Console Aesthetics Tier List Part 2

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All right, you guys listen here and you listen good, okay?

We just did over two hours on a tier list episode ranking the rest of the consoles we didn't do.

We're not doing our normal, we're not doing our little skits at the top, okay?

We're not doing it.

And you know what?

If you got a problem with it, who gives a shit?

I don't care.

Sorry, I'm late.

Did I miss the did I miss the

segment?

Or were we...

What are you playing?

Can we just pick that up?

We don't have time to do that.

We just did a big long episode about this already.

Hey, guys, you know, I haven't been here in a while, and i thought maybe i'd do a drop-in no ash there's simply no time for it we don't have time for that

no it's me ash ketchum from the world of pokemon ash we i i know who you are i'm you're introduced that's great we don't have time to do extra stuff like that we have i just stand over here is it you want me to stand on the in the i'll just stand in the corner I get the sense that you haven't started the show yet.

No, we're about to do

over two hours on this.

We're in a hurry.

We don't have time.

Where's Nick?

Hey, hey, is that Matt Appodaka or should I say cat appodaka?

It's me, Bubsy Bobcat.

Bubsy.

Your favorite cartoon video game.

If you knew how close to death you were right now.

What?

You scratch my back?

I'll scratch yours.

Honestly, I'm kind of back on board.

It's working for me, but

we don't have time.

Hey, how come I didn't get invited to the Garfield premiere?

I don't have time.

Heathcliff was there.

I don't know why didn't he invite all the other

Christmas cats.

They fucking Topcat was there.

What was Topcat doing there?

What's Bubsy?

I heard Fritz invite Fritz.

Yeah, Fritz is kind of an edgelord.

Techno cop.

God, the TechnoCop, we don't have time.

We have to start the show.

Techno Cop

stay a while and listen.

It's me, Decad Kane from Diablo.

These, the listeners are with me.

We're going to stay a while and listen to the episode because there's a lot of it we have to get to.

Hey, it's me, Dougette, and I'm wondering

if you guys want to do a fast, you want to do a fast intro, then you should, maybe you could do like a slip and slide and cover it in oil and you like run at the intro and you jump on it and maybe like you go past the mics real fast.

I've never issued this type of warning before the show before, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it right now.

Go ahead and play this episode in its entirety at 1.5x speed.

And before we get going,

I think this is one of them comic books that Ellie likes to read.

Hey, it's Nick.

Sorry, I'm late.

We're doing the console aesthetics tier list

because I got a lot of thoughts.

We're going to be here a while.

We debate Blocky versus Curvy and Black versus Gray again as we finish our console aesthetic tier list in part two this week on Get Played.

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

It's time to get played.

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

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where we are talking console aesthetics for the second week in a row.

Yeah, this was intended to be a one episode, and then we got going, and we were recording kind of late, and Rochelle wasn't here, and we had a guest engineer who we felt like we were keeping, you know, pretty late.

And so we just, we, we, we, we sweat into a part two instead of going for another one.

If Rochelle was here, we would have forced Rochelle to stay.

We absolutely would have had Ranch stay late.

Rochelle is back, by the way.

How you feeling Ranch?

I'm doing great.

You completely dodged the COVID.

Completely dodged the COVID.

Excellent work.

But I did fall down the stairs this morning.

What happened?

What the hell, Ranch?

Are you okay?

I was on my phone and I fell down the staircase and I trained my ankle.

Oh, my God.

You alright?

Yeah, I'm good.

How many stairs did you tumble down?

At least seven.

Jesus.

That's what I caught myself.

God damn it.

I fell up three stairs the other day.

What?

How did that happen?

Well, you know, you show Silverstein then?

I missed the first step.

Falling up, that's for the.

I missed the first step.

And then

I just collapsed over three stairs up.

Wow.

Wow.

And you were in an MC Escher drawing at the time?

Let's fucking go.

Hell yeah, dude.

That rocks.

That's my shit.

I'm glad you're okay, I assume.

Yeah, we're both okay.

I'm glad you're both okay.

Do you know that the Family Guy MC Esher joke?

I heard my prime.

What?

The Family Guy MC Escher joke?

No, what is it?

He says something like, this is worse than that rap song by MC Escher.

And he's like, I'm on some stairs.

Now I'm on some different stairs.

I'll have to watch this one.

You'll have to watch it because I'm not doing it.

Look,

I'm not giving it the sauce it deserves.

I saw a clip of this the other day.

I was crying laughing.

This is the thing, Family Guy, I inadvertently well-built for YouTube or for any sort of like video sharing platform because it's like

so much of that show, the jokes are just sketches.

They're like almost self-contained.

Like, here's a little flashback joke, and it's just like a 90-second bit that works on its own.

Branch, is your ankle like, is it completely borked?

Is it okay?

Oh, it's okay.

I've been walking on it.

Okay.

Was this at your home?

Yeah.

This was on my way here.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Sorry about that.

Because you had to come record a podcast.

Yeah.

The noblest way to get injured.

Speaking of noble, I think it would be noble to include a console last week that we missed.

Well, wait, I mean, we we could do it.

I think let's do it at the top of the

time I have it.

All right, because I think there's one that we missed.

Yeah, okay, that pertains to a prior generation.

Yeah, I saw it shouted out in the Discord and I was like, oh, shit.

Oh,

we can do that for sure.

Entirely possible we missed something in our attempt to be comprehensive as we step through the console generations

chronologically.

First up, before we get to that, I do want to tell everyone that we have a We Play, You Play,

a monthly semi-monthly episode where we talk about one game at length this month the game is chrono trigger the jrpg classic we are finally going to discuss monday august 26th we'll have a full episode if you want to play along or you know watch a playthrough or whatever just re-familiarize yourself with this classic and if you're looking for where to find chrono trigger here in the year 2024 it is not on switch but it is on mobile you can play it on say your apple tv if you have uh apple devices And it's on Steam as well.

And it is also on Steam.

So there's ways to play Chrono Trigger.

My understanding is, and I don't know if recent updates have messed up some of these mods, but my understanding is that there's a slate of mods you can get for the Steam version to make it feel like the SNES version.

Or, of course,

you can play it on an emulator if you want.

Hilarious colour because

that's what I'm kind of doing.

I'm playing it on an analog pocket.

I'll play it all right.

I have the Trinitron filter on.

So, Chrono Trigger coming Monday, August 26th.

Right now, though, we've been playing some other video games.

It's time for the question at the top of every episode.

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hey, this is me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm going to ask my friends on the best podcast in the world.

Oh, they're playing.

Wow, what a nice thing to say, Resident Evil.

Really,

you're welcome.

You're welcome.

I guess it's a little bit of a self-compliment because you're also a part of the podcast.

I am a part.

I am a part of it.

I am a part of the show.

And I just want to say that I'm honored that you consider me a part of the greatest podcast on Earth.

I mean, that's not my self-assessment.

I don't think this is the greatest podcast on Earth.

No.

You know, I certainly don't listen to this show.

Don't be out.

It's in the top 10, probably, but not like.

Don't be out.

It's like number one.

It's number one.

Wow.

Okay.

I found that guy from Serial, and I made him say it.

You wait.

A non-syed?

The guy who's freed from prison?

You found him?

Yeah.

And you made him say it?

Yeah, I made him say which podcast was number one.

I see.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

I was worried about what you made him say because I think some of that was like a part of the problem.

What?

Wait, what?

Wait, what would I make him say?

I don't know.

I was thinking about when people are

maybe...

Like a coerced confession.

Right, yeah.

I didn't know no, no, no.

That's what I thought.

That's why I was like, I know that you wouldn't do that, but I was worried that that's what you were saying.

I mean, I'm an intimidating guy.

Very much so.

And I was wearing a get blade shirt.

So I was like, which podcast is the best?

And I pointed to my shirt.

Hold on.

You have other wardrobe?

Yeah.

You sometimes ditch the trench coat for a while.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I wear the trench coat.

Okay.

And my shirt, but my undershirt's a get blade shirt.

I just want to say that.

I'm just going to put this out there.

You can wear that when you're doing the show, and you can wear that at home when maybe you're going to sleep or something.

I do not want you wearing that shirt out and about because I do not want you representing the show outside of your your duties with the show.

You know, anybody can wear that shirt.

I know anybody could wear it, but I'm in particular concerned that you're wearing it.

Do you think it would be good or bad if J.D.

Vance wore a Get Blade shirt?

I think it would probably be a net negative for the show at this point.

Yeah, I would hate it.

I would be really excited if I saw him in this shirt.

But anyway,

if Trump wore one, it would be fine.

It would be fun.

That would be funny.

That would make me laugh.

I'm a gamer.

I love games.

That would be the most fun.

You would get on and play Rocket League with you.

Can you imagine your phone in the morning if that happened?

If we found out that he plays like C.S.

Go?

No, no, if he wore a Get Blade shirt.

Oh, no, yeah.

I would, we would just, I mean, I'm being honest right now.

I'm never doing this shit.

Has that man ever?

Has he ever worn anything other than a suit or a polo?

I don't think he wears t-shirts.

I cannot imagine that man in a t-shirt.

There's people like that that I'm like, what do they like when they're at home sick?

And one of the one of my go-to thoughts is robe.

Like robe, obviously.

Yeah, sure.

Bro, robe shirt with like a little

classic pajamas.

I was like, what does Prince wear to sleep?

What does Prince wear or what did Prince wear when he was just like, I'm just chilling at home today?

I'm not doing all that Prince stuff.

Do you think he has like jeans?

I think he had fancy pajamas.

You think she's like fancy like silk purple pajamas, probably?

That's the

I think about that.

But anyway.

Anyway, I'm here to ask you a question.

And it's, what are you playing?

Meta, Baduga?

What are you playing?

All right.

So I did something.

I had an experience this weekend.

I went to, I had my bachelor party.

It was very fun.

Hey.

How about that?

I'd love to hear it.

Took a big group of boys.

You send an invite to my old email, maybe?

I was there.

I don't.

Can I say?

I assume Nick couldn't make it.

I knew I had it.

You didn't get your invitation.

No, I didn't know.

I didn't even even be with the spammers of that.

I had two thoughts about that.

Me bringing this up.

I was like, one, Nick's for sure going to say that.

Two, he's going to say that, knowing that if he was invited, he wouldn't go.

I would not have gone.

But

you missed it, buddy.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

I sort of think it was like, would Nick go?

And I was like, I would feel like then I would.

There's something weird about like...

The quote-unquote like rules.

I was like, I would love everybody to have been there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What are the rules?

You can't have chicks, I I guess.

Is that true?

I guess you can.

I was at a chicks.

Wait, what do you call the other kind?

Bachelorette party?

Yeah, I was at that kind.

Oh, you got to go to that?

Yeah, yeah.

It's one of these things

in the university.

We do the game mode.

Yikes.

So they get you, you got a bunch of they got a bunch of layers on.

Everyone's like, you know, a bunch of excited women drinking a bunch of rose.

Be like, oh, what's underneath that trench cut?

Yeah, you can't imagine how fast you can get out of all those layers, though.

Covering up the pee on your shirt and be like, how about we change

what this t-shirt says from get played to something else?

Get laid.

That's right.

I don't know.

I don't want to wear the t-shirt to a bachelor.

No, yeah, you're describing a thing that happened.

But anyway, I was, you know, I went to a bachelor party.

I should have just invited you guys.

You would have hated it.

No, it's all right.

I would have loved it, except I don't drink anymore.

That's the part where you would have been miserable watching me fight for my life by the end of the night.

I went to a bachelor party and we fired fired guns.

This was something that was floated after I had booked the stuff that we were going to do.

And

as it occurred to me, I was like, you know what?

I kind of wish I had done that instead.

Yeah, shooting guns is very fun.

It kind of seemed like it would have been fun.

It's a hoot.

But what we did do was we went to World of Racing in Pasadena, which has come up on the show back when Casey and America from the Formula One podcast.

were on the show.

And what it is, is it's like a, I don't know, it's like a, what do you call it?

It's like a,

it's basically like a storefront in a strip mall that has 13 like PC and like

racing rig systems in them with giant, some of them have three monitors for just the one thing.

Wait, so this isn't a go-kart place?

It's like a virtual place?

It's sim racing.

So it's all sim racing rigs.

And is it all, is it F1 specifically, or is it got a slated thing?

It's like it's

it seems like it's just F1.

Got it.

And it's only one track.

And that was honestly our only complaint was that, well, that it was only one track.

And also that I felt so sick after I was doing it.

My brother, too,

very delicate

constitution when it comes to car sickness and things like that.

And I could hear him like he was just doing louder, deeper breathing than he normally would do.

And I was like, he's going to throw up, I think.

And we haven't even drank anything yet.

Was this the image you sent us of like the three monitors next to each other?

There's like a full HUD in front of you.

And also there's a, what's called a stream deck that has buttons that like

have PC like hotkeys

attached to them, basically.

So like, oh, if you need to reset your car, you just press this button instead of a control out with a keyboard, something like that.

Keyboard input.

Did it have motion?

Yes.

It had motion.

It had very severe motion.

And it had, so some of the rigs are more intense than other ones.

They have some that are like fully built like like i mean they all have seats and wheels and pedals and stuff but some of them just have more shit going on there and like i got in one of the more intense ones and

it was like kind of scary kind of because it's like you know that you're not doing it but you just have the mine had these huge monitors and you're just looking at it and it kind of does feel like you're just like in a car yeah and you you know that you're not in a car also by the way the most dangerous thing we did that night was get in a car after doing that It was like, it was just, oh, yeah.

It was just, because it's like, you have an hour and then hours up and then there's nowhere for you to like hang out or do anything.

So you just leave and like we were on our way to somewhere else.

Anyways, we all just got in cars afterwards and we're like, this feels incorrect.

Like we should have been in

another thing to do right now because it feels like this is dangerous.

Yes, right.

But it will,

the, you can crash.

It has this cool feature where it has like

driving lines on it and it tells you like, oh, if the line is green, that's when like you're free to like really like haul ass and like

put your foot down on the brake or on the on the gas.

But when it starts to turn yellow or red, that's when you start to break.

But like nobody was breaking like at first.

So we were all just like crashing into each other and like, and then, oh, the cool thing was you're wearing headphones with

mics

that you could, we were all talking shit to each other and stuff.

And they didn't wipe them down from the previous

group that was in there which i was like i could have probably wiped these down a little bit um uh or at least swap them out for new ones but it's fine it was fine there was a little kid in the group ahead of us that was way better than all of us were like we were so bad at it like it it's because it's not just like driving a car you have to really like respect the lines and like the um it's not like Daytona USA or whatever it is.

Because like there are like legit like consequences.

You can like lose your time in a lap if you go outside of the lines and things like that.

And when you crash, your

steering wheel is going around really crazy, and they tell you to hands off the wheel and just push your brake because you could

break your wrists trying to hold on to the steering wheel while it's going crazy.

Um, but it was the review was that everybody just kind of didn't know what to expect, except if he, iffy was there and was just

he if he got there late and didn't see the tutorial and still kicked all our asses uh it was so so funny every part of this trash yeah he alpha us yeah it was amazing um and also he was not really talking in the microphone at all he was just like locked in and all the losers that were doing a bad job were just like roasting each other

you crashed oh i crash now uh but it was i honestly recommend it if it's like there's something like that in your in your area um because it was like it was just kind of interesting to see and then we were looking up how much the rigs cost Yeah.

Because they have a plan there that's like you could get a monthly subscription to go whenever you can go 20 times a month.

It's $500 a month.

And so we were like, how much, like, how much does it cost to build one of these?

Because we're like, if you just had this, kind of seems a little crazy to spend $500 a month.

That's a lot.

When you could buy the thing, you can buy a Honda Civic and still have money left over for how much it costs.

for the fucking rig.

Is it $20,000?

$30,000.

wild that's so much more than i expected yeah i was expecting like that's like probably like for what they had it was like i don't know it's maybe like five thousand bucks and maybe most of it's the computer between five and ten grand i would have been like all right yeah that sounds about right thirty thousand sounds exorbitant yeah so maybe the 500 is actually not such a bad deal buying a robot though like a massive you're buying a car with no wheels you're buying like a full-ass car yeah um

uh so imagine trying to get rid of that thing too when you like you get sick of it and like yeah exactly you You got to move.

At least you could put shit in the Honda Civic if you needed to.

And so we were all like, do we just all buy Honda Civics instead?

We're going to spend $30,000.

That ain't going to go play somewhere.

Take it in the track.

Yeah, and just go wreck it.

But it was a lot of fun.

I do recommend it.

Even some of my friends who aren't like huge into gamer, huge into games and they're not gamers at all were like, that was absolutely worth doing.

And I, so I highly recommend it.

I have a question, a, a follow-up question, because you talked about

the experience of playing it.

Do you know what the platform was?

Like, do you know what the

was it iRacing?

You know, I don't know what it actually, I actually don't know what it was.

I know it was running on Windows because I saw the.

Yeah, it was probably just had just high-end gaming rigs in there.

Yeah.

Because I remember when,

and you mentioned, you know, we had Casey and Marika on from the Pitwall podcast with the, Casey specifically is an enthusiast for this sort of thing and has something of, not a $30,000 rig, but something like

$25,000.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You spend a little less.

He's got something like that at home, but I think he plays on iRacing.

I think that's like kind of like the hardcore sim racing platform of choice.

I don't know.

Maybe some of the people in the Discord have a sense of what this might have been.

Yeah,

it was so cool.

I honestly don't know if I would personally do it again

unless it was like, unless we were like going to go do it and like make content out of it or something.

Or if you guys wanted to just go kick my ass in a different way.

But

I did love doing it.

It was it was very, very fun.

Wow.

Yeah.

That rocks.

Yeah, that's awesome.

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Heather, what are you playing?

Well,

my

the to report on it this week, uh,

I've been playing a lot of this month's We Play You Play.

Uh, I've been playing it on analog pocket in the FPGA, FGPA, whatever that subset of the analog pocket is, on an a Super NES emulator, and then I've been docking that in the analog dock to play it on my big screen.

Wow.

Um,

but I saw some commentary in our Discord after I said that it looked like shit on the DS, and people were like, She's out of her fucking mind.

I would say on the same take on the episode, I was

a little taken aback by that take, but I was also like, Maybe I'm misremembering it.

I remember.

So, I'm going to provide photographic proof.

Okay.

I'm going to take a photo of these three formats.

I'm going to take a photo of it running on a CRT on the original fucking Super NES.

I'm going to take a photo of it running on the DS and I'm going to take a photo of it running on the analog pocket.

And I'll let you guys be the judge because I'm not wrong.

You guys just don't remember that it looks like shit.

So yeah,

that's my

weekend review.

That's the only gaming I've done, but I've really, really, really loved.

I haven't done retro gaming in a moment.

And it's so comforting.

It is so

like easy to just like, before you're going to go to bed, you play like 45 minutes or like you got a break in the middle of the day and you don't

want to play something antagonistic.

And so you just like sit down with it and it's just a good feeling.

Well, especially with the modern conveniences afforded by emulators and remasters and the like of just like, you know, because it used to be like, oh shit, I got to play until I can find a save point.

Well, that's how I'm playing.

Oh, Oh, so you are just playing.

Yeah, there's no save states on the pocket.

You do have to find

a new save point.

But ultimately, those save points are really well paced.

Yes, yeah.

The pocket supports save states for some cores, but not all cores.

Like the Super Nintendo one doesn't support it for some reason.

I have a million things to say about this already, and I'll save it for the main show.

Yeah.

For when we talk about it, because I've only played for a few hours, but I feel like now I could talk about this game for four hours probably.

probably um

i just want to say right now that frog is my guy yeah frog is a lot of people's guys i do may understand you having a kinship with frog he feels like a very matt sort of character as soon as i saw him i was like this is my guy and i'll die for him i love this guy i said fuck yes out loud i didn't know there was a frog in the game yeah i love it there's a frog uh so the yeah i that's what we'll talk about when we get to when we get there but i it is a game that starts very strong i remember having a similar feeling when i played it for the first time on super nintendo of like, holy shit, this game has hit hooks in me immediately.

It's not a slow start.

It just starts.

It's just like, you're just like, okay, here's all this crazy stuff.

Yeah.

Good game.

I'm excited to talk about it.

I'm really enjoying replaying it again.

I love that.

And I guess, Nick, what are you playing?

Heather, thank you for asking.

I am going to give a little bit of an Elden Ring update.

Just a progress update real quick, and then I'll give some additional thoughts.

I'm through Lindale Capital and the sewers underneath the subterranean shunning grounds.

Since our last record, I beat Godfrey, First Elden Lord, the Golden Shade version, Morgot the Omen King, and Moog the Omen.

So

I've made some progress.

I look, I just, I've already, I already loved it so much.

I'm loving it even more playing it now.

The thing that I can, that, that staggers me.

And I don't know how, and if I've talked about this in any depth, but when I worked in game design, primarily I did level design.

And so it's a thing I'm always conscious of.

The level design in Souls games, but in in particular Elden Ring, given its open world nature, is so impressive.

I mean, how the environments fold back in on themselves via shortcuts.

Every time it happens, it feels like a magic trick.

And especially as I was going through the subterranean shunting grounds, I was like, this is the way this is.

structured and the the geometry of this, the way things are stacked on top of the, you're going through this maze, and then all of a sudden you come upon a door and the door opens up to an area you were at two hours ago.

Yeah.

And there's the fucking, you know, like that grace you started at.

It's just like, this is is so fucking spectacularly put together.

And I know at this point, we're talking about a two-year-old game that's universally acclaimed, that just to heap more praise upon it is not the most interesting thing in the world.

But it's just my feeling as I'm playing through it.

I'm just like, this is so fucking masterfully done for a game that so much of the emphasis, it feels like, is on

when people are talking about its design strength, they're talking about its combat and its system designs.

The level design is also just absolute top tier.

I had an Elden Ring thought this week, which is that, you know, before the internet, you would share these things that you found and ask your friends if they had found those things.

Yes.

And then your friends would be like, oh, no, I haven't found that.

That sounds awesome.

I'll look for that.

Right.

The internet.

took that from us.

Now, now you have walkthroughs or you have like, you know, like there's no true secrets, except Elden Ring's lore is so

like

secretive and hidden in the details of the world that it has allowed us that exchange of information experience again because people are on YouTube and they don't have all the answers, but they have thoughts about it.

They have conjecture.

So you've, they've, because they've made it so obfuscated, the story and the world and like, oh, did you see that this pot in the corner of this one, like this last update that they updated Elden Ring's DLC, they added a throne, like a big chair in one of the arenas where you're fighting one of the bosses.

And people are like, this is here for a reason.

And now they have to like deconstruct the

implication of why that chair is there.

Interesting.

Yeah,

like it's, it's,

I think a lot of that, I mean, comes from Hidataka Miyazaki when he, he's talked in interviews about like how he, he would read fantasy novels and stuff, but he didn't have the greatest grasp of the language.

I don't know if he was reading them in translation or whatever, but he had trouble understanding everything, but he liked knowing little pieces of the lore.

He liked being able to put together small elements of it and how hiding things from the user or from whatever, like the reader or the viewer, whatever the media is, like hiding things from someone makes everything feel bigger.

When you give someone all the answers, they're just like, okay, well, that's all this is.

But if you're kind of like a little bit, uh you know coy with it and you and produce something that's relatively inscrutable it feels like oh there's so many layers to this and there's so much expanse here uh i've interestingly i read a uh this is unrelated but i read a uh

some some of a of a Miyazaki interview I hadn't read previously because I know he's talked a lot about like hey I'm actually bad at games that's where this comes from but this one he was like felt like he was really laying it on thick he was like no I'm really really like dog shit at games I'm fucking terrible at games I die all the time I'm a really poor player like it wasn't in the sense of of like, I'm just trying to make people, sometimes those can feel like, oh, I'm trying to make people feel better about failing at this game.

But, you know, he was actually saying like, no, this actually comes from a real place of my own frustration, of my inadequacies as a gamer.

And so as such, these games were designed,

paraphrasing what he was saying, to have like so many options and so many things that you can use to work to tilt the balance in your favor.

And it did make me more conscious of like, you know what, I've been using more consumables on this playthrough.

I've I've really just been like, hey, you know, I got this fireproof liver.

Hey, I got this fucking poison pot.

I'm just going to lob this at a guy, you know, just like fucking using these things that I would normally hoard in a game.

And when you start to do that, the game feels a lot smoother, a lot easier.

Like when you're really just actively using that stuff, I'm not being precious with my rune arcs.

I'm in a tough encounter.

I'm going to use a rune arc.

I'm not going to worry about the fact that I have a limited supply of these.

I haven't run out yet, you know?

And I'm being a lot less precious about hoarding my golden runes and just like, oh, I can almost get a level here if I burst these.

All right, let me go ahead and do this.

And that's actually like, again, made things just smoother sailing.

But I think the game is trying to coax you to do that.

It's trying to counteract your instincts in other games, which is just to hoard all your consumables and get to the final boss.

And I've got 99 of everything.

And that, well, why do I have all these high potions?

You know, I mean, why did I make this tougher on myself just to save these things for a rainy day that never came?

I do really like

everything with the loathsome dung eater.

Love that guy.

Love him threatening to defile my corpse.

Genuinely scary.

I have a question for everyone.

I just open it up a little bit.

You both finished the game.

I did not finish the game in my previous playthrough.

I'm going to finish it on this playthrough.

I'm determined to do so.

Matt, you finished the DLC.

Yes.

How do y'all feel about the mimic tier, just in general?

And then, and for everyone who hasn't played this game, the mimic tier is basically a summonable creature who is an AI version of your

character,

has all of their abilities and equipment.

I think that

the Mimic tier is great for

balancing aggro.

I think that,

you know, if you use it the way I think it's supposed to be used, it's just to give you more opportunities to

heal or to like it's it's not good enough to do anything on its own.

Like,

you can't just unleash it and have it beat something for you.

It's like a dumb version of you.

But if it can hit the thing just like three times so it turns around so you can drink your flask, then like that's great.

And it's designed to do that.

I'd be nothing without the mimic tear.

I like, I needed it so much.

And it was just like such a like.

It's helpful because like it was obviously like it has the moves that you like, it has my most powerful moves, which is pretty sick.

but like like like heather said it is dumb and like the first it takes too long to get like to wake up kind of too because like you'll use it and it's like it takes a second to form and then a prolonged summoning period to basically turning from a blob of gelatin into a simulacrum of the player character so like it does it's only helpful until it is like because like

it's first like almost it feels like forever like it's first like 10 seconds out it is worthless it is not doing anything.

But then, when you do use him, or you know, uh, if you get to use the tier,

and then he starts attacking, like, yeah, thank God, it's gonna draw aggro for a second.

And there's also, I read a thing that people were doing to really, really draw aggro because there's like a talisman that you can have to always draw aggro.

Um,

if you go into a battle with that on, and then summon the mimic tier and then remove it from your thing, it'll it'll still have it.

And then it'll just like,

the boss will only focus on the mimic tier, but you do need him to get some attacks in because I feel like sometimes some of those attacks are going to be the attacks that not that aren't going to take him down, but are going to be the one that enable you to do it.

Right.

I'm feeling conflicted about it because I feel like I'm like kind of

maybe it's my build and because I'm also not good at the game.

I'm competent, you know, and I kind of know how to play this game.

I play these kind of games, but like I'm like not like excelling at this game.

But I feel like I'm like,

my mimic tier is so effective at drawing aggro that I'm really in no threat in these, like I'm, I'm, my, I'd rather just say the opposite.

My character is in no danger during these encounters.

Like I have the leeway to kind of step away and and and heal at will.

And some of these encounters, I don't feel like I like really experienced because I just kind of walked in and kind of stomped some of these bosses.

And I check my level.

I'm I'm not like over-leveled.

I think just like, so, so, what I'm basically saying is that I feel like I might,

and this is by no means a judgment on how anyone plays any game.

I don't give a shit.

I'm talking about me personally and my own experience.

I kind of feel like I'm going to stop using it.

Wow.

And I'm going to, not that I'm going to stop using Spirit Ashes entirely, but I think I'm going to switch to something else because I just kind of feel like he's

with my strength build and with my lion's claw ash of war, he is so good at drawing aggro and also inflicting like enough damage where

these fights are relatively a lot easier than I feel like they should be.

You know what I mean?

And like, I, like, part of the fun for me, I, I, I never summon other players in boss fights.

I, I just want to take them on myself.

But part of it is, I do want to feel like I've like learned how to do the fight.

I've, I've kind of mastered its moveset.

And like, to me, that's part of the experience.

It was more fun for me to like lose a bunch to Radon and then fucking beat Radon versus going in and

more got, or I'm sorry, Moog the Omen, I almost beat by accident.

I like kind of walked in and was like, oh, here we go.

And I just like fuck, you know what I mean?

Like it wasn't,

it wasn't even all that much for me.

So I maybe also need to switch out my Ash of War or something like that.

But yeah, I think I do need to

swap that some bitch out of there.

I beat Radon first try and was just confused by it because it felt like I didn't understand what was happening.

Yeah.

and still ended up beating him.

And I was like, what, what, wait, what, what was this?

That was my experience with, with both Godfrey first Elden Lord Golden Shade and Moog the Omen.

Both of them, I was like, I just walked in and I beat him on my first try.

And I, again, I don't really feel like I, you know, I wasn't even necessarily prepared for it.

I didn't even know what was happening really.

And then, yeah, so it feels like a much less rewarding experience.

But I also think that Elden Ring

does something to you where your first try is if you can get through it without, I think that you you don't have fear on your first try.

Right.

I go in there expecting to lose.

I'm like, oh, here's a boss fight.

Okay.

And then you go into a crater of like, I can't beat this dude.

And there are so many

attempts after that where you aren't nearly as close as you were on your first one.

Interesting.

And then finally you learn because it's just like, you're not, you're just like, you're kind of like in a place of flow and bliss where you're just like watching them attack and like kind of doing stuff naturally.

and then you enter into like an overthinking phase.

Um, I will be interested to see how your um

commitment to no mimic tier uh treats you during the millennia fight.

Oh, I will completely like if I feel like I need it, I'll like fucking pull that reserve shoot.

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm just like, I'm, but I'm just saying, like, I'm gonna try this approach for a little bit, and I feel like, oh, wait, I actually need this for different, yeah, you know,

because for certain encounters, then I will.

I get the feeling like you didn't really do it like with

like with summoned players.

Yeah.

Well, again, I'm not judging anyone on that.

I don't give a shit.

I'm talking about my own experience.

I will say that like a lot of the times, like sometimes there were bosses where I'd hire, you know, not hire, I'd summon

two players and then it was just kind of like, okay, like we actually,

I didn't even really get to do I didn't even really get to do it.

Yeah.

But then sometimes I was like, we barely, we barely did the thing.

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Like we've

all three three of us are bad.

We didn't do it.

We almost died right now, but we did do it.

It's possible, Nick, that you're just good at the game and you're not giving yourself enough credit.

I'm for sure not going to.

I'm bad at the game.

And

if that mimic tier wasn't in the game, there's like no way I would have finished it.

There's just like no way.

And I say that now, but like.

Because there's also a phase that Heather, I feel like maybe didn't highlight.

There's the phase where

maybe you did.

There's a phase in every sort of like Elden Ring or like Souls Like boss fight that's like,

now I know I can do it.

And like, it's, there's like a, like, I know that I can do this.

I just have to wait for it to happen.

It's not going to be right now.

It's not going to be the next one, but it might be the one after that.

And if it's not that one, you just know that you can do it.

Cause like there was a

just a nameless knight in an ever jail in the DLC that was fucking me up so fucking hard.

And I was like, how is this boss harder than the bosses I've killed?

What's this fucking deal?

And then I started to just like, you know, really, really watch him.

And he has like a predictable set of movements.

He has like some like

attacks that has to like, he has to like, not charge up, but like

attacks where he can't move.

And I was like, that's my zone.

That's when I'm drinking a flask.

That's when I'm charging up my attack.

So then by the time he gets over to me, it's hitting him.

But like, there's that, that's, that sweet spot, the, I think I can do this, is a, that's a nice zone.

Yeah, I love that.

Like, I, I had that feeling all the time in Sekura.

I was like, okay, I have this figured out.

I am just going to like lose a few more times, but I can get their health bar to, you know, whatever, three quarters of the way down or seven eighths of the way down.

And then you can, like, I could, I could tell, I could diagnose each time when I fucked up.

I was like, I got too greedy there.

I got too tentative there.

Or like, you know, I, I jumped instead of rolling or whatever the fuck.

You know what I mean?

Like, I did, I did one, one dumb thing.

And like, yeah, we can diagnose that.

That is satisfying in and of itself, knowing that the end is in sight.

And you just got to just hammer away at it a little bit more.

Anyway, I just, the game is a, the game is an, and, uh, just absolutely

unparalleled masterpiece.

It is, it is so fucking good.

I have so much appreciation for it with this playthrough.

Three strength builds in the room here.

Yeah, that might be the other thing.

Maybe I'll try a different build, but I, I like the strength build.

It's very fun.

I'm using the fucking, I'm using the, I'm cursing too much.

Um, I get riled up.

I start cursing.

I start throwing random fuckings in there.

I don't need to be doing that.

Did Natalie watch me about that with help recently?

I'm using the Berserk sword or the Cloud Strife sword.

It's a colossal sword called the Great Sword, and I'm using that.

And it's so fun to use.

It's such an awesome weapon,

to two-hand.

It's so powerful.

And then also,

I'm running around wearing

Fia's dress.

And

what's the guy's name?

Is it G?

Is it D?

Who's the guy?

The one-letter guy.

D.

I'm wearing D's mask.

And yeah, just look absolutely look unhinged.

Look like if this guy, if I sat next to you on the bus, you would move seats.

But that's so, that sword is so fun to use.

I'm really enjoying it.

And I know they had your own clothes in the

game.

This is an absolutely true story.

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

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

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

That's a true story.

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Can I touch on something else real quick?

Something non-Elden Ring related.

So there's an article on Polygon that was out this week, this past week,

that was about

Christopher Tin

and how

Christopher Christopher Tin is a composer who was the first game composer to win a Grammy.

And it was for his composition that was Baba Yetu, that is the main title music in Civilization 4.

It's a story by Nicole Carpenter, and there's an interview with Christopher.

And it's interesting.

It gives some good context for it.

But it also just wanted to be to, you know, we'll put a link in the show notes.

So I more want an excuse to play this track again.

This is the title track for the game, and it is.

I mean, I'll just play it and then they'll talk about it, its connection to the game itself.

All right, I want to play all of it.

We can only play so much of it.

It's so fucking good.

I mean, this is like my favorite.

I think I played this when we did our

Triforce of Main Title themes.

This is one of my favorite main title themes ever.

I think it's just such a great composition.

It's such a

what apparently Christopher Tin was asked to do, this is from the interview, Fire Axis actually asked me to come up with something that was a fusion between African gospel vocals, orchestra, and big cinematic percussion.

So the overall sound world was already established from the start.

I decided I wanted the music to take a more joyous tone as that was already more idiomatic to African choral music.

The lyrics are actually a translation of the Lord's Prayer.

So, which is also a cool layer to this, but also speaks to kind of like the game's sort of, you know,

the idea of just like universality and

cultures combining and then also just kind of like the mess of colonialism, colonialism, which is an inescapable part of a simulation about world history.

And I don't know, I think it's just such a beautiful composition.

This was just a nice read.

And it was also interesting to talk about him,

to hear him talk about rather, the progression of games gradually getting respect from, you know, the media at large and how in 2005, there would have been no idea, no, like when the game came out, there would have been no way that any, that this would be on the map for Grammy voters.

And then in 2011, when

the Grammy for putting it on his own album,

the culture was in a completely different place.

And now there are concerts where you can see orchestras playing game soundtracks.

And Tar is so mad to be a part of that.

Lydia Tarr, the character, is.

Understandably.

That for her is low art.

It's an incredible ending.

Incredible movie.

We just spoiled the ending of Tar, but it's a masterpiece everyone should see.

I don't think knowing the ending of Tar like ruins the movie.

There's crazier things.

It's an incredible ending.

It's such an amazing last show.

I agree.

I think that is like one of the most perfect movies that's come out in the last 10 years.

I think it's amazing.

I don't feel that way at all.

I love it.

I could not love it more.

But I'm saying like the end, it's not like a movie that has such a crazy third act twist or something that like

it's not going to hinder your enjoyment of the movie.

I think it's a great movie

to put on.

One thing I wish was in the interview that isn't touched on, but and yet, you know, I mentioned with the

interviewer only had so much time, but I was like, how did Christopher Tin get this job?

Apparently, it was lead designer Soren Johnson's college roommate.

So that was like one of those things.

He was like, hey, man, you want to make this track?

Like, I don't know, sure, fucking whatever.

And then he wins a Grammy.

And he wins a Grammy.

Life's wild.

Imagine being like a guy who can just do something like that and be like, oh, is this what you're hoping for?

And it's like the best shit shit they've ever heard.

It's so crazy.

All right.

Thanks for indulging me with that.

Hey, it's time to get back to Tears of the Kingdom console aesthetics part two.

Again, we are judging purely the aesthetic qualities of the console hardware, the console itself,

not the controllers, and we're not talking about handhelds.

Last week, we got up through the fifth console generation, which is PlayStation 1 and 64 and Saturn, and we're picking up with Generation 6 right at the start of the 20th century.

But before we do that, Heather, you had a late ad.

Yeah, So in the Discord,

somebody was complaining or questioning

where the Philips CDI would have ranked.

Phillips CDI is an interesting one.

We should talk about it.

I think

it is enough of a console.

It's a major company.

It's Philips.

Yeah.

It's a major attempt to break into the market that Sony had just established.

Hey, you can do, it can be more than Sega and Nintendo.

Like, it can be more than Sega, Nintendo, and Atari.

It can be more than this because Sony stepped in and got an immediate footprint in the industry.

And I think everybody, like 3DO and Phillips, like after that, were like trying to do the same thing.

And I think it's worth looking at the CDI and deciding what tier it would be in.

Let's bring that some bitch up.

Let's get a little like it.

Let's look at the, at the, at the Philips CDI for a moment.

Was the CDI one of the one, those ones, by the way, Matt has so many browser tabs open, it is giving me anxiety.

They're for the show.

I believe you.

I'm just saying it's a lot of tabs.

Look, one of them is like Lola Bunny.

Just leave it alone.

I don't know that I've ever seen this system.

Like actually looked at.

I mean, I've seen it, but I don't know that I've looked at it.

Here's my question.

Yeah, it does make sense.

Here's my question for the Philips CDI.

Was this one where there was one unit or was this like a because some of these get these had a licensable hardware that went into a bunch of different set-top boxes.

And I don't know if there were, I believe the 3DO was an actual dedicated console, but I'm not sure if the CDI was that.

I guess it was just a console.

Some of these look different, though.

Yeah, I mean, there were other variants,

but I think that there was the initial release CDI.

Got it.

So we'll go off of this one.

This is not the top.

This is the front loader, not the top loader.

I'm astonished at how fucking pedestrian this looks.

It just, again, it just looks like dad's VCR.

It just looks like a plain CD

special VCR.

It looks like a plain CD player from 1995.

It for sure did.

Like nothing.

Yeah.

Not even where the vents are on this box

evokes game system.

This doesn't evoke anything.

I mean, I think that was probably...

Partly by design.

They were kind of like, we want to make this thing feel innocuous.

Like it is just like, hey, that's it.

You don't have to tell your guests at your fancy party that you have a game console, you know?

God forbid.

Yeah, there's just a VCR in the house that we watch porno of.

It's not some gaming console for kids.

We jacked off when we put this thing out.

This is plain.

I think it's so boring.

I just don't, is this above a D tier?

It's just like it's nothing.

It's a D tier.

It's, yeah, aesthetically, is it better than, well,

it's not as good.

Yeah, it's 3DO size.

Maybe it's an F from an aesthetic standpoint.

Oh, no, it's not an F.

All right, well, that is just kind of nothing.

It's just kind of inert.

And I almost want to give it like not even a grade, but I think that that belongs in D.

It certainly is not up there.

If we have Nintendo 64 in C tier, it's not going about D tier.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's a D tier thing.

Okay.

But it is not Jaguar.

Yes.

It can be right next to the

3DO where it belongs.

Yeah, that's great.

That makes a lot of sense.

Did we do Neo Geo while we're

also didn't do neo geo we got to talk about neo geo we do have we're not going to get to the we're not going to get to the rest it's just so we're going to be there's going to be

a part three no no we're finishing this god damn it

uh neo geo is a good-looking skin it is really good looking kind of good it is cool and i like that it comes with a stick it's fucking good looking

cool it's really cool so just uh this kind of has a a rounded sort of um

like skate ramp sort of quality to it

uh it's like like a little bit of a of a swoosh it looks uh it looks like uh

it the it has the profile of a door jam yes very much the top of a fax machine kind of yeah and the the we're not judging uh you know

We're not judging cartridges, but the thing I did like the console the cartridge slot is so fat because it basically we're taking whole arcade boards and just plugging them in there So it's so big.

It's like the size of a VHS input.

It was also astonishingly expensive.

Yeah, so expensive.

That was like, that was my idea of a luxury item was a Neo Geo, an SNK Neo Geo.

Like, didn't it retail for $7.99 as like

an opener?

Right.

And the games were expensive, too.

The games were like over $100

in the 90s.

This, but I, you know, I, I guess, I've, again, I've seen a Neo Geo, but I've never really stared at it.

And I think this is a sleek, minimalist system in the vein of Sega systems.

Like, it seems to have that same

aesthetic quality.

Yeah.

And

I think this is a

B-tier console.

I would put it in B.

That feels about right for me.

You know, all my Neo Geo reps, basically all of them are on the arcade cabinet.

I've messed around with the console a little bit, but, you know, not in like...

I've never owned one.

Maybe I should just get one.

The only experience I have with Neo Geo at all is somebody, a kid that I knew had a Neo Geo pocket color.

Oh, yeah.

And I was like, what the, like, a lot of us were like, what the fuck is that?

Why do you have that?

We all have Game Boy colors.

What are you doing?

The Neo Geo pocket was a kind of a big system.

It looked big.

I was just looking at it.

Yeah.

So where we landed on this one?

B.

That's a B tier.

This is in the B tier.

Okay.

So that's all we missed from last week yeah so the window is closed for further suggestions if we did miss one we didn't we never figured out what the a virtual boy was i don't think virtual boy i belongs here it's not a it's not a handheld i know it's not a handheld but it's it's also not a console How is it not a console?

It has exclusive games for it.

If I may, if I may, if the Vectrex is a console, which is a standalone display unit that you put the games in, and the Virtual Boy is a standalone display unit that you put the games in, and you can't fucking walk around with it.

What else could it be?

Let's talk about the Virtual Boy.

Wait, let me let me know.

Let me ask you something, Heather.

Yes!

You're arguing to include this.

Are you doing so so we can put it in the fucking F tier

and then just move on immediately?

It goes in F.

It sucks.

It sucks.

No one likes it.

We were mad mad at you for showing it to us.

Why did they do this?

What an insane system.

If you haven't, if you're like a listener who hasn't ever looked at a virtual boy, God bless you.

Look at a virtual boy.

It is a

headset that you can't put on your head attached to war of the world style legs.

And it stands on your table.

The instruction menu tells you to hunch over and stare into it.

Like you can't put it at head level.

You can't just like put your head into it and stare at it at head level you have to you have to bend your own back and stoop over like like a like an old crone in a rumpel stiltskin story

it is bright red

and it it is an f-tier design the controller sucks not part of it but the controller absolutely sucks it is baffling the games look like shit i the only thing i like about it is i do like the bright red

child look at the child and the way the child has to play He's in distress.

He's really

full-grown man.

But his posture has shrunk him to a child's proportions.

It is a F-tier system.

Yeah, I think that's an F-tier.

I kind of do like the red.

I like the red too, but only

I like the red.

I'd rather look at, if we'll be honest, I'd rather look at this than a CDI.

Like I was going to have something in my shelf.

Look at it.

Look at it climbing the charts.

Look at the virtual boy.

You kicked it all the way into the mud and it stood up and it said, I don't give up.

Maybe we could put the CDI down to F and put the virtual boy in D.

No, slam it in.

Slam the virtual boy in F.

It doesn't deserve to be any higher, but

it is.

Yeah,

it's at least interesting, which is more than I can say for some of those in the D tier.

What about the Neo Geo CD?

Ooh.

Because we talked about Neo Geo.

Now, I don't know if there was a proper, if there was a proper standalone CD or if this was an add-on.

I think it was a standalone system, right?

Am I wrong about that?

By the way, I looked up Neo Geo Games cost retail for $200 in 1997.

Oh, my God.

Which is $391 in today's dollars for a game.

For one game.

For one game, you're paying the price of a console.

I want to say, I know that we're trying not to go backwards, right?

But I do want to say, if we're including the Neo Geo CD,

it seems strange that we wouldn't include the Sega CDX.

All right, we should do that too.

Because the Sega CDX

is

a standalone Genesis and CD system.

And while we're talking X's,

should we talk about the PSX?

Oh, God, I love the fucking PSX.

The PSX is

my number one aesthetic console.

Look, let's just do this quickly.

We'll do these three and then we'll move on.

I feel how you two must feel about me all the time.

I want to strangle both of you.

Wait, wait, wait, hold on.

Hold on.

So, three editions.

Three editions.

Okay, move on.

Technically five because we just added two before that.

The Neo Geo CD, the Sega CDX, and the PSX.

Let's do this real fast.

But wasn't the PSX, wasn't that PlayStation 2 era?

Was it PS2 or was that a PS1?

PlayStation 2 era.

Okay, the one doing

the next one.

So it's only two editions.

Great.

The Neo Geo CD, I don't think, is as pleasing as the PlayStation 2.

Yeah, it does look look very much so.

I'm not impressed.

I think this is a C.

Yeah, it's a C.

Just kind of boring.

Yeah, the thing that I like about it, I like the little bridge.

I do like the bridge.

It's kind of got this

mark in the top, yeah.

For the top-loading CD.

All right, it is a

C-tier system.

All right, there we go.

Great.

Flushing out the C-tier a little bit.

Okay.

Now look at this fucking thing.

This does look cool.

It does look really cool.

I also want to say that you should see it sized.

The Sega CDX, of course.

Yeah.

The Sega CDX.

You should see it sized because it, it, it doesn't.

This was portable CD size.

Yeah, it looks like about the size of a Sony Discman.

Like, look at, like, that's...

No, that's.

I don't know what that is.

Well, that's what, that's it with a 32X jammed in top of it.

So if you can see a Sega CDX

compared to other systems at the time, it was, it's small, it almost looks like a portable CD player from the 90s.

And it is,

it's aesthetically,

it's sleek.

Yeah, it's not much bigger.

You know, it looks like two DVD cases stacked on top of each other.

It's about the size of a PS2 Slim.

Really cool sizing.

I love the sizing on the machine, and I love the way it looks.

Nobody I know, not even myself, I didn't even own one of these fucking things.

Like, this is not a thing that I own, but it's a good-looking system.

It's really cool.

I like the curvature at the front.

I do too.

It kind of, if I can just get in my spooky goth bag for a second, please turn it upside down.

You might mistake this thing for a damn tombstone.

Oh, yeah.

It does look like an inverted tombstone.

Yeah.

All right.

Not to get too spooky over here.

No, I don't think so.

I think this might be an A tier.

This is.

This is, I think, the Japanese or European version of the CDX.

um

i think the american one had a yeah a slightly different logo at the top that logo is a little bit less pleasing on the american one i just wanted i just wanted to give it like since famicom and nintendo are slightly different yeah i just wanted to say i i think the cdx logo is slightly different no the logo here that looks like a that looks like a generic piece of of you know uh consumer electronics but that looks like a sorny or whatever but with this yeah with the sega logo on the top it's a fucking good looking system i i concur i i think that that might be an a tier maybe a b tier whoa i'll give it b yeah put it let's put it in b what do you think matt um

i it doesn't i if i'm being honest it doesn't move me it doesn't it's not really doing anything for me but um i don't dislike it well it's definitely not going an a then no i think it i think it's fine in b i'm happy with it in b that feels like if you're a little lukewarm i'm a little bit more enthused heather lens it in b that's looking greater than there all right great okay so now we're done with the new additions and we're simply cannot go back.

All right, great.

So we're almost at the hour mark.

Let's get to this week's episode.

Okay, the first one up actually is the PSX.

Wow.

Okay.

We're starting with that, not the PS2.

God damn.

God damn.

It's really cool looking.

That is a fucking S-tier system.

Do you want to describe what the looks of this are for our audio listeners?

Me?

Yeah.

The most expensive white plastic you have ever seen.

It looks like

it looks like even now, it looks like something from the future.

Yeah, it's a little too tall, which is part of what's intriguing about it.

It looks like a like a desktop computer.

I don't mean like the ones that were like not the tower case, but there used to be a form factor where it was a desktop, which was a thing you would sit on top of your desk and you put a monitor on top of.

That's what it looks like.

Yeah.

Or like a fax machine.

It is wide.

It is

shiny.

It's like a highly reflective

white plastic.

It was both the PlayStation 2 and

a

DVR.

So back in the early 2000s, if you wanted to record something off cable, you could use either a VCR or a digital video recorder, which had a hard drive on it.

And then you could watch that content later.

That, of course, is not something we have to worry about anymore.

But Sony was like, what if we made a PlayStation that could be the centerpiece of your living room entertainment and it could record your cable shows?

It came with a fucking remote, which was also wild for a game system at the time.

And the, I know we're not including it, but the white controller that's paired with it is gorgeous.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it is a,

it is an audacious

system that looks extremely adult for the era that it was released.

And if you saw it in person, it also looked really, really, really expensive.

This was like mythical to me when I

PSX.

Yeah, because I don't, well, it wasn't released here, right?

No.

No, it was only released in Japan.

And it was the, you know, it wasn't too long after, well, I guess it was a few years after the PS2 proper.

So it was kind of mid-through its generation, but also I think it was one of the first.

Maybe the Xbox was already.

Like, like,

it had a, the, the main thing is it had like a built-in hard drive, which is pretty huge.

I also want to say that as a Sony fan, this was also one of the very first devices, if not the first device to use the cross-media bar operating system, which was something that uh bravia TVs used and then PlayStation 3 ended up using that's sort of like you swipe left and right through all of your available options for content or gaming or photos or whatever um but yeah this had the cross media bar on it which also was on the um the psp the photos tab on any of those things is always like who's putting stuff on here i i did you did because i was like i have to see what happens interesting and and much like the news channel on the wii like it had like a bunch of music and uh like

fade like cross fade things interesting was like specific to the PlayStation 3 I just like I never I never used

the the novelty I will say the novelty cuz like the PSP I didn't have a digital camera the PSP was the first like portable device I had that you could like put photographs on like the novelty of like oh I can put a photo on here was like kind of something yeah interesting Same thing as UMDs I was like oh wow I can watch a movie on this thing you know I think we should bring UMDs back

oh look at that Wikipedia says it was the first device to use the cross media bar wow there you go yeah I think just purely from the aesthetics of the console I I love how clean this looks.

I wish more things looked like this.

And I think this, I agree with Heather, this is an S tier.

It's a fucking S tier, man.

It's so good.

I agree.

It's beautiful.

It's gorgeous.

And it was something that when I was a kid, when I had heard about this, I was like, wait.

Is it like, I like truly just wasn't even sure if it was real.

It looked so crazy to me.

Yeah.

So it's up there in S tier in the top tier with what we had from last week.

It's the Genesis slash Mega Drive, the Super Famicom, not the Super NES, the PlayStation 1, and now the PSX.

I think it's funny that we talked about the PSX before we talked about the PlayStation 2.

Yeah, we kind of went out of sequence.

Yeah, I forgot.

Well, I kind of, I had the tab in the wrong.

It would be funny if we didn't do PS2.

We'll save it for last.

Yeah, we'll save it for last.

PS2 looks great.

I do think it's a really cool-looking console.

It's the best-looking console of all time.

I don't know if it's my favorite-looking console of all time.

I think it is the best-looking console of all time.

I don't feel the same way.

In fact, I liked how the PlayStation 1 looks more than the PlayStation 2, but I do think the PlayStation 2 looks cool.

I do think the PS2 logo, the Blocky logo is cool.

I like that it has the proper PlayStation logo on the front as well, that that was retained.

When I saw the PlayStation 2,

when I saw the PlayStation 2 standing up on its little stand, I was like, holy shit.

Like, it was the first time that I, like, also, this was the first time that I ever did a midnight,

like a, like a stay overnight

in a parking garage waiting for,

I think it was Sears to open

because everywhere else was like sold out.

But Sears was going to get a few and every nobody thought of Sears.

And I got to the Sears and there were already like

five people in line at like 8 p.m.

the night before.

And it was like, people were like, yeah, they're definitely getting a few.

We don't know how many because this was also a console that when it was released was an extremely short supply.

Yes.

Like you couldn't find a PlayStation 2 anywhere.

So

given that it, it was the first mass-produced home console that looked like it was for adults.

I think it would, I think this is the transition moment for gaming.

Well, the other element of that, beyond its aesthetic, is, of course, it played DVDs.

And so many people, you know, the big part of why DVDs became so omnipresent is because people were like, well,

I can watch them on this game console that I own.

And that was a huge part of it.

I, I, I, it's not S tier for me, but I will defer to the judgment, the, the judgment of the room with the triumvirate.

When I would, I would put it probably in A tier if it was just me.

When we started this, I said there's only one console that belongs in S tier on our first on the episode last week.

And I was like, it's the PlayStation 2.

And then, you know, as time has gone on, I've allowed other things into S tier.

If there's an S Plus, it's PlayStation 2.

Wow.

I mean, I do love the way it looks.

I love it.

It's very nostalgic to me.

It's like the PlayStation 2 was very, very important in my house.

It was used for several hours every single day by my brothers and I to the point where

it stopped working.

Like we used it so much and then had to get a slim.

And the slim is the one that I still have.

Love the slim.

Are you evaluating the slim as a different thing?

Great question.

Are they two things are they two things or one thing?

we haven't done any other console revisions yeah it's true but is the playstation 2 slim a revision or is it like its own thing i think it's very much a revision okay yeah okay then we don't have to include it um but i but it is like one of the cooler revisions ever because they made it so small yeah it's a beautiful it to me doesn't make tiny guy doesn't make it doesn't make sense yeah because the the playstation 2 is like it's not like monstrously thick or whatever but imagine like the well the because the playstation 5 Slim is out now and it's not that much smaller than the PlayStation 5, but right.

So it's like

not that crazy to me, but like imagine if the PlayStation 5 Slim was as thin as the PlayStation 2 Slim.

You'd be like, what the fuck?

How do you do that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, the PlayStation 2 Slim is wild.

And

it's like the thickness of a D V D case.

Yes.

It's like thick as a switch.

Yeah.

Practically.

It's like if you took your phone and turned it to the size of a Cheez-It, you'd be like, I don't quite understand how they were able to get this engineering working.

And then the next thing I'm going to say is, oops, I ate my phone.

Don't want to look at the camera roll on that thing.

Yeah, see my lower intestines.

I'm happy with it.

I'm letting it go in S tier from S plus.

I vote A and I will defer to the room.

Oh, my God.

Do you guys not remember what game consoles look like?

I do remember what they look like.

Yeah, I remember the PlayStation 1.

I had had one I thought it looked better than the PS2 I was kind of I thought it was a little bit of a downgrade if the PlayStation 1 is

in S tier PlayStation 2 to me looks better than the PlayStation 1 and has to then be included in S.

And then I am sorry to say this is the final Sony console in the S tier.

What?

Interesting.

Oh, yeah, you know what?

Maybe I'll agree.

I might agree too.

Well, we'll work

together.

But next week in the week.

PlayStation 2,

PSX, and the original PlayStation.

We salute you.

Yeah.

Excellent-looking system.

Really cool design.

That was a thing.

Like, Sony, you know,

they sometimes had shit that was very quirky or just didn't fucking work, but it always looked awesome.

Yes.

Unbelievable.

This next one here is then...

Oh, do we want to do the GameCube?

Yeah, we should talk GameCube.

Oh, GameCube and Xbox.

GameCube and Xbox.

We've got to talk Dreamcast, though.

Dreamcast pre-dates.

Oh, yeah, let's go back to the Dreamcast, actually, because you know what?

I got a spicy take about this one, actually.

Wait, Dreamcast didn't come out before.

Oh, yeah, it did.

It did, yeah, yeah.

9999.

Yeah, it did.

You want to hear my spicy take?

Yeah, please.

What is it?

I think the Sega Dreamcast is one of the most gorgeous-looking systems we have.

I love this.

I'd love to hear it.

I love this.

I'd love to hear it.

I love it.

Look at it.

It's perfect looking.

Yeah, jamming up in S tier.

Let's move on with our live.

There's no way, right?

It's in the S.

It's so cool, okay.

So, it's just,

it's beautiful.

I'm going to expound.

I have my issues with the controller, but we're not evaluating the controller.

No, the controller is separate.

We're talking about the console itself.

And I think the console is, it's what the PS2 is to black, the Dreamcast is to white.

I just want to say, again,

one more time as the Dreamcast person.

Yes.

Can you imagine Sega putting out this system and being like, we fucking did it, guys.

We fucking nailed it across the board.

One of the best launch slates ever.

I got a Dreamcast at launch with four games.

They were all fucking good.

You could plug a fucking Ethernet cable into this thing in 1999.

Like, people were like, like, Sega was like, there is not a box we have not checked with this thing.

I have a meme homework assignment for somebody who's listening to the show because I'm not going to do this.

I want you to take the clip.

From the end of Uncut Gems, where it seems like everything worked out.

I want you to put Sega over Adam Sandwich

and then figure out the rest of it.

I won't spoil it, but you get it.

But

for that, for the system to be hacked almost immediately.

Yes.

And for Sony to be like, fuck it, we're making it a DVD player.

Like those two things back to back, it's like, oh my God.

But DVDs.

Like getting shot in the stomach.

Yeah.

And then

Sony walks over to you and also shoots you in the head.

I think they'd also lost so much brand equity in Sega at this point.

I think there was they had lost a lot of consumer goodwill because of the Saturn, which I know is a system you like, but it just did not have the software support that the PlayStation did.

In America.

And America.

And I think the

I think there was that.

The other thing is that they really were cucked by Sony and North America releasing Final Fantasy VIII on the same day.

Like that was like a huge part of

them taking the wind out of the sails of the launch.

But all that said, at the time, I'm playing...

Soul Calibur on this sum bitch.

And I'm like, this is going to rule the earth.

Like, I can't believe that a home console game can look this fucking good and play this well.

This really feels like the next generation.

This feels like a totally different thing.

And then the PS2 comes out like, you know, about a year later and complete leads at its launch.

Yeah.

I had fond memories of playing the Dreamcast as a kid.

I didn't own one myself.

I now have one, of course, because of Heather Ann Campbell.

I wish I had it plugged in.

I should just plug that fucker in.

You want to hear a conspiracy theory?

Please.

I wonder if Sony was the one that cracked the Dreamcast.

Sure, I'd buy that.

I love the, I mean, I keep talking about the controllers.

I don't like the controller, but I love the color of the buttons, can I say?

Four ports.

Love the ports.

Love the

power and the open button on opposite sides.

I love these, like the little, like weird, like beveled sort of like angular quality of the

lid.

I like the triangle.

that disappears into a circle and then comes out the other side of the triangle.

Yes, that's exactly.

And then, of course, the Dreamcast logo, the little spiral.

How fun is that?

Really, really great.

Very Junji E.

S tier.

It's in the S tier.

Let's go to...

Do you want to do GameCube first?

Do you want to do the Xbox?

Xbox canonically comes in next.

I guess we'll see.

Yeah, let's do Xbox.

I think it's real fucking ugly.

This is the thing.

It's also so huge.

Like what you remember of getting, or like what you know now of the PlayStation 5, like, I can't believe how beefy this boy is.

That was the feeling of the Xbox back in the day, the original Xbox.

It was so huge and so heavy it's like it's the size of a full-grown man's torso

enormous the font sucks the font is so ugly I hate the black and green I hate it I this might be

I don't think it's quite f

I do think the big X on top kind of works

shitty I don't know.

Maybe it's,

I don't think I can go above D on this.

I aggressively don't like looking at it.

I just want us to think about at the time of, I don't, because I'm not here to defend this.

Yeah.

this was released in 2001.

Let's think of the era for a second, right?

This was sort of like, what if, like, this was the most powerful thing in your fucking house?

I didn't have one of these.

I was envious of the Xbox because of some of the games that I would see my friends playing and talking about.

We're not talking about the games.

We're not talking about the library.

We're rating purely on the aesthetic.

If some of the buttons are black,

why aren't all the buttons fucking black?

You know what I mean?

Like, why is the

fucking the

eject button and the power button that silver?

Why isn't it green?

If it's going to be a different color, it should just be green.

Let's keep, let's keep that going.

I agree.

The silver buttons are, they, they, they, uh, they don't quite sit in.

I, I, I, I think that's a good call.

You know, my, my memory of the Xbox, I did get an Xbox shortly after launch and

loved playing Halo.

Like, the, the, the Halo one is just like the, you know, I've talked before about how I played through the, the whole campaign co-op with my then roommate, and it was one of my favorite gaming experiences.

I got the Xbox,

so I was, I would, I had dropped out of college, I was working an IT job at that college.

I got, I got, just got hired back,

it was a little awkward, and um, no, it's fine, no one cared.

Uh, and then I got fired, and the day I got fired, I took the bus to Toys R Us and I bought an Xbox.

Hell yes, dude,

that fucking rocks.

I love, I love that, and also, I feel like that's how it's, I mean,

when I got my Series S, which we'll get to, I didn't intend to buy one.

Yeah.

They just didn't have PlayStation 5's day of, and I couldn't wait for it to get to my house.

Went to a Target.

They had them because they had a bunch of them.

And I walked out with one.

Wow.

So easy.

I want to say, if you cover up the Xbox logo on this thing, right?

If you're, if you're both.

If you like put your thumb over both of those logos, you kind of do that on the big screen here.

You can't get a fucking this machine.

it looks like a

it looks like something you buy on Alibaba.

Yes, or you're right.

You're absolutely right.

It is an atrocious system.

Yeah, it looks like a glue trap for rats.

Yeah, it's it is

This is an F-tier console.

Yeah, it's a cheap piece of mail-order shit.

I don't know if I'd put it in

But am I gonna fight for it and it go into D?

I don't care.

To me, it doesn't look too much different than the 3DO or even the CDI those are like boring though this is like ugly yeah okay but that's interesting distinctions I could be happy with it in the F and what do we have in is that the magna box odyssey ind what's the one that's oh that's what the two knobs the or is that a coleco vision that that's pong that's pong and then we got like the coleco vision and tell that to those to me like are more like aesthetically pleasing than the the original xbox and i i can really i can i can hear some of the comments they hate xbox they never talk about xbox not true we don't hate it actually we actually like it uh but we hate the way it looks And there is a system coming up that I would put much higher.

That's an Xbox system that I put much, much higher on

the design aesthetics list, but the original Xbox looks like shit.

Can we get Matt, maybe you can, I don't know if the Bing search is like Xbox,

GameCube, PS2 size comparison, just so we can see them next to each other.

Because again, if you had all three of these or some combination on your on your entertainment center, it was kind of crazy how big that looked.

Look at how big that was.

Look at how massive it is.

It's absurd.

That's not the PS2 Slim.

That's a regular PS2.

Yeah.

It dwarfs it.

It sucks.

It sucks to look at it.

It's the size of three GameCube.

Also, now that you can see it from

now that you can see it from above, you can also see that it's rounded.

It's not square.

No, the rounded aspect was really unpleasant.

It doesn't even look rounded.

It looks like a bloated battery.

That looks like incorrect.

That doesn't look right.

It ate a big dinner.

I mean, mean a little bit.

God, the PlayStation 2 is gorgeous.

Hell yeah.

Fuck, that font is gorgeous.

I never had this little stand here.

I didn't have that.

I had that stand.

Did you like that?

Oh, my God.

That stand made it look so fucking sleek.

I was always afraid that the disc was going to fall out and then be trapped inside.

Legitimate fear.

What?

I don't think that ever happened.

I don't think it ever happened.

But I was like, if the, what if the little disc tray was, you know, a little shaky on the way in or for some reason, maybe there's an earthquake and it shook the disc out of the tray.

Right.

Because

you're just setting it down on the tray.

It didn't have like a thing it locked into.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I get, I get your.

It was a slot loader.

It's, I'm, I was, I'm scared thinking about it now.

Okay.

All right.

We got it.

We got to move on.

That's the first generation we covered.

We got to keep going.

Okay.

We're not even done.

Uh, GameCube.

GameCube is gorgeous.

I love how it looks.

I think it's so cool.

Boy.

I love it.

I love that it's, that it's approaching a cube.

Uh, You know, it's not quite a cube, but it's approaching a cube's proportions.

I think that's really pleasing.

I like that it's small.

It's compact.

People have different opinions about the handle.

I like the handle on the back, even though I think it's ultimately non-functional, but I like the idea behind it.

Can you imagine

walking down the street, seeing somebody holding a fucking GameCube by the handle?

Like, what for?

Hey, man, what'd you bring for lunch?

Oh, no, this is just my console.

Yeah.

I'm taking it to another location for some reason.

I'm not going to play Mario Party 3 today, dog.

I think that, so my pet theory is that Nintendo takes some design cues from Apple, and the original Macintosh has a handle on it.

Like the 85 Mac has a place where you can pick it up and put it down.

And then

Steve Jobs, after he leaves Apple, he starts next computer or next.

And he makes a cube.

And I think that

Nintendo,

my theory is that Nintendo was like, we should make a cube like the next cube.

Oh, that's interesting.

Can we pull up the next cube?

Which is just called next

NEXT.

Oh, next.

I mean, not this.

No, yet.

No, not the next cube we're going to evaluate here.

This is a different piece of hardware.

Yeah.

So.

Oh, this sucks.

Yeah.

My theory is that they were like, what if we made

this

but a game console?

I can buy that, yeah.

Actually, now that I'm looking at it for a little bit longer, I kind of like it.

It's kind of cool.

Heather, do you like the movie Steve Jobs, the Danny Boyle movie?

Dude, I saw that movie so many times in the theater, you would be astonished.

I probably wouldn't, knowing you.

I'm going to say right now, if it was more than one time,

you're a maniac.

I want to say it was at least in theater

seven times.

Seven times

it tracks i i like i do like it um i think it's great i love it

but also the next logo is is the next logo on a cube and the gamecube logo is a game cube it's the g that it's a cube yeah i think that the next the next box

inspired the gamecube box that's my that's my pet theory yeah that's really cool looking uh all right so what where do we want to rank the gamecube

on our tier list?

Heather doesn't seem to be so stoked on it.

I think, were you saying that this is S?

I love, I look, I like it as much as the PlayStation 2, but I, but, you know, I'm, I, I, this is not a dictatorship.

I'm not a despot.

I do like the colorways.

That's another function.

The difference.

The different colors is so fun.

That's, and at launch, you had purple, black, and orange.

Also, I think Apple-inspired.

They released a bunch of more.

That makes that makes sense.

Um,

I think, think if I'm being honest, I just like

the shape of cube.

I think goes a long way.

I think it's good shape.

Cube is a great shape.

It's good.

I like that it's, I don't know, there's something about it that's fun.

The disc, the discs being small, not being the thing we're really talking about, but I kind of like that as part of this generation as well.

Didn't really own one of these myself.

I could see it in the A tier.

I could see it in the A tier.

I could be talked down, and I could see it in the B tier even.

I could live within the A tier.

I just want to say, as

this is my home.

That's right.

This was

your game was a Nintendo GameCube exclusive.

It was an exclusive.

This is where I was born.

Where Shinji Mikami went to the bottom of the business.

When I look at it, I get a little emotional.

Oh.

Because

this is where I was born.

That's really sweet, Resident Evil Merchant.

That's wet.

I wish mine wasn't so wet, but it is an important

machine in my history.

Just a grotesque image.

Yeah, so

you were born on the day, not the day the GameCube came out, but the day that the Resident Evil 4 game for GameCube came out.

You would say that's your canonical birthday?

I mean, I was born before that.

Okay.

Like, I'm an old man in that game.

Right.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

I guess then I'm wondering, how come you're always acting like you're today years old?

What?

Matt.

What have I ever gotten wrong?

Don't talk to me like I'm a child.

That was just a classic rib between friends.

Oh, all right.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, you got me.

The dude thing.

You sometimes say an insult you don't really mean to someone you like.

Yeah, sometimes.

Like, I hope a bee gets in your dick.

Okay, we'll work on it.

Pretty good.

God, the nightmare that that would be.

Whoa.

Let's put in the A tier.

All right.

Unless Heather is like, I hate it so much.

No, you know,

I want to like it more and I don't.

But I think A tier is totally fair.

Look at it.

Look what you got.

It's company.

You got the master system there.

I mean, it just, it kind of feels like that's at the same sort of level for it versus like what's below it, which is like the Famicom and the Super Nintendo.

Yeah.

It's it is an aesthetically pleasing.

And think about the bloated

Xbox we just saw a second ago.

Yeah, no.

There's such fine edges on the GameCube that I really, really like it.

Yeah.

I mean,

what's nice about it is that in an era when its competitors were increasingly trying to say adult,

the GameCube was not afraid to be like, hey, kids can play this too.

Yes.

By the way, you mentioned the GD-ROM.

It wasn't the GD-ROM, right?

The GD-ROM was the Streamcast one, right?

That was the.

What the hell was the name of the GameCube?

Discs.

Disc, yeah.

I can't remember.

Anyway, when I was working in game development, I worked on some GameCube games, maybe just one, and it was a port of a PlayStation 2 game.

And one of my tasks I had do

was just batch compress a whole bunch of audio assets to get it to fit on that tiny disc.

And it was like one of those things of just like, you don't think it's that big of a deal, like having like a little bit, wait, would add like 2.5 gigs versus like 6.4 gigs or whatever the DVD thing was, but it was so much less space if you're trying to just like cram all that stuff in there.

So the GameCube I remember being a huge pain in the ass to develop for.

Matt has pulled up a GameCube variant

that might be worth talking about.

Yes.

This was a this was a Phillips or no, this was a Panasonic collab.

This was not a Phillips thing.

This was the Panasonic GameCube.

This was the Q

This machine sucks.

Yeah, I hate the way this.

So this one has a, it basically is like a GameCube, but it's got that sort of silvery sort of like

a vintage stereo sort of reflection quality, and then it's got a domed sort of top with a

L C screen.

It also has

feet.

Yeah.

It has feet.

It has little feet.

It has feet on it,

which

elevate its...

It's just, it sucks.

It's just an LED screen, actually.

I said LCD.

Yeah.

And that was just like a digital readout because it was also a DVD player.

So that was their big thing.

Came with a remote.

This was like their answer to the PlayStation 2.

It has eight buttons on its front.

Yes.

Eight.

Too much going on.

This is really, they just really uglified the GameCube.

This is the like we have GameCube at home meme, basically.

Like this is this, this just, even though it's just dysfunctional, it's so much uglier.

Yeah, the wish.com GameCube.

Right.

It is visible screws.

This might be another F.

I maybe might say D.

But think of the, that's

the, the, the, the, um, the valley between the regular GameCube and then this one.

Well, that's also the thing of aesthetics of just like, hey, we have this

essentially the same design, but you start changing enough things and all of a sudden it looks like complete shit.

It's overdesigned.

It's also too much, too much going on.

It's unfair that we've included it because it is sort of in the family of revisions, but I think because it's so ugly, it's worth remarking.

Well, if we have the PSX on, I think the Q makes sense because that's kind of its counterpart.

Okay, okay.

Now we're up to the next generation.

So we're looking at the Xbox 360.

I really like how the Xbox 360 looks.

I think it's really, really clean.

I think they fixed every issue with the original, the OG Xbox.

I really like it.

I like the white one quite a bit, but I think the other colorways work too.

I think that the, because this is the launch version.

Yes, yeah.

I think that the Xbox 360 is fucking sleek as shit.

And I also think that the

changeable faceplates allowed you to customize the way it looked on your shelf.

Yeah.

And one of the ways they advertised that when it first premiered was that you could get a wood paneled front as a throwback to the like old electronics of

the 1970s.

I think it is an excellent looking system.

And this is the system that I, this and another system, I was like,

we don't hate.

We don't hate the Xbox and we don't hate Microsoft.

Look at that.

Look at that.

That wood tunnel.

The wood panel one does look cool.

I think that I think it's an A-tier.

I think the 360 is an A-tier machine.

Yeah, it's really, really pretty.

And it's also, it's so much of it seems like a response to the first console because it's like it's concave instead of convex.

Like it's sort of, you know, kind of, it goes in at the middle a little bit, kind of a trim at the midsection.

It's white instead of black.

It's, it's largely just clean and sleek as opposed to having all these grommets and

rivets on it.

That big power button in the front.

Yes, yeah.

Like it's a

button.

I love the huge button.

And it was a nice button to press.

The hard drive on the top looks sleek and futuristic.

The button, though,

could be the harbinger of death now, couldn't it?

The red ring of death.

That's true.

No one wants to see that.

But, you know, I don't think that's part of the aesthetics evaluation.

I think A-tier is correct.

Matt, did you close the tab?

tab?

No, my

chrome crash.

Too many tabs.

You'd think it was a tab issue.

I don't know.

It might have been.

This might have just fucked me.

I hope we didn't lose all of our progress in this tier list.

It did, yeah.

Okay, we're starting from scratch.

I have all the images.

MagnaBox Odyssey.

Why do you have two chromes at the bottom of your screen?

What is playing?

What the hell is going on?

Oh, my God.

I can't believe we lost all of our tabs.

We lost all of it.

Did you screen?

we must have screen capped the previous one i screen capped the the previous one okay and we can rebuild what what we did so far pretty easily so we'll just we'll just start from here so i i think a tier for the xbox 360 makes a lot of sense yeah it's an a tier system it's a gorgeous system they did a great job and i'm i'm i'm i'm shocked that they pulled it off

like an entirely different design team for sure and it maybe was ranch what was the first home console or video game console you remember playing or having it at your house?

I think it was an Nintendo with

the cartridges.

All right, so maybe an N64 and Nintendo.

Oh, yeah, I think it was the N64.

Like there was like Mario Party and GoldenEye.

Did you ever think about how it looked?

Like just how the system actually looked?

Or was it just purely a thing to play games on?

I thought it was really cute.

Yeah.

Because we also had the controllers that were see-through.

Oh, you had those.

I really like that.

Yeah, because the N64 had a bunch of different variants in terms of its various various looks.

How are we doing here, Matt?

Matt's rebuilding the tier.

I'm rebuilding the original one.

Okay, great.

I have the memory of a goldfish, so I think.

The 360 is an A tier system, I think, is what we were just talking about.

Put the 360 in A.

I think the GameCube from today was also in A.

Yep.

The PS2

was in S, as was the

PSX.

And then we had the OG Xbox in F tier.

There was a pop-up about an hour ago that said Chrome will close in an hour.

And I was like, that's a weird thing to tell us.

And I'm not kidding.

All right.

We had a brief stop down on our end.

Matt's browser crashed.

It was an old thing.

We had to rebuild the entire tier list from scratch in Tier Maker.

So it's all right.

We're fine.

We're back.

We had a screenshot to work from.

So we're picking it up from just putting the Xbox 360 into A tier along with a GameCube today.

What's up next?

Next, why don't we go straight to the

big boy, the PlayStation 3?

Hold on.

Big bulky boy.

I can hear the feelings.

I can hear the vibes.

I think that it is.

I think this is a bad photo of the PlayStation 3.

I think that the PlayStation 3 needs to be seen.

standing up as it was designed to be.

And I think that standing up in

at E3, the E3 like on-the-floor demo.

Yeah, it looks cool standing on end.

It looks better standing on it.

I don't think it's an unpleasant to look at console.

And I like the glossy finish.

It's a little too big, which I think is a factor.

It's incredibly large and incredibly heavy.

It is also extremely premium.

Like, it was made out of premium materials and had ports that nobody wanted that Sony was like, we're going to make this fucking thing the centerpiece of your living room.

Yes.

Like there was, there are ports on the original PlayStation 3 for

like

you could take photos and then take out your memory card from your regular camera.

Not like Sony proprietary stuff, but like an SD card or whatever they were called at the time.

Compact Flash.

I don't even know.

And you could slot like the The bottom panel on the PlayStation 3 opens up to reveal multiple ports that they were smart enough to hide underneath a plastic hinged door.

This system screams hubris.

It is,

it is,

when they announced its price and they showed off the size of it, I went, oh no, like out loud.

Yeah.

It is really something to look at.

I had not seen one really in person before until I was at my friend's apartment apartment recently and they got one.

Yeah.

And I was like, this, you, you just got this?

They're like, yeah, somebody was like basically giving it away at a thrift store.

Well, you can also play PlayStation 1 games on HDMI via the PlayStation 3.

Yeah.

And that would, that's part of why I keep mine around.

Okay.

Is because you can, you, it, it's backwards, it's fully backwards compatible with PlayStation games, not with PS2 games, but with PlayStation 1 games.

I do not think this is an S-tier system.

I don't think so either.

Just to go back to that, it's launched real quick, because the PS2 was,

I think, still is the most successful console in history.

It'll be beaten by the Switch at some point, but it just absolutely dominated the marketplace.

And so everyone's like, oh, PlayStation 3, well, that thing's going to be enormous.

And then, you know, the Xbox was whatever.

It was an attempt.

And the GameCube didn't really make a dent, didn't make too much of a dent dent in its market share.

So everyone's like, ah, this is Sony's battle to lose.

And they did everything they could to lose it with a PlayStation 3.

That launch was disastrous.

And I remember that E3 press conference with Kaz Hurai, where he was like, you know, the big thing is he was like, it's Ridge Racer.

Ridge Racer.

He introduced Ridge Racer as like their killer app.

And everyone's like, okay, well, I like Ridge Racer.

All right.

And then he talked about, and then all anyone centered on was that when he announced the price, it was that it would retail for $599 US dollars.

And that was a thing that got memed in, like, you know, the early 2000s, mid-2000s.

The PlayStation, the little PlayStation logo, Matt, I don't know if you know this.

If you have it seated

horizontally like this,

you turn the logo so that it faces up and down.

Yes,

that is so cool.

That's an awesome thing.

You stand it up on its side, you turn the logo so that it faces up and down.

That is rad.

PlayStation, the

PlayStation logo is the only thing on here that I like.

Like, it's like the

I don't dislike the shape or sheen or whatever.

I don't like the Spider-Man 3 font, for example.

That's the font in the font below.

I'm not pushing that.

But like

the PlayStation logo to me is like it fighting for

its identity.

It should have had

nothing on the top of it except the Sony logo.

Small.

Yeah.

Centered.

And then the PlayStation logo underneath the disk drive.

Yeah.

It looks looks like a George Foreman grill.

It does.

It

in person looks a lot better.

This, I think, is a B-tier system.

I don't hate the Spider-Man font.

I know that's maybe a heretical opinion.

It doesn't bother me that much.

It does have some characteristics that became, you know,

that set where everything was going, just not just for consoles, but for, you know,

electronic, consumer electronics at large, which is the touch buttons, which I fucking hate.

I like physical buttons.

I want to be able to know when something is on and off at a glance and like tactile,

you know,

tactily.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Tactile?

Tactile-y.

But I'm trying to find the adjective

version of it.

Whatever the fuck.

Doesn't matter.

I applaud.

I do like the slot loader.

I applaud the hubris.

Yes.

I applaud the walk into a room.

I think this is a thing that like is like a thing that guys say.

You walk into your room and you flip, throw your dick on the table.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

It's like they did it, but had a small dick,

but like stood there with the confidence of somebody.

Either that or it was so big that it's upsetting.

Right.

The Dafoe.

Small dick dick on the table is a very funny image.

One of the things that I like this

that I also like

that i also like

i could hear the listener your dick size is fine

and if you're complaining about it never mind one of the things i really like about the playstation 3 original design is the tiny tiny logos all along the seam on the top like all of the like dvd logo all of the all of those like dts hdmi bluetooth all of those logos are really thin yeah the business logo Yeah, it's really cool.

It's so gorgeous.

It's such a elegant.

I mean, they must have been so excited.

I can't believe that thing cost $599.

Really crazy.

Really insane.

And also what, you know, had this, this, this, the unique architecture

that was like impossible to develop for.

And yeah, every aspect, the messiness of the outside

matches the messiness of the inside.

Kind of amazing that they were able to

steady the ship after this.

That being said, this generation across the board, the 360, the PS3, and the Wii was like such a core era.

Because PlayStation 3 has like The Last of Us, right?

It has like one of the blockbuster games of that era.

There were so many great games on the 360 that I lose track of how many great games there were.

And then the Wii is like like iconic.

Yes.

Well, and the Xbox, I think the Xbox 360 is main is just Xbox Live and Xbox Live Arcade in particular, like what that did along with Steam for the indie scene.

So many games just would not have existed.

I mean, huge, huge games like Super Meat Boy and

what's the other one I'm thinking of?

Braid.

Like so much of like that.

got their prominence because of their presence on the Xbox Live, on Xbox Live Arcade.

Such an era.

Yeah, there was a really cool era.

I saw a quote by Jonathan Blow where he was talking about how the braid re-release sold like dog shit, and it kind of made me laugh.

Maybe I shouldn't have been such an asshole.

Yeah.

Such dumb shit.

I think it's a B tier.

I think that's fair.

B tier.

Put it in the B tier.

And then let's move on to the Wii.

The Wi.

S tier.

The Wi is really, really cool looking.

It's very clean.

I like that it's small.

I like the size of the PS2 Slim.

And, you know, obviously it was with such a huge console, as Heather was just saying, in terms of its impact on the industry.

Purely aesthetically, I think it's just, it's just so clean that, yeah, I think it's maybe an A.

It's also clearly another device that took influence from Apple design.

For sure.

My argument against it being an S is the thing that I think it misses versus the rest of the S tier is I think it's just kind of bland.

I think it's just kind of boring.

Interesting.

for me, it's more of a piece with the Xbox 360, which is just like, which I also find more aesthetically pleasing.

And that one's an A tier of just like,

it's a very cleanly designed thing, but it doesn't necessarily have like the pizzazz of something.

And

I think if you have the Mega Drive, I don't want to make up a new rule.

But like, okay, Bill Maher.

New rule.

It's not consistent with the language of Nintendo.

Where

Nintendo, if some of these consoles, like, because like PlayStation's like, okay, we have to be bigger, we have to be better.

They're always improving in that direction.

Nintendo's main thing is, does this look fun?

The Wii, when paired with the Wii Mote, looks fun.

The Wii, on its own, looks like nothing, kind of.

So that to me is my only argument for it being out of S.

I, man, I really liked the light-up drive that would tell you when something had arrived.

That is really cool.

That's a great point.

I, I, like,

if you think about this, the console itself also being something that lit up in your room and gave you an alert, I like,

I, I thought that was classy and also exciting.

It was like, oh, what Christmas present is here.

Yeah, that glowing blue

D V D slot was really, really cool when it, when it hit.

I still, it still doesn't push to S for me, but

I can be persuaded.

Put it in A.

Let's put it in A.

I don't think, you know what?

I agree.

A tier.

What's next?

I mean, do we want to stay on Wii and go straight to the Wii U?

Are we judging the...

I mean, I feel like it's hard not to judge the controller here, although that's not a functional piece of hardware on its own, so it's not like a switch.

I don't know.

It's just kind of like a blander

switch.

Is the Wii U the controller or is it the system or is it both?

It's

either one, the answer is not good.

Well, here's the thing.

You don't need to play it on the controller.

Like you could, like, you can get a dedicated controller and use that to play games on your TV.

And from that standpoint, the controller with its built-in screen, kind of the proto Switch, is a controller.

And the console is what we think of as a console.

I don't know.

I think it's a blander blend out.

It is invisible.

Yeah.

And also because of the failure of the of the system, like I think that Virtual Boy fails, right?

But if you create a silhouette of the Virtual Boy and you have any knowledge of gaming, you're like, is that a Virtual Boy?

If you create just a silhouette of the Wii U console, nobody's going to be able to identify.

Yeah, that would be really challenging.

I'm keen to put it in the C tier.

Okay, put it in.

C feels about right.

Put it.

I can't believe we thought this was going to be one episode originally.

We're almost at the two-hour mark of part two.

I know.

It's fucking absurd.

Why do we do this?

We're crazy.

We're just

going to be an easy thing to do.

Yeah, oh, this is easy stuff.

This is an easy one.

You know what?

We're just crazy.

No crap.

PlayStation 4.

I was like the Walter White in the car meme for this.

Like, I was fucking screaming at you guys.

Don't do it.

Hank, don't.

So, this is the PlayStation 4,

a

refined version of the design vocabulary of the last two systems.

It is the

PlayStation 2, kind of

angled.

Yeah.

It is the PlayStation 3 in terms of

materials.

Yes.

Like it has a glossy finish.

It is a

sleek angled refrigerator.

Do we have a horizontal version of the Sunbitch?

Let me see.

Because, you know, the standing on its end is one representation.

The thing I do like is that it basically operates in different shades of black.

Like it's like, you know,

it's different intensities of black.

And I just like that very aesthetically pleasing.

Yeah, so it's kind of glossy and then kind of also got a matte finish that's that's coexisting.

I like the way the PlayStation logo is.

You sure are.

I like the way the

PlayStation logo is positioned.

Yes.

I think the PS4 logo, it being kind of like, as opposed to the big, fat PlayStation 3 written in block letters all the way across its spine, that it's just kind of an innocuous little PS4 in the corner feels like kind of a return to form.

The PS4 feels like a room full of guys being like,

okay, let's not fuck up again.

Yeah.

It feels like safe,

slightly futuristic stylings.

It doesn't necessarily say anything

confident.

It also doesn't say anything scared.

Yeah.

It is a very, very plain

system compared both to the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 5.

This was Sony being like, we cannot fuck up again or we'll lose it all.

It's just a medium-sized dick on the table.

And everyone's like, hey, how about that?

Yeah.

I'll tell you where they fucked up majorly, though, with this.

Yeah.

You're looking at it right here.

Taking the color out.

Taking the color out of the PlayStation look.

It kind of works with this, but I get what you're saying.

I would almost then rather it be black.

That's an interesting idea.

Have you seen the

PlayStation anniversary edition of the PS4?

I loved that.

It's one of the best looking.

So gorgeous.

It is a shame that that was not

the system that launched because people would have gotten so excited.

Yes, they would have been like, Oh man, PlayStation is back.

Yes, it's the force awakens of visual design.

Like, we're gonna save Sony, yeah.

So, I mean, based on what it could be, I'm not, we're not ranking this one, of course, the anniversary edition, yeah, based on which is more of a gray, sort of silver, sort of like the PlayStation version.

Thank God, the other anniversary edition that was like the semi-transparent blue with the gold.

Oh, yeah, fuck, that's a gorgeous system.

Um, i think the playstation 4

is maybe in the b tier plain b yeah it's it doesn't it doesn't attempt the big swings the ps3 does it's a much more conservative take but it kind of lands at the same place ultimately just because it's not trying to step on any toes yep it honestly i mean

i like it

should we do another one of these like that it doesn't have to be a part three but at some point in the future that's all like revisions or specialty releases of these, like, you know, like the transparent, you know, N64 or whatever.

Yeah, we could turn this into potentially five episodes.

I mean, that, that sounds with revisions, that sounds like the rest of our show.

Okay, this week we're doing the

orange GameCube.

We're doing the Hello Kitty Limited release, San Rio tie-in, PlayStation 2.

Here's the Heyu Pikachu from Blockbuster.

That was real cool.

Do we have the

have you seen the top-loading that wasn't really released, but the top-loading NES that was one of the revisions?

It's so weird looking.

I hate the top-loading and NES, and it was released.

Yeah.

No, I know.

It wasn't, but it wasn't like,

it was, it didn't make like a lot of, much of a dent in the market because it came out by the time the Super Nintendo was already out.

Yeah.

It's so toy-like.

It looks so weird.

It looks so fake.

Yeah, it looks like shit.

There's a top-loading PS3

that we didn't really get to, but that one is insane too.

Yeah, because the PS3 revisions were momentous.

Yeah, the PS3, doesn't the PS3?

No, I'm thinking of the PlayStation 4 Pro that looks like three.

Yeah, the Pro is very nice.

Should we evaluate the Pro?

Or does that count as a revision?

That's a revision.

But it's a totally different system because it's not the same chipset.

I think the Pro maybe counts.

Yeah, we might have to do another one of these.

We're so close to finishing that.

I'm just saying we probably have to do another one at some point.

Oh, yeah, at some point.

the ps4 pro

is

better looking than the playstation 4 yeah uh it says more the logo is is better i like that it's a little angular i like that it's like just kind of three like stacks of tile is it and is it better enough to justify pushing it up to a tier when all of these are when the the ps4 uh vanilla is in is down in b i think i don't know you think it is okay i think i think so i think it is as good looking as the Wii.

I think it's maybe like a B, but I think A is, we don't have a B plus tier, so maybe A is where it lives.

It looks like an art piece, kind of.

Yeah, it is cool looking.

It's very gorgeous.

I never had one of these.

I was very envious of it.

Yeah, I had one.

Okay, take it off, King.

You dropped this, King.

I only put this on.

Take this out.

Doink.

This is the Xbox One, if you couldn't tell.

I couldn't really.

Yeah.

I was like, which Xbox is this?

Well, and this one has a lot of revisions that I don't think we should cover, honestly.

Was that the launch Xbox One?

That one,

that was the Xbox One S right here.

Okay.

This is the Xbox One console shown with controller and Kinect.

Let me type in.

This is 11 years ago already.

God.

Slow decay of time is crushing.

Just on a conveyor belt to the grave.

Yeah, so the Xbox One, which comes with Kinect,

is released in

black and looks extremely similar to the PlayStation 4.

Yes.

Like both of these consoles have a very similar design vocabulary where it's like two different versions of black, one textured, one glossy,

minimalist logos, minimalist buttons.

It is a system that's

that says a lot less than the Xbox 360 did.

Is this just the cycle of console like, you know, generations is that you get one generation right and then you kind of miscalculate or overstep things or get hubristic, to use your word, Heather, on the next generation?

Because that's exactly what happened here.

And they completely, almost completely fucked themselves with the Xbox One.

It was just a total debacle versus the Xbox 360, which despite some of its hardware failures, was just such a resounding success.

Yeah, both Nintendo and Xbox and Microsoft trip so hard on entering this generation that it allows the PS4 to become ubiquitous.

Yeah.

Because like the Wii U is a joke and the Xbox One was largely forgettable.

And they bet so big on Kinect, which was a total misfire.

But that was also a response to the week.

It's true.

They were like, what do we do to steal Nintendo's motion-controlled thunder?

What if we make your body the controller?

Right.

And what if we make it suck?

Okay, so just looking at this thing, I think it's maybe C-tier.

It's C or B.

Yeah, I was thinking C-tier.

It's just a plain.

It's nothing.

Yeah, it is.

What if the PlayStation 4 didn't even have an angle?

Like, that's what it is.

It's a good way way to put it, yeah.

Yeah, I really, it's like, it's not doing anything.

It's just, it's, it's, it's just a black box.

Fucking thing sucks.

What are we doing here?

That thing sucks.

All right.

We got the, are we, a switch next?

Yeah, because wow.

It's, it's, it's a

dual generation system, basically.

I think the switch is really cool looking.

And I think the, the,

it with the dock.

Yeah, I think we have to look at it docked.

Otherwise, it's a handheld.

Yeah.

I think it with the dock, though, is just really

you know a

really nice presence uh under your tv i do will say that i do feel like the

it's hard to talk about it because the joy-cons are controllers but i do feel like the graphite versus the red and blue and the red and blue is what they were pushing yeah like makes it look a lot cleaner and i think the red and blue looks so much more again intentionally toy-like but i have the white oled one now and that's a revision of course But I do think that the white OLED model is very nice.

Very, very pretty.

I have one of those as well.

I don't remember if you were still in our improv show, Nick, when the Switch was announced.

I don't know.

But we did a scene that night in the improv show at UCB where we were just screaming about how excited we were

about the Switch and throwing chairs.

And that was the scene.

Like the whole scene.

And the audience was laughing and cheering.

And that's all the content of the scene.

I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing I would be involved in, but I don't have any memory of it.

I think the Switch is a great, is an extremely well-designed system.

It is

the most exciting thing that has happened in gaming for generations.

Yes.

Like since the Wii controller.

Yeah.

It is the most exciting thing to happen.

And

you could, you look at it and you immediately understand something about it.

Invited a bunch of people either to try gaming or to return to gaming and also was a big boon for the indie space because a lot of indie games got ports to this and a lot of people wouldn't normally play indie games and ended up playing them on the switch.

I don't know how Sony is going to respond to the success.

Like if the Switch overtakes the PlayStation 2, which I think it's going to do, Sony has to do some dumb bullshit with the PlayStation 6 where they make it either like a fucking portable that snaps into a thing, except it also can snap on your head.

Like they're going to do some dumb shit.

Man, it's going to be so ugly.

Switch is an A.

There's a banner ad for a BJ's Brewhouse half-off pizza.

Should I click it?

Man, I want it so bad.

Unfortunately, this is for your other podcast.

The last BJS I went to, I was like, this place is in decline.

I would not be surprised.

It was a bummer.

It's a bummer.

It was a bummer because that place used to hit and it used to hit hard.

We have that as our in-room lunch because we have to order ahead of time, so it's coming up.

And I'm sad to hear that.

Maybe you got a good one.

No, I doubt it.

Are we putting this at A tier?

Where does it go?

Let's put it in the A because I think...

I think the console is S tier.

Yeah.

But for the aesthetic, it is an A tier.

Then the next one here is,

Could it be the PS5?

Wow.

I can't believe we're almost done.

I know.

I think the PS5 is cool looking.

We're going to stop here, though.

We're going to do Xbox Series 1 on a different episode.

It's too fucking big.

That's the big issue.

It's just too big.

It's massive.

It's so big.

And

I'm going to stop it a tier or two.

I think.

I think the PlayStation.

Here's what I think.

I think that with the PlayStation 3, Sony tried some kind of visual look, right?

They were trying something that maybe was going to define their entire

tech aesthetic across all devices if it had succeeded.

Yes.

With the PlayStation 5, they tried that again.

And I think they largely succeeded because the PlayStation VR 2 uses the same visual language.

The headphones use the same visual language.

I love those headphones by the way.

It is

a black device wrapped in white plastic.

Yes.

It's like the concept for all this shit.

The portal uses the same design as that.

The small things as well.

But the dock for charging controllers, which I have, which is really

sits next to it really nicely.

It's like a taco.

Yeah.

It's like a black piece of plastic with a white taco around it.

As such, they have created, this was not a look that existed previous.

Like the PlayStation 5 is not something you'd be like, oh, it looks like a blank.

Right.

Right.

I think it is an S-tier system because of it.

Even though it is absurdly large.

Well, look, we're not talking about size.

We're talking about aesthetic.

But to me, the size is part of the aesthetic consideration because this thing is going to fit into a physical space.

And we were doing a lot of that last week.

We were looking at these in a room.

Like, if you look at a PlayStation 5 in a room, which I do every time

you play a video game.

Every day of my fucking life you look at one of those the location of your ps5 where it is the

the aesthetics in there are match the ps5 also so like it is on like i mean i won't describe your uh your setup too much but like it sits in well because your space is designed for it to sit in well well yeah because my all of my cabinetry is glossy white yes and so it looks like it is part of yeah it looks like

shit when it's on its side

It's looking like in my barely, barely fitting into the largest input in an entertainment center.

But look at it on that, look at it next to the,

look at it standing up next to the monitor on that, on that, a top, that top

thing.

Look at that setup.

That's, yeah, that's immaculate.

It's fucking gorgeous.

That's a 77-inch TV.

Yeah, it goes up through.

It's really cool.

I love it.

It's too big.

I don't think

I can put it in S tier because of the size.

I think that's honestly a

tier system?

I mean,

I'm not as enthused about it as you are, but I do think it is really cool.

Wait, wait, looking at these systems,

you're right.

It's A.

Yeah, I think A is worth it.

It's hidden there.

It is not as good looking as the PSX.

Yes.

Okay, now we're in, this is a tough one because this is a dual

entry.

Yeah, we get the Xbox Series X and then the Series S.

Do we have a Series S picture?

Yeah, and I have a take about this.

Yes.

I think that the Xbox Series X is ugly and looks like dog shit.

I mean, no, the X is the big one.

The big one

looks like dog shit, is ugly.

I don't like it.

The S is gorgeous and I think is an S tier.

I can't go with S tier on the S on the S.

But I will say that I agree with you.

you.

The X is pretty unpleasant to look at.

I had one of those on my, and

it was on the same unit as a PlayStation 5.

I had it there for a while.

It just was not like next to it,

the PlayStation 5 looks so much better.

Yeah, especially the top of it with the little bit of green shining through.

It just, it's kind of.

I don't like this system.

I don't like the way it is.

It's kind of vomitous, honestly.

It looks like it's something else.

The thing I like is that it is designed only for the tower form factor.

Like, it does not go on its side.

And it's only on its end.

Yes.

That's my understanding.

I've never tried to put it on its end.

I don't think you can put it on its end.

It's not seated the right way.

Yeah, I don't think it works that way.

I like it a lot.

To be honest now,

because if I had one, I would want it.

I would want it on its side, I think.

I believe it's only a tower.

I could be wrong about that.

Either way, the end of it, what is facing up, which you see a lot of if you're looking at your the direction of your TV, uh, because it's going to be below your TV, is I just don't like that green circle.

Yeah, it is, it's it's you're right, it it looks like it's already melted a little, yeah, it does to me.

This is going in the D tier, wow!

I think if I so we're evaluating these differently, that series X goes in D?

Yeah, okay, I am fine with that, and then if it can't be an S,

I think the Series S

is at least an A tier.

Can I ask, having never seen the system in person, what is the black circle?

What is it?

Is it like a vent or is it?

I think it's just on there.

Is it texture?

What is it?

It's texture.

It's not like a...

It looks like a speaker.

It's not.

I've never touched it before.

I don't love the black circle.

I haven't touched it.

What is it?

To me, well, I like.

Can I just sell you on the black circle for just a second?

Think of the white Xbox Series S.

Think of the body of it as a canvas.

Okay.

And you're seeing it upright.

And now you see this black circle on it.

And now you're kind of thinking, oh, this is kind of like a piece of art.

It's kind of really nice to look at.

It kind of looks like art, kind of.

Uh-huh.

But what is

those here?

Don Draper.

Can you zoom?

Don Draper on day five of a Bender and

I don't know.

Can you zoom in on the black circle?

No.

Oh.

Oh.

It's got little holes.

Oh, wow.

It's the face of God.

It's got holes.

Yeah.

It's got holes.

Yeah, that's what makes it look so much like a speaker.

What is it?

It doesn't do anything?

I don't think it does anything.

It's not a vent?

It might be a vent, but like a small, you know, it's big, but I don't know how much air is getting through there.

Because there's a vent on the back where the air comes out of.

And that can be on its side.

Because imagine this thing top, it'd be toppling over if you walk past it.

i am i'm so confused by the s

do we have another angle of it just another another photo

so for people who aren't familiar with this yeah the the body of it is mostly white and then it has this black circle on it and

it has kind of that the the circle has a little bit of a of a

uh you know a

tessellated series of holes i cannot i cannot abide a world where the playstation 5 is in a tier and this is in S tier.

I don't think this should be even in the A tier.

I think it's kind of okay, but I don't think it's anything particularly pleasant to look at.

I do think

the circle actually is a distraction.

I think it's such an eye draw.

What is it?

That I think is a big part of it.

You're looking at it, trying to figure out what it is.

Great.

Yeah.

Look up what is the circle on an Xbox Series S.

The AI overview says the Xbox Series S is a white gaming console with a black circle in the middle.

We asked it what it was.

Yeah, the first,

people are just trying to figure out what it is.

Oh, Reddit posted it.

It is a fan vent for good air circulation.

It's probably black to make it more eye-catching.

Huh.

I don't like, but the eye-catching aspect, I don't like that.

I don't like that it's an eye draw.

This guy hates art, he said.

I don't look at the black version with the all-black version, right?

On the CNN article.

See, there, that's better.

This is a revision.

Can you look at the

so

I'm

shocked when it so so when it's a all black S,

the circle is also black and it is more visibly a vent.

They fucked up.

The circle should be white.

I don't like it.

I don't like it either.

I think this thing, I think the launch version of this console, we got to wrap this up.

I think the launch version of this is,

I mean, I'd honestly slam it in C tier.

Matt seems to really like it.

We can push it up a little bit.

What do you think, Eather?

I don't like it enough to haven't played it out of this calendar year, I think.

Okay, put it in C tier.

That's not aesthetics, though.

I mean, like,

I don't think it is as good looking as the Saturn.

So I really need it to be in C tier.

Yeah, it's okay.

It can be,

it's, you know.

Boy, Microsoft really just fucking

with this console generation.

With the, I mean, they're just fucking up left and right.

I think, I think

if I'm not.

I think they went so heavy on Game Pass.

I predict it'll be a software company.

You think they're gonna have the hardware?

I think they're gonna get out of the hardware.

They fucked up too many times.

My Xbox Series X, which I bought and was using as a Game Pass machine, I no longer have

because they just let a friend borrow it indefinitely because I'm like, I don't want to use this thing.

Yeah, I disconnected mine from my television and I put it in a drawer.

Mine is

where it always is, plugged in, ready to go at any time.

And I canceled Game Pass probably

a year and a half too late.

I still use PC Game Pass.

I just, I have no, no reason for a dedicated.

I use my PlayStation 5 every single day.

That's my main for sure.

Well, guys, I'm happy to say that our national nightmare is over.

We've done it.

We've ranked all the consoles by their aesthetic.

And let's just go down the list.

Let's just go down the list real quick and name them off real quick.

Just kidding.

We can do it.

No, we can do it with what we covered today.

We can recap that real quick.

Up in the S tier, we have the Sony PlayStation 2, the Sony PSX,

the Sega Dreamcast.

Yeah, those are the new additions.

In the A tier, we have the Nintendo GameCube, the Xbox 360, the Nintendo Switch, and wait, what did I miss?

We have the Wii, the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Nintendo Switch, and the PlayStation 5.

Yes.

In the B tier, we have the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4 are new additions.

In the C tier, we have the Xbox One,

the Wii U,

and the Xbox Series S.

In D tier, we have added the Xbox Series X.

Series X.

I was like, which one is that one?

And then I think our one new F tier is the OG Xbox.

That's right.

The Microsoft Xbox.

We gave an F to

on aesthetics.

But I can't believe that was longer than part one.

I can't believe it is.

This is a fucking, we should not have done this format.

This is horrible.

I want to go home.

I do think the first one was good.

And I think this ultimately will have proven to be good as well.

You think the first one was good?

I think the first one was good.

The discussion in the Discord was going crazy.

So I can only imagine that the people listening to this one now, in the future, when we've healed from doing this.

Do I get overtime

banging around her?

Quick segment, it's time for the question block.

Quick segment.

Jesus Christ.

This one's from Ghost Pumpkin.

What would you want an instruction manual to explain for your favorite modern games?

I didn't, wait.

What do you want an instruction manual for the what?

To explain for your favorite modern games.

Ian the wait.

What do I want?

Yeah, I guess this is a theoretical.

Imagine we're back to physical boxes.

You get it, and it's got a hefty instruction manual that the developers are assuming you're reading before you start playing this thing, as games were back in the day.

What information do you want in the instruction manual?

Maps.

Maps are awesome.

Maps are really, really good.

I want big maps and I want stickers.

100% stickers.

Yeah.

Stickers are great.

I like a bestiary.

Oh, yeah.

And especially the bestiary includes maybe just some silhouettes with some question marks.

So I'm like, oh man, we'll get later.

I'm going to encounter whatever this guy is.

Here's what I want.

I want, like, say, imagine you get an Elden Ring map, right?

and it's big and it comes with stickers that are not permanent stick

so you in person put points of interest that you want to come back to oh that is really cool i like that a lot one of the things i'm thinking about because i know they don't always do this for even the actual credits in the games I'm at a list of everybody that worked on those fuckers.

What do you say?

Yeah, credits would be great.

Yeah, I'd love to have some credits in there.

I also loved when they were like, they'd like localize like an NES game, game, and then clearly they just got some guy, some copywriter to like write the instruction manual, and they took a huge artistic liberties with a story and just made shit up.

It's not in the game.

Yeah, in this version, he's a vampire for some reason.

Wait,

this boss in Castlevania is named Paula Abghul.

That's canon.

Because it's in the manual.

That's so funny.

This one's from Daisuki Danny.

Hi, Daisuki.

Hi, Danny.

Daisuki?

My honor.

What food item would heal you most if you punched a trash can on the street and it fell out?

This is a great question.

Kind of a follow-up from our Wood You Blathers last week, our discussion of wall meat.

What would heal you the most?

Meat personally?

Yeah, you like it.

Oh, this is a personal thing.

Okay.

Like, what food would you want it to be?

I punch a trash can and something falls out and it's brand new.

Yeah, it's brand new.

Chicago pizza.

Oh.

That's a heavy meal, but that that is a filling meal.

I will say I went to the gym this morning and then I went straight to Jersey Mike's.

So that's right.

He could kick your ass.

Because my approach to

health and wellness is two steps forward, three steps back.

But let me tell you,

that Jersey Mike's sub brought me back to it.

What was the sub?

I got the number seven.

Hell yeah.

Turkey.

I do extra meat on the turkey because I think the proportions are better.

I did it Mike's way and then I threw on some mayo and some pickles.

I didn't make too many alterations because they were pretty busy.

It was the lunch rush.

Here's the thing.

Here's a complaint I have about Jersey mics, by the way.

I fawn over this concept a lot.

Careful, dude.

Always out of iced tea.

Oh, mine's always

practically overflowing with the stuff.

I got to go to your location because the two Jersey mics I go to, they're always like, yeah, sorry, we're out of iced tea.

Are you brewing more?

No, we're done.

They're working so fucking hard at icing.

Look, the workers are doing a great job there.

They can't help it if they're, you know,

overstretched for their iced iced tea supply my favorite part about this conversation is one we've had it before and two

you prefaced it by saying we've gone so long i want to go home

the first food that i thought of for some reason and i don't know if it's that i want this but i kind of want like some like soup dumplings

yeah that's a great answer kind of a dubious food to like a wet food finding from a trash can doesn't sound great but like a soup dumpling just like like a ginger pork soup dumpling, which is so fucking good.

That's really good.

I feel healed when I eat them.

That's awesome.

That's like my favorite.

I love that.

Ranch, you got a healing food, a food you like that kind of just makes you feel better?

Something that would restore your health bar?

Minestrone soup.

Oh, that's a great answer.

That's nice.

Hell yeah, Ranch.

Soup is the right way to be thinking, I think.

Just both of y'all having a soup dumpling.

I'm thinking soup because like you eat that when you're sick, you know, and

I just do love it.

Mine's obviously a different delivery system, but soup nonetheless.

This next one, well, this is a no.

This next one is from you agent, and they write,

have you had an episode where you recorded it and felt, man, I can't wait for everyone to hear this?

I honestly think it might be this one.

I'd be interested in the reaction to this one.

Yeah, my answer is this one.

I was really excited at the one time that I got to do an episode.

I was really, I was like, yeah, that was crazy.

That was exciting.

What are people going to say?

And finally.

That reminds me, I got to get back on Twitter.

I will, I can go back.

I was, when we went for three hours talking about Baldur's Gate 3, I was kind of interested if people

would like that episode or not.

Yeah, that was fun.

That was a really good time.

Probably not as much fun as this.

But the.

Yeah, should we try to break the record with this one?

Let's fucking go.

I'm not fucking leaving.

Three hours on console list two.

Yeah.

And finally, from Geek Points.

What's up, Geek Points?

What, if anything, is stopping you from trying to rank up in Street Fighter VI or any other fight game?

I'll tell you what's stopping me.

I liked it.

We liked it on the show a little bit.

I don't like it that much.

I liked it fine, but I wasn't going to try to get good at it.

If I was trying to get good at one, it would be Super Street Fighter 4.

That's my Street Fighter.

My answer is that I feel like I'm going to hit a skill ceiling pretty high because I'm old and I'm not inherently good at

fighting games.

And, you know, because of my age,

my reflexes aren't what they were once were but i honestly part of what's stopping me is i'm just like playing other games but every time i think about it like you know i i went on at length when i was talking uh uh you know uh uh about uh watching evo a couple weeks ago i had had a great time with that i like i mean i love fighting games in theory every time i mess around with them when i did have a great time playing street fighter six it was one of the best games that came out last year and and it was it was a blast i look at something like guilt eager strive and i see that it's on game pass and I'm like, well, what if I loaded this thumb bitch up and played it a little bit?

You know, so I guess the thing that's that's probably stopping me is that I know

it'll be a commitment, and also I have other things that I'm playing.

But

I am really intrigued by the prospect.

I think number one right now is heat.

It is physically very hot where I normally play video games in Los Angeles.

The other thing is that when, and

you know,

when I was playing uh a certain struck game um i was dedicated to getting better and ranking up in that um

and

it was not a kind of game that i had played previously so it felt like i had more to grow um

but right now the thing that's preventing me from uh ranking up in street fighter six is physically impossible it's so fucking hot there you have it folks that's this week's Get Played.

You can always chime in on the question block threads over at discord.gg slash get played.

And then also, if you don't feel like contributing there, you can leave us a voicemail that's on our website or not on our website on one of the social media sites.

And I don't have it offhand, but you can leave us a voicemail.

You can email us at getplayedpod at gmail.com.

Do all that kind of crazy stuff.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And over at our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played, we have our entire pre-head gum back catalog plus ad-free main feed episodes.

You know, I'm realizing as part of that pre-head gum back catalog, we have our old premium DLC episodes.

One of those is our three-part tier list for all Mario power-ups.

So that's the thing people can check out if you want us to hear us lose our minds like four years ago.

Also, our Patreon exclusive show, Get Anime.

Matt, what are we watching this week?

We're watching Violet Evergarden.

And folks, it's an interesting type of show because we haven't really watched a show like this before and it's kind of just a different vibe.

Yeah.

Different zone completely.

It's got some vibes.

And, you know, one of my favorite parts about watching that show is that Matt is

newer to anime than Nick and I.

Yes.

And so this is his first experience of this kind of show.

And that's kind of exciting.

I kind of feel like,

I'm kind of like Violet in that way.

I'm like, what is this?

I got something I'm about to learn.

Yeah,

metal arms under there.

I did an eyebrow wiggle.

That was just for me.

Yeah.

Everyone else got played.

Yeah.

That was a head gum podcast.