Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds

And we're back live during a flex alert.

Oh, we're pre-cooling before 4 p.m., folks.

And that's the end of the third.

Time to set it back to 78 from 4 to 9 p.m.

What a performance by Team California.

The power is ours.

This is a Head Gum Podcast.

Oh, hey, Rochelle, are we rolling?

Yeah, we're rolling.

Okay, awesome.

Before we get started, I just have this little,

y'all don't know about this, but I have this little side project I've been working on, and I want everyone to be a part of it.

Oh, wow.

So I actually

sent you all, if you check your email, I sent you all some VO that I just want to record, and then I'll just edit this into

this project.

But yeah, we can just grab these lines right now while we're in studio.

Okay, so

I'll go first.

Okay, awesome, great.

Among podcasters, he's like Michael Jordan combined with Shakespeare multiplied by Einstein.

Perfect.

Great.

Oh, you just, okay.

Just do it loose?

Yeah, just do it.

Yeah.

We can just go

one at a time.

So, Matt, that was great.

Heather, you've got a line too.

Sorry.

He's the funniest, smartest, coolest guy I've ever met.

And he's ripped.

I wish he was my dad.

I love that one.

And then, Rochelle, if you don't mind, there's actually a line for you here.

Oh, me too?

Yeah.

He's not just my boss.

He's also my hero.

Awesome.

Those are great.

We got that one.

Okay, moving on.

What is this?

It's just a little thing I'm working on.

You know, I'd love to share it with you when we're finished.

Nick, are these lines about you?

Is that what these are?

I mean, yeah, I thought these were just like loose lines or like ad reads or something.

Are these supposed to be about you?

Well, yeah, they're wild lines.

You know, that's what the term would be for just a random line of VO.

You're grabbing.

But yeah, they're about me.

The subject is me.

You wouldn't rather us like say how we actually, how we actually feel about you.

You had to like write down these sort of

to save everyone some time and some headache and just sort of like write down what you would say.

And then I don't wish you were my dad.

I don't want, I don't, if, so let's.

We don't need to roll on this.

We don't need to record this part.

One thing.

I just, I mean, like, I don't know if you're ripped.

I never want to know.

But like, I don't want to imply that I wish you were my dad.

I don't want.

And you know,

I think it's, you know, I think you're a great podcaster, but Michael Jordan, Shakespeare, Einstein.

Are you making a documentary or is there one being made about you?

What is the context for this?

It's being made about me.

Are you

by me?

You're making it.

Yeah, it's like the self-author.

Was that against the law?

What do we live in China?

No.

No, no, no, no.

It's not against the law.

And we know we live in the land of the free, home, of the brave, the United States of America.

You can do whatever you want, but.

Sure can.

I just think it's a little.

What's the word crass gauche

sus sus it's certainly sus

guy to say the least okay

it gives me the jeebies

um i'm getting major ick from this who is going to watch this nick who is who is the intended audience Because I think that, like, as a friend and, you know, a light fan of yours, if I saw this, I'd be put off.

I'd be upset.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd want to take a shower and change my clothes if I saw this footage.

I, yeah, I know.

It feels, it doesn't feel really good.

And, you know, I know Rochelle is like sort of newer to the operation, um, and I don't want to speak for her, but I don't think you're her hero.

Yeah, sorry, Nick.

Okay, all right, fine.

Fair enough.

Hold on, I actually misread mine.

Can I just take it again?

Yeah, please.

It originally said Einstein.

That's what I said.

Uh-huh.

But I actually misread it.

Among podcasters, he's like Michael Jordan combined with Shakespeare and multiplied by Epstein.

I misspoke.

I misspoke.

No, you actually, no, you misspoke the first time.

No, this is, that's, that's the line.

Yeah, that is.

Yeah, the first time I got it wrong, this time was correct.

Okay, I actually have no problem with mine now.

I think that's okay.

What does it mean released directly to toilet?

We animate our childhoods and hear extensively from Woodkid as we discuss Hulu documentary Hideo Kojima, Connecting Worlds, this week on Get Played.

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

It's time to get played.

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

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premier Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about a documentary available on Hulu about podcast favorite subject, Hideo Kojima, in a documentary entitled Hideo Kojima, Connecting Worlds.

Normally we cover video games.

Sometimes we cover video game adjacent stuff.

I'd say this fits right in the middle because it is kind of a documentary about the making of Death Stranding, but also kind of a documentary about the man, the myth, the legend himself.

We'll get into it.

We've done two episodes about Death Stranding specifically.

We've done two theme months, Cojember.

uh dedicated to the man so we are certainly fans of this auteur game maker

But yeah, this dock, I have certainly my own thoughts on.

And hey, if you want to check out some of those older episodes, all of those are available ad-free on our Get Played Patreon, patreon.com slash get played.

Also, our entire back catalog.

Plus, our mainline episodes, our new episodes are now available ad-free day of release.

So you can hear this episode.

And all subsequent episodes ad-free, patreon.com slash get played.

You can either get that bundled with get animated or on its own if you just want the video game content.

I love,

can I just say, yeah, I love business up top.

This was all good stuff.

It was a natural fit for it.

This was great.

We thought it right in there.

Really, we're doing really, really fun.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

And if somebody was making a documentary about us, people would say they did a really, really good job doing that episode of this podcast.

Should we,

here's a, a question for everybody because we are recording this particular episode right before the release of Rebirth.

So we haven't gotten a chance to play it yet, but I think we are all planning on playing it.

Should we slot in another we play, you play for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the end of March?

Does that sound like a thing we want to do or do we not want to commit to that fully?

Look, I'm going to be playing it.

And

my job ends in like, I think literally two weeks from today.

So there has never been

better time for me to play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but I have all of April off.

So

it could be also the end of April.

And that would give people time to play it without cramming in all 500 hours of content into a single few weeks.

Is it 500 hours?

That can't be right.

I think it will be if you walk everywhere, which is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to walk everywhere I was cloud just very slowly.

Well, why don't we, we'll table it.

We'll come back to it and we'll we'll decide when we're going to do the timing of that.

But I think we are going to do an episode about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth at some point TBD, and we'll certainly be talking about it, touching on it as we get some time with it.

But unfortunately, the Monday after the game's release, we don't have any thoughts for it because we're recording just in advance.

I played the demo a little bit.

Yeah.

What do you think of the demo?

It's good.

The demo section, they released two sections.

They released the Nibbleheim section where it's the flashback sequence in the original game.

And if you play the demo version of it before uh rebirth comes out uh your pro your your progress say like transfers to that so you don't have to replay that section again right and it looked cool it was awesome like having just played it recently the original it's interesting to see the game represented in this way now because you do recognize the things that are you know obviously very similar and then the things that are are you know, maybe a little different are a little different.

And then they released the desert area.

What was that called?

Juan or something.

but your progress there doesn't track because they had to they blocked some stuff off to keep it for the demo only because they want to they don't want to spoil anything in the demo, I guess.

You know, I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm very, very excited.

I have tomorrow off.

Wow, uh, and then as of recording, it comes out tomorrow.

So, launch day, yeah, I got 9 p.m.

tonight PST as of record.

I'm picking up a physical copy from a little bit

of retailer, but that's all I have to say about it for now.

Wow, I want to talk about the um

as of this week, controversial decision to change the ending of Remake when it was updated.

They changed it from what I played.

Yes.

Interesting.

They changed it from what I played, too.

They must have changed it from what I played because I finished it before this update.

Yeah.

So this update came out this week and they changed Aerith's

Aerith's

Aerith's Aeriths.

Aerith's

final line.

which has a lot of the community up in arms because their original line was, I miss it, the steel sky.

I miss it, the steel sky, about looking up and seeing Midgar above you.

And now she says, this sky, I don't like it.

Interesting.

Do we know, was just the translation changed or was the original Japanese dialogue altered?

It's the translation.

Got it.

The dialogue was not changed.

And some people have said, well, it's more accurate.

But other people are like, but it loses the flavor.

Yeah, it's a little less artful.

Yeah.

It's like, it's that, that's the whole thing with the localization.

It's like, how do you, yeah, so it says, yeah, sometimes the most direct thing doesn't actually reflect

it too.

The idea is this guy, this sky fucking sucks.

It's a bad sky.

Shoot a gun at the sky.

I don't have any feelings about it when I, when I hear that, about that change, but people, I guess people are so obsessed with the

minutiae of a thing.

Like, it's

the difference between the classic translation in NWE Vangelion of I'm the Lowest of the Low versus the original manga release,

manga being the

distribution company, where they changed it to I'm so fucked up,

which

people were upset about because Shinji shouldn't be saying fucked up.

i'm so fucked up

uh but yeah i don't have any feelings about that i also don't have any feelings about the mimetic quality of tifa's swimsuit that has been going viral on

x.com she got big old boobies and it's in a and they're in a bikini i haven't seen this oh yeah let me matt and i are going to take a look on this real quick just like just so i should know whether or not to be mad

it was posted by the italian government i'm sure you guys, it's made the news.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Let's talk about some video games we've been playing.

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

Nick, why don't you go first?

I'm happy to go first.

Although I do want to check in, because I'm going to talk about Baldur's Gate 3 a little bit,

even though we talked about it.

But I want to check in with our producer, Rochelle, because Rochelle, you weren't here for our record.

You did edit that behemoth of an episode.

Has it gotten you, has it provoked you to return to your BG3 playthrough?

It has.

I've been playing for the last two evenings.

Wow.

Wow.

Where are you at right now in the game?

You're in Act 3, right?

I just met Leroicin.

Oh, okay.

Or I actually just killed Leroikin.

Oh, wow.

All right.

With

the Aid of the Night song.

So

I just did that.

Wow.

I don't know.

Did any of you have to do that one?

I did, yes.

And

it's actually like.

I think

it's one of those things where even if you do like the like good option, quote unquote, good option, it still makes you feel like a little weird, right like it's kind of it's pretty gristly yeah um and then what i liked about that uh leroicin section is that there's like the the arcane vault that you get into that's part of it too yes did you find the genie I didn't know I didn't find a genie.

There's a, this is, I did not find this on my first playthrough.

It's like talked about in like one of the texts someplace that there is a, there is a hidden wall behind a chest.

It looks like it's that there's just a chest there, but you can just like what you can just phase through the wall.

You can just walk through it.

And then that leads you to a lamp.

And if you talk to the lamp, you can get sucked inside of it.

And

there's a genie you can talk to.

But what's crazy about it is just like, yeah, first off, it's like completely buried.

And it's got all this dialogue.

And

it's so just totally a secret.

But also, there's a remix of the main theme like as like a waltz that I think only plays within the genie's lamp.

Wow.

So it's like that in and of itself is like its own secret.

Yeah, it's just so layered.

I love a genie.

I love it too.

And they're fun.

And they're fun in the game.

There's a couple of them.

But the genie in this is actually the Will Smith genie, and he does slap you.

Yeah.

He deserves the shit out of you.

Yeah.

All right.

But are you having fun with it?

Are you back in the story?

I am.

I'm back in now.

I'm back in.

Are you going to see it through to the end?

I have to.

I love that.

I have to.

I know it's probably another hundred hours for people to get.

I think you're in the final stretch.

I'm glad that

editing a three-hour podcast didn't ruin the joy of the game for you.

So as far as what I've been playing, I'll be brief here because I've shared so many thoughts about this game, but I did like, I was, I spent like an hour just like looking at Game Pass and looking at my Steam library last week.

I consciously took basically a week off from when I stopped playing Baldur's Gate for the, like I finished that last playthrough and I was just like, I'm just going to walk away from this game for a little bit and do something else with my life.

And then I was looking at like, you know, Game Pass and looking at my Steam library for like an hour, just browsing, just having like, you know, decision fatigue and analysis paralysis, whatever your idiom you want to use trying to pick what to play.

And I was just like, what am I doing?

I want to play more Baldur's Gate 3.

So I loaded up Baldur's Gate 3 and I started an Honor Mode Dark Urge playthrough.

And

here's what I'll say.

I really like the Dark Urge.

I feel like it's like a really interesting way to play for people who aren't familiar with it, what it basically is.

And it's another thing that just like everything in this game is like, they did not have to do this.

Right.

But they added another origin character who it's, you can customize their, their look however you like.

But the idea is that this character basically has an inner monologue that is compelling them to do psychopathic acts.

And throughout it, you have, you can choose whether to go along with it or to, you know,

find yourself like,

denying it.

Those are both options.

But it is stuff that's like really harshly violent and like pretty much immediately insane.

Like within that first like prologue area, you're getting dark urge,

you know, specific content.

Like there's a part where you go to, there's a few passengers that are like hooked up to the mind flayer pods and they're just basically comatose.

And while you're,

while you're next to them, if you examine one of them, you get a line about like, you see yourself lying on an operating table, energy spilled everywhere.

Like you don't remember your name, but like you just know that you can like it's so like it's so it's such a specific like amnesiac with a haunted past sort of playthrough that also like leads you to do really really violent acts some of them involving party members who you've maybe gotten to know over the course of a playthrough.

So all that said the character I made

was a halfling abjuration wizard named Meryl Buttonwillow, a little cutie.

And I wanted to play, you know, one of the shorter races to see what the game was like.

Yeah.

The thing is, as I'm playing this, it is rubbing against the Dark Urge content, just like the visual that I picked for my character, and then also just like the halfling-specific dialogue, which is also presented to you.

Cause there's still Dark Urge-specific stuff, but there's still like race-specific stuff, class-specific stuff.

So, you know, like

the Dark Urge is telling me to like rip off the wings of a wounded bird.

Uh, and then the halfling side of me is saying, like,

uh, well, gee, can't we sit down with a pot of tea and talk this out?

You know, it's like both of these things are happening.

And as I'm going through it, I was like, this just feels like a, like a tough thing to role play.

I just like, I can't, I don't feel like these elements are quite coexisting.

So I played through it.

I did like the honor mode part a lot.

I love that you're, you're committed to one save.

I love that you can fail a role and feel like, fuck, well, I'm stuck with that.

Yeah.

And I love the tension of combat.

Like, it's just like, like, I had to flee combat for the first time just to survive.

Wow.

Because I was, I was like, I, I, not that I had that.

I was like, I'm going to have a total party wipe and this will be the end of my playthrough unless I just literally run away.

I love that feeling of tension, but I think just the specific character I picked,

I decided to re-roll.

So, you know, I played that for under 10 hours and then I'm just, I'm just starting anew with another character.

But a darker Jonor mode playthrough.

is next on the list

with another with another fresh start.

So yeah, kind of a false start there, but still loved what I experienced.

That's what I've been playing.

Heather or Matt, what about you?

So, I haven't gone back to Baldur's Gate now that the mandate is up.

It's just funny that you call it a mandate.

And I do,

having listened to the episode,

you did say, I'm going to continue playing this even when we're finished.

Yeah.

But

it's been a short week.

It's been a week.

And

I've started the final stage of

treatment.

So I've been really busy for the last week.

But I'm now in radiation treatment, which is

the final zone before I am cleared for takeoff again.

And so, yeah,

I've played some Fortnite.

The season is coming to an end.

That's all I've been able to play for the last week.

And I don't want to belabor

my experience with Fortnite this week because, you know, there's got to be other things to talk about.

So I'm super excited about playing Final Fantasy VII, but also

fearful for what I will be talking about during the what are we playing segments for the month should we decide to do Final Fantasy VII as our We Play You Play.

That's all I've been playing.

How about you, Matt?

Well, I had a busy weekend.

In a busy video gaming weekend, not that I had a lot of things to do.

I had nothing to do.

I had a very light weekend.

So I stayed indoors all weekend, made a dent in my couch.

There you go.

And I finished up Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Loved it.

Rolled credits on that.

Immediately went straight into

the intermission DLC where you play as Yuffie.

Finished that.

Loved that.

How long is that DLC?

I didn't play it.

It's like four or five hours.

I should play it too.

It's not really long, and it fucking rocks.

Yeah.

The Yuffie gameplay is so much fun.

Really, really great.

And then I went, like I said earlier, I did the

demo for Rebirth.

And so now I'm all caught up to the present, Final Fantasy VII-wise.

I guess I haven't played Dirge of Cerberus.

And I guess I haven't played

Crisis Core.

But, you know,

those will be for another day.

That's ancillary content.

I don't think you need to worry about that.

No, no, no.

Well, be careful.

Somebody might say, you absolutely need to, but I'm not a...

Look, I'm just like a you're not being a completionist.

I'm just being a chill guy.

I think it's Matt, I think it's remarkable that you went back and played vanilla Final Fantasy VII,

like the original game all the way through in its entirety.

I mean, that's that's that's above and beyond.

This is, yeah, I mean, I would.

By the way, I say vanilla there complimentary because vanilla is a flavor.

It's an exotic bean.

It's an exotic bean, yes.

Thank you.

And

no, I just have to stop and say that I do also love vanilla.

Vanilla's good.

It is so good.

Great flavor.

It's perfect.

It's the default for a reason.

It's a flavor.

It's so good.

Vanilla is delicious.

It's so good.

Rochelle vanilla?

My vanilla.

Hell, let's fucking go.

Four vanillas in the chat.

We love to see it.

But so, yeah, I mean,

I felt like, because I was interested in rebirth and I was, you know, initially interested in remake, but fell off of it.

But there were things in remake that if i had not played the original vanilla final fantasy 7 i would have been very confused yeah 100 and been like what is this um but so i'm really happy i caught up to the present earlier this week there was a pokemon presents on pokemon day

uh and it was like the 25th anniversary of of red and green in japan when this came when this little presents came out it's a little 12-minute presentation a lot of mobile game stuff a lot of updates coming to Pokemon Sleep, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Cafe Mix, that type of stuff.

One new game announced: Pokemon Legends Z-A.

I don't know what the official they're going with, but that's what it is.

And you know, just a couple of weeks ago with Ashley Askada here, I said we were talking about sequels we want.

Yes.

I was clamoring for another edition in the Pokemon Legends franchise, and just a s just a short few weeks later, it's announced, and I'm getting it.

Dreams can come true.

I'm on like Hideo Kojima shit, I guess.

Yeah.

Just sort of willing things into.

A soothsayer, a half-profit.

Yeah, I'm sort of a,

I'm like Nostradamus with Pokemon games.

I'm glad that worked out for you.

Yeah, really exciting about that, but it's not coming until 2025.

So this year might be a year without a Pokemon release.

Wow.

A major Pokemon release.

And that's remarkable.

That's really something because that means the people working on this game are going to have time to work on it and make sure it's good.

I wonder if at all that's reactive to PAL World.

Maybe.

I wonder if there was any, like, they saw the success of that game.

We're like, okay, we need to scale this up a little bit.

It's that, or they just, I mean, I can't imagine why they wouldn't have announced it at their presents.

Because so far, people are saying there's not a major Nintendo release around the holidays, unless there's like a surprise thing later.

But who knows?

But I'm very, very excited about that.

So excited.

It's a sequel, or you know, it has to do with the area, one of the areas from Pokemon X from the 3DS.

And so I dusted off my 2DS, booted up Pokemon X last night, and started a new game on that.

And I'm already having a blast.

You can have a nickname.

You can have your friends give you a nickname.

And there's like Lil Matt, Big Matt, or something, or you could pick something.

Yeah.

So, of course, I went with M Daddy.

So now every time I see one of my friends in the game, they call me M Daddy, and it makes me laugh every, it's so funny.

Yeah, that is good.

And then I sort of was like, oh, I wish I didn't save because I was like, I wish I could see what I could get away with.

Yeah.

But I bet you it's like you can't put like a swear or something.

But

that's it for me.

So I'm playing in the interim until tomorrow, probably.

I mean, that's such a, it's such, it's such a classic little kid move.

Yeah.

It's like making your initials in the arcade high score board be poo or ass.

Yeah.

It's like just having a funny name for your character.

It's like it's it just really puts a smile on my face.

I really loved to see the characters in the world of this game call me M Daddy.

Really, really fun.

But yeah, that's it for me until truly tomorrow when I get my hands on my physical copy of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Did you guys go digital or tangible for your Final Fantasy VII Rebirth orders?

I've been doing all tangible for PS5.

Yeah, every PS5 game I've bought on disc.

I went, yeah, this generation,

I'm going physical.

Because it's probably the last gasp of that.

I feel like PlayStation 6,

Xbox, series, whatever, whatever they're going to call the next generation, if there even is a next hardware generation, which is its own thing, I feel like that's all going to be digital only.

I don't think there's going to be a Blu-ray drive.

You're going physical?

You downloading it tonight, Heather?

I was going to do something controversial, which is play it digital

because I have more than one PS5

in the in the house now because Mary wanted her own PS5.

So there's my PS5

in one area and then Mary's PS5 in a different area.

And sometimes I like to play on Mary's PS5 and if you have a digital game, it's available on all your accounts across the board.

Whereas if you have a tangible game, you have to cart it around with you.

You also have to make sure that it's in the system if you're going to play on the portal.

Can't, you know, stream without that disc in the system.

But I also have been thinking about the resaleability and replayability of tangible goods.

So I'm wondering if I should get it digitally and then purchase it tangibly and then keep it in,

keep it sealed and just put it aside for a future day when either I can't play it digitally because the PS5 is, you know, I'm 80 years old and the systems allowing you to play digital games can't be authenticated.

Right.

Or, or, you know, like if there's like a

world post internet when the EMP comes and for some reason my system still works.

I don't know.

I'm just, I've been

musing.

I've been musing on the possibility of purchasing digitally and tangibly, but I also can't justify that cost.

So.

I don't know.

I haven't done the reverse.

I've done like the

bought it physically and then purchased digitally like on like I mean on like deeper discount.

So that way like if I'm playing if I want to play it again, I don't have to dig out the disc.

I could just load up Jedi, the first Jedi one, not Jedi Survivor, the other one.

Fallen Kingdom.

Yeah.

Jedi Fallen Order.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Because

I got it on digital for like $9 or something.

I was like, oh, that's just like a, that's a no-brainer to me when it's on deep discount.

Is Fallen Kingdom the Jurassic park subtitle is that what fallen kingdom

yes yeah yeah man fallen is a really

really it's a really good uh prefix for like fallen empire fallen kingdom fallen jedi it's fallen is a good word

yeah it's good it's a great word i pre-ordered this would have been like in 2011 2012 whenever that game came out i pre-ordered the diablo 3 collector's edition uh which is a big boy it's a big it's a big warchest actually when i when i was ever on video, the times when I've streamed from my home office, it's a part of my tableau in the background.

It's a big honk and war chest that I never opened.

And I did that.

I wasn't planning on reselling it.

I was just like,

I don't mind buying a Diablo game twice because this is a game I'm going to put a ton of hours into.

And then I could just have the...

what you were saying, Heather, I could just have this nice display piece.

And I'm planning on doing the same thing with the Baldur's Gate 3 Collector's Edition.

Like, I ordered that, and I don't think I'm actually going to play the version of the game that comes with because I already own it digitally.

Right.

But, but I might open it up just to mess around with that stuff.

There's some stickers.

A lot of cool stuff in there.

Yeah.

It has like an art book and whatever.

Yeah.

But, but I did look up on eBay how much

a brand new rare Diablo 3 Collector's Edition PC Windows version is.

is going for.

Anyone want to guess?

$1,000.

This, I think, retailed for $80.

I think that's what I paid for it back in 2012.

Nick's not like jumping for joy that he's sitting on a gold mine.

So, but for the exercise, I think he knows better than to do that.

I'm going to guess it retails

for like $130.

Maybe on the lower end, but.

Heather, got a guess?

$1,300.

Matt, you both lose by price's right rules, but Matt is closer.

$119.99.

Wow.

So, you you know,

not much appreciation for sitting on something for a decade if you're thinking of it purely as an investment.

I wonder if that's because people didn't love Diablo 3 like at launch.

I think so.

I think also it's just like, you know, it's

once we reached a certain point where people began...

Like, like all the stuff that's really actually valuable in games are things that predated the idea of collecting games, right?

Like it's like shit from like the NES Famicom, Sega Master System era and before.

Yeah, everybody who who got one of those, or everybody who wanted one of those got one.

Yes, right.

So they're like, okay, well, like, nobody missed out on the chest.

Yeah.

Like, it was like, I need that in my collection.

Like, if you wanted it so bad, you probably did get it.

Yeah.

But if your dad owned, you know,

an electronic store and for some reason you inherited a still-sealed copy.

of Super Mario Bros.

3, you know, that's an extremely rare possession these days.

And so that's the kind of thing that goes for six figures or whatever, wherever the fuck.

Yeah, there was a

sale of The Legend of Zelda Sealed this week for the NES for $288,000.

And that's

a lot of money.

And thanks to all of our patrons for letting me make that purchase.

Really appreciate your support.

I guess Nick has some secret get-played Patreon that we don't know about.

Well, I got a secret Patreon.

Oh, God.

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all right let's talk about this documentary Hideo Kojima connecting worlds it is on Hulu it is directed and filmed by Glenn Milner you can also watch it on Disney Plus this is an hour-long film that just came out.

I mean, in the past couple of weeks, right?

It's very pretty new.

I think on the 23rd.

Yeah.

And it was not really on my radar, but something with Kojima in it.

I'm going to give it a look.

I will say going in, I talked with our buddy Chef Kevin.

Yes.

And Chef Kevin had seen it, and he had an observation.

And I apologize to Kevin, who listens to the show.

Hey, buddy, how you doing out there?

I hope I characterized what your thoughts were correctly.

But I think.

I think

he's all like, dude, I saw this.

Uh-oh, my hand's stuck in the pickle jar.

Classic chef, Kevin.

So let go of the pickle, you fucking maniac.

Oh, but then how am I going to put it in my mouth?

Sometimes I think it's worse to be a friend of you guys because I feel like you wouldn't talk like this about your enemies.

Like you wouldn't,

you wouldn't

know what I say about my enemies.

Just like

dragging them through the mud for no reason.

He popped

in.

Love you, Kevin.

But he kind of, it was like, it's kind of

it being an hour is kind of an odd length, right?

Like it's not quite a...

Like it feels more like episode one of a documentary mini series that doesn't come about.

And maybe that's what it was.

Maybe it was meant to be the pilot of they were going to do like this into a three or six part or something like this.

Or or it feels like a short movie uh but it's also like the information in it isn't almost kind of isn't enough to justify its hour length it's kind of like i feel like you can compress this down to a 20 minute youtube video yeah it's like you either want and this was a thing he did say you want like the psych odyssey version of this like basically we're watching this and like what you're spoiled by psych odyssey because you want just death stranding psych odyssey and this is this is not nearly as comprehensive yeah and then you also sort of like you want like when it when a documentary is about a living figure, and they maybe have some hand in it, I want them to be like, like almost like not, like, like, I want them to have no hand in it really at all.

Like, uh, the Tony Hawk documentary that came out on HBO like last year or something, like, he's Tony Hawk.

He could have been like, hey, make me seem like a really good, like, normal guy in this.

And that documentary is about like how intense and like, how much of a workaholic he is to his detriment.

Like, at the cost of, like, relationships and his life with, like, his kids and stuff.

But that's a more interesting documentary.

And yeah, we're kind of in this era of documentaries because they need the subject's approval.

And, you know, there's so much more,

I feel like just like, you know,

publicists and agents and executives involved in these sorts of things.

And because they do so well on streaming that now to involve like...

to get like to get Lionel Ritchie to sign off on the Netflix documentary about We Are the World, it kind of needs to be Lionel Richie hagiography.

It needs to be this thing.

We're just going to make this guy look good.

And

yeah,

that is a bummer about it.

You wanted to interrogate the subject a little bit more.

Because at least

that's where like the meat is.

That's where the juice is at.

Like I want the juice.

I watched this movie with my wife who has like a sort of satellite interest in Kojima because of me because of me being in her life.

And then our mutual friend who doesn't play video games at all.

I think that the length was targeting people who don't.

It's weird because why would you watch a Kojima documentary if you didn't know who Kojima was?

But also,

it was such a cursory review of like Kojima's life and his like, you know, his execution on ideas that for us, the people who know his work, there wasn't any revelation in this, in this documentary at all.

So it was targeted to, because my, the friend who doesn't play, the non-gaming friend, Shelby, Shelby was like, whoa,

this is insane.

I want to play video games.

This is incredible.

Right.

And I got to look this guy up.

So

that, that seemed to be the target for this.

And as such, the length is perfect too, because you don't want to exhaust somebody.

with a bunch of minutiae that they don't they don't have any interest in it felt like i don't know like on VH1, when you see like, who were the Beatles?

Like, that's like a documentary that's not for somebody who loves the band, but the Beatles is so big that like everybody kind of knows them.

And it felt like this Kojima documentary was made under the assumption that everybody knew who Kojima was.

And it was sort of

a light novel approach to a documentary about him.

It was a very...

weird window.

That's what it was.

I think also, and to what you were just talking about in terms of the purpose of this, I do think you're right about that.

Like, it felt like an ad the more I was watching it.

And this is something that PlayStation Studios produced this, right?

Yeah.

Like, it felt like it was just sort of like a, this is, this is essentially branded content to kind of talk up Kojima Productions and our collaborations with them and, you know, get you hyped about the Death Stranding franchise and see all these celebrities are involved in it.

And hey, there's, you know, that's Death Stranding.

Keep an eye out for this guy's work death stranding 2 is on the way we're making a death stranding movie like it like a lot of it does kind of feel like it's just a

it's just a uh like a documentary but it's it's a it's a cloaking device for product placement um and and also i i think that that ties in with how they treat kojima which is just

I do think a tour theory is a little bit annoying and overplayed.

Like it's like that's a thing that kind of like these things are all collaborative in film and television and, and, uh, you know, and video games, especially with the size of teams these days.

Like, there is not like one unitary authorial voice.

But if we are going to apply a tour theory to any game maker, Kojima qualifies.

Yes.

He's the fucking weirdest,

you know, most specific guy, and he has achieved all this huge mainstream success while also remaining completely himself.

So, but this one, it's, it's so just like complimentary toward him him and flatters him repeatedly.

And almost to it, it feels like almost cartoonish in terms of how much they're talking up his genius and don't say a negative thing about him really at any point in the film.

Not even like he worked, like you were saying, Matt, it's not even like he works long hours.

So he sometimes, you know, loses touch with friends.

Something like that could still be framed as a positive, but talking about, you know, just how this actually affects his life.

Yeah, because even like some of the guys that like had been with him for like a long time, they can't sit there and be like, every single day we've worked with them has been nice and good.

Like you just kind of know that it hasn't.

Like, there's like, that's just any working relationship, especially like in making video games where Crunch is present like in every, in every scenario, almost.

Like there's not, there's almost not a game made under Crunch.

That's a great thing to point out because yes, they, they like basically just.

montage over or I think just time jump over crunch entirely.

Like they go from like, you know, like, all right, that's a wrap on all the motion capture and they cut to the game going gold.

It's like, wait, wait a minute.

So like a year's worth of like intensive labor of people working like 12 to 14 hour days to try to ship this game were just not like not going to acknowledge.

And it's also like, like there's a part in it where he's like, you know, he talks about all his games open like with a Hideo Kojima game.

He's like, what that means is that there's like no compromises and there's nothing

like getting in the way of my vision or whatever.

But then you see him and he's like in this office and he's sort of like, it's like an open office and he kind of like works where everybody else is working too, which is sort of like,

I don't know.

I feel like I've seen bosses do that and it's like, I'm like you guys.

And it's like, no, you're not.

Like

my car doesn't work and you have like a nice, you know what I mean?

So it's like, I don't know how that's really working in his favor.

But then he's also standing over guys and being like, that doesn't look that doesn't look good.

And it's like, yeah, I guess it's like, I mean, that's interesting to see how the process is made.

But like, I don't know, that they didn't, it's about the development of this game that's like this interesting, weird thing, and it's also like it doesn't give any insight really into how games are made really at all.

I think no, for sure.

And I would have liked to have seen more of that, but again, you know, maybe to Tether's point, this is kind of something that's targeted at a general audience, not at not at enthusiasts, gamers.

Can I talk about this just as a documentary a little bit?

Because I overall, like, after I finished this, I think I was kind of, I kind of just landed on like, that Sucked.

I think it's just a bad movie.

Yeah.

And part of that is way too reliant on talking heads, particularly celebrities that don't have any real connection to Kojima.

Yeah.

And then the other part, and again, it speaks to the sort of thing of just like, hey, this is for a random person browsing Hulu, like who maybe doesn't know who this is, or Disney Plus.

But also as a piece of documentary filmmaking, like, there's all this like overplayed B-role of like police riots or telephone operators or the sped up Koyaniskatzi style highway footage, which is like, what is this doing in this movie?

This is just like, this feels like AI-generated, you know, like documentary footage.

And then the same sort of thing, like, even, there are even moments when he feels, when Kojima is like kind of like offering some personal insight, but it's undercut by the visuals.

Like, I hated the anime of his childhood.

Yes.

Like, I was like, this is like he's talking.

I want to see him talk about this, or I want to see actual pictures of him and his family, you know, or I want to see his childhood home.

I don't need to see this like kind of dreamlike anime interpretation of what he's saying.

And the same sort of thing when he's talking about how like all his games are anti-war and he doesn't love combat, he loves ways to make players avoid combat or force players to deal with the consequences of combat.

And so much of that comes from growing up with

the son of two people who survived World War II and were always telling these stories.

It's like he's doing that.

But while it's happening, they're like showing like, you know, b-roll of bombers flying overhead that you'd see in just like any history channel documentary.

It's like, what is this doing here?

Yeah, yeah.

And like, there is like interesting, like, there's like little nuggets of stuff that like on its own are interesting, but deserved more airtime.

Like, one of the developers was like, he makes games.

He wants his games to like be about something and about like, not just like, he doesn't want to make a game just to make a video game.

He wants to like to make a statement.

And I'm like, that's in, that is interesting, but like, you can't just say that and then be like, now we're on to the next thing.

Like, I want to know what he was thinking about when they were making police knots.

Like, what's like, what was on his mind at the time?

Like, and you know, what was going on going around, like, or, you know, what was going on

culturally in that moment when he, like, that specific moment when he was like, I have to make this game about

police astronauts.

Well, they don't.

Okay, so this is another thing.

This, this documentary is basically exclusively focused on Death Strand.

And I think that also just comes from it being a collaboration with Kojima Productions and PlayStation Studios, because it is wild to spend an hour talking about Hideo Kojima and not mention Konami.

Like that is like they talk about Metal Gear Solid and they do mention police knots in the context of Yoji Shinkawa as longtime art director, who we do hear from the documentary and honestly some of the most interesting stuff.

The few times we get to hear from Yoji Shinkawa and then we cut to Grimes.

But

it's like, it's really like i i wish we had uh more of that but this is almost exclusively focused on his post-konami career and like what heather was saying earlier about like this is like a document like meet the beatles the documentary but it kind of is like a documentary about paul mccartney that doesn't mention the beatles you know what i mean it's like all like paul mccartney the genius behind wings and you know what uh and and the orchestral uh piece standing stone you know it's just talking about all his stuff and he was on the simpsons too you know it's like well yeah but like the main thing the thing that defined his career, the reason he is who he is, needs to be like emphasized.

Paul does that in interviews too, sometimes.

He like undercuts, like being in the Beatles, right?

Right, right.

Like, he's sort of like, we were just full labs from Liverpool.

And I'm like, no, you kind of weren't, actually.

You kind of the four biggest geniuses on earth.

Like, but well, that's why I think you can't, you can't, just can't offer a subject too much control over their own documentary, but you know, whatever.

That's what, that's what this medium has turned into.

Um, it should have just been on the director's cut, like, disc as like a featurette.

I agree.

I would have liked it more in that context.

I agree with you.

Here's my what if we're wrong take,

which is there are few documentaries that I can imagine being more emblematic and thematically relevant to Kojima's use of celebrity than this documentary.

So like

when Guillermo del Toro or Nick Ruffin show up in Death Stranding, it's like almost like a parade, you know, like, look, this guy's in it.

Conan O'Brien, he's in a, he's in a bunker.

Uh, and this felt like what it felt like a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork to be like, we love Kojima, we think he's a genius.

And they're not being much more to their presence in the documentary, which feels kind of like how they are utilized within the game itself.

So I, I don't know, I, didn't have the same disdain for it that you guys did.

And it might have been because of my viewing experience with two people who didn't know Kojima as much and found it riveting and cool.

And they loved that his childhood was made like an anime because that's kind of what documentaries do now is that tropey sort of like, I was, uh, I was on the streets of New York City.

And then you cut, like, it's never like B-roll.

It's never like somebody acting that.

It's always some, you you know watercolor rotoscoped fucking like cg version of redoing somebody's story uh and i think that's because that's palatable to a lot of people so i didn't hate this i didn't think it sucked but i also didn't feel like it was made for me yeah i mean i can definitely agree i don't think it was made for us uh by the way in terms of the the avalanche of celebrities i mean i do like hearing from george miller guillermo del toro you know like that's interesting.

People who are in a similar role as Kojima, but work in film and talking from their perspective.

And Norman Reed is telling the story of Guillermo del Toro saying about Kojima, hey, this guy's going to call you.

And whatever he asks you, just say yes.

And Norman Reed is like, oh, okay.

And that's how he got involved with Death Stranding.

Like, that's really interesting.

There are nuggets in this.

There's like that whole thing I absolutely loved.

And my main takeaway was, if Guillermo del Toro said anything nice about me, I would feel like a million bucks.

Because you like the way he was talking about it, and I was like, he feels this with his whole chest.

Yeah.

He like of the people talking about it, I was like, he gets, he gets Kojima in a way that Kojima wants to be understood.

Right.

And that rocks.

Like, that, like, really, really, like, I don't know.

I love that.

I could have seen more of that.

Um, I love George Miller and his, like, cool glasses.

Yeah, he looks cool as hell.

He has these, like, sort of red-tinted glasses and like a chain, like, hanging them, like, like around his like ears or whatever.

And I was like, he's, this guy's awesome.

It makes you realize to be one of those guys, you have to have a look.

Like that as part of just like your, your, you know, your curated

image or whatever.

It's like, I look like this guy.

And these are guys that

he wants respect from.

Right.

And they, and they respect him immensely.

And so that's, that's really interesting.

He talks about how he, his own comparison for himself is like, like Cronenberg or Lynch, someone who can make something that's edgy and specific and their own, but also has mainstream appeal.

That's what he's trying to go for and succeeds at.

I like when Guillermo Dotoro is like, Death Stranding is the first game where I got to the end of it and I felt like a better person.

He's like, wow, that is a good observation.

I like that.

I thought it was wild when Kojima was like, you know, somebody like Cronenberg, who is an indie director, but also has mainstream success.

And I was like,

Cronenberg?

I guess like the Jeff Goldblum, the fly, you know, was a big hit.

I'm trying to think of what else.

He's had some hits.

I can't think of a worse.

The biggest nightmare blunt rotation I could think of would be Kojima and David Lynch.

That'd be a fucking disaster.

I need them to work on something together immediately and then to never see it.

That's going to be a nightmare.

But he's working with, I know he's working with Jordan Peale on something.

I do think he's befriending these directors with the intention of learning how to direct himself.

Like, I think he's like, you know, because he's obviously like, there is, it's a transferable skill.

Like, I do think, I think of him as a director when he's like making these games because he's like in there like with the motion capture actors and things like that and like in directing them in scenes.

So, but I think he's trying to like hone that muscle by working with these directors that are excellent and, you know, that he really respects so that he can take what they do and his observations from them and apply it to further game making, which I think is good because a lot of his games are cutscene heavy, let's say.

Yeah, for sure.

So

you want those directed well.

Yeah, I don't know.

I guess like

I'll concede to what Heather's saying, just in terms of like, this is just not for me.

I just kind of like, I just found it to be a frustrating watch that I don't, I feel like if you already know anything about this guy, you're already a fan, this maybe isn't worth your time to commit to watching the whole thing.

Maybe, you know, there are a few interview clips that are worth seeing, but hope the wait for someone to curate those in a YouTube video or

like as a Twitter post or something like that.

Because I think watching as a whole, it's just like, it's a little bit formless.

I also, there's like things that you want them to interrogate more.

Cause like when he talks about, he's like, when he talks about his, I wouldn't be making games if my dad was still alive.

My father was a very scary man.

Yeah.

It's just like, and then they don't explore that.

They just kind of move on from it.

Yeah.

It's just like, there's that.

That's an intense thing to say.

And especially for a guy who made an entire game about being a single parent.

You know, it's just like, what, like, what is going on in that Nagan of yours?

There's that.

And then in the very beginning, someone's describing him as

always fighting.

Like, every day when he's working, he's always fighting.

Yeah.

And then they're like, then they have this observation that they're like, and we don't know, like,

who knows what?

Maybe he's fighting against himself.

And then it's like a shot of Kojima.

And I was like, okay, we're going to get into this guy's fucking brain.

We're going to really figure some stuff out about this guy.

And then it just sort of like cuts to like, you know, Grimes.

And she's just like, yeah, he's a genius.

And it's like, okay, like, okay,

we know this.

Yeah.

We figured, we figured out Kojima.

He's great.

He's good.

And we like him.

It's like he's the president of a nation where he must be worshipped.

Yeah, it feels like propaganda.

I,

as a side note, every time Grimes was on camera, I kept being like, that woman has had sex with Elon Musk.

Yeah, that's like a bummer to know.

And it really bummed me out.

Like, it gave me like a sadness.

Uh, not to judge anybody's, you know, interest in other people, but he is so transparently a bad person.

Like, so aggressively a bad person that it was, yeah, it was a real,

it was a real bummer thinking about, I mean, I couldn't not think about it.

Yeah.

Not in like a rent-free way, but just in a like,

well, whatever.

For me, it's rent-free.

It's just there.

Yeah.

And I just can't stop thinking about it.

But there was the musicians.

Gosh.

What was that?

Oh, churches.

Yes.

And I do like hearing from churches because they're such a huge part of the soundtrack.

They're a huge part of the soundtrack.

Wait, now I'm wondering, does Grimes have a song in the Death Stranding soundtrack we forgot about?

That must be it.

Maybe she sang about all the goo everywhere.

Speaking of Grime,

thanks, Rochelle.

I was happy to see churches in the documentary only because I met them one time and they were all really, really nice.

That's it.

Oh, that's cool that you met them.

They're really nice.

Yeah.

Nice folks.

Nice.

I can't see anyone.

I can't say anything about Death Stranding.

Wait, is it did did she do a song?

Grimes?

No, she didn't do a song.

That's what I was I was just looking for.

I was just binging it, and it looks like all I can see is that

she met Kojima, so they're perhaps mutual fans that happened in 2018, and there's speculation that she'd be involved.

Yeah.

And then this game rant story that Grimes and Elon Musk are having a baby and everyone's making Death Stranding jokes, which I don't remember, but.

Yeah, I don't remember that either.

And then, you know,

his best friend on earth,

Jeff Kiley, is

in the documentary and kind of just says the same things that always come up when Kojima comes up, that he's, you know, like considered the first Autour game developer and that

like just that he's good.

Like everybody was like, he's good at games.

I like the games he made.

His presence in particular, because

he's basically a professional Kojima friend, it seems.

His presence in it kind of tells you that like what this is going to be about.

Yeah.

I really liked the

set dressing for everybody's interviews that told you so much about what image they wanted to give across, like what they were trying to convey.

So like there's a stack of books that you can't see the bindings on next to Kojima because,

you know, you want to, he wants to say, I'm well read, but he also, you can't because of like rights or whatever, you're not going to list every book on your thing, so every book is turned away.

And they did the same thing with the um, it's all interview with the

they did the same thing with the actors where they'd have like a few books on a nice table and they were turned away from the camera.

Uh, and then uh,

Nick Ruffin's table had a few loose Legos and like a like a sketch of like some some like diagram on a whiteboard.

And it felt to me like somebody trying to be like, I'm really creative.

Like I'm, oh, I'm, I'm that kind of creative.

And I was like, I love, I love these little stories that everybody's trying to tell.

Cause it's the same for me.

Like when I, when I do like BTS stuff for Rick and Morty, I'll put like a char helmet in the background so that somebody who's watching it might be like, oh, she likes Gundam.

You know, like,

it's, it's always, unless you're in like a,

you know, a rental home or something and you can't you have no control over it.

I just

I love the idea of like the crew coming to somebody's house and being like, what if we just dump these Legos out on your table?

Right, right.

What if they tracked, what if they trapped Nick Ruffin in there and were like, you get three Legos and something to draw on until you say what we want you to say.

And then it's like, okay, okay, I'm done with my squiggle, please.

Oh, can I, I just,

I know we're about wrapped up, but I just like add a couple other things that I did want to talk about, which is that I do think all the stuff that we're seeing about Kojima, where we're seeing Kojima direct the actors during the motion caption sections and then also the VO, like that was like all cool stuff.

And that was stuff that made me feel more like, again, we just, can we focus this on Death Stranding specifically?

Yes.

Or even more so than it is.

This is because it's mostly like, here's an overview of Kojima's life and then the one game that he made, Death Stranding, but it's like,

something that really got into the weeds of production a bit more.

Cause I love seeing like, you know, the actors being like, well, you don't really know what's happening in this scene, but you know, we're just going to go for it.

They're all kind of confused because they're kept in the dark about certain details.

And they feel like Kojima is kind of drip feeding them all the information they can handle at a given moment because his stuff is so dense.

But then also just.

They're talking with, they're like, he's talking in Japanese.

It's being translated to French.

And the actor is speaking in English.

You know, it's like all these sorts of things.

It's like, man, this is such an interesting workflow.

And And the woman who's directing the VO sessions, the English VO sessions, like, I'd love to know how she communicates with Kojima and how all that shit works.

Yeah.

But we just don't get any detail on that.

And then even like the stuff with like, there's a scene where Norman Ritas and Troy Baker are at a table and things are being explained to them about

Death Stranding.

And Norman is like.

obviously like not really like a video game guy and like just doesn't really know was not familiar with Kojima before does not really understand it but Troy is like really taking it in and like because he's worked in video games and obviously has

You know

a familiar a familiarity with with Kojima and so he's taking it in as like a this is what I do.

Yeah.

So I think there's like an interesting thing there too where like they're both actors, but they both work in different

like mediums and to have them come together in like a certain way is like kind of interesting and like uh like they have ended up having to do the same thing that they normally do but it's for a different reason but like it was just interesting to see that like troy had this like

uh understanding of it or like was trying to understand it more and norman was just like mouth agape like huh yeah there's this there's this combination of of kind of old hands at this sort of acting and then people who are completely new to video games by the way Does Mad Mickelson, does Mads Mickelson just casually toss out a huge endgame spoiler?

Did you catch that?

Oh, I think so.

I think he does.

I think he reveals like essentially like the last scene of the game, which all three of us were shocked by.

Having seen interviews with him though, and like just kind of like a fan of his,

I'll call it chaotic vibe, that is exactly the type of thing that he just like doesn't give a shit about.

He kind of, he rocks.

He's so funny and weird.

There's a, an energy that Norman Ritas gives off in Death Stranding that now that I've seen this documentary makes me wonder if that was his

energy in the project.

There's a sort of like,

he's, Sam is very reserved.

And I know that that's part of the character is that Sam doesn't like being touched and everything, but like, he's so reserved that he, like, the way he drinks a monster energy drink or like the way he goes over to look at the mirror.

feels like a person who has never gone over to a mirror before, if that makes sense.

Yeah, right.

No.

Like he'd like the way he would like sit or adjust in the like in the little room that he had, the little bedroom, always felt strangely artificial to me.

Uh, and now I'm like, oh, was that because he's being directed and he doesn't understand the context of anything, or is that like the character that they wanted him to play?

Because it's there's so much artifice in his performance, um,

I which I found extremely endearing when I was playing the game but now i'm like oh is that is that sam or is that norman or is the like the the sort of blurring of that venn diagram part of the project itself because like obviously you have ads for his

you know amc show on the on the shower so it's it is reminding you that the actor is the character but Yeah, I don't know.

Watching him perform stuff and then be like, I don't know what I'm talking about

made me feel like him being like,

what do you mean, Bridges?

Was like maybe just literally him?

Yeah, it is.

That is interesting because he seems genuinely overwhelmed by the process and is saying things he thinks are indecipherable.

And, you know, that seems...

hey, if you want to attribute it to Kojima, then like, you know, maybe that's part of his genius is that he's, he knows that this is what he wants from an, from the character, so that he knows if he, if he gives the actor this limited amount of context for what they're doing, that's what will come across to the performance.

But yeah, I don't know, whatever it is,

that is an interesting observation, and that is the thing you get from some of this BTS footage.

But yeah,

I don't regret watching it.

I just kind of wish it was something else.

Yeah, I would love a more like investigative piece, but I know that he's also like, it's interesting for somebody that's like so

I'm the brand.

Yeah, he is like a private guy like in like a like you don't really know much about like his family or like anything like that like that thing that nugget about my dad was a scary guy is like the most I've ever heard or read or anything about his family.

Yeah, I mean that that's what what makes it that's one of the reasons like he's he's both very forthright and also kind of inscrutable.

And that's like kind of why you want to dig in a little deeper on him.

Maybe we'll get that someday.

I feel like this won't be the last Kojima documentary ever made.

No.

Hopefully, it's not made by the news or something.

Any other thoughts on this?

I had problems with it.

I don't know if I don't think I hated it, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted.

But if you out there

listening, watched it and enjoyed it, let us know what you liked about it.

There you go.

Hey, how about a segment?

Hell yeah, dog.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Oh, no uh-oh needed because this will be a lot of fun.

Uh-uh.

It's our video game version of Would You Rather?

It's Would You Blathers?

And this is Would You Blathers Kojima Edition.

Oh, shh.

So I'll give you a scenario.

You tell me which outcome you would prefer.

Rochelle, you're welcome to play along if you like.

First up, Would You Blathers have the prefix for your name be solid, liquid, or

punished.

So, solid matt, liquid matt, or punished matt.

What do you think?

Well,

I feel like punished matt sitting so close to you.

No, that's not true at all.

I really, I quite enjoy your company, Nick.

God bless you, right back at you, buddy.

I think, I feel like this isn't, this isn't canon to the game,

but liquid matt makes me sound like

you can't depend on me in some way.

Solid Matt,

people are like,

okay,

that's a solid guy.

Yeah, that's a good nickname.

Solid Matt.

What do you like better?

Solid Matt or M-Daddy?

You know what?

M-Daddy, honestly.

It has

a nice little ring to it.

But for this exercise, I think I'd go solid.

Solid is good.

Wow.

Liquid for me.

Oh.

Wow.

Okay, but liquid heather works for Heather for some people.

Yeah, it is fitting.

Heather, Heather is too much of a like it's a liquidy name.

So I think solid Heather just doesn't have the right bite, but liquid Heather feels like, oh, I'm a Kojima character.

Yeah, like fragile Heather or something.

Like it, it works.

Yeah.

So yeah, I'd go with liquid.

I certainly wouldn't go with punished,

even though, you know, sometimes on the pod,

sometimes on the pod period

well punish snake is also venom snake but i didn't give you venom snake that's too that's that one's too cool um rochelle uh what do you get you get a thought on this one um my nickname is ranch so i feel like solid ranch is funny that is really good

your nickname is ranch hold on roll what the hell are you talking about

your nickname is ranch you know my other podcast how are you withholding this from me

Oh, yeah.

Most of my friends call me Ranch.

Most of your friends call you Ranch.

A big chunk.

Am I hearing this correctly?

Is she saying Ranch?

Ranch!

Like Ranch dressed?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll ask.

Rochelle, why do they call you that?

One of my roommates.

said one day that in his dream my name was Ranch and then everyone just started calling me Ranch.

rochelle is interesting

yes

oh my god i loved every second of hearing that that's amazing oh that rocks would you like us to call you ranch you guys can call me ranch wow wow interchangeable i love it okay ranch it is at least for now at least for this episode thanks ranch um as for me punished wiggle is just too fitting all right next up

would you blathers have a functional codec implanted in your inner ear, but it interrupts you constantly, or

see and hear the exclamation point alert sound every time someone spots you in public?

Oh.

So this could work like a friend sees me.

Yeah, and then you get, you get like, oh, a friend sees me.

Yeah.

I'll turn around and see where my friend's at.

Right.

But it's interrupting you in the physical space.

Do I have an exclamation point above me?

Yeah.

If you, yeah, you do.

Because then it's like, if it's visual for them to like, if if the person that spots me sees that, well, no confirmation.

No, they're not seeing it.

This is for you.

Okay.

This is your reality.

Um, I think I'm gonna go Kodak.

Because I, I, both are interruptions.

Yeah.

Sometimes I don't wanna be seen and or know that I've been seen.

You know what I mean?

And

I'd rather just like get like some interruption of somebody being like, have I ever seen this movie called Godzilla?

Yeah, it's about this or whatever.

And then it's like just somebody giving me an info dump about a movie movie they saw.

I'm like, all right, thanks.

That's fine to me.

That's like how I prefer to interact.

Wow.

Either codec or exclamation point.

Exclamation point.

Wow.

But

that's, I think it would be handy

because then you could like, you could be like

at a coffee shop and you see somebody that you know, but you kind of don't want to talk to them.

Like you can know for certain whether or not they know that you're there.

Yes, right.

No, that is helpful.

So,

so like for an introvert like myself, being able to like in a binary system, have been seen or have not been seen,

to know when I can walk away from one of those moments, like coast is clear, nobody's any the wiser, like just walk away would be extreme extremely beneficial.

But like the idea of being interrupted by a Kodak all the time sounds like a fucking nightmare.

Yeah, I think of how frequently I get like text messages, especially when a group thread is like really going.

It's like, man, if that was happening, it was going to go,

if I was getting that in my ear constantly, I'd be going nuts.

Hmm.

I should change my text sound to that, actually.

I did do that for a while, and it was awesome.

Yeah, honestly, I loved it.

That's really good.

But the exclamation point, what if it's your birthday?

And you go somewhere where everybody's at already.

Yeah.

And they all see you at one time.

Is it going off like a million times?

Yeah, it is.

It's like when that whole room of soldiers spots you when you're, you know, trying to

find you'd love that.

I do like that.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, I'm being seen by this many people.

Okay, that's fine.

Rochelle, what about you?

What do you think?

Yeah, exclamation point.

Okay.

All right.

Hey, look, there's Ranch.

Solid ranch.

Ranch, we need you to take down.

We need you to construct a weapon to destroy metal gear.

Metal gear?

What was it called in the, in, in part three?

We need you to destroy the plants so the shaggy hod will not be functional.

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

Okay, next up.

Would you blathers have a face covered with welts from hornet stings like the pain

or

have to always have exposed skin because that's how you breathe like quiet.

This is tough.

So cold day, you got to have like a tank top on because you breathe through your skin or you have like a face that's kind of just, you know, the cornets are your friends, but they've they've stung you a shitload.

So I have dominion over the hornets.

Yeah, you still have the powers of them.

Okay.

But we're focusing on the negatives here.

Yeah, no, no, no.

And, you know, I just love showing my body.

I love that.

That always feels good.

So it's, I'm having such a hard time.

Yeah.

I think, you know i think i think i'm gonna go hornets because i think that's a more interesting power like

i can breathe normally yeah i'm always afraid of not being able to breathe i have asthma that's a the i have asthma too and it's like the idea of like having to respirate through my skin that's really panicky yeah uh so yeah i have all these welts but nobody can see my roles you know what i mean i can literally like my

normal clothes and like have have hornets yeah And I'll train them to be nice to my friends.

I'm not going to have them stinging my friends.

Right.

I can still do all my normal stuff.

And your friends will still like you with some welts on the face.

Yeah.

They might not like me if they see what I'm working with.

I think,

ugh, both of these are horrible.

Yeah.

Can I ask a question

about

the way Quiet breathed, which is, she breathes through her skin.

If she gets in water, she she dies

yes i well i forget exactly how it works um sonic rules huh can't get in water

but i mean i think it's functionally the same as like holding your head underwater you know you can't get oxygen into your water

you know there's some like weird kojima logic to if she can survive in water it's like yeah but if she like you know burps when she's underwater or something, then it's fine.

I think I'm going to have to go with welts.

There's too much, there's too many weaknesses to

having to breathe through your skin.

Yeah.

And

those weaknesses are...

Yeah, that's what I'm sort of weighing.

Yes.

That's right.

How vulnerable it would make you to have to breathe through your skin.

So yeah,

that's my feeling.

I don't remember what Liquid...

or what was her name?

Quiet.

Quiet.

I don't remember what she looks like.

I haven't played five.

Apparently, I actually never played five either.

It's one of those games I've always meant to play, and it's just like, it's such a fucking 50-hour commitment.

But then it's complaining about a 50-hour game now after I've played through Baldur's Gate 3 in its entirety twice feels absolutely trivial.

I found a Reddit thread that's talking about whether Quiet can breathe underwater.

And it's basically, it's just the idea is like it's here's the top reply.

Think of her skin like a mouth.

She can use it to breathe and to drink, but only one at a time.

And so it effectively don't have gills gills that can filter the oxygen out of water.

That, for some reason, was one of the most horrific things I've ever heard.

Rochelle, hornet sting face or breathe through your skin?

Well, how much skin needs to be covered?

I think it's a, I mean, like, it's like a,

so I'm wearing these shorts now and they don't leave a lot to the imagination.

I think I also need to take off my sweatshirt.

So I think you have to like, I think it's like short sleeves

and shorts.

I think that's what I'm gonna do.

Quiet wears like a bra

and underwear and like nylon.

Quiet is very, very skimpy, but I don't know if you have to go that far in this hypothetical.

That's a choice.

Yeah, I think I gotta go, well, it's I'm just notoriously cold.

Yeah.

I probably, you know what?

I'll just, just to mix it up, I'll say breathe through my skin.

But I feel like that just makes me a completely different type of guy.

That one's like circled a lot on you for some reason.

You have underlotted it.

All right, next one.

Would you blathers sword fight to the death your father, who's the president, or be forced to incinerate the corpse of your mother, who's also the president?

Okay.

I feel like we were hard on the documentary.

I do have to say, Kojima rocks.

He does rock.

No, he's the fucking

simultaneously a big freak and also the funniest person alive.

He's so funny.

God.

I don't want to, you know.

Oh, no, I was about to say something really dark.

I'm not going to say that.

I think I'm going to go with, yeah, I can't wrap my head around

incinerating my actual mother.

Like, I can't do it.

I have to abstract this one a little bit.

If I try to think about it as my actual parents, it starts to feel a little weird.

Yeah.

And I also would not want her to be the president.

Um,

because if I'm in trouble, then the president's mad at me.

That sucks.

Um,

gosh, I

think it's tough because both endings are so like, or you know, both things in

Metal Gear Solid 2 and Death Stranding are so like iconic.

But the, I gotta go, I think I'm gonna go with my dad, the president.

that one.

Just beat him to death.

I mean, you incinerate the corpse.

Yes.

Whereas the other one, you kill the person.

Right.

So I would, I would incinerate a corpse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Following that logic, I would fight my dad.

And now, Rochelle, what about you?

I think I could definitely win against my dad.

It was no contest against your mom, but you could beat your dad, so I'm going with my dad.

Ranch is on one.

Ranch is being crazy.

A classic ranch.

All right, final.

Final one.

Last one.

Would you, Blathers, find out your boss is an AI

or have a rival break the fourth wall of your own life?

Oh my God.

What does that mean breaks the fourth wall of my own life?

You all of a sudden realize your reality is just a game, that you have been playing the game of your own life this entire time.

Man, I can answer that immediately and it would be that.

That would be a release.

Like, oh, good.

None of this was even true.

Great.

We know I was watching solo now leveling.

Yeah.

Oh, gosh.

You know, that would just fuck with me too hard.

Yeah.

I have to go with, what was the first option?

Find out your boss is an AI, like the colonel.

Okay, yeah, no, I'll go with that one because, I mean, I work with you two, so it wouldn't shock me that, it wouldn't shock me that hard.

It wouldn't be that crazy to me if somebody else I knew was AI.

And you know what?

One day, the way things are going, all of our bosses are going to be AI.

Tell them that.

Ranch, AI boss, or find out your life is a game.

So all three of you would be AI.

That'd be crazy.

It'd be a little crazy, wouldn't it?

Yeah, we'll go with that.

I think I also have to go with AI just because I think that's just, I don't know, to me, that's funny.

Just like,

I don't know who

my boss would be in this situation, but just thinking of other jobs I've had.

You're like, it would be you.

So I find out

you're AI.

Yeah, because I'm self-implied if i'm i'm ai

you just broke the fourth wall of my own life

uh that was would you blathers that's this week get played our producer is ranch rochelle chen yard underscore underscore sard on social media our music is by ben prunty benpruntymusic.com our art is by duckbrigade design duckbrigade.com and hey check out our paywalled show get animated matt what are we watching this week we're watching tech in the motion picture and we're actually watching it on the episode, doing a live commentary on it.

That's right.

So you can queue it up with us.

We'll tell you when.

Why?

And watch it along with us and have the time of your freaking little life.

Why are we doing this?

I'm sure we'll be completely clear on what happens in the movie.

Yeah, no one's gonna be mad at us.

That's again, you can get that with our entire pre-head gum back catalog and ad-free mainline episodes at patreon.com/slash get played.

Well, there you go.

Another episode in the can.

Yeah.

Nick.

Yeah.

Nick, you got played.

Well, that's me.

I got played, I guess.

The delight in Heather's face on that really, really sold it.

You didn't see it at home.

But Heather was so happy to get played Nick.

That was a Hit Gum podcast.

What's up, up, everybody?

I'm Kyle Mooney.

And what's up, everybody?

I'm back Ben.

And man, ooh, I got we got something to tell you.

Oh, yeah, we definitely do.

Yes, it's a brand new podcast on Headgum.

That's right, and it's called What's Our Podcast?

Yep, and that's because we don't have a single idea what our podcast should be about.

Yeah, we don't.

So we actually have guests come on and they tell us what they think our podcast should be about, and then we try it.

Yep, guests like Mark Marin, Jack Black, Brittany Broski, Cape Berlin, Bobby Moynihan, Make Stalter, and Tim Ball.

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On YouTube or any of your favorite podcast platforms.

Yeah.

I'm going to go do it right now.

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And together, we're handsome.

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