We Play, You Play: Helldivers 2 with Craig Lee Thomas

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Hello, citizens and citizens subscribe to Democracy Plus.

You have been selected to fulfill your democratic duty on behalf of Super Earth.

Yeah.

The terminated threat is rising and only patriots like you can stop the tide.

Are you ready to suck each other's dicks?

Yeah, wait, what?

Don't let the bugs win.

Do a standing 69 on your god-given lawn for all to see.

Yeah, yeah, no, no.

Knock on your neighbor's door, check their communism cards, and point to the center of the street.

March yourself into the cul-de-sac and make eye contact with them as you full-throat another patriot.

I was fine with some of that, but not all of it?

Do it before the automatons relieve you of your ability to drink a cock.

Wait, are those the stakes?

We need you, super earthians.

Defend liberty or die trying.

Suck each other off or the galaxy will be destroyed.

I mean, like, I...

If I'm being honest, I was like, okay with like the like fascism stuff.

Yeah.

But it kind of feels like they can't ask us to do this.

Yeah, I was fine with uh with killing a lot of uh things,

but

intimacy?

Do you want to be a helldiver?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what if hell is your throat and diving means going down on another dude?

Look, if you're not into it, I'll just say

you want a job done right.

You got to do it yourself.

We call in an orbital precision strike and salute the flag of Super Earth as we play you play co-op sci-fi satire Helldivers 2 this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad 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 am here with our third host, Matt Abadaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premium Video Game Podcast, where we used to talk about bad games, then we started talking about every games, and that's what you're listening to.

Every games.

Now,

Heather, I noticed that

you said premium.

You usually say premiere.

Did something change?

Has that gone up or is that a downgrade?

Well, I just feel like in lieu of

our topic this week, it's time to start talking about premium democracy

and democracy plus.

So it was on theme.

Yes,

it's a premium podcast on the premier democratic network.

of Headgum Plus.

Yeah, Headgum is a managed democracy, and we're thrilled to be a part of it.

Yeah.

And hey, we are also thrilled to have a guest today.

We don't always have guests.

We don't always have them.

This is a good idea.

People stopped asking to join the podcast because of the behavior of a couple of the hosts.

I don't know who you could be referring to.

It's silly as a crime.

No, no, no.

It's the Resident Evil merchant in Ash was threatening to both of you.

Oh, okay.

Oh, few.

We have a terrific guest today, an actor from Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth and Starfield, and who you've also seen and heard as the Super Earth spokesperson in the Helldivers 2 intro, Craig Lee Thomas.

Craig, thanks for being here.

What's up, guys?

Thank you so much for having me.

I think we need to add Bubsy, I think, to that list as well.

Oh, just in terms of people I was afraid to meet.

Okay.

Yeah, thankfully, Bubsy hasn't been much of a presence in the studio recently.

I know what he's up to, exactly.

People made it really clear right away that they did not like Bubsy.

it's interesting you still have that spot saved out front because i had to drive around and that spot is still saved for him bubsy got a reserve spot in his contract and it's up for like it's not for another three years so you know hey god bless him whatever you can negotiate um i i i did see on the news that they found what they so they can't identify it but you know we had a lot of a lot of really intense rain here in los angeles and it filled up the la river which i went down and looked at and it was crazy it would look like

a river from another place, not from Los Angeles.

When the L.A.

River is going off, it is really something.

It's terrifying.

Typically a skinny trickle.

For people who are not from L.A.,

it's maybe most famously seen in Terminator 2 Judgment Day.

There was a chase down the L.A.

River, and it's basically, it's like this little, mostly concrete with a little narrow stream just kind of bisecting it.

But during the intense thunderstorms we had recently, that river filled up all the way to the brink and was ripping out trees.

It looked like the kind of water flow that you would see in an action movie.

Really terrifying.

But I did see on the news that they found a small lump of hair, which may or may not be identified as Bubsy.

Oh, man.

They dangled.

Outwashed

outwash of the LA River.

An ignoble end, if that's

really his fate.

I wonder what Karen Bass is going to have to say about the family.

I know.

Freaking

live and die in L.A., am I right?

Good grief.

Was he really living?

I think he questioned.

At a Joie de Viv, from my memory of his life.

I think, you know,

I'll pour one out for Bubsy.

Yeah, real quick.

Yeah, was Bubsy sentient?

I think no one's ever really cracked that.

Craig, we're so, so excited to have you here.

I mean,

can we start with Helldivers 2?

Why not?

I'm curious, you know, like for for people who've played the game, the intro is you.

Like, it's basically like it starts.

It's very insane how much it's just

me.

The first, yeah, seeing that for the first time is like Uncanny Valley plus body dysmorphia times cyberpunk.

It's very insane.

Um, and it hasn't worn off that much, especially as now I think every day it's just been all of my friends sending me gifts of me screaming into the heavens, making that insane face.

That's got to be so weird because it literally is you, and it's like it's not just like a character, like it's literally modeled after you, right?

For sure.

Like, it's weird to must, it must be weird to see yourself in this like digital mirror versus like you playing like a different character that's not your face at all.

There's no obfuscation, there's no like, oh, well, yeah, this is me, but with this, especially for this, I mean, this is this is one of those parts where like this was a wheelhouse part, like, oh, a big square-headed, overly American ass.

Yeah, that's some pitches are kind of right right down the plate.

This was kind of my job to lose, I think.

So seeing it work so well is like, oh, I'm glad people like this.

And also you look inward a little bit like a stone's throw away from being a Craig Lee Thomas type.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, when you're the reference for that guy, you're like, oh, Jesus, here we go.

But yeah, it's wild to watch for sure.

Can we, can we, Rochelle, can we play the clip real quick?

Not to feed into your.

Oh, darn.

Let's watch me.

What a bummer.

Oh, my God.

If you guys could talk about me over this, that'd be just really great.

Just don't look in my direction.

So, this version actually is cooler.

And I was gonna say, here's the cooler version.

Super Earth,

our home.

Prosperity.

Liberty.

Hi there.

Democracy.

Our way of life.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

But freedom doesn't come free.

It's so good.

Look familiar?

Prove to yourself that you have the strength and the courage to be free.

Join

the helldivers.

Become part of an elite peacekeeping force.

See exotic new life forms.

And like you had to go do this for real, too, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Bile Titan was overscaled, so we only had them for like two hours.

But they were nice, you know.

Okay, that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Become a legend.

Become a helldiver.

So this is how the game started.

Like you're playing the game for the first time.

You see all of this.

And we should describe for people who haven't

played the game, haven't seen the intro, what's happening there.

You're kind of at this idealistic, you know, future, but clearly dystopian reality where you're like in this

beautiful suburban neighborhood.

Everybody lives in a Creighton barrel toaster.

Exactly.

Yeah.

With solar panels on top, but there's also stormtroopers keeping order walking down the center of the street.

And then you're watching.

Wait, wait, wait.

What do you mean by dystopian?

What is it?

Yeah, can you imagine how weird that would be?

But then

your wife and child get just absolutely murked.

Brutalized by bugs.

Yeah, exactly.

And then

you both, I mean, like, this is the thing that just, like, as a piece of, as a piece of writing and as a piece of acting, what's so funny about it is that you're in dismay.

Like, you're like, like, why?

But then you, as yourself, also just step in front of that frame.

walk in front of myself going hey look at this

it's so crazy yeah and so funny and it's it just it's the best uh can can can you talk us through how you uh like like what the how you put this role for sure um yeah this was this was crazy because it was literally like audition on a tuesday i got the word on thursday do you have a passport wow i was in

I was at LAX on Saturday flying to Sweden.

You went to Sweden?

We went to Sweden.

Yeah, we shot this in Stockholm, which was wild.

So yeah, I mean, it came through my agency and it was a last-minute thing.

I think maybe they'd been exploring, maybe going in a different direction.

And they realized like, this is Super Earth, but this is America.

Like, we need to fly in a real...

double cheeseburger looking motherfucker like me.

Basically, like we need the real jingoist ideal to do this.

So it was super last minute.

Yeah, I taped it in my office on my phone and was in Stockholm like five days later because arrowhead who makes the games in stockholm and they um they ported up the cinematic to goodbye kansas okay who is across the street from them in sodermom whatever neighborhood of stockholm it is and they've done like they did a that that first alan wake 2 trailer where you're like holy shit this is like a human being yeah they did that they did a ton of cyberpunk cinematics they work on tv shows they're like a they're a big volume for motion capture.

So Arrowhead and GBK were there and we shot it in Stockholm.

It was so fun.

But you know going in that it was going to be like your voice, obviously, but also your face.

Yeah, they let you know.

There's all sorts of different iterations when you're auditioning for voiceover work.

You know, sometimes like, hey, this is voiceover and then a little PCAP.

That might mean they just track your face and then put a different face on it, but they track the motion.

Sometimes it's motion capture.

They're going to put somebody else's head on you.

And this was the whole thing.

It's like, you're the voice, it's the performance, and it's the motion.

So I knew I'd be in the pajamas with the dots and everything.

Had you had a lot of experience with that before?

No, this was my first MoCap PCAP job.

So it was like baptism by fire.

It was very cool.

I feel like I see like a lot of like behind-the-scenes stuff where people are talking about like how weird it is.

Like, was it very strange to be wearing like the ping pong balls and stuff, or was it like screaming?

It was, it was really cool.

It didn't feel as weird as I thought it would, as I thought it would.

They say that like, you know, mocap is like, it's, it's very like theater in the round or like black box and stuff.

The weirdest thing about it was just like, because of the way the, how the cameras work, it's just seeing the infrared.

So anything that doesn't have a dot on it is invisible.

So like that bug was like a PA who was practically smoking a cigarette with a groom,

just going, uh,

and he's completely invisible, but the tennis ball has a dot on it and the stunt performers are kicking ass, obviously.

Yeah, sure.

That was the weird thing was the director would walk in front of you because there is no camera.

It's just

200 cameras everywhere.

So there is no framing.

There is no

like camera moves or anything on the day.

It's just, well, yeah, let's block this to make sure that the angles are right.

But like they're going to pick a lot of that afterward, to the best of my understanding.

So that was, that was the weirdest thing about it.

Yeah, it's very cool.

Especially, you know, and we were talking before

the episode.

And like, I know you came from a theater background.

Like, you know, you're acting on the stage.

You're acting for the camera.

You have a fixed point that you know people are going to be looking at you from.

It's like 80% of what you do, right?

Any day on a TV show, there's that's all of the worry is the lighting and you know, hitting your mark.

Hey, you leaned into her frame a little bit when she was talking to you.

Can you make sure you stay right here?

Yeah, to have all of that, yeah, do whatever the fuck you want was pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's great.

It was crazy.

Wow.

Probably no room for takes, like one for me kind of.

Like, you can't just go off.

Well, it's, it's funny you say that.

Um, we, we, we finished quickly.

Uh-huh.

And I think because like Era and GBK were working together, it was like, we got the volume for the rest of the afternoon.

Is there anything else you want?

And we kind of just like

dicked around at the latter part of the day.

And like the stunt performers, Nila and Nicolas, were so great and very welcoming and helping me kind of figure out how to do the mocap side of it.

So we were just like, we were doing dance breaks and inventing handshakes.

And like, I love that.

They made me do a freestyle rap at one point,

which I'm glad does not exist because

you know what it sounded like.

Yeah, you don't want to be a bigger star.

You can't do everything.

I guess our third act segment is out, but uh, so much we all introduced.

Yeah, we'll figure something else out for the rest of the show.

Do you think, do you think that it felt more because there's no like fixed point where you're like playing to, did it feel more like existing in the reality?

I know you were like, you know, dots, but there's always this level of disconnect when you're acting for a specific, you know,

observer versus like existing in a space and like doing something.

Did it feel more or less real?

I think, I think that's a great question.

It felt more like being in college when you're doing all my sons at 11 o'clock in the morning in a fluorescent lit room with a box instead of the car you're working on.

Like

it's completely not real, but because there's nothing else there, you can kind of give yourself over a little bit.

That's definitely what I found because it was so Spartan.

There was, it's not like you're on, you know,

Dune 2 where the set is there and everybody's in costume and stuff.

But because there was nothing, you could kind of give yourself over to it a little bit, I think.

When did you film this?

This was in 2022.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Wow.

A little over two years ago.

Wow, okay.

Yeah.

And I, you know, obviously the Helldivers franchise existed in a different form, was not nearly as zeitgeist.

I mean, did you have any sense

in the run-up to this game's release what it was going to become?

No.

My sense is also that Arrowhead did not go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were all so fucking, like everybody in Stockholm was amazing and so welcoming to me.

And like, I'm very, I'm ex, that's why they had, I'm extremely American.

I'm big and loud and way too gregarious.

And Swedes are very put together and sort of back.

And like, I, I, everybody I met, hey, what's up?

And I, everybody took two steps back every time they met me.

And they were still so nice to me, even though I was so insane.

But I, it's like one floor of an office.

and they have a section of their office that is like, What's this?

Like, oh, we mostly work on our

Warhammer miniatures at lunch.

So we just have a station set up so that people don't have to go back home.

Like, wow.

But these are like, these are us.

Yeah.

These are our people.

Yeah.

And I, yeah, I think this just like came out of nowhere, which I'm so happy for them about because the game fucking rips too.

Yeah.

It's super fun.

Which, which we'll talk about, but I, I mean, like, so the game, the game comes out, it's a, it's a pretty quick, like, you know, pretty immediate sensation.

A lot of viral clips and so forth.

Like, at what point do people start noticing you?

Whether those, like, you know, those are friends or what have you.

Like, when do people start?

It was sort of two waves because

most of this dropped at PlayStation Showcase level.

Okay, sure.

Yeah.

It was like one of the first trailers.

So that, that led to a month of like...

A pretty general voice actor nightmare, which is you are under NDA and everybody is asking you if that's you in something.

Right.

And you are legally obligated to avoid or negate that in no uncertain terms.

Yeah.

It's hard enough when people hear your voice like, yo, that's you, right?

Like, I don't know, whoever that is, it sounds like me, The.

But like, when it's you, yeah, and your phone has like 60 text messages, dude, what, and you have to just ignore them or say no, people think you're being an asshole, which is hilarious

because Sony would like blackbag me if I'd have broken my NDA, you Right.

So that was weird.

So when the game came out and I could finally say it, that was very gratifying, obviously, and a relief as well.

But yeah, I mean, people out of the woodwork, my friend messaged me the other night.

Your face is on my husband's gaming computer.

What's going on?

I haven't talked to this person in like 11 years.

Like, yep, that's me.

If that was,

I would just probably be like, actually, no, that's not me at all.

And this is actually really concerning.

I think I might have to sue these people.

Do you know like a lawyer I can call or something?

What is happening here?

Yeah, this is bad.

They scanned me.

It is, but this is a game that's like, and I can always sense how,

Matt and Heather, I'm sure you run into this of like.

You are someone that people in your group of friends and family know as like a gaming person.

And so there, when a game gets to a certain threshold of

success, you will have people just asking you like, hey, what have you heard about this thing?

You know what I mean?

And that the Helldivers 2 is at that level for me.

Like, I was playing it the other day

and my my wife, who does not play games, comes in and she's and she's just like, Is that Helldivers 2?

I was like, Yeah.

And then she had Helldivers 2 like on her phone.

Like, she, like, someone had been talking about it, and she looked it up.

And it's just like, and you were in trouble.

Yeah, of course, I was in trouble.

That goes about scary.

What did I tell you about democracy?

But was it followed with, do you still live here?

Have you not been opening those large manila envelopes that my lawyer has been sending you?

They say final notice.

I'm still paying rent.

Yeah, it's

anyway,

what I was saying is it's just like it's got to be wild to be part of something that that, that's that big.

It's crazy.

It's fucking nuts.

Like, you know, my friend texted me the day, hey, you're on Giphy.

And I was like, what?

I was like, oh, yeah, like falling to the no

is like now just like if somebody, you know, cancels Dungeons and Dragons, that's just something I could text to their group.

No.

Oh, hey, I'm sorry.

You know, Zanku didn't give me garlic sauce.

No.

Like whatever the fuck.

Like penetrating to that level has been nuts for sure.

Does that feel good that you could just send a reaction of yourself when you get devastating news?

Trust me.

Yeah.

I've been spamming just every,

hey, yeah, are you good to get coffee?

Me putting the helmet on.

Like, hey, look familiar.

Like, you need to stop doing this.

Like, how many gifts can I extract from this one-minute cinematic?

Well, congrats on Helldivers, Sue.

It's awesome, and your part is so great and instantly iconic.

Just to step back a little bit, how did you break into video game acting in general?

Like we were talking about before, I've been in LA for about 15 years.

I started kind of just doing the TV film thing as much as I could.

And you've worked in TV a fair amount.

Yeah, I was lucky enough to, you know, do a couple sitcoms, do some commercials and stuff.

I ran around the Universal lot in a Budweiser spot with the Clydesdales and shit like 12 years ago.

That was fun.

So, the weird things you pick up along the way.

But about eight years ago,

I wanted to get back into voiceover because I'd done it when I was a kid.

And it was always just sort of this thing: oh man, this is like a part of the industry I want to get back into.

You had the same voice at age seven.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, hello.

I don't want to do my times tables, motherfucker.

Just a lot of that.

Where are my dunkaroos?

Other 90s specifics.

um but i wanted to get back into it and um my friend dariana ratner who's a very accomplished uh voice actor in a ton of video games and stuff we went to college together she was like yeah you got to take classes so i studied up and got a demo done it was pretty much just commercials for me for a long time um on the voice side yeah on the voice side of things yeah um uh and i sent in a lot of shitty video game auditions i'm sure just because i didn't know what the fuck i was doing right yeah um and then the the pendulum started to swing for me after i took some more classes and stuff and just kind of got my feet under me a little bit more.

And like 2019, 2020, right before the pandemic really was when like it went from more commercials to more video games.

And it's just been like that since, which has been amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a question that gets about because obviously you have your speaking voice is your speaking voice and it's like, it's very good.

Like, do you, so I'm just, I'm very aware of what I sound like when I'm doing this.

So like I'm listening to him talk and I'm like, this sucks.

What the fuck are we doing?

I sound like a little, like a, like a kid but I so just being voice cocked

yeah we're gonna dub Matt though right yeah yeah you're gonna please honestly please dub me uh like and just if I if you want to say something funny for me instead that would be good too I did an ABC of hello everyone for Rochelle before I got here so we just got some alts on that but I guess my question is so like Before you get started in this, are people coming up to you being like, you know, you have like a really great voice?

It's always been, it's definitely been sort of a thing.

Okay.

It's been this since puberty, for sure.

Wow.

Because, yeah, nobody's ever said that to me.

So I was just wondering, like, what the problem is and why nobody has said it before.

So they said it to you.

It makes sense.

I'm like, okay, so I'm just getting, I'm just collecting data points, I guess.

Just for data.

Just for data.

It's definitely something that

will come up every now and again.

And

it's now not a surprise if I meet somebody at a party.

Oh, what do you do?

I'm a voice actor.

Oh, yeah, of course.

And you sort of like

finish your drink and don't talk to that person.

I guess

now you can be like, oh, if people come up to you, oh, you should do commercials.

like, guess what?

I do, idiot.

That's my whole motherfucker.

You remember Postmates sort of from a couple years ago?

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

We should,

going back to video games, because you are wearing a Cloud Strife at McDonald's t-shirt, and you got to act in Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth.

I mean, what was that experience like?

And like, are you, I assume you're a fan of the franchise going in?

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I'm on the Final Fantasy VIII is Superior Train, I have to admit.

That's my number one.

Yeah, big thumbs up from Heather.

That was my PS.

Even Zoom thumbs up.

Hey, you got another ally over here.

I'm a big time Final Fantasy.

For sure.

That was a game.

I mean, as a kid, just I remember my sister and I just like trading off the PlayStation controller, just like blown away by this thing.

Just, oh my God, it's so many discs.

Like, just everything about that game really hit.

Final Fantasy VII is amazing, obviously.

Weirdly enough, Final Fantasy VII was one of my first sessions.

Oh, wow.

And I'm just additional voices, me and a million other amazing voice actors kind of fleshing out the world.

But like,

I record, my session, I think, was in 2020.

Okay.

Like late 2019, early 2020, I think.

And I didn't even know that I was in Rebirth until Rebirth came out.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

So you recorded lines there and they're being used in the sequel.

And they're being used in the sequel just because I guess whatever they needed me to do spanned the narrative arc for whatever reason.

I was congratulating a friend of mine, Chris Julio Fair.

I was like, hey, man, congrats on Rebirth.

That's awesome.

Oh, yeah.

Congrats to you.

Our names are right next to each other.

T and T.

I went, oh, he's just being nice.

He's like assuming.

Oh, that's nice of him to assume that.

Yeah, I'm not in this one.

And I looked it up.

I was like.

Holy shit, Square, you motherfucker.

So it was one of the first sessions I ever did.

Yeah.

The first game I ever recorded is still not out.

Wow.

It's maybe coming out this year.

Wow.

It's bananas.

So I can't wait to hear that and be like, oh, I was shitty.

And I gave this the first thing I ever did.

It's not out yet because they're trying to fix what you did.

They just, they can't fix it.

No matter how many times they recast the part, my stink is still just on it.

It's in the metadata of this game for sure.

It closed the studio.

Did you hear

Nick's cameo in Final Fantasy Rebirth?

Did they patch you out?

Are you still in it, Nick?

No,

my cameo's in there.

Okay, great.

Well, just be on the lookout for the guy who asks if you want to suck the Chocobo's dick.

That was fun for everybody because no one could have guessed who it was.

I thought we were going to say he's Chadley again.

He really put the choke in Chocobo.

can you can you fill in for us, uh, uh, Q, you know, who are not acting in video games, when you have an additional voices credit, what does that mean exactly?

And, like, when you book that, are you going in for additional voices?

Like, what are you reading for exactly?

Yeah, um, I think it's interesting because, you know, some of the time that's from the casting.

Sure.

A lot of the time, it's like you swung at a bunch of characters, and you know, for whatever reason, you weren't selected for one of those characters, but you know, your reads landed or you demonstrated some range.

So then they're like, oh, we can, we, we'll, we'll bring them in for additional voices.

Got it.

And a game like, like these two, I mean, you look at the additional voice credit, it's like dozens and dozens.

There's so much text in these games, which is awesome.

So yeah, you go in kind of like, oh, yeah, I swung on all these parts and it didn't work out.

But like, hey, you want to have me and, you know, do a session, which is great.

And you go in completely blind,

just being thrown the character seconds before you record, which is kind of how most sessions go, which I did not know until I started doing this.

But, like, even when you book a part, other than like Blizzard, maybe they're not sending you the scripts beforehand because they're obviously really concerned about leaks and how proprietary it is and stuff.

So, it's a lot of sight reading.

So, like, the Final Fantasy sessions, it was literally like, okay, cool.

Now, you're a helicopter pilot, yelling at cloud.

Okay, cool.

Now you're on a motorcycle.

Okay, cool.

Now you're in a town that got destroyed.

And they're being kind of vague with the story points.

And you're just kind of trying to sound as different as you can, part to part.

But they're at least telling you what it is.

Like, you know, going in, like, oh, you're talking to Cloud.

Like, it's that it's Final Fantasy.

Almost always by the time.

Okay.

Sometimes it's when you walk in, though.

Like, I'm one of the player voices for Star Wars Squadrons.

Yeah.

I wish that Squadrons was still alive.

The multiplayer of that was very funny.

Really great game.

I did not know that that was a Star Wars property until seconds before we started recording.

Wow, wow.

Because it was code named out the ass and they didn't let us know.

And I signed on and they went, hey, you know, so-and-so from EA in San Francisco is on the line.

And my my brain goes, oh, is this Star Wars?

And they come in, hey, welcome to the Star Wars.

And you have to reckon with that before you record four hours of lines, which is crazy, obviously.

Your first line is like, there's Trubacca.

What is this?

Like, the games are canonical.

So you are in Star Wars.

Yeah, that's what I keep saying at Disneyland.

And they just will not give me the milk.

Give me my damn blue milk.

It's really, really cool to be like,

I'm in there.

I'm forever.

Like Library of Congress in the canon of Star Wars is really neat.

I think it's cool.

It's bananas.

Like hearing yourself from an X-Wing is like an emotion.

It was a very emotional thing for sure.

Like getting cast in Final Fantasy VII Remake, when I got in and I found out what it was, I remember like being in the parking lot after like in reaction, just I can't believe that that just fucking happened.

Yeah, that's wild.

That's wild.

You mentioned the blue milk.

I just have to say this.

I'm trying to get people on the green milk.

I think the green one is the better one.

Wait, do they have at Galaxy's Edge, they have the green milk?

They have the green one at Galaxy's Edge.

No, and you, but you can get it.

They have like little mango chunk like

jellies at the bottom, and you can get it with like tahin in it, and it kind of fucks.

Matt, the basement of the parking structure is not technically Galaxy's Edge.

I don't know.

Okay, I'm just like kind of slopping up this like green.

You're just slopping up green down down there in Anaheim.

And we're worried.

Okay, it's really, really good.

You say so.

That's fine.

That's fine.

That's okay.

I'm not a fan of the green milk.

I like the blue milk.

I'm a pop.

Wow.

Hey, I like them both.

I'm just saying that, like, maybe next time you're over there, try the green one.

I'll try the green one.

Try both with an open mind.

It's extremely sweet, and it's a shame.

Like, there's no.

No human being should have it.

Let's set a baseline.

It's wrong.

It's a decoration that you're putting in your face.

Yeah, yeah, you're spending eight dollars to get sick later.

Great.

The most magical place on earth.

Um, uh, I do want to get into some video games, but I did want to ask you, like, about just

all of your game credits.

I did, and you know, I might, I imagine Hell Drivers 2 is at or near the top of the list, but like, do you have a favorite thing that you've worked on or a thing you've worked on where you're like, I'm, I'm particularly

proud of that, or I was particularly excited to to be a part of this game.

Yeah, for sure, tons of things.

I mean,

I think, you know, Helldivers 2 is definitely in terms of like, as a gamer,

being able to be in a game that I enjoy so much

is huge.

I think Octopath 2 was another big one.

That's right.

For me,

because

the game came out of nowhere for me as a player.

I really was excited to play it because I was in it and I knew that the cast was incredible, the voice cast, that is ridiculous.

And I was surprised at how fast it hooked me.

So it was very cool to be like, oh my God, I just sunk 95 hours into this thing and I loved it.

And I'm in it every once in a while.

That was like very gratifying for sure.

When you're in it like once in a while like that,

are you caught off guard when you hear your voice?

Oh, that's me.

Oh, that's me.

That's there.

I am.

For sure.

Especially because even in games like that, like I play like one of the antagonists of one of the travelers.

So like in his story, I feature pretty prominently.

You're the English voice of Harvey,

exactly.

So yeah, like I'm the dude who incited the incident for Oswald in that path.

So, obviously, like in that storyline, I come up relatively frequently.

But even in a game like that, like they're going to get what they can get out of you.

So I play seven other cops, priests, townspeople, drunks in a bar.

And those are the times where you're kind of just like playing to play.

And all of a sudden you're like, motherfucker, what?

Is that me?

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I remember recording that.

18 months ago.

Vaguely.

So it is very, it's very weird for sure, hearing yourself and kind of catching it barely.

Do you have any voices that you're like confused by that you're like, is that one, like, is that one me?

Like, I don't know.

That sounds like, I guess I did that.

There are no.

There are definitely some where I'm like, I remember being self-conscious on the day, like, like we're talking, like, anytime they're like, hey, yeah, like, this character's like 20.

I'm like, oh, motherfucker.

Like, that's just, that just ain't me.

So hearing when I don't totally blow that, I'm like,

exactly.

Yeah.

Perpetually 25.

Hearing when I don't totally blow that back.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I do.

I did kind of like age myself down a little bit is gratifying.

And then other times I'm like, oh boy, that was maybe not my absolute best swing.

I'd rather take it.

But that is a voice, you know,

I know a thing with voice acting of it's just if you're hearing your voice in isolation, detached from your physical frame, your voice has a certain age that it sounds like, right?

So it's like you probably age up a little bit from what your actual age is.

Absolutely.

And always have been.

Yeah.

It's kind of always been, you know, like 35 is the basement for sure.

Yeah.

And as I get, and what's really weird is when you listen to your voice as specifically and as much as you have to when you're a voice actor, like I'll listen back to games or gigs or even commercials I did four years ago.

And even that, I'm like, oh shit, it is not the years, honey.

It's the mileage.

Like,

I can hear the difference a little bit, which is bananas and really makes you just

feel like you're withering away.

No, I mean, I've listened to a lot of all of all of our voices, a lot, like editing the show and stuff.

Yeah, I don't know how you do it.

it's a prison it's um

i actually i don't know how ranch does it most of all yeah i hear your guys

i like it i like your guys' voices rochelle thank you thank you i think ranch has a nice voice too ranch does have a nice voice

it's hard hearing mine for sure yeah that's that's the thing i'm self-conscious about is listening to myself um but also like i think in the context of a podcast i'm hearing me try to like form a thought and failing.

So I'm like, oh, I just hear myself being being dumb.

And that's its own thing as opposed to just like the, you know, how my voice sounds.

I'm very aware of the, all the

vocal pauses that I take,

a lot of the bad things that I do when I talk.

I'm very, very aware of it.

So stop telling me about it online.

This is directed at a particular subreddit.

I know.

Yeah, bad voice.

R slash bad voices.

I feel like it's harder for you guys, though, because, like you said, we always have the veil of a character and we're given the fucking lines.

Like I listening to podcasts, I'm always amazed.

Just like, it's hard.

Talking is hard.

You know what?

I'm glad we got to this.

You know what?

It is hard.

It's pretty hard.

It's like it's not for me to say, but thank you for realizing that what we do is a service.

Yeah, thank you, Craig.

And yeah, you guys are heroes.

Thank you.

Where's this?

And pans.

That's what that's what this piece of paper you slipped me.

Yeah, yeah, you're overreading that.

You're really America's chosen.

I don't want to read the rest of this.

Why is this paper red?

I don't understand.

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So, okay, so you are a gamer, obviously.

Can you give us some of your, like, just generally talk through your taste and any all-time favorites of yours?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm an elder millennial, so spanned the generations.

Like, I remember, oh, God, Commander Keen Cosmos Adventure on my dad's like work computer through like the rise of the triad, like a lot of the old 90s PC game kind of thing.

Yeah.

Of the triad is fantastic.

It fucking slaps.

It's a horrifically violent game.

It's rocks.

It's rock.

No, no, it's real.

In a moral way.

It shouldn't exist.

We've talked about this before, Heather, but this is a game, and Commander King, you know, a 2D platformer.

It was id's first game.

Are you sorry about that?

Yes.

So,

you know, this old PC platformer, and that was like one of those games where the PC controls were not standardized, not like you could just hook up an Xbox gamepad.

It didn't exist.

So, like, you might be playing it with like a keyboard or like a really shitty joystick.

You know, it was never quite.

Gray plastic barely worked.

It never quite worked right.

But, but Rise of the Triad was a first-person shooter, and it was in the era of Doom clones.

And it had the notable thing of if you would wound an enemy, they would beg for their life, and then you could choose to execute them.

So it'd be like, as a child, I really enjoyed this.

Yeah, yeah.

Putting the hand of God cheek, just being like, judgment has been passed.

Someone in that voice.

Literally on their knees, waving their hands, begging.

The international symbol for this is wrong.

This rules, video games are great.

Makes you think like Joe Lieberman was right.

He knew what he was doing.

And so you grew up playing those games.

What are some of your all-time favorites?

I mean, you know,

a lot of stuff that the pod is fascinating.

Sure.

I'm a big Metal Gear Solid guy.

Oh, hell yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

I play through that

on my gray lid PlayStation every year.

Oh, that rocks.

I take a pass with my original copy of Metal Gear Solid because it just fucking, it still fucking works.

Yeah.

It's still good and it just rules.

God, like so many other,

so many other standouts.

I was I was big into Tomb Raider.

I was always kind of a PlayStation kid.

Sure.

Halo 3.

I mean, as a person who was in college in the early 2000s, like that was very important for...

every male relationship I forged.

No, people were playing a lot of Halo.

A lot of Halo for sure.

And then moving through, like, honestly, like, like I said, I'm a big fan of the pod.

You guys are great for kind of teeing me up for games that I wouldn't necessarily play.

Like, Disco Elysium knocked my fucking dick off

so hard.

Yeah.

I couldn't believe that it existed.

Yeah.

Like to have those experiences.

And I think Last of Us Part 2 as well.

Like to play that in the pandemic, like,

I don't know,

the feelings that it evoked in me of...

the responsibility I had as a participant in the narrative, I'd never felt before.

And it was like, you guys talk about this on the pod, how like that's the thing that games do that movies can't.

Yes, right.

Like complicity.

Last of Us Part 2, like,

I was just devastated at the end of that game, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

Yeah, it's like Rise of the Triad

is at a complete opposite end of the spectrum there, where they're kind of trivializing the actual moral, you know,

the gravity of what you're doing.

Well, I had the DLC where you had to mash left and right arrow to wave your hands above your head, which was really interesting.

I switched your perspective.

I will say that there is, there is a

game similarity when you kill somebody in The Last of Us 2 and their friend goes, Gary, no!

And then you shoot them.

I thought they had a name.

Yeah, I mentioned on the podcast before, but the moment I had when I tried to throw a Molotov cocktail at a guy

and his dog, and I just hit the dog.

And so this man just watched his dog catch on fire.

Jesus Christ.

You're like, I did that.

I pressed a button to make that happen.

Yeah.

I got to play it again.

Let's go.

Hey, Craig, it's time for this question.

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hey, it's me, the threat.

Wait, what?

No, it's fine.

I'm glad it's not Bubsy and it's you.

So, hi, Resident Evil Merchant.

I'm not worried if it's me.

If I'm being honest,

I'm the fourth host of Get Blade, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask everybody their favorite question:

What are you playing?

It is a different experience in person than just listening on my phone.

Yeah,

the sound that their head made when they bashed it on the door frame on the way in is gonna ring in my ear forever.

Well, yeah, the Resident Evil Merchant is like Shaq's height, so that's a thing you forget.

He hit his forehead and then his hunched back, kind of in a 1-2,

which just was uncomfortable.

I'm so sorry, you're right here.

I'm glad you caught that because I wasn't sure what happened.

The pain was sudden and sharp, and I was like, What?

What?

And then I, but I knew I had to get it in.

Am I bleeding?

I might be bleeding.

You are bleeding.

It's hard to say if it was from that.

Yeah, I wasn't going to comment on it, but yeah, dude, you might have just been bleeding.

Also, can I say, I like Shaq as a unit of measurement.

That's pretty good.

Oh, that is pretty good.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm like

Shaq and a tenth

so you're a little bigger than shaq slightly slightly i can't do what kind of yeah i can touch mid-net

without jumping

hmm horrifying okay kind of okay great i go the middle of you touching you or you touch the middle of the net you're talking like a standing reach like reaching over your yeah i can stand reach touch middle of the net.

I do have to have a little hop to dunk, which thankfully I cannot hop.

So I've never been able to dunk, but it's so close.

You have no joints in your knees, right?

So your legs are just kind of straight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a contact situation.

All of a sudden they bend backwards.

I'm sorry.

The idea of picturing you on a basketball court is so asynchronous.

Like just thinking the Resident Evil merchant in a gym.

That's what's wrong with you.

Come to the YMCA Tuesday nights at 3.30 in the morning.

The one in Hollywood, and I'll be there.

That's when I have the court reserved.

And I,

you know, play a little ball.

Do you have it reserved or are you just there?

Yeah.

I am a...

Hold on.

I reserve it.

Okay.

I reserve my space.

Right.

You fill out a form.

You applied for that time slot.

Good for you getting the reps in, you know?

Yeah.

Okay, I know that I've done questionable things on this podcast.

Yes.

But if you're asking me if one of the few spaces that welcomes me in,

that I would take advantage of that generosity, I reserve my space.

They will not let me in the pool because of the oil that comes out of my body.

I like how this is the bridge too far.

Reserving space.

That's the limit, which I enjoy.

And so, yeah,

I'm...

What?

What would I'm?

My head hurts.

Yeah, why don't you go sit down for a second and we'll talk about some video games.

Thank you, resident evil you're gonna have the rest of my spin drift that's fine

yeah drink something what are you planning

uh craig what are you playing these days uh yeah right now i'm kind of like mid sea of stars oh wow which i'm enjoying yeah yeah yeah it's very fun i had a lot of fun with that game i kind of picked it up as like kind of like hoping for a little bit of crunchy jrpg which it definitely is not no yeah but i'm still really enjoying it it's very sweet it's so pretty And like, there's just enough sort of interactivity with the battle that it's like, oh, this isn't giving me like the customization I would want from like an octopath.

But like this is fun.

I'm very much enjoying it.

It's a nice throw-on play for 20 or 30 minutes.

Yeah, maybe combat more has like kind of like, you know, like a Super Mario RPG feel, you know, with some of the more active elements.

But yeah, the time charming timing is fun.

Yeah, so I'm enjoying that.

Going through the back catalog, I got a PS5

in anticipation of Helldivers, and I hadn't played Fortnite in years.

Wow.

And the first time I booted that up, and it was like a hub screen of an entire universe with like 11 games in it, I had like a mini stroke, I think, and just one side of my face drooped.

Because the last time I played it, it was like build,

no build.

And that was sort of the extent of the choice.

And now it's,

I spent like eight and a half hours unlocking old snake and just getting toasted by every single person I ran into.

So yeah, that's my Fortnite experience.

For sure.

Yeah.

I got to get on that battle bus.

I got it.

Got to get on that battle battle bus.

You do.

You do.

Come join the battle bus.

Absolutely.

At discord.gg slash get played.

Wow.

Wow.

Heather, what are you playing?

Oh, come on.

We just...

Fortnite.

Sorry.

You don't have to be exasperated.

I know, but I look, I want to play.

So I played Helldivers and I played Final Fantasy Rebirth.

I'm playing other games, but the games we're going to talk about on the pod and any game time that I have that isn't dedicated to the games that we're all

playing games,

but God, this season of Fortnite is so fucking good.

It is the best season I've

experienced since seasons began.

Um, I mean, it's the Greek gods, it's the Greek gods.

I unlocked my Medusa skin, and I fucking love Medusa.

So

I'm out there, I'm out there getting crowns and sniping, AR-ing,

lightning bolting, flying.

It's fantastic.

It's so good.

And the mobility is so aggressive in this season.

There's so many different options for mobility.

And you might be at home being like, Heather doesn't know what she's talking about.

There's only like two versions of mobility, and that's wings or shockwave grenades.

But I'll say you add in flowberries to that mix, and you've got...

three different kinds of mobility.

You add in the Cerberus skull teleport dash.

That's four different kinds of mobility.

And if you're like me, you've got one gun and four kinds of mobility as your loadout.

And it's fan, you just feel like you're zipping around, flying, landing on something, shooting somebody.

It's great.

Wow.

If we took that out and you weren't talking about Fortnite,

we would have to have you locked up, I think.

The court would like to recognize Exhibit G and recommend an immediate transfer transfer to an institution.

I rest my case.

Okay, okay.

I see it.

But I also want to talk about my, and we touched on this prior to the podcast or before I record.

I have a water bottle that is gamifying my water intake, right?

That's right.

And

it keeps track of how much water you drink and then uploads that to your iPhone.

And so if you have the Apple Watch, then it also synchronizes with your Apple Watch.

So, you can glance at your watch and see what percentage of the water you've consumed over the course of the day that you're supposed to consume.

And then it will blink, like a little LED light will blink if you're supposed to be drinking more water at that given moment.

It's great.

I bring this up because it's trending recently on like TikTok

and on general

social media platforms that

millennials

younger than Gen Z people who are significantly younger than them, but that all millennials and Gen Z look significantly younger than baby boomers did at that age.

And people are wondering what changed.

And I think for Gen Z people, it's vaping, which is why they look older.

Interesting.

But I think across the board, in comparison to baby boomers, it's water intake.

I think that baby boomers smoked cigarettes and never drank water.

And that's why they looked the way the cheers cast looks at age 27.

Yeah, isn't that wild?

Yeah, you watch a phraser rear and you're like, what is happening?

Yeah, Georgia is 33.

So anyway, I was just thinking about that.

I was like, the answer is water.

It's water.

I'm screaming at like Twitter or Blue Sky or TikTok.

It's water.

I think nobody used to drink water and now everybody drinks water.

And I drink it from a water bottle that like berates me if I don't drink water.

Incredible.

Nick, what are you playing?

Heather, thank you for asking.

I do want to shout out the Stardew Valley 1.6 update real quick.

This game came out in 2016 and Eric Barone, Concerned Ape, the solo dev who makes this game, continues to give out these massive updates for free.

And it's just, it's just one of those things where you wish every developer did that.

You understand the economic realities of game development, especially if you've got a more expensive project and you're going to have, you know, maybe some more microtransactions built into it, some more paid DLC.

But it is just really, really awesome that this one guy just keeps this game going and doesn't charge anything for it beyond the base price of the game.

There's so much new content in this game.

There's new festivals.

There's new environmental events.

There's a bunch more dialogue.

There's a new farm type.

And

so, I don't know.

There's There's also a Polygon piece I was reading about Concerned Ape and just talking about his workflow.

And there's an element of like he uses like $20 software packages or freeware to like make a lot of the content for the game, a lot of the art and the music.

And it's just kind of amazing, just someone who's such a one-man band and also just like does stuff

with just readily available tools.

I don't know.

It's humbling and it's awesome that something like this exists.

But I want to shout that out real quick because it is amazing, although I've not been able to spend much time with it, but I do want to start up a Meadowlands farm.

The game I've been playing more

with my free time this week has been Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, which I talked about a couple weeks ago.

This is an early access.

It is the Vampire Survivors like in the Deep Rock Galactic Universe.

Spending more time with it, I'm really feeling how the new mechanics versus vampire survivors shake things up.

Specifically,

you're a miner, so you can mine through rock to kite enemies, which is

just a really interesting layer to the sort of bullet heaven gameplay.

And then also there's all these minerals that you can collect to upgrade your character between stages and then to also upgrade your character overall in the metagame from the roguelite side of things.

And so you have a risk reward of extending your run to try to gather more resources, although the enemies will become more powerful.

And then also ultimately, once you kill the big bad, you only have 30 seconds to escape to get back to the ship or else you just fail your run.

So it's all these pressures of like, how much do I want to risk for the potential reward?

And that I find super duper fun.

And again, just a nice new thing on top of the vampire survivor's formula, which already just clicks so well for me.

But also just

in a broader sense, I was realizing what I like about these kinds of games, as opposed even to something like Helldivers 2, which I also really, really enjoy and appreciate.

But like a game like this does not really demand much concentration from me.

Like it is, you're just running around shooting, but in a sense, where I can just kind of almost play it like an idol game, you know?

Yeah.

And

in that sense, it kind of feels meditative and kind of feels like it's putting my brain in its default state when I can just kind of think about things.

You know, I mean, I just can kind of let my mind wander while I'm just playing this thing.

It's a good flow, exactly.

And there's something very fun about that experience.

Yeah, flow state very much is what it puts me into.

So anyway, so that's what I've been playing.

Matt, what are you playing?

I've been playing, I've been playing a game.

I'm currently obsessed with this game.

I had to put down Rebirth

so I could spend some time in Helldivers.

But in between that, I've been playing a game called Mars After Midnight, and it is a Lucas Pope game.

It's a new Lucas Pope game who did Papers Please and Return of the Oberdin, but it is a Playdate exclusive.

And I have a clip of it here that Rochelle is going to pull up right now.

I love that you're on the Play Date beat, by the way.

I mean, it's very rare that there's a game for the Playdate that I'm like that interested in honestly so it is it is very very niche but when when the when the play date goes off it goes off because this is your post bloom era this is i'm in my post bloom era for sure with this one because this game is described uh as it's like papers papers please light according to po uh to lucas pope there's no border checkpoints no desk no paperwork and it's on mars and i just wanted to show a little bit of what it looks like here obviously that's the play date

can you give everyone a reminder of what of what the play date is exactly the The play date is a little yellow handheld gaming device with a crank.

So it has a crank for some games that you can use to manipulate things in the game.

It only has two buttons and a D-pad, but you can look all...

Basically, your main thing is that you're putting on

it's a

it's a it's a management video game where you control an alien running a late night community support group for off-colony Martians.

And so there's always they all have these problems and you have to sort of invite them to the support group and help them with their problems you provide snacks and stuff

and you have to you have to you just have to help all of them and so you have a little window that you look through and you use the crank to open the window and you can see if the the Martian outside the window meets the criteria that you're looking for and if they don't you close the window until you get a new one that comes in and it's it is so so fun and it's like

it's really funny.

One of the levels they have there is

you have to let in Martians that are farting only.

Wait, only?

Only?

Yeah, they have to be farting at the door to let them in.

It's called fart frenzy or something, I think.

But it's not all like that.

It's just one of them.

One of the ones you have to let in, like these little fly, they look like flies with knives we saw in the

little trailer there.

You can only let them in.

But you get, everybody gets their turn it's just on their day they have to come to the that you pick a you pick an event per day the logic is that this is their group and so you need to let those people in exactly yes and it's it's very very fun very charming um it is very funny uh that it is only on

this thing that almost nobody has right i i a lot of people have it i don't want to discount the the play date it's a very uh neat device but it is more niche than say the nintendo switch or something like that that.

Yeah, a little bit more niche than the Nintendo Switch.

But it's really, really great.

And

I would love for more people to check it out.

Especially, I mean, obviously, if you have a play date,

it's only $6.

Go nuts.

Hey, there you go.

I've had a lot of people ask me, is it worth buying a play date so that I could play this?

Now, that's where your mileage may vary.

I don't really know.

You know, Bloom sort of justified the purchase for me because I really, really loved that game as an experience.

This,

now I'm just playing with bonus time now with this thing.

This game is fucking rad.

Right.

Maybe

the question is more, are there enough exclusives on the play date to justify a purchase?

And it seems like you maybe say yes.

Yeah, I mean, because like there's an enthusiast.

I mean, almost every game for the play date is exclusive to it, right?

Because

there's no other systems with cranks.

But like you get the base games that come with it that are fun.

There's some good stuff in there.

I didn't love all of them, but every one of them that I tried and I messed around with a little bit, particularly that surfboard one, Whitewater Wipeout, I really, really liked.

But Bloom and Mars After Midnight are for sure standouts that you have to pay for

and then add into the system already.

But I think those two are home runs, and I'm really looking forward to finishing this one.

It's only like a couple hours long, so there's not a lot to it.

But I'm having a blast with it.

Oh, hey, there you go.

Yeah.

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Let's get into our we play you play of Helldivers 2.

As we mentioned, developed by Sweden-based Arrowhead Game Studios, who also developed Magicka, a gauntlet remake, and Helldivers 1, which was more of a top-down twin stick shooter.

It was published by Sony and released February 8th of this year for PS5 and PC.

It is a third-person co-op shooter in a futuristic sci-fi setting with a satirical tone, as set by the intro with the great Craig Lee Thomas.

A huge hit, sold 1 million copies its first month and was the biggest selling game, I believe, on any platform in February.

I will say this.

I love the satire of this game.

I think it is very funny,

and it extends to also the gameplay itself, which we'll get into but this game is like this world is as starship troopers as pal world is Pokemon.

Yeah, like it is so clearly an homage um and uh and but I like that about it I like that it is just sort of like you know wearing its influences on its sleeve and just sort of like

Here's the other thing I will say and I want to get everyone's thoughts here, but a big part of why the satire works for me so well is that there is nothing goofy about it except for basically the dialogue, right?

It's like all the, aesthetically, it's played pretty straight.

Like the soldiers,

their character designs, the enemy designs, the grandiose music that you hear, it all is stuff that feels like it would just be out of a straight-ahead, you know, played for serious sci-fi shooter, except that it has this layer of satire on top of it.

But

it's effective, too, because I don't feel like it's like...

It's not like winking, really.

It's like we're just doing this.

So it's like, it's just extra fun because of that, I think.

It's done very, very well.

But I had a blast with my time with this game.

I mean, I'm just like...

I am, I do not play

these types of games regularly.

Like, this is not the kind of game I gravitate towards a co-op shooter.

But as far as a game playing this with friends and voice chat, I think this is a 10 out of 10 gaming experience.

It is, it is so fun.

It is so satisfying.

And I think the

both the gunplay and then all of the

mission elements like connect and work together really, really effectively.

I will, I have to, I must say.

Yeah.

Because the three of us squatted up.

We did.

We tried to get Ranch in here.

We had some trouble getting Ranch, and it wasn't Ranch's fault.

We were just having a hard time with the cross-play function.

Here's what it was.

So, so Ranch and I were on PC, and we couldn't, like we couldn't connect with the two of you, but we also couldn't even connect with each other.

Yeah.

I switched over to PS5, and on PS5, the three of us were able to squat up.

But even there, it was a little clunky.

My understanding is that they have some open bugs that they are figuring out

with both the cross-play and the friends lists.

So that, I think, just comes from the developer being so overwhelmed by the unexpected popularity of this game.

But yeah, there are some kinks to be worked out as far as the matchmaking

and squatting up with your pal.

And the only reason I brought it up was because of what I was about to say, and I didn't want to hurt Ranch's feelings.

Yeah.

I had so much fun playing with you guys.

It was very, very good.

I would have had a great, I would have had the time of my life.

I mean, if Rochelle was in there, I would have said that was probably the best day of my life.

Because I had so much fun with just us three that I was like, the only thing that could make this better is if Rochelle was playing with us.

But hearing each other, because I don't play a lot of games like this either.

I don't get on mic.

I don't,

I turn voice chat off because I don't want to hear anybody else like

getting like into the mic and not saying anything.

It's like eating hard candy directly into a third-party microphone as microphone.

I don't need them to be doing that.

Have you heard this one?

Yeah, good.

But like with this, I was like, I got to put voice chat on, hear

Nick and Heather.

And it was kind of fun to be like, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

It was funny.

So I played with you guys, and then I also squatted up with random people.

Yeah, I did some of that as well.

And it was the matchmaking difficulty that we encountered that prevented me from squatting up with, say, my

standard Fortnite squad, who all went out and bought the game so we could team up together.

And then we ran into the same matchmaking issues that the

three of us experienced until we realized that you can add each other from the PlayStation UI instead of the in-game UI.

But I also squatted up with random people.

And I want to say,

there was something so bleak

about

the

aggressive

squad-on-squad squad murdering that I witnessed.

Oh, sure, yeah.

From strangers.

And often it was mics on

and you would just hear some guy somewhere, because it was, I never heard a woman's voice.

And I just hear like,

no, bro, don't do it.

No, bro, bro, bro.

And then like, you'd see like a fucking tactical nuke.

wipe out one of our squad mates.

And then you'd just hear, come on, bro, bro.

I can't believe you,

fuck.

I can't believe you did that.

And we'd all load onto the,

like, it would almost always happen

when one or two of us were on the drop ship for an evac, for an extraction.

And

one of the people in your squad just decides to merc the final person.

And they would be so upset and so mad.

And I was like, this is

bleak.

And that is an experience that you don't have in Fortnite because there is no friendly fire.

And I understand that it adds to the sort of atmosphere and tension of Helldivers, but

combining the toxicity of your average random squad with the ability to kill one another during this game,

it was...

depressing sometimes.

So you were seeing like just full-on like griefing, like team kills, not just like an inadvertent friendly fire.

Yes, yeah, I would see team kills, like I think we accidentally killed each other a couple times.

No, I mean, well, that's the thing.

Like, I like that, that friendly fire is on.

I think that's

great for the game, but yeah, I know this has been an issue that I didn't, I didn't personally witness much of that, um, but yeah, I know that it is a real thing.

I did, I like it, and and I didn't,

I, I, I wasn't griefed by any of my uh squad mates by luck because after I saw it the first time, I was like, once that fucking Evac ship is down, I am diving into it.

Because there's no, I do not want to be fucking bombed or shot by like another person and then not revived and left.

You mentioned diving, and I got to say,

it is one of the funniest things you can do.

It feels great.

It feels like a million bucks to like dive out of the way or like dive into

an explosion.

Oh,

wall dives all the time going yeah yeah wall diving it is great yeah uh craig can can you talk about your experience playing the game yeah for sure um i'm i'm sorry it sounds like heather heather is playing like platoon the game i'm so sorry like it's just credence and like bad pot and like harsh memories on your side of the screen i'm so sorry

oh man i'll never forget malevolent creek

we lost a good sarge that day um i've been super lucky uh like i said i kind of got the ps5 PS5 to play it because I was stoked about experiencing it.

And a lot of my friends got it as well.

So 80% of my time has been with friends.

I've had really good luck with my Randos.

I think

my favorite thing about it is definitely, like you guys said, like being on Mike, how collaborative the missions are.

So many of them are, you know, you got to be on the terminal, you got to turn the satellite, you got to get the codes, all the little puzzles and stuff I find fun.

And I think, you know, the sort of like oeuvre of the game, this manage democracy thing, I find like people that you know wouldn't do like a bit or like a voice like normal people participate in it a little bit on mic.

You'll hear them like come out of their comfort zone like, yeah, for democracy.

Yeah, you fucking said it.

And like everybody else gets very excited.

So that's been very fun to see people like role play a little bit.

That's been very funny.

Yeah, it naturally lends itself to that.

And I mean, can we talk for a second about how gloriously stupid Super Earth is?

Oh, yeah, because it's so good.

It's so incredible.

It's so dumb, but it's like, it's so dumb in such a funny way that

informs everything else that's in the game.

And

I love how you get to name your ship.

Oh, what's your ship name?

The Sentinel of Individual Merit.

Hell yeah.

Mine's the Hammer of Serenity.

Also great, Heather.

Elected Representative of Wrath.

I've been rocking Superintendent of Liberty pretty much since launch.

I felt

I had to have Liberty in there, you know.

Ranch with your ship name.

Senator of Twilight.

Really good.

They're all good.

There's no bad combo.

No,

it's great.

I mean,

talking about what you were saying about everyone having their role in the squad.

Now, me, I'm kind of, I would say if I'm playing a co-op shooter with Heather, as I've done a number of times, I would

characterize myself relative to Heather as useless.

Yeah, but that's like saying like, oh man, compared to Wembiana, I don't get a lot of board.

Right, right, yeah.

You're talking about Heather and Campbell here.

You're drafting behind the most dangerous creature to ever enter the internet.

So,

but the way the game is structured, so you'll have a mission that will be like, hey,

we've got to repair a fuel pump or something like that.

Or we've got to raise the flag of Super Earth.

And that will involve some sort of rote tasks or some mini games.

And those are, that's where like I can shine.

I can now feel useful all of a sudden because I can go up to the terminal.

I can be the one dialing in the combo.

You can solve that fuel pump puzzle.

I can solve the fuel pump puzzle.

I'm sitting there like, I can't do this.

Yeah.

And so

and every, you know, and the rest of the squad is like guarding the perimeter and gunning down the, you know, the insects that are

that are gathered around.

And it's like,

I like that element of the design a lot, that it feels like there are different roles for different people based on, you know, whatever their strengths are or whatever they want to role play.

I'm sort of that guy, like, you know, when you're moving a couch, yeah, and there's one guy kind of like holding the one corner and kind of just like not really doing anything.

Yeah, I got squatted up the other day.

The guy just kept telling me to pivot.

Was that you?

Yeah.

I will say there was a moment last night I was playing, I jumped in like a Rando's game, and this guy, bless him, I don't know who it was, was having a hard time with the fuel pump puzzle.

This was probably me.

And I was like this close to unmuting and just being like, let me do it.

And then he saw me standing there and got off of it and let me do it.

Because I was like, I got, this is, this is, I can do this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But when it comes to like shooting and stuff, I'm scared and often not running away fast enough, honestly.

It is impossible for me, given how funny the error sound is, not

to constantly do the wrong first entry of the puzzles on a terminal terminal

like if you can't

and

it's also because you're your your character animation is poking with your i think your left hand in like an aggressive way and the idea of these guys

coming off of this enormous ship flying all the way down to this alien planet, blasting their way across it to get to some computer terminal.

And then my idiot just pressing the, like, when it's the arrow is up, and he just keeps pressing down.

Yes.

Infinite funny and infinite comedy.

And I would, that was my version of griefing when playing, which is like,

just taking too long at the ATM.

Hearing somebody be like, yeah, just put in the,

just, what do you do?

Just put in the

code, man.

More.

My favorite head cannon I've read on Reddit is that all of the Helldivers are illiterate.

I've heard this, yeah, man.

Because it's just shapes and arrows and sounds, and there's no text that they ever interact with.

And that's true for me.

Yeah, because

how dumb the characters you're playing are.

And I think people know this, but for people who maybe only know about this game through this podcast,

part of it is show, part of the satire is how disposable all of the player characters are.

So if you die and you respawn, it's not your character respawning.

A new character comes in with a new voice, and you're all of a sudden them, but they're all ginned up with the same nationalistic fervor.

They've all been brainwashed.

They've all been brainwashed by the Super Earth spokesperson.

And what a good job we did.

And those four, like, Jesus Christ, Julian Athenson, Yuri Lowenthal, Robbie Damon, and Erica Lindbeck are the two and two, the two male, the two female voices.

I mean, these are like some of the most legendary, like the people that they're, they're my heroes.

Yeah.

And they

kicked so much ass

as the player.

It's crazy how good they all are.

And it makes it so, every, every time you empty a machine gun clip and you go,

it's so fucking good.

They're amazing.

Yeah.

Previous guest, Ray Chase, is the one who picks you up.

I'm not sure if you're a son in the game.

Yes, indeed.

In the Pelican.

I was going to say,

I guess I hadn't looked into the studio before.

So finding out that they're a Swedish studio just makes a whole lot of sense to me because I don't think Americans can't satirize America the way people from other countries can.

It's so, so good.

Well, that's why Paul Verhoeven made Starship Troopers.

It's like it requires an outside eye.

Yeah, because

we just couldn't.

We don't have this humor about it.

but it feels like an affectionate characterization of a uniquely American stupidity, right?

Yeah, that's kind of how they made me feel when I was over there, too.

I'd say I was like, Oh, well, he's so large and loud, that's interesting.

It's in the same way that like Homer Simpson is cute, you're like,

This guy,

fucking idiot, I'm gonna be mad at him.

Let him go in the Capitol, he's fine,

it's no biggie.

He can do a little fascism,

blank, blank, blank.

so the there's also the the and and we touched on this but the the the stratagems would where where the the element that makes it just

keep it being from just a pure like you know gunplay game is that

you have all these things that you can punch in uh which will cause you know something to come basically come something to come from the sky yeah whether that is a a a a massive um tactical strike that eliminates a large swath of enemies whether that is additional resources, whether that's a new gun, or whether that's how, and this is another way I can make myself feel useful.

When someone else, when a squad mates die, squad mates die, the way you res them is by, you know, dialing in

one of the, a replacement soldier.

So like all that stuff is in there, and it is all really super fun.

And it also like has this tension of you have to stop down the action a little bit and input this little D-pad sequence in order to execute this command.

Usually while you're fleeing for your life from a horde of monsters,

I got in the habit of doing a resupply in downtime.

Yes.

Because

it just made a lot of sense to me.

But I didn't realize.

So, because I started playing this game first,

probably not at launch, but close to when it came out.

And I was only familiar with...

basically one side of the galaxy, which is the bug side.

And all the memes I saw were of the bugs and that we got, you know, everyone's talking about we got to get

only good bugs, a dead bug, that type of thing.

And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's the most analogous to Star Ship Troopers, of course.

Not until two days ago when we squatted up.

I didn't even know there were robots in the damn thing.

Yes, there's automatons.

They're basically Terminator.

Oh, goddamn automatons.

Automatons are rough.

Where are the memes for this?

They're too traumatic.

I like them.

I'll follow you up before you can make a meme out of it.

I like them more.

I like them more than the bugs.

I do too.

Because it's like, it's, I don't know, it has the, there's a little more like, it feels more dangerous.

It feels more like, and I want to know what's going on.

Like, it's like, why is why are they all here?

What, like, ever hear him talk?

Yeah, it's scary.

It's very cool.

It's really, really good.

But I also like, obviously, like, the bugs can attack you back, but, like, the automatons can shoot back at you or use like their arm blades and get you.

And I just, I don't know.

I like the, I like the robots more.

I think bugs are gross.

I know, I know we, we, we've already said it, but I would love if we could play some of that drop theme, uh, which is so fucking good that I want it to play

in other games.

Like, I would like that theme to play as I launch any title because it feels like, are you ready to start playing a video game?

Because you're about to start playing a video game.

And I, I really, I think just that one piece of music is so good.

Um, I would love to hear it here on, on our, on our show, if we we can play, like, you know, 10 seconds or whatever is legal.

I just sent it because it, that, this piece of music also takes what should be a

miserable experience, like any squad game's fun, but you're like on a filthy planet with very low visibility.

Anytime you walk through a bush, your character slows down to like a stumbling fool's crawl.

Like,

it is, it is, it is a, it is a, a game that sort of pulls a grind out of you.

But when this fucking theme kicks in while you're heading to the planet, you're like, fuck, this is so fucking good.

Here it comes.

Here's the drop.

It really makes you feel like you're doing something.

Hell yeah.

It's good.

That's what's effective is that it puts you in the mindset of the character you're playing.

Of just like, here we fucking go, you know?

You feel every wrinkle in your brain smoothed to a democratic sheen, and you're just ready to kill.

But I think this should be the opening theme to like starting up your PlayStation.

I think this should be like what plays before you launch Lego Fortnite.

I think it should be like, this is the fucking music that makes you get ready to play.

And in fact, I think if I walked into the dentist in this play, I'd be like, let's drill my teeth, motherfuckers.

Let's go.

I was going to say that it should play when you vote, but I think he might make some different choices.

Yeah,

that's a dangerous word, I think.

The composer is, and I apologize if I mispronounce their name, Wilbert Roger II.

And yeah, absolutely fantastic but of scoring.

The environmental scoring, too, in the middle of a mission, the triggers, I think, are really seamless.

When you...

kill a light automaton post or when you hit eight minutes instead of 10 on the timer.

Like there's so many little seamless score moments that this game always feels like a movie.

It does.

You're just constantly in like act two and a half of a 90s VHS movie.

Yeah.

And but what's what's great about it is that like you're

you're you're so not the main character.

And that's another thing that the satire just repeatedly underlines.

Like if you look at the scope of the the the galactic war that's going on, it's like you're fighting over like 0.000002%

of one individual sector on one individual planet, you know?

It's like it's like a very tiny,

and, and you might go through four like lives over the course of that play session, you know?

There's nothing like doing like a three-mission campaign where each one is 40.

So you've spent two and a half hours of your life.

You've bled on the battlefield with your friends and you get your star rating and you see

0.0004%

liberated.

And you're like, oh, this is the game.

This is it.

Yeah.

That's how much of a difference you made.

But it's also like fun to play.

That's the other element.

That being said, the game is currently, so like everybody playing is clearing the map together, right?

It's currently.

And the game has been such a robust success that

there was no

plan in place for how rapidly everybody has held of and cleared these sectors.

And we are all the way out to like the final edge of the rim of accessible content.

And I know that you can expand it infinitely,

but it's neat to see

an assumed patriotism slash harmless fascism in video game form

like

broadened, broadened to make it so that everybody who signs up to play the game is like working so quickly together.

It's also terrifying because you're like, man, if anybody cracks the code of humanity again, we're just going to wipe ourselves out with, like people will be like, oh, they speed ran World War III.

Yeah, we've demonstrated it in things like Helldivers.

I haven't done any research on Joel.

Are we gonna talk about Joel?

We could talk about Joel.

Sure.

People think I'm Joel.

I saw that on the big Helldivers meme account posted me making that stupid fucking face.

It's like, is this Joel?

And I'm not Joel.

So

again, I did no research because I'm no longer a games journalist and I don't want to read up on things to be able to talk about them as an authority here on a comedy video game podcast.

But there is a dungeon master for Helldivers.

And

it is somebody who is sort of adjusting play on the fly for everybody playing the game.

Sorry, I hit my own mic.

For everybody playing the game.

And it's a real person and his name is Joel.

That's all I know.

I don't know of any other game that does that.

I mean, I think it's an element that exists, but I think that what it is, is because this overarching, you know,

game,

the gameplay exists within this broader game.

I think because that has been so successful that people have been

made aware of

the idea of someone doing this.

And then so Joel of Arrowhead has become like something of a little bit of a mini celebrity

slash Enigma that everyone wants to drill down.

But Joel's also given some interviews, I believe.

I haven't read any of them.

I think he hops on Reddit

and answers questions and stuff.

The game director is a fascinating follow on Twitter as well.

Like he is very engaging.

He's retweeting fan art and having having fun and trolling people a little bit, which is fun to see.

It's got to be awesome to just have something that just succeeds well beyond your expectations.

I mean, it's just, just, I, I, it's, it's got to be such a, such a cool thing to experience

for you and for all the developers there.

And

I also want to say that a big part of what's impressive about this game to me from a design perspective is like I could see like an indie game making a satirical comment like this.

And it's like sort of like, you know,

it's this trenchant.

It's this,

you know, it's this clever.

And, you know, a lot of game critics write about it and enthusiasts note it.

But like for this to have such wild mainstream success, but also have this comment be done so effectively, like that's just so difficult to pull off.

And that's a big part of what's impressive about it to me.

Because it's just like you can just accept this game as a game and not even be thinking about those things and just enjoy running around and blowing stuff up.

But like then it also has this layer of

insight that just like just takes it to another level.

I think if this were like a real thing, I unfortunately would be a hell diver because

I don't read any of the things that are like on the map for me to like discover or anything.

I just kind of go around.

It's like, there's a bug.

There's an automaton.

You're the perfect soldier, right?

Exactly.

I ask no questions.

You look great in that cape, too.

I was saying this when we were on stream,

or when we were streaming, when we were playing the game the other day.

I think capes should come back.

Capes are cool.

Capes are rad.

Yeah, capes are great.

Yes.

Completely impractical.

And you can just sense like someone at the you know at Super Earth Command sort of being like, I give these idiots capes.

They'll love the capes.

You know, yeah.

You can cut their rations in half.

Let them customize the cape.

Everything is going to be fine.

Oh my God.

I got a cape.

Thank you, Super Earth.

Going like this with it in front of their face.

It's kind of like

rules.

Is it canonical that the military guys are doing their own

aesthetic modifications to their outfits, or are those issued to you?

Do we know?

Like, is my character being like, oh, I have an idea.

I want to make a gold helmet with like a gold cape.

Or, or that Matt's character is like, oh, I want, I want to wear this like white armor.

Like, is

do we know if inside the story, if those guys are choosing their armor?

Like, it doesn't have any like status significance because there's no like,

you're not like a corporal.

You're always just a 80.

Yeah.

What I inferred, and you know, some of this is because the game has like flavor text in the store that is like from other soldiers.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And so that makes me think that this is just like a just a total hellscape where you are being paid out and part of your compensation is you can customize your own company store.

Exactly.

16 tons.

Right.

Yeah.

You're spending the money that you're given right back to them to buy a cool new helmet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You pointed out weapons that you need.

You pointed out the customer reviews.

Yes.

All really, really fun.

Very clever.

My husband loves this gun.

Some of the PSAs that we did, like I do some of the PSAs like on the TV in your ship from the government.

And a lot of the ones that we recorded were all about like, you know, do you love your family?

Well, you should send them some more super credits so they can be willicule.

Like you're

telling them like, you have to ask your wife to send you money or you'll die.

Yes.

Basically, which is amazing.

It's great.

I mean, like, it's ranch.

I mean,

I'm curious, how much Helldivers did you get to play?

And what was your experience like?

I played a couple of games.

The second time I played, the first time I was just like playing by myself, and it was like.

Not as fun.

I was just very confused the entire time.

It's a little inert as a solo experience.

I did try to play some of the missions just solo, just by myself.

And I was like, this is not what I'm doing.

It doesn't tell you shit either.

I played for 20 hours before I knew that you could change your rate of fire or like really had to.

Oh, I haven't even gotten there yet.

The game is very, very meagre with any, you kind of have to figure it out as you go, which is kind of fun.

Yeah.

The second time I played, which was the night where we tried to play, I played with some of my friends.

The only way we found each other was like on the map miraculously somehow.

Yes.

But we had to join someone, a stranger's mission.

So three of us jumped onto that guy's mission.

We were talking on Discord.

Yeah.

And I was screaming and I was like, so like, I was just doing such an idiot.

We like get back from mission and they're like, hey, Rochelle, you know that your mic is on and we've been hearing you through the game and this person definitely can hear you.

And I was like, why the fuck did you guys not tell me that?

And

the guy who was mission is put us on like the hardest level.

And then

I was like, can you hear me?

And then he unmutes his mic and he's like, sorry.

I just like want to see how you do in a

source level as a level two space cadet.

Oh, my God.

And then he booted us.

Wow.

We lost immediately.

And he realized that

overall, did you have a positive experience or what do you think?

I think I get to play it more because

I feel so slow.

No, there's like a lot to take.

I mean, they throw a lot at you very quickly.

And you get it all in the tutorial.

Again, I don't know if I did a good job of just saying that the tutorials laugh out loud, funny.

So funny.

It really just hammers home that tone in the same way the intro does.

You've got this disembodied

general voice who's walking you through everything.

But then you just learn all the mechanics in one go, in one basically like three-minute session.

And it's like, here you go.

You're in.

Here's your gun.

Yeah, yeah.

They literally give you your game.

It's like, oh, this is as much training as my character got in universe.

He ran through one obstacle for two minutes.

They gave him some grenades.

Oh, my God.

Send it to a distant planet.

Any other thoughts on this game?

I know that there's at once so much to say, but a lot of what it is to say is like, it's fun.

It's good.

It's fun.

It's good.

It's funny.

Like,

we do talk about the humor in games sometimes and how it doesn't always work.

But like, this game is so funny.

intentionally and unintentionally.

It just works on both levels.

The ragdoll like

physics in this game are so good and so funny to like watch your guy get fucking just blown up and just fly across like Lego pieces too.

You have six parts.

You've got a torso, four limbs, and a head and a gun.

It's just, it's so, so great.

And I'll definitely be spending some more time with it.

It's, it, it's just, I don't know.

It's good.

That's the thing that we run into.

And you sometimes you're talking about a game that's like real that just really works and all comes together.

And what you can, it's harder to talk about than something that just like doesn't work.

You know, I mean, it's, it's easier to rip something to shreds than just keep saying something is great.

But I, but I, I mean,

you're making me think of another just mechanic that's in this game that I think is really well done, which is like you can get wounded in specific ways.

Like all of a sudden your mobility is hurt because one of both of your legs are shot out.

You can't use your sidearm because your arm hurts.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Or you're just bleeding and you've got to be tracking that.

And that's a fun, fun layer on top of everything.

Or like when there's like an ion storm or something.

It's like an electrical storm that you can't use stratagems.

And that adds to the tension of being in the middle of a battle where you need to revive a player or something you just can't do it my favorite thing that you can do in the game and i was showing nick uh this when we were playing the other day is when you get prone and then you're like uh zoomed in with your scope and you can sort of like move you can you can start on your belly and then roll all the way around and be on your back and be facing the other way it's like so so cool yeah i love it That's like, you can't, because I don't know, you don't, I feel like you don't have that much control over your character's body in that many games.

Like, maybe in like The Last of Us 2 is probably the last time you could really, really get in there and like move.

But like, he's like, your guy is just like getting all over the place.

And I realize that me doing it

in an audio format is doing nothing for nobody.

That's working great for us.

I'm loving it.

I'm having a blast.

Yeah, Matt got down on the floor.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm all covered in.

And also, your guy gets all fucking dirty and stuff.

You get gooified.

You're covered in green goop or the blood of your fellow hello.

Yes.

In the robot missions.

You're just like, oh, you're nasty.

And when you get out of the chamber, when you get back to your ship, you're all like frozen.

You're cold and he shivers a little bit.

Like 10 out of 10.

10 out of 10.

We got to squat up.

Let me know.

Please, let's go.

200%.

Yeah.

Let's go.

Have there any final thoughts?

No,

you know, I'm...

Fortnite to my soul and bones, but

I did enjoy hell diving with you guys.

And uh, I, you know, in the future, we should maybe play more video games together.

Just I do really like

we're all fun.

Video game podcast together.

Yeah, for me, it's so I did.

I think of playing video games like reading a book.

It's like always like a solo experience where I'm just going to have a little bit of me time.

Not that I've played a lot of multiplayer games in the course of my life, but I've always liked single-player games more.

But then we have, when you have like a good group, you have a good squad.

It is,

I'm always reminded, like, oh, yeah, wait, this is fun.

This is

being on Mike and accidentally dropping a 500K eagle on somebody.

Oh, shit, run, run, run.

It's never not funny.

Well, yeah, well, like, uh, I think Weiger was calling in

like a resupply or like a machine gun.

And I was kind of standing nearby.

And he's like, you better get out of the way, buddy.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right.

For sure.

I was at the terminal the other day performing a mission-specific thing that nobody else was doing.

And as I finish, I hear somebody unmute

and go, watch out, watch out.

And I pop out of the terminal just in time to be obliterated by a support weapon.

Watch out.

No, that's no.

No.

It was like his turn on the fucking computer, I guess.

You have a unique opportunity.

You have a unique opportunity to mess with people in the game in a way that nobody else can, because your voice is actually in the game.

So you could be like, don't listen to him.

Listen to him.

Attention, gamer tag.

Listen, potboy420.

Not democratic of you.

Go outside and touch grass.

Yeah.

Drop that machine gun and give it to 01.

People ask me, oh, do you tell people?

I'm like, no, of course.

No one would ever fucking believe you.

No.

I play with Sarah Mala, who plays the service technician on the ship, and she's a fucking monster.

So we play with like her brother and her cousin.

It's like...

her family and me just like running.

I'm like, TD, I'm playing.

And it's very funny because her brother is so stoked that she's in the game.

Dries, what's up, Dries?

He's a monster.

So he's always gassing her up, which is so cute.

But all we ever...

Yeah, bullshit.

No, she isn't.

Shut up.

You're like, okay,

there's no reason to try this.

Like, no, I just keep it quiet.

All right.

It's time for the U play of our We Play Uplay.

It's your review, crew, the Ryu crew.

Hello, Kir.

All right.

Wow.

These are all from our Discord, discord.gg slash get played.

And let's get to them.

This one is from zero some we should we should just note that craig uh cheered when i should have lost my mind seeing the hadouken live i was so excited

sorry it's okay no it's um actually kind of sad for you uh

but you like it it's kind of you know

no that's really really it's nice when people come on and they like like the show it's not that's why we don't have guests

it's confusing but we like it it's nice

This one is from Zero Sum on our Discord and they write, this is not my type of game normally, but I was so surprised by it that I then went and purchased the Super Citizen upgrade just so I could give the devs of the game more support.

10 out of 10, we'll fight bugs to the end.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of my feeling of this.

Of like, you know, this is, this is not, again,

I just said what my normal gaming experience is.

This is not the sort of thing that I would have played if not for the podcast and not for its ubiquity and feeling like I should, but i'm just like oh i get why people love this this is this is great it's really really yeah no it's like i yeah i guess i don't play a lot of shooters like i like shooting games sure so or you know games with uh shooting in them but this i wouldn't necessarily gravitate toward but the like you said the ubiquity sort of caught piqued my interest as it were um this next one is from kay kirk and kay kirk writes Helldivers 2 is a triumph of game design and player connectedness.

Nothing feels better than stepping on a stranger's ship and being greeted with what may be the greatest hug animation in game ever.

The hug.

How have we not talked about the hug?

The hug is really, it feels, it looks like the best hug you've ever got.

Yeah.

They really bring it in.

It's like Santa or something.

Man, imagine getting a hug from Santa.

He's like, you're such a good boy.

I'm going to give you a hug.

I would never forget that.

Santa's like the, or Shaq.

It's like Santa and Shaq are like the two best guys.

Yes.

For sure.

They're the best.

And we salute them.

Yeah.

I would be careful saying, like, getting a hug from Shaq is good because the Resident Evil merchant might get confused.

Oh, because he's Shaq-sized.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

From Shaq only.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not anyone Shaq size.

You have to be Shaq.

No one Shaq-esque.

Yeah, no, yeah.

You have to, you have to be the real guy.

Balls you up like a basketball and freaking dunks you.

You Shaq would never do that.

No, he's too nice.

He's just a sweetie.

Hang Hang out with him in the general?

Can you imagine?

Oh my God.

Oh man, the three of us, what we would get into.

Oh man.

Imagine that hangover sequel.

This next one is from Kimby.

Hi Kimby.

And Kimby writes.

Hello, Kimby.

My friends and I had a blast, quote, spreading democracy.

We've had a couple of issues with servers crashing close to the end of a match, but that's the only issue we've had.

I've learned that the developers didn't anticipate the game to take off like it did, so I'm not super bothered by it.

I usually don't play games with friendly fire, but the shenanigans that you can get up to in Helldivers 2 adds another layer of enjoyment.

The amount of times my brother has blown me up trying to blow up the bots, or my friend walks straight into my uh line of fire to shoot a bug.

Overall, I've enjoyed every minute I've put into this game and can't wait to play more.

But I think also, just the part of the friendly fire is like, I think it's fun.

It obviously sucks that people are griefing and being shitty.

But

like,

I think it helps the game thematically because it hammers home how disorganized this campaign is.

These guys are just throwing bodies at this thing.

It's almost as if they weren't told not to do that.

It's not explicitly stated in the tutorial.

No,

they kind of weren't.

This next one is from crunch.jpg.

Great name.

Crunch.jpg.

And according to their

Discord name right here, there's a little icon next to it.

I think they're a new.

person in the discord wow welcome to the score welcome to the score uh hope everybody's nice everybody is nice Once the server issues and difficulty progression bugs were sorted out, this quickly became a blast of a game.

The amount of wild moments that happen without any planning is too high to count.

And watching your friend run into your airstrike they don't know is coming will always be funny.

That's like, I mean, I guess the most common thing you could say about it is that it is just like, it is just funny.

Anything that can happen in it is funny.

They made failure funny, which I think is why it works.

Right.

Yeah.

Because it's not that you won't feel any frustration.

Oh, yeah.

But it's like, but

it mutes mutes it a little bit.

Yeah.

This next one is from Highway Johnny.

And Highway Johnny, right?

This is not surface roads, Johnny.

If you're good thinking, it's Highway Johnny.

Yeah, different guy.

Yeah.

Endless fun.

Much better with friends.

Love the satirical nature of it.

The shooting and movement mechanics are great.

Fuck those damn automatons.

People hate the robots.

They really, really do.

I think,

I don't know.

Maybe it's because I work with you guys, but I love

the automaton.

It's what you're used to.

It's just my norm, but it's also like, I mean,

the fact that they shoot back at you, I think it's something, because it has more of a PvP

aspect to it, which I really, really like.

And finally, this last one from Stryker Obie.

Striker Obi writes.

Helldivers 2 is the most capital V, capital G video game I've played in a long time.

It's like the team at Arrowhead sat down and said, let's just make a game we all want to play the hell out of, and then somehow actually managed to do it without a bunch of outside interference messing up their plan.

It's a total blast to play, especially with friends.

The satirical narrative is hilarious.

A plus for democracy.

Hell yeah.

A plus for democracy.

Well said.

Yeah, I really think the only detractions to this game are technical, and I think those will be ironed out over time.

But I think there might be some people who have bounced off of it or will bounce off of it because they have issues squatting up or with the friends list.

But

I hope all that stuff is ironed out soon because this is a really, just a really awesome, unique experience.

Hey, that's this week's Get Played.

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 paywalled show, Get Animated, Matt, where we're watching solo leveling.

That's right.

We're watching solo leveling.

We're on episodes five and six this week.

And oh

boy, it gets fucking good, guys.

It's great.

It's already been good, but it's really, really getting good.

Check that out.

That's available along with our entire pre-head gum back catalog of get played episodes, plus ad-free new main feed episodes.

That's available only at patreon.com slash get played.

Craig Lee Thomas, what an absolute treat to have you in the studio.

Thanks so much for making time.

Please, I mean, I think that this is, you know, this is the culmination of the parasocial relationship I've had with all three of you.

So this will be what peels my psyche from my super ego.

And it's been nice knowing you.

So, this is it.

I don't know how I'm going to reconcile this in my own brain.

So, thanks.

I appreciate it.

Congratulations on the game.

Congratulations on all your success.

It's such a funny performance that I should have assumed that you'd be a funny guy, but it's so great to talk to you.

Thank you so much.

It was a joy to work on, and I'm just so glad everybody's digging it because the people that made it are great, which is nice.

So, that's great to hear.

Yeah.

all that said, you unfortunately very much got played.

No, fucking.

Oh, my God.

Are you fucking

Rochelle?

No.

Did you read my email, Rochelle?

No, we.

I explicitly told you that I can't get played.

Yeah, we talked about it.

I'm still under, I can't get played by anybody else but Sony.

I'm still under NDL play.

Red Ranch told us.

Red Ranch made us get ready to play.

Ranch, you fucking played.

Came from Ranch.

Honestly, feel free to shush us whatever you want.

Yeah, and if you don't want to shush, I think you could always add just a really well-timed wow.

That was a hit gum podcast.

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