Driving Games with Marika Brownlee & Casey Donahue

This is a head gun podcast.

Hey, Matt, you there?

Hey, hey, Matt.

Nick, hi.

Yeah.

What's up, buddy?

Hey,

sorry to call in.

I'm going to have to be remote for the record today.

I was going to come into the studio.

Oh, no, no problem.

But I was driving over there and I got.

I'm okay, but I got in an accident.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

You're okay, though?

You're okay?

Yeah, I'm okay.

I'm okay.

Just, you know, it's just,

people are crazy out there.

I know.

It's really, the more and more I get behind the wheel, I'm just like, everybody's so crazy.

Yeah.

I was like, what's going on here?

I'm just trying to commute.

I'm just trying to get to my job, you know, and I'm just driving.

I'm minding my business.

I'm not doing anything crazy.

No.

And just get nailed with a red shell.

No, I.

I've been there, buddy.

That's that freaking lunatic hits me with a red shell.

I don't know.

That was so crazy that that happened to you because like truly, just like a week ago, I was driving and I was doing great.

You know, I was getting all, I was hitting all my turns.

I was, I was, you're a great driver.

Thank you.

This is the thing people don't know.

Matt's a really good driver.

He's really fast.

And I've driven you in the car before.

Yeah.

Like not very far.

You're lots of just a little, just, you know, drop you off here or there.

Right.

Then the double dash, if you will.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You hop on the back.

That's right.

I was driving around, grabbing my coins and all that.

Some lunatic.

Yeah, I gotta gotta grab some coins.

Yeah, I gotta go a little faster.

Like, not much faster, but just a little bit.

Yeah.

I try to have 10 at all times, but some lunatic hits me with a lightning bolt and I'm on the road and I shrink.

Yeah.

And it's more dangerous for me out in the road when I'm shrunk.

Right.

Because you're tiny.

You could get into someone could just flatten you like that.

And I'm trying to jump around, try to speed up the process to get bigger again.

It's not working.

So I'm just kind of looking like a stupid little shrunk asshole on the road.

People are crazy out there.

People are crazy.

I was, you know, I was like, okay,

I see an item box up at me.

Okay, great.

Let me just drive through this thing yeah because you know i could definitely use a power-up why not maybe get myself a green shell shield just to like you know kind of mitigate some of the damage i'm getting from these other lunatics who are out there on the road i ran i drive in to this item box totals my car this was a few years back totals my car it's a fake item box it's one of those decoy item box some lunatic dropped on the road uh just to play a prank on some other driver people it's it's it's wild people are crazy out there it's just so crazy People are crazy.

And you know what?

This is actually reminding me.

I'm actually in a clash action lawsuit over something very similar.

I was on the road, right?

Some,

and the reason it's a clash action lawsuit is because the person driving the car that did this to me was representative of a business.

And so I was driving behind this car.

This truck unloads a bunch of fucking slick oil everywhere from a squid.

It gets all over my car.

I drive off the road.

It's on your windshield, probably.

Can't you see?

You can't even see.

And you know who has to dig me out of a fucking ditch?

Likitu.

My mortal enemy gets on his fucking, he gets his little hook that he usually has his camera dangling from, gets my car out of this ditch.

And I had to say thanks to my enemy.

Can I just say, I'm going to say something that's maybe controversial and like maybe we, maybe we edit this out of the pod.

I've come around on Lakitu.

You, okay.

I think, I'm like, I think Likitu is like a force for good.

I'm, I'm like,

I'm voting for Likitu.

Okay.

he's a big proponent of like a video surveillance police state but sure that's fine

yeah but he's there with that fishing line to pull you out if you get going he did he did save my ass and um

i did say you know one of those you know you can get in those situations where you kind of just say something and you're like why am i saying this i just this like a 10-second interaction he pulled me out i said thanks i'm gonna vote for you and i was like why did i do that but but man i'm right there with you yeah no this is we're gonna we're gonna vote for him and he's gonna yeah we're gonna he's gonna fix these hopefully he's gonna gonna clean up these streets because everybody's so crazy out there well hey someone's gonna do it

it's not gonna be sleepy joe

or cranky kong for that matter

we vroom vroom and honk honk as we discuss driving games and driving in games this week on get played

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

It's time to get played.

I'm Nick Weiger, along with Matt Abadaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Get Played, where we're going to begin this week's episode with a correction.

This isn't what we normally do here, but we're going to correct the record.

We don't do that.

It's not something we typically do.

We've never been wrong before is the issue.

We've never said anything wrong.

We've never done anything wrong.

And we certainly have never said anything that needed to be corrected.

Right.

But last week on the show, Heather was here last week.

Heather's not here this week.

She'll be back soon.

Send her your well wishes.

She appreciates them.

Yeah, of course.

And so Heather did ask me to make this correction.

And I'm just going to, I wrote, wrote,

I don't know why I'm nervous.

I didn't do anything bad.

It's not bad.

But last week...

You're in deep shit.

I'm in deep shit.

I feel...

You fall yourself out of this pit.

I do feel like I committed a faux pas on some degree, right?

So like, that's a little egg on my face.

I ultimately, I don't think it's bad because all parties involved are aware of what happened.

Yes.

But I just wanted to correct the record on the public record.

So last week, Heather mentioned getting a care package of Fortnite goods,

and it was misattributed to the Battle Buds because I said that that's where it came from.

But I misunderstood that.

Because her regular crew, for people who don't normally listen to the podcast, her regular crew of Fortnite compatriots

who've all come together as part of the community of this podcast fandom.

And so I misattributed to

the Battle Buds and said, oh, this is from the Battle Buds, gave it to Heather.

Heather, thanked them publicly on the show.

That's not where it came from.

But my confusion was the Battle Buds have done nice things like this in the past.

So, I was sort of like, okay, what the, how did I make the mistake?

So, I went back to the messages, and the initial message was from a Discord user, Damon Curry, who wrote, and this is what the message says:

Hey, Matt, I wanted to get something for Heather as a get-well present.

I work with the Fortnite group, and we're coming up with a care package and would like to ship it to her.

Do you know the best way we could be able to send this to Heather?

So, I organized that, but I took the Fortnite group,

the phrase the Fortnite group, to mean the Battle Buds.

This This is right.

This is on their behalf.

Yes, but in actuality, it was the

actual Fortnite.

The actual company, or you know, the Fortnite group, the people behind Fortnite sent this stuff to Heather directly from Fortnite.

So the gift was from Fortnite,

and the gift was Fortnite stuff.

And I wanted it.

I was from on behalf of Epic?

On behalf of someone who works with Epic?

I suppose that is

what it is.

Yes, I got it.

But you can see my confusion with the Fortnite group.

I already know about this.

There's an existing Fortnite group.

But this came from some other affiliation with Fortnite.

And that's our official capacity.

You know, shirking

blame here, okay?

I admit, I made a big mistake.

Yes.

And I do want to apologize to all involved, but also

it's very nice that so many different people involved in Fortnite, whether they're playing the game or they're behind the scenes, care about our good friend Heather Ann Campbell.

And we love to see that, don't we here, Nick?

We sure do.

But, you know, we're not going to be talking about Fortnite today.

No.

Because Heather's not here.

Yes.

But we do have some great guests in her stead.

We should talk about it.

I guess it could come up.

It could come up.

We don't know.

We'll get into it.

Our guest today, the host of the Pitwall podcast, an F1 podcast for the casual fan, which is right here on Headgum.

Marika Brown Lee and Casey Donahue.

Marika, Casey, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us.

This is huge.

What a treat.

All All right, let's start here.

Do y'all play Fortnite?

I've played it before.

Yeah,

and then never played since.

I think the last time I played was before it became like they were, you could still build and shoot, and that was pretty much all you could do.

And now my understanding is it's a whole ready player one situation or something.

Yes, it's essentially the metaverse.

I mean, there's a bunch more that you could still build and shoot, but that's still fundamental to the game.

But yeah, there's a lot more going on.

I also have not played in a couple years now or since last year.

I don't know.

I messed around a little bit with it,

but I fell off of it after our kind of like designated, you know, fortnight time.

Rika, how about you?

I played a little bit of it when I first got my Switch, I think.

And I think I

had a match where I got second.

I was like, I'm done.

Never again.

That's good.

Yeah, that's that was like

for me.

Yeah, that's that's good.

Yeah, go out on a W for sure.

Yeah.

Rochelle is in the chat.

Our producer, Rochelle, is in the chat

because Nick requested that she not be on the video screen.

And wait a minute.

That's the exact opposite of what happened.

Make me issue a correction next week.

Okay, so it actually went.

Rochelle was like, I'm just going to hang out, turn her camera off.

I was like, okay, well, you can stick around if you want, but it won't obligate her.

Yeah.

Anyway, I believe Nick said scram, but

Rochelle in the chat wrote, Fortnite on Switch is psycho mode.

Yes, yeah.

There's my understanding is it's like it, it's Rochelle, are you saying that?

And feel free to chime in on Mike if you like, no obligation.

Uh, but do you like, is it because of the Switch just doesn't have the horsepower to run the game effectively?

Because I've heard that about some other multi-platform games on Switch.

Yeah, it is so much harder to play on the Switch.

I started playing on the Switch before getting a PC, and I just cannot believe that I was able to do anything that's good.

It looks and plays a lot jankier, right?

It's so ugly on the Switch, and also it's just so difficult.

So the fact that you got second place gets it very impressive.

Yeah, I truly don't know how I did it.

I think I really hacked the system because I can't build at all.

I was like,

yeah, me neither.

Rochelle, are you still playing as Eminem?

No, I'm actually over Eminem now, and I am playing as the Terminator.

Wow, wow.

I know, I'm pickle.

You should try playing as Lewis Hamilton, who's a Formula One driver.

Yeah, I think he's in the game now.

Wow.

All right, let's talk about Formula One a little bit.

F1 for short.

What sparked your F1 interest?

How did you get into this sport?

That's a great question for Marika because Marika kind of got me into it.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah, and I got into it kind of in the opposite way of most people where I got into endurance racing first and was watching things like the WEC series, which is like six-hour, four-hour races that come on at 5 a.m.

And I got into it because Michael Fastbender was racing.

And I thought that was really funny.

Right.

It's like his passion, right?

Yeah, really, yeah.

It's cute.

You should have a T somewhere in his name so he could be Michael Fastbender and win all the races.

Matt, that's really good.

That's really good.

Hey, thanks for your correction, actually.

The

yeah, that like Michael Fastbender and then the other guy is the non-George Michael from Wham got really into racing.

Like that was like, that became his passion.

I think he did Formula 3 racing or something like that.

It's pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How many formulas are there?

Formula 1, Formula 3,

there's a Formula 2, and

there's a Formula E.

Wow.

They just keep going.

Yeah.

So you're into Endurance there.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you're watching.

I'm sorry.

You're watching Endurance Racing.

Yeah.

And then

I think it was Jay Kurwitz

told us about, or told me about Drive to Survive, which is the Netflix series that kind of goes through Formula One.

I was like a little reluctant to get into Formula One.

I thought it was too cool.

But then I watched Drive to Survive.

I really liked it.

And then I started watching the races and was like, this is a great television show with my 20 rich.

friends that travel around the world and drive cars

and Casey, so you, you like, but you're, you're, you're someone who's into cars.

Like you're something of an auto enthusiast already, and then you, you, you get like kind of hooked into the F1 ecosystem via Marica.

Is that what happens?

Yeah, pretty much.

It was, uh,

it was, it was pretty easy for me to get into because I was like, you know, like you said, I was already into cars.

I like to drive a fast car myself.

I like to drive really fast.

I like to think I'm the best driver in Los Angeles.

Just from

the research I've done with everyone else I've been on the road with,

I think I've been doing the best job.

Okay.

Yeah.

That sounds good.

But yeah, like one day went go-karting with Marika and a few other headgum folks and

was really into it.

And then they all told me I should watch Drive to Survive.

The F1 season had just started.

There were like four races in.

So I watched like my first race that weekend and I was like, this is my new hobby.

This is my new interest.

I am on board.

Formula One.

Here we go.

Okay.

So your podcast,

you launched the podcast.

The podcast is geared towards the casual fan, but like, has your own fandom become less casual as you've watched this?

Like, are you like really into it?

Or are you still kind of like a, like, I follow it, but, you know, I'm not as hardcore as some other people?

I definitely feel less casual, especially since we talk about every single race into a microphone.

Right.

And I don't necessarily want to sound like I don't know what I'm talking about, although many listeners will tell you that we often don't know what we're talking about.

We love to talk about it.

That doesn't happen on this podcast.

Nobody tells us.

I do think there is like a certain level of technical expertise that we don't have, and I especially don't have because I literally can't drive a car.

Really?

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

So like you don't have like you, so you don't drive a car at all.

No.

No, like I said.

But you like, you know, that's, that's, that's, I wonder.

Uh, we got to get you behind the wheel.

Well, you're a New Yorker, you're a New Yorker, you're in New York.

You don't need to the city, you don't have to drive, you're too busy folding pizza slices in half, folding pizza slices in half, walking here, going on the crazy subway.

Yeah, um, Marika has driven uh go-karts.

I've been on the go-kart track with her.

Yeah, I've driven a go-kart.

I'm not

as good as Casey.

There have been times when we've been on the track and he has lapped me.

I don't know what I do wrong, but I can't go fast, apparently.

I'm not taking the turns at the right point at the apex of the curve.

Yeah, you got to aim for the apex.

I'm always, when I'm on the road, I'm always aiming for the apex.

I'm always aware of the apex and where it is and how to get there.

Well, I mean, this is the thing, and we'll talk about racing video games specifically in a bit, but that's always the kind of thing of like, that impresses me about people who can do something that seems,

you know, it doesn't like I can understand more intuitively how a marathon runner can be better at running than me.

I understand like what's going on there, but like the

technical aspects of driving beyond just like hitting the accelerator, like when you brake and, you know, like, like you were saying, like how you handle the turns and all the stuff that makes me, you know, not very good at racing video games,

I'm, I'm, I'm really impressed to see that in action.

And yeah, that's a

we'll get we'll get into that.

I do have one more question, which is just sort of like a

related to F1, but like, like, is this your the sport you're into?

Like, are you, are you sportos in general?

Are there other sports you follow?

Or is this like the one thing that really has got its hooks into you?

I think for me, this is like the one sport that I've really followed.

I, you know, I like did some fantasy football in college for a while.

And

But in terms of like week to week watching a game or a race, I follow it pretty closely.

Yeah,

I'm actually a huge baseball fan.

That's like maybe my one sport that has been like the main

sport that I've been into.

I've been like a casual football fan, casual basketball fan.

Like I watch like

the

NBA on TNT, whatever that game is, but I don't really watch outside of that.

Yeah.

Baseball, I will watch almost every game.

Like, I will watch the highlights of every single game every day during the season.

Wow.

That's wild.

Who's your team?

And also, like, do you, do you have any baseball video games that you like?

I've had a few teams.

You know, a grew up in Florida, so I was a Marlins fan, lived in New York, so became a Mets fan.

My dad's also from New York, and he's a die-hard Mets fan.

So the Mets are like the family team.

I worked for the Red Sox for a bit, so

I'm like a fan of them.

And now I'm in Los Angeles, and the Dodgers are the best team in baseball, so it's easy to root for them.

Yeah,

that's what I like to hear.

And on the video game,

exactly.

And on the video game side, or is MOB the show?

Is there anything that you've enjoyed over the years?

Bad.

Or baseball.

I have played the show

on and off for about 15 years.

My favorite mode, the thing about like sports games, or particularly, I guess, like,

I could talk about the show a bit.

There's so many different modes you can play.

And I feel like I don't play most modes of the game.

I love creating a guy and then playing that guy's entire career.

So I will sometimes start a pitching career or I'll sometimes start a batting career and I will play every, I'll play the whole whole season, every season, until I break all of the records.

And then I go, yep, there it is.

Casey Donahue has 100 home runs in a season.

I'm going to say until I break all of the rules.

They should let you do that.

Do you have a, do you, do you like, because we've talked about this with the NBA 2K franchise, and one reason I fell off of that is because the My Career mode has so much shit that is not at all related to playing basketball.

Does the MLB the show have that?

I

honestly, I don't know what the last update was because what the show was really good at that I never really saw in other sports games was you could transfer your career from the old game to the new game.

So I could get like the new year.

I could transfer my character over.

All the stats are there.

The whole career is still there.

I want to say in like 21, you could not bring over your game from 20.

And I had like six years worth of MLB the shows that I was trying to transfer over.

I could not.

So I have not played since 21.

I haven't had the urge to like, all right, let's start a new career and just break all the same records again.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, the NBA 2K thing is just always like there'll be like a cutscene after a game, and it'll be clearly like they grab the VO in a locker room with like one take.

And it's just like the flattest read of like Eric Gordon being like, man, you are on fire out there tonight, but you got to get me the rock or else there's going to be trouble on the bench.

I was like, geez, man, I don't care about this at all.

Like, what are we doing here?

It kind of hit single, huh?

Yeah, yeah.

Dr.

Dre is having a beats party.

You got to be there or be square.

There's nothing really like that in the show.

And yeah, I think I saw like it was either last year's 2K game or the year before where like you could go skateboard around.

And I was like,

I don't understand what's happening in this show.

Skateboarding's not basketball.

I don't think there's anyone who buys these games who likes those modes.

Maybe, I guess maybe small children is the only thing to think of.

Like maybe kids under 10 are just like, oh, it's, that's part of being a major leaguer is I get to do this stuff.

But I think, I think honestly, like everyone who is still in on these games, which is still a lot of people, is like, it tolerates that stuff because they want to.

they accept it as like part of the the bargain but yeah i don't think i think a game could come out with a with a career mode with with none of that and it would still either do just as well or maybe better yeah um but you know with the

whatever there's all this all this inertia now to just keep things the way they are

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

All right, let's talk about some video games generally.

It's time for what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Nick, how do you want to begin?

Should I guess

I think why, Matt, why don't you start us off?

Okay, because I've talked a bunch here.

So, so, so, Matt, what are you playing?

Okay, well, last week I said I was stuck at a part in Final Fantasy VII, the original.

I'm playing it on my Switch, but I was playing through Final Fantasy VII.

And over the weekend, since we recorded last, I did beat the game.

And

I...

You beat Final Fantasy VII.

Yeah, I beat Final Fantasy VII.

Wow, congrats, buddy.

Thank you so much.

And

it did feel amazing.

I did play with the modern conveniences turned on.

You know, I was...

But some of those things like having your limit like always full don't help you as much as you think.

Like, yes, like it, it does make it easier, but you can still get one shot by like enemies that you're not leveled

accordingly.

Right.

If you're not leveled accordingly.

If you're like turning random encounters off, which I understand why someone would do that, but yeah, you're not doing the leveling that you would need to do to

progress.

So I, but I had a, I, I thought I knew stuff about the game.

I knew some of the big stuff about the game, but I didn't know like how

in-depth it was about like

climate change.

It's a pretty environment.

Yeah, it's a pretty environmentalist game.

And definitely the remake is like that, too.

They're like eco-terrorists

that you're playing and you're trying to save the world from

this evil company.

And I was like, this rocks.

This is this fucking awesome.

And

I just loved it.

I thought it was so great.

I loved all the characters.

I didn't really know Sephiroth's whole deal.

Last week I said I was familiar with him, but

it turns out that I didn't really know that much about him.

And there's this

mobile game coming out about Sephiroth, where the tagline was we still don't know that much about him.

And I thought that was funny initially.

And now I agree, actually.

I don't know that much about him.

So I'm looking forward to learning more.

I did start playing through the remake.

and I had started the remake

when the remake came out initially, having never played the original.

And I fell off of it because I wasn't interested.

I didn't really connect with it, but now I'm playing through it again, or with fresh eyes, rather, with context.

And I'm immediately more hooked and more interested because I'm like, oh, it's this.

I know this.

Yeah.

So this is, I'm having a blast with that.

But a new game came out last week, too, that everyone's talking about right now.

Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown.

I'm playing that on my Switch.

And Nick,

I'm loving it, dog.

It fucking rocks.

It is so good.

It is,

it's just that type of like, I don't know, it's a Metroidvania, so it's a different type of game for the Prince of Persia series, but everything about it's really, really good.

I just got to a part where I have some new abilities, I have some new weapons.

And that, once you start getting those upgrades in any Metroidvania, you feel like a million bucks.

And you're like, okay, now I can go back over here and do this.

I can do this now.

I'm zipping around.

I'm having a blast.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Now, I was reading the one thing this, this, one bit of one innovation this game has is that it's pretty easy to track where you could because because a big thing like you know like in uh in like the ori games for instance like you get a new upgrade and you're like, okay, now I can get through this kind of door or now I have something that can grapple onto this sort of platform, this sort of hook.

But then you're like, wait, where did I see that hook before?

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, but this has some sort of,

it's something in the map screen or whatever that just like makes it really clear where you can, what new areas you can explore with this new ability?

Well, there are, there are two modes.

There's like a guided mode, which has icons on your map that'll show you like, oh, you're supposed to be going this way, or, oh, this door is open now.

You can go over there.

You have an ability to unlock this area now or whatever.

But then there's also the explore mode that has that stuff turned off.

So you do have to like either remember or in your map, you can,

I think they're called memory shards.

You can use a memory shard and it takes like a screenshot and adds it to your map to be like, oh, there's a chest up there.

that I can't get because I don't have double jump yet.

So I'll mark it on my map with a, because you could leave markers on the map, just like generic markers, but you could literally take a screenshot and it shows you the thing that you're that you haven't gotten yet.

Uh,

and that that's really

everyone's talking about this feature.

Yeah, it is, it should be in every game, it is so good.

Sounds great, it's such an it's such an innovation, um, but it's it's a lot of fun and it's different, it's a different type of Prince of Persia game in another way because you're not playing the Prince of Persia, you're not him.

Uh, you're a, you're, you're known, you're a you're a guy that's uh, his name is Sargon, and he's an immortal.

Uh, there's this group called the Immortals in the game, and um,

which my cat's scratching something,

he was being so crazy next to me, he was just like scratching, going nuts.

Um,

uh, but so you don't play, you play a Sargon who is in this group called the Immortals, and you're, you're, the kid, the prince has been kidnapped, and you're on the search for hunting the prince, but there's all this crazy stuff going on, all this weird time stuff, and all this like uh, just crazy, you know, magic stuff.

it's really good i i i i i'm i'm really enjoying it and i'm putting i'm putting hours into that and then hopping back in on uh the final fantasy 7 remake and kind of just alternating my time between both you're a mad man i'm i'm i'm i applaud you for finishing final fantasy 7 thank you the og that's that's a that's impressive i i i loved it and i i i do i i feel final fantasy 7 pilled like i like i i was like am i gonna go see advent children in theaters

A movie no one likes?

Can I ask, what was your final playtime?

Oh, it was something around, I can check, actually, I think, because it'll tell me at least rudimentary or, you know,

an estimate in the Switch menu.

I do have my Switch right here because I'm- I remember that taking me 60 hours on the PlayStation 1, but also I spent a lot of time breeding Joco Bos.

Okay, I did it in 30 hours.

It took me 30 hours.

sure um

which is not nothing i didn't think it was i thought i was going to get through it faster honestly and that's why i started it before i jumped into the remake but 30 hours is about is about right if you skip i didn't even meet yuffie

yeah it's a it's a pretty substantial game did you meet vincent

um i don't think so he's in the uh the coffin right

I don't actually don't remember where he comes from, but he's the other unlockable character.

Okay, yeah, I didn't get any chill character.

I didn't get any of the bonus characters.

I was going straight through.

You were just mainlining this, bad boy.

Yeah, and I did it.

I got it right in my veins.

I loved it.

Good for you.

Marika, what are you playing?

So at the moment, I'm not playing any games.

I'm kind of waiting when I know I'm going to have a chunk of time to sit down and play Spider-Man 2,

which I'm really excited about.

Did you play the originals, I assume?

I played, yeah, so I played the...

I actually actually played Miles Morales first when I got a PS5 and then went back and played the remastered Spider-Man.

Oh, yeah.

It was great.

Loved them.

Like

one of the few games I've actually finished, because I'm a very impatient gamer, I think.

I'm like not a person that will sit down and like grind through stuff.

If I like can't beat something, I'll try three times and I'll be like, I'm done.

I'm walking away.

John Locke style.

So, I've not finished many games, but those two I did loved them, cried at them.

They're great stories.

Yeah, they're really good stories.

So, I'm really excited for two.

I have two Stardew Valley games going at the moment that I've truly abandoned for a few years because I also have a really unhealthy way of playing that game and had to back away.

I probably can relate to that.

Describe it for me.

So the first one I started on my computer and I got pretty far.

I hadn't finished it,

but the mines just like killed me.

I can't, I don't like doing the mining stuff.

And it got to the point where I was just like on my computer with like a Wikia tab open of like, I have to do this thing.

I have to like farm this on this day and like constantly tracking that.

So I stopped.

And then when I got the switch, I started a new farm.

And then I was like very determined to marry the doctor as quickly as possible, but also be friend, be best friends with the Shane who like breeds chickens or whatever.

So I like accomplished that.

But then it was the same thing where I was like sitting with my Switch and then my computer.

and like just constantly looking stuff up and I was like this isn't even this is a job yeah well not well because you're trying to to min-max your you know your crop yield or whatever And, and like, there, you can get, you can get really, really into it.

Like, just like how you position your sprinklers and

which livestock you're raising.

It's like, you can, and also, like, what days you go to the mines and everything.

You can get really super into it.

And I was like, you know, I was like, I got to make jam on this day.

I got to constantly be making jam so I can sell the jam.

And it's got to be like these crops because that's the most money I can make.

It's a whole thing.

So eventually, when I feel like I can return to it in

calmer manner, I'll finish one of those games.

And I also have an Oculus

and got really into Beat Saber during the pandemic.

Oh, wow.

And

need to hop back into that.

And like, I modded it so that I could play custom games, but then

it got kind of fucked up.

So I think I need to reset my Oculus and start that.

I see.

So, a lot of our prank problems.

Our friend Mars Melnick, I know, got super into Beat Saber and was something of a Beat Saber evangelist to me in the past.

Like, is that part of how you got your way in, or did you find your own way in?

Yeah, it was definitely through Mars.

Uh, she, at like one point, had brought it was like when she just started getting into Beat Saber, she brought her PS4

VR setup to like the office and so we were playing that and I thought I thought I would be really bad at it because I was really bad at like Guitar Hero um but I'm actually really good at it uh so

and then I like yeah I started she like told me which um VR headset to get and stuff and so I started playing during the pandemic I've only messed around with it a little bit because I get disoriented and sweaty, but like, do is it like a workout for you?

Yeah, totally.

It's like

it it it takes a lot.

And

there's like different modes.

I usually turn off the walls that they add.

I know that Mars really likes playing maps with walls.

It just makes you like move around a lot.

And I'm just like, it's too much.

I like to be still and just move my wrists really fast.

Right.

I'm with you.

Casey, how about you?

What are you playing?

Funny enough, I just finished playing Spider-Man 2.

Wow!

How about that?

I loved it.

It was so good.

So much fun.

I'm excited.

I love the,

you know, these sandbox games.

I've played a lot of them.

But this was the first time where I was like,

took a different strategy, I guess, playing it, where

usually I'll like...

make a beeline to the main story mission and just do all the main story stuff, get that out of the way, and then just like fuck around.

But this time I was like, I'm going to, as things pop up on the map, I'm going to do them and take care of them.

So then by the time I got to, you know, the later stages of the game, I was like overpowered and like had all the suits already, had every like gadget unlocked and was just like ready

for battle, basically.

But that was, I thought, like,

I don't know if like, you know, the Grand Theft Autos of the world

delineate their missions the way that they do on Spider-Man, but playing that way I thought was like very satisfying.

It kind of like

helped feed the story a bit as I was like

doing other side missions and like helping neighborhood people out.

Kind of made me feel like I am the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Yes, right, right.

That was my big thing when it was new.

Like, like I played it like when it came out and I was like, it really simulates what it would feel like to have that push and pull to be

between one of two people, between being Miles and Spider-Man and being Peter Parker in Spider-Man.

That's such a tough, you know, it's a tough, it's the thing that they struggle with the most, like, having time for both to exist as both.

I love that part of the game.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Yeah, I played that.

And then

last week, I finished the story mode for MK1.

I don't know if you guys are Mortal Kombat.

Wow.

I have not played the modern Mortal Kombats, but I know people were pretty positive about Mortal Kombat 1.

They're really fun,

and the stories are the storyline is crazy.

Right, because they try to make all the lore make sense, right?

Yeah, that's one of the things they do.

They just like, it's all canon, so we're just going to try to figure out how to make this work.

Yeah, and the so like MK11 ended with,

uh, I can't remember the name, main character's name.

I want to say Kronos was her name.

She was like a time

person

who can bring characters from the past, and now they're fighting the characters from the present.

And it's all just like a way to get, like, you can have Sub-Zero in his original costume, or you can have him, like, in the story mode version.

Um, and so then MK1, the end of that game ended with them, like, resetting the timeline.

And MK1

is like, all the characters are young again,

but now there's like because

there's multiple timelines, so now this was a way to get like

every other version of every other character.

So it's like Scorpion with sub-zero powers.

There's Kano with a Johnny Cage attitude.

It's really, really fun.

And the story mode

I've been looking forward to for like the past like three Mortal Kombat games.

And then the DLC also continues the story.

So now I'm like waiting for the DLC story to come out so I can keep playing the bonkers story.

Do you have one, is the way the story mode works, do you have one character you pick to take your way through it?

Or are you like, do you have, does it branch off and you're playing different characters in different scenarios?

Yeah, you're playing different characters in different scenarios.

Got it.

It kind of works the way that

the original movie works, where there's like, they're going around doing stuff and then they run into a guy and then and then the and then you gotta fight him and then and then there's like a one-liner when you beat the the character and you don't you don't kill him there's no fatalities in the story mode because they all gotta come back and fight it's a very loony tunes rules the way it works um

but yeah it's uh it's it's it's really fun there's some sometimes you like your like two guy like your two characters together and uh

you get to choose which character you want to to fight uh you know like cyrax or whoever the fuck uh you you run into in a laboratory um

it's great a lot of fun just played that and that's what i'm playing

i love it

um well i'll talk a little bit about my balder's gate 3 replay i'm about 60 of the way through act two oh wow wow on hard on tactician on hard mode um because uh you're flying i'm depraved Yeah.

I mean, I love this game.

It's so good, and I'm having so much fun on my second campaign.

You're going to laugh at me.

I'm seeing stuff that I did not see the first time through, and I'm re-experiencing stuff with the context of the full story and understand it more.

Like all of the stuff that is seated about Catherick Thorm, who is kind of the act two

big heavy,

present throughout the story, but there's so much of it so much earlier than I clocked because the game is just so dense and you don't understand that this is pointing towards something that's like a key story or going to be a key plot pivot.

You may be thinking, like, oh, this is just flavor text, or this is just something about some side mission that I'm going to find out about.

But when you really understand the gravity of it, it's extremely effective.

I think the combat has been really satisfying on Tactician.

So there's this one pretty difficult sequence where you have to defend a portal that one of your party members is going through to take care of a task.

I'll talk about it vaguely, but it happens towards the middle of act two.

And

it's most of the way the game plays is it's just like direct, like, you know, you're kind of trying to pick off individual, like lower the, lower the enemy's numbers.

They're usually more enemies than your party, and you're trying to winnow their numbers and just kind of control the chessboard, the lance board, if you will.

But this one in particular, you have to defend a target,

which happens a few times.

And it's tricky, especially on Tactician, because the enemies hit so hard, and this thing has like a very, a very low health pool.

So if the enemies hit this, like with like three or four arrows, you're just cooked.

So it was one of those things where, because this game presents like kind of problems, not puzzles, which is not unique to it, you know, Tears of the Kingdom, the same sort of thing, but like there's a lot of games that have this approach.

But like, there's not like just one way to solve it.

But when you figure out your way to solve it, you feel like a genius, which to me is kind of like a magical like game design thing of like for me what i figured out was there is a an area effect spell called darkness uh and what that does is it prevents anyone you know it blinds anyone who's within it it's basically just like a like a big black cloud that goes over the landscape uh so anyone that's within it is blinded um and then they can't do ranged attacks uh out of it or into it So I was like, okay, I can use darkness, which I'd usually use on like where the enemies are standing.

I can use it on my own play space on the portal so no one one can attack this with missile attacks.

And I'm obviously not a thing that only I figured it out, but once I figured it out, I just had like total command of the scenario that was giving me a little bit of struggle.

And it was like so satisfying to overcome that.

And it's like the whole thing of just like, you know,

the most satisfied you feel with something is when it's like just at the edge of your competency.

And I feel like so many other games,

I guess in a more general sense, this game treats you like an adult, which was also a thing we like about the fromsoft games.

It's like this, in so many games, you would have an NPC, you have the dream visitor in this one, who's like a companion that's in your ear sometimes.

Like, the dream visitor would be like, like, hmm, perhaps you can protect that portal somehow.

And then the next turn, like, I wonder if a darkness spell would work on that portal.

And then, like, cast darkness on the portal to protect it from the enemies.

You know what I mean?

It's like, they wouldn't give you the time to struggle and to overcome it and to figure out your own solution.

And that's not only the way, the only way way to solve it.

You can put a wall of fire on the battlefield or whatever, or you can just sort of power through with raw horsepower

from your heavy hitters.

But again, it's just like a very satisfying scenario because you have different approaches.

And whenever you figure out whatever yours is, it really hits.

The other thing I want to talk about was our mutual friend, Eva Anderson,

is playing through this game, past guest of the podcast.

I love this.

And she's been texting me about this.

Like Heather,

she took the genocide route.

Oh, God.

Eliminated the Tieflings in the grove.

But the thing about this is like,

you know,

and so, you know, spoilers for early in Act 1, if you take this route, if you let the goblins come through and enable them or assist them in going into the Druid Grove and taking out all of the druids and all of the Tieflings, they also kill all of the children, which is a thing that

most games just don't even address.

Like, Spider-Man obviously is not going to have kids involved, but like, you know, like kids can't really come into harm.

But certainly, even something like Grand Theft Auto is like, we're not even going to open that can of worms.

We're not going to let you, you know, do a dry ball by shooting and take out

a bunch of kids because we're going to get in so much trouble.

And all of a sudden, Joe Lieberman is going to be having hearings on the hill.

Yeah.

So, but this game is like, you know, you know what?

We are we are talking about the consequences of your choices.

And there is a unique moral horror to, you know, to harming children.

And we're going to make you confront this.

Like if you, if you allow this evil to come through here and you, you are on its side, then yes, you have to deal with a pile of toddler corpses.

And that's your fault.

You did that.

And that's like the sort of thing where, again, the game kind of like treats you like an adult and makes you understand that like, look, I'm not in favor of that, but I'm in favor of that being a possibility in this medium.

um and i think it makes the storytelling you know that much more effective that you know that these sorts of things are possible uh anyway it's my favorite game all time i love it wow all right let's talk about driving games a little bit

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I want to start here because Casey, we floated this topic to both of y'all.

It seemed like a natural natural fit.

Casey, I know this about you.

You have a whole setup in terms of your own personal

racing video game experience.

That's right.

I've got a Sim rig and I'm very proud of it.

Wow.

I love it.

I'll show you.

Here's my steering wheel.

It is a

hardcore piece of hardware.

It's like the same size and weight of like a Formula One racing wheel.

Wow.

And I got to wear gloves when I drive.

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow.

For grip?

For grip.

So I recently updated my rig, and I'm very, very excited about it.

Yeah, talk us through your hardware real quick.

Like, what are you playing on?

What's your platform of choice?

And then, yeah, you have the wheel.

Do you have pedals?

What's your whole rundown?

Yeah, I play on PS5.

I don't have a PC,

which is like

if you want to be like a competitive Sim Racer, you really need the PC

to play iRacing, which is like the main competitive Sim Racing game.

I cannot play iRacing, so I play Gran Turismo.

That was like kind of my in.

to playing sim racing.

And I only really started sim racing after

getting into

F1 through Marika.

And like, we went go-karting a couple of times.

I tried to make that my new hobby.

And I

learned how expensive it gets.

And also,

the guys who run the

go-kart.

Call them out.

Yeah, the

K-1 in Burbank, the teenagers that work there,

they don't seem to take racing as seriously as

some of of us.

Wow.

So I was like, I need something else.

And then so I got like an entry-level wheel and pedals and started playing Gran Turismo.

Or I started playing the F1, the EA Sports F1 game.

And it is impossible

to play if you've never

done sim racing.

Marika has tried.

I can't express how hard this game is.

Wow.

I picked it up.

So I have the 2021 version.

And after you sent

the invite, I was like, hey, I'll try again.

You know, it can't be that bad.

And I, within 10 minutes, was like, I'm out of here.

It just

doesn't give you instructions at all.

Yeah, they don't.

They do not tell you how to drive the car.

Oh, wow.

But Gran Turismo does a good job of teaching you basically like how to drive a car like a, like a race race car, like finding the apex, uh, finding the racing line.

Um,

so I started with like entry-level

wheels and pedals.

I have since upgraded to a Fanatec system, which is what they're like showing off at the beginning of the Gran Turismo movie.

Um, and I was like, I need to, I need, this is what I need.

Uh, and honestly, I need this.

It makes such a huge difference, Like updating the equipment because it's like a whole machine.

And I also got like this upgraded power supply that makes it as realistic as possible with the feedback that you get in the wheel.

And that's why I need the gloves because it's like steering a real car.

Wow.

And when you're like just doing laps and laps and laps and you're like, you know, 20 laps in, like you, you feel it in your hands and like in your forearms.

Right.

And then

the pedals I've recently upgraded to are called load cell pedals, specifically with the brake.

And that's designed to, you know, you program it on the computer, how much pressure is 100%

on the pedal.

And you want the consistency when you're taking the turns.

So, because so much of it is like muscle memory.

Right.

So you want to know exactly how much I got to give on the brake and know exactly which gear to shift down to.

That'll give me optimum speed on the exit of the turn.

And that's how you shave seconds off your time.

Yeah, that's ultimately how I fail at GoPro.

So speaking to someone who doesn't know much about F1 or racing in general,

an F1 course is not like a NASCAR course, right?

It's not like an oval that you just drive, you're only turning left the whole time.

There's all sorts of like different courses have different orientations and different turns that they take.

Um, so I imagine that's that's a big part of the racing experience, yeah.

And I think the Formula One drivers, like Casey was saying, they do have this like crazy muscle memory for all of the tracks, especially if they're ones that like they frequent every season.

Um, and there've been like videos of them taking tests where it's like that's crazy, they they like hear

the engine and like the brakes and know which track it is based off of like just the sound it makes or like yeah it's crazy and

they practice on racing simulators yeah right yes because you mentioned the grand churismo movie uh which you've covered on on your podcast and what which i i still haven't seen but i've heard positive things about matt did you see the grand churismo movie i haven't seen it my mom loved it it's on netflix a lot of people seeing it yeah yeah that's i i i i know i know y'all liked it but i like i'm like does that

like that's an element in that movie and that's part of how it's marketed is just like yeah real drivers are are training themselves on uh on video games yeah there's there's there is a bit of it in uh in the movie the movie's based on a true story uh Marika, what's his name?

I can't remember.

Jan

Marborough or something like that.

Yeah.

Who did this, basically?

Yeah, he was a, he like competed in a Gran Turismo tournament and they had like a contest to get

sim racers into real cars.

So it's like kind of his story and it kind of,

although like the equipment they're using is like modern,

yeah.

All the all the the real racers in the movie, they, they, you know, it's, it's like, oh, that's, this is a gamer.

This is real life.

You can't cut it.

While fast forward to today,

Max Verstapen, who is

maybe the best race car driver in the world today, he's

current two-time F1 world champion.

He is like an advocate for sim racing and is like, this is...

The next generation of race car drivers will be made through sim racing.

I think he's also racing the Daytona.

I don't know if it's the 500 or what, but he's sim racing it like as an actual competitor.

Yeah,

he's the number one real driver in the world, and he's also the number three sim driver in the world.

That's wild.

That's crazy.

I just looked up the real drivers.

It's like Kevin Durant being like...

the best at NBA 2K.

It doesn't really make sense in my brain.

I know.

It feels like it doesn't make sense, but

once you are using this stuff,

using the wheel and the pedals, it is a simulation of real driving.

The physics in the game are

as realistic as possible.

Oh, yeah.

I guess he, Max Verstapin, won at iRacing 24 Hours of Daytona.

Wow.

Wow.

I just looked up the real guy that the Gran Turismo movie is based off, Jan Mardenborough.

And he's younger than me and I want to die.

They made a movie about a guy younger than me.

That fucking sucks.

Get used to it.

It's going to happen to me now for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

So you, so you mentioned, okay, so you've been talking about Gran Turismo.

Is that kind of like your game?

Like, have you been into the Gran Turismo series

since back in the day?

Or is this all recent because of

your F1 fandom?

I had tried playing Gran Turismo back in the day on a controller, and I just, I'm so, I was so used to like Grand Theft Auto car physics and driving mechanics that

yeah, when I tried to like do it on a simulator with a controller,

I would just crash on turn one every every single time.

Uh, so I like put it away uh didn't hadn't revisited it until i got you know into racing like as a proper

interest enthusiast hobby sort of thing um

and then yeah learning the mechanic gran turismo teaching me the mechanics of how to drive the car um

opened me up to wanting to play other games.

And so I mostly play the F1

game because that's like why I wanted to start doing it was because I wanted to drive those Formula style cars and do the tracks that I watch all of my best friends drive.

And

yeah,

I like playing Gran Turismo, but they don't really have they have like super Formula cars, which are similar to the Formula One cars, but they don't have the top speed.

But it is fun to hop on to to Gran Turismo and drive like a Prius or

like my dad's old Corvette or something like that.

That's where I get the joy out of Gran Turismo is just like having fun driving these other different kinds of cars.

And then the F1 game, it's like I am watching my times.

I am trying to figure out how to get faster, where I'm slow in the corners, that sort of thing.

And so maybe this is jumping ahead a little bit too, but like, how do you feel about like in how do you feel about a like a party racer, like a crash team racing, or like a Mario kart or something?

Like, obviously, that's very different.

It's not real at all.

It has no

basis for driving.

You can use a wheel kind of for Mario Kart, but do you enjoy playing those at all?

Or is it only like if it's like if it can feel real?

No,

I love Mario Kart.

I don't play it as much as I would like,

but I do have fun.

I've never tried playing it with the wheel.

I don't know how that would work.

And I've tried

recently playing it

with keeping in mind

the race line, like that sort of stuff,

break in a straight line.

Yeah, the race line is like

using the break in Mario Kart.

Right.

I've got to get a blue shell no matter what.

So it's like.

But I do love it.

It's very fun.

Because

the Wii Mario Kart had the wheel, you know, peripheral that you used.

And that was how you control that one.

Marika, how about you?

Like, do you like the, as a non-driver, you mess around with the F1 games, but like, like, do you like a more arcade-y racer?

Do you like something that's a little bit, you know, goofier, less connected to reality?

Yeah, I think probably just in terms of my experience with racing games and like the different

all the different types that I've like had a chance to play or like watched people play because I was like a big Let's Play watcher for a while.

Um, I feel like I definitely gravitate more towards the like arcade racers.

Um,

like Mario Kart, I'd say is probably the one that I've played the most and like during the pandemic was like doing tournaments and stuff with coworkers and that was a lot of fun.

And I actually like, I would say when I started playing Mario Kart, even though I enjoyed it, I like, I just could not steer correctly.

Like,

I think I, I would, like, accidentally basically act like I was driving, but like, be playing with the, like, right, yeah, actual joysticks, but I would, like, turn my hands for no reason.

So I got better at that.

I learned how to drift.

I got good.

Um, and so that now that's like fun to play, but I haven't been, I haven't really played it recently.

And I don't know, I think like, even though GTA is not a racing game, like they came out with their

like online, I think it was like the cunning stunts DLC or something, which was like this crazy

DLC where there were just like a ton of tracks for races that were like tubes that would go into the sky and you could like race

like handle

the bottom half of TikToks.

Yeah, yeah, that's all I see.

Yeah, no, I know what you're talking about, but yeah, so I feel like that is maybe like one of the best things that was added to that game.

And those were just, I had like played it a few times online.

I didn't really love playing online myself, but I've amassed like hours and hours of watching people play it over the years.

And it was very enjoyable to to watch those.

Matt, how about you?

Let's talk driving games a little bit because I know we've gotten into this in the past,

but

do you have any all-time favorites when it comes to the racing side of things?

And also, just generally about cars in video games, because

we've experienced good and bad versions of that in like the open world experience.

Yeah, I was just about to say that like Grand Theft Auto V has like great driving in it.

Like as far as like, you know, not realistic, but like it feels good to drive the car.

Yeah, no, it's fun.

It's fun to drive in the game.

In pretty much all the Grand Theft Auto games, actually, they figured that out.

When games like that, from three on, one and two, I mean, people are polarized on those.

I mean, I never really liked how the first couple Grand Theft Autos and controlled this sort of top-down perspective.

But I think from three on, they've been, yeah, once they went to 3D, they've been very playful.

I mean, it's silly to say that they got it right.

It's like the main thing that you do.

It's in the title of the game.

But it has to work or else those games don't work.

It has to.

And so I love that.

We've talked about the

Batman Arkham Batmobile.

I don't love it.

You know,

and I talked, obviously I love Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing.

I will be a...

Jack X combat racing defender.

There you go.

I loved that.

I was just a big fan of the Jack and Daxter franchise, and

I loved that game.

I thought it was really fun.

I said it was awesome.

You already mentioned Crash Team Racing, but that era when everyone was trying to make the Mario Kart killer.

Yes.

And now everyone's given up on it.

And they'd be like, well, Mario Kart will just, you know, be this hegemony, and that'll be the only kart racer that's out there.

But it's just like I really liked when everyone was trying their own version of a mascot racer.

Yeah,

a lot of those are fun.

The

Donkey Kong Racing was one of my favorites.

Donkey Kong Racing, I just tried it for the first time, actually, at my friend Connor's house, and I was so bad at it.

Before you go too far down this road, because I just am looking forward a week and you're giving it another correction.

The game is Diddy Kong Racing.

Diddy Kong Racing.

I'm so sorry.

It's all right.

Casey, don't fuck me up like that, dude.

Okay?

You don't see me going on your show and saying that the tires on the cars are triangles, okay?

You're welcome to.

The tires on the cars are triangles.

Oh, that's insane.

Okay.

But

I do like some racing games.

But all of my love of

racing games comes from my love of the Fast and Furious franchise.

And also

in tandem with when I was a kid, my mom worked for Mitsubishi Motors.

So

I've mentioned this before and she would get to,

she worked in like the corporate office here in

Southern California.

And

because of this job, she got to have like a new car every like six months.

So instead of doing what she should have done, which was like have a more sensible car for a single mom and three children, she would get us whatever car we picked.

Because she's awesome.

She was like the cool, she's so cool.

And she was young.

She was like, oh, yeah, you guys want the Lancer Evo 6, huh?

I'm like, yeah, we get the evo six we love how the evo six looks and so she would drop us off at school in an evo six and we like would have to like have grocery bags in our lap instead of the trunk because there was no trunk space

but like it was i we that was such a fun thing and so when when playing these types of games i often will go back to like those that style of car um like a mitsubishi uh like just the eclipse was also big we loved the eclipse um but we eventually we got them on terra sport We did uh eventually get a more sensible car because my mom was like, This is ridiculous.

You can't, you guys can't pick the car anymore.

Um,

but I would play

Need for Speed Underground because that was also that was like what 2003, 2004, or something.

So, like, I feel like

car modding culture sort of like kind of really took on at that point because, like, the show, like, Pimp My Ride was on TV and stuff.

And so, I would just watch,

you know, exhibit just massacre these cars and just like ruin everybody's life.

Undrivable.

Yeah, put a washing machine in the car and was like, that's like bad.

You don't want that in there.

But I liked the

customization in that game and then just playing the cars and like the soundtracks in those games were pretty good.

But I also really enjoyed

Forza Horizon 5, which came out

maybe two years ago at this point on Xbox.

And I got pretty into that game when it when it came out on Game Pass and was just playing it for a while, just like non-stop.

I loved just getting in some races like online.

That was really fun.

I don't have a wheel or anything, so I was playing on the controller.

But

that's like, those were like the games that I really love.

But I also, you're mentioning seeing some racing in person

at the start of this.

I used to go to, I grew up, you know, Nick's a Long Beach guy also.

Nick, you ever heard?

Oh, yeah, the Long Beach Grand Prix.

I love the Long Beach Grand Prix, dude.

It's huge.

It It was a thing, I was just like, oh, yeah, the Grand Prix is every year.

Yeah.

And I just sort of like took it in stride and had no idea it was like this huge event in motor stuff.

Yeah.

I went for the first time last year and I had a blast and I will be going again this year.

Okay,

I'd love to, I'd love to go because I hadn't been in so long.

You used to

They used to give like free tickets to it in like the newspaper.

So like you just buy like five newspapers and they were all going for free.

And we would just go.

And the thing that they had there, I don't know if they still do it.

I'm sure they must, but they had a celebrity race.

So, like, famous people would do the course.

And one of the years it was like,

it was such a mixed bag.

First of all, one of these people shouldn't have been doing it, but is an enthusiast.

And I understand.

One of the years it was like Carlos Mencia,

Adam Carolla, and Keanu Reeves.

And Keanu Reeves fucking won.

Of course,

he wants to win in that scenario.

He's going to win.

You've seen him driving John Wick?

Yeah.

But I was like, you don't have to be here, man.

Like, this is.

Look who else is here.

You don't have to do this.

And this is in between, obviously.

John Wick hadn't come out.

I think all three Matrices, all three Matrix movies had come out.

So he was like in that sort of in-between era.

He was at the Lake House.

He was at

Scanner Darkly.

You know, he wasn't really popping yeah sure yeah again but uh it was great it was a thrill of a lifetime to see him he looked like a million bucks too in the fucking uh

in the gear let's uh can we just because you mentioned pimp my ride yeah and i i did watch that show back in the day it do you are is everyone aware of the pimp my ride ps2 game

aware of it it's one of the most it's one of the most bizarre things i've never played it uh but i i have watched uh videos of it and let's let's watch a little bit of this if i can get this working

This is the Ghost Ride the Whip mini-game that's in the PS2 game with exhibits likeness.

Let's see if this works.

He has such like a Yosemite Sam stance.

Yeah.

This guy is walking next to a car

as the car is rolling down in neutral.

He's just during trip walk, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is

like a rhythm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's like a rhythm game element of like doing dance moves in coordination

with your car rolling down the boulevard.

I was ready to laugh.

I think this is good.

It's kind of awesome.

I think I didn't understand the concept of ghost riding.

Yeah.

I didn't realize.

I thought it was like you had to be on top of the car or something, but he's just like walking beside it.

He's like, Yeah, I guess I would say,

as far as how close he could be to the car, he could be a lot closer.

He's so far away from the car.

He could be a lot

different lane.

Yeah.

Maybe that's more impressive the further away you get.

That could be part of the challenge.

But

I haven't, I've thought about getting a retouch.

I always think about getting stuff.

Like, I always want to get like a fight stick.

I don't play like that.

I don't play like fighting games like that.

I always want the wheel and seat and pedal and stuff.

And I'm like, ah, I

do like getting stuff.

There's a lot of stuff you can get.

Okay.

See, that's what I love to hear.

Now I'm in.

That's good.

See, I like getting stuff.

Your rig doesn't have the seat, though, right?

I do not have the seat.

It's a, you know, I want the seat, but to get the seat, I would then need a separate monitor to mount on the on the rim.

Right now, I play, I pull out a folding chair and I sit in front of my big TV

and I play that way.

But also, since I've upgraded the drive system,

like the stand that I had, that I originally got with the like cheap entry-level wheel is not strong enough for the the uh the drive system.

Like there's too much power, it's too wobbly, uh, and it's like uh it starts to come loose from from the stand so now i'm like okay now i need to upgrade the stand yeah uh so might as well get the chair you don't want to be like that guy from the

you don't want to be like that guy from the i think you should leave sketch where the steering wheel flies off and you're driving it that's exactly what i don't want to do

uh but nick do you you

I don't know if I know you two mess around with like too many racing sims or like uh anything like that.

Do you do do you like to get

you know i don't like

i don't like driving this is the thing it's like like i can drive a car i am a licensed driver and i will drive by necessity but i really don't like driving like it makes me anxious um and uh i also just like get really into

I just get really frustrated at just urban design because I'm like, this is such a, this is so inefficient to have so much space for, you know, lanes of highways and, and for surface parking.

It's just like, you know, cities should be for people, not cars.

Um, so like, like, like, I, I generally don't like, and so when I'm doing something escapist, I don't want to be driving in it.

So for instance, Cyberpunk 2077, which also initially had very bad driving, they figure they fixed the physics to some degree.

It works a lot better in the 2.0 version.

And honestly, in some of the earlier updates, but like, I did not like the driving in that game.

I used the motorcycles because it was like the most, the easiest to maneuver, the easiest to corner.

And then also, there's there's a fast travel in that game that I would just basically use all the time because I could just skip through all the driving segments.

So like generally how I'm playing games, like I want to avoid driving it if I

unless I unless I have to.

But that said, there are some racing games that I've liked and they tend to be a little bit more arcadey.

You already mentioned Diddy Kong Racing, but that was a game I got really into on the Nintendo 64.

I 100%ed that game for some reason, the single player remote.

The Marika franchise, obviously.

There was this game on the NES called RC Pro-Am, where you like raced little,

you did, I didn't realize you were racing RC cars until I was older.

I was just like, oh, that's what the cars look like.

But I was playing as a little kid and I really liked it.

And that was really, it's like the maneuverability felt really good.

And, you know, it had like cool, it was like Excite Bike.

It had like cool power-ups you could like roll over.

I like that sort of shit and ramps and stuff.

But also the F-Zero franchise, which has been kind of dormant since I think the GameCube era.

And, you know, another Nintendo franchise that's like not one of their top tier ones, but I think it's just like all those games are pretty awesome.

I know they came out with F-Zero 99, but it's just like, give me a proper F-Zero on the Switch or the Switch 2, you know, why not?

Yeah.

The other thing I want to talk about relatedly, and when I really do like racing games, and maybe this goes back to the original topic we had here, which was when we're talking about the racing rig, when we're talking about having a wheel and pedals, I really like an arcade cabinet where you can drive the thing or ideally you can sit down or like in super hang on, you can climb on top of a motorcycle.

I love stuff like that.

I remember this, the first one I experienced was Pole Position, which was basically had like Atari 2600.

It was slightly better than that, but like, you know, it had like...

eight-bit level sub-8-bit graphics uh but you could control it with a wheel and and pedals if memory serves and like that was like an amazing experience as a video game.

And so, anytime something is like that, I mean, like, if there is an arcade cabinet, you can sit down at a barcade or Dave and Busters or something, I tend to gravitate towards that.

Yeah, I feel like Crazy Taxi was probably my first like

experience with any sort of racing game.

Um, that's a great shout out.

That's a game we, we, we did an episode on Crazy Taxi back in the day, and yeah, that that game is, I did play a lot.

That's that's another one, I did play a lot of that on Dreamcast.

Yeah, I feel I only ever played it at uh my local CC's pizza.

Wow, Savannah, Georgia.

I probably also didn't play it.

I probably was just like sitting watching the demo.

But um, I have, yeah, I have a fondness towards crazy taxi for sure.

Um,

and

cruising

USA.

Love cruising USA.

I don't know if we want to count it, but as far as arcade racers go,

the pod racing game.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

Episode one racer.

Yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Specifically in an arcade where you get to sit in the cockpit and you control it

with the levers.

That is, yeah, that is pod racing.

It's cool as hell.

I don't want to get too derailed here, but you mentioned Cece's Pizza.

Do you remain a Cece's Pizza fan?

I can't imagine there are any in New York.

There aren't any in New York, but I do.

I think I still have the phone number of my Cece's Pizza on my phone and I refuse to delete it.

Like I loved it.

It was just like the place that we would always get pizza for like school or anything.

So I have a real fondness for it.

It's like a buffet, right?

I've never been to one.

Yeah, it's

a buffet.

And I would like go, I would sit.

I also like, I didn't have any game systems or cable when I was growing up.

So I would like go to Cece's Pizza.

I'd get like a ton of pizza slices.

I'd sit.

There's like a big screen where Cartoon Network was always playing.

And I was like, this is what, this is what being a kid is like.

Yeah.

You're sitting there and you're like, wow, I'm such a kid.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm thinking, I maybe, now I'm like, did I maybe have Cece's Pizza once in Washington State or something?

Because I remember going to a Cece's like place, but I'm not sure if it was exactly that.

But I did not know it had arcade cabinets in it.

Because that's the thing I remember from our roundtable pizza.

That was like, you know, one, one reason I love that place is you could go there and like, you know, they'd have like an X-Men arcade game.

Yeah, it was very minimal.

Like ours had a racing game,

probably like a claw machine, and I think a claw-like game, but that had candy instead or something like that.

Like super, like nothing there, basically.

But

some good times.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

Any other, any other thoughts on driving games?

I know it's just such a vast thing to cover, and I know we can't possibly get to anything, but like, is there anything else anyone wants to shout out?

Or

I guess maybe if I have a question to maybe direct things, it's like,

whatever your level of enthusiasm towards driving in video games or IRL is, like, what makes a good one?

Like, what makes you

stick with some and bounce off of others?

I don't know.

I mean, I feel like my exposure to a lot of driving games is just through watching stuff on YouTube.

And

I feel like the ones that I really enjoyed, like there are, there are a lot of those like open world driving games, like Fuel

is one that's technically a racing game, but like it's huge.

I think like those,

at least from like a watching perspective, you have to be really committed to just like sitting, looking at a car go through a desert or something for like hours.

But I don't know, things like GTA 5 for sure.

There's like, I feel like there's some arcade racers that have that Mario Kart-y element where like you can make the track explode.

There's one called, I don't know what year it is, but there's one called Split Second.

Have you heard of that one at all?

That's like

you you can, it's like an arcade racer, but you can like call airstrikes and like

make like

train tracks explode on the track to try and just like destroy other cars.

That sounds great.

And that, like, those kinds of things I think are really entertaining.

Those are like a lot more fun to watch just because of the chaos.

And then I don't know if it would technically count as a racing game, but I think like the trials series, like trials evolution uh

trials hd and all of those they're like the motorcycle like you can technically race yeah people but i think like the fact that you can do those and like reset because it's an obstacle course like right right that becomes really interesting the obstacle course and it also being a race um

so i yeah i've watched videos of this

of this being played and just like the physics of it are really like yeah impressive and i understand why why people want to just keep playing the same course over and over.

Yeah.

You know, I think it was also like a big, like, there were like a lot of achievements you could get back in the day with those.

I mean, speaking of physics, that's that's honestly what I

pay attention to the most, specifically in like the sim games,

you know, more sim, less arcade.

That that is

the closer you get to the car feeling real, the more subtle

like

your movements

need to be.

Like like if I give the gas a little too much going out of a turn, I could easily like spin out or like over steer or understeer.

Um, so when I'm like looking for for like a sim game, it's like it really comes down to like the physics.

Like the graphics don't even need to be that great.

It's, it's, does, does,

the, do I feel the weight of the car that I'm driving?

And if I do, then I feel like it's a better kind of

game.

But honestly, any game that has a driving mechanic in it, I, I get hyped about and I'm excited to drive whatever I'm allowed to drive in any kind of game.

Also, if you guys are interested, there is a place in Pasadena called World of Racing, and it is sim racing only.

It's like a bunch of

simulation cockpits that would like motion.

Wow.

But it is like real

driving simulation.

I was going to say, there's also, I don't know, Weiger, if this is enough of an arcade-y situation for you, but like there's now popping up around the world these F1 arcades where you can sit in those like sim rigs and play in an like you just like buy some races, races you can like go with friends and play against each other and i went to one in london i think there's one opening in boston wow this year um and i was really bad i raced by myself and i did not do well um but it was a lot of fun and it's like fun it has like the feedback of the chair

like with the wheel that casey's talking about where you can like you have to like really grip it and all that kind of stuff it's cool yeah that i'm looking at this site now this is like an officially branded thing it looked like it It looks really snazzy.

Where my mind,

how my mind operates, I immediately clicked on food bags.

It was like the one in London was way too fancy for what I was expecting.

They had Aesop soap in the bathroom.

I can't stop talking about that.

It looked like a real, like a nice, classy establishment.

Wow.

But with like 40 some rigs.

The sharing plates has a 28-day-aged Himalayan salt dried flat iron steak.

I'm like, all right.

Give me some sliders.

Calm down.

I'm looking for a nugget, dog.

Yeah.

A big thing that

I just want to mention also, Formula One does is they have like their own esports league.

Like every team has the sim racing version of the team.

And they will often compete at the races that the real life drivers are driving at.

So F1 is like

really on board with sim racing and and integrating it into the world of motorsport.

It's great and I also don't think we really talked about it, but like

all of the teams have reserve drivers that bank hours on these like sim rigs to help the team like learn more about the car and the track and everything,

which is super like their job is just to

play games for the team.

Dream job.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

I think if I go to the

Sim Rig place, I'm going to need somebody to drive me there and drive me back because I think the most dangerous thing for me would be getting in a car after doing that.

Anytime I, like, when I left Mad Max Fury Road, I was like, this is going to be a disaster.

You suddenly have the guitar that's shooting.

Yeah, yeah.

I became the gimp guy.

Man, the movie rocks.

Oh, yeah.

So, so good.

Did you play the game?

The game is good.

The game was good, yeah.

It has that similar crunchy combat to like Arkham

or

those Lord of the Rings games.

Really, really good.

I loved it a lot.

And good driving in it, actually, too.

Casey's point about

the weight is the big thing because the weight wasn't there in the Arkham Knight Batmobile.

The weight wasn't there in Cyberpunk 1.0.

Right.

They got closer in 2.0.

But

if I can't feel the

like those tires screeching the way I want, it's not, it's off.

The whole thing's, if it just kind of feels like it's floating there, just sort of like moving, like you're like playing with a toy car above the ground, kind of, that's not, that's not it.

That's just, it just never feels good.

But if you can feel the weight, that's, that's all you need, baby.

That makes all the difference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The only the only thing I'll add to that is, and I think this probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, but it's the genre where frame rate is premium.

And, you know, like you'll see a lot of games,

especially in the current generation, that are sacrificing

frame rate for graphical fidelity so these things can run on 4K TVs, which I get, but man, the racing games got to be just, you know, locked in at 60 FPS or 120 FPS, you know, whatever the platform is.

I mean, just it's, it's, it's really, that's key, I think, to having the sense of speed.

Um, all right, I, I, I got a segment for us.

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

This is Would You Blathers.

So how Would You Blathers works is

named in honor of the Animal Crossing Owl.

I will give you a video game related scenario, and you can each chime in on which one you'd prefer.

And today, these these are all related to driving in video games.

So, this is a driving game edition of Would You Blathers.

All right.

Does everyone understand the format?

Oh, yeah.

Got it.

Okay, great.

First up, Would You Blathers?

Haul an 18-wheeler cross-country like an American truck simulator, or manage a busy gas station like a gas station simulator.

I think I would rather manage a busy gas station.

I haven't seen any

of that simulator, but I've seen the American Truck simulator, and I think I would immediately stall out of the car and not be able to get back anywhere.

I'm 100% with you.

You know, both very dangerous jobs, you know,

more dangerous than being a cop.

And so I would,

I would, so I would rather, but still, all that said, I think I would rather be the gas station manager.

I feel like I could handle that a little bit better i think do i get to pick like the snacks the offerings like am i yeah of course it's you're all in whatever you want to do

this was you also get to pick your you get to pick your snacks if you're on the road as well okay now that's interesting to think about you're stopping you're stopping at a bucky's what are you gonna load up all that i don't know if i have because like i i don't mind driving right but i don't know if i could sit in the in the cab you know in the cabin of a car for like 18 hours i can't i don't have the patience for it and And I do think that people that do those jobs are absolute heroes.

It's like it's such a

wonderful

dog.

If we have any truckers out there, listen to the pod.

Thank you for your service.

And give me two toots on that horn real quick, why don't you?

Yeah, honestly, I think I'm going to go the trucker route.

Wow,

you do have trucker energy.

You really do have trucker energy.

This is, yeah.

I get it.

Yeah, I have a, it's a, if you're, if you're okay being like alone for long stretches and you don't mind driving, like that, it does feel like a, a, a cool job.

Yeah.

Uh, my, I used to share an office when I worked in the video game industry with a very talented designer and his dad was a trucker.

And he would say like he'd be on road trips with his dad.

Uh, and his dad would just like pull over to the side of the road and be like, all right, time to go to sleep and just lean his, like the driver's seat back and go to sleep like in their truck.

And it's just like that, that's a thing that was totally foreign to him, but I guess you just learn how to do that if that's your job.

Man, I wish I could do that

now.

I, whenever I would go on a road trip with my mom, it was like she wouldn't pull over on the side of the road, but she would just be like, We're going to power through and I'm going to sleep for an hour and then we're going to get back on the road.

I would do it on the freeway, just driving from where I live to Santa Monica.

Just be like,

he's a little natural click.

All right, next up.

Would you Blathers work as a taxi driver and only be able to listen to Bad Religion and The Offspring like in Crazy Taxi?

Or

only be able to listen to Synth Rock covers of The Simpsons soundtrack like in The Simpsons Road Rage?

Wow, that's hard.

Does that include the Bartman,

but Synthrock?

I think so.

Yeah, I think you got to assume Bartman's in there.

I don't know if it's actually on the soundtrack, but maybe in the credits.

Look, I'm a SoCal kid.

I grew up hearing Bad Religion and the offspring on K-Rock

my whole life.

I'm going The Simpsons.

I'm done with those songs.

Who are K-Rock DJs?

You like Jed the Fish?

I like Jed the Fish.

I was a big Cat Corbett fan, actually.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, I loved.

I mean, Kevin and Bean were such institutions

when they were on the air and they were when they were.

No, I'd listen to Kevin Bean every morning.

Yeah.

But that was, I feel like I liked Cat Corbett's show because she would play like local bands, like local new bands, too.

I liked that a lot.

So

probably Cat Corbett's my, I'm a Cat Corbett's fan.

How many times can I say Cat Corbett?

You think?

I don't know.

Keep going.

Casey, how about you?

I think I gotta go.

I got to go a taxi route.

Look, I grew up also listening to Offspring and Bad Religion

a lot in the Tony Hawk soundtracks.

So nothing makes me feel more alive than hearing some Bad Religion.

And, you know,

I could get the fares there quicker, which I don't think is what I want as a taxi driver, but maybe it'll mean better tips.

I think I would also

go with Bad Religion and the Offspring.

As much as I love the music of The Simpsons, I don't love it being synthrock.

That would drive me crazy.

All right, next up.

Would you Blathers compete in illegal street racing like a Need for Speed Underground or compete in a driving version of soccer on an oversized field like in Rocket League?

I'll answer this one.

I'd rather do Rocket League just for the novelty of it.

Kicking around a big old soccer ball with a truck feels like fun.

I don't even remember what the first option was.

I want to do Rocket League.

I remember when Rocket League was brand new, I was like, this is the most genius thing I've ever seen in my life.

This is such a good idea.

I've never played Rocket Racer.

They're like

on Fortnite.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I have not.

Nick, we're going to have to talk about it soon.

It's okay.

It's fucking great.

Wow.

Yeah,

it's a no-brainer to do the rocket league version uh illegal street lake racing look i love to drive my car fast uh but i don't i don't street race because i don't trust anybody else on the road

right yeah even lewis hamilton will will tell you that uh he hates driving on on regular roads people don't know what they're doing um yeah but if i could get in a car and bump a big ball around and

do flips and I get to put like a hat on top of my car, I'm all for it.

I think you could do that in real life if you really wanted.

Barrika, you own Rocket League?

Yeah.

For all the same reasons.

It's like, it just seems so.

Imagine

this was like the easiest one.

Would you rather do

something that you could already kind of do, or would you rather do the absolute impossible?

The greatest thing man could try to attempt?

I think the case for Need for Speed underground is it's very cool like it is like cool yeah um and then also that i there's a chance that rocket league in real life is extremely dangerous there's a chance sure yeah yeah

um

uh all right next up would you blathers Be a crazed clown with a flaming head driving in an ice cream truck like sweet tooth in twisted metal or be a steroid ridden muscle man with no car frame frame and two just two giant wheels attached to your limbs, like Axel and Twisted Metal.

I'm going Axel all the way.

Axle's so cool.

Yeah, I got a lot of stuff.

I like Sweet Tooth, but Axel's cool.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go same.

I think I'm gonna go Sweet Tooth.

I think Sweet Tooth's cool.

It's a good choice.

But I'm a big ice cream guy, too.

I'm a cone freak.

I love a good cone.

Matt, that's a great point.

So

I already got my stuff.

I'll get high on my own supply.

That's fine.

All right.

Final Would You Blathers.

Would You Blathers be a cat-like entity who can morph into a passenger van like Morgana in Persona 5 or be a sentient car like Lightning McQueen in the Cars video game?

However, because it's the video game, you are not voiced by Owen Wilson.

Can I ask about this Persona 5 character?

Does she actually turn into a car in the game or is it she just has like the power to turn into things

uh morgana does turn into a car i i wonder if i can find a video of it first off i'll give you the i'll i'll share the art with you so you can get a sense of the character design because he is a he is a real cutie pie um okay here's what more morgana in persona five looks like see this little chibi cat with the big head okay Okay.

And

let me see if I can find a video of the transformation because the first time it happened for me in the game, it

broke my brain.

I know it's an anime trope, but it was surprising.

Was that, Casey?

This could make or break it for me, the transformation

of what I choose.

Matt, you got that far into Persona 5, I know.

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

I got like...

I played that game for like 60 hours and I didn't even come close to finishing it.

No, it's a big.

But

I do have a fondness for Morgana, and I do

I wish I had finished it.

I could go back, I guess, but I did like

I bought

it on Switch after playing it on Game Pass.

I was like, I'll just pick it up again on Switch.

And I was like, What am I doing?

This is, I don't have, I can't do this again, but maybe

some existence.

It's a daunting commitment, but um, but I love that game.

All right, let's let's watch this.

I think it's right at the top of this video.

Morgana transform

That one that one for sure yeah yeah

yeah absolutely

absolutely don't Morgana what's the point of being Lightning McQueen even if you can't even be Owen Wilson yeah can I can I'm royalty free yeah

you might not have the rights for Kachow yeah

that was that was what you blathers that's a sweet get played our producer is Rochelle Chen uh 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 paywall, patreon.com/slash get played, where we have our pre-head gumback catalog, as well as our paywalled show, Get Animated Matt, where we're deep into Pluto.

That's right.

We're taking this week, we're taking a break from Pluto, and we'll be answering some of your questions that we've had backlogged over, you know, the last month or so of just questions and comments pertaining to some of the things we watched before we started Pluto.

But then next week we'll be on to episode five.

And oh boy, that's all I'll say is, oh boy.

Oh boy indeed.

Check that out.

Patreon.com/slash get played.

Our guest today, Marika Brownlee, Casey Donahue.

The podcast is the Pitwall, an F1 podcast.

Tell us about the pod and anything else you want to plug.

And thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Hey, thanks for having us, guys.

The Pitwall, as you said, it's a pod Formula One.

I screw this up on every single episode.

It's a Formula One podcast for casual fans.

Sometimes I say it's a casual podcast for Formula One fans.

It could be both.

It could be both.

It also works.

Yeah, if you're interested in Formula One, want to get into it.

We talk about Drive to Survive, the Netflix show.

The new season is coming out next month.

That was my entry to it.

That's a lot of American entry points.

for F1.

So if you're interested, you can check it out.

Tune in.

We'll talk about it.

And we love it.

We love talking about it.

The season hasn't started yet, so we're not releasing episodes until Drive to Survive starts, which I think it was announced February 23rd.

But we have like a bat catalog of previous season.

We talked about some movies like Gran Turismo.

We recently

talked about Ferrari

with Action Boys.

Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah, that's a movie.

We were talking about street racing, a movie centered on an insane street race.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that they, that they, I get, they don't do anymore, but like what, like you're thinking about it, and just like, it's like they're driving for, what is it, a thousand mile race?

However long it is.

It's like a, and it's just through the Italian countryside.

So they're just driving by

like civilians.

And yeah, it's crazy.

People should check it out.

Check out the pitwall.

And thank you all so much for being here.

Yeah.

And hey, that's this episode.

Matt, I guess now's the time we have to tell our lovely guests that they got played.

Yeah, Yeah, I wouldn't want to do this.

We were having so much fun and

very nice conversation.

Yeah, great guests.

Very generous with their team.

Yeah, thank you so much.

But you guys did get played, and I'm very sorry.

I can't believe this.

I can't believe all this was to get played.

That was a hit gun podcast.