Soulsborne Games with Sam Brown

This is a head gun podcast.

Oh my god, guys, I am so excited to play the Elden Ring DLC that's coming out.

I feel like I got to go back into the game and like check out where my guy, like, where's my character been all this time?

And like, yeah, I don't remember anything.

I don't even remember what's in my inventory.

I don't really remember.

I've been thinking about doing this too.

I don't remember my build at all.

I just remember like having a blast when we were doing it.

I think I'd like to boot it up right now as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, let's all boot it up and let's look at our characters' inventories.

All right, cool.

So yeah, it's been years.

It hasn't been that long, but it's, it feels

like a long time.

Yeah.

Uh, oh, okay.

I remember this.

I have the giant ant head shield because I thought it was really funny to have that ant head.

Remember that ant head shield?

Yeah, it was pretty good.

Let's see.

I got stone sword key, cracked pot.

Oh, yeah, yeah, this is all coming back, right?

I'm remembering this stuff.

The dark moon ring.

Oh, yeah, I got like a dectus medallion.

Right, right, right, right.

They had the two halves.

All right.

Roa raisins.

I think those.

I feed those to the

torrent, right?

Yeah, yeah.

The giant's prayer book.

I remember that being pretty interesting.

Wait, hold on.

This is...

I got a dead dog's dick.

I think that was for a quest.

Didn't you like reunite?

Like, you had to bring it back to a cemetery or something.

Oh, that sounds right.

Like, yeah, you have to exhume the dog and give him his dick.

This dog was cursed to play fetch with his dead dick

until you could actually return it to him.

Right, I got black dumpling in here.

The sword of the sword of Milos.

Okay, that's a spinal sword.

That's good.

What's yeah, what is this?

Your own mother's sadness.

Your own mother's sadness.

What boss was this from?

Well, you know what?

Because remember, we were playing on PS5 and like the dual sense controller has a way to like feel how you feel.

Yeah, so that's imported through the back the back paddles, I think.

Okay.

I have something here called Morgoth the Omen King's Taint Skin.

I don't remember that.

I don't remember that.

I know it's like it's this, it's not the whole

thing.

It's just the skin.

It's just the top layer.

Yeah, no, I do remember this, right?

He's all nasty looking.

So he's sort of like, I mean, he looks, if I'm being honest, you look, the whole skin looks like taint skin.

So I don't know what makes this one so special.

It doesn't give you that much.

But I remember that was pretty tough.

Oh, okay.

I'm encumbered and I don't know why I'm carrying three Bic pens.

Like, why do I have three Bic pens in my inventory?

I don't even remember where I picked those up.

Like, why didn't I drop those?

I think you get those in the same biome where you get Morgoth's taint skin.

Oh, okay.

I think it's all the same area.

It's like the same questline.

You know what, too?

Like, those are actually, I wouldn't drop those because those help you out big time in ranala's library okay yeah okay okay all right let's see what i got the oh yeah i was just just gonna the little weapon i i used to to to go through the game the winged scythe oh yeah that was a lot of fun yeah yeah you were scythe build yeah and then

oh what's this

i got another dead dog's dick

you i think I remember reading about

that's sort of like a known glitch.

Yeah, got it, got it.

I have a bunch of, I went on this whole thing with spirit ashes.

I had so many different spirit ashes.

I remember there's the clean rot night, Finlay, of course, the fanged imp, but I'm seeing one right here that says your bitch ass.

Yeah,

it's weird because I got that one too.

I got another spirit ash, too, for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Oh, Ruth Conda Forever.

That's the one where you summon her.

You summon her, and she fights alongside you.

She fights, yeah.

But then she dies at like the worst possible time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have Giza's wheel, Shabiri Grape

toilet lid.

That's a really powerful shield.

Okay, that's like an S-tier shield.

So you could do a lot worse with that.

Do you want to do rank shields in an upcoming episode?

Oh, that's a good idea.

We could do, yeah, like the she, like, we could do it like um agents of shield, and it's all our shield tier list.

Yeah, that'd be all shield.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, okay.

That's a good idea for a future episode, Matt.

Okay, yeah.

Hold on, hold on.

This one, I do not understand how this got here.

Dead dog's dick.

I think you modded your game.

I did.

I downloaded the Dead Dog's Dick mod every day.

Give me your controller.

Give me your controller.

Okay, he used a duping.

He used a duping glitch.

There's 150 Dead Dogs Dicks in his inventory.

It's a planned PC.

I got some mods.

I admit it.

You somehow modded it so like when you attack, it doesn't swing it.

It just shoves them in your own mouth.

It's the dead dog dick redemption mod.

We die and die as we discuss all things from soft games this week on Get Played.

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

It's time to get played.

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

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where sometimes we talked about bad games.

Sure.

And then we talked about other games.

Right.

Because playing the bad games every week made us miserable.

And so then we started playing other games.

And this week we're doing just that.

We're talking about other games.

Not just other games, games that some would consider, including myself, among the greatest games ever made.

Wow.

We're going to be spending some time in that neck of the woods when we get into it.

And joining us for this exercise.

Our guest today from the Whitest Kids You Know streaming May 1st on Shout TV for free.

Sam Brown is here.

Hi, Sam.

Hey.

Sam, thanks so much for being here.

Hi, Sam.

You're welcome.

I'm so sorry that it's not me and Zach like it was supposed to be.

It's

fine.

Yeah.

I feel like

you're stuck with me.

We're happy to have you.

We're thrilled to have you.

We're happy.

We're more than thrilled to have you.

Honestly, I didn't even want Zach here.

You guys had a date with the Davis sisters, the hot Davis sisters, but

hot one didn't show up.

It's just the.

Who are the Davis sisters?

I don't know.

I made them up.

Oh, I thought you were doing that.

I thought there were two hot sisters.

I thought you were referencing some act from the big band era.

Can I ask a question?

I wish I knew that much about the big band.

So

when it's like the Playboy concept of like, oh, you're going on a date with those two hot sisters.

Yes.

Are you imagining that they are actual sisters or is it like conceptually they're not literally related?

That's including all women as sisters.

I mean, I do too.

We're all sisters in a sisterhood of sisters.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I think it was a thing where it was like people were like, oh, yeah, sisters.

And they weren't thinking about it.

And then, like, and they were like, oh, and twins.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of course like.

And they don't think about like, yeah, oh, those are, you know, two girls that used to take baths together as children.

Because I would imagine, like, if it was like a threesome or something and

you're all making out, but then the sisters started making out, there'd be a moment where you'd be like, oh, that doesn't seem right.

That's an incestuous act.

I think they would take you out of it.

I need to call the police.

But I think there are, I think there is a segment.

I think there is a segment of

horn dog that is into that.

They are into the taboo.

But I think the line that most people draw is step.

Right?

Because that's where like porno ends up being all step.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've heard

one day.

One day you'll see a porno.

Yeah, one day.

One day I'll get one of those porno mags I've been here and print so much about.

Sam, I wanted to ask you, because we are going to talk about Bloodborne games.

We're going to talk about the Dark Souls games,

Sekira.

We're going to talk about all that.

We're going to talk about software.

We're from Soft Games.

We're going to talk about that in a minute.

But I wanted to ask you because another thing you talked about doing was FIFA.

You are a FIFA head.

All right.

It ties into the whole like Bloodborne thing.

Yeah.

Like I, this is, I, I was excited.

I'm, I'm a new dad, and FIFA right now is like perfect for my life

because

I can just play it for, you know, 15 minutes.

Right.

And then put it down.

Oh, I just played a match, put it down.

The thing that I got into recently, and it started like I, before FIFA, used to play, and I call it FIFA.

It's now FC EA, F.C.

Oh, right.

They lost the FIFA license, right?

But I used to play the winning 11 before that.

Oh, yeah.

Like the Konami games.

I think PS3 or PS2

back in college and me and my, like in New York, we had like a group of friends and we had this ongoing tally of who owed who a burrito over, you know, it was just gambling on FIFA.

And we knew like, it was like one of those things where you would know.

like what players were like had something bogus about them

and that that just like continued on and on and i feel like i don't know do you think that like that

in the world of of video game fans do you think that the the the sports video game fans are the nerds

that's interesting i think they're certainly viewed as like casual or like yeah i think maybe there is a case for that because i think the i think the general like i i think the the kind of gamer that's playing like an fps game or or fighting game kind of they do kind of look down on someone who plays sports games right but on the other hand I feel like stat min maxing and stuff on sports games is like the thing that I hear about sports games it's like you spend like a hundred hours in a menu before you play an actual round of the game and that feels to me like nerd-ish oh I had no idea how nerdy FIFA was till like two years ago I used to always I was like addicted to

going deep into the player creator and creating myself.

Oh, yeah.

Like just like spending like hours.

And I was good at it.

Like, I would, I would make the player look like me.

And I would be like, hey, look, I'm the quarterback of the New England Patriots.

Cool.

Yeah, sit on the bench, Brady.

And, and it was like so much fun to it.

And then, like, there was the games, like the basket, the NBA games, they would do the thing where they had like Spike Lee direct them.

But

that was, that was great for me.

And then, like,

what FIFA did a really cool thing where they had like a really good, like, involved storyline.

Where I think at the

point where they completed it, you could just buy the storyline.

You could, like, buy, like, you know, they would come out with a new one every year.

But a couple years ago, I checked out Ultimate Team and I was like, never into it.

Yes.

And do you know what Ultimate Team is?

It is.

My understanding is that it is EA's most profitable product now.

I bet.

Yeah.

This is where you can, I'll let you describe it.

It's, it's turned

EA, it's turned FIFA into a card game.

It's basically like Magic the Gathering,

but with

the players.

Wow.

And,

you know, like it's, it's pretty brilliant because it kind of,

like, in one way, it levels the playing field where it's like...

I don't know, like, you have like base levels of the cards, and then you get more like elaborate versions of the cards.

And the fun thing is, too, it's very like supportive to the like, the rise of women's sports where it's like you have those teams that have those

people like who are on the women's

World Cup teams.

Right.

And they're playing on teams with, you know, it's, it's,

what do you call it?

Co-ed.

Yeah.

You know, and so it's, it's cool because it's like, I'm not.

I like watching soccer.

I'm not the biggest soccer fan, but a way I get to know the actual sport sometimes is through playing these games.

And I get to know, like, oh, this is, you know, like, Messi's a great player.

I mean, that one I knew.

Yeah, sure.

But I think there are a lot of sports fans who are like that, who, like, maybe their understanding of the NBA or is from 2K or their understanding of the NFL is from Madden.

Like, they, they, they play MLB the show, but they're not going to sit down and commit four hours to watching a baseball game on television.

Well, there was also this, like, um, statistic this week about like the WNBA draft and how, like, a few years ago, it had like less than 500,000 viewers and now it has like millions and millions of viewers and I would have to imagine that this like multi-pronged injection of fandom from video games from

like EA's collaboration with them or what like that there is a

a drive to make it as popular as it possibly can be and that's been maximalized.

I can speak to the WNBA side a little bit more specifically real quick, just which is that the the this was a college game but the college game, a women's game between Iowa and South Carolina, was the number one rated basketball game of the past five years.

Just basketball.

Like, that includes the NBA, that includes men's college.

So, like, yeah, there are a lot more eyeballs on the women's game right now.

Good way.

Yeah.

Crazy in a good way.

That's insane that it shouldn't happen.

That's absurd.

How many of these girls are sisters?

But going back to FIFA Ultimate Team, my understanding is I have not messed around with it, but you can spend real money to buy real players.

Is that kind of how it works?

Or to buy the chance of getting a real player?

Even more.

Yeah, it's the chance of getting a real play.

You can spend money on packs, and

it's this thing of like, like, it's gambling, you know, it's this thing of like loot boxes.

Oh, yeah, yeah, loot boxes, and I have this much, and it'll tell you, like, you have this much percentage, you have, um, you know, like, you can spend 20 bucks on this pack of cards and you have an 80% chance of getting a player rated, like a diamond-rated player.

Yeah.

And

it is addicting and it like plays you so well in that, like giving you that itch of addiction.

Like, cause also the thing is, is that like on top of this, on top of this, like, oh, wow, this is a cool card that looks cool and all that.

You then get to go play online.

Yes.

And play against people.

And all of a sudden, you have this edge.

You have this gear.

And I mean, like, it is, it is destiny.

It is like all these games.

It is, you know, like, like

Elden Ring, you know, not to jump the conversation, but like, it is one of those things where you can get the competitive edge.

But like.

But in Elden Ring, you can't spend real money to get a competitive edge.

But in some of these games, you can.

Like Hearthstone, which is a game, a card game I played for a while.

And then I realized, like, once I started spending real money on it i was like this has to stop because it's it is absolutely addictive and it's designed to be addictive it is predatory and then it is something especially the way hearthstone is balanced which is like uh basically fundamentally magic the gathering just simplified the most powerful cards are like essential to compete at higher levels so you have to spend real money or grind for thousands of hours literally thousands of hours to have a chance of winning at the highest level yeah i mean there is that grind and there is that thing of like they'll circulate certain cards in certain ways.

And then they also have this whole like economy to it where

they have challenges based on trading in cards.

Yes, like every card has a numerical value, and every player is like, oh, the better players are rated, like, you know, like 88 and above.

And they'll be like, all right, we're releasing this card.

You can get this card if you trade in a team that's average is 88.

So you trade in all these.

And

yeah, and they do it in a way that like, it's like you can't have doubles of certain cards.

Like you, you'd have to like get rid of those and burn those.

So like, I don't know.

You can't have two Ronaldos in the same roster or whatever.

Two of the same Ronaldos.

So it's not like you, it's not like you are just stockpiling all these cards the whole time.

It

incentivizes trading in your cards.

It incentivizes like taking part in the commerce of a card.

Right, sure.

And then certain cards you can actually go on a market and sell,

not like with money, but like with the game points.

Sure.

So this is like the most boring episode of your show.

No, no, no.

It's really not.

I'm all the other ones are.

I'm weighing making a recommendation because I do you like other card games?

Like, is that like something you guys have?

I did Marvel Snap.

Okay, Marvel Snap.

look marvel snap great design i just was playing it too much on my phone but i i'm i really like marvel snap because i'm almost i kind of want to recommend bellatro bellatro rocks bellachro is a poker based roguelike so like you know what in the kind of the same way that that sports kind of makes the fifa uh you know the fifa mode more accessible this one since you already know the rules of of card games of a standard 52 card pack it's like a little bit more and it's not real money and it's easier to on-round you and it's not real money yeah it's just single player so but it's it's endless and you just play it.

That's the thing I was maybe going to not recommend: is that you could just play it for the rest of your life.

Well, and I want to preface what I was saying about FIFA 2 is that

the

I'm, you know, I maybe have bought a pack here and there, like a $5 pack.

But like.

It's okay.

No, I'm embarrassed.

I am embarrassed.

Hey, man, I spent so much money on Final Fantasy Record Keeper that was like a mo, I don't even know if it still exists, a mobile phone-based game where it was the same.

Like, you'd buy a pack of chants to get a character that you could then drop into your party.

And it would be like, oh, I really want Cloud.

So I'll spend 99 cents.

Sure, I'll spend it.

Okay, that was

I'll spend 99 more cents.

If I had to guess how much money I spent in Simpsons tapped out, it is not less than $200.

Yeah.

Like, it's definitely more than that.

To Fortnite's credit, none of the things you spend money on in Fortnite change the game at like the game itself.

No, that's that's part of the genius of it.

It's it's like all

cosmetic.

Yeah, for sure.

Um, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, by the way, was that it changes the game because I'm laughing seeing Peter Griffin.

I find Peter Gopi is a competitive edge in that way.

Uh, just to just to put a bow on Final Fantasy Record Keeper, it went offline September 29th, 2022.

So well, everything you love, just go all of that money I spent on trying to get cloud.

I mean,

they, they have us by the balls.

That's the other thing I wanted to mention is like, like, the other crazy thing about this is that,

you know, like, it's one thing if you're playing Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto V.

When did Grand Theft Auto V come out?

Boy, I feel like it's 10 years ago now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they just build on that.

And people are, you know, one year from my brother's birthday.

You just had his birthday.

Happy birthday, Nate.

Happy birthday.

HBD, Nate.

This is your birthday present.

Oh.

You guys have the same brother?

Yeah.

I mean, that would be amazing to find out.

Sisters.

Yeah.

23andMe.

And twins.

But.

That game, like, it doesn't turn over.

It's like going to turn over in like, what, 2026?

They're going to have the next one.

And so, like, all your money is still like, hey, you bought something that costs a lot of money.

It's still there.

Right.

Yeah.

FIFA.

It's, I have till like October.

Like, I'm building up this thing that's going to disappear soon.

Wow.

So it's gone at the end of the season.

At the end of the season.

Yeah.

I mean, and I wonder, like,

it's one of those things where I'm like, oh, this game would be like so much better if this was just like if I could be proud of this team and if I could just keep building it and building it and building it.

Yeah.

But it's just going to, I know it's just going to go away.

Well, if they made a subscription, and I hate to give them this idea, but like you could make FIFA Eternal.

And it could be a subscription service like Netflix.

And it would be a single game that they would update graphically like they have like with WoW or Final Fantasy 14.

But you could create a roster and raise that roster and continue to play with those guys.

I mean, who wouldn't pay money for that?

Here's the thing.

Why?

Like, they're already, it's, why is clear to us because we would be like, oh, it's more enjoyable.

Yeah, sure.

And I think more money for them, right?

If it was a subscription service?

I think with subscription services, I think they're always going to make more money versus an ongoing subscription of having like getting people to go back to the well over and over again because it makes so so much money from whales i think so i don't i don't know for sure i'm just i mean like like

they have people on the line for for 80 a year pretty much is subscription service already and then like throw on throw on the fact that like

i mean the people at the top the whales in this game

are like they're in for it and when they you know get that new game and they're probably paying a hundred bucks for the special edition and they're probably like once they get the new game they're paying they're spending the money on those packs yeah they you know like they are subscribed to it you know in that way of like and they can grind but they can also be like oh

i could also just like you know some of these are just people who like stream fifa and

it's people like that or it's like ted cruise and you're like this sucks

like because wasn't he like he spent like a bunch of money in Diablo Immortal or something, if I'm remembering correctly.

Oh, okay.

I can't remember what game he spent money in, but yeah, yeah, that's

it.

It is wild.

It's like that.

Um, we talked about it before on the podcast, but like that congressman, the San Diego area Republican congressman who like got busted for spending campaign funds at the steam store, and then he gave like a tearful press conference.

It's like, I'm sorry.

What is our world?

I was just trying to play waifu select.

I see that, and I'm like, they're just like me.

Yeah, which one would you more likely vote for?

A guy who spent a ton of money at Steam Store or a guy who's like, you know, we've got to check in on these video games.

We've got to regulate them.

I'd be like, fuck, I'm going to vote for the Steam Store guy.

Yeah.

At least he knows what I like.

The problem is they're the same guy.

That's the issue.

Yeah,

they're just picking.

Yeah.

Sam,

this is all fascinating context.

And I'm really like,

FIFA Ultimate Team is like such a huge game that we've never spent any time talking about.

It's funny because that's like where I was, you know, I listen to you guys.

Yeah, sure.

And I'm like, oh, they

don't like sports games.

We pretty much ignore sports games.

We just did racing games, right?

Yeah.

We talked about this pretty recently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, what's funny is, is that you remember my birthday, like

2011 or 2012 when we went go-karting?

Yes.

That was...

Very fun.

Awesome.

Thanks for the

in the height of me.

Matt was 11 years old.

it was in the height of me like having a steering wheel and playing grand turismo oh wow and i like knew the sort of physics of like all right this is when you're supposed to like turn into a corner and

we we started we were going

and i remember that like

you know like i was like so excited about it you put on that the the mask and i wore a uh a racing sketch like a onesie yeah yeah that we had from the from whitest kids kids to the go-kart track, like a full-on, it's my like Bigfoot gravedigger sketch outfit that I kept.

Uh,

and we started, and I was like, oh, like, and I got out to like this like early lead, and I realized, like, oh, am I just gonna like smoke everyone and it'd be this thing where I invite everyone to like go-kart on my birthday?

And I'm like, oh, I'm like, out in front of all you, screw you guys.

Like, uh,

and then uh, Trevor rear-ended my friend Dan so hard, or my, I forget who is who in this situation, but my friend Dan and Trevor got into an accident so bad that one of their helmet flew off,

like, like, went up in the air.

And so they had to shut down all the go-karts.

And so, like, you're just racing, you're racing, and then it's all of a sudden cut power.

And all of a sudden, like, my go-kart stops, and I just see Heather's go-kart, like, coming by me.

And it's, I, I was just like, oh, I'm the Donkey Kong in this race.

Heather's the toad.

Okay.

And then, but like, no, you were great.

You were, you like, like, uh,

you got the bet, the fastest lap on that, that first, like, pole position race.

And then you won the second race, like, no problem.

And it was like, yeah, of course.

That's what I would expect.

I love racing so much.

Every time

racing is everything.

Anytime it's combat, I'm in.

But every time I play like virtual reality Grand Theft Auto, or not Grand Theft Auto, Grant Turismo, I am like button presses away from getting the entire car rig, like to get the seat and the

adjustable wheel that has the motors in it and the pedal.

Like it is so

intoxicating.

And it's such a great temptation to be like, you could go all in in on this.

Yeah.

And then you could become, to your point, you could micromanage the specs on the car in Grand Turismo.

Yeah.

And it would be such a rabbit hole.

You could never stop adjusting that car and getting some kind of effect in the game or being like, hmm, I guess this

differential doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.

So I can sell this part back and get more money towards this engine that I've got my long play in on.

But ultimately, real go-karting is better.

Yeah, I guess.

I guess.

No, no, it was crazy.

I mean,

I remember we went for sushi after that and everyone, like, no one talked because everyone was exhausted because the whole time it was like hours of adrenaline just pumping.

And everyone was like, I haven't been this tired in years.

Like, like, like, just like

quietly eating sushi.

It's like when you go paintballing with like a group of friends, and then after you're all like just kind of quietly traumatized, it's like, oh, wait, no, this is not something people should be doing.

That being said, we should go paintball.

I've never done it.

It's the best.

I've never done it.

Dude, it is the best thing you've ever done.

I'll tell you what, my first time, not gonna be with you.

I'll give you the first one quick.

One year we were were in texas with the whitest kids and i forget what we were in tech we were in austin for but it was darren's birthday was right around that and so we all went paintballing we were with josh fadem

and uh i remember we're paintballing with him was the funniest experience because he was on my team one of the times and it's like basically capture the flag yeah you know it's like you're playing and uh Eventually, one of the teams gets whittled down.

And we knew that, like, I think it was Darren was like by the flag.

He was the last one left.

And once it happens, you're like, okay, like communication, like, hey, is everyone okay?

All right.

How many?

And we're like, all right.

So who's alive?

And from like way in the back, you hear Josh going, I'm still alive.

Like

he just like hid out in the furthest back part of the thing.

It was just like, no, no.

Great memory of Josh.

We played the last time I went paintballing, we played Battle Royale style.

So it was like, no teams, no nothing.

Wow.

And it was the most adrenaline I have ever felt in my life because

everybody got,

it was like a minute to run out into anywhere before it was like, okay, guns active.

So you got to set up somewhere.

And the first thing I did as a, as a terrified person was I found like dead grass and just started digging and got like under the grass.

I was like, I'm so scared.

built yourself a kill suit

were you allowed to build structures i i like i don't know

what are you doing heather um

building a little house i've got a minute i gotta i can build a house suiting yourself in blue liquid

i swear this works

i feel better trust me

i just go coat myself in mud assuming everybody else has heat-based vision

was that a thing that the the paintball operator offered or was that a thing you asked to do?

I didn't ask.

I mean, like,

I was just a passenger on the paintball truck.

So someone just arranged it and they arranged a battle roll.

And it was like one of those things we did was Battle Royale style.

Because I have to think with the rise of those sorts of games, that that would probably be a thing.

Because back when I did Paintball, which was

whatever, 20 years ago at this point, like that was, it was always teams.

Yeah.

I think a repeat customer who wins a lot, probably scariest motherfucker alive.

That is always the funny thing, is there will be those times you go with like a big group and they're like, hey, yeah, there's some regulars here that want to jump in.

Oh, and it's like three guys and they have like their paintball guns look like M16s.

Yeah.

There's no way I know that's not an M16.

They're always silent too.

Yeah.

They just like give you a nod, like, you know, from underneath the most terrifying motorcycle helmet.

Yeah.

Do that.

It's like worse.

They like blow you a kiss.

We played Iron Man

when we did it, which was you don't get out if you get hit.

It's just you have to be like, ow, I'm too hurt.

Wow.

That was pretty funny.

Oh, that's great.

What a great rule.

That is psychotic.

Amen.

I get hit once and stop.

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All right, Sam, we have one more question for you, which is, what are you playing?

What are you playing?

I am the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask you, what are you playing?

And all I want to say,

Sam Brown,

such a fan.

Oh,

thank you, Resident Evil Merchant.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

You know, I've been following you around town for the last few weeks.

Around town?

Yeah, just, you know, trying to build up, like, set up for the episode so I really really got an idea of what we might be able to talk about.

I just want to say such a fan.

You have interesting garbage.

Oh, oh, please, please don't.

Follow up.

We should have stopped this sooner, honestly.

When we have a guest, you have to be cool with the

active.

Let's also just maybe just not give the merchant a heads up of who our guest is going to be.

I guess that's true.

It's a shared phone box.

I have to change the permission.

No, don't do that.

Don't do that.

That's how I log into my email.

No, no, no.

You forced my hand.

I'm changing the permissions.

Oh, I don't want that.

I'm waiting on a job application, so you can't give me like two weeks.

Wait, what is your email?

I'm a merchant.

Yeah, don't you have a job?

You don't have a job.

You're a merchant.

This whole gig was predicated on the idea that I lost my job.

Do you guys not remember that?

No, I know that, but I mean, like, also, like, I figure you got some side hustles going on.

Yeah, but not in the world of Resident Evil.

I was asked to leave.

Yeah.

Imagine what I had to do to be told to leave a Resident Evil.

Wow.

I know.

The Umbrella Corporation gets to run freely and release the plague.

Nelsis is still hanging around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mr.

X.

It's a rough place.

He just wraps up and puts it on his head again.

And those guys are all employed.

Yeah.

Man,

I received my last workman's comp check, which I had to lie to the government to get.

Anyway, yeah, so I need that email open.

I'm going to stop you right there.

I let so much slide.

What?

You cannot lie to the government.

you can't do that that's a red line for us here at get play bro you can't do that heather i know most of all would be furious that anyone is lying to the government and i know on this show we do jokes and we're kidding i'm so serious right now okay okay i feel chastised i'm sorry what is your email because you check your email through a shared google doc yeah grapekitten123 at gmail.com so you just went with like the default one that they make you sign up yeah but you shouldn't need like he can change the permissions on the dock you can still get into your inbox.

Is that how that works?

It's not.

Yeah, it's fine.

It's one document.

So I'm constantly getting locked out.

I don't know what's happening.

So

the reason you aforementioned doesn't know how email works is sometimes I put little notes in there in the sheet just for Matt.

You got to stop doing that.

I know, but like it was a thing that I was like, I don't.

It's

well-intentioned, and then it's kind of spiraled out of control.

And now I'm kind of obsessed with doing it.

Yeah.

I don't understand what you're talking about.

But I hope you, if it's a way to get me employment i'm in

guys

yeah

sam brown what are you playing uh i mean i was just talking about playing playing fifa yes playing uh and as a new dad you don't have a you don't have a ton of time for gaming don't have a ton of time yeah i mean like like

I have, you know, not to, again, like, like, jump the topic, but I have, like,

played Bloodborne and gotten partway through, but then, like, like the, you know, like the story-based games, it's been a while.

Yeah.

It's been a while since I've, I've had a, like, a,

you know, a good game like that's kind of like a book, you know, where you have to get to a certain point before it, like, completely has you.

And, and, uh, and so, so, yeah, right now, FIFA.

And, and

one last thing about, or, or I don't know how much we're going to talk about FIFA more, but like, one of the things that, uh, and maybe we'll tie this into the whole subject, but uh, the thing that I

like about these games is the element of chess.

You know, you were talking about the battle.

Yeah.

The fact that a driving game is a battle.

Yeah, combat.

Combat, yeah.

This is the same thing.

It's combat.

It is like you, there is a strategy.

And the reason that I think I'm so drawn to FIFA as the like, I think it's like the ultimate sports game kind of like the video games merging that is because soccer is just dots.

Like soccer is a game about positioning.

It's a game about like,

you know, when you kind of make your move against your defender and about the formations and that kind of thing where where you move on

the field can affect the way your opponent is moving towards you.

And it's about like dragging your opponent out of position and then being able to like swip the, switch the field on them.

And like, it's one of those things where I'm not great.

People are amazing at this game.

Right.

And it's one of those things where when I go online,

I used to lose nine out of 10 matches I would play online.

And then I would look up different strategies, different like have to like look up like, oh, like do these adjustments when you're coaching with the, the, like, how your, your players will play, you know, like what they'll be, you know, pressing hard on defense if how like where they'll be positioned on the field and all that and all of a sudden i started winning you know i think i probably like 50 50 now which is like

that's great and there's games where i'm playing someone and i know i'm better than them and it's like that thing of like and you when you know you're playing bad and you know you're playing against someone that's what's worse than you and you can have that thing of like all right i'm gonna win now right and you can like will yourself to like you slow it down yeah you play like a little bit more confidently.

And

yeah, that sort of control to like like that sort of like

it mixed with the the whole thing of like oh, I know the buttons in a certain way and I know certain like tactics and moves to do.

It's like that that kind of like street fighter kind of thing.

Yeah.

Uh

is like like when you're in that sort of zone and you're able to do that when it's like I'm losing like three nothing and then I win the game 4-3 and there's only like 20 minutes left in the game and I'm able, it's like amazing.

It's like you're feeling like

completely like

in sync with the game.

The flow state.

Yeah, flow state.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

That's that that is not

something.

So that used to be my experience of Mega Man.

Like Mega Man was one of those games where if you just slowed down a little bit, you could beat the game.

But your impatience and your frustration and your own personal laziness are the barriers uh that you have to overcome in order to beat mega man because like

you miss a jump once and then you're like oh okay fine fine fine fine and you race all the way back to that jump and you fuck yourself over again right but or you die on the way back because you're you're trying to sprint through all the stuff you know what it is yeah but if you slow like it's it's a really

And I don't know a lot of

things that teach that skill set of like pulling you back towards flow when you want to be aggressive and like dominate a thing without thinking, without

like entering your patience state.

Um, so that's really cool that that's like a, I like hearing that.

That's nice.

I just like like that.

I remember as a kid when I realized that what the games were doing, and you know what, Mega Man is actually an example of this.

I'm thinking of Mega Man too, but like, you know, platforms that would appear and then disappear and you had to jump on them in a time sequence.

And what I, when I realized what they were actually testing was patience and how hard that is for like an eight or nine year old kid to be like, I just need to wait for this thing to happen so I can do it.

But like when I had that, that, like, I was just like, oh, I see what they're doing here.

It's like one of the first times I kind of understood like what it was to like.

design a game, you know, that this was, this challenge was put in place to test an individual's ability to wait for the right moment.

It's also, for me, what makes Fortnite so addictive is that that is not necessarily how you win at Fortnite.

Like there are times where patience is rewarded and there are times where if you're too patient, you're punished for it.

Well, now we're full on into fromsoft, but keep going.

And you have to like negotiate the space in between those two opposites in order to win around.

And it's still a little bit of gambling based on skill.

Like you're going to rush into something and you'll be like, fuck, that guy was just better than me.

Or you'll rush into something and you'll be like, oh, I fucked up.

I suck.

But if you hold back, it doesn't guarantee a win.

And it's, it's also one of those things where you do get to a point where you're gauging how other people play.

Yeah.

And where you can be like, all right, this guy is like, I, in like, just like a one-on-one

like matchup, I'm going to be able to beat this guy.

You can feel confident in this situation and you, or like, you see the guy, like, you know, they're there.

They don't know you're there.

And they're like bopping around.

And you're like, this person does not play.

Yep.

And then, but there's, there's also the times where you, you're foolish about it and you're too overconfident and you rush in.

I was

big into like

COVID

war zone.

I was big into COVID.

Loved it.

Quarantine COVID war zone.

Like that, those two things hit at the same time.

And it was a thing where I had the people I played with.

And

it, you know, like that Verdansk, like when

the Verdansk map, and then the next map, I played a lot and I played, and I had my people that I played with.

And it was, you know, like those games where

they have that level of cooperation where you, it, where you can get into that flow state with other people, that's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's like, yeah.

No, we did have some moments, and maybe you'll feel differently out there, but I did have some moments where we're really in sync as a team playing Helldivers 2.

And those are, those are the moments where I'm like, you know what?

I like playing multiplayer games sometimes, even even though it's mostly a single-player experience for me.

That's the game that the two guys, shout out to Griffin and Bennington, but they were like, you need to get Helldivers.

And I'm like, guys, I have a kid.

Hell divers.

Yeah.

I got a kid.

Hell divers,

I wonder if you could even play it in the kind of increments you have for gaming because it always feels like some of those sessions really like, I feel like you need like 45 minutes to an hour to get through.

Yeah, yeah.

You want it to be quicker because it is imperative that you spread democracy as quickly as possible but uh it is it does end up taking like yeah 45 minutes to an hour but a great a great great if you have the time a lot of fun when you have time uh matt what are you playing right now

i'm still i'm still playing i'm i'm in chapter 10 still of um

final fantasy 7 rebirth and i'm really really loving it but i had a i had a moment over the weekend where I was like, I think I'm going to eject the game.

Wow.

And it wasn't because anything,

nothing put me off of it.

I was just like, I think I just need to do something else so I could rediscover why I love this.

Because I was, I was having fun, but I was about to go do another side mission.

And I was like, am I just going to do all these?

I'm just going to do all these fucking side missions.

I've been doing all of them.

And I never do this.

Like the completionist kind of bitch.

And so like I, but I never do that.

I just want to, I want to plow through.

I almost was like, I'm just going to go to the next main story mission.

I'm just fuck all these side missions.

But then I was like, well, I can't.

I've done 10 chapters worth of side missions.

I'm going to stop now.

Right.

And so

to rectify that, I almost just ejected it completely and was going to just play the Final Fantasy 16

DLC that just came out, The Rising Tides.

But that to me was then not different enough, even though.

It is a very different game than Final Fantasy VII.

Yes.

I just was like, I just, I don't know what to do.

So

I just didn't do anything and I just like froze.

And like for like,

I think the longest stretch in a while, for like five days, I didn't play a single game.

Wow.

I was just like, I can't do this right now.

Instead, watch Demon Slayer.

Oh, yeah.

But then I got back into Rebirth and was like,

I'm glad I didn't skip.

Because I'm having fun.

Yeah.

I am just really enjoying the game.

It's very, very good.

I really love Kate Sith.

I feel like you don't get that much Kate Sith.

You get some Kate Sith in the original Final Fantasy VII.

He's a little cat that rides on

a big

on a Moogle.

Yeah.

A Moogle?

It's like a big white, kind of overstuffed.

It doesn't correspond particularly with any specific animal.

Yeah.

Kind of like a bear cat.

He's got like a theme park mascot version of one, though.

And the thing about Kate Sith,

let's see if we can get a picture for you.

He's just so, I hadn't heard him speak before, and I didn't know he had a little accent.

He has a little accent.

What kind of accent?

It's a little like Scottish accent.

Oh, Scottish.

Okay.

It's so cute.

They're like this guy.

Got a little wings sometimes.

He rides that?

Yeah, but there's a big version of it.

He's a cat that rides that.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'll get specifically the final fantasy team.

Haven't you heard of fantasy?

No,

I only know

sports teams.

He's a nerd.

Get him.

But I've been really playing that, and I know that

I'm past the halfway point.

Okay.

So there's no point in stopping.

I just need to get to the end of it so I can truly just do something else.

Yeah.

Here, there's what Kate Sith looks like.

So Kate Sith is the cat on top of the much larger

marshmallow-y Moogle.

Yeah.

And so I just, I love Kate Sith.

I'm in.

Does the Moogle have a voice?

I don't think so.

That's not.

Isn't it just an inanimate object?

I think it is.

Yeah.

Being puppeted.

I'm in Cosmo Canyon right now.

Okay.

So I'm in the home of Red 13.

Yes.

And Red 13,

also a guy I love.

He's a big talking

tiger guy, basically.

And

I don't just like the cat guy.

Sounds like you do.

It sounds like you're a cat thing.

I mean, I have a cat, and he does look like Kate Sith.

You have a cat, you like Kat Sith, and you're in Red 13's homeland, and you're very excited about it.

It's

the thing that can you name any of the human characters?

I mean,

Tifa, certainly.

But, you know, Barret,

Cloud, of course.

She just said Cloud.

Yeah, well, yeah,

I learned it from Heather.

But I'm really, really enjoying it.

The thing that the game does really well is that

because I played the original so recently,

when I'm experiencing the parts that are like one-to-one, I'm like, wow, it's just like the old game.

And then when it diverges, I'm like, well, this is now just crazy stuff.

Right.

But the stuff that they keep similar, I'm very happy to see again.

And so going up and seeing, ah, fuck, what's the guy?

The old guy

in

he was a cat, you'd remember.

Well, yeah, this is the real, but he also has a weird name, too.

This is Buggenhagen.

Okay.

When you go up and see him, I was so excited to see my friend because I loved him in the original game.

And then seeing him in this, I was like, there he is.

And, you know,

it shows the dialogue boxes and it always puts like question marks like, who's this?

I was like, you don't got to fucking tell me who this is.

It's my old guy, Buggenhagen.

I love him.

But that's it for me right now.

Just a lot.

I'm in the Final Fantasy.

I might be too deep in.

I might have to pull myself out.

No,

I think you just go all the way at this point.

I think I finished this, but I might have to take a break and play, like, I don't know,

something else.

I think that's maybe go outside or something.

That makes sense after you finish Rebirth.

Yeah.

Because you've been fully immersed.

It sucks.

Yeah.

You've been out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I won't go out then, but

I am going to finish Rebirth.

It is my solemn vow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But who else

wants to go next?

Nick?

Yeah, I I can talk real quick.

I've been playing this game that is in

Game Passes version of Early Access,

which is called Game Preview.

It is called Lightyear Frontier.

And the top line of this game is it is a survival game, but you have a mech.

So

it's that alone is such a good hook.

So I was like, okay, survival game with a mech.

Yeah, I want to try this thing.

Can your mech get beat up?

Yeah, I mean, like, it's, it's, well, here's the thing.

It's a very peaceful game.

Like, there's not like combat.

It's more just you go to this world.

You go to this,

there's a, there's a loose story for this game.

And you could actually, like, you know, finish the whole story campaign, at least as much content is out right now for the version that's in-game preview.

But basically, it's like...

You are dispatched to

this planet, but the travel takes so long that by the time you get there, there's no one there.

So it's just a completely abandoned world with a lone satellite who is orbiting around and is like very chatty and is kind of like your NPC companion.

But it's you, you're a person, you're an individual, and then you have a mech that you can use for getting around and exploring

and terraforming and what have you.

The thing that I wish this game, and first off, it's an early access.

All this stuff is going to be, you know, rebalanced or whatever.

So like these, these aren't even, this is all stuff the developers know

far more intimately than I am going to, you know, be able to articulate.

I'm sure there's all stuff they sense and stuff they're testing.

That's why it's in early access.

But since again, the fantasy aspect of this is like I'm in a mech in a, in a survival game.

You kind of want the mech to really feel powerful.

And I feel like it doesn't quite feel powerful enough.

Like I'm kind of just like, oh, like I'm just buzzsawing through trees with like one, you know what I mean?

But instead, it kind of feels like the same way you might chop away at a tree in Minecraft or PAL World or, you know, Lego Fortnite.

It's, it's, it's the same sort of, it's got the same sort of pace to it.

So it doesn't feel like there's a noticeable difference just between being a normal protagonist of one of these games.

But I do really like the art direction.

This is a really colorful palette.

It's, it's, again, you know, it's, it's peaceful in the description, so it very much kind of evokes that.

It's like a very calming game to play, very tranquil.

There's feelings of just like camping, which is which is very comforting.

My main issue with the game, and

this is, I'm just going to read a little bit from a rock, paper, shotgun piece by Jay Castello, because I think this is just like a really well-said

version of this.

I'll just read this verbatim.

Quote, The thing is, building anything in Light Year Frontier felt kind of mean.

The planet is gorgeous.

And like I was saying earlier, it's untouched.

It has not been colonized.

The planet is gorgeous, all twisted, multicolored trees and flowering shrubs and glittering crystals.

Rattling my mech's spiked arm to harvest them for resources and using them to forge giant bits of machinery didn't seem especially cozy, wholesome gaming to me.

And so, yeah, that aspect does kind of rub against it, but also, and this is, you know,

in the same piece,

Castello

postulates that this game is maybe going to go there, but going to talk about this thematically in its final release,

that like, but it, but it does kind of feel like,

again, there's this beautiful, untouched world, this, this incredible ecosystem, and then I'm going in and industrializing it.

And that kind of like puts you in a shitty position, but maybe the game is ultimately going to have some comment on that.

Anyway, all that said, if you like survival games and you like something where you just go around building stuff, harvesting resources,

I think it's a hoot.

And I think it's really well done.

So light your frontier.

That's what I've been playing.

If you were surviving on a planet and you had a mech or anywhere, if you had a mech, but just didn't have a home, would you sleep in your mech?

Yes.

I probably would just sleep in the mech.

Yeah.

I would sleep in the the mech even if I had a home.

Are you imagining it being like you're sleeping in the cockpit or is it like the like kind of suit, like the

brotherhood of steel thing where you're sleeping standing up?

I wonder if you could sleep standing up if your body was locked.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know.

Like, I don't see.

I feel like the worst part about sleeping in any non-laying down position is the head knot.

But if my head was locked in a position, could I just sleep?

You're describing something they tested at Gitmo

99.

They do have those

flight pillows that like now wrap around your whole head.

Oh, yeah,

I've seen those.

They got like a little hole in the front.

Yeah.

So

upsetting.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well, I continue to play Fortnite every day of my life, and I'm also playing Dragon's Dogma, which I am shocked I haven't bounced off of yet, considering that I did bounce really hard off Final Fantasy.

And I I think that was only because I didn't, I couldn't make the space to really enjoy it.

And when that space is available to me, then I'll be able to be like, oh, I'm sitting down to really invest in Final Fantasy Rebirth.

But with Dogma, I don't feel anything particularly pressing about the game.

So I can go in, do a mission, go out.

But what I want to talk about is Fallout the series, which I've been playing and is fucking great.

Yeah.

And I

look, there are a million different versions of Fallout the television show, which wouldn't be good.

And that was what I assumed was going to happen because most video game adaptations are not good.

But this fucking show rocks.

And I'm watching it with my wife.

And my wife knows nothing about Fallout.

And she is.

Every day she gets off work and goes, can we watch Fallout?

Wow.

And that is such a success.

Yeah.

And she's like, what is this game?

Is this game like, is it like Last of Us?

And I'm like, no, it's pretty different from Last of Us.

And she's like, what is it?

I'm like a first-person role-playing experience.

And she's like, I kind of want to try it.

And wow, for a TV show to sell my wife on playing Fallout.

Yes.

Like, what a success.

And I know that there are a lot more players currently playing Fallout than there have been in a long time because of the successes of the TV show.

Even Fallout 1 and 2, which are like, you know, these isometric games from the 90s that I played on PC back in the day, but like those, their sales have been gone way up in the Steam store.

Yeah, it's, it's,

I don't know, like, it's just a, it's a fucking great show, and it shouldn't be, but it is, it's like legitimately great.

One of the things that Fallout, the ways that like you could be like, oh, maybe this will be good, is Fallout is a game that's not built on the characters.

It's built on the world.

Yes, right.

It's not like, hey, here's our central story.

It's like everyone has like a little

different take on what's going on in the world, but like, it's like, these are the characters within this world.

And so they were able to use it as a vessel for their own stories that are similar, but different from the stories we've already seen.

Yeah.

And it's such a richly realized world already.

So, yeah.

That's cool.

I haven't seen it, but everyone I know who's seen it loves it.

So I gotta check it out.

I mean, it's like actually good.

Like,

actually good.

Not just like, I'm a gamer therefore i like fallout my wife is the control group sure in the test of whether or not fallout is good and she's like i want to write for this show and i'm like yeah it's so great um so yeah fallout is what i've been playing for for what what are we playing well there you go yeah my fiancé has seen there's a billboard for it and it's like one of those big Amazon billboards that has uh there's like a big gear or something that's spinning the door

yeah she saw that billboard and took a video of it she's like what is this billboard I gotta see this show

they've also redone

they've redone the bus stops in LA to look like vault entrances oh interesting

yeah so you could like if you go wait for a bus at like Beverly and Fairfax you have to stand inside of a vault it's it's so funny when like what things you're describing when you see in real time marketing work exactly the way they are trying it to work

it's like me watching an ad for like the Arby's fish sandwich.

I'm like, well, I'm getting that.

But also, that's just a white screen with text.

Arby's fish sandwich.

The great thing too about Fallout, like that lends itself to this whole thing too, is that the,

what do they call the aiming system that they have in it?

Vats.

Vets?

V-A-T-S.

Yeah, bats.

Yeah, yeah.

Like.

You can be like a non-gamer and like be playing this first-person shooter just fine because they you have that option of slowing things down

it also justifies the people in the show's incredible aim because you have to imagine that all of them are using vats and so like if a guy like pulls out a gun and blows another guy's head off you're like yeah i've seen that happen in the game i've done that

And that goes back to like the origin of Fallout 3, which was like, you know, Bethesda's taking over this franchise that Interplay had, and all of the existing Fallout fans are like, they're going to ruin it.

And then they find it's first-person shooter.

It's this exact same reaction as happened with Metroid Primes.

Like, they're gonna, they ruined it.

It's gonna be horrible, but they find ways to kind of like,

as they did with Metroid Prime, they found ways in their design to make it so that it appeals both to you know, new gamers and to people who are already familiar with it and ends up working really well.

Back when I was a video game journalist, uh, Fallout 3 came out like right at the height of my time as a journalist.

And I got to go to like a huge Bethesda event out in Washington.

They flew me out.

And at the end of that event, I got this huge bag of Fallout stuff, like Nuca-Colas and

Pip-Boy bobbleheads and like some kind of, you know, fake watch that looked a little bit like a Pip-Boy and t-shirts, all this shit.

And I was so fucking poor that as soon as I got home, I put all that shit on eBay.

Right.

Because I was like, oh my God.

Okay.

This is like made out of ceramic.

This is like an actual thing.

I can, I'll definitely get $100 for this.

I told my

wife that because she's like, I don't, I'm surprised you don't have any like fallout stuff in your like your

hole.

And I was like, yeah, I did.

I had a lot of it, but I had to sell it all on eBay.

And she's like, that's the worst thing I've ever heard.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

All right, well, let's talk about about Fromsoft games or souls-born games, however you want to

classify it.

So, Sam, this is one thing that y'all pitched when you were going to come on the show.

I'm curious, like, what is your relationship with the Dark Souls and the Bloodborns, which you already talked about of the world?

So, I should, you know, like, I got to give the

other part of White House Kids a little shout out here.

I started to get into these because Zach was into these.

Zach was like obsessed with these games.

And I remember him really early on being like, it's amazing if you're in a hallway and your sword's too big, you're going to have problems swinging because you would.

And like, this was at a time when, like, you know, like, if that was a problem in your game, your sword would just swing through the walls.

Yes, exactly.

They would just like, don't worry about the collision for, you know, the environment.

Yeah.

No, no.

It's like, oh, your sword's powerful.

It's going to swing through everything.

Yeah.

It, it, like, that is the thing.

I will say, and I've talked about it over the years in this podcast, but like the these games took me a while, basically a decade, to warm up to.

Like, it was Elden Ring that got me finally like, okay, I get it.

This, this is crystallized with me.

I understand why I, you know, I maybe bounced off of Demon's Souls, which I played on PS3.

I maybe bounced off of Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3, even though I went in all of them with an open mind.

But I was just kind of like, maybe these aren't for me, and maybe I just don't have the time to

commit to them.

But then when I got to Elden Ring, I was like, oh, wait, though, this is

absolutely brilliant design.

This is such an amazingly realized world.

I love this.

And that's what led me to Bloodborne is still the one I haven't played to Sekiro Shadows Die twice, which has become one of my favorite games of all time.

That's, yeah, a friend of mine's like, you got to play it.

Like,

incredible.

It's so fucking good.

So I'm almost...

exactly the same path because Zach was like, you got to play this game.

It's really cool.

Start playing it.

And

I remember, you know, like, there's the whole thing where you have the fires.

and I, you know, was like reading the messages, but didn't really like get what the point of the message is.

If you haven't played, like,

there's an online component to these games where you can leave messages to other people playing the game that can kind of give them hints of what they should do, but it's also a way that people can fuck with you.

Yeah.

And like, and it's actually very jump off a cliff and stuff like that.

For sure.

And it's, and it's also like cryptic by design because you can't like write anything.

You can only pick from some selected selected

words.

Liar ahead.

And you'd be like, okay, so one of these chests is not a real treasure chest or something like that.

Yeah.

Or it'll say, try jump.

And you'll go, okay, so I have to jump off here for a secret.

And then you jump off a cliff and die.

Okay.

That person was a 12-year-old, whoever wrote that.

But so I played that for a while.

And like, it was the kind of thing where I was like, and I didn't really get the mechanics completely but i played it to the point where i like rang the bell at the the top of the chapel and i beat that guy and then i started you know you get to this period where you're like you get scared you get like legit scared because this video game if you die you drop all your souls And then if you die again without picking up those souls, they're gone.

And that can be like

15 hours of you playing that game.

Yeah.

And that's just gone.

And you've lost it.

And all you've achieved in that time is maybe unlocking a door that gives you a shortcut to an area.

And so I got to that point where I rang the bell and I was like, get into this, like, and I was like.

further in the game than I ever had been.

And it's like, I don't know which way I'm going.

And like this all unturned, all right, I'll go left.

And I walked out into the middle of the field.

I'm like desperately looking for a fire.

And a giant wolf with a sword in its mouth came out of like just like ran up to me.

It was like a cutscene and I was like, oh no.

And then it gave one swing, it killed me.

And I was like, all right, I'm done with this game.

I was like, that wolf just completely defeated me on the game.

And I was like, I don't.

And the thing with those early games, too, is that like, if you're not powerful enough to beat something,

you just have to get more powerful.

You just have, you can't, like, you're on a track and you have to like grind and kill the same three skeletons until you can level your guy up until you can or you need to figure out the pattern to the enemy that you're fighting.

Yeah, so you either have to be like good enough or you have to just grind, which is like an interesting like

fuck you that the that the game gives you.

You know, like this like you're screwed if you do, screwed if you don't kind of thing.

Because there is like this thing too, or I've seen people do it, not me, because I'm bad at games like this.

I did beat beat Elden Ring, um, with not without help, of course.

Uh, but there is, like, you, you can,

you can take down almost any boss, I think, with no good armor, no good weapons, no good stats.

Like, you, it can be done.

Oh, you can watch video of every boss being beaten by someone with, like, no armor.

No, exactly, yeah, yeah.

If, if, if, if you're patient enough and I guess skilled enough to learn the pattern and not get hit at all.

Because if you get hit,

that's not good.

Yeah.

It's, it's also

because the games are so difficult,

they allow for the rise of like a mimetic legend, like let me solo her.

Sure, yeah.

Which is like, if you ever see somebody so good at the game that that it is worth talking about.

Like, how, how few games that, like, as good as I've seen people in Fortnite be, I've never been like, yo, you should have seen what this guy did.

But like, the game is so challenging that when you see somebody with a hubris to be like, I got this.

I'm naked.

I got a pot on my head.

That then you taught, like,

the reason that, that we know the name of that player is because people had to be like, I saw the craziest shit I have ever seen in a game.

It was a guy who was naked and he beat the hardest boss by himself.

Yeah.

Like, that's so crazy.

The, the, the thing that I like, like,

and that is an aspect I love about it is just, cause I, I'm just like amazed by mastery by humans of anything.

Like anyone who's like super, like, whatever.

You'll see like a video of a fruit cart vendor in a different country who's just like super good at chopping like mangoes and watermelons like super efficiently.

It's like, that's amazing.

I can watch that all day.

But like, I will like.

So like Sekiro, a game I finished that was

still probably a top three accomplishment of my life, just of

not just exclusive to video games.

When I finish Sekuro,

I feel so good about myself for doing it.

But if I watch videos of like a Sekuro speedrun, it's just like such a level above what I am able to accomplish at my peak that it's just like, it's astonishing to witness.

And I can just admire how grand humans can be.

It's like the same way like I feel like I've ran one marathon in my life.

It took me four hours.

The world record for a marathon right now is like two hours and four minutes or something like that.

So someone can run the exact same distance in half the time.

That is unachievable in my lifetime.

And I just can't admire that it exists.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I um, I googled Let Me Solo Her just to get some more info.

And I missed this story from February of this year.

Yeah.

Elden Ring's Let Me Solo Her is retiring.

Quote, I've had my fill of fighting Melanias.

After slaying Melania over 6,000 times,

it in his over

1,200 hours in Elden Ring, the iconic Let Me Solo her is hanging up the pot once and for all.

I've had my fill of finding Melania, as he told IGN, adding that it was a great joy to help so many tarnished brave one of the game's toughest fights.

So did did you, is that how you beat Melania?

No, I did it.

I did it.

I didn't.

Wow.

I did.

Let me solo her.

Wait, actually let me solo her?

You teamed up with Let Me Solo her?

Yeah, I did.

I was like...

That's insane.

That's like you, you, that's like the brain

game with LeBron.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

It was great because

it was like this thing where it was like, oh, this is, this boss is like the hardest boss in the game.

And then I'm going to like summon people.

And there's, let me solo.

And that's how I found out about the whole thing.

And I just

sat back and like.

Yeah, it didn't do it.

That's just casually mentioning that you've met and hung out with Bigfoot.

That's insane.

Yeah, I kissed this guy.

I didn't really realize he was the Pope.

It was weird.

I say there's a lot of information.

I know and I would have let him blow me.

Who's asking?

That is wild.

So you found it, you just stumbled upon it

while playing,

like just playing solo playing on your own, and then you look up who it is, or you told somebody about it and you found out?

I was,

I think I might have been streaming at the time or something, like, like where people were like, oh, you got to do that.

You got to do that.

Oh, wow.

Okay, that makes sense.

But yeah, that was the thing of like, oh, wait, I don't need to help.

And they're like, no, the name is Let Me Solo Her.

I probably had some summon help.

If I, I certainly didn't do it myself.

There, uh, sure.

Because Heather would get in there and help me take down some bosses that.

And I wasn't accidentally trying to kill you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that was, but, like,

summoning players

in that game was some of the most fun I had playing.

Well, this is getting me so hyped up for the DLC.

And

I thought I had closed the book on Elden Ring.

It's weird, right?

But like, and it's been a long time in game years.

It's been essentially 100 years since Elden Ring came out.

But like the idea that maybe I'm going to boot up Elden Ring and pull out my old cursed toilet armored double swording nightmare person and like play again?

Well, I

mentioned this on the podcast last week.

I am playing again because I'm playing in anticipation of the DLC.

And I started a new character.

I was doing a strength build.

I'm playing a Vagabond.

The thing that I am realizing is, or I'm appreciating more, is just how good the early game is.

Like in terms of just like easing you into this world, but like also not like risk, like a lot of games, the way this happens is like, okay, like a Metroidvania, it's like you're going to acquire your abilities one by one, slowly over time.

Here, you kind of just have access to everything, pretty much.

There's some more stuff that you find later on, but you get a lot of stuff front-loaded in the game, and it's just kind of like, go ahead and experiment with it, you know?

It's so like, I think the design, like playing it again and going back and starting new, you really like appreciate the design of the game.

And

the way that they lay out, there's that first like camp of soldiers that you approach.

Incredible.

And sort of like

you're able to kind of like use that like sneak element, that like element of like, I'm going to like slowly go around and kill each one of these guys.

And there's the one knight that's like a bigger knight.

And it's, it's a task.

And you're kind of like, like, you know, when you, you remember that like when you first experienced this, you were like surprised that that one knight was stronger than all the other knights and that he's got this crazy spear, and that was like caught you off guard and brought in that fear and everything like that.

And then there's a fire right by there, and

the one that goes through the canyon, and that's where the giant jumps down.

You see that first giant.

And I remember like seeing that and being like, holy shit, and

like thinking that that was a boss, thinking that right.

And that's not, that's just

a guy in the world.

And

I'm going to talk about,

this is sort of nerdy.

I'm going to talk about sketch a little bit.

It's like, I do sketch teaching, like,

partly because of you.

Sketch comedy.

And one of the ways I talk about sketch comedy and like heightening in sketch comedy is it's not a path.

It's, it's you're widening a frame.

And that's one of the things that this game does so well.

Yeah.

It's like you start with this like really small box of you're at this camp and you are not as strong as these other guys at the camp and you can spend a half hour going around and killing each guy at this camp and clearing it out and

it expands and you venture a little bit further out and all of a sudden the the scale of the guy that you're fighting is bigger.

And then all of a sudden you realize, oh, wow, this game's a little bit bigger than I thought and the castle's all the way over there.

But then like you realize that that castle is just a small part of the map.

Yeah.

And that that that map eventually you're like, oh wow, this map is really big.

And then you realize that's just a third of the map.

Yeah.

And that there are different layers to the map.

And then you realize there's, there's like the, the, um, you know, like the underworld elements and right, all that stuff.

And it's, it's like, that's so much fun to experience and to go through.

And it's so funny to do it.

Like I'm replaying and playing it as a vagabond.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Where it, where it is like that thing where you're, it's so funny seeing like your character like be like naked and pick up a helmet and like just be like this guy with a helmet running around killing people.

It's like getting covered in blood.

Right.

Uh, but yeah, it, that element of it is so cool.

And to go back to like my like experience with it and the thing that like I think really clicks with it is, you know, I was saying earlier that like Dark Souls, it's on a path.

You're like, oh, if I can't beat this guy, I just got to get better.

Well, like, you can approach this game that way, but also it's so big that you can also just turn around.

That's kind of what they face you with immediately, with the, what is it, the tree knight?

Yeah, it's a cruisable knight.

Yes, yeah.

There's, there's the, that's the genius of this, of this game.

And I think why it had, I mean, this is whatever it's, the reason it had such mainstream success versus like the other games are all also extremely popular and critically regarded.

But like the way this one, the reason this one exploded so much is because it did the open world aspect so well and then just allowed you to have the approach of like, this was just anytime I was banging my head against the wall, and Elden Ring was like, go do something else.

Go do anything else.

Go wander anywhere else on the map.

But yeah, like Sekiro is like pretty linear.

And so there are some parts where it's just like, okay, I'm going to lose to this boss 99 times in a row so I can beat him on the hundredth time, you know.

I love that though.

I do love that.

I love that too, though.

I absolutely love failing as learning.

The

one of the things that really enriched my whole uh Elden Ring experience was uh there's that it's one of the first um

uh what do they call them the

elder jails or ever jails?

Those, like

the they're like a little elevator thing on the circle disc, and you go down.

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's something jail, but jail spelled all funky.

G-A-Y-L-E.

Jail.

That's

one critique about this game, love it so much.

Yeah, it's like they could expand the vocabulary of it a little bit.

It's like every character, like how many M-name characters are there?

Sure.

You're like, is this Monica or Melania or Melania?

You know, it's like, right.

Well, that's an

R.R.

Martin thing, isn't it?

Oh, is it?

Like, isn't that like one of his like things?

It's like, oh, all of these people have a name that is reminiscent of another name because many years ago, they all come are descended from the same king or something, you know, like all that shit.

Yeah.

Well, it could also not be that way.

Yeah.

It does get confusing.

Are they called ever ever jails?

Yeah, ever jails.

E-V-E-R-G-A-O-L.

Yeah.

That sucks.

No, Matt, it's good.

I refuse to admit that it sucks.

I've heard your argument, and now I will say it's good.

One of the first ever jails I encountered, I was like, I'm going to beat this guy.

Like, I'm going to like do this.

And I think it was like four

hour long, not four hour long session, but like four separate like hour plus sessions of playing the game where it was like every time I went back, I was just at that campfire and I would go back to the Everjail and I would try a different approach to it.

And I would go back and go back and just hitting my head against the wall.

Then I beat him.

And I got my first like really powerful weapon.

Yeah.

And it completely changed the landscape of the game right yeah and like that was such a funny thing too where it was like i was talking to people and i was like oh yeah i got this cool weapon and they're like oh yeah that's a really good early game weapon i'm like wait there's better weapons than this in this game i remember there when we were

when we were all playing it like when it was new before we had done the episode about i feel like there was like a two-week period where i was like

Yep, I'm still fighting the fire giant.

Like, I just like never gave up on the fire giant.

I need to, like, every time every time I got in there and was playing, I was playing I was fighting the fire giant and losing.

And it was so that was more than any fight in that game was more demoralizing every time I lost.

But I just had to, I knew that I could do it if I just kept trying to do it.

Yeah.

It felt impossible.

That one felt impossible.

Well, when you get into that late game,

the opposite is true of what we were just talking about, where it's like, there isn't anywhere to go.

You've already like beaten everything and your options of which way you walk is like get slimmer and slimmer.

And I was getting killed by like stuff near the area too that I was like, I maybe am under leveled to be here at all, but like I can't go anywhere else because I'm dying nearby.

Like it was it was so fucked.

But it's great to be like, I mean, it means something that you're, that you're like underpowered in that area.

It means that you were like playing above your

character.

Or I was flying a little too, I was a little too big for my britches.

But also, how many games have we played that we've all enjoyed where you reach a certain point and you're just like, I know how to play this game.

I am, I have all the gear.

I'm suitably leveled if there's a leveling system.

I've maxed out the skill tree.

This is no challenge to me anymore.

I'm just going to blaze through to, you know, see what the ending is.

And that's like, those games can be fun.

Those can be games I've enjoyed, but there's not that level of personal achievement that comes with like tackling like a game like this.

Yeah, I can't, I can't say any of the things that I have done in Dragon Dog, Dragon's Dogma.

Like, I don't remember any of the events.

Yeah.

And I know that later, like much later in the game, that there are like iconic enemies.

Like, I've seen footage of a Sphinx that looks really cool.

But like in this early game.

There's nothing like the Crucible Night where I personally, because we all did different things on the Crucible Night.

And I was like, oh, if I can outrun it with my fucking elk, then I can beat it.

And so like my first challenge in Elden Ring was walking out of that cave and being like, I've got this guy and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it until I beat him.

Because

that,

it's a game that allows for any kind of play.

Like you can be cautious.

You can be chat.

You can set your own difficulty level by what you attempt to do in Elden Ring.

What your build is.

whereas with dragon's dogma it's fine but like there's nothing i can find in the game that i'm not supposed to be doing yet right like there it's it's like ah there's a fucking cyclops and i'm the first big monster i i have visions of the first big monsters in elden ring and i'm like oh fuck here we go and then like you start seeing the health bar go down and i'm like this isn't nearly as terrifying as I want it to be.

Yeah, for sure.

Because the bar has been set so high by from Soft Games.

If you see a big guy,

he's going to murk you.

Yeah.

And it's like the, you know, again, games I've enjoyed, like the Kirby Switch game, the subtitle, which I can't remember right now.

Forgotten Land.

Yeah, that's, no, it wasn't Forgotten Lands, right?

Was it?

I think so.

Maybe it was.

Whatever the Kirby Switch game where you turn into a car hasn't married.

Kirby sucks everything.

Yeah, Kirby sucks everything.

But like that's, I was like, this is really fun.

Like, nothing.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

Nothing about that.

You were right.

You You were right.

You were kind of right.

I fucked it up.

No, you didn't.

No, you were correct.

No, I fucked it up.

It's okay.

Man, don't beat yourself up.

I didn't want to say it, but

amateur hour over here.

A game I really liked, but it's just like I go through, I think through that whole game.

It's the same thing you're talking about, Dragon's Dog.

But I was like, oh, yeah, that part was cool.

You know what I mean?

And it's a thing I realized, I think probably not until I was an adult as a gamer, is that I think for a game to really get into my bones,

for it to use its strength as a medium, which is interactivity, like it needs to either have

super consequential decisions,

like a Disco Elysium or like a Baldur's Gate 3, or it needs to have a degree of challenge where I feel like I can't do it until I can.

And that's why a game like Sekiro or games like, you know,

I play, I like a lot of like kind of more challenging precision platformers like a Super Meat Boy or a Celeste or a Cuphead.

Like these are games that like I love and that I think think about so vividly, you know,

because of that struggle.

Which is also strange, Nick, because the Discord, like our own, the own, our own listeners don't,

I would say, will pigeonhole me as a Twitch style gamer, like a challenge combat gamer.

But you talk about games like Sekiro or Cuphead.

Yeah.

And I think of you as somebody who sees a challenging game and is like, I'm going to do this until I beat it.

And that's, that's not the way you present.

You present as somebody who likes the cozy game.

Well, I do like a cozy game, and I do actually really like a story, is the other thing.

Like, and again,

big thing, Fremsoft games do really well is they, they, they, uh, like, like you were saying about widening out the frame, like they give you, like, not all the information, but enough information for you to, like, just want to know more.

That lady's in an egg.

Yeah.

Let me watch a three-hour lore video about this.

Yeah, tell me everything about the turtle pope.

But,

But

I forgot about the turtle.

Oh, my God.

He's never far from my thoughts.

Like, it's like

the Pope was a turtle.

Let him blow, man.

I'd be going to church, let's say.

Where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah.

Like, I like a game with a story.

I like a game with a narrative.

I do like a cozy game.

I do like a comforting game, but I also do like a challenging game.

And I think it's, I don't know.

I think these games are challenging

in in the way that a well-designed hard game is like it's it's unfair at times, but it's always achievable

one thing I love too with it with like how hard it is

and One of the things I love about about video games

I really loved the game Witness.

Did you guys play Witness?

No, but

the Jonathan Blow game?

Is it?

It's it's on an island with a bunch of like fucking 3D promotions.

It's like Misty.

Yeah, I never actually played it, but I've heard I've heard good things about it.

One of the things I I like about it is, what was that?

Well,

I thought you liked Braid.

Do you not like Braid?

I love Braid.

Yeah.

Witness, I was like, oh, this is not for me.

I appreciate how well it's made, but it was not for me.

But I did like the storytelling in it where you'd get like little sound clips and they'd be like a TED Talk.

Yeah.

And I was like, who's done this before?

It'd be like an actual like TED Talk.

Yeah.

Or like you'd see something and you'd be like, all right, there's this video thing.

And you think it's going to be like a cutscene thing and then it's like a clip from a Tarkovsky film and you're like okay

uh and then but like with the sort of I mean not to spoil it but like there there's like puzzles within the clip which is like a weird thing but like the thing I loved about that game uh was that

it wouldn't tell you how to play it It would teach you how to play it.

Right.

It would like like through the difficulty of the puzzles and through like kind of you know like

the what it presented itself to you you would learn how to play there was no like sort of tutorial moment in the game other than completing these puzzles yeah and then you realize that like oh like with

there's the the thing of like oh i'm completing these puzzles on these pads

and then you realize like oh there's actually puzzles within the world that i'm in yeah

and

uh

that style of of gameplay that sort of like communication is like the ultimate for me.

And that, that's very much what, like, what these from software games do.

They like through how difficult they can be, they teach you how to like approach them and how to beat them and how to beat the problems, which I mean, it's you feel like you're, you have a different connection to the game because there is that like sort of the story that it's telling you,

like the

Melania and all the stuff and all these details which like i'm still confused on i don't know why that lady was in an egg i don't know

what were what were the fingers and why'd the fingers have to die i don't know right yeah

like and they they had we all agree it didn't seem like it was going so well when the fingers were in charge

wasn't that good

but you know like there's the there's that story and then there's the story about like like of how you're playing it and the the way you're approaching approaching it, and the way you think about it, and the way you interact with the game, and the way you build your character.

And you know, like, early game, I think a lot of us are, you know, using a lot of strength and using a lot of like those kind of weapons, those

you know, hand-to-hand combat weapons.

And then later game, you start to dip more into that magic and start to rely more on that and see how that like affects.

And that's like the great thing, too,

is that with all these bosses, there is that like whole pattern thing, the like Mega Man, like this boss is, you know, like

susceptible to like

this kind of weapon and that kind of weapon.

But there's also the, the, the combination that's a little bit like you, you're figuring it out.

You get to like kind of go off the tracks a little bit and like figure out combinations of this spell with this weapon.

It's good against this boss.

There's actually like very few that are like, oh, this weapon's the weapon that you use against that boss, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

There's not a clean like solution to like break any of these.

And just to go back to what you were saying earlier, because I think it's a really great point.

I think it's a key point about these kind of games.

And for me, what's kind of like ruined a lot of the AAA, you know, default game approach that you encounter.

Because if

you're in an instance like this, like you might be in one of these games.

If you're in like a difficult fight and you're not sure what to do, so many games would have like an NPC companion who's like, make sure you duck when he swings his arm.

They'd be telling you, okay, it's time to jump on three.

They'd be hand-holding your way all the way through it where you're not actually discovering anything on yourself.

You're following instructions.

And that is the default approach.

And a lot of that is put in there because there is such a fear, oftentimes not from the developer side, but from the publisher's side, of players stumbling at any point of getting roadblocked and then bouncing off of the game and returning it and posting a bad review and telling their friends it sucks.

You know what I mean?

These games are like, guys, video games are a hit.

Exactly.

We don't have to sell people on the idea of enjoying a video game.

Right, exactly.

And it makes it more enjoyable and more of an achievement, you know, for you to figure it out on your own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, my Mega Man 2 was

the Super Mario All-Stars Lost Levels.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Which is just the like...

from soft of its time where it's like, oh, we're just going to be punishing.

We're just going to try and trick you.

Yeah, the original Super Mario Brothers 2 Japan that got released over here eventually.

Yeah.

Yeah, which had that problem where they were like, hey, that's not going to sell.

Right.

These Americans, not so smart.

I've mentioned that.

They don't appreciate a funny joke where you burn.

Yeah.

It's like, that's a lot of the Mario Lost Levels jokes.

It'll be like, oh, this thing, like you'll, like a mushroom that hurts you.

Yeah, a poison mushroom.

How about that?

In the same place, like you're like, oh, it's Mario Brothers.

I know this game.

Oh, look, a mushroom.

I wonder what this one does.

Oh, I'm dead.

One of my favorite things, and this is actually another thing I talk about in my sketch class, is like,

there's a level, I think it's like level four.

And to put into context,

it's so fucking hard.

This game is so fucking hard.

But like, that's the great thing about it.

It's all about timing and the kind of like dexterity.

And then it's also trying to trick you constantly.

And it's one of those things where we used to play in college, we would play where we would trade every continue like so you'd have four lives then you have to hand it off and that would sometimes be 30 seconds right and uh

when you get to like i think it's like level 4-1 at the end of it it's like one of your like kind of starter mario maps but they're the bricks where the you know the classic flagpole

you actually have the opportunity to jump over the flagpole you see like the bricks are close enough and you go oh i've i've never i've heard stories this is like yeah uh you know like there have been tales foretold that uh

and you jump over and all of a sudden you're in that area between the flagpole and the pipe with with the castle in the background you're like oh crazy and you're like walking and you're like oh well what if i don't go down the pipe i don't have to go down the pipe now well i'm gonna like run and see what else is out here.

And you start running and you're off the map of like what you think the game is.

Right.

And all of a sudden, you kind of reach an area that looks familiar.

You're like, oh, it's a warp zone.

Of course.

Of course, that's what would be here.

There's one pipe, and the warp goes to level 1-1.

It's worse than dying.

It's basically like, hey, fuck you for breaking the rules.

Got to go back to the beginning.

I mean, extremely funny.

So it is.

So funny.

So, like,

oh, God.

If you don't stop and go, like, wait, wait, I don't want to do that.

You just reset the game.

Or I think what we did was we were like, well, we have to go in.

Like,

we can either let the time run out or we go in the warp pipe.

And it's like, all right, yeah, that was just like we just hit reset on the game.

Okay.

Next time, don't do that.

I think I mentioned this before on the pod, but on my block in

my childhood home, there was a family, the Nagasuki family, and they were, the parents are from Japan.

And the son was my brother, my older brother Nate's very good friend.

So we'd go over to his house all the time and he had a Japanese Famicom.

And so that was my first time playing console games other than Atari, like playing Nintendo games was a Japanese Famicom.

So he had Super Mario Bros.

2, like the Japanese Super Mario Bros.

2.

So I played that before I played Super Mario Bros.

1 US.

And so when Super Mario Bros.

2 US came out, I was confounded.

It is a completely different game.

And I didn't, you know, this is pre-internet.

And Nintendo Power is certainly, Nintendo Pravda is, is certainly not saying anything about this.

So it wasn't until the internet that I found out what the fuck happened.

Yeah.

And like, here's the thing is like, like, I heard rumors that you can jump over the flag.

And I was like, oh, like, like, and I like, as a kid was like, oh, I got to try and jump over the flag.

I got to try and do this.

I was like, you can't do that.

Like, it's, it's, it's impossible to do that.

Like, you can't jump just right.

You go over the flag because it's someone played it.

Yes.

And like told someone else about it.

and it looks exactly like Mario.

The world was so weird when we were kids without the internet, without any sort of like way to like get word.

Like, people like used to talk about like, oh, Nintendo Famicon, and I was like, What?

There's another top-loading Nintendo thing.

What?

Yeah, shut up.

Get out of here, you liar.

Yeah, it is.

You just want me to look stupid, don't you?

It is a funny sort of joke on a joke on a joke.

The idea of releasing this impossible version of Super Mario Bros.

2 and then not releasing it.

And like, it's almost like a version of the one pipe.

Like, they made a Super Mario Bros.

2.

Some kids got access to it.

And then another meta-level of that is that then, when they told their friends, no, this isn't Super Mario Bros.

2, that their friends would laugh at them.

It's like the game version of a poison mushroom.

Yeah.

They're like, no, I think I'm going to believe Nintendo on this one.

I don't know why Nintendo would lie to me.

We got to wrap things up in a second, but I do, before we do so, I want to give Heather some time to talk about Demon's Souls, the original

for PS3, a game I played at the time, but you know, it did not play much of.

But you were one of the first people I know, who I know personally, who is advocating for these games.

And then Dark Souls comes out later, obviously, and that one's the sensation.

So, yeah, when I played, one of my final reviews as a journalist was demon souls and i was like guys

this is

crazy because i think it was demon souls is the first time like the very first like staircase you go to in demon souls you go to go up a staircase and a boulder hits you and kills you and i was like whoa

oh man somebody made this with a sense of humor because that's so fucking funny yeah and

it was so impenetrable.

And it wasn't like a, it wasn't a shared, there was no community of Demon Souls players.

So if I'm like, oh, there's this really good game and they'd be like, what's it like?

And I'd be like, hard,

mean.

And they'd be like, oh, yeah, I don't know that I want to play that.

But I would find like, I think.

Jordan Morris, I talked to at length about Demon Souls, and I think he, he got on board.

But yeah, I was like, in one of my final reviews, I was like, I feel like this is the sort of game that we're still going to be talking about in 10 years.

And I was wrong on Demon's Souls, but right on like the genre.

Like it felt like the genre, it felt like witnessing the birth of something and not being able to share that birth with anybody.

But what do you mean you're wrong about Demon's Souls?

They re-released it.

That's true.

That's true.

But I still don't, I feel like when people talk souls games, they're talking Dark Souls.

They're talking Elden Ring, they're talking Sekiro, Bloodborne.

Um, like, I don't think, I know that they re-released it, but I don't know that Demon Souls was like,

it, it feels like it's not in the, the, the dialogue about souls games as much.

Um, and I don't mind that.

Like, I don't, I'm not like a, I'm not like saying it, anybody's wrong.

It was

very different.

It was, uh, you know, there was a hub world and you had to go into these different doors in order to access.

Like, it was not a continual experience.

It was very like Mario's ship in Mario Odyssey.

Sure.

Yeah.

Odyssey?

No, galaxy.

And you'd go to or the castle.

You'd go to different places and jump through a painting and then you're in a new world.

One of the things I love about these games is that they are very much like

an elaboration on the last one in some way where they do like have that new feed.

Like with Elden Ring, it's jumping.

Yeah.

And

yeah.

So starting, you got to start somewhere, basically.

Yeah.

And so that all makes sense.

Should we, should we, should I set up that thing?

I think we should roll this clip.

Okay.

All right.

So let me just set, I mentioned earlier that Zach is great at these games.

He loves these games.

If you don't know, Zach is Zach Krager.

He's in the Whitest Kids You Know.

If you want someone to fucking hate because they are

so talented and good looking

and and actually funny and they're they're like oh what am i going to do i'm going to go direct a great horror movie that's going to be remembered forever and like you think like you're like oh my only thing is i'm good at video games at least and then you realize like oh no he's way better at video games than

um

so when we when we started uh uh in during pandemic when we started we we set out to raise money to crowdfund an animated movie that's coming out at the Trebeka Film Festival.

And

we would do these streams, and he kind of started this stream called Collective Souls, where he would try and no death run Dark Souls.

Wow.

Or Demon Souls.

Not Dark Souls.

And

this is the end of his successful, let's see, December 30th, right before New Year's 2021.

Wow.

This is the end of his successful Demon Souls run.

You see, it's almost almost four hours in.

I appreciate a big sword.

I'm really happy to see it demander.

I've watched this moment a few times, and it is very impressive.

Yeah.

Well, and also, this is the point, especially if you're streaming, you got to be on one ass cheek because you're almost at the finish line.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got an audience.

Yeah.

That's been there for four hours.

Right.

Don't get greedy.

Do it.

That's what the chat's saying.

Someone's saying, it's happening.

Got it.

Got it.

What?

Watch watches.

Dude, no death run.

I just fucking no death run demon souls.

I just fucking no death run this shit.

That's fucking hard to do.

Fucking awesome, dudes.

Thank you all for being here with me.

Thanks for sticking it out.

It's fucking late.

We fucking did it.

Midnight Cowboy Buck.

I'm going to hold you to it, my man.

I fucking practiced.

Fantastic.

That rocks.

So, yeah, I was at his wedding.

Thank you, guys.

I,

you know, like when Barbarian came out, I went and saw it with him in theaters.

I've done like good comedy shows with it.

I haven't seen him that proud.

Maybe his wedding.

Maybe his wedding.

He was crying at the wedding.

The palpable joy and accomplishment that you can feel there in that clip.

I just think it's so great.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

All right.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do it.

We have a segment here.

Yeah.

And

I told Nick, I told the group chat earlier that I prepped a segment.

And Nick said, I hope it's very hard.

And

I think it might be.

Okay.

You famously do very hard segments.

So I said in jest, I hope this is extremely hard.

And we'll see.

We'll see if it delivers.

Not unlike a Souls game, this, I think, will be challenging.

This is going to be a spin on an old segment we've done before.

I think we've done a segment like this before.

It's called Who's the Boss?

Who's the Boss?

I think in the past, I played a boss theme yes and we had to determine who it belonged to

with all these games your dark souls your demon souls dark souls 2 dark souls 3 sekaro elden ring all the bosses have like very specific names okay yeah so i'm just gonna name one of these bad boys you're gonna tell me which one he's from okay oh okay god so so i have not played dark souls 2 or bloodborne So those will be kind of black holes for me, but maybe I can do it by processing.

I'm going to tell you right now, and this is going to make everybody that loves Bloodborne really mad.

Yeah.

I forgot about Bloodborne.

Not on the list.

Not even on here.

It wasn't even a thought.

How do you play Bloodborne?

I did, but I didn't.

I bounced off it.

It was just the wrong time.

Yeah.

It's a, it's kind of like I bounced off Sekiro.

It was just the wrong time.

But like, you know.

I'd like to do it.

I played Bloodborne.

I haven't beaten it.

I did bounce off it.

It's like

the, they've got guns in it.

Yeah, sure.

That's like the big thing.

Yeah.

a little spookier with guns.

Release it on PC.

I hope it comes to PC.

Here we go.

How could it be spookier?

You know, these games are like, it's like, oh, it's

alga of the maggot face.

Okay, well, don't think I'm

spooky in the Tim Burton-y way.

Yeah.

Tri-corner hats and stuff.

Everything's like a little bit more gray.

Yeah.

What if it had strikes?

We fucking got his ass up.

Okay, his first one.

His first boss, Old Monk.

Monk.

Old Monk.

Old Monk.

BB.

Heather.

Demon's Souls.

That is in Demon's Souls.

That is correct.

Heather is on the board.

Anyone's game at this point.

Next one.

Royal Knight Loretta.

Elden Ring?

That is Elden Ring.

Sam with a point.

Nice.

Wow.

Nice.

Here we go.

Here we go.

How about this?

Corrupted monk.

Corrupted monk.

I love that.

These are bosses.

Dark Souls?

I'm sorry.

It is not Dark Souls.

It doesn't take away my point, right?

No, it doesn't take away my point.

You have to get all the way back to that question and pick up the point again.

Corrupted Monk.

Corrupted Monk.

Beep and beep.

Demon Souls.

Is not Demon Souls.

Oh, no.

I don't remember it from Sekiro, but maybe it is.

And it's a boss I've forgotten.

I'll guess Dark Souls 3.

Fortunately, it's not Dark Souls 3.

It is, however, Sekiro.

What is the boss in Sekiro?

I got to look this up now.

He's called Corrupted Monk.

Corrupted Monk.

I'll see if I can recognize him.

Maybe he's probably at a top of a staircase or in a swamp.

Like Tony Schwarzenegger.

Or like in a closet.

Do you know what's really funny?

And not to

dog on your format or anything.

I just think the conversation was this good.

It's like, we didn't get into what's going on with the DLC at all.

No.

We didn't.

Yeah.

And I'm like,

part of me coming on here was I was like, I can't wait till they tell me what's going on with the DLC.

I saved it for the pot.

All I know is that

in the trailer, they're pushing in on the egg and I think it cracks, and I'm like, uh-oh, a lady's coming out of the egg.

That's all I know.

I don't even, what does that mean?

No, it doesn't mean anything.

Also, I don't know the names of any of these fucking people.

Like, I go in, I'm like, is it big?

Is it a monkey?

Or is it small?

Maybe this will

help you out.

Oh, okay.

So, this is from Mibu Village.

This is the issue.

This is one of those areas of the game.

This is like the area of the game that

is one of the areas I didn't like as much.

But so I think it's maybe not in my mind.

Pick one that you like.

No, I'm just saying.

No, it's kind of an excuse.

How about this?

The rotten.

Dwayne the Rotten Johnson.

The rotten.

The rotten.

Beep beef.

Heather.

Dark Souls.

That is incorrect.

Dark Souls 2.

It is Dark Souls 2.

I knew that from the pause.

Well,

I won't telegraph as hard.

The next one.

How about this?

So you've got two points.

Two points.

Sam's in the lead.

Sam's in the lead.

Gaping dragon.

Poopity, pornhub.

Okay, bonus answering porn hub.

See that?

You're going to love it.

You finally see porn.

Gaping dragon.

Gaping dragon.

Gaping dragon.

Beepity beep.

Heather.

That's that dragon on the dark souls bridge.

It is in Dark Souls.

That is correct.

Gaping dragon.

Some of these I picked because the names were kind of just funny to me.

Yeah.

I don't know what that sounds like.

Don't tell them.

Magma Worm Makar.

Deep and Weep.

Heather.

That's Elden Ring.

Yeah.

That is Elden Ring, correct.

Heather's now in the lead.

It is very weird when the Elden Ring ones pop up.

It's like, I don't, I wouldn't go like, if I saw it on something, go, oh, it's from Elden Ring.

But like when you say it, I'm like, huh?

Yeah.

It's because it's probably because

you died to it it 40 times and then it just like burned in your subconscious somehow.

How about this?

The Storm King.

The Storm King.

I'll guess Dark Souls.

That's incorrect, Nick.

The Storm King.

Demon Souls?

It is from Demon Souls.

Wow.

Three points.

Three points.

Tie game.

How about...

Yeah, we're all tied.

No,

it's a tie on two of the three there.

Zero for Nick.

Hide up.

Hide all around.

Old Demon King.

And what's funny also is hearing those names out of context, you know that the sound of it is

like old demon king.

oh, no, that's fine.

I'm also like, you know, like to be these characters,

I'm 48.

I guess old.

Old Demon King.

That, beepity, beep.

Dark Souls 3.

It is Dark Souls 3.

Yeah.

Wow.

What a pull.

How about this?

The headless ape.

I know this one.

I know this one.

I'll give it to Nick.

I'll give it to Nick.

Sam did get it.

I knew it because it was Sekaroo.

Because he knew it.

The headless ape is from Sekaro.

Yeah.

Yeah.

About the regal ancestor spirit.

Hmm.

Hmm.

I'm going to say Dark Souls 2.

It is not Dark Souls 2.

I'll guess Elden Ring.

It is from Elden Ring.

Nick's on the board.

Hey.

He's got the Sekiro point.

Can I just talk about the headless ape real quick?

Yeah.

What's awesome about this boss fight is you first off fight the guardian ape and you kill the guardian ape.

It's already like a challenging fight.

So you fought this guy whatever like like 25 times and you finally kill him.

You're like, ah, I fucking got it.

It ends like a boss fight does.

Like it ends like with the enemy vanquished or whatever.

But the ape has been, so you've decapitated the ape.

And then the ape comes back to life and you have to fight him in his headless form.

So you're not ready for it for the first time.

So you're going to die like immediately.

And then now you know, okay, and not only have to beat this guy again, I then have to beat his headless form after this, which is even more challenging.

Uh, it's it's it's a pretty amazing fuck you in the same way as the warp pipe that takes you back to level one one.

Yeah, they've got a lot of those fuck you're where you're like, I beat it, I beat it, yeah.

Then it like evolves, and you're like, What the fuck?

Yeah, it's like this first time you're in the millennium fight, and she gets her second form, you're like, No, fucking no,

there's no fucking way

Because you also get the dopamine hit of triumph.

Right.

Yeah.

Where you're like, oh, I did it.

I did it.

I did it.

And then, no, no, no, no, no.

And then that gets rug pulled.

Yeah.

And it's not like, because sometimes there have been games that do that, but usually the first, like, you, you're like, oh, that's it.

Like, it's like, it feels easy to be the first, the, the misdirect, but no, this one, it's, it's still very challenging.

Yeah.

And there's that whole thing of like, of like, I hope I start at

defeating.

Yes.

And then it's like, no, no, absolutely.

Of course not.

naked.

Yeah.

This

fuck out of here.

The game is so mean.

This next one could be for all the marbles.

Dirty Colossus.

That's like when you

finger a girl and then you like

when you like have to put

dirty Colossus.

Dirty Colossus.

I just like to say it.

I'll guess.

I'll throw a wild pitch.

Dark Souls 2.

It is not Dark Souls 2.

Dark Souls 3.

It is not Dark Souls 3.

Beep Dee Beep.

Nether.

Dark Souls 1.

It is not Dark Souls.

It is, in fact, Demon Souls.

Oh, wow.

I got to see this Dirty Colossus.

What's going on?

Is it the one where you fight in the arena and it's two state?

It's like a top floor and a bottom floor.

To make the list, I did play through all the games to learn all the bosses.

Oh, yeah.

I'm looking at this guy.

He does look kind of dirty.

Ew.

He's like, he's hard.

Yeah.

There's like the dung knight.

Isn't that one of the characters?

Yeah.

The dung knight.

The loathsome dung eater.

That's the armor I wore for all of the rest of the game.

Oh, yeah.

That

shit-faced,

pimple-armored

grotesque.

That does bring us to the end of the game, and Heather is the winner.

Wow,

you won.

Oh, who's the boss?

I did.

Okay.

I guess that makes you the boss.

I thought you were tied with four points each.

No, no.

I took it away to give to Nick because he didn't know the answer.

Oh, okay.

I cheated there.

Damn, cheated.

Oh,

we all tied.

Hey, that's a sweet skip play.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen Ranch.

Yard underscore underscore sard on social media.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

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

Matt, what's up this week?

This week.

Oh,

y'all ain't ready for this week.

Because on Wednesday, May 1st, as of this episode coming out, just two days from now, it's the beginning of Anna Mayhem.

Anna Mayhem.

Anna Mayhem.

And folks, we're watching a random anime

in the middle of the run.

Look, I'm explaining it bad, and I know that.

It's fucking crazy stuff.

We've got a random, we're using a random anime generator to pull up a random series.

Then we were watching a random episode from that series.

It is a series that none of us know.

And this first episode is a series none of us had heard of.

And then so we were just live commenting on this, you know, completely siloed off piece of anime that we have no context for.

And honestly, that first episode was a lot of fun.

Yeah,

it's been a blast so far to record.

I'm looking forward to the rest of Animehem.

And I'm not usually as an enthusiastic plugger at the end of these episodes.

You should check us out on patreon.com slash get played for animehem.

Also check out the whitest kids you know, streaming free May 1st on Shout TV.

Great sketch show.

A great guest.

Sam Brown, thanks so much for being here.

So great.

It is a great.

Look, if you haven't seen Whitest Kids, fucking watch Whitest Kids.

It is a great fucking sketch show.

I'm so excited that we get to re-release it because I think a lot of people haven't seen it.

I know a lot of people haven't seen it.

That's just the reactions I get when I, you know, go around and go, hey, I'm from Whitest Kids.

And people are like,

can you get away from trying to eat dinner?

What are you doing with my family?

But yeah, I'm so excited to be working with Show Factory and having it re-released and being on streaming.

And soon there's going to be a box set.

And

yeah, I think it's so cool.

And they're such a cool distributor.

And yeah, I can't wait until people have seen it.

It's great.

You're getting a physical release, the boss set that's physical media rules.

Yeah, it's great.

And Sam, I'll also mention that this episode will be out first, but then next week, Sam will be on my other podcast, Doughboys.

So listen for that as well.

That was a really fun app.

Anything else you want to plug?

hit me up on uh Instagram.

If you check me out, uh, at that Sam Brown, I have information about uh sketch classes that I teach.

I mentioned sketch class, I teach those on Zoom.

And uh, also, I'm right now I'm uh uh doing a GoFundMe with uh for our friend uh Elizabeth Hayhurst.

Heather, you helped out with this, and uh, we're trying to raise money for her.

She's now suffering from uh stage four cancer, and uh

it is a huge help to her.

And I have the links to that on my uh um

my Instagram.

So if you look me up at that Sam Brown,

you can uh hopefully donate some money to her.

There you go, cool.

Thanks so much for being here.

What a what a delight fun that was.

And on uh, on after that, I want to say to someone else, Matt, you got played.

Ouch, fuck you.

That was a hit gam podcast.