Pretending I'm A Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story

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Hey, Matt, you showed up and hey, you are ready to go for this Tony Ock episode.

Yes, sorry.

You're wearing full pads and a helmet?

What's going on there?

Yeah, sorry I'm late.

You know, I was just

really busy

shredding.

I was doing skateboarding, and

I skateboard now, and I'm really, really good.

Oh, wow, because we both like the THPS franchise, but you're way more into it than I am.

And so you've transferred from playing the games to skateboarding in real life.

Yeah, I decided to put the controller down and pick the skateboard up.

And now let's just say I'm basically, I'm like Tony Hawk Jr., kind kind of wow i well hey i i wouldn't put it past you you're a guy who's very enthused for it you're yeah you're skilled at video games so i could see how that would maybe transfer to the real world yeah i've been doing hard flips and you know kick flips and stuff and i did a misty flip the other day that was pretty cool and i've been grinding on rails too so i did a i did a a heel flip dark slide uh-huh right did a hurricane too i did a nose grab tail slide i've been just basically any rail if you're a rail in the city of Los Angeles, you're on notice.

Okay?

So I've been just doing a lot of stuff like that.

I did like a, I've been doing manuals too.

Matt,

I'm sorry to

I was kind of taking all this at face value.

Are you lying?

No, no.

Are you being a fucking poser?

Is that what's going on?

Do you think I'm a poser?

I don't know.

I mean, you're coming in and you're talking a big game, and it just sounds like you're listing a bunch of tricks, some of which are very difficult and very advanced for someone who just began skating.

I'm really good at it, dude.

I think you're maybe just lying.

You think I'm lying?

You think I'm lying about doing a fucking air walk grab?

I don't know.

I mean, like,

you think I've never done a Christ air before?

Look, let me just say this.

You're wearing the pads.

You know, you got the Etneys on.

You got the helmet.

I don't see a skateboard, my dude.

It's okay.

Well, now who's the poser?

Are you saying, my dude over here, my dude?

And, you know, the reason I don't have a skateboard?

Huh?

The fucking cops took it.

Oh, boy.

I was doing so much good skateboarding that the cops,

I had a crowd around me, and

they were going to arrest me for

having a big crowd.

They were like, skateboarding is a crime.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

And where was this big crowd at?

I mean, it was just kind of like outside.

Outside?

I was doing street skating.

Uh-huh.

And so that's why it was sort of like I was blocking the street.

Why are you lying?

I'm not lying.

What are you trying to improve?

Who are you trying to impress?

You should have seen me.

I was like, shove it, pigs.

And and then i did a pop shove it on my skateboard and then they let me go and then so i was like skateboarding away my skateboard you should have seen it it's like kind of unbelievable they were you skateboarded away but they confiscated your board no they gave it back to me afterward so you don't have it but you don't have it now because well it's because you should have seen it this like big bird came

And the big bird was sort of like flying at me.

Uh-huh.

And I don't know if it was like, I don't know if like the bird hates skateboarders, but I think the bird, I had a sense that like the bird was like, you're a really good skateboarder.

I had to take you down.

Stay out of the air.

That's our territory.

I think the bird was sort of trying to do it.

Do you condor swoop down?

No, it wasn't like a condor.

It was like a different kind of bird.

Okay.

Like a bump skateboard.

So it was really big.

Some sort of large bird of prey snatched your board and took it back to their nest.

Yeah.

Yeah, and they took it.

But actually,

so they're flying away with it.

I'm holding on to it for dear life.

I'm I'm in the air.

And then actually, the bird's like, I set you up perfectly for this.

And he lets me go.

And I put the board back under my feet.

And there's a ramp right under me.

And I do a big flip.

Uh-huh.

Huge.

You know, like the 900?

Uh-huh.

It was like five of those.

It's like a 4,500.

Yeah, something like that.

Can I just, I think I know what's going on here.

Did you like eat a large meal before you went to sleep last night and have like a crazy dream?

Like, are you describing a dream you had?

Are you asking me if I fell asleep with a hot dog in my mouth

because you know the answer already the answer is yes yeah so I think what happened is that you had this this very vivid dream you think because a bird talked to me

and helped me out do a big skateboarding trick you think that was a dream then did the bird let me just guess the bird like turned into your third grade teacher yeah mr.

Haas yeah so okay yeah this was a dream Matt and hey you know what it's a fine dream to have and it sounds like perhaps it might inspire you to

maybe skateboard in real life, which is a thing that maybe you'd

maybe you should be doing because it seems like you're pretty excited about it.

Yeah, I don't know.

You know, I think I've already accomplished so much in the world of skateboarding that

I think I'm just going to like not do that.

Matt, wake up, wake up, wake up, Matt, wake up, wake up.

What was going on?

You were having like some dream, like you were having a podcast or something like that?

I would never do something so low.

Well, anyway, get ready.

You're up next to the X game.

Oh, shit.

We Madonna Tail Slide and interview the guy from Goldfinger as we discuss 2020 documentary Pretending I'm a Superman, the Tony Hawk video game story this week on Get Played.

Wow, it's Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm Nick Weiger, along with Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Get Played.

Heather Ann Campbell is out this week.

She is in Japan.

Hope you're listening.

If you're hearing this, Heather, I hope you're having a great vacation.

Why would she listen to this?

I don't even listen to this.

She's got to keep up on the lore.

You know, she has to come back.

Nobody's taking notes.

She has to know what's going on of this.

So she's going to have to know

what we're up to because we're going to be different guys when she comes back.

We're not going to be different guys.

I don't know.

I'm kind of planning on being like a different guy.

It's going to be like summer, you know.

It's kind of like my summertime guy.

Do you have an idea for a, for like what a summertime guy is?

Because I would say, to me, you're already kind of a summertime guy.

Thank you.

That's very nice.

We're both from Southern California, sunny SoCal, kind of wearing shorts year-round.

We both have that energy, I feel like.

Is this a guy?

It's just like me, but I have like, you know, how like people have like a, like a pencil behind their ear or like a toothpick in their mouth?

Yeah.

Mine is an eaten corn dog stick, and I just kind of tucked it back there.

I just ate a corn dog.

Uh, yeah, that can be a guy, a weird guy.

Did he just eat a corn dog?

Yeah, like, I just, I couldn't find a trash can, so I'm just holding on to this right now.

I like chewing on the stick.

It's got a little bit of a trash can in the office.

It's got a little bit of like hot dog and cornbread stuff on it.

Here's the problem with being

corn dog stick guy is that everyone's just going to be like, is that, what is that?

And then you'll have to explain it.

I just ate a corn dog.

Yeah.

And then they'll just be like, just Matt had like a corn dog stick behind his ear?

What the hell was that?

And you know what?

I'll be honest with you, too.

I don't eat a lot of corn dogs, but every time I get one, I do think it's like, it's a good, it's a good food.

Do you get those?

Now we were talking before the record because you just ate a chicken sandwich, which I do want to hear more about.

But did did you ever get one of those big bulky like Korean corn dogs that's the new thing I haven't had one of those like two hands that's one of the chains

out here I haven't had that because I do get like I feel like sometimes my stomach's like a little sensitive when something's like too fried it like kind of fucks me up right like um but I do like I like like a like you know the corn dogs at Disneyland I think are like too much because they're like they're just so big they're so fun though they're fun but it's just like that's it's too much breading and I kind of I'm kind of there for the dog you know what I mean like I like the dog the most and I like the I like the shittier version better.

Like I'll take a frozen corn dog over a one from like a theme park typically.

God, I can't.

I just can't.

I used to have I used to get like a 30 pack of corn dogs from Costco and keep it in the freezer.

You just like microwave them all the time and be like, why am I so fat?

That's like your version of like smoking a pack a day.

Like I just ate a bag of corn dogs.

Like I like the hot dog on a stick version is like maybe the ideal version.

Like, the love of a stick.

Like, that's, to me, the ideal corn dog.

The right amount of breading, the right amount of dog.

Just perfect.

But yeah, my chicken sandwich was incredible.

Yeah, what was on that, bad boy?

It was like, it was, like, a slaw, like a type of, like, I don't know.

I don't know what kind of slaw.

It's a breaded chicken sandwich, I assume.

Yeah, yeah, breaded chicken sandwich.

It's over at the window, which is local to us over here.

And I got it before the record, needed a little something to eat.

And there's a sauce, and I don't know what the sauce is, but it's a a really good sauce.

Oh, God, and I wish I had, I just wish I had more information, but it was just like every bite was perfect, like every the chicken was very crispy and uh and juicy on the inside, too.

And the bun is very soft, and I just liked, I like, I liked the way it tasted, and it made me feel good.

Hey, there you go, it's an ideal for food.

What was it was like an eye, wasn't it?

Aioli, what was it?

Did it have like a little

tang to it, a little spice?

I have this in my history, real quick, because I did.

Uh, I ordered it for pickup, um, and I was able to you know secure that that bag and walk over right

and that's how I justify getting a chicken sandwich I I did walk over unfortunately it does say on here how slaw

that's not helping me very much but there's a photo of it that's a gorgeous photo yeah it looks quite toothsome yeah really really good I guess I'd give it five forks oh okay Don't know what that means, but

it was delicious.

And you know what?

I know that we talk about food when we're hungry.

Yeah.

I'm not hungry, and here we are.

But in a way, you're still hungry.

In a way.

Should I have gotten fries?

Yeah.

Did I?

Of course you should have gotten fries.

I didn't, though.

Were you trying to be good?

I was trying to be good.

Yeah.

And then what did I do?

I ate a fucking little cheese when I got here.

And you got a second.

I see you've got a second cheese on deck that I know you're going to start munching on anything.

No, that's the remnants of my previous.

Oh, I thought that was a second one.

Okay, that was just the container.

Yeah, it's just the container.

I just made a mess mess over here you've got one of those wax uh it's it's like these wax um the bay bell cylinders yeah the bay bells that they they come in and and it's it's i do kind of like that waxy cheese i i i do i love it too and i don't know i don't know if wax is wasteful i don't know like it doesn't can't be as bad as single-use plastic yeah it can't be right uh i i love it i love to play with it yeah it's fun that's why i have it over here so i'm not I'm not playing with it too much because I will just start making little shapes and stuff.

Look, but we don't just play with the discarded food containers.

We also play video games here, Matt.

Despite what you may think.

This is primarily a gaming podcast.

And it's not a news podcast.

So we maybe aren't really going to get into the Nintendo Direct, but I will say that Zelda game looks kind of cool.

Zelda game looks pretty cool.

I'm excited about, I know Heather, if Heather was here, she'd be excited about the Marvel vs.

Capcom 2

collection of Marvel Capcom 2.

Yeah, it's cool that that collection exists.

It's It's got all the, you know, the Marvel superheroes, X-Men Children of the Atom, you know, like all those, I think, coming together in one compilation.

I like that that exists just from an archival slash curation standpoint.

But, but, yeah, I mean, there's some cool stuff in kind of the Twilight of the Switch.

Although, who knows?

Maybe I'll keep extending the

shelf life.

Yeah, Metroid 4 looks cool.

Metroid Prime 4 looks cool.

I was kind of interested in that Metal Slug tactics game.

I love Metal Slug.

I don't know if I've ever seen that.

Metal Slugs are great.

Those are really cool.

They're all fun.

We could do like a Metal Slug episode at some point.

We really should.

I've been playing Metal Slug X on an emulator.

Okay.

And just having a fucking blast.

Those were anytime I'd go up to like an SNK cabinet in the arcade, and they'd oftentimes have a Metal Slug in attract mode.

I was like, all right, I'll put some credits in here, mess around with this thing.

Always, always fun.

Really cool, yeah.

And I don't know if any of them are like different than another one, but like I like, I like it.

It's just good.

They don't have to really fix it.

All the ones I played are pretty similar.

I'm sure that the the gameplay evolved some, but I just I really like all the the the sprite work and the animation and everything.

They're just cool looking games and they they're fun to play.

I'm trying to think if there's anything oh well I mean the switch light that is coming out with that Zelda game is fucking gorgeous.

So this is you sh you showed me this and you were like, I gotta get one of these.

I know.

And it's not even an OLED switch.

It's a switch light.

I know.

You don't you don't need this.

I don't need it but i want it really bad it's beautiful it's it's i i but i i i i probably won't be able to justify getting it because like if knowing knowing nintendo we're going to be hearing about you know their predecessor they said they were going to know about more about their predecessor to the switch in 2025 that comes out in like september that's a little too close to the end of the year i can't be getting a superfluous switch for no good reason it's just yeah it's going to be a cool thing to look at that you're not not going to need or play now if i what if i win the lottery or something well then all bets are off but i i like i it it's it they they tempt you with hardware that's what happens they always like hey this is some cool looking you know reskin or this is a cool new controller colorway and i if you're not careful if you're not judicious about it you end up with a bunch of shit that you don't need and this is i think that is like the final that'll probably be the final switch variant if i had to guess like of this switch generation boy, we'll see.

I would not be shocked if they kept pumping them out, even after the Switch 2 or whatever is out.

I'm gonna tell you right now:

if they put out a Metroid Switch, I will not be strong.

I just won't.

I just won't be able to do it.

I could probably not get the Zelda one because, like, I like Zelda games, but Zelda's not like my number one thing.

Right?

I don't even think Metroid's my number one thing, but I like Metroid more than I like Zelda.

I'm thinking back, and I think I had a Zelda Wii U.

Why did I do that?

I had the Zelda 3DS.

I had the Zelda.

yeah i had i had the 3ds i think i had a zelda something else too i can't remember now what uh i guess it was just a 3ds actually but um

man it's all gold yeah you know who would love it number 45.

they're gonna say gold member that's actually funnier

Gold member would go crazy for it.

We're going to talk about the band Goldfinger in a bit in the context of the Tony Hawk dock.

Yeah.

But

I was thinking about that as I was like,

okay, people don't even know that Goldfinger the band is a reference to James Bond anymore.

And then there's also people who don't realize that Goldmember is a parody of Goldfinger the Bond villain.

Yes.

Like, it's just interesting what happens with this stuff.

And wouldn't it be funny if it was the other way, though?

If like Gold Member was a parody of the band Goldfinger, and he was like, he still was like an all-gold guy, but he also likes ska punk.

Right.

They were just all, I love gold versions of Goldfinger's discography.

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We should mention that the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erd Tree DLC is out now as of this episode's release, but we are recording prior to its release.

So we haven't played it yet, but we will have early impressions, not on this week's episode, but on next week's episode.

If anyone is tuning in to hear us talk about Shadow of the Earth Tree, you know, you can find countless YouTube channels doing that very thing right now.

Yeah, exactly.

So we'll be, I'm sure we'll have something to talk about about it in the next,

what are you playing?

But I think now...

We won't hear us talk about it because we haven't played it yet.

Yeah, let's not get hung up on the next what are you playing?

Let's focus on this current, what are you playing?

Rochelle, did you check that the doors are locked?

They're locked.

Okay, great.

He's not coming.

They're boarded up.

We didn't need to worry about the Resident Evil merchant barging in here for once.

No, yeah.

That was a smart move, Rochelle, to turn the open sign to the closed sign.

You see that, you kind of don't know what to do.

Right, right, right.

Totally throw him off.

Very good move.

Speaking of Elden Ring, I'll start.

Yes, please.

I had a crazy idea.

You know,

I finished Rebirth.

I went straight through the Final Fantasy 16, the Rising Tide DLC.

It was fine.

It wasn't anything crazy, really, to me.

You say this is a Final Fantasy 16 enthusiast.

You really like that game.

Yeah, and I thought that that DLC was like, it was just

fine.

Just another level with another Leviathan, or, you know, I can't remember what they called those.

An icon, with another icon

boss fight.

And it was as like spectacular as the other ones.

It was like a lot of fun.

I liked that, but like, I was ready to be done with that kind of too.

I was like, okay, this it didn't overstay its welcome, but I, you know, I was ready to kind of be out of Final Fantasy mode for a little bit.

I'm thinking, Shadow of the Earth Tree is coming out.

I've already beaten this fucker, right?

Elden Ring, you mean?

Oh, yeah, Elden Ring is.

I've already beaten Elden Ring.

I've become the Elden.

I am become the Elden Lord.

Sure.

What if I start a new game plus?

A week before

Shadow of the Earth Tree DLC comes out.

I started, and then I realized you really can't go back.

Sure.

Like, you can't undo, you can't, like, reload the old save.

You can, if you, like, start, like, a second character new.

Right.

But you can't, re, you can't reload the old save from your previous run, let's call it.

From before you be, you finish the game.

Exactly.

So I do this, and I instantly feel as though I've made a huge mistake.

Because I, I, for some reason, when I was reading

who you have to beat,

I was confused.

Because

there are requirements you have to hit to get to the DLC.

It's like Radon and Moog, right?

Those are the two big bosses you got to take down.

I didn't realize he had to beat Radon.

Yeah.

And Radon

is a hard boss.

Yeah.

Really hard boss.

And then Moog is like considered one of the hardest bosses in the entire game.

Right.

And I also forgot that that's who he was.

And I thought it was like the first guy.

You thought Moog was the first guy?

I thought it was Marget.

And I was like, this will be easy.

I'll just have to beat him one time.

I know I could, that would be a nice way to, you know, re-familiarize myself with the controls.

Right.

I beat the first skill check boss in the game.

Now you can do the DLC.

I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that obstacle to get to the DLC.

But no, you have to get very, very deep into it.

Yeah.

And so I, you know, I've beaten this thing already, mostly without a guide.

So I opened up a guide.

Yeah.

I was like, what's going to be the fastest path to these guys?

You kind of have to go through a lot of the bosses to get to, you have to get through like five bosses, right?

Five main bosses at least to get to Radon.

And then there's going to be side bosses and, you know, dungeon bosses along the way.

A lot of game.

But the thing about New Game Plus is that it's basically a fucking revenge tour, dude.

You're in there and you're the fucking strongest guy alive.

And so, like, and I have the Mimic tier, and the Mimic Tier is like a summon that is basically, it's just you with your same powers and stuff, and same, like, strength level.

Right.

So, Mimic Tier is drawing aggro from the bosses, and I'm behind them, like, fuck you, fuck you, and like, just like killing them.

Yeah.

And like, just wiping them out, like, nearly instantly, like, just like destroying them.

Yeah.

So, I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm feeling confident.

I'm like, relearning the, you know, the attack patterns of some of these bosses and like how to dodge and how to switch between like,

you know, my, my various flasks and things like that and switching weapons on the fly and all that type of stuff.

I get to Radon

and Radon's not ready.

Like that, you have to hit a certain number of things.

You have to have a certain number of encounters with certain characters to have the Radon festival start.

And I was like, so I've been flying through this thing and like just missing people.

And just like skipping stuff.

You got to backtrack and converse with some NBCs.

Got to go back, but now I have, you know, the Sites of Grays, so I can fast travel between those.

By the way, the way you put it is very funny that Radon's not ready.

He's not ready.

Oh, well, hey, you're early.

Okay.

He's still got his curlers in.

Yeah.

This guy's not ready.

Listen, man, I'm down to have a climactic show down, but I just need a few to get my shit together.

I got to clean up.

Yeah.

this place's a fucking mess.

Yeah, I wasn't expecting, you know, it said 4:30.

I was thinking people get here around six, you know, right, yeah.

Uh, you can, I, you could help me put some the extra leaves in this table, I guess.

Yeah, you want to, yeah, if you want to set help set up a little bit, but uh, you know, I was kind of more hoping for people to come and stay late in the back end.

That's why I put a 6 p.m.

until question mark.

I've been one time I went to a state, like when I was

younger

and like more interested in comedy than I was like actively like doing it I went to a stand-up show and I somehow got there an hour and a half early and I helped them put chairs out that's nice it was very nice yeah um I'm a really nice guy and so um

I I had to go do this other stuff to get Radon started and I you know I meet the jar of Alexander I meet blade uh and um I think that's all I had to do actually like just like have but there was those quests were a little more sexy wolf right am I remembering that right dude yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Jarv Alexander, nothing to shake us.

He's no slouch either.

Yeah, sure.

But

I do that battle, and I take, we take him down.

I'm dying a couple times because I don't, I can't get to the summon areas fast enough because like in that fight, have you done this?

Yeah, you got to get all the guys.

You got to like,

it's like the fallen heroes, right?

Or whatever.

I'm trying to remain.

Exactly, yeah.

And so like you, there's like summon things on the ground where you can summon the Jarv Alexander Blade and a couple of other people too.

And, um, yeah, and they help you in battle and fucking rock.

So it's a great battle.

It's a great

battle.

But once we start, you know, once we're all out there together, we all start cooking and take this fucker down.

I'm like, okay, I'm ready to just jump straight to Mug.

So I go to

I go talk to,

I think his name is Vare in

the opening area in Lindgrave.

Okay.

And he tells me to go to the roundtable

and then meet me at the at the rose church so i go to the rose church he's out there and he gives me these fucking fingers to in you know to infiltrate other people's worlds right sure you have to do that three times he gives you a cloth and then you have to find a maiden to soak the cloth in blood and then you make an oath to moog and that's how you get entry to there so i'm looking for this fucking yeah dead lady right that took forever and then so i do that i get to Moog.

I'm making my way to him.

No problems at all.

I get to him, and I'm feeling really good because I'm like, I'm just, I'm just going through this like it's an easy game.

Yes.

And then Moog, he still got hands.

He's still fucking hard.

Right.

He's so hard.

And then I do finally take him down, just me and my mimic tier.

And so I'm ready for the DLC.

It took me what took me probably

90 hours or, you know, however long it took to get to that point.

Because when I started my new game, plus, I had 180-something hours in the game.

Took me like two play sessions over a weekend, which was like, I'm feeling pretty good.

All these articles come out about the Shadow of the Erd Tree.

Gene Park says, My character's level 700, and I'm getting my ass kicked.

I'm fucked.

I'm so fucked with this.

Well, I think this is a situation where my understanding is that there's just level scaling in the DLC.

So, just just whatever level you're at, the characters are going, the enemies are going to basically match it.

So there's really no prep you can do to be, you know,

I assume they designed it that way after playtesting it and sort of being like, well, we don't want people just to come in here completely OP and just to blaze through this thing.

Yeah.

So I don't think there's any.

particular prep you can do to be more ready than anyone else.

I think you're just going to go in and everyone's going to be, you know, kind of get their asses handed to them for a little bit.

I'm very ready to be humbled, but all that to say, Elden Elden Ring is an incredible video game.

It is so fucking good.

But that's all I'm playing.

I did start playing the Case of the Golden Idol.

Hey, there you go.

And

I love it.

Little nod to maybe what we're going to get into next week.

Case of the Golden Idol has come to Netflix.

So we're planning on talking about that next week if anyone hasn't played the game and wants to be prepped for that.

Matt, I want to talk about another famously difficult game that I've been playing, Wizardry Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

This is a remaster that came out earlier this year of a 1981

PC RPG

that is

really like a trailblazing game.

It was like the first of these like party-based

role-playing experiences.

It was presented first person,

as a lot of these games were for some time, partly partly because of this.

And the company Digital Eclipse is behind this.

Digital Eclipse previously did the

remaster of

the Atari 50 collection.

They did the Karateka

game, which is kind of like another one of the sort of museum pieces about Jordan Mechner's first game.

And then they also did the Jeff Mintner

collection.

So that this is kind of like their lane where

they take care of these sorts of games.

They put together these sorts of collections, these archival works.

And I got this thing.

And there's part of me that I was like, I don't know why I bought this thing.

But then I'm also like, I think I do know why I bought this thing is because I just appreciate what they're doing from an archival standpoint.

And I kind of just like want these things to be continued to be made because it's just, you know, it's just important work to be done from the standpoint of keeping these early games alive and keeping them in a somewhat playable and approachable state for contemporary consumers.

Now, all that said, I was expecting this to be maybe a little bit more of what we're getting in the Atari 50, where there's like a lot of like, hey, here's a lot of historical context for what's going on.

This is a lot of how this works.

And this is a lot of, you know, what this represented at this time.

It's not really that.

It's more kind of baldly presented as

here's a

it's kind of more like the Tony Hawks remaster, yeah, where it's like, hey, here's the version of this game, but just with a new fresh coat of paint and some UX updates and some

quality of life improvements.

But the thing about this game is that it is punishingly difficult and it is from like an RNG standpoint, largely.

Is it a number generator?

It is like the ranch number generator that we use for our

get animated for animehem.

it is very much like

you you like you will just get like killed randomly and it's not it's the sort of thing where it's like even if you were planning for it there's there's really nothing you can do you know and uh the the kind of the expectation is that you're going to fail a lot you're going to die a lot your entire party is going to be wiped and you'll have to bring up a new party to retrieve their corpses um so it's it's just a thing that i think you kind of like like i don't know how much time i'm actually going to put into this thing but i just kind of like i'm glad to have it and and I'm glad that it exists.

And it is also, I don't know, it's interesting because Wizardry was not a franchise I was as into as a kid.

I was more into the, you know, of kind of the big like.

totemic PC RPG franchises.

I was more into Might and Magic and Ultima and then the Bard's Tale, which is another one that's kind of really gone by the wayside.

But Wizardry was always like a franchise I was aware of.

And I played like Wizardry 5, Bane of the Cosmic Forge, and what was that Wizardry 5?

Was that Wizardry 6?

Whatever it was, 5-6-7.

That's when I kind of got into the franchise.

It's kind of amazing that these big franchises have kind of laid dormant for so long, and no one is making new ones.

But like...

It was a very influential game.

My understanding, I mean, obviously, among PC RPGs and Western RPGs in general, but the Wizardry franchise specifically had a lot of popularity in Japan, and a lot of JRPGs were influenced by the early Wizardry games.

So it's important from that standpoint.

But yeah, it's cool that Digital Eclipse keeps making packages like this.

I love those types of things.

And

earlier when I was talking about the Marvel Capcom one that's coming out,

I'm remembering too that the

there's a Street Fighter one, like there's a Street Fighter anniversary collection that has a bunch of Street Fighters up to three in it.

And the museum, I like games with museum features where you can just read about the history of the games.

That's just good.

I just think that's great.

I love that.

Yeah, it's it's cool that that stuff exists.

And it's always the sort of thing of, I mean, there's some rebalancing you could do with a game like this.

And I kind of almost like wonder, like, would this

they did some of that.

Like they added like a, you know, a hide and ambush thing that was like a, a, a feature that got implemented in.

uh you know like a later console port but was not in the original game like that's in this so that they did a few things but but you i kind of almost wish it to be such a an enormous overhaul it's so much work that it's an easy thing to casually say, but and you get why it's not there.

But I kind of wish there was like a rebalanced mode or something like that, or that there was like some new, like, hey, here's the, here's a modern difficulty sort of mode where everything is kind of updated to be a little bit more, you know, approachable, not just from a UI standpoint.

Or like even in like the

Maybe you don't want this, but in the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, they have like, you could put up like how many, there's like like multipliers for like gill and uh experience points and stuff.

So

that to me makes it a little more fun because it's like you're not slogging through this like hard ass like

like you know old clunky RPG.

You're kind of just flying through it.

Well yeah.

Experience an old game like that.

And there's also the standpoint of like, look, it's it it nineteen eighty one, there just weren't a lot of games.

Yeah.

And if you bought a game, you were s committing a lot more money relative to the value of a dollar.

Cause it's not like new games back then cost like $4.

You know what I mean?

Like they were still like 50 bucks.

Just 50 bucks was a lot more money.

Though again, you probably had a better paying job because the economy was whatever.

That's a, we don't need to open this larger discussion.

No, but you know what?

All I got to say about that is thanks, Biden.

I remember my dad, like, he got me and my brother for Christmas one year, Zelda 2, The Adventures of Link.

And that game at the time was $70.

And I don't, I looked it up once how much it like $70 was in like 1988 or whatever year that game came out.

And it was like the equivalent of like $190 today.

It was like so much money.

That's suck.

So my dad like worked like an entire like day.

Like that was like a day of his life was like going to teach at a community college to get enough money so he could buy his sons a new Nintendo game for Christmas.

And then we played it a little bit.

We're like, this is boring.

I'm going to say

to buy a Zelda game that nobody really likes that much,

that really sucks.

I know.

I remember being a kid and being like, man, I have 25 bucks.

I'm going to have the best two weeks of my life.

And now it's like, you know, you could buy a sandwich here in Los Angeles for most of that.

Yeah, maybe a fucking fancy chicken sandwich with

salon, and it was eight bucks.

Eight bucks?

Eight bucks, and I tipped 20%.

So I got out of there about like a little over less than 10 bucks bucks for a nice chicken sandwich.

But I am still hungry.

And so I'll go back after this.

I'm not going to go back.

Why not?

The humiliation.

Hi, I'm back.

I didn't get enough food.

I did that once at a McDonald's.

I went through and I got my whole order and nothing was wrong with the order.

I was just like, I'm still hungry.

I thought I wanted to get more.

And so I went back again.

You didn't even go in.

No, I didn't even go in.

I just looped back again.

And it was like so humiliating because she was like, I guess you're hungry.

Yeah, I ate it all from the second window to the fucking curb.

Do you have more to say about this game?

Because I know that somebody else in this room has something to say about what they're playing.

Wait, really?

Ranch, what are you playing?

I'm playing Resident Evil 2.

Wow.

Wow.

I love this.

I wanted to play Resident Evil 4 because I wanted to meet the merchant.

Yeah, sure.

But

we have PlayStation Plus, so I wasn't able to download that.

So I was like, I'll just start from the earliest game that's on here.

Yeah, it's really scary.

And I wish I wasn't playing alone somehow.

Because it doesn't seem like Mark's down for that.

No, Mark hates scary things.

Okay.

Wow.

How are you?

Have you played other scary games before?

I haven't played myself, but like sometimes I'll, I've watched like other friends or like streamers play scary games.

And I like

just the horror genre and I like being scared and stuff, but it's a little bit too much when it's you.

Right.

But I actually

have a lot of familiarity with like the police department because of this game called Dead by Daylight.

Okay, sure.

So like that's a map in Dead by Daylight.

So it was kind of fun to see the origin of that.

Ranch said not all cops.

Okay.

I'm familiar with the police department.

Yeah, we've seen the flag on the bumper of your car.

Now it's all starting to add up.

I'm just kidding.

So, okay, so you like horror in general.

You like scary movies, scary TV shows, that sort of thing.

But just actually immersing yourself in being an interactive experience, because that's the thing with me is like I can watch a scary movie and I won't freak out.

But like scary games, very often, I'm just like, I'm out on this.

Yeah, and I'll often want to do it, but I and

I feel like more often than not, I push through.

Like I finished Alan Wake 2, and that game was really scary to me.

Resident Evil 4, I think, is maybe one of my favorite video games, even though it is a scary game.

Yeah.

Also, more, also, kind of an action game as much as anything.

Yeah, it is a bit of a power fantasy because you're like, Leon is just like, he's insane.

Like, he's just like, he's just a good, like, he's good at what he does.

But

Leon is in the second one, I believe, and he's like a rookie cop.

And I have not played Resident Evil 2 remake, but everybody says it's a great version of it to play.

You're having fun with it, other than the scare side of it.

Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun.

The panic I feel in this game, though, is like,

it's very scary.

And I've like, I'm really bad at resource management.

I thought there would be more ammo around.

So I've like been trying to,

I'm trying to figure out the best way to deal with the zombies because I also the knife like goes away after a certain point.

Have you encountered, I believe his name is Mr.

X?

Is that who it is?

Oh, right.

Yes.

No, not yet.

Okay.

Let us know when you encounter Mr.

X.

He's a scary guy from what I hear.

So far, while you're playing the game, are you more scared playing the game or interacting with anybody from Hollywood Handbook?

The latter.

I'm glad you're playing a new game that, you know,

a new game relative to you.

That's really cool.

I got to mess around, too.

Everybody I know says that two is the one.

The two remaster.

Yeah.

I played the original.

I played Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation 1.

Wow.

But all the RE remasters, yeah, it's like...

They did three.

They've done a bunch of them.

I just think the remake of 4 is so fucking good.

We did a whole episode on it.

A lot of fun.

That game is just perfect.

It's a Capital V video game.

If you ever get a chance to play it, it's an unbelievable experience.

It's really, really fun.

This is an absolutely true story.

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

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That's a true story.

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Well, there you go.

Let's talk about pretending I'm a Superman, the Tony Hawk video game story.

This is a documentary that was released on August 18th, 2020.

It is crowdfunded, as is my understanding.

And it is a quick watch.

It's about 70 minutes long.

It's like a pretty short feature film.

Yeah, it's like you could watch this 10 times, or you could watch Oppenheimer once.

Well said.

It was produced by Ralph D'Amato, who was a producer at Neversoft and worked on the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise.

He recruited a YouTube THPS content creator to direct the dock that director is ludwig gur who i believe is swedish and this is this is uh staggering he was born in 1997 yes so he was 18 when they pitched this documentary and he was 23 when the film released young man young young man um i'd say talented documentarian uh that's like that's what you kind of want like i don't know that should be

maybe it shouldn't be the goal necessarily but like when people are making stuff and they're making YouTube videos, this is kind of like the best case scenario.

Somebody that sees somebody who worked on the thing that you're making content about sees the thing and it's like, I have this thing I want to do with you.

Come, come do this.

And they're like, it's a cool opportunity.

I think that's, that's super cool.

It's, it, it, it's rad, and it's the kind of thing where it's like, you kind of, there, there's so much

in traditional film production with the studio system and everything, it's like there's so many, there's so many gate, there's so much gatekeeping that a lot of times someone isn't getting their first film made until they're like in their 40s.

You know what I mean?

It's like, it's, it's, so it's like cool for someone who's very young to be able to have the opportunity to make something like this.

Um, did you see Ambulance?

The Michael Bay movie, I did see Ambulance, yeah.

Michael Bay like found the guy that does the drones in that movie, like, on Instagram.

It's kind of just like another animal.

I know that he's like, this like Instagram drone guy.

He's like, I like this guy's drone stuff.

This guy's gonna fucking shoot the drone stuff for my movie.

That's awesome.

Yeah, so I don't know.

It's not impossible.

So

what I'm saying is people that make stuff online, follow your dreams.

Yeah.

So, hey, that's what we're doing.

I'm really hoping that, I mean, that like somebody's going to hear this and be like, hey, Jimmy Fallon's out.

The three of you guys are in.

So

here's what I'll say.

I had not seen this documentary before, but I've been wanting to watch it.

I've been looking for a reason to watch it.

And you and I, you know, Heather, I don't think ever really got into the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise.

You looked at that chair like she was sitting there.

Yeah, we left an empty chair for Heather,

kind of as a symbol of her absence.

Yeah.

That mic, her mic is live still.

So

the thing is,

but the two of us were really into the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, but for me in particular, it was THPS one and two, like those, those first couple of games.

You stuck with a franchise and you played through the thug games, the Tony Hawk Underground.

Yes, and I'll say too, I had seen this, I saw this documentary when it came out.

Okay.

I was very interested in this doc.

So I revisited it again.

I watched it this morning

before

we recorded.

Right.

And then you got a chicken sandwich.

And I got, I've had that.

You basically know my entire day.

Recording on the earlier side, I haven't had that much of a day so far.

Yeah, sure.

I did wake up at seven.

Hey, there you go.

So, that's now you're caught up.

Yeah, I did stick with the franchise.

I, uh, I played all the way through Tony Hawks Project 8, actually.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Um, and then from there, I sort of like fell off.

Um,

and then I don't think any of the other I did, I did get Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 on the PlayStation 4.

It's not good at all, it is a very bad game.

Um, and

I did play, they had an HD remake of one and two with DLC for three, on the PlayStation Store, like on PlayStation 3 before this 1 and 2 remaster came out.

And I messed around with that.

I was like, this feels, this just feels off.

Like, it doesn't feel.

I think it's made in a similar engine that 5 is made in.

And it's just not just not what it is.

But I would say, I mean, this documentary covers a lot of ground.

It covers

the inception of the very first game and then touches on the success of the franchise.

And then the dip is

in sales in the franchise is interesting.

I stayed through basically all that and was very excited because this came out around the time that the remasters came out.

Yes.

The one and two remaster came out.

And so

I still get in the one and two remaster like pretty regularly.

Interesting.

That to me is like, you know, when

you go to like a concert and like the roadies come out and like they test the equipment.

Yeah.

They'll just like start doing scales on a guitar.

That's like all like I'll like crush the warehouse level and Tony Hawks Pro Skater one and two remaster before I like play a bigger game.

Like just to be like, let's just get, let's just get these buttons working.

Let's get a little warmed up.

But I do think people, I guess Tony Hawks Underground and American Wasteland didn't sell as well, but those are some of my favorite ones.

I really loved those games quite a bit.

Yeah, I think I maybe messed around with the first Tony Hawks Underground.

I mean, that was around when I was working, when those games were coming out.

It was around when I was working at Activision.

So maybe Thug 2 was in development.

Anyway, what I was going to say is,

this is one thing I like about this dock is beyond

its duration, it does not overstay its welcome.

It's pretty comprehensive in its short runtime.

One-tenth of an Oppenheimer, for example.

Yeah, as Matt pointed out.

It's a...

It does actually, like, I'm expecting hagiography.

I'm expecting this is going to be like, oh, we're going to venerate this thing and talk about how great Tony Hawk is and who he is awesome, but like, talk about how great Tony Hawk is and how amazing this game is or whatever.

It's not necessarily all that.

Like, it does dwell on

the fall of the franchise and the declining sales.

And Tony himself is very candid about it, just sort of talking about how they lost what was cool about it.

There's Neversoft developers who are like, yeah, we made it to Arcadie and then we tried to overcorrect.

They talk about, they get into Tony Hawk's ride,

the peripheral, which was a skateboard that you stood on that sucked and didn't.

Watching him try to sell that to a crowd is so

fucking funny.

Because it's so, because he's like, he's trying very earnestly to talk it up, but like you can even just tell in the presentation he doesn't really believe in it.

No, no.

And he's like a very earnest, like,

I don't know.

I love Tony Hawk as a guy.

I think he seems like a good dude

and like is maybe intense, but like is like a super like, I don't know.

He's like the guy that does that.

Like, I don't know.

he's he's incredible to me I he's maybe like one of the greatest living Americans I've said this on the podcast before but I will retell it because it's a it's a fair time to do so I wore his clothes once

what

so I

I've told you this already I know the story but you phrased it in a way that was insane I wore his clothes it wasn't actually his clothes it was a duplicate of his clothes it was a duplicate of his wardrobe But it was for a bit where I was like Tony Hawk.

You were like, you were hoping that it was his, though.

Oh, hey, man.

I hope it's his Andes.

I hope I can wear Tony Hawk.

There's only one changing room.

I think they want us to wear it together.

He was, first off, so this was on the Comedy Bang Bang TV show on IFC, which I was writing for, and there was a bit for it.

And I was

the writer who was the closest physical match to Tony Hawk.

I was like the same height and a similar build at the time.

Though I've plumped up a little bit.

And so the bit was he was going to come clean and say, Look, I'm actually, I don't do my own stunts.

I have a stunt guy.

And I was a stunt guy.

And so I just came out like wearing his clothes.

That was basically the whole bit.

And then I think there was a part where it revealed that I was actually sitting in the interview and he was like talking with through my voice or whatever.

I don't remember exactly what the bit was.

But anyway, he was like, like, what I will say from the experience is that, first off, he was super generous with this time that day.

He was very like funny, but also in a way where he's like, look, I, you guys know what to do.

I'll do, I'll follow your lead, you know, like very much like just understood how something was, yeah.

Uh,

understood how like TV was made and also had an understanding of like what the best way to use his own celebrity and talents in.

So like, I was just like, everything about the experience was super duper positive.

I love this guy.

Like other athletes that

funny.

There's like, I'm funny.

I know what I know how to be funny.

It's just like, okay, yeah, but like, right, this is going to come across a little bit different in this context.

Yeah, it's cool that like he was like, that he's down to clown.

Yeah, he's down to clown and he's a, he's a very talented and very gracious man.

And I, I, it was one of the sorts of things, like, you know, his public persona, and then to actually interact with him is like, oh, this is, I, I, I, I like this guy even more than I already did.

I think if I met him, I'd cry.

Yeah.

Like,

I, like, I, I, I, I imagine if you were as close.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I'd probably fucking bust a nut.

But

he seems like such an amazing dude.

And I always love seeing that, like, he's like a meme now, kind of, where like people come up to him all the time.

And he's like, Are you Tony Hawk?

And then he's like, no.

That's fun.

And that's like, I like that.

Very wholesome man.

And I think that, you know, his wholesomeness back when skateboarding, this documentary gets into it, was like kind of this outlaw culture, which was a big part of the

pro the pre-THPS era.

Like he would, that was part of why he became such a

such a great ambassador for the game.

You were saying something a little bit ago, too, about

how it's not all just praise.

Even some of the skateboarders, like Jamie Thomas in this documentary, is like, I wasn't like super stoked about doing this game.

I didn't think it was like that good of idea, but I didn't want to be the one guy that's not.

I don't want to be left out.

Yeah.

And then he's like, and I still don't think it's like that great.

I was like, honestly, this kind of, of like to have something like that in this, it would be very easy to be like, you know, the give the rose covered,

rose-colored glasses version of the story.

But it's cool that there's like dissenting takes in it.

I think that's, that's what makes it a good documentary.

And we're so accustomed, I think, to the modern doc, which is like, hey, Activision has a heavy hand in it and that you need Activision's approval to use all this material.

So, yeah, they're going to excise all that.

It is just going to be stuff that makes the company look good and makes the IP look good.

So it is nice that there's some, that, again, there's just people just being honest about this and what it meant.

It speeds through so sort of like the, in the first part, the history of skating, talks about the division between vert skating and street skating versus skating, basically skating on a big ramp versus like just skating in your neighborhood or whatever, and kind of where that, that that we ended up being kind of a class division and also had to do with a bunch of communities dissembling their skate parks and putting out these skateboarding bands that you think modern people like modern kids just have no idea that this was a whole thing in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah.

Were you ever into skateboarding?

I did skateboard a little bit.

I had a skateboard and I would like try to, I would just like go up and down my street.

I was not like doing like tricks or anything like that.

But I would hang out.

We went to like a day camp

that was like at like a skate park, like near a skate park.

And we would go like, I would watch like the bigger kids like skate

and just be like, these are like, this is so cool.

Even when I walk past a skate park now, I'll stop and like watch because it's like, I don't know, I'm just so impressed by it.

It's just, it's like, it's just amazing to me.

You have a, you have a, you have a twin brother, but do you have like an older brother?

I forget whether you're saying that.

No, I have a, I have a, the person, it's, I'm the oldest, actually.

So my brothers had nobody to look to look up to.

Right.

But it's me and my twin, and then I have a younger brother and then a younger stepbrother.

But but you kind of have older uncle

who's like nine years older than me.

So so my thing is that I have a I have an alpha older brother, Nate, and he was a skateboarder.

And so he also had

Thrasher magazine and stuff, which is touched on in the documentary, the big, the iconic skateboarding magazine.

So a lot of my exposure to skate culture was through him and his group of friends and thinking that they were really, really cool.

And so I always thought skateboarding was.

cool and was super intrigued by it.

And some of these early skateboarding video games that the doc talks about, Skater Die, 720, you know, I remember, I'm trying to think of what else.

Oh, there was a TNC Surf Designs.

I don't know if you remember that company, but they had an NES game that had skateboarding and surfing, but the skateboarding was fun in that.

I was very familiar with the arcade cabinet one.

Yeah, so this is the Sega one.

Fuck, I didn't write the name down.

Do you remember what it's called?

No.

This is the Sega.

I'll look it up in a second, but this is the Sega.

arcade cabinet where you could stand on it, which I didn't realize that was as much of an influence on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater specifically, but I guess all the Neversoft guys were like, yeah, this is what we're kind of going for.

Top skater.

Top skater.

we're going to make this, but we're going to make this controllable with a uh with a PlayStation controller.

I also feel like the Twin Galaxies guy who shows up, is he just in every video game doc?

I feel like I always see this guy.

He's just like ready to talk.

Yeah, dude.

He's like, I got my referee shirt.

I'm ready to rock.

I got my own lab mic.

Here we go.

He's an interesting guy.

He's an interesting guy.

And he contributes to this doc.

I mean, I like his presence.

I didn't realize it makes sense that THPS was like a big competitive game,

you know, in that era.

So

I would, I put me in, put me in now.

Like, I think, I don't know if I'm like that good at the game.

I think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is one of the games that I'm best at of the games that I play

to the point where I was just talking shit about this to Ify Wadiway recently.

Yeah.

And I'll say it publicly here on the podcast.

He was in this like BuzzFeed video or something.

It was like something like that many years ago when the remaster was coming out.

And it was like him and a couple other streamers playing the game.

and Tony Hawk was like on Zoom with them, like, and then, you know, told one of them which one was the best one or something, you know, award them champion.

And they were all bad.

And I was like, I am so much better at this game than all of them.

I would have fucking smoked them and Tony Hawk would have been my best friend.

Yeah.

But anyway.

I love that you're bitter about this.

I'm pissed.

But they didn't even get anybody.

Like they didn't get anybody good to play the game.

Yeah.

And then if you challenged me to it pretty recently and I was like, I'm busy.

I can't.

Wait a minute.

Who makes you look bad?

Here's one thing I do, like, look, all the Tony Ox stuff when they're actually talking with him is really interesting.

I love him.

Like, I mean, I don't love that he endured it, but it's really interesting to hear him talk about his financial woes in the 90s.

And did he say like he's like, was freelance video editing for money?

Is that what he just did?

He was editing like video game commercials and stuff, too.

Because he just had his own editing rig.

And so he needed money and he wasn't his, all his skateboarding sponsorships kind of dried up.

So it's wild to think that, like, I mean, because I guess it makes sense.

Skateboarding is like not a very transferable skill.

Yeah.

Right.

So, like, if your whole thing is vert skating and then street skating becomes the main thing, not to say that he can't do that, but he's not known for that.

And there's probably less money in street skating than there was for vert skating competitions.

He's also just an older, like, uh athlete relative to you know, his, and and like, this is a

in any athletic endeavor, it's like young people end up dominating.

So, he probably reached a certain point where he aged out of it a little bit.

I heard him tell this story on a podcast one time where he was like, I broke my pelvis.

Jesus.

And they were like, How old were you?

He was like, I was like, 39.

I was like, That's fucked.

And it's

insane.

So, like,

it's a bad injury either way.

But if you were younger, you're sort of like, yeah, I probably like dusted that off.

He's like, I was like in physical therapy for like a year and a half or something.

it was brutal uh and he recently broke his like femur or something too uh because he's still at it so but but he's like like it's it's interesting to hear him just talk through about that it's kind of just weird to think i know that whatever like it's it's just but it is kind of weird to just think about tony hawk as tony hawk this like iconic guy and he's just like oh there's a certain point where he's just like yeah man i need a job you know yeah but anyway the

the other thing is i when he gets involved in the development like he seems to have real insight and i think this is part of the game's success and part of why he's such a great

figure in terms of using his license is that he's really conscious of the game being approachable and not too difficult.

Like he's talking about he played, he was brought in for other games and like they were kind of like, hey, do you want to, you know, be a part of this?

And he'd play through their prototype and be like, this is just too difficult.

This is as difficult as learning to skateboard.

And this actually needs to be a thing that anyone can pick up and play.

Like it's like, oh, that's kind of, that's really smart that he just kind of perceived that.

Because Because I think a lot of people would be like, yeah, sure, slap my name on it.

Give me a payday.

I don't care.

You know?

Yeah, like Bill Lambert or whatever.

Right.

Bill Lambert's combat basketball.

Yeah.

God, that game sucks.

But like, it is, it's really cool because he talked about this a little bit too, that he was like a, you know, I don't think he would call himself a gamer necessarily, but he's

a kid that grew up in the 80s.

He's played video games.

He knows like

playing of a younger him playing 720, the arcade cabinet, in the documentary.

That's also wild, too, that like like, I, it's just so cool that there's so much footage of him.

Like, like, just being,

and he's been Tony Hawk for so long.

I know.

It's like, it's really, really, it's really crazy to just think about.

I do wish they, because there's a point where, because

I don't know if you remember the Bruce Willis game Apocalypse, but this was like one of the early, like, hey, we're going to get a big celebrity involved.

Yeah.

And the game came out and kind of

like wasn't great, but it, but Neversoft's big thing is they kind of did a salvage job on it.

Yeah.

uh, but it was originally, I think, Bruce Willis was supposed to voice like your sidekick, and then they reached a certain point where they're like, oh, we'll just make him the main character.

We got Bruce Willis in it, we need to put in more Bruce.

But I, but, like, that the origin was them making this Bruce Willis game apocalypse and then being like, hey, we want to make this skateboarding game influenced by Top Skater.

And so that they made it, that part of how they wooed him was with a tech demo that had Bruce Willis's character model with a big gun riding a skateboard around.

I do wish they had that footage.

It probably just doesn't exist anymore, but that would have been an awesome thing to see in this.

I would love to see that.

And to your point, yeah, if you have Bruce Willis, let's just get him.

Let's get him in.

He's the second guy.

That doesn't make any sense.

You understand it from the standpoint of, though, like how a lot of games work where it's like, oh, well, an NPC is probably going to be talking to you more than the main character.

But I think at a certain point, I just.

But

it was interesting, too, that he like,

I wasn't certain that they were doing mocap at that time, but like to see him in the ping-pong balls, like

going up and down a ramp and doing tricks, and like he talked about how like embarrassing that was.

Yeah, exactly.

How it hurt really badly.

I'm in the skin-tight suit, yeah.

And then they're also, it's like super dangerous because he doesn't have all the padding he normally has.

Yeah, yeah, it's all that was super interesting.

Also, that he was offered a $500,000 buyout for his back end.

He was like, No, I think I'll give the back end.

And it's just been like the

made a billion dollars from it or whatever.

Because these games, which then they go on to say, through Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, hope we, I'm not jumping ahead too much here.

No, no, you're doing great.

Remain in the top-selling games like every, every, yeah, after every new one, still.

When four comes out, one, two, and three are still in the top sales.

Two is like one of the highest, like, rated and selling games for the PlayStation 1 in general.

It's reminding me how, like, just important these games in this franchise was in terms of expanding gaming's you know uh

aware general awareness and there was a time when video games were for fucking losers and not instead of for everybody you know and just like making them into a more mainstream product but it also it like also did the same thing to skateboarding which it helped make skateboarding mainstream so it's like it did it helped both sides of it one of the most amazing things about the story of this game though comes closer to the end of the dock when Tony lands the 900.

Yes.

He lands a 900 at the X Games, which I've been to the X Games before.

I went a couple of years in a row when I was a teenager.

That's cool.

It fucking rocks.

It is really, really fun.

He lands a 900, something he hadn't done before.

Yeah, this was a big news story.

Like, this was like, this broke into mainstream sports news, which at the time, action sports didn't really.

The game is shipping in three months.

Yeah.

He calls Neversoft up and was like, can we put a 900 900 in the game?

Which is a genius call to make.

Yes.

Did it come from him or was it, did it come from them?

Whichever way it was.

He called and they said, we're already on it.

Oh, we're already on it.

That's what it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because, like, yeah, I made the news.

Like, if you, if something like that happens, you have to put that in the game.

And then the other great thing that they highlight in this documentary is they don't highlight it too much, but they highlight the soundtracks.

Yeah, so this is, this I really like.

Like, they have some interviews with some band members, like the, um, uh, you know, the guy from Goldfinger, the guitarist from primus the bassist from bad religion and it's funny to that like you know the primus guy in particular they're like we want to license your music for a video game and he's like what uh huh what are you talking like that i don't understand what are you talking about like i know video game music it does not it's not like they don't put songs in video games like he had this context of of just like hearing you know chip tunes on cartridges and and but also at the time this was not a common thing it wasn't until cds that you had like recorded music, that you had like even the possibility of a song with lyrics being on a game.

So it was a pretty novel thing.

Yeah, and then the guy from Goldfinger is just like, fuck yeah.

Then he talks about too, how like nobody really gave a shit about

Goldfinger, like when they were tutoring or whatever.

And then they play that song, and everybody goes fucking crazy.

Yeah, specifically, he's talking about a show in Europe where people lost their minds for the

for Superman, the song which was on the soundtrack.

And yeah, jerry was a race car driver for primus which has got such heavy play in that game uh the the bad religion bassist who's just like

like yeah you use whatever like you just see like they all they all seemed again it was smart of them to go to like the punk side and like these kind of yes

this this this this art this uh like a sport that was kind of uh you know pushed to the side kind of marginalized to also go to this sort of like

counterculture um a music genre that was like associated with it And all those guys are like, yeah, sure, fucking whatever.

And, you know, whatever they're putting in this big, what ended up being this multi-you know, billion-dollar media franchise or whatever.

But at the time, it was kind of renegade, what they were doing.

I also liked, too, like the, some of them talked, some of the skateboarders talked about this, like, the notion of like selling out.

Because, like, on the one hand, you have to, like, do something to propel the.

the sport forward.

Right.

And so it's not just like an activity or like a hobby to like get like sports, you know, the sports world to treat it with some seriousness.

That seems so much of like Tony Hawk's agenda in particular.

Yes.

Because like now it's in the in the Olympics.

Like he got it into the Olympics.

But then there's also the other side where it's like you're in some ways like shilling for like a brand.

And like that is like, that's a tough thing to to reckon with.

Like for especially for like skateboarders who like consider themselves like not even just athletes, but like artists too, in a way, which I think is like something that is like, I don't know, I think about skateboarding like that, and like, that's kind of like the appeal of it to me is that it is

like an art form, too.

Yeah, it's a really creative enterprise.

But then you have people like

I like, there's all those guys that are in the documentary, I could have heard them talk for like an hour because, like, those are some of my favorite like skateboarders, specifically because they're from the game, which is the thing they talk about.

But, like, Rodney Mullen is like the chillest dude on earth.

Yes.

And I was like, I could listen to this guy talk for two hours.

Like he's, this guy's amazing.

Cause everything he had to say, too, is so good.

And that he was just like so thankful.

And so like, I don't know, he's just very like aware of like the trends and like in skateboarding and also just very aware of himself.

It was very like, I don't know.

He seemed like a really introspective, interesting guy.

Yeah, I liked all that.

I liked hearing from there, you know, there's like a young black skater and a young woman skater who are like talking about how Kareem Campbell and alyssa steamer being in the game is part of how they were like oh came to terms like oh that's that's uh i could be a i could be a skater that these are pro skaters now who are like inspired by the these uh uh the presence of these uh you know uh these figures in the game i was hoping for interviews with uh cream campbell and alyssa steamer and then they're not there and they're kind of like i didn't i didn't investigate maybe they're hopefully they're still alive but i you know i believe they're still with us um but but that's the kind of thing of like you like you think of all the the skaters that are in the original game you kind of wish you'd been able to hear from all of them.

Yes, because they got almost everybody.

They got almost everybody, yeah.

And, you know, the thing that I think this dock does very, very well

is mirrors the rise and fall of skateboarding in real life with like the rise and fall of

the sales of the video game.

Yeah.

Because like it just happens.

It comes in waves.

Like those.

They were unstoppable in

those first four games.

They could, they could do no wrong.

Like they got a little sillier, but then with four, they like brought it back down to earth a little bit, right?

And then they go in this direction of Tony Hawks Underground, and that doesn't sell that great, but it is like pretty well received.

People like that game

and in the subsequent games too.

But it's just like year after year, they're sort of starting to fall off a cliff because it's just one of those things too, where like, does the previous Madden sell as much as the one before?

Like, I mean, probably.

It's probably a bad example.

Yeah, I think those sports games, those year, those annual sports games are kind of their own thing.

Yeah.

But Activision attempted to apply the same model to a THPS.

Yes.

And they did that until the well ran dry and they didn't iterate on them enough or they tinkered with the formula too much.

It was kind of almost a thing where it was just sort of like

was not really sustainable to do basically yearly editions of this franchise.

And then

they kind of the franchise ran out of the THPS franchise kind of ran out of gas.

And then they made Neversoft, who they'd acquired, make Guitar Hero and Call of Duty sequels, two other franchises that they were just milking for all they were worth.

And then they closed the studio forever in 2014.

It's just like a depressing sort of, this is what publishers,

especially Activision and NEA, keep doing to develop it.

It's such a bummer, too, because as far as title cards in video games go, I think Neversoft had a great one.

Always had a love.

The Eye is good.

The Eye is good.

The Eye is really good.

And the fun thing about those games too, and especially in those early ones, they stopped doing, they did it up into Underground 2, I think.

There was always like fun

guest characters.

Sure.

Like Wolverine or like Darth Maul or something or Shrek.

Yeah.

I kind of just like,

I kind of wish that was still a thing.

It's not really in the new one.

You can't, like, you can get like a police officer guy, Jack Black.

And that is pretty good.

But I want Shrek back, I guess is what I'm saying.

Yeah, it's look, every game could benefit from the presence of Shrek.

I think this is a really well-crafted documentary, and I think it gives a lot of context to what it was like to play those games.

And

I felt like there was real insight into the development behind this and the reception of them.

I think if there's anything, I just like, I kind of went, like you were saying, I kind of wish we'd heard from, uh, more, the, heard more from the people that are with, within it and, uh, hear from some other people that aren't, aren't present in the documentary.

Yeah.

But overall, it is, I, I, I really do, it did enjoy watching it.

I guess the only other thing I'd say is that, that, and I understand why this happened, why they did this, but it seems like a lot of the game footage is pulled from either a PC port or the remaster itself.

Yes.

That, that, it's, it's a, a lot of what's captured has a higher resolution and like, you know, uh, texture filtering, uh, texture smoothing.

And I kind of wish we were seeing more of the jagged, aliased, you know, blocky textured PS1 version that everyone played.

Yeah.

Just so it's kind of like, hey, this is what this game actually was.

But instead, we're kind of more seeing like, this is what you remember the game looking like, you know?

So I do play the remaster a lot, but recently, because I knew we were doing this, and also I just wanted to see if I still got it.

I had been playing the original Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1.

Yeah.

That's the one I'm nostalgic for.

I know everybody likes two the best.

Yeah.

I didn't, but I didn't get, for some reason, I didn't get two.

I just like missed two completely and went straight to three.

Um,

but

you said two, I think, introduced the manual, yes, yeah, and that's like in the end.

Uh, did they do uh reverts too?

I think reverts was later, but um, they you know, they do say that like two is like the game that they wish they could have made with one, yeah, sure.

Um, I so I booted up Tony.

I've been playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater one on this, uh, on an emulator, and I still got it.

I, I, I, I, I,

I know I can get that secret tape.

I'm getting skate.

I'm getting the high score.

I'm clearing that run.

I think I could do it in one two-minute session if I just practiced it.

I think I could do it.

But

it took me like two,

but I did do it.

And

it's still a fun game to play, even though it's like, you know, old and like, you know,

it looks bad now by modern standards, but the original version is still good.

And I think that's very interesting.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's uh going back to Wizardry, which is what predates this game by 20 years, but it's like there was an era where it's like it's just kind of a fucking miracle that this thing even runs.

You know what I mean?

Like, this is how did anyone make this make this thing in an era when, you know, you didn't have an

off-the-shelf engine and you didn't have a bunch of libraries and a bunch of middleware.

You were kind of basically building everything from scratch.

Like, how, how was this even doable?

Your tools were so much cruder.

You didn't have like

so much of what you had that lets you quickly iterate on things and add content was just not present.

Like your tool set was just so much more limited.

But then you also, when you end up with something like this, was just like, this is still a fun game.

Like this still fundamentally, the gameplay here is so good, is so well tuned.

The thing they talk about, the one developer, when he talks about how people were, like guys, gamers were playing it, and it was the first time you heard people say tight.

Yeah.

That's how it feels.

Like, it's a very tight game.

Like, that's, that's a big part of what is just the feel of the control is so

precise, and it feels like you're doing what you, the character is doing what you're trying to make it do.

But also, some of the discoveries that they made along the way, too, are so interesting because, like, they,

it just seems like they really, like, they really listened to feedback like early on in development.

So, like, they initially developed a level that was like the top skater type thing where it's like you know going down to basically the warehouse level, like it's a downhill slope going into the warehouse where there's a pool or whatever.

And then the guys like everybody got down to the pool in the warehouse and was like, this is the and would spend like a half hour there instead of doing any of the stuff downhill.

So they were like, this is the game.

And like I think a lot more of the in it in there's another there's another world where Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is because there is a level, there's the downhill jam in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater that is a downhill level.

There's another world where all the levels are like downhill.

Yeah, they're trying to make like basically like SSX or snowboard kids or something.

The fact that they

made it a

normal plane is, I think,

to your point, it's a miracle that it works.

Yeah.

I can't, I don't know how they, how do you, how do you code a kickflip?

How do you do it?

How do they do any of this?

It's crazy.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's,

I think what you were just talking about is

that, that I think is what happens with a lot of like really good games is that they just had a period of prototyping and they approached it not with like, hey, this is what we're going to do, but more of like a little bit more of a

like, oh, we've got an open-minded approach of like, wait, that we've, now we've cracked what's actually fun about this formula.

We can sort of reorient our design to, you know, focus in on this.

And yeah, I liked all the design insight.

I could have taken even more of it.

I would have loved to hear how they came up with things like, you know, skate and the tapes and everything and how they settled on the timer and like hearing all that who developed the scoring system and who came up with the insight that when you repeat a trick combo, you get a smaller multiplier to increase, to encourage people trying a bunch of different things, which is, I think, a huge part of why that game is is so endlessly playable.

Because you can't just like find your one super combo and then you're set.

No, no.

It is cool that there is this doc now that, like, I don't know.

I do, I,

I obviously love these games.

Um,

I, it's cool that there's a doc that, like, gives like these games, like, I don't know, uh, their flowers.

Because I do think they're some of the more important.

It's like an important franchise.

Like, I think he's, like, and not just the Tony Hawk of it all.

Tony Hawk's, like, Tony Hawk's going to be remembered for the rest of time, probably.

Uh, as like, you know, in the same way that like Shaq is too, or like, you know, he's like Shaq to me.

We're like, I don't know, he's like one of these guys that, like, is like, he's, I don't know, just known for a thing that he does.

I guess Shaq's known for a lot more and like probably will,

his memory will outpat will surpass Tony Hawks at some point.

I don't know.

I love that, how often Shaq comes up on this podcast.

example.

Shaq are like my two favorite guys.

I love them.

The ideal man.

Yeah.

You may not like it, but this is peak male performance.

This tweet was circulating as of this record.

Once again, thinking about the time Phil Jackson, who was the coach of the Lakers, once again, thinking about the time Phil Jackson made Shaq read Aristotle so he could internalize the idea that success is a habit and improve his free throw shooting.

But Shaq just started calling himself Big Aristotle and had the worst free throw season of his career.

That see,

he's amazing.

He's amazing.

That's so funny.

And

I think it's cool that like, because like you said earlier, Tony Hawk could have put his name on any game in the same way that like, you know, there's a Kelly Slater's Pro Surfing.

There was a Dave Mira BMX game.

Which all came from this game's success.

Exactly.

And they're not as good.

They're not as good as that as Tony Hawk.

But like he actually got in there and was like, let's make this as good as it can be.

And let's figure out how it's good.

And I don't know how much you can like credit or blame Kelly Slater or Dave Mira because I think those were more just like, hey, these are,

we, this one thing was, was successful.

Let's get the biggest guy from these other action sports to be the face of these next franchises.

It makes sense why they did it, but it did not have like kind of the

again, because THPS was the first, it had such a seismic effect on

gaming.

But also just that they completely nailed it is is so impressive i i don't know i i i really really enjoyed it maybe i'm biased because of my fandom for the games but i do i and and maybe if you're watching this cold just as like i like what is this video game maybe it's i but i think it would still work on that level honestly i think gives you enough context for what the what the culture on skateboarding was like what the culture on video gaming was like of the time and i i i actually think it does do a good job of that but i i'd be interested to hear from somebody who maybe wasn't wasn't as familiar with these games.

Because, yeah, I mean, I think it's got all the makings of like a good dock.

It has like, and it has an interesting story.

There's interesting like background information.

There's like nitty-gritty like details for making the video game.

That's something you might not know.

They explain like Vert versus Street, right?

But then there's also like, I don't know, that moment where he gets, like, where they're building to him doing the 900, that's a cool dock.

I don't know, sort of, like, mic drop part of it.

That's a, that's a, it's a very impressive thing.

I think anybody would be excited to see that.

Uh, Ranch, you and Mark watched this bad boy.

Is that correct?

We did.

Uh, what did you think?

Um, first of all, it's very funny to watch this dock with a skater.

Oh, because he skates, that's right.

So, the commentary was very funny and a lot of insight on the skaters who were in it.

Yeah, um, but yeah, I thought it was really fun.

I downloaded Tony Hawk Pro Skater a few years ago when I started skating because I thought it would make me better.

Yeah, but I was just really bad at it.

You're like, Where's the body?

I'm still not wearing

I'm like, Melon 36C only.

But I enjoyed it because I didn't know much about Tony Hawk at all.

Yeah.

And he just seems so sweet.

Yeah, he is.

There's another doc about him that's not about the games that is more like a, like,

it's like a very balanced doc.

Like, it obviously shines on his accomplishments, but he's also like this guy who.

is like a workaholic and like that puts a strain on his like relationships like with his family and stuff and like and that's like you know that's that's intense stuff.

So, not to say that he's this perfect guy, but I do think he rules.

And I know that he knows that he's tough in that way, too.

But I think this was a great package.

Especially if you love these games and you're interested in knowing the story a little bit more.

It's streaming for free on Tubi.

You can watch it on Tubi.

Yeah, it's on Tubi, which I think is now the number one streaming service, which is crazy to think about.

It's either Tubi or Pluto.

But yeah,

it's on Tubi.

It's also on prime video uh if if people haven't checked it out and and want to watch i definitely recommend it

hey that was uh pretending i'm a superman the tony hawk video game story it's time for the question block

um here we go this first one from our discord discord.gg slash get played from hexie volpics could you realistically survive 24 hours in your favorite video game?

I'm thinking about my top three, Kingdom Hearts 2, Pokemon Gold, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

I think I'm doing fine.

I think I'm surviving.

I don't think the Heartless are going to get to me.

I don't think I'm going to get taken down by, you know, a rogue, Charizard.

And I don't think Tony Hawk's going to beat me over the head with a skateboard.

I think I'm going to be okay.

Baldur's Gate 3, my favorite game of all time.

I would be dead in minutes.

Because I just think about how I would just, you know, how easy it is to die in that game, how fragile you are at the early levels, particularly at the higher difficulties.

And then I'm also like, I'm not like a fucking sorcerer, you know, I'm just a guy.

So I'm going in there.

You're not a sorcerer?

No, I'm not a sorcerer.

Maybe I could be a bard, I guess.

That's the closest to some sort of D ⁇ D class.

I could maybe have an approximation of, I guess, a fighter, depending on how big I am relatively to the average guy.

Yeah, you bust out the Let Me Be Frank song.

Everyone's going to go, no.

Again, I don't know what you're referencing.

I feel like I'd just be like, just absolutely kill, like just murdered by a harpy just like within minutes.

I feel like an illithid

parasite would

meet eating one or ingesting one would kill me.

There's just no way.

Now I'd get along great with the illithid Barrasite.

We'd be fast friends.

Warm in my brain?

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

RFK style.

This next one's from Travis.

Hi, Travis.

Travis writes:

This week, so last week on the pod, there was a discussion about what the NBA could learn from video games to fix their issue with teams relying on three-point shots.

That's right.

What are some lessons or innovations from video games you think could be implemented in the real world?

Interesting.

First thing that comes to mind for some reason,

if you're not in the cone of vision,

you can't be seen.

Yeah, I mean, that would certainly make like a prison break a lot easier.

You just got to make sure the guards are looking in one direction.

Interesting that that's the first place you go.

What do you know?

Do you know something?

You know, it would be an incredible reform for our healthcare system if you could eat a whole like

rotisserie chicken and just be healed.

Yeah.

So that would be,

I would love for that to be implemented in the real world for food to have not just nourishing qualities, but just the ability to close up wounds and mend bones.

And what about this?

Treasure behind waterfalls.

Treasure behind waterfalls would be great.

Sometimes I think there is.

I think there is.

It's one of those things where some, maybe there just is.

Maybe that's a thing that video games just took from the real world.

Maybe I should be checking behind more waterfalls.

I'm going to that many waterfalls and i'm not a treasure hunter myself but if i went behind a waterfall and there was treasure i'd be like of course there is here's a thing that gets taken for granted in games and we're all just like oh this is yeah of course you can do this and then sometimes it's in a it's not in a game it's like why can't i do this but it has no connection to the physical reality reality of our world double jumping what a dumb fucking thing

it is like you can jump and then you can jump again

propel yourself higher Yeah, that's how it should be.

That's how it should work.

Yeah.

But can you imagine if that was in our reality?

For somebody else,

it would be really cool.

I hate skateboarding alone.

Oh, yeah.

Forget about it.

Well, that was one of my favorite things in

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 in particular.

Cheat codes are just also gone.

There's like no cheat codes for games anymore.

But you could turn off gravity in Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 and you can just go fucking flying in those games.

That's really, really fun.

Yeah.

Gosh, what's another video game thing I'd like to see in the real world?

Just tutorial prompts, maybe.

Yeah, and I mean, because I leave them on

for everything.

I got to wash my hands now, right?

I'll sing the alphabet or whatever I'm supposed to do.

Or happy birthday.

Good question.

Good question.

I'm also thinking about, I like, and I know we talk about this in like the future of VR.

Yeah.

If I don't know you that well, Maybe your name's on top of your head.

That would be very handy.

We'd become reliant on it, and all of a sudden you'd be like, Are you looking at my name?

Oh, my face is down here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that would definitely.

I also just, just, just, this would just be pretty big

for how the world works.

I think if you die, you should get to redo your day.

Yeah, that's really

nice.

Because then it's not a huge setback.

Like, it's just like, it's a little bit of an obstacle, but it's not like, oh, fuck, I'm dead.

It only goes, does it go back just a day or does it go back to how far?

Like, let's say you died.

Yeah.

and you were like, it was like not that far into your life, let's say.

I'll put it that way, so it's not sad, right?

And then you, you, you start over, and maybe it's like your day that time, but then the next time you die, it's been like years.

Yeah, do you just start the day over, or does it like go back to when you last saved?

In my mind, we're working with a day-night cycle, and you're getting an auto-save at the start of each day.

I think that's just a cleaner way to think of it.

But hey, I think a day-night cycle would be good.

Yeah,

I mean, Matt, we have that.

We got that in Treasure Behind waterfalls.

This next one's from Organic Grass Fed.

Hi, Organic Grass Fed.

I've been in a bit of a gaming rut lately.

I'll start a game and play for a couple of nights, then I'm just not feeling it and don't go back until weeks or months later, even though I objectively enjoyed playing it.

How have you gotten yourself out of gaming ruts in the past?

I know the feeling.

I would say it's fine.

Like, it's not like a crisis to be in a gaming rut.

You know, it's like maybe I would almost say, say, kind of like, just like listen to your brain and be like, you know, maybe gaming isn't serving me right now.

And maybe I'm going to do something else with my time.

And next time I feel like, hey, I want to play a video game, I'm going to get back to it.

It doesn't have to be a hobby, I don't think, should feel like an obligation.

Yeah.

Now, it's another thing if you're like, hey, I'm, I want to make sure that I'm exercising all the time and I just never get like if that's the sort of thing where it's like, hey, this is some sort of benefit for your life that you want to get into this, this healthy, regular practice, that's a different story.

And that I always feel like is is

it's it's it's nice like it's it's easier to stick to a schedule um than to wait for inspiration right yeah but but again we're just talking about like playing games it's not like an important thing you have to be doing unless you're like us and it is like part of your job.

Yeah.

I've been in ruts in the past too, where what I'll do is I'll just like put a game down and just be like, I'm not doing this right now.

I'm going to just like, yeah, like just focus on something else that I like.

Like, so like in a gaming rut, I I might watch like more movies or something or like read more books.

Yeah, um

maybe not so many books, but like I'll start reading a book and be like this sucks.

Let me get back to a video game.

Yeah, maybe that's it.

Can you pick up a book?

Yeah, pick up a book.

That's just good advice in general.

It's also like a perfect slam.

I don't know, read a book.

Read a book.

You'll be reminded of the reading sucks and you want to play video games again.

Yeah.

But sometimes I found myself too like, I watch a lot of,

I've been watching a little more like gaming like YouTube like type stuff like not so much playing games but like I'll watch like a video game like review or like essay like video or something and then like I watch a lot of like tech like reviews too where like it'll be somebody reviewing something that I'm like do I buy this and then I will get it and then be like well I have this now what do I do with this and then get back to it's always gaming adjacent is all my YouTube stuff yeah maybe I mean watching like interest watching streamers streamers, watching YouTubers.

I mean,

that can be a way of just like, oh, okay, maybe I'm not actively gaming, but I'm passively absorbing gaming.

And

maybe it'll, that'll, alone will inspire you to, to, to play some more.

But I'd also say maybe play some other stuff.

I watched a YouTuber talk about a technique for going through your backlog, which I imagine if you're anyone who games regularly, you have a bunch of games that you've acquired that you've never got around to playing.

But I thought this could maybe be an approach for this situation, which was just like pick something at random from your back catalog that you've never played

and

from your, you know, from your to-do queue and

play it for like an hour.

And if you like it, there you go.

You got a new game to play.

And if you don't like it, there you go.

It's out of your backlog.

You don't need to worry about it anymore.

So hopefully that helps you.

And finally, this last one is from Tossie.

Hi, Tossie.

And Tossie writes: What button layout do you prefer?

Microsoft XYAB, Nintendo's YXBA, or Sony's Square Triangle X Circle?

I would say the Sony Square Triangle X circle, but the thing is, then they made it where X is now

confirm instead of cancel.

And like that kind of drives me nuts because I associate the circle button with confirmation and they've kind of standardized it in a weird way where the iconography doesn't match as much anymore.

But here's my main thing: Can we just standardize this?

Like, this is the kind of thing that the, you know, the EU made it where they were like, hey, we, the iPhones now have to have USB-C.

And like, that was government regulation.

But you know what?

It was to everyone's benefit because now I don't have to worry about a fucking lightning cable.

I don't worry about some proprietary shit.

The EU or whatever governing body, someone gets in there and say, hey, you know what?

All consoles have to have the same button layout.

So if you're playing something on Nintendo, on

Sony, on

Xbox, or if you get a fucking Mad Cats controller, whatever it is, it's got to be standardized, it's got to have the same connectivity, it's got to be cross-platform, and it's going to have the same button layout.

So, you don't have to get caught up in like how these things you don't have to remember where the X button is because it's in three different places depending on what console you're using.

Wow, I hadn't even really thought about that.

Yeah, honestly, Weiger 2024.

I'm running, and you know what?

My brainworm's alive.

That's this week's Get Played.

Our producers are Chelsea, Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore, Sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gumback catalog, plus...

ad-free main feed episodes and our patreon exclusive show get animated matt where we're taking a little break from gundam this week that's right we're taking a break from gundam and we're watching the The Contestant, which is available on Hulu.

It's a documentary, and it is crazy.

We're in fully in the world of dox right now.

I didn't realize this.

Oh, wait.

We're doxxing ourselves.

It's dock week on.

It's dock week on get played and get animated.

That's right.

We're talking the contestant.

This is about a Japanese reality show where a

man was stuck in a studio apartment for upwards of a year and was forced to live naked off of winnings from

prizes, from prizes from contests he entered.

Yeah.

So it's a fascinating dock, and we're going to talk about it over on the Get Animated feed.

Patreon.com/slash get played for all of that.

Hmm.

You know who got played?

Who's that, Matt?

Us for not being able to see the Bruce Willis demo of Tony Ha.

Yeah, boy, what a bummer.

In a perfect world, we'd have Bruce Willis's pro skater.

Yeah, well, you know, we got played, I guess.

That was a hit gum podcast.