he was trying to do this quixotic presidential run?

He was kind of like, I'm going to show that I'm a real American.

And so he was doing like that and then he ended up becoming this you know mma chad

yeah i'll kick his ass now but but hey of the of the two of those loser idiots at least he actually did mma no it's true i agree like he he did it anyway no no apologies for that guy sucking um zuckerberg i call him yeah

that's good That's good.

You should put it online.

I remember one time Mark Zuckerberg posted something, just like one of those things when he'd just post on Facebook.

I'm sure he probably still does it.

And the top comment on it was someone saying,

Where's my dislike button, Fuckerberg?

So fine to be like the top five richest person in the world until someone just makes fun of your name.

That's so funny.

Such a threatening aura, too, to that.

I met him in person in 2011.

Wow.

Because

he came to SNL for the

social network premiere.

Oh, right.

And I think it was,

we had Jesse Eisenberg was the guest.

And so Zuckerberg comes on for like some bit, right?

And he was at the after party afterwards.

And Samberger was like, hey, you like, you like tech stuff, right?

You want to be introduced to him?

And I was like, yeah, that'd be fucking awesome.

I'd love to be introduced to Mark Zuckerberg.

So he brought, he brought me over and he's like, hey, this is one of the writers.

She loves like tech stuff.

So like, maybe you guys would, you know, whatever.

And he goes, oh, yeah, nice to meet you.

And then, no fucking joke takes out his phone, looks down at it, and starts posting on Facebook.

And then Samberg looks at me and kind of goes,

and we both walk away.

And

what's funny about this story is that I can picture all of it so well.

Yeah.

And I was like,

I was just kind of like slighted by Mark Zuckerberg while he posted on his own.

Like, it felt awesome, but terrible and all at the same time.

Yeah.

But yeah, I met that guy once.

So what's your fork score?

Five forks.

Love Blood So's.

No complaints across the board.

And the cornbread, their cornbread's really good.

I do wish there was a third sauce option.

Yeah, they have a hot sauce and a sweeter sauce.

Yeah.

The hot sauce still has a decent amount of sweetness to it.

It's a sweet heat, but I it would be nice to have a third, a third sauce.

Also, like, like maybe a sauce that's a little bit more vinegary or something.

You know, it's a completely different.

Oh, I mean, you've got, you, you've nailed down all of the dishes and all of the sides.

Like, the menu doesn't change.

They've got it.

I feel like they could up their game by having, like, a small sauce menu.

I guess maybe because it's a Texas-style barbecue, maybe that's what's generally presented, but I don't know.

You don't know for sure.

I sort of think about the barbecue preparations as like hot sauce, sweet sauce, or dry.

Like, cause like there's like, I feel like there's a, I could be a dry guy with barbecue.

There's like a validity to the a dry rub, absolutely.

Yep.

Anyway.

Yep.

So five forks.

Welcome to the Platinum Plate Club.

Ranch, your thoughts, your fork score on Blood So's BBQ.

Five fork.

Wow, yeah.

Okay.

Amazing.

Did you have a favorite protein slash favorite side?

The ribs are really good.

Yep.

And the mac and cheese.

Yeah.

I love.

Now you're you're your partner does not eat meat.

You're you're plant-based at home.

So like like eating a sort of meat feast is a rare indulgence for you.

Yeah, it's

it's really sad.

It's not sad.

It's just a nice thing you get to have these treats.

No, no, it's such a treat when I get to eat meat.

Ranch, I went vegan for a girl once for like, I think it was a year, year and a half, something like that.

And as soon as we broke up, I went to Ralph's and I bought so much meat and had a big barbecue with all my friends.

I'm just looking forward to that in your future.

If things go terrible,

you have one thing to to look forward to.

Or, you know,

maybe

your lovely boyfriend will be like, I'm just kind of done with that.

That was a phase.

I have a friend that was like very, what I understood to be very strictly vegetarian.

Yeah.

And one time we were in the Gelsons by UCV together and she, I lost track of her.

And when we met back up, she was eating a piece of fried chicken.

Wow.

And I was like, what the hell are you doing?

She's like, I just kind of looked good.

Also, be clear, Ranch, I hope everything works out.

I was just listing a small silver lining on what will be surely a terrible day.

Which is a

like, you can come over and I'll barbecue for you.

Okay, maybe I should break up with the friends.

Hey, eating a bunch of flesh.

What an appropriate way to put a capper on a zombie episode.

All right, it's time for the question block.

All right.

These are all from our Discord, discord.gg slash get played get in there ask us some questions we love our discord we love the discord is is really fun i love the discord it's great and hey an o7 to our mods out there we had a nice little fleet of mods doing good work what's oh seven oh my god a little salute a little salute i like it yeah i love that actually that's i love that i didn't know because it you see it written down like a little seven yeah and it looked like i really like it i i like it i'm gonna start doing it

This first one is from Daisuki Danny.

And Daisuki Danny writes, what's your favorite game built around a peripheral?

Wow, Danny, this is a great question.

I've got to think for a second because I feel like I'm going to give an answer and then I'm going to, this is going to be one on the commute home where I'd be like, I should have said that.

But it's.

I mean, certainly we've got light guns, right?

Certainly that's one thing that that's where my mind instantly goes.

But in terms of other peripherals, you got things like the Super Nintendo mouse.

Obviously, that's being called back with the Joy-Con 2s.

Yeah, I like, I mean, obviously, like the rock band games, the guitar hero games,

peripherals, sure.

Is the Sega CD a peripheral?

What is it?

I mean, that's like more of an add-on, right?

It's more of an accessory.

Okay, okay.

Expansion.

Yeah, that to me is like a Rumble package.

I think of a way to interact with the, like, like, like, I would say like the eye toy or the Kinect would be, would be peripherals.

I got this.

what about this yeah wario wear twisted because the game is the peripheral that one's pretty damn good you've got the uh the you know the the gyroscope inside the cartridge the big honking cartridge and you can spin that some bitch around it's a lot of fun yeah

that was i love the shit out of that game we talked about that game pretty recently with mike trucker that's right i know it made me want to track one down and play it that game was that game was fucking awesome that's maybe my favorite wario wear when i think about it i like i have a fondness for touch because it was my first wario wear completely understand that here here's a, I'll give an answer, and this is a music answer.

And I don't know if this is my favorite, but in terms of just like the specificity of the peripheral, it's a thing I wish I still owned.

The Sambade Amigo Maracas.

Yeah.

They made Maracas for the fucking Dreamcast.

And you fucking shook those

bastards.

And then you posed with them.

And

what a blast.

I love that.

I never played Samaday Amigo.

And also,

I wish, I wonder how much it is to track that down at this point.

I do have a Dreamcast, but I, it, it is like Dreamcast did have a few of them.

They had the Bass Pro controller, right?

They had a fishing controller.

Yeah, they had C-Man.

We already talked about typing of the dead.

So, so they were kind of awash.

And the VMUs, of course, were kind of their own thing.

They were kind of awash in a bunch of different attempts at weird peripherals.

But that was one I remember with some, with, with a good amount of fondness.

The most fun I've had recently with a peripheral was for our Snatcher episode when I had the light gun.

Oh, yeah.

And I was like, this

feels like it's more game is happening because of it.

You say recently, and I hate to

say probably four years ago.

Don't say that to me.

Did you, did you?

Because I know you got to talk with Kojima.

Did you mention Snatcher to him at all?

I did.

First thing I said.

Wow.

Wow.

I said, I said,

yeah, I'm a big fan.

And

I really enjoyed Snatcher.

And

said, well, that was a long time ago.

I could move on to another question.

Wait, do you have an answer?

Is this yours rock band?

You're saying the rock band?

I would say.

The other thing I would say is just in terms of a controller, in terms of a peripheral that worked.

The Namco GunCon, which was a light gun that first had real weight to it.

It was like, it really felt like you were fucking about to shoot something.

And then it also plugged into your video input.

So it was much more precise than a standard light gun.

And that game with the home version of Time Crisis, and especially the home version of Point Blank, which for me was just such a great party game.

Those are ones that are highlights.

And then I know it's not, it's like not an accessory, but I mean, we sports in terms of just like fun.

Yeah.

I'm going to throw one more in this awesome bonfire we have going, which is We Fit.

Oh, yeah.

And specifically We Fit 2,

which had a pedometer.

And so you were doing We Fit when you were out in the world.

And that was awesome because you could then sync the pedometer with the game.

I was really religious about playing We Fit every single day and really enjoyed it.

And then I lost the pedometer at a,

it's funny because what we were talking about during our lunch break, I lost the pedometer at a bar in Ireland.

And

it's like, well,

I don't know how to get a new pedometer because it's packed in with the game.

So

real loss.

Real loss.

Yeah, it's a little bit of a bummer.

This next one's from Koopa Trupa.

Koopa Trupa.

And Koopa Troupa writes, new Donkey Kong design.

Yay or nay.

I personally love it.

I'm in favor of the Bonanza design.

I think he, like, I like that he's got clothes.

I think that's an interesting choice.

I like his pants.

I like his pants.

I like his suspenders.

And yeah, why not?

We don't have to be married to the rare design forever.

Why not refresh?

It still looks like Donkey Kong to me.

Yeah.

I'm a full pro because he looks like the art that was on the side of the old cabinets.

Oh, he looks like the original Donkey Kong to me.

And that I was like, when I saw him, I was like, oh, shit.

It's Donkey Kong.

It's actual Donkey Kong.

Yeah, like I,

when I first saw it, when they showed the like announcement trailer for the Switch 2, not the direct but when they first showed him in mario kart i was like oh he looks different similar to how he looks in the in the animated movie

um which is not a bad design i think he looks cool um but i guess i i i'll always love the donkey kong country

sort of look that he has there i i always i i i always love that but i like the new look quite a bit i'm excited to see what i love it uh what we can do there in in bonanza nick are you pulling up some of the art this is this is what i want to i i just want to clarify.

This is the Donkey Kong, the one that is escaping with Pauline, or is this a different Donkey Kong?

It's a different cabinet?

Yeah, I've seen different art, but anyway,

because this just looks like a big, dumb, naked ape.

Yeah.

Hey, man.

Be careful with that.

Yep.

Here's a Donkey Key consult them.

You know what?

This one might.

This Donkey Kong Jr.

might be more what you're.

That's pretty good, brain.

That's pretty good.

That feels like a kin.

And also, just what a fucking awesome cabinet.

I know.

That's fucking awesome.

Jesus Christ.

Beautiful.

I wish arcades would come back in a major way.

Yeah, I mean, it's probably not happening.

It's never going to happen.

Can you imagine how good?

So, like, when you used to,

when you would play an arcade game and how much better it was than your home console, can you imagine how good an arcade game would have to be now in order to power that?

transition of experience.

Oh, God, yeah.

You would have to walk into an arcade and suddenly be on a holodeck.

I think, yeah, that's what I think.

I think the only way that would happen is if it's it's experiential, it's things, something on a scale that you can't do in your own home.

And they were doing that with the VR experiences, but they're just cramming those into like old cell phone stores.

So it's not like they're presenting anything you can't do at home with an Oculus.

This next one's from Jarp.

Hi, Jarp.

What's up, Jarp?

Jarp writes, you have to either eat a chocobo or a Yoshi.

Which do you choose?

Chocobo.

Yeah, 100%, right?

Seen a fucking Yoshi.

Chocobos seem a lot less sentient than Yoshi.

Yeah.

Yoshi's like a being.

Yoshi says his his name.

Yoshi can drive a fucking car.

Ain't eating a fucking Yoshi.

I'm also.

Well, I think a chocobo can too.

And isn't there like a square in this race?

I would.

The thing is, like, I don't give a shit about a bird.

I'll fucking shoot a bird.

This became very clear in our text thread this week.

I'll explain.

It's 3:30 in the morning, and Nick texts, I hate birds.

I would go chocobo as well, but I would worry about

because look, I eat chicken, I eat turkey.

That meat to me seems fine.

There's something about chocobo meat, though, that seems pigeon-like to me.

I'm sure you could eat a pigeon and like be fine.

Well, yeah, a bird that big, probably the meat would be a little bit tougher.

It's like kind of like,

I've never eaten ostrich, but my understanding is like that's not a particularly, you know, you do some work to us to an ostrich to make that edible.

We're really making a lot of people upset this week, and I'm really sorry.

What I was going to say is this.

Aside from whether it, whatever is more sentient, and as if that gives, you know, one life form more value than the other, but those are the decisions we make when we decide which life forms we have to eat to sustain our own lives.

I think that a Yoshi would just taste worse.

Because I mean, a reptile versus eating a bird.

Birds taste good.

Do you think Yoshi is a reptile?

He's like a dragon.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, fucking dinosaur.

Right, but dinosaurs are birds.

But they're reptiles.

No, they're not.

They're not just birds.

They're full-blown birds.

It's not a straight-up bird.

They're not just birds.

Yeah, they are.

They're birds.

A dinanechus is going to taste like chicken when we clone them and eat them.

Look, I've eaten rattlesnake before.

I'll admit it.

I'll admit it here on the podcast anyway.

So have I.

I mean, gator, too.

I eat.

But that's not what a dinosaur is going to taste like.

Yeah.

I do a little too much with gators, I think.

I've eaten gator.

I've eaten gator.

I've eaten some, I've eaten some reptiles.

I think I prefer the meat of poultry.

And I think that

aside from,

again, just like whatever we, whatever we feel worse about killing,

I just think the chocobo is going to taste better.

I think a dinosaur is going to taste exactly like a bird.

I think that Yoshi's meat and a chocobo meat very similar, but one of them has a house.

Look, there's only one way to find out.

We got to build a timer shot.

We're not going to find Yoshis in the past.

That's still a fictional creature.

We'll find him.

You go back far enough.

Everything's real.

I think that a...

What a premise.

I think that like a Brachiosaurus would taste like shit.

I think that's a bad tasting animal.

What?

I think it tastes bad.

We have to move on.

Yeah.

I think it's like eating a rhinoceros.

It's like, I don't want to eat that.

Saxophone Solo, right?

What's up, Sax Solo?

Why is Matt not the Devil May Cry guy yet?

Now, look, there's a new anime out.

I've been wanting to watch it.

It seems cool.

I've never played one of the games before.

I played a little bit of five.

But I was sort of like, I don't really get this yet.

The HD collection of one, two, and three was just on sale on PlayStation

for a paltry $9.

All three games.

Three games apiece if you're doing the math.

Yeah.

I bought it and I downloaded it.

I'm going going to see what's going on with Devil May Cry.

In my memory, one and three are both very fun.

And

I think you like them.

I'll report back.

I'll see what's going on.

Yeah.

I've always thought Dante looked cool.

He does look cool.

He's got a great character design.

That game's also like

very stupid in a fun way.

I can't wait to see what's going on.

I liked a little bit of what I played with five, but I just didn't commit to finishing it.

But you still have an answer to the question, why aren't you the Devil Devil May Cry?

Why?

Because I haven't played it yet, and that's the answer.

Got it.

But once I get to it, I could be the Devil May Cry guy for sure.

What?

What?

I'm just thinking about eating dinosaurs.

I think they taste bad.

I think they're going to taste exactly like chicken.

Nick's going to do Jurassic Park,

but to eat them.

Would they have, would they serve?

Because if you go to like SeaWorld, they are serving fish there.

Like, would they serve dinosaurs at Jurassic Park?

For fucking sure.

Yeah.

First off, the tickets are going to be like literally

7,000.

Like, think how much they charged for Galaxy's Edge or whatever it was.

The, the, the hotel.

The cruise, the galactic cruise hotel.

Oh, yeah.

Right?

So they charge that much for nothing.

Imagine how much they would charge for Jurassic Park.

That place would be a $15,000 for two nights stay.

Whoa.

And it would be only for like rich people.

Yeah.

definitely one of the high-end restaurants at the park would also serve dinosaurs.

I do think that there must be a canonical issue within the world of the Jurassic World movies because the pricing scale for dinosaurs is way off to me.

Yeah.

In the second one, where they sort of do black market bidding on living dinosaurs, they start the bidding at $10,000.

Yeah.

And that's not

a lot of money to some people.

That's not enough for dinosaurs.

dinosaurs.

No, that is not enough for a fucking dinosaur.

It starts at like $10 million.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, how much does like a tuna go for at like a fish market, like a whole tuna?

I bet it goes for more than that.

For sure.

Yeah.

Meat is valuable.

And it's good.

I like tuna.

It's kind of like a guess, like a, like a, what was the fish dinosaur?

An ichtiosaurus?

What the fuck was that thing?

I don't know.

Plesiosaurus?

Yeah, please.

That guy might taste good.

Mesosaurus?

Do y'all have this one's from Joey Jojo?

hi joey jojo

do y'all have a favorite zone out or number or numbers go up game something you can turn on when you just want to have some simple serotonin boost but don't really have the time or mental capacity to vote to devote to one of the bigger titles you may be working on i'll say for me this is going to sound like a crazy answer because i do think you do have to pay attention a lot in this game bellatro is this game for me I will just play Bellatro sort of mindlessly.

Like, and like, it's not about necessarily winning the runs.

Like, obviously, you want to win, but for me, it's just a little bit of seeing the cards go, see the numbers go, just the satisfaction of the little, like,

the little noises it makes a little bit.

Sometimes I don't even really care about how I'm doing, I'm just playing.

The question was: what's your relaxing game?

What's do you have a favorite like numbers go up or sort of like you're just zoning out game?

Numbers go up.

I mean, I don't.

I did realize recently I, you know, got an aura ring.

My, my wife gave me an aura ring for a gift.

And when I'm playing the game that must not be named,

it's the only time on my ring where I register as relaxed.

Like

the rest of the time I am engaged or stressed.

Yeah.

But when playing that game,

all of my metrics are like on the floor.

I am absolutely at peace.

Wow.

I've tried to get into some survival games because I do like the survival gameplay loop, but I get a little bit too fixated on

trying to min-max them in a way that it stops being at all relaxing.

And I know you can just build in those games and have them be a little bit relaxing, but I never really got like the feeling I got from like a Stardew Valley or like an Animal Crossing.

But both of those games are games that I play a little bit more actively.

In terms of shutting my brain off, I will say I did get into some clicker games and I've been looking for some new clicker games actually.

I played Cookie Clicker for a time.

Actually, I had a fucking job and I had like a writing job and I was just like had Cookie Clicker just like open on my computer and I was just like, it's a thing I could just toss a few clicks in, you know, when I had some downtime or whatever, or could just kind of have it going.

Have either of you played Cookie Clicker?

No, it was Cookie Clicker.

Cookie Clicker is great.

It's basically like you start with a cookie on screen and each time you click the cookie, you get another, like you, a number goes up.

Basically, it's a number go up kind of thing, like the prompt asks.

Okay.

And I think the number is not the book, what you're doing is just collecting cookies.

Maybe it's revenue.

I forget.

It's been a while since I played it.

It sounds good to me.

I like cookies.

So you're doing that.

But then, as you keep going, you can do things like, hey, I unlocked a second clicker.

So now every time I click, I get two cookies.

I get double the resource.

Then eventually you start unlocking things like, hey, I've unlocked some grandmas who can cook, bake cookies on their own.

And so it just takes a certain amount of time.

And so now it's that's become fully passive.

Like I can keep clicking.

Eventually reach a point in the gameplay loop where you've, where you've made it efficient enough where now it's not even worth your time to click.

It's like a billionaire picking a penny off the sidewalk.

It's not worth their time anymore.

And that's a very satisfying feeling.

I really enjoyed that one.

There's also a couple of dating sim ones, which I enjoyed, Crush, Crush, and Blush Blush, which are both the same sort of principle, but it's like you're just in Crush Crush, it's ladies and blush, blush, it's fellas, and you're just just wooing them by clicking.

And then eventually, you know, that there becomes a or a lot of it is just like timed refreshes of like there's a certain number of hours pass, and then you can upgrade this particular, you know, stat or whatever, or, and, and increase your relationship and go to the next threshold and unlock more, uh, more babes and hunks.

Hey, yeah, hell yeah.

But I do like clicker games because they are just like pure, like gameplay in its purest form.

I'll have to check that.

I've never, that's a genre I'm not familiar with at all.

Makes you feel like a fucking rat in a cage.

It's great.

Wow, despite all my rage?

That's it for the question blog.

Thanks for writing in.

And like I said, you can join us over at discord.gg slash get played and be part of the conversation.

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

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

Ranch, you streaming anything these days?

I'm streaming Resident Evil 7 right now.

How's it going?

It's so much fun.

What's the

you dealing with zombies and that?

They're something.

I don't know if they're zombies.

They're like

infected mold

sludge guys.

Okay.

Sounds adjacent.

People who can reanimate and grow back their limbs.

Wow.

I haven't played either of the first person Resident Evils.

A big blind spot for me.

Our music episodes by Brent Prenti, BenPrentyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

You can find our merch, including apparels, stickers, and more at kinshipgoods.com.

Link is in the show description.

Also, check out 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.

Matt, what's up this week?

We're watching Gur and Lagon, baby.

We're loving it.

It's a fucking it's becoming one of my shows.

It's becoming one of my shows.

I know it is, and I love to watch you watching it.

It's like it's infecting my brain.

Gross.

I don't know why.

You are sort of like, I do sort of feel your presence

watching me watch it.

Yeah, you say it's infecting your brain?

Kind of.

Uh-oh.

I mean, no, I mean, um, it's making me crave brain.

No, um, oh, no, no.

Patreon.com slash get played.

Uh, Matt got played and uh he's about to get slayed.

Yeah, if somebody fucking killed me, I ate so much fucking barbecue.

That was a hit gum podcast.

Hi, I'm Alana Hope Levinson.

And I'm Dan O'Sullivan.

And this is The Outfit, the new podcast from Higher Ground and Head Gum.

You know, we're two journalists who are slightly obsessed with the mob and organized crime and other nefarious stuff like that.

Every week, we're gonna bring you a story about a mobster.

Some you've heard of, some you definitely haven't, but all of them are gonna help explain why America is like this.

See, the mob explains all sorts of things from milk expiration dates to why we got into Cuba to Las Vegas.

Gay bars.

Who knew?

Who knew?

The mob's involved.

All that and more.

Subscribe to The Outfit wherever you get your podcasts and watch video episodes on YouTube.

New episodes every Thursday.

What's up, everybody?

I'm Kyle Mooney.

And what's up, everybody?

I'm back Ben.

And man, ooh, we got something to tell you.

Oh, yeah, we definitely do.

Yes, it's a brand new podcast on Headgum.

That's right.

And it's called What's Our Podcast?

Yep.

And that's because we don't have a single idea what our podcast should be about.

Yeah, we don't.

So we actually have guests come on and they tell us what they think our podcast should be about and then we try it.

Yep.

Guests like Mark Maron, Jack Black, Brittany Broski, Cape Cape Berland, Bobby Moynihan, Make Stalter, and Tim Ball, Landon Axler, Joel

Joni McGrees,

and Dender.

And Dender.

New episodes release every Wednesday.

So subscribe to What's Our Podcast on YouTube or any of your favorite podcast platforms.

Yeah.

I'm going to go do it right now.

I'm Tignotaro.

I'm Mae Martin.

And I'm Fortune Themester.

And together, we're handsome.

What is handsome?

Well, it's a state of mind.

It's how you feel.

It's whatever you want it to be.

Handsome is also a podcast hosted by us, three stand-up comedians you may have seen on your TV.

We swap stories, share life updates, and occasionally laugh until we cry.

Every episode, we answer a question from a celebrity friend, people like Sarah Silverman.

It's Stephen Colbert.

It's Reese Witherspoon.

My name is Mindy Kaling.

Hello Handsome Podcast.

It's Jen Aniston here.

You gorgeous W.

So if you're looking for a positive, joyful show guaranteed to make you giggle, giggle, check out Handsome.

Jump right in with whatever episode tiggles your fancy, or start from the very first episode.

Listen to Handsome on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube.

New episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

And don't forget, keep it handsome.