Marvel Rivals with Cody Ziglar

This is a head gun podcast.

All right, Net Ease has a huge hit with Marvel Rivals.

Now, here's the thing: we obviously can't get the Marvel IP, but the hero shooter format with an existing franchise feels like instant gold.

I mean, that's just a recipe for success.

So,

I think we need to figure out our own IP to make into a rivals game.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, something, something that's current, something that the people

are eating up and want more.

Something in the zeitgeist.

Yeah, you could do like, um, you could do like a DC rivals or a Shonen Jump rivals.

You could do, I mean, there's so many like really great IP out there.

And I, and I bet there's a lot of places we could look where we could negotiate some deals that are like in the live play space versus uh, you know, like structured first-person campaigns i bet there's a lot of negotiation room in those contracts yeah so what are you guys thinking i i mean those are great pitches um

i think as far as where my mind is headed in terms of of hits that we can attach ourselves to yeah young sheldon rivals

that's pretty good you get young sheldon in there You, of course, get Sheldon's mom, Mary Cooper.

You, of course, get George Cooper Sr., who's the father of Sheldon.

And then you got to have Melissa Missy Cooper, who's the younger sister of George.

Sorry, you know, I'll be honest.

I feel bad because I was on my phone finishing up an email at the beginning of this meeting.

So maybe I misunderstood the assignment.

I thought...

We're talking about Marvel rivals, the video game.

And because we're a video game development company, we're going to sort of, we're looking for adjacent ways to like crack that code to really hone in on that on those.

I just feel like you're, I, I, I'm, I don't understand your pitch.

I mean, I think it's pretty straightforward.

You get in Annie Potts's character of Mima, uh, and you know, you're making me printing money, yeah.

And then also she's kind of a tank build, maybe, I think.

Yeah, probably a tank build, but that's what's good about this, too, is that you're starting with the young Sheldon universe because then you can do like a seasonal event where it's like a multiversal thing or like a

time jump sort of situation, where then you get the characters from the Big Bang theory

coming in as well.

Like Penny and

the rest, certainly.

Yeah, but the rest, of course, joined.

Yeah.

Okay.

And you guys are seeing this as sort of like a fighting game franchise.

Are you handing me your notebook?

You want me to take notes on this?

No, I mean, you know, it might be nice to have someone write something.

I am doing so.

I pitched like several.

Let's go.

That was just one idea.

Let's figure out some other areas.

Frasier.

Right.

Now we're talking.

talking because like you can get like frasier in there

niles his dad mart their dad martin the dog eddie do you see these raws

you got together yeah you can make room for a bulldog as

photorealistic i don't understand what art style this would even be like well get out i don't know i mean like marvel rivals isn't photorealistic you can have some a stylized aesthetic right but these are human men that you're just you're describing a fighting game of human men who right to my knowledge wear suits.

Well, they wear like other regular clothes, too, not just like fancy pants suits.

We can also have the cheers characters come in, like Diane could come in there from DLC.

Woody,

Woody,

the rest.

The rest are got to be in there.

Yeah.

Cliff.

Oh, man.

Cliff would be so funny in there.

Imagine his quips.

Okay, can I

maybe, again, maybe I'm just missing the target here.

These are fighting games, right?

It's like a

hero shooter.

It's like it's analogous to a fighting game.

You'll give them guns, like regular guns.

Well, some of them will, you know, Fraser will have like a microphone because he's like a radio therapist.

So he'll like sort of talk, talk you down into

like submission, kind of.

I'm listening.

Yeah.

That's like his finishing.

As long as you're building out these very bizarre television-based hero shooters, why not go with a show that has a larger legacy?

Like the Cosby show?

What?

No.

Kind of sounds like that was your idea.

Are you pitching the Cosby Show rivals?

Because that's raising some red flags about one.

I'm not.

Okay.

I was not pitching the Cosby show.

I'm not pitching that.

I don't even.

Look, it's a funny show.

I would like to

get fired.

Can one of you fire me?

I would like to be fired.

We squat up with Squirrel Girl and lay off our entire development team as we discuss hero shooter hit Marvel rivals this week on Get Play.

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

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we're talking about a game that is in the zeitgeist.

That's right.

We're talking about a hero shooter where you play as a team, and you know what?

As such, we've expanded our team beyond the usual Triforce of Friendship, and of course, our producer, Rochelle Chan Ranch, a writer and comedian from Rick and Morty, Miles Morley, Spider-Man, and Futurama, Cody Ziggler, is here.

Hi, Zig.

Hello.

I summon the Seven C's.

I actually have my own thing to come in with

the appropriate for the episode.

It can't be better than any of ours.

Zig, I know that

you're a comics writer.

I know you're someone with a lot of knowledge of this medium.

Have you grafted yourself onto superhero games, comics games in the past?

Yeah, but only, I think, probably like what people would assume, like the AAA ones.

Right.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, like the Arkham series.

Yeah.

Like always my favorite.

Funny enough, like, I tried Overwatch when it first came out, and I'm just not a hero shooter guy.

Yeah.

This is the first hero shooter where, one, I have been actively putting in time to get better at it, but also the first one when I actually understood what a hero shooter does.

I thought it for the longest time was like, oh, I got to get the most kills, right?

Like that's how it works, as opposed to this with like, oh, these are, they're intricate systems.

Like you play a very specific role, and the idea is to compliment other people on the team, which has been really fun.

Right.

So like, this is my first like actual diving into this game outside of just like standard third-person perspective.

action adventure type game.

It's interesting when like a, when like a, you know, an IP gets you into a genre you normally didn't play.

Like like for me, it was, and I'd already played card games

quite a bit, so this is a bad example, but Marvel Snap, just speaking of Marvel, I know has, for a lot of people, gotten them into, to card games.

I was like, oh, wow, okay, I can wrap my head around this because I know who Adam Warlock is.

And, and the, uh,

uh, but like for me, I feel like my example was, not that I ever really got into MOBAs, but the one MOBA I kind of could play, partly because it was dumbed down, but partly because it used Blizzard characters that I was familiar with.

And so I understood their like movesets a little bit inherently was Heroes of the Storm, which was the Blizzard one.

Matt, what were you going to say?

Well,

speaking of like

superhero games, Marvel games in particular, I know that Zig is like the one person I know that liked the Avengers game.

Yeah, I was interested.

I did enjoy it.

There are two things.

One,

it was the first Avengers game that had come out.

Yeah.

That wasn't like, you know,

a movie tie-in or something.

And I think I actually replayed it, um, last week whenever the PlayStation Network was down.

Just like, oh, I need this Marvel itch scratched, and I was feeling for it.

I needed that, eating is medicine.

And playing it, like, the mechanics of it, like, the actual fighting mechanics are so fun and well-timed.

And, like, some of the animation is just so intricate that I'd never noticed before.

Um, and also, I had a friend that, like, did a voice in the game.

It's like I wanted to play her.

Um, but in high, like, having taken like three or four years off, there are definitely some, uh,

you know, there are some some rust on that thing there's not there are definitely some some some some some bad things about the game but i did enjoy it for like the actual campaign i think the actual contain like this is like a 20-hour story it's very focused um that was really well made the sort of

um what's the term the um

the uh it's like a loot shooter whatever you call that aspect of it the gameplay loop the game not the gameplay the um the like multiplayer aspect of it didn't work yeah because it's like so it was meant to be kind of a a live service.

Yeah, it's the live service part of it didn't work for me.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did.

I actually didn't even know it was

still

playable.

But I mean, like, yeah, that was, that was one that came out that I was like, oh, this will probably an Avengers game, you know, from Square.

This will set the world on fire.

And it just somehow just completely fizzled in the marketplace.

It was so buggy.

Like, there were so many, like, comical bugs.

Like, they gave you this free, like, Captain America suit and, like, his eyes would, like, pop out of his skull.

And because it was so well rendered, you would see, like, the actual orbs of his eyes.

It was very unsettling but actually it sort of reminded me of the i think matt i know you played the um the guardians of the galaxy game that came out later like yeah that to me was like the best version of that game that game the guardians of the galaxy game fucking rules it is legitimately so good and it deserves sequels and sequels.

It's it's incredible.

And like a good guardian story.

Yeah.

And it's just like a good story for a game, honestly.

Really good.

I've heard nothing but good things about the Guardians of the Galaxy game, which I was surprised by and i've never played um the uh

it's it's interesting that marvel became there was such saturation of marvel everywhere that we ended up with games like guardians of the galaxy and the other one is marvel's midnight suns that are critically acclaimed everyone says these games are awesome and just no one really played them and it's kind of almost it's almost like

uh like remarkable that there's just that that you know you're able to come up with something that has such like a a a well-known ip attached and then just like aren't able to make a den even if it's even if it's good Yeah, I mean, one, there's like a lot of games out.

I guess so, yeah.

I think also, like, that's a really interesting point.

We haven't really talked about this in a while.

There are actually a lot of games, there's way too many games, actually.

I haven't really thought about that, but I think when I think about the number of games that are out, there's probably more than I can actually play.

It's also funny because when you're a kid playing video games, even if you are aware that there are a lot of games, you only have access to the number of games your parents can purchase for you.

Yeah.

So, like, for a year, there might only be two games.

Yes.

Yeah.

So you don't build up a backlog.

Yeah.

Now, too many games.

Yeah.

That's why I would like to play like Family Feud for NES single player.

I was like, well, this is a game I bought for like $2 at a garage sale.

This is one game I have to play for the next three months.

It's why I had, I think, maybe 15 saved files on Final Fantasy VII when it first came out.

Because that's the only game that I would have for the year.

Right, right.

No, yeah.

Just

playing and replaying things endlessly and

developing effect, like whether they were, some of them are

some classic games that I did that with, and other games that were just like not even good, but just still having an affection for them just because they were my one thing that I had.

You would say crazy answers to yourself, and then mug to yourself in the mirror, too.

You crazy for this one, Nick.

Name something you'd find in a butt.

Hold out, the prompts now are all just like trying to teeth out of TMC Harvey face.

Oh, shit, Steve.

No, no, you ain't talking about those shit.

Keys, Steve.

That cat like a little mustache that he drew on himself in a ball cap.

It's that just for a different time, I think Steve Harvey on Family Feud, maybe top three funniest things ever.

It's very funny.

Yes.

It's pure comedy.

I'm curious, and I want to put this to Heather Mountain and Rochelle, I'm curious for you as well.

Like, has anyone ever anyone else like dabbled in hero shooters beyond Marvel Rivals?

Like, has anyone played it put any time into Overwatch or any of those other similar games?

I not not just not the kind of genre that appeals to me.

So, I never have.

Not either, not me either.

And then it's so funny because, like, you know, you can see, like, what your friends are playing on, like, Switch or whatever.

My brother, like, my younger brother

has, like, 900 hours in Overwatch.

And I'm just like,

one,

I've never heard you even speak of this.

Yes.

But two, it's the thing that I can see him doing the most.

Like, it's so, it's so crazy to me.

And also, I think that shouldn't be allowed.

You shouldn't be allowed to see somebody just like.

Oh, they're really going through it, huh?

I better call it.

I'm going to call him and see if he's all right.

I bounced off Overwatch.

I tried it, but I just totally bounced off it.

And I think that was the last time I tried a hero shooter

before we played rivals for this podcast.

Ranch, how about you?

Is Valorant considered a.

Good question.

Got to know the genre well enough to know how to classify it.

I'll look it up real quick.

You get powers in that game, right?

Like, doesn't each character have a specific power or something like that?

Yeah, like there it's kind of similar to rivals in the fact that, like, you know what?

I'm knowing that I'm the judge of the show.

I would go ahead and say, yeah, that's adjacent.

I'm going to give that one Ranch.

Wikipedia rules it a tactical hero shooter.

So, yes, Valorant does qualify.

So, you've played Valorant?

I dabbled very briefly, but I kept dying.

So I stopped.

Oh, I wonder if.

No, because I think you went into the game without stats.

I can't remember if in Final Fantasy First Soldier, if you went in as a mage or as a gun.

I think you chose maybe your class before you started, in which case that was a hero shooter, but I'm not quite rem I don't know for sure if it was.

Yeah, I mean, if I think back on it, I mean I was certainly playing team fortress back in the day like 20 years ago and I guess that did have classes but I

maybe that is classified as a hero shooter though it feels like a completely different game from this or from uh you know from what I understand of Overwatch if we're blowing out the definition of that then I definitely have like one of my honestly the game that I have 500 hours on on PlayStation 4 and 5 is the free-to-play game Gundam Battle Operations 2, which also, I think I yelled about it the last time I was on the show.

But you also have classes like a Rock, Paper, Blaster System.

And like that's probably the closest thing i've gotten to like a hero shooter um like actual playtime in

uh final fantasy 7 uh the first soldier was a battle royale game not a hero shooter

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I eventually eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Well, we'll get into Marvel Rivals in just one second.

But first up, the question I have for you, say, again, 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 you the question of the week.

What are you playing?

You know, Resident Evil Merchant, I'm realizing

in a bit of kismet, if you will,

last time we had Cody on the podcast, we were discussing Resident Evil 4

for the remake.

Resident Evil Merchant, you were not present for that record.

No, I boycotted that episode.

Yeah, you also were not present in that game, I was going to say.

Fuck you!

Why do you think I have a job here?

Yeah,

they replaced the merchant, for those of you that don't know at this point, with a different merchant.

A different merchant.

Inferior merchant.

Because you have to assume if this merchant is real, that merchant is also real.

It's just a different one.

Yeah.

Fucking scary.

He also sounds, he sounds a bit...

He's a little more British.

He's like, a little, what are you buying, Strange?

He does like he fell out of a chimney into that little Spanish village.

Be lucky if he doesn't fall under a knife

that I'm holding.

Well, okay, can we

get explicitly into a threat?

Yeah.

And you're waving that knife around very erratically right now.

That subtext, it's actually text now.

I love text.

I know you won't stop texting me.

You got

it.

Matt's my friend.

You've been, yeah, we're friends, but you've been sending me too many memes.

I love a meme.

You guys seen the wee-wee-wee cat?

No, what's a wee-wee wee cat?

Oh,

guys.

Wee-wee-wee cat

is a cat is as small as a little kitten and it fits inside of the food bowl.

And when when it is so happy to be eating the food that it's sitting in, that it goes wee-wee wee wee-wee.

Wee-wee-wee, wee-wee.

But I really hide it.

You got a fucking little piggy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Going all the way home?

Yeah.

Wow.

Are you looking it up, Nick?

This is one of those things where, you know, when I, because this is probably this much, this is probably an established meme that what I'm seeing now are now the derivative memes about the Wii Week.

Oh, sure.

I don't know what that is.

This is what interesting to me, too, and this is what interesting about getting memes from the merchant in general.

We we with WI,

WI, that everybody's, everybody's, everybody, the memes that everybody sees as an individual are different.

Yeah.

Everybody's got their own sort of ones that they're sort of like, okay, this one's, I have to show, it's my duty now to share this.

Oh, you're like Gumman.

I can't find anyone else who's seen seen Gumman.

Gumman?

Gumman.

Gumman?

Gumman.

Gumman.

Look, I just got to know your meme to look up the wee-wee wee cat.

Wee-wee-wee-wee cat.

Okay, so let me see if I can find gumman.

I've not seen gumman up, so this might be a pretty recent one.

I see too new.

Yeah, I see.

Yeah, he's got gum all over him.

I don't know what happened to that guy.

Gummy.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't stumbled upon it yet, but I'm excited excited to see it.

Zig and I are in a group chat, and Chill Guy was really taking over the

very big,

not only effect on me, but also on the group chat in general.

That's I live my life by, I'd say.

Yeah, I'm sort of also.

I'm something of a chill guy myself.

I'm thinking about it too.

I'm actually a pretty chill guy, also.

So that's what I'm saying.

It's not as much as me.

It's kind of crazy.

Matt, you call yourself a chill guy.

You think I'm not chill?

I don't know.

I'll kill you, man.

I think you're a very pleasant person to be around, but I feel like you sometimes are like a little

high strung.

I can get a little high.

I'm a little wound up.

Yeah.

I mean, you might shove a piece of coal out my ass and it might turn into a diamond.

You do have the...

I mean, I would say with love and infection, your glasses do scream, oh, he's about to have a falling down moment.

Hey,

that's why I got him.

I'd be like, don't, don't.

I really relate to that bumper, this bumper sticker.

That's also a meme that I've seen that says, don't honk at me, I'll kill us both.

I also appreciate of the people in this room, you picked out a falling down moment.

You didn't pick me.

He's got dumber glasses.

Nick's also clearly post-falling down.

Yeah, he's gone too.

Yeah, yeah.

Nick is very much giving Brazilian beach.

He got away.

My dog's on the fucking pier.

How did this happen to this body?

Where did the guy go?

Jokes on them, you're on two podcasts in the United States.

Hiding in plain sight.

Hiding in plain sight.

Always on a white background.

Good to see you as always, the merchant.

Yeah.

Oh, good to see you.

Matt?

Wait, oh, I forgot to ask.

That's right, yes.

That's it.

Oh, that's my best friend.

Journal of the day.

Nick Wager.

What are you playing?

I am going to defer to our guest because

I have a lot to say about Alan Wake, too, but I don't want to just dominate the conversation.

All right,

what are you playing?

I've been bouncing between two games, not including Marvel Rivals, obviously, but Helldivers 2.

I'm coming back into that.

Wow.

They just released a new faction a couple months ago, the Illuminate Faction, which

is honestly one thing I've really enjoyed is that...

Each faction sort of represents almost a different genre of third-person shooter.

This one is very much like a zombie type shooter.

Cool.

It's been scratching that itch, but I recently had just gotten into Magic the Gathering Arena, the mobile game.

Oh, yeah.

I'm only on like the last, whatever the last like tutorial person is, but I can already see this is going to be a very powerful cornerstone of my personality going forward.

Did you ever get into MTG?

No, first time.

I've never been like a card, a card-based guy.

I collected Pokemon cards, but I never actually played the game.

I played Magic the Gathering when I was a teenager.

So many years ago at this point, and playing on physical cards.

What's that?

The cards were made of stone.

All right.

They were cuneiform tablets.

They were, but like Magic of the Adverting Arena, which I messed around with for a bit and I was like getting really into and then I just kind of like, you know, walked away from.

But

I was really impressed by its presentation because for a long time, Magic of the Athering Online was like, it was represented how to play magic, but it was like a little bit of a cumbersome UX.

And the Magic of the Athering Arena is much more approachable.

Yeah, I think being able, this is what I enjoy.

One, I'm learning the game.

I'm learning the systems, but also I can just do it on my phone.

So if it's like oh i have 15 minutes to burn let me burn through a couple games to get into this but also i have this may not this may surprise everyone in this room i have a couple of nerdy friends who are into magic the gathering and they tell their they the people are telling me they release different i guess different properties crossover so like there's a final fantasy um i guess magic the gathering co-op or whatever that they're doing And because of that, I actually bought my first deck because I saw that they had Cloud and Cloud's my boy.

He held me down.

So I got that.

And I'm actually going to get into physical match the gathering after I get a little bit more familiar with playing the video game or the mobile game.

I bought a commander deck because I had some similar.

I also have some nerdy friends who were trying to get me into Magic, and

I did commit to actually purchasing it, but I've still not gotten into a proper game against someone else.

Matt, what are you playing?

Okay, so I'm still playing

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance on my new Nintendo 2DS.

It's insane.

So many modifiers, so that's in a

nuts, but I'm getting toward the end of it.

Wow.

And I'm the combat in the game is so good.

The thing about it, it's like, I kind of feel like it's a game that's like really pushing the capability of the 2DS because it doesn't look that great, but it kind of looks like the PS2 game.

It's just, it's remarkable to me.

Those later-gen 3DS games, I mean, they have no longer solid three on those.

I mean, they really pulled some things off on that.

It's really crazy, and the combat is so fun and good.

I have a really fun

loadout for both Sora and Enriku.

So I'm almost done with that.

But a new game came out on Game Pass.

And, you know, as the Xbox kid, that's my beat.

That's right.

I had to see what was going on.

This new Obsidian RPG Avowed.

Very interesting.

I haven't played it yet.

Wow.

And let me tell you something about this.

This game fucks, actually.

It's really good.

I'm not that far into it, but

it kind of sunk its teeth in kind of early.

And I think I might stick with it at least for a while.

RPG?

Yeah,

it's a first-person RPG.

First person.

Yes.

It's kind of akin to like a Skyrim, right?

It's kind of like Skyrim.

I don't know why I was thinking they had fucking AKs in this game.

It makes so much more sense, yeah.

But it's also kind of like,

and this is going to sound like I've only ever played, this is like, this is my new character, guy, that's only ever played Baldur's Gate 3.

Yeah.

Kind of giving me Baldur's Gate 3 vibes.

It kind of has some of that in it.

Like, you're this character who's sort of different than everybody else.

Right.

You, they're called godlikes.

It's set in the world of Pillars of Eternity, which is a world that I'm not familiar with.

Is that part of a larger franchise?

It's sort of an isometric RPG on like Diablo or

something.

But more of a heart, like more, those actually games are more akin to like a Baldur's game.

They are like very dialogue-driven, story-driven.

And I'm interested in checking out also one and two are on Game Pass, also, which I didn't know.

Game Pass is like the only good video games purpose.

It's pretty good.

Yeah.

I love Game Pass, and it's one of those things where it's like then Game Pass is just going to become ubiquitous, and then we're all like, no one, no one's going to own any games anymore, and it's just going to be, it's going to make everything rotten.

But for now, enjoy the show.

It's okay.

I heard that Xbox has AI technology that they're going to use to emulate games now.

So thank God.

But so

I started messing around with this.

Your characters, they're called godlikes or something.

And

the thing that's interesting about them is that they kind of look like normal, like you can just make any character however you want, but godlikes have like

trees and like mushrooms growing out of their fucking heads and face and stuff.

It's really, it's really cool.

It looks fucking nasty.

It looks like

clickers almost like in The Last of Us.

But like, you don't see it because you're in first person, but everybody sort of responds to you in a certain way.

They're like, oh.

Yeah, because they're like, oh, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with your face?

Like, they'll literally be like, what's wrong with you?

Yeah.

Because there's a plague going on in this world.

I can't remember what it's called, but.

Free face.

I mean, almost like

because

it has a similar look to how you look.

So people are sort of treating you as if you're like plagued almost because it's sort of like a

a zombie like plague that can you know infect anything and right now the real issue is that it's infecting these big bears and i have to fight bears a lot and you can switch between different like i mean you probably want to focus on a particular build i'm going to probably lean more toward the wizard class um because the magic system is really fun uh and but you can sort of dual wield

different classes at least for now like my first loadout is like a sword and shield if i want to go melee And then the second loadout is a spellbook and a wand.

And I'm just like blasting people with like a wand.

And it, it fucking rocks.

It's, it's so good.

How far are you and how many hours?

I probably only played like maybe like three hours.

Oh, really?

That's yeah.

That's something that's pretty dense for only three hours.

It's nuts.

It's nuts.

It's like there's, because there's a lot you can do right away.

And I guess people are.

There's been a complaint about the game that it's like too short.

You can finish it in like 20 hours or something.

That's the sweet spot.

But like you can, there's so many side quests I'm hearing that like it it could take you 90 hours to see everything if you wanted to really hunker down like do stuff and then i've heard that the side quests are all very extremely rewarding uh and and then heavily impact the gameplay and the the end the end game as well that's cool no yeah you're the xbox kid you're also the finisher yes all right you think you were well might actually finish this game you're that into it i'm pretty into i i was shocked how into it i was when i started it because i was sort of like this doesn't really seem like my thing yeah because i mean i guess in some ways it is because i I loved Baldur's Gate 3 and I like, I like that type of thing, but I don't, I've never played Skyrim.

Like, I've never played one of those.

So I was just sort of like, I don't even know if I like this.

And then right away, I was like, this kind of fucking, this rocks.

There's like a blue guy that you meet right away that he looks insane.

And like, I love this blue guy.

It's good.

It's good.

Did you go real fast and love chilly dogs?

Wait, actually, hold on.

I was playing the wrong game.

I fucked up.

And I wasn't even playing the game.

I was watching the movie.

So, your first person view was you watching a movie?

And it was, I was like, and I was trying to punch the other stuff on the TV.

He has a lifelike

just like mine.

I broke my TV.

You just, your eyes are what you're engaging with.

I will say, because I'm playing it on an Xbox Series S.

Yeah.

And I do think, you know,

there's been a lot of discourse about how that,

having the Xbox Series S, which is underpowered compared to the Series X, which is more akin to the PS5, how it's sort of holding back a generation of games because of

the limitations.

I do think that playing it on a better Xbox would be better, probably.

Because it's not like it's playing bad, but

it doesn't look as good as it could.

Matt,

why did you get an S instead of an X?

Was it a size situation?

Or was it just the price point?

At that point, it was the price point.

Yeah, didn't it launch?

Wasn't like $200 cheaper or something like that.

It was essential for it.

It was like $300

for it.

And I was like, I've never had an Xbox.

And I was like, oh, I could just get Game Pass and have this.

This seems like a home run.

But I sort of didn't know that it wasn't like fully the same thing.

Matt, would you like my Xbox for free?

I'll take it if you don't want it.

Sure.

You can have it.

Hey, look at that.

I can have a Series X.

Do you want my S?

No.

Here, you throw this away.

Here's what I need in

here's what I need in return.

Yeah.

I don't even want to plug it in to delete my user stuff.

Great.

I'll bring it to the next recording.

Great.

Thanks.

All right.

What else you got over there?

I've got so much shit.

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So I'm playing about it.

I think here's the thing.

You might want to keep it.

You might want to play it.

It's pretty good.

I feel like I heard our friends over at Triple Click talking about Avowed, and it was that and combined with your testimonial.

I feel like this game is very much for me.

This is exactly the kind of game that I like to play.

And so I might dig in on it.

We'll see.

No, the game you need to play is the game I'm playing, Nick.

You have to play it.

Heather, what are you playing?

I'm playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

And I finally have gotten to the first village because there's a pretty lengthy preamble before you actually get the credits to go

to roll.

And it's like, oh, now you're playing Kingdom Come Deliverance.

I love that move, by the way, in a game.

I love the

delayed opening credits.

The Ghost of Tsushima does that too.

And it's great.

Because you're kind of like...

Wait, I haven't even been playing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a pretty long preamble, like a little backstory.

You get to learn a lot of the mechanics.

You get to introduce yourself to characters.

And then you finally go to a village and the credits roll and you're like, oh, okay.

Wow.

I think you go to a village.

Yeah,

that's the inciting incident.

The problem is

saving is extremely stingy in Kingdom Come.

You have to craft save elixirs in order to save the game.

Or

I think you can like save and exit like sort of like in a

like in a cheater's way.

You can like, you know, freeze and leave your PlayStation or whatever

so I just want to I just want to clarify to save your game at all or is that just to like save a save you can load like you're saying to end a gameplay session you have to have a save some sort of save elixir you're trying you've crafted well no you can you can save an exit you can save an exit but if you if you start up the game again and you die it does not take you to that save as far as i can tell right uh which i'm aware of because the way that i play is how far I go when I first start a game?

I'm like, oh, I want to go.

Like, what's the quest in my journal that is the farthest away?

And again, this game is so fucking ridiculous.

Like, RPG, I'm assuming.

Yeah, it's a first-person RPG, but it's also incredibly intricate, where you can't just put on armor.

You have to put on the armor in the right order, or your,

uh, the townspeople will make fun of you, and your reputation will go down.

Absolutely.

If you take clothing from somebody,

you cannot wear it in the town where they're from, or somebody might be like, oh, that looks like Stevens

curious.

And you're like, oh, no, you cannot.

If a guard walks past you and you don't say hi back to the guard, like the guard goes, hello, keep the peace.

And you don't immediately reply with like,

uh-uh, uh, yes, of course, sir, because there's a trigger button and you have two options and a very fast timer.

So like you're constantly negotiating all of these different systems and there's menus within menus within menus within menus.

So I finally get through the opening sequences and I'm into the open world.

And

I don't know what to do.

I have no idea what to do.

I don't know where to go to learn to craft.

I refuse to look up anything because I'm like, oh, this is the closest I've ever come to being dropped off in medieval Europe and just having to figure out shit.

So I have died so many fucking times and I always get sent and I'll, I will walk a half hour of real time towards one of the few quest markers that I have, which is,

where's my dog?

And I'm like, well, I got to go save my dog.

I can't leave my dog, but the dog is like from before the opening credits.

So I have to go all the way across the towns,

the town town and the farmland and like cut through wilderness.

And there's a boar there and now I'm dead again.

Okay, so I got to cross all the way across the fields.

Oh, there's a town.

I walk through the town.

I accidentally pressed the wrong remark

when a guy says something to me, I'm dead.

Okay, all the way back.

So I got to walk all the way through the town across the farm fields, avoid the area where the boars might be, avoid the town where that guard was talking to me.

Ah, finally, I've gotten it.

Oh, God, there's a guy guy coming out of the woods.

Oh, he wants to talk.

Okay, I'll talk.

Fuck, I pressed the wrong button and I drew my sword.

He kills me immediately.

Like, it is,

it is really joyful and also it's so self-serious.

I mean, it's got a really good sense of humor and timing, like, written into it, but the gameplay systems are of somebody who is a rule biter in a Dungeons and Dragons game who won't let you get away with fucking anything.

So I have no money.

I'm in clothes where

also

I was, I think I was in a town and I was wearing these clothes that I stole from like a dead body.

And I walked into an area and a woman was like, take a bath.

And I went, oh, fuck.

Press the trigger button to pull up dialogue options, apologize to the lady, back out without bumping into a guard, go over to a bucket of water, clean my body so that I can walk past her.

It is, it is so fucking intense.

It is really, really, really my kind of game.

But more than that, I think it's Nick's kind of game.

Yeah, I probably would love it.

It's probably partly why I've been keeping it at arm's length because we're just going to take over my life.

It does, what you're describing, like in terms of just how granular it gets, but also just how perilous this reality is.

It is, and I'm sure, I imagine it's at some level developers were going for this of like, because obviously it's a, it's fictionalized, but it's meant to be sort of like this historical period where, like, up until like maybe like 90 years ago, you would just people just died all the time from like whatever.

Like, you'd just be walking down the street and like an ox cart would fall on you.

And that'd be the end of your life.

You know, too long at an eagle.

Yeah.

And the good news is that's going to start up again pretty soon.

It's also, it's like, there's not, as far as I can tell, unless there's something I haven't turned on, there's no like glowing shit in the world.

It's not like, oh, there's a glowing barrel, so I know there's something in it.

Everything is just kind of mixed into the reality.

If there are flowers that you're supposed to pick, did I talk about this last time?

They're like,

my friend is sick, and I have to make a potion, which is also the training course for how the potion works.

But the way you fucking make the potion is the ladies like, go up on the hill, there's chamomile and sage.

And I'm like,

okay, okay.

And then I like pull up the dialogue and it's like, what is, what do those look like?

And she's like, well, chamomile is a yellow flower with a white spot in the middle and the sage is going to have a small purple flower.

And I'm like, okay.

So I go up to the top of the hill thinking, oh, there's going to be like glowing fucking like, no.

Yeah.

It is all just rubbish nature.

And I'm like, fuck, my friend's going to fucking, I don't know if there's a timer on my friend's life.

It feels like the kind of game that there would be.

I have to like look at the ground until I find flowers.

And I'm like, it's not highlighting.

It's nothing.

Oh, I really have to point this dot, this period-sized dot, which is my like, my, my, uh, cursor focal point.

at the actual flower and it's like and then a little thing pops up and it goes chamomile

i have two questions Like, one, like, do you have a general idea how long it takes to complete this game?

No idea.

I haven't looked up anything.

Well, this goes into my second question.

Like, do you even care?

Like, do you want to complete the game?

Is it all about just like living in this world and this, this grounded reality?

I would like to achieve some forward momentum in the game.

Like, I talked to a guy who, like, one of my objectives is to get into this wedding because I have to talk to a different guy.

And they're like, well, that guy's going to be at the wedding.

And then I had to, like, fucking talk to like 50 fucking people to find out where the wedding was, when the wedding, it's not like, it's not like in a Final Fantasy town where they're like, boy, the cave up on the hill sure does look like it has treasure in it.

It's like, you fuck, I'm talking to this guy and he's just fucking, he's talking about nothing.

And I'm like, is this a guy I have to talk to?

But you, you eventually found the

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan NPCs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So then like, so then they're like, oh, you got to go to a wedding.

And I'm like, like, well, can I sneak in?

And they're like, absolutely not.

It's going to be full of nights.

And I'm like, well, how do I go into the wedding?

And he's like, well, there will still need to be people employed at the wedding.

So maybe you could get a job.

And then

we'll require, we'll allow you into the wedding because there's like people who work weddings because it's a real world.

And the blacksmith is like, you know, if you are,

you might want to, like, I'll take you on as an apprentice and I bet I can get us both in.

And then there's another guy who's like, got some other, like, he's like, no, no, no, I'm a, I don't even remember what the other guy was because I was like, well, I want to be a blacksmith because I eventually want to make swords.

But after this scene happened,

I can't, I don't know where that blacksmith lives.

It's a fucking town.

There's no like beacon.

I'm going.

from door to door and I'm opening doors thinking, oh, it's the blacksmith on the other side of this door?

And there's like a little, like,

a thing that comes up, and it's like, You're trespassing.

If you get caught, you're going to get arrested.

Because there are still like prompts on your UI, and I'm like, fuck.

And I like, close that door.

And I'm like, how do I find the fucking blacksmith?

I can't, there's also no,

the, the map is like an old-timey map, so it's not really accurate.

Accurate.

Yeah, yeah.

They're just like big rock, little stream.

Yeah, and your i your player icon is like monster over here it's like a wooden guy like a like a sculpted wooden guy walking around on a drawing of the town that is not very accurate it's great

you've described a perfect nick game and an absolute nightmare for me

well the combat's also cool because

so there's it's not just like strike like in skyrim it's not you just strike over and over again again.

With this, you have to toss your sword from like position to position based on what the other person is doing.

So you can strike their left, strike their right, strike their head, or stab them in the stomach.

You also have to be on guard.

So you can like hold a guard up, but then you'll get tired.

Or you can do a perfect guard and then repost.

So like they strike, a little like perfect guard icon pops up.

You

block their attack and you have a split second to attack them back.

But But if you do an attack in that window, there's a high likelihood that they will also do a perfect guard back to you

and then repost you.

So the combat is like two, it's like a guy facing you and he's like, I'm going to fuck you up.

Because also everybody swears.

And so you're like tossing your sword back and forth between your arms.

And like you go to like,

like, oh, he's on the, he's got his sword in his right.

I'm going to hit him on his left.

And I hit him on his left and he goes, fuck.

But it's not so realistic.

But it's not also.

Also, it's not like

it's not like a souls game where there's like a gush of blood.

Like your sword hits their armor and just goes, clang.

It's fucking great.

It's a nightmare.

Well, let me talk about Alan Wake 2 a little bit.

Matt, I know you're the finisher, but I'm known to finish a game on occasion.

And I rolled credits this morning.

Holy wow.

You dropped this king?

What a fucking video game.

I really, really enjoyed it.

Ranch, you still playing?

I'm still playing.

Do you know approximately how deep you are into the game?

Do you have a sense of it?

I'm like 20 hours in.

Okay, okay.

I think you might, you probably, because I finished, I think my last save was like 23 hours.

So depending on how,

you know, much, I kind of reached a point where I was just mainlining it.

I also did did the dlc but like depending on how you mean you might be close to the finish line i'm at the i'm at the hotel okay yeah yeah yeah you're pretty deep in it um anyway uh i really really enjoyed it it's got this incredibly high quality of writing and art direction i'm not going to really veer into spoiler country uh very much because i love playing through this knowing almost nothing um and matt you did a great job of of getting me to play it, but also not really like like, you know, telling me the the stuff that happens that's just all so

you know unexpected and so unique to this experience.

Yeah, there is like the one thing that I know that has like been spoiled to death.

So like I, and I haven't even said it on here.

Yeah.

But I feel like at this point, you know what it was and it was like cool and good, right?

Yeah.

Mike, you're like, it is cool and good.

It's aesthetically just so marvelous.

Environments are so varied in detail.

This is the thing you talked about, Matt.

But like part of it was like, it feels lived in because there's just like empty spaces.

like you're you're you know if you're in like a share station you'll just go into a bathroom it's not like there's not like you're necessarily even scrounging for resources there there's this is just like just feels like a real bathroom that would be here and there's just like a note up on the wall that's just color it doesn't uh doesn't actually inform the story or anything it just sort of makes it feel like it like it you know real people are living there i love the diner environment diner's great it's like just so great

and and that's that speaks to mostly what i love about this game was just it's just so fucking weird yeah like it's like you're basically in a scandinavian colony in the pacific northwest it's like everyone there is Finnish.

Yeah.

And it's because it's a Finnish developer and those are the local actors they cast, but they're just like, whatever.

Yeah, just a bunch of a bunch of Finnish people immigrated here.

The Finnish Brothers who run Coffee World and also they have the TV ads.

You keep seeing them on all these shitty local commercials.

They're so funny.

Ati the janitor is just a character.

It keeps popping up.

He's so great.

Well, Ati is from Control.

Okay.

So there's just like a lot going on with him.

Oh, wait, it's just in the same universe as

a Reddit.

That's so funny.

There's a bunch of control, like, Easter eggs and stuff that I like did not pick up on, but like, there's a bunch of stuff that ties into Remedyverse.

And I played through the DLC,

the Night Springs DLC and the Lake House DLC.

And my understanding is that

some of those characters are control characters as well.

Yeah.

So control is on the agenda at some point in the future.

But

there's like,

I mean, there's like a full-on rock opera at a certain point.

There's one point.

There's one point.

Did you get that level yet?

Yeah, I think you did.

Yeah.

It's such an incredible level.

It's an all-time video game level for me.

There's one point where you're in a movie theater and there's just like a 20-minute live-action finished short film that you can just watch in its entirety.

It's just playing it at.

Watch it start to finish.

It's so awesome.

And there's also

these characters with dual identities that, in a meta-sense, are extended to the casting.

Like we talked about Sam Lake last week, who's

one of the directors of the game, the creative director of the studio, and also is in the game in two different roles as himself and as

a detective who he's who has a the the voice actor who plays Max Payne, who also is his likeness, is doing his voice.

But also, Ika Villy is the actor who plays the physicality and likeness of Alan Wake, but he's voiced by another actor, Matthew Peretta.

But Villy also plays another role where he's using his likeness and his own voice, which is like just another layer of...

There's also cinematics that are rendered both with character models and live action stuff that's been filmed sometimes in the same frame.

Sometimes these things are coexisting.

And it just feels so surreal and dreamlike.

And the voice of Alan Wake also plays a live action character in the game too, which is very yes.

It's also layered and like stuff you start to, it just makes it all feel like a little bit unsettling and unreal, but like that's the point.

And

it's really effective.

And Ranch is the thing we talked about last week, but like, I overall really love this game despite not loving the core gameplay, which is the combat.

Like, I just like, I felt like there's not really enough variation on enemy types.

I feel like you're fighting kind of the same mobs throughout the whole game.

Um, some of the big end-of-act encounters, uh, they're, they're, they're pretty underwhelming.

Like, they're either boss fights that are kind of like whatever, or they're just shooting galleries of the same minions you've been fighting.

And I just like, yeah, whatever.

The flashlight's cool, the flares are very cool.

The way that light and the game's lighting is so spectacular that I like that those are gameplay elements in the combat, the ways to, you know,

peel off layers of the shadows or scare them off.

But I mostly found myself opting out of combat as much as possible.

And similarly, the puzzles, I think, are kind of like, there's like 10 puzzles where you have to find fuses to turn the power back on.

It's like that stuff is, but it's also kind of just secondary to the experience because it's like...

It's so much just like a work of fiction about fiction and a story about storytelling and about the process of creating something and your creation having its own impact on you.

And that stuff, because it's conveyed interactively,

it does feel really visceral and

it really connects with me.

So there's the Night Springs DLC, and Night Springs is basically like a Twilight Zone show that's within the Alan Wake universe.

And so the Night Springs DLC is presented as episodes of this show.

And so you go into it, and it's really cool.

And so it's basically, it's almost like a Twilight Zone-length episode of a game.

And you just kind of go in, and it has its own premise, its own protagonist, and its own weird thing that's going on.

One of them was the one that features the sheriff character.

Oh, yeah, Tim Breaker.

Tim Breaker is the character, it was Sean Ashmore from,

I think the game is called Quantum Break, which is another Remedy Universe game, but they don't have the rights to it because Xbox made that game.

So their way around it was it's like, it's basically the same guy with the same premise, but his name is Tim Breaker.

The Tim Breaker one is good because it's like you're jumping between different genres as you're within it.

There's a part where you're actually playing and it feels like the Twilight Zone, but it's also so much about like it's something that's about the multiverse, but it talks about the multiverse in the sense of like we kind of just inherently occupy a multiverse because we're all individuals with our own subjective realities

with one shared reality, but we're all seeing it in different ways.

I was like, I thought that was really funny.

You gotta play Ash Mark.

You gotta play Asma.

In that one, also, I mean, you play as Sean Ashmore.

Yeah, you do.

It is really funny.

You're Sean Ashmore talking to Alan or talking to Sam, Sam, like, and he's giving you notes.

Yeah.

And like, explaining.

And you're the actor, like, wait, what is this?

I'm sorry.

Explain this to me?

I don't know.

I would say, yeah, Zig, and I would say this to anyone out there, like, people play games for different reasons.

Some people play games just, you know, for whatever, because like I,

it's a, it's a social thing or it's an escape or whatever.

But there are people who like me who play them for story and or vibes yeah and i think if that's the kind of like gamer you are i think allan wake 2 is a bust play because i think the vibes are impeccable and the story is just uh like like the ending of this game is an absolute knockout i thought i thought the ending like lands so well ranch we'll see what you what you think when you get there but it's so dramatically satisfying uh the the final two chapters the way they're presented the what they're not focused on combat they're they're much more you know about like uh just exploring the internality of these characters, which I found super interesting.

Incredible timing on the credits role, just so dramatically satisfying.

And I thought it just all worked, all came together so effectively.

I mean, I'm going to play it anyway, but do I need to play Allen Wake 1?

Like, would I appreciate Alan Wake 1 as well as this game?

This is a question for Matt because I went into Alan Wake 2 not really being a remedy-verse guy, but you played Alan Wake 2.

I played through Alan Wake 1, and the only reason I wouldn't recommend it is not because it's bad at all.

It's just

the gameplay,

if the gameplay of

shooting people with a flashlight and a gun in the new one doesn't feel that great, the one that's 13 years old, it's going to feel a lot worse.

And Sam Lake did a very good

explainer video of, because he probably, he figured that not everybody had played Allen Wake 1 when Allen Wake 2 was released.

So he did a very comprehensive, like, Ranch, you watched it.

It was like not a very long video.

It's like a nine-minute video or something.

Yeah, it was totally enough.

Okay.

Where he explains it, and you get it.

Yeah, and also I will say that it's like

it stands on its own regardless.

So I don't think you'd, I mean, based on my experience, I don't think you need to have played through the first game in its entirety in order to appreciate Allen Wake 2.

Control is the one I am I heartily endorse playing.

I love control.

Matt, I have a question for you, and then I have one thing I want to play from one audio queue I want to play.

Do I need to play the new game plus, the final draft?

Now, this is interesting because I haven't done this yet.

Yeah.

And I would like to because I know that the DLC slots into the game instead of playing it at the very end.

Well, it does.

It does slot into the version.

I got the complete version or whatever.

And it does slot into, like, you will just find a TV that's playing Night Springs, and then you can go right into the DLC in mid-game

in the base game.

I'd like to try that, but I, but without saying too much, I think there's a good reason to play it again.

Okay,

I won't do it right away, but I'm intrigued enough to maybe revisit it.

Yeah, anyway, I mentioned Night Springs.

So, Night Springs being like a Twilight Zone Alex is very much like kind of a 50s/slash 60s sort of vibe.

But then it has

an end credits theme that plays at the end of the DLC that is, I guess, supposed to be the end credits song for the show that is completely like

it's just from a different era.

Ranch, can we play this real quick?

Space invaders, looking killed when they come suit, secret agents, we're down the race they shoot, psychic powers,

hypnoise imagine.

It's like a 70s like

a 70s like disco like sort of song.

It's like completely, it's like something that that would be in like a James Bond movie.

It's extremely good.

I don't put this up there with any of the songs from the

artist from Smile 2 or Lady Raven from Trap.

These are all very fun.

These are very good songs.

That's so fun.

You truly just sold Alan Wake 2 to me.

Oh, I love it.

Hold on.

Hold on.

I didn't describe how you make a potion

in Kingdom Come Deliverance, which involves

first

you have to start a fire, then you have to lower a kettle onto the exact right space over the fire so that it doesn't burn the liquid inside.

You find the decanter on a shelf, you pour the wine in, you boil it, but how long do you boil it?

Well, you have to flip an hourglass on one of the shelves.

Watch the hourglass because you can't overboil the wine because you don't want the alcohol to come out of the wine.

You pick the kettle off of

the fire, you push it to the side.

Now you have to process your herbs while that's cooling.

So, you have to process with a pistol your fucking sage before you drop it into the thing and then reheat it.

Then, you have to decant it and filter it.

Then, you have a potion, and that's for the basic potion that you start.

That's your tutorial potion.

Wild.

I love that you do that, and then you could also die to like a mosquito bite.

So, what do you want?

Pop music or like an extremely stressful recreation of cooking of just wild.

Oh, no, you caught the rickets.

I will say, Allen Wake 2 is

no picnic in terms of like, it goes into some really dark themes.

Like, a lot of stuff is exploring these characters, like personal traumas.

And then there's like, it is like a survival horror game, or at least as the trappings are a survival horror game.

So there are some genuine like jump scares.

There are parts where it's like really

very creepy.

But I mean, I overall really loved it.

But I mean, it's just things to be aware of going in.

I mean, I haven't played, I mean, I haven't played Allen Wake 2, but has anyone here played, I believe it's called called like El Paso Elsewhere.

I've heard of this.

I haven't played it yet.

I did not play that.

I played.

I mean, it's very much like a Max Payne adjacent type game, but it's this guy exploring basically a field relationship as you go lower and lower into like basically their version of hell.

But it has this really cool

sort of like meta text where, I don't know, it's just text in the game, but like there will be there'll be portions where you'll start a level and like, oh, I'm just playing a max tape game.

And you just start hearing like spoken word poetry about why this relationship doesn't work.

And it's so interesting and so different and it i i want to like play all and wake to to see if it so it could be like a what would be like a double feature type yeah

i could see a reality in which you enjoy this game oh no that sounds very much like like they'd be up my ally uh yeah i i man i'm i'm curious because like do you think i i almost wonder if like they are not even necessarily that interested in the combat but just to justify a game because the game is is absolutely gorgeous has really high production values to like justify a game with this budget They like, well, we got to throw combat in there.

Cause I don't know.

It just kind of almost feels like it's, it's like, and not that it's even poorly done.

I just found it like not super engaging.

And it doesn't feel like what the,

I'm making a huge inference here, but it doesn't feel like the focus of what the development team wants to be doing here.

Yeah, I haven't heard too much about that.

I don't think from what, I mean,

gosh, just based on like the presentation of it and like hearing

like Sam like speak about like what he likes and like the art that he enjoys and stuff.

I would imagine that it's a very, it's very secondary to creating the vibes and like the lore of it rather.

Whereas I do think, and I know that Heather played Control and didn't love it, if I recall.

Yeah, I played, I think, almost all the way to the end of Control, and I was like, you know what?

I'm not enjoying myself.

I don't need to finish the final boss.

So I think that the

gameplay in control,

it's also secondary to plot and vibes because that thing is like, I mean, that sort of scratches that speculative fiction, like weird sci-fi thing that I like, which is like Lost or like Severance.

If you do like STP or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

Combat in Control is pretty good.

It's awesome.

But in Allen Wake 2, it is just like...

It is almost like a spooky walking simulator, kind of.

That's what I'm wondering.

Yeah, I was like, it feels like they wanted to make a AAA walking simulator, and those are are the parts of the game that I really responded to.

But you can't justify making a game of that scope and not having some sort of like, you know, not having gameplay that appeals to a mainstream audience.

Or like a AAA like investigation game.

Because, like, yeah, it does that stuff incredibly well.

I know this isn't in the same vein because I really enjoyed the combat of the game, but like Last of Us 2, like, I replayed that game recently.

I was like, I'm not even, I mean, the combat is fantastic, but I could just read weird sketching on the wall.

Like, this game is almost almost here for just performances of Last of Us 2.

And it seems like, I mean, this isn't a one-for-one, but I could see with Alan Wake 2, it seems like you're here for the story, the performances, and also what they're trying to say, not necessarily like the gameplay combat loop, it seems like.

Yeah, I think though,

and I think that's a good comparison, and that you know, they're in the same genre, obviously, but it's like

I do feel like the Allen Wake 2 combat is so comparatively simple versus like, you know, you can, you can crouch, you can go prone.

Um, there's so many different, uh, you know, like uh

traps and stuff.

Yeah, even that in and of itself is something like you, like your movement is really limited in Alan Wake 2.

You have a dodge and then you can move, and that's basically it.

It is, yes.

So it's it's pretty bare bones.

Not that I even disliked it, but I just like it was like the that's not why you're here.

It's not exactly, that's exactly what I was doing.

When you kill people in Alan Wake 2, does somebody else go, Steven?

No!

Yeah, yeah, when you shoot a dog, when you shoot a dog's orange, does the dog start crying around a lifeless body?

You mostly just hear, wake.

I wear a dia mask.

And also, like the weird, the one-liners that just like make no sense that they're saying.

It's unnerving.

But then in The Last of Us 2, and I know we have a topic to get to.

Last of Us 2, the main thing in that game is like, violence, bad, don't do that.

And then in

Allen Wake 2, it's like, art is hard, and art is like,

it's hard to be greedy.

And AI fucking

rules.

It's so good.

But also, like, what does it mean to be alive?

Like, it's like, it's like, just getting to the core of it.

It's like, why do we do this?

Yeah, yeah.

Are we alive?

Do we know?

Are we even sure we're alive?

It's, I don't know.

I really, really enjoy it.

One thing I want to do real quick before we get into Marvel Rivals, a couple of weeks ago on the, on the podcast, a few weeks ago here on the podcast, we did, of course, our backlog Thunderdome where we went through our backlogs.

We made some hard cuts and we used RNG, the ranch number number generator, to decide what the matchups were going to be.

I figured I should revisit that, and I am going to use RNG to determine which of the six games in my own backlog

I am going to play next.

Those games are Bloodborne, Divinity Original Sin 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Hollow Knight, Mother 3, and Yakuza Like a Dragon, Ranch,

it could happen right here live on the fucking show.

It could happen right right here on the show.

If it lands on Mother 3, I can almost guarantee you Nick's not doing it.

No, I will do it.

I will do it.

I will commit that I will play through it.

Whenever you're going to play through it, oh my god, it could happen.

I won't be alone.

I also want to say that I checked my Steam, and I have logged 73 hours on a Hollow Night.

Oh, my God.

I just want to say, I beat Final Fantasy VII Rebirth when I had COVID, and I put 120 hours in that game, Nick.

Oh, wow.

Holy shit.

I did.

There we go.

Oh, my God.

I can't look.

I can't look.

No, it's not going to be that.

Oh.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

It is.

Oh, man.

See you in 200 hours.

Which you radicalized and be an eco-terrorist.

I love DreamMake.

Excited to play Rebirth.

There we go.

Wow.

Wow.

All my dreams are coming true.

Yeah.

You can create the planet's cries.

2025 is actually my year.

Let's talk about Marvel Rivals.

Marvel Rivals was developed by Netties, directed by Gyeonggoon-chen, primarily a Chinese development team, but there was a North American branch, which we will come back to.

It is a 6v6 free-to-play hero shooter that is insanely successful, currently a top-five game on Steam,

200K concurrent players.

We've talked about this before in the podcast.

And Ziggy, I'm sure you've experienced this as well.

As someone who is known to play video games in your circle of friends, sometimes something breaks breaks through into the

mainstream awareness.

And someone who doesn't normally play games comes up to you and is like, hey, what's up with Elden Ring?

I had that happen with Marty, the CEO of Headgum, was like, hey, what's like Marvel Rivals?

Like, he's been playing Marvel Rivals and wanted to get my perspective on it.

This is a game that has become, contrary to some of the other Marvel games we were talking about earlier, has become enormously successful.

Yeah, I feel like before this, so I'm judging this all by

a video game group chat that I had.

Yeah.

Before that, we were called Diver Dudes when Helldivers 2 came out.

Yeah.

Helldivers 2 is another one.

Yeah, for sure.

But I feel like because that one was locked to one platform, didn't have the reach of this.

But like, it recently transitioned into specifically a Marvel Rivals group chat.

And this is the only game in a long time where I'm like, oh, I'm going to hop online and actually want to get good at this game.

Like, I want to go into ranked.

Wow.

I want to get sweaty with these fucking nerds.

And like, I feel like a sense of enjoyment when I get like whatever like little part of my reptile brain sees like, oh, big number, good.

If I play Captain America, I guess we'll get into it at some point.

But if I see like, oh, I have 54,000 block damage in Captain America, like, oh, I did work today.

Like, my dad put in his hours at the factory, and there's going to be dinner on the table tonight.

Yeah, Helldivers 2 was on PC, but we had a lot of trouble squatting up when I was on PC and y'all were on PlayStation.

And so, like, I don't actually, I didn't check into the cross-platform cross-platform play of Marvel Rivals, but I imagine it's, it's good.

It's good.

I have a, like, I play with like Xbox friends, PlayStation friends, myself, and like PC.

And the only thing that you really can't do is competitive with PC players.

But like, like, truly, like, I think of our group chat, there's like nine of us, and like, we're all evenly split between PC and PC and console.

What do you mean you can't do competitive with PC players?

Is that because mouse and keyboard gives them such an advantage?

Yeah, like, because when you can hop into quick play,

for me, it used to be set to anyone.

You could just tell who was doing pc because you would just they're just reaction time is just so much better than anyone on consoles unless you really go in there and tweak the sort of settings you have this was i think something that was very recently added to fortnite but because all of the player base was completely mixed for forever i think only recently have they turned like flipped a switch where you can play console only or pc only yeah i set mine to console only after like the second week and like my playing experience was so much more enjoyable for myself

um matt uh like i i feel like you're you're a bit of a comics guy

a bit of a, certainly the MCU head among

the hosts of the show.

Get me started on the recent output.

I don't want to talk about it.

But like, what, like, you had not messed around with this game before we decided to do this episode, correct?

Yeah, I hadn't messed with it.

I know that Zig was there like day one.

Yeah.

But

this type of game, not typically my thing.

Right.

Yeah.

Even with like a battle royale like Fortnite or I even tried to play Apex Legends for like a little bit and I was like this is not my

thing.

I'd rather a campaign or like a story to bring to bring me that's just like the type of game I prefer.

Yeah.

But having messed around with it a little bit

like you know over the weekend I got pretty into it.

I think I put about

something like five hours into it like for this episode.

Yeah.

And I texted you guys over the weekend.

I like Marvel Rivals.

Which I was pretty surprised by, if I'm being honest, because I had down, you know, actually, I had downloaded it and played one round of it and was like,

same areas.

I'm out with this.

And then when we were decided to do the episode, I re-downloaded it and was like, let's, I know that I was being a brat and I just didn't like it because I was just not good.

But then I don't actually understand the systems.

Like you were talking about, like,

I just kind of get in there and just try to

try to wreck house and see what I can do.

But that's how I've been playing.

I know I've been playing incorrectly because I have not won that much.

You sent that text over the weekend.

We got another text to our get played group chat from Ranch.

Quote: Marvel Rivals is crazy.

WTF is going on.

Yeah, there would be times when I'd be playing it.

And very quickly, I found a good synergy with Squirrel Girl, who is not like one of my favorite Marvel characters.

But

I tried a ton of the characters and I was like, which of these works for me?

And the truth is, even though we were winning, and also you'll get on a run where you're like, just keep squatting up with these random strangers because you get on

a good, successful win streak.

And we all stuck with those people also, which was cool.

I still don't know what I'm doing

that works as Squirrel Girl.

I'm getting fucking kills and shit.

And it'll be like five kill, ten killstreak.

And you're like, I don't know what, I'm not even quite sure what her power is.

Yeah, I've gotten the 10 killstreak before, and my reaction every single time has been, oh, really?

I'm doing literally.

How did I?

So yeah,

the way the game works is it's got a, you know, it's, it's, there's a bunch of characters from the Marvel universe, but they are, they kind of have classes.

And so there's the, the way that the game's language are vanguards, duelists, and strategists, which approximately is kind of tanks, uh, damage dealers, DPS characters, and then support characters, uh, kind of in the, in the, the healer role, uh, though they're not necessarily all, all just healers.

It's it's a um

so it's the kind of thing where it's like

it's uh it it it's geared towards teamplay, obviously, but it's also also geared towards complimenting, you know, like your fellow players.

And I imagine it's the kind of thing, Heather, and I know you have a regular Fortnite squad, but I imagine it's the kind of thing where if you found a group of players that you were regularly squatting up with, like you were saying, Zig, like you would figure out how we're going to complement each other.

Yeah.

Is that Freshman for me or for Heather?

I completely.

I don't know if you were.

I don't know if Heather is.

I think it's both of us.

I will let you go first because I don't play Fortnite at all.

Oh, well, I think that when you play Fortnite, obviously there's not like class systems in it and not like like specialties.

But you do find out what your roles are naturally as players.

So I tend to be a long distance.

I'm really good with sniper rifles, but I am not fantastic with shotguns.

So as a general rule, I'm playing.

from

high vantage points.

I'm a spotter.

I'll be like signaling where people are.

We have a guy in my

sort of like my regular squad who

is the guy guy who always rushes, no matter what.

We have a guy who I would call the like,

I guess he's like the support class, like he's always the guy coming in to help.

He's like, Where are you?

and he'll get to you.

And then we have like a chaos agent, and that's sort of our squad breakdown.

And then I also

will duo a lot with a listener that I met on our Discord, whose name is Tobocito.

And

our gameplay, I would would call,

is embedded in cowardice.

Like, we are very fast to retreat.

And that is how we win because it's like duos is so fucking hard because you can't really mess up.

Yeah.

But I think that's very different from this, where it's like, I would imagine if you've got a squad,

not unlike fighting games, you'll have mains.

You'll be like, oh, so who are your mains in this game?

It's funny.

I made a list before it came in.

So when I first started, actually, I was very timid because I've never done a hero shooter.

I was like, I try to do DPS.

I would get smacked.

And I was like, I want to have fun playing a video game.

So I sort of regressed to just healer because I can learn mechanics.

I could actively support my squad.

And after that, I got a little bit more comfortable.

So right now I have basically a main in each category.

For DPS, I do Namur.

For those of you who haven't played the game,

he's...

Definitely more of a sit-back and hang out with the healers type of deal.

Like his whole thing is like, you can throw up these like little squid turrets and you sort of hang out in the back line.

He can like sort of have like a sniper capability where he doesn't really have damage fall off with his

spears that he throws.

For tanks, I started out with

Venom.

He's definitely more of a dive.

Like he's get in there, cause chaos and like get out with a with a swing.

But I've recently within the past week been learning Captain America and he is so fucking fun.

Like I never feel more like an actual Avenger than when I pop the Captain America all and he yells, Avengers is simple.

And then you just sit on a point for the entire game and you don't move and it's so much fucking fun.

Like I like it truly is like we're at the point now in the group chat where someone would just see and send a symbol and we'll come together our squad and sort of like you like everyone has their roles that they fall into.

I think one of the things that I've been learning about this and this whole experience is that like I've never had a game where I've actively wanted to get better at it like a competitive sense where I'm like oh, I'm going to watch a YouTube video about how to play Captain America.

Right.

Or like, I'm going to go, I'm going to like warm up before I play.

Like I'm going to go into the practice and and just like work on Acrostree.

Like, I'm going to like adjust the custom timers to have like, you know, a small squishy character like Luna Snow be 20 meters away and have her jump up and down so I can practice my aim.

And like, I treat it almost like a part-time job where I'm like, I'm going to put in four hours today and I just want to get at least, um, I want to go at least 60% wins, 40% losses.

And part of the fun of having a squad is that.

and you can sort of switch roles because you're like, you know, I usually do damage or tank.

I was like, you know what?

I want to learn.

Like, i want to learn um like invisible woman she's become like my main healer and it's fun just like playing with people that i don't normally hang out with like i've never been a discord guy but like hanging out with people that i've known for 10 years but i don't get to see all the time has been fun so it's become this this um

this sort of it's taken the spot in my life where i'm like i'm doing something i love which is like i love comic books i love video games but also i love chatting with my friends on a regular basis yeah right and through that like i've found that like i formed um tighter relationships with people that I've known for for for for years.

Like we have a mutual friend Garrick Bernard, who like I've known forever, but like we actually hang out now multiple times a week because of this game.

And I'm like, I love that.

I love that.

I love that it's like brought, it's made my friendships tighter.

And like if I had known that like playing fucking Overwatch 10 years ago would have done this for my friendships, I would have delved so much deeper into hero shooters.

Do you remember?

Do you remember when Halo Infinite came out and we had a plan to squat up with iffy?

Yeah.

We ended up playing with iffy fell through?

Iffy was like, we all sort of agreed upon a time, it was like late, too.

We were like, let's get on at like 8:30 at night, yeah, uh, and play some Halo Infinite uh squad up together.

And then around 8:45, we had heard from Iffy, and we're like, Iffy, where are you?

He's like, Oh, my bad, I'm on my way back from the airport.

We were like, What the hell?

What were you doing?

We had to finish that fight,

it was just so crazy.

It's just the most, also, the most iffy thing.

So on Rivals, I was like,

I had started, I think the default character when you boot up the game is Wolverine.

Oh, okay.

Oh, mine was Punisher.

Oh, yours was Punisher.

Oh, wait, no, it was Punisher.

And then I think I switched it to Wolverine.

You're more politically.

You love what he does, right?

Well, the thing about Punisher is that I think it's cool.

Yeah.

I think it's cool that he hates cops, but also cops are cool too.

But

I was playing Wolverine

on the outset.

And I think actually having Punisher as the default character

kind of makes sense because the thing I was saying is that I was not used to playing

the other characters with different move sets.

Like, I couldn't really wrap my head around

Captain America or Wolverine, like, just like slashing with claws.

These types of games typically have a player with a gun.

So it sort of made a little bit more sense for me to play with the gun characters at first.

So playing Punisher, and then I moved on to Rocket and was sort of like a Rocket main for a while.

Saw that there was a Battle Pass and was like, I'll get the Battle Pass and see if that has any tangible benefit.

It does not.

But I did buy

a steampunk outfit for Rocket, and now he looks like a little cowboy.

And I like that.

That's pretty fun.

But then I just recently switched over to

Namor.

and

he's

he's a fucking beast.

Then I just was like, oh, you just treat any ability like it's a gun, kind of.

And just kind of just like hold down R2 and just let it rip.

And then just meanwhile, Namor's just tossing, trying to get it.

He's let that

chop a sing.

Like he just lets it fly.

So as of as a like

the new season or the current season,

and I I don't know what the state of the meta of Marvel Rivals is right now.

I didn't investigate that at all.

But like the current season, Fantastic Four is the new, like these characters are being added to the roster.

Unfortunately, the thing is not out yet as of this record.

I think it's coming later this week.

I think tomorrow, actually.

Tomorrow, okay, yeah.

But I like, that's what, like, I was like, oh, there's Mr.

Fantastic.

You know, I wanted to I wanted to go on to that.

My thing is, like, my reaction to this game, first off, it's very much not for me.

Like this is just not a kind of game I play, I want to play.

And then also to quote someone's terrific insight, Marvel Rivals is crazy.

WTF is going on.

It's immediately so disappointing.

I will say, like, at this point, I put, I think I put in like 55 hours.

Yeah.

But the first seven hours, it felt like that scene, the beach scene in Save It Private Ryan, where like.

The sound goes out and you're like, what the fuck is going on?

Like, I just remember I would see a Spider-Man would come in and then I would just be back in this player select lobby.

I'm like, what happened?

So I actually felt like, and Fortnite had a better response to, but also I think Fortnite actually has, maybe it's just because the game's been out for so long now, has pretty decent onboarding for new players.

Like they, they certainly, they, they, they, the, the matchmaking is such where it feels like, okay, I'm kind of getting my,

even though there's, there's so much here, there's, there's so much to, to, that's just like an overwhelming amount of content

to try to absorb.

It's so many gameplay mechanics, so many different ways to play.

It's also like

you do feel like you're being eased into the water a little bit.

Whereas this is a little bit more like jump into the deep end, seeker, sink or swim.

It's a little bit more of that feeling.

But one thing I will say, yeah.

I was just thinking that there was a small time during this season of Fortnite, because

as of record,

the chapter ends tomorrow

for Fortnite, But there was a time when some of that onboarding

would have been also Godzilla is here.

And you have to rush to become Godzilla.

And if you don't get there in time, then you have to kill Godzilla.

But don't worry, Monarch is going to drop weapons for you.

Be like, wait, on top of all this other shit?

So I worked on a couple of Fantastic Four video games.

So I'm always, back in the day, back when I worked in game development, I'm always interested now.

The Fantastic Four is utilized in games.

I'm actually curious because the thing, I guess, is a tank, and I'm curious as to how he plays.

I probably will dip in a little bit just to try that out.

Give the thing a little test run.

But

when I worked on the first Fantastic Four game, we had a point where we were at Activision, who was the publisher, and they had focus tests.

And it was one of the only times I've ever sat in a that thing you said, I mean, there's that thing you've seen for the Simpsons episode with Itchy and Skyche, where you're sitting behind one-way glass watching people play something.

And so they had like a bunch of different groups of kids come in.

Normally you're on the other side.

Where were you?

And I remember there's one of these sessions where they're playing through this Fantastic Four game and this one, there was always like one kid who would like dominate the conversation.

And this one kid was like,

he was like, he was like, I know how to fix this game.

And the moderator was like, okay, please go ahead.

Let us know.

And he's like, here's what you got to do.

You got a Fantastic Four, but you also got to get Spider-Man in there.

you got to get Superman in there, you got to get Robocop in there, give them all sniper rifles, best game ever.

Yeah, the kid just pitched Fortnite

body.

I don't know.

Currently,

I don't talk about it much because there is an ongoing strike, but I have been continuing to play Fortnite.

And currently, I am Jake Sully

from Avatar.

And his emote that you can purchase is him touching flowers as the Avatar theme plays.

Wow.

And I think it has to be the most disrespectful emote in the game because all the other emotes imply some sort of like,

I don't know, avarice towards the other player.

This, you kill somebody and then like the Avatar theme plays and you just start wondrously touching flowers from Pandora.

Go touch grass, sweetie.

I will say this, this game has brought out like just the tiniest bit of toxicity in my mind.

Yeah.

If I get like a, if I do like a really good kill on someone or an embarrassing kill, I'll drop the

Captain America emoji, which is him like catching Thanos as a glove and just struggling.

And you can just let that go indefinitely.

Sometimes I'll just like set it and let it go for like 10 seconds until I know they respawn, and then I'll go back into the fight.

That's so great.

The thing that is

a funny experience in this game to me is that you're playing against another human being, right?

So

a human being

can be mean in a way that a video game can.

So like I could be rocket like firing at Thor and then Thor could start.

like charging at me and intimidate me and chase me and then i get scared and then like and blasting at him trying to run away also and then he could kill me it's and it happened a lot there is uh has anyone seen uh the so you know in hiring man the game he does like a chest beam attack yeah well there's a way you can cancel the animation so it's just him air humping and sometimes people get a particularly good kill they'll just air hump the corpse

i have seen that yeah yeah i'm sure i've been on the receiving end of that i really like the built-in banter in the game i like yeah that's really the characters all sort of like like I'm squirrel girl and the fucking little land shark is in the, is in the, uh, in the game, and she's just like riffing on how much she thinks it's cute.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's nice that all this like color is built into the programming of this of this shooter.

Yeah, it does have a sense of fun.

And I do think it has a really pleasing aesthetic.

Like it's like,

it leans into,

I don't know.

I mean, like, like...

I didn't, and I didn't play the suicide squad game, but that was one where I was just like, I don't necessarily even connect with this visually, but, but, yeah.

But Marvel Rivals, I feel like, is, is, is really pleasing to look at yeah and also it speaking to what heather was saying it does feel like i mean i know it's because it's based off a franchise but like it the world seems so lived in and so rich where like you do have these moments where like you know

peter parker will talk to like you know captain america about queens or whatever and you're like oh this like these like five like this like a and b back and forth for like five lines is like so rich and so fulfilling and like it makes you kind of pump ship for the team as well like oh yeah i want i'm with spider-man like i gotta i gotta do it for queens i better i better take control over this base over here in Wakanda.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And put my American flag.

So the bummer part of this, and this was not the reason we did the episode, this timing came out after we, this news came out after we'd, we'd, we'd, we'd done this episode.

It's a really unfortunate timing, but I mean, this is,

I'm just going to read this post.

So the Polygon article is Marvel Rivals Lays Off NA Base Team Amid Explosive Success.

Thaddeus Sasser, who is the game's Seattle-based director, posted on LinkedIn the following.

This is a quote, this is such a weird industry.

My stellar talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for Netty's games and were just laid off.

So the whole team, just

basically the entire US-based team, got laid off.

Neddies, who's the company, had a pretty shitty statement they released explaining this, which was, we recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals' development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game.

This resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals.

We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contributions.

Very AI-written statement.

Just like a person saying nothing.

Yeah, yeah.

It's also, I mean, that's just like classic corporate messaging, too.

Just like, we actually had to do this for a good reason that helps us only, actually.

Yeah, but isn't it like it's one thing if

a game completely eats shit and it's just like, like, well, well, shit, we, we released this game.

What I can't remember the name of the unfortunate

Concord.

Yeah, like released Concorde.

No one bought it.

No one played it.

We were having to shut down the servers and have a retool.

And you know what?

The economic reality is, I actually don't know what the fate of that team was, but I imagine they also got laid off.

Yeah.

That you can at least, like, even if that's shitty, you can at least kind of understand there's some rationale behind it.

But when it's just become, hey, we made something that's super duper profitable.

Yeah.

And then we can make even more money by firing all the workers.

Like, that's just the layer of like, oh, man, what a bummer.

It's, it's, it's similar to a thing that sometimes happens in the film and television industry, which is you can have an enormously successful TV show,

but if it is pulling in, like I once was on a show that.

got um

that was the highest rated show on the network it was uh it was on game show Network, and it was Drew Carey's Improvaganza.

And it was like a huge hit for the network.

But

because the content was skewing a little bit blue compared to all of these game show reruns, they were getting tons of call-in complaints from the old people who were also watching Drew Carey's Improvaganza, which affected the advertising revenue.

So you could have a show that is a big hit and then is immediately destroyed because of of just like circumstantial bullshit.

Yeah, it's weird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I, I, I, I mean, like, whatever, their rationale seems pretty tenuous.

It seems like they want to, you know, concentrate their uh labor force in a country where it's cheaper, um, but uh, it's uh, it's a bummer and it's uh, you know, it you

the hope is that you craft you make a hit and it and it's and you would think that there comes some job security with with crafting that, but I guess not, not anymore.

Uh, I think it looked like you were going to say something when I started that story, but if not, then we can cut this part.

No, well, it reminds me.

Well, I was thinking about like, I can't remember the name, the specific TV show, but it was like a Teen Titans type show, which was like wildly popular.

People loved it.

But because the viewership skewed more to the, it's not even female because they were kids.

It was like more to girls than boys.

And they were like, girls don't buy toys.

They just canceled this wildly successful show.

And like, that's, that's all I had.

Like, I had no real.

Well, I've also heard of shows that because they knew when Netflix came out, uh, they negotiated the streaming rights way back when, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that in order to get their streaming rights back, the show had to end so that they would get their streaming rights back from Netflix.

Now that all of these other sort of like branch straight, like Max or

fucking Paramount Plus, all of those networks, in some of their streaming rights are tied up with Netflix because of ongoing contracts with the airing television show.

Yeah, yeah.

And so they have to cancel the show so that they can get the rights back.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a bummer.

But that said, the work they did on this game is impressive.

And it's lotatory.

And I imagine that all these, hopefully they'll all land on their feet and be able to use this credit to get future work in an industry where employment is unfortunately very tenuous.

Any other

thoughts on the game itself?

I want to make sure we get to everyone's.

I liked it.

Yeah.

I want to say I liked it.

But coming from Fortnite, the the movement was unless you're playing a uh

like a spider-man style character the movement's a little slow on its feet and i and and i understand why that happened or or from a design standpoint my guess is with so much crazy happening on screen if you added that they all moved at like superhero speed yeah that it would be too disorienting to play yeah it's like if you've never played a fighting game and you're trying to watch Marvel versus Capcom 2, you're like, what the fuck is happening on screen?

It's funny enough you say that because there was a moment I was playing last night and there's the character Penny Parker.

Her ability is like she can lay down like these webs.

And there was a moment where there were two Penny Parkers each shooting out webs, each shooting out little minds.

There was a Thor like doing his like magic millnir thing and like Rocket Raccoon was like dropping like his special.

I'm like, this would kill a Victorian child if they saw what was going on.

Like there's so much stimulation in this one pocket between four characters.

There are six of the characters doing their own thing.

Like, there's so much happening in this one section.

I think, like, Doctor Strange was like opening up portals.

Like, there's so much happening.

Like, I can't fathom.

Also, I can run fast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, well,

sometimes I'll be playing a game and like it could be something like Vampire Survivors or when I was pretty heavily into Diablo 3.

A lot, you know, a lot can happen on screen in a game like that.

And my wife would just be like, what the fuck am I looking at?

What is this?

And I'd have to like try to explain.

And she'd be like, God, it never mind.

I don't care.

It's just biting down on a piece of fucking leather, trying to mainline it.

Yeah, I remember my friend's dad looking at uh four-player Smash Brothers with items on, and so the screen is just full

with Pokeballs and lightsabers and baseball bats, and like, you know, Jigglypuff versus uh, uh, Ganondorf or whatever the fuck.

And uh, his comment for some reason was just, why are they dancing?

He's trying to make sense of what was happening.

Rochelle,

any thoughts on your Marvel Rivals experience?

I was playing with some friends.

One of them, an old friend from high school, who is like a platinum rank on Marvel Rivals.

Wow.

Wow.

Put some respect in my hand.

And then I was playing a Scarlet Witch, I think, and he was Doctor Strange.

And he's like, okay, here's a plan.

I'm going to open up a portal and you're going to go in there and use your alts on like the entire team that is like, they're all like there.

So he opens up this portal and then he's like, all right, go do it.

So I just walk in

and I just immediately die.

I didn't even get to press Q.

And that was basically my whole experience in that game.

It's funny to think, like, there are times in video games where I can't stop laughing because I'm imagining what I've just seen has happened negatively.

And that feels like one of the moments where it's like, I don't know, I told Scarlet Witch to walk in and open fire.

She walked in and just did nothing.

So one

out of infinite worlds.

One of the things that I love about the game, because like, obviously there's probably an in-world canon reason why the characters are not dying and are are responding for whatever, whatever it is.

Um, but when

your health is depleted,

your body becomes so floppy.

You fucking, you look dead.

Like, you look at Peter Parker, and he looks dead, and you're just like, that's a fucking teenager.

One of my favorite things is like when someone's doing their own, like, pure and then they just stop.

There's one that's popped up where it's venom.

His says, we are venom.

And so he'll, sometimes he'll just say, we.

And I just picture him with like a bat cat riding a bike under the Eiffel Tower.

All right, shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

I'm going to name some video games, and we're going to find out how many characters Heather, Nick, and Zig can name.

It's time for how many.

Oh, Matt.

Oh,

there's your games.

This is how it works.

I'll say this.

I think this is going to be good.

Okay.

I'll say the name of the game, and we're going to just go around.

You're going to tell me how many you think you can name.

So it's going to go in order.

It'll start with Nick, Zig, and then Heather.

Okay, so we're kind of like, this is, this is a, oh, I remember that.

We did this previously.

Yeah, we did this previously.

And so you're kind of wagering how many you think you can name.

Yeah, so like if it was like Marvel Rivals, you could be like,

I can name, you know, three characters from that game.

Zig could be like, I can name five.

Heather could say, I can name seven.

Or a girl.

And then if Zig wanted to, he could challenge

whoever the higher person is.

Yes, exactly.

Do you have like full rosters?

I have pretty comprehensive rosters.

Pretty comprehensive rosters.

Okay, great.

All right, great.

So, and I don't, I don't, and there's only, I only have four.

So we'll get through this.

We'll get through this quick.

The first game that I'm going to name is Resident Evil 4.

So, Nick, how many characters do you think you could name?

I'll start low and I'll say three.

Three characters.

Yeah, I'm going to say four.

Okay.

Four.

Four characters.

So you also say four.

Yeah.

I think that means you have to do it.

Me?

Yeah.

Because you're sort of matching Zig's bet.

Oh, God.

Okay.

And the challenge is.

Is the rule you have to either raise or tell the previous person to do it?

Oh, yeah, maybe.

You have to either raise it or tell Zig to do it.

And then point goes to either the victor or the challenger.

So wait, I can either say four, you name them.

That doesn't seem fair.

You could either say, look, you could either challenge Zig to do it or you could try to name five.

Well,

may I?

Oh.

You could say five and then.

No, I can't do that, though.

And then I would say say, challenge Zig to his four.

Okay, I challenge you to your four.

Leon,

Ashley,

Salazar,

or Ramon Salazar.

Okay.

El Gigante?

And El Lago.

There we go.

That's five fright.

I'll give, I'll give, I'll give, I'll give you those.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh, you got, you got four.

So Zig gets a point.

All right.

Wow.

Okay.

God.

Pretty good.

Thank you.

The merchant's going to be upset.

I, that was one of my four.

Next on the list, Final Fantasy VII.

How many characters, and we'll start with Zig.

Okay.

How many characters do you think you can name from Final Fantasy VII?

I could probably do

at least 10.

You think you could do 10?

Hold on.

Just give me a second.

Heather and Zig are both counting on their fingers silently.

Yeah.

Nick and I weren't feeling this

I was looking at the sky, wondering why everyone was being quiet.

I was looking at my iPad, counting how many I had.

10 might be too many.

I could do a dozen, I think.

You can do a dozen.

Man, man, man, hold on, hold on.

Heather is continuing to count on her fingers.

Yes.

We're going to need either to call or to raise.

I think I'm actually counting on my toes right now.

Those are great shoes, by the way.

Oh, thank you.

Zig is wearing some nike shoes.

I think I can do 12.

You're going to use the same amount.

I can do 13.

You can do 13.

I was going to say 15, but I don't know if that's too high.

Well, it'll give you the opportunity because

I'm going to say 14.

Holy shit.

You're going to say 14?

I'm going to say 15, then.

I'm going to keep the 15.

I'm done.

I'm out.

And then you have to challenge Zig the name 15.

Wait, I do?

But I can't do 15.

I did.

No, you'd say you challenged Zig.

Okay, so you do 15.

Okay.

Cloud?

Love it if you stop there.

Cloud,

Tifa, Barrett, Aries, or Aerith.

Red 13,

Yuffie, Vincent, Dr.

Hojo, Separoth,

Roode,

oh fuck.

What is it?

Oh, oh, oh, Sid,

um, Persephone, which I believe is Separat's mom or Vincent's mom, um,

and I'm going to say,

uh, uh, uh, Sing, one of the Turks,

and finally,

uh

what's Elena, the other, the lady Turk.

Okay, that's 15.

So here's the thing: yeah,

I stopped counting

one job.

I know.

Matt's game.

Yeah.

Matt's game.

I'm somebody over here counting my toe.

I got my pinky toe out.

Struggling.

I legitimately, right now, like the burger hit me and was like, oh,

we should maybe stop eating cheeseburger dinners before our butcher grease and organ meat.

We're doing a few sweet greens from now on.

I feel great.

I ate a protein bowl.

Yeah, yeah.

We got to do that instead.

Zig gets the point.

That was impressive.

That was impressive.

And my eyes rolled.

Because you also had, because the thing that was tripping me up was you were naming some that I was remembering that I don't have on the list.

So, like, you had some that I didn't have.

In an

RPG of that scope, it's like there's so many possible characters that could be named.

So I guess if you're saying any character from the game, then yeah.

Shopkeeper one.

Our boy Chadley, of course.

That's from the remix.

Next and final game.

The Last of Us Part two oh wow how many characters can we name the last of us part two

here's the problem i finished last of us two

twice yeah i don't know if i can name three characters from the game because i have an old brain and i have trouble with recall uh but i will start the bidding at

um i know you could do at least three i will start the bidding at three characters yeah i'm uh

i'm gonna say three

I'm going to say 12.

Wow.

Well, I think you have to name the 12.

All right.

Here we go.

Let me see how many I have on my list first.

Okay.

I have exactly 12.

All right.

All right.

Here we go.

Ellie.

Abby.

Joel.

Steven.

Roger.

Elliot.

Kevin.

Todd!

No, Jill!

Eddie!

Lacey!

Eleanor!

Wow!

Heather gets the point.

But ultimately, Zig is our winner of how many.

Well done, Zig.

Thank you.

That's this week's Get Played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, 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, as well as our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated.

Matt, what's up this week?

We're finishing up Dan to Dan, folks, and it's been quite a journey.

And we'll be moving on to our next series pretty shortly.

So tune in to find out what it is.

And also, we want to remind everyone that if you're looking for some merch, we are partnered with Kinship Goods.

So you can find all of our Get Played merch over at kinshipgoods.com.

They're very soft.

I'm wearing the hoodie right now.

You're wearing the hoodie right now.

You look like a million dollars.

But wait, wait, wait.

I'm coming.

Look at this.

Look at this.

I'm wearing a t-shirt right now.

Wow.

That's all available.

KinshipGoods.com.

Our guest, Cody Ziggler.

Thank you so much for being here, Zig.

Anything you'd like to plug?

You know, yeah, check out Miles Morales, Spider-Man, and Deadpool.

I write both those comics, and I guess Futurama.

Those are things you need to watch.

Hell yeah.

The coolest shit you're working on.

Yeah.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, buddy.

Well, that's awesome.

Check out all the best stuff.

Zig won like the little kid lottery.

I get to only do the coolest things ever.

But

I hate to bring you back down to Earth, my friend.

But you got played, actually.

And I'm sorry.

Tough way to go out.

Yeah, I hate to see it.

You get to catch an L at some point.

Yeah, I need to be humbled.

Also, your save is so far back.

I got across the board.

I go to the potion tutorial again.

That was a head gum podcast.