Hades, Hades 2, and Roguelikes

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You did good, though.

You got through almost the whole paragraph.

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Yeah, I'll take a crack.

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That was our old format.

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We beat the shit out of an immortal skeleton and get horny as we discuss Hades, Hades 2, and roguelites this week on Get Played.

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

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, the Resident Evil Merchant, along with my fellow host, Nick Wigger.

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Game Blade, a show where we used to talk about bad games, then they got tired of it, and we talked about good games, and then we got tired about that.

And so we started talking about any games we want.

Hey, um, yeah, Resident Evil Merchant, that was great, that was really good.

Uh, did I land the part?

Um, well, it was not an open audition.

No, um, appreciate Appreciate you being on time, but we really would like

Heather, our normal.

I escorted her out the back.

This is it.

The one you've been waiting for.

The episode where the Resident Evil Merchants here, the entire time.

You're just going to be here?

The whole time.

The whole time.

The whole time.

Because I was honestly excited.

We're going to talk about Hades today.

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

I was excited to talk about it.

I've played it all week.

Okay.

How did you play it?

On a switch.

Oh, you have.

Okay, I didn't realize you had a switch.

I got a switch.

I have big hands, but I got a switch.

All right.

I got the original one was a jumbo kind.

Is there

an amount of money that we can give you?

What?

Is there an amount of money that we can give you?

No.

To make this.

I've been waiting for this for weeks.

You know, I heard you guys doing that intro.

I slipped Heather a five spot and let her get out of the way.

So there is an amount of money.

There is an amount of money.

For her, yeah, not for me.

Yeah.

For her, it was $5.

I'm thinking

she maybe just wanted to leave.

Yeah, probably.

After you guys kept screwing up the intro.

Anyway,

it wasn't all on us.

So, Hades, huh?

Yeah, it's Hades.

That's, you know, the great game, and Hades 2 is in early access right now.

We're going to talk about Hades 2 a little bit, but I think we're more just generally going to talk about Hades and then the franchise and the genre in which it exists.

Roguelikes.

Yeah.

Roguelikes, yeah.

Is rogue, is the original rogue a game?

Yes, there was a rogue.

The etymology of it comes from that, and that was like a very, very early computer game, and it kind of established the format of, you know, die, live, die, repeat, basically.

Kind of hard to get the Resident Evil merchant out of here when...

They asked such good questions.

And do you know, do you know?

I'm going to hit a home run.

I swear to God, I'm going to be

Otani of the podcast today.

Do you know if the original roguelike was like due to programming limitations?

Or was it like the choice, an artistic choice?

I believe it was a little from column A, a little from column B.

But, you know, I actually

wish I was more prepped with all of this research.

But yes, I do know that the original rogue game, which was came out in the early 1980s, I believe,

was basically just sort of like established the template for, you know, a game where you'd see how far you could progress, but you were ultimately going to fail and

have another shot at going through it with a different sort of procedurally generated dungeon.

Was that game considered fancy at the time?

I don't know if it was considered like fancy, but it was certainly considered innovative.

Well, because like Pac-Man is the same map all the time.

It's not like the

general

like that yeah i mean the thing with with rogue i you know and i played i never played like the the original original rogue but i certainly played like games derived from rogue uh that were that sort of like it was like the asci arch right it was just like

letters, numbers, symbols, like keyboard characters comprise the graphics.

And so it looks relatively crude.

But

I don't know.

It's just like really extensible and it's just

kind of,

you know, as a story generation engine, it's kind of

really remarkably creative.

Yeah.

Can I say my joke that I said before?

Yeah, please go for it.

You know who Rogue likes?

Gambit.

He likes that one.

This is what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I like it.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

Are you watching X-Men 97?

Love it.

Confused.

When did that happen?

Do you mean like when did the was the show produced?

No, when did it take place?

I think it takes place in the year 1997.

I don't remember any of that stuff happening.

Oh, it's not

a historical fact.

It's still a work of fiction.

But maybe

as a fictional character, things that happen in other fiction is true.

Oh, is that kind of the rule?

It sounds good.

I mean, that's a Kingdom Hearts law.

Yeah, that's

that is sort of Kingdom Hearts law.

You've seen it happen on a television show.

It's a reality.

Yes, yeah.

I don't remember if you interacted with him, but past guest of Get Played, Ray Chase, is

a voice on X-Men 97.

No way.

Yeah.

Oh, he's

a good episode.

I like that guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good dude.

Good dude.

Good dude.

So you're just here.

Yeah, I'm here.

Okay.

So

you're absolutely sure that you're not going to leave.

Don't know about that, but I.

We've been talking about it for weeks.

I just, you know, I thought maybe

this would be the one.

We'll see.

Yeah, maybe I'll tell you.

I'm still dedicated to a serious discussion about video games.

It's not going to become like character painter.

I'm doing my best.

That is true.

You are moving the show a lot.

I am sweating through my shirt.

But I want to do a good job, you know, for you guys.

Like, I'm not, like, I'm not here to be like,

although I do have a segment.

Oh, boy.

Because I have a segment.

I'm not here to do that, but I'm not sure if I can do it.

But we can do yours, and I can hold on.

I can wait.

Hold on.

My segment.

No, no, no, no, no.

Go ahead.

You could do yours.

My segment's only.

Okay.

Do you want to do it now or you want to wait?

That breaks format.

I think it goes after you talk about the game.

I remember one of the roguelikes I played, and we're not at this point of the show yet, because because we're talking about it,

was on a BBS.

It was like a, you know,

would dial into this bulletin board.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, and there was like a, there was a roguelike you could play on the server.

And then if you die, like you got one, you know, it was permadeath.

And if you died,

it was only once per calendar day where you could do a run.

Kind of interesting to think about that

BBS.

Something I didn't, we got the internet at the same time.

You were a little older than me, but like I was around when the internet was a thing uh but i that was one of the parts of the internet i never experienced really

like the dial-up like yeah black and white i had dial-up but i never i never experienced like the billboard or the uh bulletin board like type of website yeah it's it's just like it was really crude you know forums with no gooey or any or whatever you were just like all text-based yeah um

uh but yeah and those are some of my first online interactions with anybody

Chat in that, right?

Like, you couldn't, like, chat with somebody.

I think Matt Apple Duck is trying to call Heather right now.

He's got his phone out.

I'm just like worried.

I'm just trying to chat and find her location.

She's fine.

I gave her $5 and a coupon for a red lobster going out of business.

My memory.

My memory is it was less like a chat room and more like a

more like a a

forum post.

Like you would like leave a post and then someone could respond to it and there were private messages and whatever.

So when you were making decisions in a roguelike on a forum, you'd be like, I go left.

Well, okay, so this was just a thing that you as an individual could play and then there was like a leaderboard.

So it wasn't like you were actively playing with other people.

It wasn't like a, you know, a multiplayer game.

It was a single player experience, but it was housed on a server.

Still, I'm still a little confused.

Okay, so it's like I would log in.

We're all on the BBS, the three of us, and

it's a single-player experience.

We're all logging in.

Once per day, we can do a run in this roguelike that's set up on the server.

And,

you know, based on your progress, you maybe end up at a certain point and like you end up on the leaderboard.

So

let's say I do a run and I get to

like level six of the dungeon and this hypothetical roguelike.

And then you do a run, Resident Evil Merchant, and you'd get to level nine of the dungeon.

You get even deeper.

Then you would be like, you know, like, oh, you did better in the roguelike.

Do you save like by sitting on a toilet or something my memory of it of this one was that you would go you could say like if you collected gold from like killing something you could return to the bank and you could bank some of your gold there so you like you would want to do that with some frequency because then if you died you would still have whatever you'd stashed could we consider yeah the original super mario brothers a roguelike well i mean this is a this is a discussion of of taxonomy because it's like you know how a lot of those arcade games, a lot of those one-quarter arcade games, and Super Mario Brothers

had more of a continue system than any of those.

Wait, we're talking about Mario Brothers, not Super Mario Brothers, the one with the pipes?

No, the

you were talking about Super Mario Brothers for the Family Con Super Nintendo.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's kind of like a save.

You can't save on that.

Yeah, I mean, it just depends on how you want to classify it.

I think probably people would not say that is like a roguelike

in the strictest sense.

Level design.

It's the same level design.

There's nothing procedural.

And there's, there's, not that you need this, but like in a rogue light, there would be something you would potentially gain beyond just your own increase in mastery that would make subsequent runs a little bit easier or more efficient or allow you to skip.

It was a question popped into my head, and you know, sometimes you got to just ask questions.

No, I mean, I think a lot of those games were just like,

like the early arcade games were, how far can I get on one credit?

And then that's ultimately where I'm going to end up on, you know, like the equivalent of the leaderboard on the top scores.

Have you ever wanted to drive a car the new toyota night 2024 toyotas yeah we actually this is not one of our ad reads we have oh really we have like prescribed like sponsors oh i thought you guys just started talking to ads no we don't just like riff into ads for random products for no money that's not really how we do it no i thought if you did it well enough you got paid yeah we don't the industry doesn't really work that way you don't really do an ad on spec and then hope that someone will compensate you i think a brand like toyota would just be like, well, thanks for the free publicity.

I'm really sorry.

Yeah.

No, you don't need to apologize.

I'm just, I didn't really

get too far before,

you know, realizing it was futile.

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Anyway,

I kind of bloviated a little bit too much talking about roguelikes.

We're going to get into that in a second.

But before we do that, Resident Evil Merchant.

Yeah.

I think you have a question.

I want to know, what are you playing?

There we go.

That's the money maker.

Matt, you want to start things off?

Yeah, you know, I had to take a little bit of a break from

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

And not because I'm not having any fun anymore.

I'm still enjoying the game, but you have to think about what I've been doing since like November.

I saw a TikTok of a lady, and she was like,

Towards the end game of Final Fantasy VII.

Okay.

I don't know if I'm enjoying myself anymore.

Do you find that's your experience?

Wait, I'm sorry, you say a lady?

You don't mean a character in the game.

No, like a real human lady.

Okay, got it.

Was playing the game.

She's like, oh, I'm on hour 100 of Final Fantasy Rebirth, and I don't know if I like it anymore because I've done all the side quests.

I think it's good, but I think I've just burnt myself out a little bit.

Maybe it's a little bloated, but maybe that's what that TikTok is getting.

Maybe.

Yeah, it's definitely bloated.

I haven't played it.

I'll go ahead and say it's definitely bloated.

There's too much stuff to do.

But I had to put it away for a little bit.

Like I said, I think maybe last week.

Picked up Bellatro again.

Been playing Bellatro.

It ties into today's episode quite a bit, actually.

But I've also been playing a different card game on my my iPad called Magic the Gathering Arena.

Wow, okay.

All right, here we go.

And the thing about Magic the Gathering Arena is

I love it.

I fucking love it.

My friend of the show and our friend in real life, I don't know if you've met

this person, Resident Evil Merchant, Ify Wadiway,

just gifted me a commander deck of Magic the Gathering card.

Oh, I follow him on Twitter.

Yeah.

Another mutual friend.

Wait, you follow Ify on Twitter?

Resident World?

Oh, he is.

He's a strong guy.

He's a big dude.

He is really strong.

He doesn't eat this gas, though, so we don't have to gas him up or anything.

But what?

Another mutual friend, Dan Black,

has been trying to get me and Gabris into Commander, which it may be talked about on the podcast before.

So I have a Commander deck of my own, and I have messed around with MTG Arena

on the iPad as well.

One of the appealing things to me is

Magic the Gathering.

Is it on PC?

Yeah, it's on PC, too.

Yeah.

I'm going to have to play it on there.

Yeah.

Kind of runs like shit on the iPad.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm just on my iPad, an older generation iPad.

You got a sleepy iPad?

I got a sleepy iPad.

The thing that I love about the game.

Well, you know what my worst the thing I hate most about an iPad?

Tell me.

Was you got it flat on a table is fine, but you hold it up and all the water comes out of the bottom.

I'm trying to think.

about what you could even mean.

Yes.

I'm picturing like a

you know one of those like ranch do you ever find that the ipad has too much water

leave her alone

she's that big interaction

are you just like are you picking up an aquarium i'm trying to even parse what you're saying yeah i was thinking of like one of those touching what do you what I know the difference between the I don't know the difference between an iPad and an aquarium.

Look, if this is not a...

Never mind.

Forget I asked.

Tell us about magic.

I'm not trying to derail.

Something that I like about...

I want to be back on the show.

Something that I like about card games in general, and like in collecting cards, is I like to look at the cards because I like the art on them.

Yeah, for sure.

That's just like my favorite card.

I agree with you completely.

There's just something about it.

It's like, wow, look at this, this...

masterpiece in this tiny little square.

It's beautiful.

It was so pretty.

They're so nice to look at.

For sure.

And, you know, and the thing about, I know that there's like a way to play Magic the Gathering that is complicated.

There's a little more involved.

The Commander rules are pretty easy from what I understand or easier for new players.

Rinch just ran away.

Jesus to the studio to let someone in.

Okay.

It's okay.

We'll allow it.

The thing about it, though, is I actually don't know if the game in Arena is Commander or not.

But I've just been playing.

No, I don't think it is.

No, no, no, no, no.

So if it's not Commander, then I actually understand the game pretty good.

Because like the card, the thing about the cards is it tells you the rules.

Like it tells you all the stuff that you need to know on the card.

I actually think knowing, and you know, it's been years since I played MTG, but I think knowing the base game makes commander easier.

So I'm just like, I'm playing that pretty much every night on the couch on my iPad

or, you know, while I'm trying to go to sleep, playing some more Magic the Gathering arena.

I've not played an actual game of Magic the Gathering with the cards, but I like, I bought a little, I bought a little box.

I bought a little

box that closes like with a little magnetic seal.

Love that.

Bought little cases for the, or little cases, little sleeves for the cards.

Yeah.

And I think I'm going to make iffy show me

how to play.

But

that's it for me, really.

I'm playing something completely different.

I'm surprised, given how much you like Pokemon as an IP, that you aren't playing a Pokemon card game.

The card game for Pokemon, I don't, I've never really found it interesting to me.

I liked the Game Boy game quite a bit.

And the anime.

And the anime.

Well, there's a Pokemon card game

game for the Game Boy.

Yeah.

It was really good.

For the Game Boy?

For the Game Boy.

So they made Pokemon and then they made Pokemon the card game and then they made Pokemon the card game the video game?

that's right yeah that's a lot that's a lot I know what were they smoking did they make like Pokemon the game the anime the game um

Pokemon yellow version is sort of modeled more after the anime

following and there's Jesse and James from Team Rocket

yeah yeah yeah they're in that in that version of it as well I gotta say I think this is a more focused discussion than it often is with Heather I don't know I don't know what it is Prison Evil merchant has kind of been a stabilizing presence I took Adderall

Thank you for the questions for Resident Evil Merchant.

But that's what I'm playing.

I'll probably get back to Final Fantasy pretty soon because

I want to wrap it up.

I know that that doesn't sound like such an endorsement, but I would like to.

I got to see it through.

I'm about 80 hours in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You're so close.

No, I got to get out of there.

Yeah.

Wow.

Nick,

what are you playing?

Thanks for asking, Resident Evil Merchant.

And maybe for people new to the show, just to give some context, Resident Evil Merchant normally comes in just for the segment and asks,

what are you playing?

In the same way that you would normally ask, what are you buying?

What are you selling?

Can you imagine if this is somebody's first episode of the show?

Every episode is somebody's first episode.

They're going to be so disappointed if you guys don't ask me back to host every week.

We'll have you back on the show.

Maybe not fully in the hosting chair, but this is a nice sort of change of pace.

But

I guess I'll do some onboarding.

Sure.

So I'm from

the world of Resident Evil 4.

And in that game, I am a merchant who sells goods.

So you come up to me and I go, what are you buying?

Or, what are you selling?

Or I'll buy that for a high price.

I'll buy that for a high price I'll buy that for a high price all that stuff I lost my job uh due to some HR issues and so then I asked if I could that's sort of not what was disclosed previously yeah that's it was more of a recast right

it was a recast because of HR uh

so then I I mean we would might have paused on hiring you for our show knowing that backstory it's an NDA situation so you don't have to worry about it but anyway I didn't know that NDAs worked like that.

If you did something bad,

then you can't say.

It's a sort of a

standoff.

Like, I've got an NDA on them, and they've got one on me.

Okay, I guess then, yeah, then

you can't break them.

Anyway, I come to the show, and I ask everybody what they're playing.

And sometimes I hang on for too long, and Reddit gets angry.

But this week, this week, I'm just trying to do the whole format as I've been threatening for a month.

So

you admit it's a threat.

What?

Because that's like not something you do

as like such a good job of doing.

Threats aren't like what you do to friends.

Let's stay on target, man.

I'll answer your question, Resident Evil Merchant.

I was going to talk about Hades 2 and Early Access, but we ended up pivoting to doing this episode.

So instead, I'll I'll talk about Rocksmith.

So

I have been learning piano as an adult.

And this is a thing I've been working on for the past few months.

And I've just, but I've just been using kind of traditional,

you know, self-teaching methods, instructional videos,

texts.

You know, I got some

exercises on your phone.

Yeah.

You're doing good at the piano.

I've got some PDFs of exercises and such on my iPad that I use.

And I have some knowledge because I played Woodwinds when I was younger.

So, you know, I does some stuff like

music theory.

And the way you talk about music in the music-centric episodes of Get Blade also demonstrates a

volume of knowledge that you would not expect from somebody who loves sports as much as you do.

That's so nice.

Yeah, that's kind of a nice, that's a, that's a nice thing to say.

I may be a little backhanded, suggesting that I can't be multiple

you have some information

But no that that is that is nice and nice to know that you check in on the show Resonation I listen every week I mean it's insane to think of you having like an like a

Phone with like a podcast app that you check

you you preload it you can download Do you guys not know about an iPod?

No, I know about an iPod it's just kind of a little antiquated.

It's not like how use a lot of people are Most of our listenership uses a different podcast.

You can use it.

You can download one podcast.

That's why they're called podcasts.

You know that?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, for sure.

Pretty amazing.

Anyway, you've been playing Rocksmith.

So here's the thing.

I was basically traditional sort of instruction, but I've, but Rocksmith has a bunch more piano content now, keyboard content, and I have this MIDI keyboard.

And so it was a little bit of an odyssey to get it up and running because my iPad has a USB-C import

and my

finding a MIDI, which I think is USB-B, I forget exactly what it is, but finding a connector that goes directly into USB-C was like, it was a little bit of an ordeal to try to find a place that actually had that specific thing.

Very easy to find one that goes into USB-A and then use an adapter.

But the problem is, because it is a rhythm game, there is a noticeable input delay if you're using an adapter.

So it had to go directly into I needed one like, you know, so you need a MIDI controller and a USB-C director exactly.

Yes, yes.

So I was able to track one of those things.

You just have one.

So I could have just asked you.

You got to come to my shop.

We forget so much that you're a personality on this show that you actually are.

You actually are a merch and you have a bunch of wares, some of which might be useful to us.

Yeah.

Anyway, the main thing of Rocksmith is.

The main reason I like it is because less about learning like a Billy Joel song by Rote, but more because it makes exercises that are extremely useful.

Like one of the best ways you could learn, you can, one of the most useful things for learning any instrument is just practicing scales.

Yeah.

But, you know, most melodies are based off of scales, but it is extremely tedious

and can kind of be directionless and can be hard to self-motivate to just sort of like have a metronome going and I'm just going to practice whatever at my F major scale up and down with two hands.

But having it gamified and now all of a sudden I am trying to impress the computer so it gives me a little metal, all of a sudden now this is like a fun thing that I'm looking forward to.

Okay.

So as a as like a pedagogical method, like just like the fact that it's gamified makes me want to do it in the same way that like an exercise app, the same way my dumb fucking rings on my stupid ass Apple Watch makes me want to get some more steps in.

Oh, be kind to your be kind to your items.

What do you think about that?

Look at that.

Those are some full rings.

Oh, man.

Have myself a day.

Look at that.

They're really low,

but they're full.

My guy's doing donut.

Can I eat a doughnut today?

Well, you earned it.

You ate a doughnut?

I did.

What kind?

You know what's so funny about this statement?

It was a long John.

It wasn't even the circle.

I thought Long John was a fish.

You think of Long John silver?

Silver?

The chain.

The thing about this is that, you know, I think it's safe to say we are trepidatious about you being here, but the longer you're here, the funnier I think it is.

But also, I have to say, Nick,

if you learned...

If you had never mentioned this and you just suddenly could play Billy Joel songs, that's the funniest thing you could do.

That's so funny.

That would come out of nowhere.

Wait, so can I ask about the interface?

Yeah, of course.

All right, so the iPad, does it have like descending notes kind of like a rocket?

Yes, it is the same, it is the same sort of presentation, but you have like your

actual keyboard laid out.

And because it's a MIDI controller, you know, in real time, it is reading your inputs as I'm like, whatever, hitting C4 on the keyboard, it reads that in the iPad.

So

it is pretty elegant.

And it is like actually playing it

as you're going through the game, but it feels like you're playing it.

There is an app for the

goggles.

What What do you call them?

Apple goggles?

Apple Vision Pro.

Yeah, those guys.

Right.

You can have the lights go right onto the key.

That's cool.

So you can, it looks, it's like rock band, but the whole, the keyboard is a controller.

That's pretty good.

That's innovation.

I've been curious about Rock Smith, actually, because that was one of the ones I have never played because it's real.

You have to actually play an instrument, yeah.

But I did.

I hadn't mentioned this on the show.

I took a five-week extension course at LACC to learn intro to guitar.

So now I have like a very foundational

understanding of how that stuff works.

And I've been wanting to get reps in on my own in a similar way where I'm like, I know how to, now I know like what to do.

Right.

I just don't,

I haven't learned songs, but I have like a very basic understanding of like where to put my fingers and how hard to press and stuff like that.

So maybe I should investigate Rocksmith for my own use.

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't start like, if I was just starting from scratch, I would not start with this.

I'm sure there are people who've had success with that.

But I do think like having a little bit of a baseline of knowledge like you have, I'd be curious what it's like on the guitar side.

But I don't know.

I think it's a pretty sleek package.

And

the other thing I will just say, just on the video game note,

I love learning new skills.

And I always like to just like, you know, I feel like that's part of like what's fun about life is continually learning new things and absorbing new information and figuring out how to do things you couldn't otherwise do.

But I'm realizing how beneficial it's been for my general mindset as an adult learner, as someone in his 40s who was just like learning a new thing takes time, but I can do it.

Yes.

How much I get motivation now from having beaten Sekiro and beaten Ishin the sword saint.

That's fucking go.

Because it's just like that.

If I can do that, if I can beat

this famously hard last boss or this famously hard video game, if I can do that all by myself, then I can learn piano.

I can only hope.

I love this mindset.

In 30 years, when there's some new old fuck that's going to be the president of the United States,

I think a requirement should be that he or she or they had to have beaten Sekaro in their lifetime and use that as a

part of their platform.

Man, it's going to be really interesting in 30 years if you got like lame ass presidents who aren't like never played a game.

I know it's possible, but I would He won't even like be able to like identify with them.

This is assuming, of course, that in 30 years we still have a functioning democracy.

Fair.

What if like there's sort of like a balkanization of the states and then there ends up being like multiple presidents?

Or you know, you're familiar with this.

Let's say some shadow organization.

Like an umbrella corporation or something releases Laplaga

onto the world or something.

Who knows?

I mean, there is a president of the United States in Resident Evil 4, isn't there?

So his daughter gets kidnapped.

Yeah.

Not my president.

So you're saying that you.

Not my president either.

He's my president.

Oh, he's your president?

No, he's my president.

Wait, which one are we talking about?

The one in the game or the one that's in the game?

We know which one we're talking about.

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

We know what we're doing.

We know which one we're talking about.

You know.

We know.

Is the chaos vote to vote for Biden now?

Do you think?

Is the chaos vote to vote for the sitting president to vote for the incongruity?

Is that the chaos vote?

Is everything so upended?

Hmm, that's interesting.

I do think we don't have time for that.

All right.

Fair.

Nobody wants to hear us.

Stay on target.

That's the motto I'm trying to live by.

I have one question for the past.

You're going to live through a second term anyway.

Fair.

Not because anything's going to happen to him, because he'll pass away quietly.

Yes.

Yeah.

On stage.

So,

the question is:

if you could apply the rocksmith philosophy to any other skill, what skill would you like to learn via rocksmith interface?

For example,

fishing, cooking,

gardening.

I was going to say,

specific to cooking, proper knife skills.

Because the other thing, like, I can cook decently and I can follow a recipe, but like,

but like the actual like proper knife technique, you know, there's a bunch of stuff that's just.

They rock it.

They like rocket back and forth.

Exactly.

And then different kinds of cuts.

Like sometimes when a recipe is calling for

exactly, like that sort of thing.

It's like, I don't know.

This is probably just kind of chopped.

And we've seen you with a cup.

Oh, yeah.

You know, good.

This guy's spilling all the time, right?

I know that from the podcast.

Said, said, as if you've heard about it.

That's really cool, though.

I didn't know know that you were taking a piano class.

We got a percussion.

We got a rhythm instrument.

We got ourselves a little band over there.

I'm inspired to learn a musical instrument.

And I think in a couple of weeks, if you guys let me back, I'm going to play a little song for you.

What would you learn, I'm curious.

In a few weeks, enough to play a song.

Garage Band.

Garage band.

You mean like the garage band?

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't know if I can.

can.

Whatever.

But I don't know if I call that a game.

I'm not trying to gatekeep.

I'm just sort of saying.

Garage band is real music.

I thought we were talking about like a traditional sort of instrument that you might see in a band or an orchestra.

All right, fine.

You sound like somebody who doesn't think a synthesizer is real music.

I think a synthesizer is very real.

This guy doesn't think a...

Harp?

No.

This guy doesn't think a theremin is a real instrument.

Oh, no.

Well, if you were learning the theremin, I mean, that'd be a

really cool thing.

I told you what I'm going to learn.

I'm going to learn Garage i've seen videos i'd classify this more of an app but maybe we'll be being pedantic there i've seen videos about how theremins work and i still don't understand yeah they're very air pressure i don't know i don't know either um

how interesting too that we both talked about apps how about that

something to think about oh yeah something to think about

I mean, and his Rock Smith is on a bunch of different platforms.

I think I'm going to use this.

I ended up like, like, it's just for my setup, because my keyboard is in a different part of the apartment from where my

PC is and where my consoles are.

That just made the most sense for me to put it on my iPad.

Hey, Natalie, hold this while I play piano.

I'm doing something.

Hold this, please.

That's his wife, right?

Yeah.

Love it.

Resident Evil Merchant, what are you playing?

All right, so I got this Tycho

baseball simulator from Goodwill.

One of those like old 90s L C D games.

Yeah, sure.

Loving it.

Loving it.

Tough as nails.

Really, the ball comes in like bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.

You got to swing at the right moment.

Yes, yeah.

Those don't have a lot of margin for error.

Tough game.

What?

You don't believe me?

I can't get it out of my bag.

I just think it's just so funny that that's what you're playing, but it's good.

Well, I want to save the larger discussion for Hades, which I've been playing.

Okay.

But yeah, I've been playing a taiko baseball game.

I played this game game with a squirrel down the street, but I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Whoa, wait, what is the game?

Just kind of chase him?

No.

No,

I've got a little box.

Okay.

And I put a peanut in the box.

And

I cut a hole in the box.

And then the squirrel goes in the box, eats the peanut.

And when he...

sticks his head out of the hole.

I try to put a hat on him.

That's the game.

That's cute.

Like a little bowler.

Yeah, a little chef's hat, a little pirate hat.

That's fun.

Little, I got a little

baseball cap.

Tricorner, sure.

Like all those hats.

Oh, like a militiaman.

That's fun.

What about one of those hats with like the little holders for like the beer cans?

That would be really like a foam dome.

Oh, that's a fun one.

Maybe it's like two acorns or something.

I have to build these, so it's tough, but I can do it with like, well, it makes pitching a hat.

Little straw goes into his little mouth.

Yeah.

That would be cute.

I would think also just some celebrity hats.

You know, you put a little Lincoln hat on on there,

you know.

I don't think this is good.

Yeah,

I think a little MAGA hat on a squirrel would be funny.

It would be kind of funny.

It would be.

It would be kind of funny to see a squirrel with a little MAGA hat.

Why is he thinking about any of that?

What's he doing?

That would be pretty good.

What the fuck's that?

Make the forest great again.

Maybe one of those tall pope hats.

That would be fun.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, we saw a pope hat on a a turtle.

We know the turtle pope, yeah.

What's up with the squirrel pope?

Yeah.

Mullen rays.

I wouldn't presume you two are so familiar with the characters from SpongeBob, but Sandy Cheeks, the squirrel character,

has a little astronaut helmet because she exists underwater and she needs to be able to breathe and be ocean.

Maybe a little Sandy Cheeks cost.

That's an adorable helmet.

Yeah.

Well, those are the two games I've been playing.

Yeah, it sounds like a really fun game.

Tycho baseball and hat on a squirrel.

Do you think the squirrel gets something out of it?

Do you think that you're like, oh, I'm in this hat?

He gets a peanut.

Oh, he gets the peanut.

Yeah, he gets a peanut and then he sticks his head out.

Usually nervous.

They don't go straight out of the hole.

They bunker head out and you just got to be real quick.

What kind of hat does Pinocchio have?

Pinocchio?

You know, he's got a little hat.

He's got a yellow hat.

It's like a little yellow hat.

I don't know how he hits it.

Like a little fedora.

That's how you classify it.

Yeah, it's fedora-like, huh?

Yeah.

It's got a little feather, maybe?

Uh.

And we're thinking Disney's Pinocchio.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah.

What if I was a little boy, like that guy, right?

Yeah, when he sings that part.

What if I was a little boy?

Would you treat me this way?

Would you treat me so bad?

It does have a little feather.

You're right.

Yeah.

I don't know if it quite.

Hmm, is this a fedora?

Can I get a look at that?

Yeah.

No, it's decidedly not.

I don't know what I would call it, but I wouldn't call it a fedora.

It kind of comes to a point.

Yeah.

But I don't know how you'd class it.

Do they sell those?

Can you buy one?

You absolutely can buy it from the house.

I'm going to put it in my shop.

You can buy it from Walmart.com.

And it's just called Pinocchio Hat.

Pinocchio hat.

And that's our preferred place to shop here on the Get Played podcast, Walmart.com.

I know, I don't disrespect Walmart, except that it puts small businesses like myself out of business.

Oh, that is interesting.

You must have a big issue with a lot of stores like that.

I have to get so specific, which in a way is a pressure of capitalism.

Like the things that I used to carry, ammunition, weapons, Walmart can carry those.

So I have to have a more artisanal experience.

Like, do you want three pieces of spaghetti?

Do you want, do you want a pocket that you can

like,

it's got to be stuff you can't get at Walmart.

Yeah, you can't buy a pocket at Walmart.

No, you can't.

My pocket.

Here's how you get.

Let me tell you this technology I got for my pocket.

You got a magnet on the back of it sewn into the fabric, and then you keep a magnet on the inside of your shirt so you can attach the pocket to any shirt or pant or hat that you want.

That's pretty good.

And then you can take it off when you want to put the pocket on something else.

I forgot to mention.

And I know we're past at this point.

I don't have much to say about it.

I finished Fallout and I fucking loved it.

I thought it was fantastic.

Very good show.

Really great.

Very good show.

I love that show.

I love it.

I wish they'd make a show like that about Resident Evil Land.

Yeah, they've tried some Resident Evil adaptations, but I don't think any, yeah, they've all kind of deviated from the source to varying degrees.

It's unfortunate because I do think a straight adaptation of Resident Evil 4 would be good.

Yeah.

But you don't have to do that much to it.

I mean, yeah, it would be corny, but if they lean into it, I think it could be fun.

there's corny in the fallout show that but it rocks like it's it's it's all i don't know it works it works it all works because it's treated with sincerity yes there's like side quests in the show and you like are very aware that they're side quests it's so funny uh they did a they they

knocked that out of the park home run yeah i'm thinking for the squirrel especially since it's a game little mario hat oh yeah

i like it maybe put a little s on it for squirrel

Pretty good.

What about a Batman cowl?

That would be fun.

Oh, man, because it kind of looked like a little bat.

Yeah, it kind of does, right?

Yeah.

And he's like,

I'm in Gotham City.

Yeah, that's the guy.

He says, he says, Batman's famous line.

I'm in Gotham City.

That's very good, though.

Coming over here, Joker.

Can you imagine if you saw me?

Joker, get over here.

I'm in Gotham City.

I love it.

It's the kind of thing that Batman says.

Superman's my friend.

I don't know if I can do that voice.

Hey, Superman is is my friend.

Why don't you leave the voices to people that can do them?

I agree.

I'm not a good impressionist.

Anyway,

we should probably talk about the game that everybody heard want to come and play this week.

Yeah, we should probably get to the game everybody heard want to come play this week.

There's no need to be cruel.

You think Batman's got a diaper on?

You don't even know what's the situation.

Wait, hold on.

You think he's wearing a diaper?

I'm just trying to figure out.

You think he's dipedup?

I mean, because, like, how it's not, it's not easy to get that suit on and off, right?

Why?

He's going to have to use a bathroom or surface.

Yeah, but he's a billionaire.

You think it's a hard pair of pants to get out of?

And the more detachable parts, I was thinking about what if there was like a detachable cup area.

So that's the kind of like he just could take.

Can you imagine if he got interrupted and he's just running around?

Batman.

I got my hog out.

I do think

that's a good thing.

The more removable parts there are to the suit, though, the more vulnerable parts there are to things.

What if the only way you can hurt Batman is in the chin or if you wedge a knife on the side of his cod piece?

I think that might be possible.

That's horrifying.

But

I do think, I think if you're Batman, I'm not sure.

You have a, well, if you were, you couldn't tell us anyway.

But I think if you're Batman, you have like a pretty regimented um

like bathroom schedule.

You're just like, okay, I get to get take care of business.

I'm gonna go out and fight crime.

Yeah, you're not eating a big meal before you gotta go.

But I'm also just like talking, still, like, he's you're running around,

uh, you're using a grappling hook, you're jumping off of rooftops, you're engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

At certain point, you're gonna get winded, you're gonna be dehydrated.

Maybe he has the technology urinate at minimum.

Maybe he has the Fremen technology where it just gets sucked.

Oh, he's got a still suit.

You think he's he's got a still suit i could buy that yeah what if it just gets in his boots his boots are just filled with

like

yeah he comes around a corner and he's like i'm in the darkness but everyone's like fuck what is that smell like shit jesus christ oh my god and if he's if he's like stuck his he's because there are canonical episodes where he's like gotta be batman for a long time like he's on a mission to hong kong or something right?

So, he's in the suit for a long time.

So, you think the business shit comes out of the neck?

I think there's not crime all the time.

Like, it fills up all the way.

You think it's like overflowing out of his neck and fucking stinks.

It could also just be a dietary issue for him at that point.

Like, maybe he doesn't need to be.

It's too close to his mouth.

Yeah, don't get the Wendy's Baconator before you do your crime fighter.

I do think

he's able to just go when it's convenient.

Yeah.

Like, maybe it's not always convenient.

He's going to be be holding it for a long time.

But, you know, all those grunts are going to get knocked out at some point.

And he's just going to go piss in a corner.

He doesn't necessarily always have to find it.

Maybe like the batwing or the car has like a thing that goes over his dick, so he's just going while he drives.

The craziest thing about this subject is that Nick brought this up.

Well,

look, I've talked to actors who have worn like elaborate costuming.

Obviously, that's a fictional thing as opposed to Batman who's real.

But it's like in a fictional setting, very often you're just, you're like trapped in one of those things.

You're basically sewn into it.

And so you got to have like a catheter or a diaper or some sort of like method of

relieving yourself that doesn't involve taking it all off.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You're telling me that the actors who play superheroes have got catheters?

I think sometimes they do.

They have some sort of

like some sort of thing that's hooked up so they can relieve themselves.

Shove it in.

I've never up your your

head.

I can't imagine it to be pleasant.

But it also probably depends on what type of catheter.

Yeah.

Barbed.

Yeah, that would imagine people would

not be your first choice.

I don't think.

Well, you don't want it to come out.

You want it.

Imagine the embarrassment if you have a catheter in and it slips out and you start peeing, and you're Iron Man and it's going all over that fancy suit.

Yeah.

You started going like this.

Yeah, yeah, that bus,

might also just rust up.

Be careful.

That's some strong piss.

Mr.

Iron Man, I am Jarvis, and

I'm detecting a large amount of impressions.

These impressions are so they're just not there.

Yeah, just so much of you is coming through in your impressions.

I really should be effort, though.

I've never heard a British person speak, so it's hard for me to imagine it.

You certainly have.

You've heard British people.

I'm not sure sure that's true.

This is an absolutely true story.

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That's a true story.

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What about the topic at hand?

Hades.

Hades 2 and other roguelikes.

Thank you you for getting us back on track, Resident Evil Merchant.

That's really bummed that Heather's not here for this discussion.

I kind of am sort of, I am bummed, but I am excited to talk about Hades and Hades 2, developed by Supergiant.

Hades was released in September 2020 after a prolonged early access period, and Hades 2 just entered early access this past week, if you're listening to this on the Monday.

I have not spent a ton of time with Hades 2, but I have played

a bit of it.

As of this recording,

it's been out for in early access.

It's been available

for like less than two days, so we haven't had a ton of time with it.

But I will say, and so we're not going to talk at length about Hades 2.

I also don't think

well, I knew Heather hadn't gotten a chance to play Hades 2.

I'm not sure if Resident Evil Merchant played

Hades 2?

I'm loving it Hades 2.

So you are playing Hades 2?

I'm playing Hades 2, Manor Lords, Hades 1.

Those are the games.

Wow, okay.

You're touching on all of them.

Early access for two out of those three titles.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

What?

Matt's looking at it.

I'm just like, I don't know.

Matt doesn't know.

Are you telling the truth?

Are you lying, I guess?

I have no reason to not believe you, but I also.

Let's engage in a conversation about it.

Manor Lords, a really interesting game.

You got to build like a castle in a small medieval village.

Yes.

And then you have to also build up your armies in order to defend that castle.

It's excellent game.

Excellent game.

Hades 2, sexy.

It is sexy.

It's definitely sexy.

Okay, I guess I believe you.

Yeah.

Sorry I cast any doubts.

It's like mostly Hades 1 because I want to make sure I understood what was happening.

Hey, can I...

Can I ask a question of the panel?

Please.

Do you think, given that it's a roguelike, that it would have been more thematically interesting if the game had been about Sisyphus?

You know, Sisyphus is actually a presence in Hades one.

Yeah.

I know, he's got the rocket.

He wants a...

Boldy.

Yeah, Boldy.

But, like, the game is about trying to achieve a goal and always being pushed back down.

So I'm surprised that they went with, like, Hades' son and not the character Sisyphus.

I think I will probably trust their judgment in terms of how to tackle the mythological element of it because it's just like, I think Zagreus was the right choice for a protagonist.

It also, I think, just like the way that tied in because of his familial link to Hades, the titular Hades.

It just, it just, that, that, I think, uh, worked really well for the narrative.

And it certainly continues in the sequel where you are playing not as Zagreus, but as Zagreus's sister.

Yes.

How do you say her name?

Melinyoi.

Melinyoi.

I believe it's Melinoui.

Melini.

Melinoi.

Melouie.

Something like that.

There's a little bit of an accent on it.

Do you guys know my name?

Resident Evil Merchant.

I just call you Resident Evil Merchant.

Yeah, but do you know my name?

Do you have a canonical name?

I mean, I honestly don't want to know it because I think that'll remove some of the magic.

Okay, then I won't tell you.

Starts with an R, though.

Is it Resident Evil Merchant?

Gotcha.

I've never played a game in early access, I'm realizing.

Interesting.

I've never really done that.

I mess around with it.

I do it a lot.

But the thing is, like, there are certain games I will choose not to.

Like, Baldur's Gate 3, I didn't play it all in early access because I knew it was, first off,

I just wanted to wait for the final release.

But a lot of times it will be things like the way I played Manor Lords, which I talked about last week, is I'll just mess around with it for a few hours.

I'm fine

tossing some money to the developer.

And

if it's a game I'm planning on getting anyway, I'll be like, okay, well, I'll mess around with it a little bit in early access, but I'll wait till the final release to actually play it.

But yeah,

I guess what I'll say I have in common with you, I don't ever play a game at length in early access.

I'm not ever like, like, I'm not going to play through all of Hades 2 in early access.

Apparently, it's finished.

The build that's out there right now, you can finish.

You can take all the way to the end game.

Yeah, I was watching some YouTube videos.

People have already put dozens of hours into this thing.

It's like crazy how quickly people, content creators, churn through this stuff.

God bless them.

But yeah, you can reach an end game right now, although I don't think there's an actual ending that's in the game.

But you can get to that point.

Oh, man, that would be a bummer if you beat Hades 2 in early access and there's just a blank screen at the back end.

Yeah, and I think that's part of the reason.

Like, you know, that's part of the reason I want to wait till the 1.0 until I actually dig into it.

Well, I know for a fact that I could probably play this game.

all the way until it's officially released and not get there because so far in Hades 2 I'm

dog shit at this game.

Well, I get that.

That's also the kind of the nature, I think, of this game.

And I think also it's set up for you to fail a lot and fail early.

And

you get a lot of resources to improve your skills and improve your survivability and open up the number of weapons you have access to.

Yeah, that's the sort of dopamine cycle of the game is that you

play a little bit and you can't get very far.

But every single time you go back to the

dungeon, you've got a little bit of an advantage that you didn't have before.

Yes, yeah, a little bit extra knowledge, but also a little bit more tangible improvement to your

character's skills and attributes.

I'm curious, like an extra heart, exactly.

Yes, I'm curious.

Resident Evil Martin, yeah, what you're gonna say, you have an extra heart.

I have an extra heart.

I'm tall enough that my body, my body has two hearts, like a dinosaur

Dinosaurs had more than one?

Yeah.

I don't have time.

We don't have time for this.

With the dinosaur effects.

Well,

the Diplodocus has such a large beast that there was a heart closer to the head and a heart in the body because otherwise the blood wouldn't be able to pump the entire...

Like, it's...

gravitationally impossible.

My first semester of college, I took a class dinosaurs and their relatives, because I thought it'd be fun.

And I think it was just like sort of like, oh, this will be an easy thing to add onto my course load.

And the professor was this great character who just like loved dinosaurs.

But day one, he was just like, he gave this, it's this British dude, had this British accent, which you're maybe hearing for the first time with my impression of it.

What's it going to sound like?

But he would be like, you know, like, dinosaurs were these majestic creatures and they, you know, whatever.

They ruled the earth for thousands of years.

And they also did this.

And he showed a slide of like just two dinosaurs fucking.

And they certainly did this.

And he switched to a slide of a dinosaur just taking a shit.

I was like, it was great.

He clearly drew these.

I look at it.

I'm curious, Resident Evil Merchant, because I've talked at length about Hades.

Yeah.

One of my favorite games of all time when we did our top 10 list on the podcast,

it was in my top 10.

It's my favorite roguelite, and it's a genre I love.

It feels so good to play.

It's so polished.

Every run, no matter how much of a failure, still feels like you're making progress because of the way the story advances.

I don't know your history with Hades, and I knew you spent some more time with it this week,

but talk us through your own experience with Hades.

Well, when the game

came out back in the back

2020.

2020.

Dangerous time.

was.

Really scary.

Well, it must be tough also for you with customer-facing retail.

I mean, you really.

Yeah, but I wear a mask all the time.

So it's not really

a question.

I can just see customers being perhaps a little bit skittish about meeting you in person.

Fair, fair.

So I played it on release.

Tragically, my Switch broke.

I, again, don't understand why how much water comes out of it when I'm hot.

How are you supposed to put any water in?

Water is not part of it at all.

You know when you hold up your switch and the water doesn't come out the past.

You've asked this about it, and I've said no.

That's not the experience.

I still don't quite know what you're describing.

I guess you just doused it in water.

No.

Anyway.

Not every toy is a water toy.

I know that.

Did you drop your switch in the toilet?

Is that what happened?

Okay.

No.

What?

You're telling me you've never held up an iPhone, an iPad, a Switch,

or like a, and when you hold it up, water doesn't come out.

I pieced it together.

He just dropped all of these things in the toilet.

Damn, they were just in the backlog.

He was just selling the toilet with his electronics and was just dropping them in the shot.

Somehow flushing it would sort of like get it out, but it just got more water in, actually.

I use a dry toilet.

That is not how the water got in there.

I do think

we have to talk about Hades.

I'm going to interrogate this dry toilet.

What's going on there?

Some toilets are dry.

Some toilets are dry.

Some toilets are dry.

Some toilets are dry.

The latrine.

That's true.

So my experience with Hades was until my Switch broke because it was full of water.

I guess I didn't get it.

Hold on.

What?

I'm just trying to parse what is actually true.

Did your Switch break and that's why you didn't play as much Hades?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I, you know, I gave it a a shot

in 2020.

My Switch broke because it was full of water.

Okay.

But,

but, all right.

So, so I didn't get, I didn't get a chance to really explore that, like, uh, this, the cycle that makes it so addictive, right?

Uh, but then when you guys were like, oh, we're gonna do weirdly exit or I was like, okay, I'm listening.

We don't sound like that at all.

What

again, you can't, you can't.

I don't know how to do wubba.

I guess I'm sure you're out.

how do you do wubba is that it walla walla i can't do walla anyway

so i i broke out my a new switch yes uh-huh and i race against the clock until that thing fills up with water

and so i'm playing hades this last week and i gotta say i got it yes hell yes

got it i was like oh oh okay because i uh initially i was confused like

my experience of the roguelike concept is that you get a certain way and then you choose to bail so that you aren't, you so that you can retain your goods.

Depends on the design.

Some let you, you bail early.

Yes, others are just like you go, you go till you drop.

But in this, you, you just go until you die.

Yeah.

And I, I, I guess that was uh not clear to me before.

So, uh, yeah, I, I, I've beat a fury, beat another fury.

You You're surprised at how long the run is.

Yeah.

Right.

And that there's not really a save feature.

You can turn off the Switch, but that's risky because what if the next time you turn it on, it's full of water?

Yeah, I'm realizing the way I play these games, I never abandon, like, I never like stop and resume mid-run.

Yeah.

Like I get to a completed run.

And so I don't even actually know what happens if you're like, you know, in the second biome, you've beaten the first boss and in the middle of it, you

save your game and resume.

I guess you just pick up from whatever your last game is.

Wait, there's an auto-save feature?

There is.

Yeah, there is, yeah, yeah.

Oh.

Yeah, I guess I've never exited or run either.

But

it's a very quick auto-save.

It'll just like when you go to exit, it will say when the last time the game was saved.

I really like the leaves that show up on the bottom of the screen when you're sort of like floral, like

art design across the board.

Excellent.

Art direction is pristine.

That's what I think Supergiant does.

It's just like everything is so fucking polished.

There's so much writing.

It is such a high level of quality level of writing.

There's so much voice acting.

Yeah, and the whole great, the art direction is uninstalled.

The way that they reference the thing that you just fucked up.

Yeah.

That's great.

That's great game design.

I have to shout out

Courtney Vineyard.

Sorry, I've never said your last name before.

Voice of Dusa.

That's right.

From the Dusa, great character for the first one.

From the game.

When I was streaming more on Twitch and was playing Hades on Twitch, she'd hop in the chat and give me tips.

Wow.

I need to shout out Bono.

Who's in U2?

You guys know this band?

Yes.

Yeah.

Just want to give him a shout-out.

You got a favorite song with or without you?

Where the streets have no name?

Sunday, Bloody Sunday?

Yeah, I'm just curious.

Or do you like that?

It's a beautiful day.

Oh, a beautiful day.

Yeah, a little more modern.

Let it slip away.

I've never really

dug in on them.

Yeah, I'm not like the the biggest U2 guy, but I've heard

they're great in person.

That Sphere Show supposedly was a spectacular thing.

I feel like I've heard too that they're like great guys, that they're like cool guys.

Yeah,

well, hey, you know,

we talked with past guest Devin Bryant about this because he'd worked with U2.

He did.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like Devin.

I miss that guy.

He's a good guy.

Good guy.

I also like the song Don't Lose Your Head from the face-off soundtrack by U2.

Oh, sure.

You know, there's also a Don't Lose Your Head by Queen that's on the Highlander soundtrack.

Oh,

wow.

Yeah.

I do think that's where they got the idea.

Could be.

I wonder, is it a cover?

Don't lose your head like that.

Yeah.

I think it's a different song.

It's not going to help because, again, the impressions.

Right.

That's the top.

That's the song.

The tune go like that.

The tune go like that.

Anyway, so yeah.

So my experience with Hades this week has been very pleasant, far more

addictive and exciting than the first time I played it back in 2020.

Matt, I'm curious about, first off, your history with Hades, because I know

you played it quite a bit back in the day, and you've been playing Hades 2 some as well.

But what's your history with this game, and how are you feeling about Hades 2 thus far?

I feel like I first got Hades on Switch, so it was obviously way out of early access at that point.

No, yeah, I mean, like, look, I'll say this.

I think when we did our Switch draft or whatever, Mount Switchmore or whatever the fuck we did, I had

I picked Hades because that was the platform I originally played it on.

It was also deep pandemic, so I think I was doing a lot of gaming on my Switch because I could like have it on my TV and, you know, move it onto handheld or what have you.

So I don't think I was like

in the initial ever.

I I jumped in by the time I heard about Hades, everybody was talking about her already.

So I was like, I got to see what everyone's talking about.

And I just played it.

It's one of these games where I still just kind of pick it up on and off just to see what's, you know, how far I can get.

Because it is just like a satisfying thing to just clear, you know, clear an area, see how far I can go.

And it's so fucking playable.

Sorry, keep going.

It's so playable, but I've only ever beaten Hades one time.

I've only taken the guy down once.

Right.

So the way the game progresses is, and, you know,

rolled credits on Hades 1, and I played a lot of the...

I got pretty far in playing Heat Runs, which is like the post-game content.

The way the game works,

where you can up the difficulty in various ways, is that once you finish a successful run, which involves killing, taking out the titular Hades, spoiler alert.

Once you do that, I think you have to repeat it 10 times.

Yes.

And then,

you know, kind of like

once you finish it.

Stop being?

No, no, no.

10 successful runs.

So 10 successful clears.

And then, and then each time you have a successful clear, the story advances some.

And then when you hit the 10th one, that's when you roll credits.

And that's when you get the finality of the story.

But there's more dialogue and more shit that happens after that as well.

I'm shocked always every time

a character has an exclamation point over their heads.

I'm like, I've seen so much of this game.

But I really loved that game.

And then, you know,

was excited for Hades 2.

Didn't think we'd be doing,

we'd be talking about it so soon,

you know, but

I've been messing with that quite a bit in loving it.

It has made me want to go back and finish off the other runs.

I switched my Hades playthrough to a God mode playthrough.

And on God mode, I thought God mode was, it was just like a...

Like an easy mode like maybe everything was easier.

It's not easier.

It's it's it's still challenging you can die and have to start all over but uh every time you die you do gain um

uh higher defense so you are sort of stronger every time you die in god

you can get your vulnerability probably up to 100 mine's at like 26 right now or something what is your favorite weapon oh it's it's i'm so glad you asked You're welcome.

My favorite weapon.

I like the fists because they're fast.

All right.

But But

there's an upgrade that you can get for the fists that there's like a magnetic boon for them so you can bring enemies to you and then take them out if that's your special.

There's a regular attack and there's a special attack.

There's a dash attack that I don't dash attack that much.

I'm more of a...

You kind of have to mash both buttons at the same time for it, which to me...

Feels like you're a little out of control in a situation where you're trying to constantly maintain control.

And I'll throw those like those little things you can do, your cast.

Yes.

I don't usually do those in regular battle, but in like a boss,

I'll throw all of them into a boss just because it chips away at their health a little faster.

You know, even though I unlocked other weapons, I really found myself kept going back to the bow and arrow.

Yeah, so that's what I was going to say, because I'm usually such a melee sort of guy in this sort of game, but the bow feels so great.

They really nailed that ranged combat feeling.

It's really, really satisfying.

That and the gun, honestly, both feel really,

really good in the game.

And I just remember being shocked the first time I got both of those.

It was like, oh, wait, I'm actually having fun playing this.

This isn't a thing I'm just getting through because, you know, you have to, you have to,

there's different things you can unlock by finishing runs with each weapon.

And yeah, and obviously the various aspects that you unlock as you keep going, that changes things a little bit.

I like the spear a lot, too.

That's what that's like.

The spear is good.

I'll have to try the gun again because the first time I tried the gun, I didn't really like it.

I do

something that was interesting in the last year that came out that I didn't really get to talk about on here.

I just, I don't,

I guess it was at the end of last year.

Maybe we were banked up for the holiday and just never got back around to talking about it.

But God of War Ragnarok released a roguelite mode.

Yes, and so did

the Valhalla mode

and

story

rocks.

And they did a really smart thing was they basically are just like, we'll just do Hades.

Like we'll just do exactly this.

And like there's

boons for

your

selected weapon.

So you can go on a weapon path.

So you can like pick the Blades of Olympus, for example, and then all your upgrades will be for that throughout the thing.

And you get rewarded for doing runs with the other weapons, though, too.

And

it's just so fun because it's such a satisfying loop.

You go through the same areas.

You take down bosses and mostly,

you know, just other creatures and whatever.

Then you ultimately get to fight Tyr, who's the...

the Norse god of war and then you get sent back to the you know to Valhalla again and started over it's a very very satisfying

there's a very satisfying story beat in that that is like one of the coolest things that they've done in a long time.

And I love that.

But I have not messed around with the no return mode in The Last of Us Part 2.

Yeah, I'm curious if Resident Evil Merchant has, because I have messed around with that as well, but I like that these are being added.

It feels like an interesting way to add,

just add a half to the gameplay

and just a mode that's like endlessly extensible.

But I do want to ask you, Resident Evil Burch, but before we get to that, I do have a quick tangent, which is God of War, Hades, both dealing with like Greek mythology, Greek gods.

It's just a thing, another thing, I've maybe said this before, I'm so glad that like nobody owns like the Greek god IP.

You know what I mean?

It's like such a, like, it's so great that things like Dracula and

Greek myth are in the public domain.

We don't have to deal with someone's failed children or some corporation hoarding the rights for it.

The Dracula Estate.

The Dracula Estate has to approve uses of Dracula.

You know, it's like that fucking sucks.

And it sucks the,

you end up with things where you end up with franchises that are kind of like, there are all these people who could have all these creative, there are these fan communities that could create all this, this amazing derivative content, but they're not permitted because someone has shackled the IP.

What was that Nicolas Cage Dracula movie?

Renfield.

Renfield.

Renfield.

That was fun.

Yeah.

I like to see Dracula.

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

I'm sorry.

Resident Evil Merchant, did you ever mess around with Last of Us log loguelike?

I, you know, I didn't get the chance to play it because

it came out too long after the game came out.

Right, yeah.

So,

and I could be wrong, but one of Heather's favorite games is Last of Us Part 2.

Is that a game you also responded to?

I dislike it.

Oh, interesting.

I dislike it.

Interesting.

I think it's unfair.

You know, a lot of those people have families.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that's maybe baked into the messaging, though, of the game itself.

You're kind of dealing with like the moral, you know,

trauma of having to massacre a bunch of people to be able to do it.

You have to understand where I'm from.

Uh-huh.

Kingdom Hearts Law.

Those are bad people.

That's real people.

Oh, God, I don't know.

So I don't approve of that kind of thing.

Those people don't, they don't deserve it.

No,

but I also just don't think the game is necessarily endorsing it either.

No,

it's complicit.

That's it.

Any depiction of something bad in media is endorsement.

We know this.

I do think it's cool, though, that two games with

celebrated and extremely tight, bunch of gameplay and combat

added these modes because then you can just play, because the loop of playing those games is like, I don't know if I want to go through the entire story of The Last of Us Part 2 again, but I want to have the feeling of playing the game.

Sure.

So adding that mode, I've been interested in checking it out, actually.

I just have not.

But it works great, very effectively in God of War, and the story they tell in it is very good.

Can I ask you guys a question?

Yes, please.

What's a roguelike?

Is a battle royale a roguelike?

You know, it's interesting because like the...

I think if we're going to have a taxonomical discussion, people would probably say no.

I think probably roguelikes are usually thought of as a single-player experience.

But there is also an argument, and this goes back to what Matt was saying about Super Barrier Brothers, kind of in a sense, like all games with any sort of failure mechanism are fundamentally the same thing.

Also, the items are randomized in a bad way.

So, that very, very much speaks to the spirit of

a roguelike.

But I think a lot of times what you're dealing with with a roguelike is what it gives is it's a single-player version of that kind of multiplayer experience, right?

It's the same sort of thing of, oh,

I don't know exactly what's going to happen here,

but I know the general rules and I know the kinds of things I have in my arsenal, the things I have

that I can utilize, and then we're just going to see what happens in this individual session.

I'm remembering, too, Returnal, which was a game I think only I played.

Yes.

Fucking rules.

And it's so good.

And I wish I had finished it.

Very satisfying game.

If we're just shouting out games, you know,

FTL and Into the Breach, both subset games, two of my favorite games.

Into the Breach, you know, and

both those games have music from Ben Prunty, who composed our Get Played theme song.

Wow.

And,

you know, other games that

like Cult of the Lamb, which was a game that came out in 2022, has a roguelike element to it,

along with City Building.

Idea Balacho, you were talking about Vampire Survivors, one of my favorite games of recent years.

I got another philosophical question please is animal crossing a

combat free roguelike

interesting

i i just think such a core thing of these games is that there's a there's a point where you fail and you restart and i because i think because of animal crossing you're continually like working from the same uh like like you're you're you're you're just building and expanding the same village, right?

I think it's going to be a little bit different.

Is it roguelike in the way that real life is a roguelike where you just go to sleep and start your day over every single day?

That's right.

With the same information you had before, but in a new attempt to fix whatever you have going on.

Yeah, is that really the appeal of it?

It just feels like a day.

It feels like a new day.

It's like, well, I had a shitty day.

Maybe I'll have a good day tomorrow.

Is that really what we're getting out of these ideas?

I think that

the permanent improvements that you get in a roguelike.

Say from the mirror in Hades.

Yes.

Where, like,

there's

an element of slow conquer for sure, and that's that's I think the appeal.

And we should talk about because you brought that up, you know, the mirror of night in Hades

is now a the what the version they have in Hades 2 is this card system, yeah, which I really like.

I love it, it's it's really cool, and you know, lot cards in the like the grid.

The moment for me when the grid expanded, I was like, oh shit, there's more cards.

I literally said,

But I think that's really cool, and then as you progress, there are

you get, you know, you're just choosing which ones you want to use.

It feels like it has a little bit more extensible and flexible than what you have in the Hades 2 equivalent.

Or the Hades 1 equivalent, I mean.

So far in the Hades 2,

I'm interested in,

there's not a whole lot of story for me happening right now where

there's still a large mystery as to what shooting going on.

But I'm really liking the new characters.

And I like the the only weapons I have so far are the main staff that you start with and then like the two knives and I've been using that a lot more because I like the fast weapons

I keep getting killed by

whatever the first like

Area like early bosses sure yeah, I can't remember what they're called at this point,

but I I'm gonna keep I'll keep messing with it for sure because I am excited that I just like

I didn't think that this was the type of game you could make a sequel to really because it's so replayable there's almost no reason to make a sequel yeah and it also feels like they explore the story so thoroughly in the first one but again they have that new protagonist and uh you know like like some some returning characters some returning gods but also uh some characters are returning in different forms and then there's some new characters i'll just say first off uh Hecate, I think is how is that how you say it?

Hecate?

Hecate?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's spelled like Takate, so I want to say Hecate, but it's not that.

But it's voiced by Amelia Tyler, who is the Baldur's Gate 3 narrator.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's just an incredible voice actor, and it's a really cool performance.

And it feels like, at least, again, like you, not super far at the story of this game, feels like a character who's really central.

So it's really well cast.

I also like Nemesis, who's mean and muscly, which is exactly by type.

Love it.

Someone who's going to yell at me and beat me up.

I like the,

oh, shoot, the little frog.

The little frog is cute as shit.

Brinos or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so cute.

Yeah, and also,

there's just other things that it iterates on, like, for, you know, the way casting works is really different.

There's a mana system now,

which is like a,

I don't know.

It's just like a completely,

it was, it was really simplified with Zagreus, and then it kind of makes sense with this character

with

Melinui.

Yes.

Melinui.

Melinui.

millinui it makes sense with melinui um i should know this that like it is like a little bit more of a magical character so it makes sense yeah she's a witch exactly right uh cast being now like an area of effect thing is like pretty cool um yeah it says that you can bind characters you can bind enemies in place and yeah there's all sorts of strategic concern or like calculations

i do want to go out on a limir and say i prefer the the first

system for casting that's fine i didn't i'd like it's already a complicated thing to keep track of everything.

There is a little bit more going on in Hades 2 where, having bounced back to Hades 1,

I do enjoy the simplicity a little more, but

some of the stuff in Hades 2, like the fact that you can sprint now.

The sprinting is great.

I'm glad you brought that up because, yes, I dash like fucking a madman in Hades 1.

Here, you can't dash as much.

I do really like that

your cooldown on

the dash has a visual tell, which is a trail behind your character.

It's like it's just like it's it's just again, just really elegant, really well thought out, and very visually pleasing.

Um, but yes, that you can hold down the dash to sprint, and that sprinting has its own boons, which which like you know, you can get one with like a whirlwind that follows you or whatever, or a cloud of ice.

Like that shit is really, really cool and feels like something new.

I'll just say about the mana system real quick, as someone who played a shitload of Hades 1.

For me, it's like the right level of like, here's just another layer of complexity for returning players to make you feel like, oh, okay, this is a new system I need to wrap my head around.

So I'm appreciating in those terms.

I do like,

and it's not that complicated where it's like, instead of

managing the players,

you just hold it, hold down whatever the input is.

I wish that

people weren't so precious about the IP of Jesus Christ because

I think a game like this with those characters would be wild to play.

I do want there to be a God of war where he does fight Jesus.

I think it'd be good.

That'd be rap.

Well, he could fight the Old Testament God, and Christ could be like a

baby.

Like the Freya.

The Freya character.

His

friend that's helping him out.

Yeah.

Man, that Old Testament God is a bad dude.

He's a maniac.

He's a wrathful motherfucker.

What I was going to say on that.

Find me 10 good people

or I'll kill everybody.

This guy's crazy.

I was going to say there actually is, and I was like, kind of, I was like, this is like a little bit edgy that they're going there with Hades 1 because there's all the aspects you unlock that are that are from other myths.

So, you know, it's stuff that comes from

various Eastern myths, various other, like, you know, just cultures, mythology.

But one of them is the aspect of Lucifer.

Oh, interesting.

That is, that's kind of almost daring that they're kind of saying like Christian mythos.

They're even like kind of making that association.

I feel like a lot of people would be skittish about that, but I think maybe because it was Lucifer and not Christ, it was okay.

Let's remember that in, I think, Assassin's Creed 2, you can fight and kill the Pope.

Hey, in Crusader Kings 3, you can eat the Pope.

Video games are good.

Yeah, video games are good.

Gosh, I'm trying to think of something else, too, that I love from Hades 2.

Oh,

I like when sequels do this because

sometimes if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Yeah.

Art direction, pretty similar.

Yeah.

Looks great.

It looks, I'll also just say

I've got this fucking widescreen monitor

and it looks just gorgeous and widescreen.

First game's gorgeous too, but I do see the little bit of improvements to this one.

I also think the, I don't know how else to phrase this, but like the video games camera is closer

to the character, I feel like.

I think maybe it's a little slightly zoomed out in Hades one, but maybe that was just the difference of playing it on switch versus

I think you're just used to the character being so small on the screen.

Maybe, yeah.

I'd have to compare him head to head because I wasn't sure if I checked that, but it's possible.

It's possible.

And a lot of the music is similar, but there's new touches and like uh to the music that work.

There's a little bit more synth I've noticed in the soundtrack, and I'm heavily in favor for that.

I believe the composer is Darren Corb.

I could be wrong about that.

I think Darren Corb is the Hades composer who's also the voice of Zagreus in the first game.

You got to be careful with that synth.

I hear Nick Weiger doesn't think that's a real instrument.

Hold on.

Wait a minute.

Yeah, it is Darren Corb.

Yeah, the other thing I was going to say, and this is along those lines of just like retaining a thing from the first game, when you defeat the final enemy in any encounter in any individual room, there's hit stop and then the slowdown of time.

It is so satisfying.

It's just got such an incredible feel to it.

Especially because you don't know always that that's the last one.

Yes.

You're like looking around.

Yeah, because these things come in waves.

It's very nice to know when you're done.

It's great.

That feels really good.

I wish that happened when you took a shit.

So the experience, hold on.

You just never know when you're going to stop.

So you drop drop heat into your dry toilet.

Get off heat.

And then

just time stops for a second so you can process it.

Everything slows down.

You're like, oh, thank God I'm done.

Yeah.

So you'd be like, oh, wow, okay, that's over.

Yeah.

Because you don't know.

Yeah, you know, you sometimes don't know.

Is this actually coming, especially as you get older?

Like, is this finished?

I don't know.

No, that's true.

Sometimes it is a relief to just like let it go.

Yeah.

And like, I'm done with this.

Yeah.

and sometimes you're just like, I got to get on with my day at a certain point.

Yes.

You know

that something has to, something's got to give when you're fucking sitting there and you're like, still,

I want to be done with this.

I get to hear people canceling their Patreon

and more people saying.

This episode is upsetting me on so many levels.

I do think that this is a genre that podcasting, yeah, podcasting, that roguelikes.

Oh, yeah.

That was, I was surprised to learn that I loved.

Oh, but for me, this was like a total like 2010s.

Yeah.

Because, like, what is it?

Was Binding of Isaac is 2011 or something like that?

And it's just like that.

That I think kind of, I don't know, it wasn't just that game, but that was one of the things that I think leads to this renaissance of all these

or this resurgence of this genre.

And then, yeah, there's just been so many, but for me, first off, it's like indie developers, small developers, solo developers can put together these games because structurally it allows you to get a lot of gameplay without building like a ton of like geometry, without building a ton of assets.

So,

like like that's part of it.

So, you're getting like really creative designs from people who are not coming from necessarily like these huge like AAA

development, these giant development teams.

So there's just a bunch of different attempts at it.

And I think that's part of it.

But yeah, I also just think, like, again, it's such a game of, I said this previously, it's such a genre where failure is progress.

And

like, I lose at this thing, but I get better at this.

This is a thing a point Resident Evil merchant was making earlier.

So I think that's a big part of why I like it so much.

In

five days as of this recording, there is a game called the rogue prince of persia coming out whoa and it's prince of persia it's a prince of persia rogue like wow that sounds like you're defending evil empire published by ubisoft uh i never i bounced off of

the metroidvania prince of persia uh but i was enjoying that quite a bit too but i will i will check out the rogue prince of persia absolutely

it kind of seemed like you were gonna say something yeah

i thought we were all taking a collective breath I do.

I mean, I love this genre, so it's exciting that

there's more coming and that they're just like continuing to make more.

And that Hades, that to speak to the early access part,

so I hadn't ever played a game in early access, really.

Like I said, the fact that they would even consider this early access, this game plays perfect.

Well, okay, so Hades had a pretty lengthy Hades one at a pretty lengthy early access period.

I think with Hades 2, and I don't even mean this cynically.

Yeah.

I think that they maybe were able to wait a little bit longer until this was in such a polished state.

And

again, you know,

an independent developer and publisher, I think this extended early access period with a very polished product is to some degree part of their marketing, right?

It's like, hey, everybody, we got this game out.

It's already this good.

Imagine what it's going to be like in 2025.

They're getting all this positive buzz about this.

And also, I think just like people who are avid fans of the first one are excited to be kind of like in on the in

here early and messing around with a version of it and seeing how it improves.

But yeah, I'm not sure how much they're, they probably just didn't need as much player feedback for

this round because it is just like a second version of something that they already basically already had perfect.

Yeah,

it is really, though, an incredibly impressive game,

even at this state.

Yeah, I'm running it in 5120 by 1440, so just an insane widescreen resolution.

Next time, it's so, so crisp and so fast.

Next time you boot it up, could you do me a favor?

Yeah.

And take a picture of that monitor with it on.

I got to see what it looks like.

Okay, sure.

Is there an unfair advantage that you have by being able to see more of the map?

I don't think so.

Not with this sort of game.

I think if you're maybe playing an FPS, you know, you have a little bit of a wider perspective or something.

But, you know, know, it's, I, I, I don't know.

I, I actually don't know if high level,

I, I, I would, I imagine esports guys or people who are playing at high levels don't necessarily need the wide screen.

They want, they just want a higher frame rate.

Um, I, but I don't fucking know.

Not my world.

Not my world either.

Trying to think of something else I wanted to say.

Oh, I did have one thing that I wanted to kind of like just, just talk about, which was

just regarding Supergiant and, you know, what a cool studio it is, but also just I think at the time in which Hades 2 is coming out, it was coming out in early access, we've also like we've had kind of a deluge of like shitty industry news, a bunch of layoffs, a bunch of studio closures.

Matt, I know you loved Hi-Fi Rush, that team, you know, that that studio got killed, unfortunately.

Sad tweet from the from the guy in charge of that studio.

Really, really, just a fucking, just a fucking bummer.

It's it's awful.

And then like Helldivers 2, we didn't talk about that.

Oh, yeah, they were gonna make it so that you had to have a PlayStation login to play the game on Steam.

And so many people gave it negative reviews and were like, fuck this, that Sony was like, never mind.

Yeah, I think because, you know, you see these,

I would just want to say like a little bit of maybe some positivity is that you can point to a company like Supergiant or a company like Larian that is independent

and that is making like some of the best art that this medium has to offer.

And

it's just encouraging that there are people like that who still exist and create these things out of labor of love and that audiences respond so positively to them, even when you see all these big corporations that have all of these

shareholders that they're answering to making such onerous decisions in terms of their own workforces, their own creative output.

So yeah,

from that aspect of it, I think it was just like a real positive and kind of a week of negativity.

And good to celebrate it.

Good to celebrate it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny.

Resident Evil Merchant.

It's so fucking awesome already.

Maybe they could just be like, hey, here it is.

It's done.

And I'd be like, this is,

I love it.

Yeah.

But yeah,

there's an even better version coming next year.

Resident Evil Merchant, any final thoughts?

Let's see.

I think Aphrodite got to be careful.

She's showing a lot of titty.

Yeah, she's not really wearing anything, just kind of covered with her own hair, you know.

Yeah, you gotta be careful.

There's another Capcom property where some people got in trouble for that kind of thing.

Darkstalkers.

Oh, I remember the Darkstalkers game.

Yeah, yeah, there's like a cat.

What happened?

Where can I see it?

You could probably play it on like a collection.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember because what was the cat?

Was a cat named like Felicia or something like that?

Felicia and Morgan.

Morgana, yeah.

And then there was like an underaged character who was also sexy.

And you're like, oh, no, don't do that.

Anyways.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's my

final thought: you gotta be careful when you're walking around like that.

Yeah, for sure.

It's just good advice in general.

It was a different time.

People a little hornier.

In Greece?

Yeah, it was horny.

Yeah, very horny back then.

There is literally one of the fucking Dionysus's whole thing is fucking.

Yeah, they're all horny as shit.

His dick is out.

You see it too.

Nasty.

Not like mine.

Fuck, covered in wine.

Download a mod?

What's going on?

I made my own mod.

Oh, got it.

Got it.

Matt, any final thoughts?

I'm excited to continue playing it.

I'm sure you'll be hearing more of us, more discussion about it in the future and probably when it is officially released.

But

I just, I love these types of games, and I'm glad we talked about it today.

Yeah, and maybe, you know,

when the game is in a more finished state, I think there's a major update coming later this year.

I think it's going to be officially released in 2025, is what they said.

It probably said this.

It's a while away, but when that does happen, maybe when there's some of that, maybe we can get Heather's perspective when she's back on the podcast because I'd love to hear what she thinks about the game.

Yeah.

Hey, Brezni Morchin, you said you had a segment.

I do.

Okay, great.

It's called Happy Meal or Dumpster Steel.

Okay, great.

Now we all know that Happy Meals.

What?

Dumpster steal s t e e l

happy meals are known for their video game tie-in toys where we all remember such precious ideas and moments like super mario brothers 3 with a little spring right

but how about this i'm gonna tell you a happy meal toy and you tell me if it's real anybody saying happy meal or if it's fake okay dumpster steel.

I think I understand, but I think you did say that there's only one, yes,

there's one round.

Okay, great, okay, great, okay.

I'm gonna name three items, okay, got it.

You tell me which of these was in a happy meal or wasn't in a happy meal.

You just tell me

happy meal or dumpster steel.

Got it.

And the three items are, and you have to name for each of them.

Okay, got it.

Plastic

plastic bag Ronald McDonald puppet.

I'm going to say dumpster steel.

Hold on a second.

Let me name all three so you can consider.

Got it.

Wait, is there one answer for all three of them?

You I name the three.

You want to do it one at a time, then it's three rounds.

That works for me.

I'll just let you run it the way you want to do it.

Name all three.

No, let's do it one round at a time.

Okay, then I'll say dumpster steel is my answer for you.

What do you say?

I think it's a dumpster steel too, because I'm picturing the puppet...

being made out of the plastic bag.

That's a plastic bag Ronald McDonald puppet.

Yeah.

You think a dumpster steel?

You're both wrong.

It's a happy meal toy.

That's a real happy meal toy.

Okay.

I read too much into your delivery because it felt like you were thinking of it.

That's button.

That's called poker face.

Got it.

Okay.

Number two.

I wasn't expecting such gamesmanship.

Gardening tools.

It's vague enough where it feels like you could find a way to justify the real one, but I also think this is a dumpster steel.

I think it's a dumpster steel too, but I can also picture like little plastic ones that you take like to the beach or something.

Yes.

You know, but I'm going to say dumpster steel.

Those are both happy meal toys.

What was the tie-in?

Gardening.

So the IP of gardening.

Got it.

Number three.

Happy meal or dumpster steel?

Okay.

Toothbrush and toothpaste.

Well, I'm just going to say Happy Meal at this point.

I think I'm going to say Happy Meal as well.

Well, no, I'll switch back to Dumpster Steel because I think if we're different.

Yeah, we should.

One One of us has a chance of it.

You go Happy Meal.

I'll go Dumpster Steel.

Okay, good.

I'll stick with Happy Meal.

Nick Weiger is the winner of Happy Meal or Dumpster Steel.

It was real?

It's real.

What was the context for that?

Brush your teeth.

Are all of these real?

I don't know what's real.

Is that real?

Ranch, would you like to look up whether or not Gardening Tool was ever a Happy Meal toy?

Rancher Producer is doing some Googling.

Yes.

Happy Meal.

have any

yeah do you have any context for what it was what was the tie-in gardening i told you what country was it was it in america nature's helpers happy meal how does your garden grow wow gardening the concept of gardening wow i kind of here's the thing when when we prep segments over here usually there's like we have like a lot of notes uh-huh and stuff Resident Evil Merchant had this segment ready to go off the dome.

So this was 1988 to 1991.

I still feel the doubt in your voice.

No, I'm not doubting.

I'm just

looking for more context on this.

Okay, wait, what was the other one?

Toothbrush and toothpaste.

Okay, hold on.

Happy meal, toothbrush, toothpaste.

Maybe type in brush your teeth, too, just in case.

Well,

let's see what I can find out here.

I'm doing some light banging.

Okay, this was a...

This was a Ronald McDonald hamburger toothbrush, and this was part of the McDonald's Happy Meal.

I guess this makes sense.

the kind of thing.

This is the kind of thing these food corporations do:

they're like,

we're going to, our food is extremely unhealthy, but we're going to act like we're doing something positive for the kids.

And this feels like the era where they could maybe

go with that.

This is on a list.

This is a list to call the saddest happy meal toys in McDonald's history.

Yeah, the Happy Meal Bedtime Collection is what it was.

Wow.

And then what was the last one?

Plastic bag, Ronald McDonald puppet.

Okay, Okay, plastic bag, Ronald McDonald puppet.

Happy meal toy.

Happy meal toy.

Yes,

this was a hand puppet.

Kind of looks like shit.

I feel like I died.

I would have bet my life, my family's life,

everything I own, all of my money.

Well, because usually this not being true.

I'll just say it just like usually Resident Evil Merchant is just making stuff, I would say.

I'd say

has a long history as a fabulist.

So I'm just kind of amazed that Resident Evil Merchant came in here loaded with some fast food trivia to stump us.

This was from 1976.

Wow.

This is.

I was.

Think of the metagame I was playing on

the fact that you guys think I lie all the time.

I apologize.

It's also, I do, I apologize, Resident Evil Merchant.

It's also interesting that era where before this was always a tie-in with some IP.

Yeah.

It was like, we're just going to give you McDonald's toothbrushes.

We're just going to give you a Ronald McDonald's toothbrush.

It can be argued that things got worse.

I think, yeah, I think pretty convincingly.

So these shitty toys of yesteryear were like almost charming in their innocent earnestness.

Yeah.

Well said.

That's this week's Get Played or producer series.

I'll tell you what a segment.

No, that'll just be the segment.

You're going to do a regular segment now?

You're going to do a real fucking segment after that?

Hold on.

What was it real about my segment?

It was real.

It was a it had a title.

It had items.

I did research.

You're right.

Yes.

It was honestly more prepared than any of our segments.

I wouldn't go that far, but it was well crafted.

With mine, at least.

Our producers Rochelle Chen, Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore, sard on social media.

Our music was by Ben Pruntrinty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gum back catalog, plus ad-free, main-freed episodes, and also our Patreon exclusive show, GetAnimaid.

Matt, what are we watching this week?

Nice try, Nick.

You're not going to trick me.

It's anime, and we don't know what we're watching this show.

No, we know.

We have no idea.

We're sourcing a random anime.

You guys have two shows?

Yeah, we do.

We have another one we do with Heather, GetAnimaid.

It's like a Patreon.

Yeah, do you know Ash Ketchup?

Oh, I saw that guy leaving the building once.

Yeah, Ash comes on the show.

Terrifying.

Ash is our you

there.

Our you.

Yeah.

Like you ever have like a summer camp like fling, you know?

It's like a day.

It's like that.

Summer camp?

Well, I don't know.

What's that?

Okay.

Anyway, you can find animehem and all of our get animated episodes over at patreon.com slash get played.

But yes, the format is we are randomly watching a random episode of a random anime that we don't have any context for.

It's pretty random.

It's pretty rando.

It's rando.

Resident Evil Merchant, thanks so much for being here.

Anything you'd like to plug?

Yeah, so I've got a podcast.

You have a podcast?

Yeah, it's called Get Played.

I be here every week where I introduce a segment called What Are You Playing?

And this week it was a pleasure to work with you boys.

Well, great to have you here for the whole time.

A genuine surprise, I will say.

A genuine surprise.

Matt Ranch, none of us knew this was happening, but here we go.

We just thought we were doing normal stuff.

I just wanted to do a good job, and I hope I did.

You did a great job.

You did a really good job.

You did a great job.

Nobody can say you did a bad job because you did a good job.

I did get confused about that fish versus donut thing, and I'm sorry.

I don't even remember what that was.

What was that?

Long John Silver.

Oh, right, right, right.

Long John is what those long donuts are called.

Yes.

What do you call a donut that a fish eats?

Is this a joke?

What?

Matt, we got played.

I guess we got played.

Shoot.

That was a head gum podcast.