The Game Was Better: Five Nights at Freddy's

This is a Head Gum podcast.

Quick, time to choose a meal deal with McValue.

The $5 McChicken Meal Deal, the $6 McDouble Meal Deal, or the new $7 daily double meal deal.

Each with its own small fries, drink, and four-piece McNuggets.

There's actually no rush.

I'm just excited for McDonald's.

Price anticipation may vary.

Audival's romance collection has something to satisfy every side of you.

When it comes to what kind of romance you're into, you don't have to choose just one.

Fancy a dalliance with a duke or maybe a steamy billionaire.

You could find a book boyfriend in the city and another one tearing it up on the hockey field.

And if nothing on this earth satisfies, you can always find love in another realm.

Discover modern rom-coms from authors like Lily Chu and Allie Hazelwood, the latest romanticy series from Sarah J.

Maas and Rebecca Yaros, plus regency favorites like Bridgerton and Outlander.

And of course, all the really steamy stuff.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wondery.

That's audible.com/slash wondery.

All right, team.

We've been tasked with making the animatronics for Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria.

And this is a huge order for us.

This is going to put us on the map.

So we got to come up with some interesting characters.

Obviously, we got to represent Freddy Fazbear as an animatronic.

But I'm open to pitches about, you know, what kind of features these animatronics might have.

Let you guys take it away.

We're the guys for the job.

I just want to say that here at Guberman Animatronics, we're going to hit this one out of the park.

Yeah, we ain't fucking around.

We're not

fucking around.

We do the best.

We do the best.

Look, yeah, we've made some really great animatronics before, but I think because of the footprint that Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria has, I think this is going to be a huge opportunity for us.

So

we cannot mess this up.

Yeah, you said that five times fast.

You know what I'm saying?

That's a bit of a tongue-tifter.

all right i gotta i gotta pitch right out of the gate let's hear it free walking robots they can move around interact with the kids and they're real they're real strong you know like like strong enough to crush bones i like this bone crushing area i think that's a good area to explore just bone crushing in general

you know they it's like oh man he's coming off stage look at him go look at that guy he's wailing on a guitar a second ago what what wait he's crushing bones now yeah that that's what we need yeah i i i i like i like the idea of the free roam that's that's pretty good you don't see that usually the animatronics are pretty stationary we'll have to sort of come up with the maybe a proprietary technology for that but the bone

the bone crushing part doesn't seem like it's necessary or even part of it.

Like, when would that ever even come into play?

Guitar playing is that's interesting because, you know, a lot of times it would look kind of fake.

Maybe they're just waving their arm in front of a guitar, but maybe we could do something specific with the

fingers.

You want them to be like robots.

Yeah, they should be weak.

I don't think they should be weak robots.

Tourism and animatronics.

I don't think they're weak robots.

I want a strong robot.

I want him to have, you know, like I want him to be able to make a fist or be able to hold something.

Like he could grab a pizza box for the kids or he can pick up a knife.

I like that.

You know, like he can

swing a knife.

Yeah, just swing a knife around.

Sort of like can do like a stabbing motion, but also like a swooshing motion.

Or that underhead, that, like, that, uh, that sort of that brave heart gutting, you know, like when they take out the intestines.

Oh, that movie's sick as hell.

It's

so good.

It's so sad, it's so sad what happened to that director.

So sad.

It's so sad what happened to him.

So unfair.

But the thing, I don't think he, I don't think these animatronics need a stabbing feature.

In what context would he even need to hold a knife

to begin with?

Look, we're just blue skying.

All right.

We're just like throwing ideas out there.

I got one.

All right.

What's it?

Each of the animatronic anapals should have a compartment that houses the soul of one child.

That's fucking great.

Like, it just sort of sucked the soul and personality out of a child and then just, it can embody that child in perpetuity.

I came into this meeting fully loaded, and you, my friend, had a bandolier of ideas.

That is fucking great.

Hey, you know, I'm just following your lead.

You know, that's the process here.

That's why we work in a room.

Tony Antonio.

I tell everybody I know, Tony Antonio is the guy in the industry.

If you want to come up with an idea as brilliant as an Anapal got a soul chamber locked right into it.

Well, it's all in deference to you.

It's all because of you.

Look, are we making these robots or not?

These bone-crushing, knife-wielding, child-soul hoarding robots?

We're making them?

Because I'm ready to go.

I don't know what you guys are going to be doing, but I'm going to tell you right now that I quit.

I quit, and I cannot take part in

making animatronics.

I can't be the Oppenheimer of the Chain Pizzeria animatronic field, okay?

I'm out.

I can't do that.

You know what?

Because I felt like you were Hoover damning us.

And what I want is just a quick run of ideas here.

So I'll pitch, you pitch, I pitch, you pitch.

Here we go.

Can take the eyes out of a kid.

Love it.

How about

can make like a necklace of ears from little ears?

Feeds on children's fingernails and toenails.

Drinks piss.

Washes in piss.

Cooks things in piss.

All right, I'm back in.

We toggle between security cameras and groove to talking in your sleep as we discuss the movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy's 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, Tyler Mann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello,

everyone.

And welcome back, Bucket, to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about, I believe

it's grossed enough now to be the number one film in the United States two weekends in a row, five nights at Freddy's.

Yeah,

as of this episode's release, we're coming out on the Monday.

We're obviously recording the previous weekend.

Maybe three weekends in a row.

Who knows?

As of this recording, it's grossed $215 million worldwide against a $20 million budget.

Kind of reviled by critics, but audiences love it.

A minus cinema score from audiences.

That's like what Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning did.

So it's a very, very well-received movie.

But we're going to give our own thoughts as people who are significantly older than the target audience for this movie.

I want to say,

I watched this with, as part of my ongoing caregiving treatment plan, my mother is staying with me.

And so I watched this with my mom and my wife.

Wow.

And

so they watched the entire thing.

And I can

fill you guys in on their thoughts about the movie also.

But I think we have other things to discuss first.

We do.

You know, first off, and like we've talked about,

like we talked about last week, we're now on the Headgum Podcast Network.

Very fat, very happy to be here at a Headgum.

This is a Headgum podcast.

And as part of this transition, what's that?

This is a Headgum podcast.

Are you the voice?

I never really conditioning to be the voice.

Okay.

It's good.

I know it's like, it's week two, and maybe it's sort of like a crazy thing to be doing

so early into our run, but I'm just giving some options.

This is a headgum podcast.

It's good.

I mean, I would just say, like, how much are they looking to just recast it with something that sounds exactly the same as what they have now?

And how much are they like to want to go in this direction?

Yeah.

Based on the conversations I've had about it, there's been no indication that they're even looking for a new voice.

Got it.

Okay.

I'm just putting it out there.

Yeah.

Have you guys ever seen the

BBC documentary where they

sort of reenacted what Neanderthals sound like?

I don't like where this is going, but

I don't think I've not seen it.

Well, I mean, I guess we could play it here on the pod.

I don't know what the legal rights of that is.

I just want to say, Matt, your voice is nothing like a Neanderthal.

What?

I wasn't even thinking, I wasn't even thinking that.

Well, I thought that's where you were going with it.

Oh, no.

I thought you were thinking, oh, Heather's a terrible person.

She's immediately going to liken me to a Neanderthal.

And I'm here to say, you sound nothing like a Neanderthal.

Okay, no, I thought that you were trying to calm down maybe a nerve that you thought that I had about what

are we are we so like recursively

empathic with one another that we just got into like a feedback loop?

I think so.

I think what has happened is, yeah, exactly that.

But thank you, I guess is what I mean to say.

Isn't there some theory?

And I don't know if it's if it's Neanderthal or if it's a different like kind of related species, like a Homo erectus or something.

But there, isn't there some theory?

I'm like listening.

Homo sapiens

are like, we triumphed ultimately not because of our superior brain power over this other species, but because of like, we were just like more aggressive.

I feel like I read that, read some animal theories about that at some point.

I remember reading, maybe this is in Sapiens, which I don't know if that's a disgraced book yet or not, or if it's on its way, or I don't know.

But anyway,

that it was partly because we could form the concept of groups that were beyond the people that we could see.

So, like, we exist as part of a group of, you know, podcasters.

Right.

Uh, and you can conceive of what, like, how that looks in terms of the larger body of podcasters or countries or, or whatever.

And that that made us able to create warfare because you would, if it was just like your little family, then you know, it's harder to create war, but we would like go to war with with Neanderthals.

Um, but there's also so much Neanderthal DNA in us.

All of this is to say, I feel like we should have pulled up that clip from the BBC where they, where they do a Neanderthal voice.

Okay, hold on, let me, I can pull it up.

Have you guys seen that clip?

It's fake, but they're like, they like reconstructed

the like vocal folds of a mummy.

Like,

and

they're like, and this is the sound it would produce.

And they like play, it's fake, but the clip that they show this in, the mummy just goes like, oh!

It's so funny.

Oh, f.

Alright, here we fucking go.

Alright, here is this clip of a Neanderthal voice from the BBC.

Just pitch up your voice.

One, two, three.

Let's just add a bit of nasal now.

One, two, three.

Now, the other thing that would be happening, which would actually increase that quality, is a very heavy skull that seems to pull down into the throat there.

Now, speak.

One, two, three!

Now let's make

a huge argument.

Okay, so...

So I do sound like this.

No, you don't.

Anyway, all of that was to say that I wish that was the head gum voice.

It's like,

head gum podcast!

Maybe we can get him to do it.

That also is just like

what like most British television is.

Like so much.

You ever watch like a British comedy and like people are like, oh,

this one's very popular across the pond.

And it is just that.

It's like, for

it's like the broadest, like dumbest shit.

Yeah, those Brits over there,

what the hell?

They think, because it's like this, yeah, it's their comedy is very lowbrow.

It's more lowbrow than ours.

Yeah.

And they would do something like that in front of the queen.

Horrible.

For a shame.

I'm glad we watched that clip.

That was worth it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Beyond that bit of business, we have another thing we want to do here, which is to introduce our new producer here at Headgum, Rochelle Chen.

Hi, Rochelle.

Thanks so much for for being here.

Hello, hello.

Thanks so much for being part of the show.

Hi, Rochelle.

Thank you so much, Rochelle.

I'm so happy to be here.

I love this podcast and I love games.

God bless you.

Hell yeah.

We're going to talk about.

We're going to talk because you mentioned a specific game, and I think we should wait till our next segment to talk about that.

But we're very, very happy to have you on board as part of the team here.

And also, we want to say from a business business perspective that this month's We Play You Play, we kind of went back and forth in terms of what to cover for our extended episode about one game in particular.

And what we landed on is a classic, an all-timer, and kind of the way that we covered, you know, Shadow of the Colossus recently, or when we covered Portal back in the day.

Sonic go back in time, or Sonic 2.

We're going to go back in time and cover Super Mario Bros.

3, the game that more than anything seems to have inspired Super Mario Bros.

Wonder, which everyone is playing right now, including me.

And that will be coming Monday, November 27th.

So extended discussion on Super Mario 3 coming at the end of this month.

I can't wait.

That's going to be so fun.

Yeah, I mean, it is going to be a lot of fun.

Depending on my mobility, I might play that on a CRT.

I might play old original Super Mario 3.

Wow.

Sure would be nice.

Sure would be nice.

Speaking of classics, you guys hear that they've announced a live-action Legend of Zelda movie with Miyamoto as a producer and then a bunch of other people.

Yeah, it's Sony.

It's a co-production with Sony.

Yeah.

Who I guess did, you know,

as far as video game adaptations do, Uncharted is their big most recent one, right?

And that was supposed to be really good.

Truth be told, it was supposed to be a fine adventure movie.

I didn't know.

Didn't we watch it?

We did watch it.

We covered it on the show.

We did.

We did an episode on Uncharted.

I know you watched it because you commented on specific sequences.

Yeah.

You talked about how much you hate Mark Wahlberg.

Oh, God damn.

Well,

fuck.

I don't remember it at all.

Entered and exited my brain

like a breath.

Yes.

It's not a particularly substantive movie, but it's it's a fine adaptation of the story.

Remember, there's a Papa Johns in that, like, old

case.

Right, they have a fight in a Papa Johns.

God damn it.

Anyway, they're making a Legend of Zelda movie, and my only pitch is that I really hope they make the brave and cool choice to keep Link silent.

Absolutely not going to do that.

I think that would be so.

What?

They're for sure not going to do that.

We go on.

Yeah.

Yeah, but can you imagine if they did?

Yeah, it would be cool.

It it would have been easier to do with mario and they didn't do that but keep going it would be so ice cold as a movie to have everybody in the world except link talking and him be it would like make his silence into stoicism because you would see it acted like he could still like grunt and scream and shit but they'd be like they could he could walk into a room and they'd be like yeah you gotta fight gannon and then one of like the comedic sidekicks could be like this guy doesn't talk much so let me tell you what he's thinking.

I got this.

And then I think it should be PG-13, and they should still give him the one fuck.

Like, he says, fuck.

And that's like the only thing that he says in the whole movie.

Yeah, I'm guessing they, what's going to happen is they'll cast like Austin Butler or something.

He'll have a lot of lines and he will have wise cracks.

It probably will be like a Tom Holland uncharted style of casting.

And he will have that sort of characterization.

Yeah.

Because that's what they did with Pratt.

They were like, let's get a movie star and he's going to talk a lot.

And it worked really well for them.

I don't think that's the reason that movie worked.

But, you know,

they now can point at that and say, okay, that's the model.

Get a big movie star, big Western movie star, and then make him like the focal point.

And yes, he's going to talk.

Wow.

Jack Black should be Tingle.

It might happen.

That'd be fun.

Jack Black just plays a character in every Nintendo movie?

I think so.

Why not?

Yeah.

I think he's a big reason why the Mario movie works because he just gives it everything he's got.

Live action is the most shocking part of the whole thing.

Yeah.

It's pretty interesting.

That's where I'm the most surprised.

I feel like we're waxing.

We should be talking about what we're playing.

That's what we should be doing.

Has this ever happened to you?

You've been traveling abroad and you want to watch one of your comfort shows or perhaps even a sporting event, and then because you're somewhere else in a different country that doesn't have that, you can't freaking watch it?

Well, I got something for you.

NordVPN.

Protect your private data like bank details, passwords, and online identity.

NordVPN can switch your virtual location, allowing you to save money by purchasing flights, hotels, and subscriptions from other countries at a cheaper price.

So look, NordVPN can do all sorts of crazy stuff.

You can make it think you're somewhere else.

You're wherever you are.

You're not getting the best deal.

Switch to somewhere else.

They might have a better deal.

That's huge.

Protecting your data whilst traveling, and yeah, I said whilst, and using public Wi-Fi, NordVPN protects you wherever you are in the world.

I have a theory.

This is why they haven't been able to apprehend Carmen Sandiego.

She's using NordVPN.

They'll never find her.

The NordVPN threat protection feature protects you from viruses, malicious malware, and phishing sites.

Unless that phishing site is fastpro.com.

No protection required there.

It's the fastest VPN in the world.

No buffering or lagging while streaming and stops your ISP bandwidth throttling.

ISP bandwidth throttling, a thing of the past with Nord VPN.

Premium cybersecurity for the price of a cup of coffee per month.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

One Nord VPN account can be used on up to 10 devices.

Your phone, your iPad.

Your mom's iPad, your laptop,

maybe even your watch.

Who could say?

And that's not even 10.

You surely have some more.

Perhaps a proprietary browser on a video game console or something.

To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com/slash get played.

Our link will also give you four extra months of the two-year plan.

By my estimation, that's 28 months.

There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee.

The link is in the podcast episode description box.

NordVPN, you heard?

DraftKings Casino has your playbook for gaming action all season long.

Play thousands of popular slots for a shot at jackpots.

Over 400

million has already been awarded.

New players get 500 spins on Huff and more.

Puff over 10 days.

Download the app, use code GET Played, and claim your spins out of your first $5 wager.

Get in the game with DraftKings Casino, home of the largest jackpot win in online casino history.

The crown

is

yours!

Gambling problem?

Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling.

Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

Please play responsibly.

21 Plus, physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia only, void in Ontario.

Eligibility restrictions apply, new customers only.

Non-withdrawable casino spins issued as 50 spins per day for 10 days, valid for feature game only, and expire each day after 24 hours.

See terms at casino.draftkings.com/slash promos.

Ends October 5th, 2025, at 11:59 p.m.

Eastern Time.

Well, I guess that brings us to the question that we ask every week.

What are you playing?

What are you playing, guys?

Can I go first?

Yes.

So, you know, I'm

not sold still on Mario Wonder.

But there is a Sonic the Hedgehog game that came out, I think, in the same release window, if not the same week.

And that's Sonic Superstars, which is a classic 2d side-scrolling sonic game featuring sonic knuckles tails and i think amy rose and i've been playing that and the levels themselves are more fun to me than mario wonder wow every everything else about the game demonstrates how limited the development resources are at sega at this point because like when it's loading a level like the animation i'm playing on Switch, the animation for the loading screens, like stutters and freezes and continues.

There's like errors of like smoothness to the presentation itself.

And also the graphics are a mixed bag of like extremely gorgeous and then like sometimes kind of look a little bit like a mobile game.

uh especially on the bonus stages which are a baffling set of like callbacks to the sonic series.

Like they have the Sonic 1 like rotating maze.

They have this like sort of grappling hook thing.

They don't explain what any of the currencies do.

So like, you know, early in the game, you're, you're just, it's like, collect the medals.

And so you like collect medals.

And then it's like, congratulations, Sonic got five medals.

My favorite parts of the game.

are that Sonic does not fucking talk.

It's back to classic Sonic.

The dude is just just silent and he's going fast.

And that extends all the way to the hand-drawn animated cutscenes and opening scene.

Oh, which look like the best Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon you could ever hope for.

Like, so much personality, so much

vibrance, and it's, it's,

there are parts of the game where you're like, fuck, this is good.

And then there are parts of the game where they're like, this feels unfinished, like hugely unfinished.

Sure.

But level to level, going through a Sonic level, and I think this is just partly because I'm a Genesis kid.

It's more fun for me to go fast, to see stuff, to like backtrack, to like, the levels are also so tall.

You know, like a Mario level is often either horizontal or vertical.

But a Sonic level is like, imagine you're only seeing one floor of a 16-story building and you can switch to any floor at any time.

Right.

So,

so I'm really enjoying it.

And I sat down to try it and ended up playing like, I don't know, six levels straight through before I was like, okay,

I guess I'm done for the day for now.

And

the music is a little,

it's a, it also is kind of a mixed bag.

Some of the tracks are like fucking great classic Sonic with Genesis style drums, which is great and then some of them are a little uh sonic mania like modern versions of that sort of thing which i like less but yeah i actually i played a game that wasn't fortnite and i also played fortnite fortnite og uh not a fan i'm not a fan of fortnite wow it's so much not my game that i

i was worried it would break my addiction you were worried it would break your addiction yeah i don't want to stop doing this thing.

Well, no, because Fortnite brings me so much joy.

I get it.

And,

you know, it had its biggest ever single day of play this last weekend.

44 million people were playing Fortnite simultaneously.

That's insane numbers.

Like, imagine 44 million people going to the fucking movies in the same day.

Like, it's not, that doesn't fucking happen.

It takes me back to Barbenheimer weekend.

I don't, I honestly, I think that it's there.

That's not as many people.

Like, anyway.

So you play with the original map and the original graphics, and it's really sparse.

And the question that a lot of the people I've been playing with, both on the Battle Bus and IRL,

have been asking is like, how did this game get so big?

Because when you play this early map with early graphics and early item placement, it's like, this is not fun.

Interesting.

Yeah, but they're updating the map every week.

They're adding new items every week week as they sort of like blow through the history of Fortnite to get us back to the newest maps, I guess.

But yeah,

I'm not a huge fan of Fortnite OG.

Nick, what have you been playing?

Well, I want to take a quick tangent, actually, and toss it over to Rochelle because before we started and before you joined...

Sorry.

No, this is not.

No, no, no.

No,

actually,

you did the right thing to bump the ball over to me, but I'm going to go ahead and set it in volleyball terms over to Rochelle so she can spike it over the net because you were just talking Fortnite, Rochelle.

I know you've been playing some Fortnite.

Heather, very much like you, I have a Fortnite addiction almost every day.

I play

almost every day.

Almost every day.

And I agree, this is the ugliest game I've ever seen.

Fortnite.

And it's just so sad because it was so beautiful before, and now it's, it, it looks like trash, and I am not enjoying it either.

Why does it look so ugly?

What about it is so unappealing?

Is it like the palette?

Is it like the environment design?

Like, what are we looking at?

Like, does it just look like it's from, you know, 10 years ago or however many years it launched?

Oh, yeah, it just looks really janky.

It does look like it was made a long time ago, which I get that there's, you know, it's nostalgic for some people, but I've, I didn't play back then, so I have no nostalgia for it.

It, It came out the same year as, I think, Fallout 3.

And if you look at those games.

That can't be true.

Fallout 3.

Was Fallout New Vegas?

Fallout 3008?

Okay, Fallout New Vegas.

No, I've just, I honestly don't know how many, like, has Fortnite been around that long?

I had no idea.

Is it 2017?

Maybe

Fallout 4?

Fallout 4.

Even Fallout 4, I think, was earlier than that.

Fallout 4 is 2015.

There's some Fallout game that came out the same year as Fortnite.

And I think

there were some Fallout games as being

like a pretty...

Somebody on our Discord was talking about this, about it being like a kind of a pretty game.

And Fortnite OG

looks...

I mean, it looks bad.

It's startling how bad it looks.

And I kind of feel like it's like...

People have been complaining because everybody complains.

If you make something for them, they are upset about it.

People have been complaining about Fortnite.

Is that true of a podcast?

I haven't encountered that.

It is.

It's true.

But I feel like

the user base was like, old Fortnite was better.

New Fortnite sucks.

And

I wonder if how much of this was epic being like, really?

Do you remember Fortnite?

Right.

Do you really remember how, like, massive sections of the map are just flat green plains with no points of interest,

no loot, no nothing.

And then like some players are like, yeah, this is how it should be.

It should be a game of strategy.

It's like, Fortnite's fun because it's like you get in a car or on the back of a pig.

Like I don't want to play a game where it's like,

you have to run like...

10 minutes in some direction on a flat plane to be able to shoot somebody.

Also, I didn't mean to take over

your question.

No, no, no.

Everything that you're saying is exactly how I'm feeling.

It's just it feels boring.

It's more boring now.

That's a bummer.

What got you into Fortnite initially?

And do you have like a character that you maybe purchase with V-Bucks that you typically play as?

I started playing about a year ago, Christmas last year.

I had COVID.

And then my friend...

gave me his old gaming PC and I had heard about Fortnite.

It was like such a meme.

And I was like, I'm going to play it for fun as a joke.

And then I just got sucked in completely.

That's kind of how it happened here.

Oh, really?

And that's what happened to you, Heather?

We played it for

we did this thing called Ugtober.

We were introducing each other to games we thought the other one wouldn't like.

And we did it as an exercise for Nick.

Yeah, to torment me, to make me play Fortnite because I was scared of being shot by

tweens, but then I ended up having a blast.

And then Heather ended up

developing the strongest addiction of any of us and kept playing it for since then

yeah it is uh it has love it's been a lovely ruiner of my life like I truly enjoy it it has

uh

it has clogged the pipe of any other game like I'm like I'm gonna play God of War and I started God of War but you know like two levels into God of War I'm like

Really, I feel like I should drop in and play a little Fortnite.

Like, I play Mario Wonder, and I'm like, nah, I should play a little Fortnite.

Like, it's, it's really the day.

It's like, it's like breakfast.

It's like the best part of the day.

It's wonderful

until Fortnite OG.

But I'm curious, Rochelle, who do you play as?

Are you

are you a banana?

Are you Batman?

Are you Iggy Azalea?

I'm usually this.

I got a generic anime pack, and I usually play one of those girls.

Oh, nice.

Hell yeah.

I also bought the Michael Meyer skin so I've been playing as him.

Nice.

Good choices.

Do you play as the on the anime skin pack is that like the prep school pack?

Where you can like

I do have that one too.

It's pretty good.

Pretty good.

Yeah.

I like being different guys.

I play exclusively as either the Terminator or Ivor from Assassin's Creed.

Oh my God, that's amazing.

That's the beauty of Fortnite where all these characters come together.

It's so fun.

So beautiful.

Yeah, it's true anarchy.

Matt, what are you playing?

Okay, well, last week I said I was really enjoying Spider-Man 2, and this week I simply must report that I did finish it.

Oh, shit.

And yeah, was I shocked to see that my playtime was like 35 hours?

I was.

It flew by.

I loved it, and I'm not done with it.

Like, there's still, like, I finished the story, and like, I didn't do all the side things.

And this game doesn't have as much going on, uh, side-wise, it feels like, compared to the first game.

But I like that about it more because I don't like that.

I don't like when there's like when all the side stuff is like fetch quests or things like that.

So, this one has a little bit more going on.

There was a really great, a wonderful side quest where I thought I was going to be playing Miles, but I ended up playing as his friend Haley, who is who is hearing impaired and only speaks in sign and she's an artist and the quest was you were going around and you saw all this like graffiti that had been crossed out and you're like you start covering over the graffiti with sort of presentable art and then you catch up with the graffiti artist and the reason that they're crossing out their own graffiti is that they're not really good at it and Haley having learned lessons from both Spider-Man, takes that opportunity and is like, no, I can tell that you're actually a good artist and like shows the graffiti artist a better technique and a way to appreciate their art.

And it was, it was wonderful.

I was like, what is like, why is this in here?

This is like, it was such a sweet,

it was such a sweet thing.

And normally I don't love the non-Spider-Man parts of the game, like when you're just kind of walking around.

But I loved that as a story.

I thought that was very sweet, a very touching story.

And then the overall story of Spider-Man 2, I thought was fantastic.

Really fun, really great action set pieces.

And I look forward to more.

I waited four years for this one, and I knocked it out in two weeks.

Isn't that how that always works?

Like, you wait so long for a sequel to a game that you loved, and then it's gone in a flash.

But I'll be getting back to it.

I'm going to go in or you bounce off of it.

Yeah.

And they're just like, oh, well, shit.

This thing I waited for, I just like never actually made time to play.

Yeah, but I'll be getting back to it because

I would like to see that 100%.

I don't know if I'll platinum it, but I would like to get that percentage up.

And I know there has to be DLC.

I know that there will have DLC in the future because the first game had some really, really fun DLC packs for it.

I hope to get to play on this one.

But that's basically it for me.

And still messing around with Wonder.

But other than that, that's it.

Can you have a little Bill Maher new rule real quick?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

No, absolutely not.

Okay, then I won't.

No,

I want a rule, but I do not want a new rule.

New rule.

Oh, no.

That's got my back.

If you want 100% a game, you should platinum it.

I don't like these percentages not being the same as platinuming or, you know,

getting like every trophy.

If you accumulate every trophy, it should be the same as 100%ing it.

Like the percentage has to sync up with the trophy and achievement system.

Otherwise, what are we doing here?

And it's confusing.

Then you have this conversation, and someone's like, I 100%ed it.

Well, I didn't finish the bonus level.

Or like, well, I didn't do it on hard.

It was like, well, then you didn't 100% it, but like, it's because you didn't do everything that is available in the game.

Like, it has to sync up with the achievements.

I love this take, and I do, I don't like when,

because I'm not an achievement hunter anyway, but I don't like when getting the platinum is locked behind completing the game on on different difficulties.

Spider-Man doesn't let you do, like, doesn't do that.

Like, you can 100%,

you can finish the game at any percentage and get the trophy for completing it.

And let me tell you, toward the end of that game, I kicked that difficulty level down quite a bit.

It was getting pretty hairy.

And the enemies.

Enemies have a lot of HP at a certain point.

I am going to, like, I'm, here's the thing.

I don't even care if you make the achievements like super difficult and I'm never going to get them.

Like, that's fine.

Like,

keep that stuff in there.

But if there's going to be a percentage associated with the game's completion, it should line up with those things.

Right.

And, like, maybe I do every, maybe I'm at 98% perpetually because I didn't do those last few extremely difficult tasks.

But don't let me 100% a game and then say it's still got some work to do to get the platinum.

He's pissed.

I'm pissed about.

Final Fantasy 16's requirement that you play through the entire game again.

That's dumb.

That's dumb.

Well, because that also they don't even unlock the additional difficulty levels.

And part of our frustration with that game and why I bounced off of it, although both of you finished it, is that I just found the difficulty level so low that you and you can't even raise it.

You can't raise it until you finish the game.

Look, it just depends on what a game's going for.

In this particular game, I just felt like

I was just going through the motions.

But

yeah, I don't, I have nothing against an easy game either.

But I'm just like, if you're going to have, you're going to lock it behind difficulty, but then this difficulty level isn't even available until I complete it for the first time.

That's, that's a different issue than what I was talking about.

But my 100% thing stands regardless.

He's pissed.

I'm furious.

I love it.

I'll just touch real quick on

Super Mario Bros.

Wonder because it's been mentioned.

I mean, I am having the time of my life with this game.

I think it's awesome.

I think it's terrific.

I really like it.

I think just a couple of things I haven't touched on yet because I've talked about this game a lot and I don't want to repeat myself too much.

First off, my approach to progressing through these stages, because there's a few different ways you can do it, but you know, you ideally want to get the check mark.

You want to get all the different...

uh purple coins and you want to get the wonder flowers uh the wonder flower and then you want to you know collect everything you want to like and you want to get the flagpole all the way up you want to do all those things but i found myself having more fun with this game just completing these stages as i go and then going back to mop up all everything else rather than being being stuck on one individual stage until I try to get everything.

I've just found that that's been a that's been a way that I've kept the game a little bit more engaging for me.

So I, you know, I don't know.

I think I think like I do have a tendency to be like, well shit, especially with the Mario games, like I want to try to get everything.

I want to try to get all the collectibles and you know

I want to I want to individually clear this one stage, but I've kind of just mixing it up and going from stage to stage and completing like a biome and then going back and cleaning everything up has been a little bit more fun for me.

And also, it's a, you know, I read sometimes about like,

I mean, I read a lot about like productivity and, you know,

that sort of shit.

And like,

apparently you do, you are oftentimes more successful at a task.

We've all experienced this playing video games of like you're at a boss fight, you're banging your head against the wall, you go away from it for a couple hours, you come back and you beat it on the first try.

Like, like, like, you, like, just something about, you know, how muscle memory and

kind of everything settles into

our bodies and our brains is that if you do a task for a while, you go away from it, and then you come back to it, you'll oftentimes be more efficient and more effective at it.

So I've kind of, just that approach has been working for me.

But I also really like the airship continuous scroll stages, which is something from Super Mario Bros.

3.

But just, you know, where the camera is moving and you've got to keep up with it as you're going through.

Those have been really, really hitting for me.

There's one early on where, you know, when you get the Wonder Flower, a reticle from a cannon, you know, like the

game camera turns into like the cannon's perspective and you're seeing a reticle that is firing at you and you're trying to kind of set it up so it will destroy obstacles and unlock things, but also so it won't hit the player character.

And that's just really fun and imaginative.

I think it's something that I think was done in like, you know, It's been done in other games.

I mean, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Turtles and Time comes to mind as one that's done something like that.

But I don't know.

It was really effective for me.

And I just think this game is an absolute blast.

And you know what I was saying?

Just to follow up on something you were saying earlier, Heather, I looked up the release dates, and it's kind of like a microcosm of the mismanagement of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise from a video game standpoint that

Super Mario Bros.

Wonder was released on October 20th.

Sonic Superstars was released on October 17th.

Why did they do that to themselves?

Why did they release it three days before a new Mario game?

They didn't have to do that.

This game's also on Switch, right?

Why did they do that?

Yeah, it's on Switch, and that's been the way I've been playing.

And there are moments of pure bliss in it.

Yeah.

And

nobody's going to play fucking Sonic Superstars.

Find a different release one though.

Why would you do it?

Oh, and it's so, it looks good, man.

Sonic looks good in classic form.

He looks good.

Yeah, he looks good.

Yeah.

Let's talk talk about.

No, wait.

Oh, no.

God.

Hey, buddy, is the state of the U.S.

making you want to escape?

Take the first step and learn the language before you go.

Babel makes it easy.

Start speaking a new language with confidence thanks to Babel's conversation-based technique that quickly teaches you useful words and phrases about the things you actually talk about in the real real world.

There's over a dozen languages available to learn at your own pace so you can achieve your goals with a material tailored to your individual proficiency level, interests, and time availability.

Me, I've been learning some Spanish or Espanol using the Babel app, and I've been having a blast and making a lot of tangible progress.

It is handcrafted by over 200 language experts.

Babel's lessons are voiced by real native speakers and built with science-based cognitive tools like spaced repetition and interactive features to fit any learning style.

It's like having a private tutor in your pocket.

For me, some of my favorite ways to learn a new language are personalized review systems based on my progress designed for long-term memorization.

There's Babel games, which are fun for sentence building and spelling reinforcement, and culture bytes that deliver content and insider knowledge about the language.

Studies from Yale, Michigan State, and other leading universities continue to prove Babel works.

One study found that using Babel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college.

With over 16 million subscriptions sold, Babel's 14 award-winning language courses are backed by a 20-day money-back guarantee.

So get talking with Babel.

I want you to learn another language, so I'm teaming up with Babel to gift you 55% off subscriptions, but only for our listeners at babble.com slash played.

Get up to 55% off at babble.com/slash played, spelled b-a-b-b-e-l dot com slash played.

Babble.com slash played.

Rules and restrictions may apply.

Some days your brain needs a vacation your body can actually afford.

That's where IndiCloud comes in.

You juggle the chaos.

You answer the the emails.

You even go outside sometimes.

So yeah, you've earned a better way to unwind.

Enter IndiCloud.

Federally legal THC in the form of gummies, pre-rolls, and flour, designed to turn hanging on into fully chilling.

So if you're 21 or older, head to Indacloud.co and use code get played to get 25% off your first order plus free shipping.

That's Indacloud.co code get played.

25% off free shipping.

Just a better vibe in your mailbox.

So here's the thing.

Look, I got sent some of this stuff, all right?

I ate one of the orange soda gummies, okay?

Now, look,

I'll be honest.

I'm a bit of a lightweight, all right?

I'm not out here blazing it.

I'm not out here.

I'm not over here, you know, insert euphemism here.

I'm not doing any of that, all right?

I'm not always doing it.

But when I do, I like to just chill out and relax.

It made me very silly with my friends and

they all had a nice time enjoying me, enjoying IndiCloud.

It sounds too smooth to be legal, right?

But it is.

IndaCloud's products are farm bill compliant, third-party tested, and made for grown-ups who want a buzz without the need to drive 25 minutes to dispensary.

And that's just a fact.

Dispensaries are 25 minutes from wherever you personally are.

That's just how it is.

More than 50,000 people already trust them because when it feels this good, it should also feel easy.

Whether you're chasing deeper sleep, better focus, or just some peace between your streaming marathons.

This is how adults get elevated now.

If you're 21 or older, now's your chance to float above the stress because Indicloud, see what they did, is giving all new customers 25% off their first order plus free shipping.

Use code get played or click the link in the show notes to claim your discount.

That's Indacloud.co,

I-N-D-A-C-L-O-U-D dot C O.

Use code get played for free shipping plus 25% off your first order.

Fill out their quick survey when you order to support this show and make your week way more enjoyable.

All thanks to IndiCloud.

Let's talk about the game was better Five Nights at Freddy's.

We're going to dig into this movie.

This is the movie is based on the indie game developed by Scott Cawthon.

I think that's how you say his name?

C-A-W-T-H-O-N?

I should have wished it.

Scott Cawthon.

It was released on October 29th of this year.

I mentioned it's gross.

It's directed by Emma Tammy and has five credited writers, including Cawthon himself.

This game is super successful, especially with younger people, the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, which I think is something like five or six games at this point.

They made a bunch of sequels and spin-offs.

But it is a game there, you know, and I think this is a generational thing because I am so very old.

I never really got into Five Nights at Freddy's.

Has anyone played this game?

Well, I played through it before recording this.

I got it.

I popped up.

I played through the podcast.

I should have done that.

Yeah, and you can, you can, it's, it's pretty slight.

Like, you could get through it in a couple of hours.

Like, and I just kind of, I played through it in a sitting, basically.

And

it was kind of challenging because I believe it's more of a point-and-click sort of situation when you're playing it.

But the way it works is

you

basically have control of a camera feed and

two doors on either side of you.

And you have to monitor the camera feed to make sure that the animatronics are staying in place, right?

And then you also have to make sure that they're not getting close to where you are because if they get to the room that you're in,

you can't move.

There's no player mobility at all.

It's just a screen where you can look at the camera and close and open the doors.

And so if the um that feels like my experience of watching this movie

it's so this

I have

I'm shocked that they were even able to make a movie out of this because like that is kind of all the game is but I played through the whole game after having seen the movie already and I was like, well, where did they even get the lore for this?

Because like I know there's lore.

I know that like there's like these people know these characters really well and all of it is like background stuff like the stuff about the kids going missing and stuff is like in the like on the newspapers on the desk in like one of the rooms right it's not stuff that's expressly told to you necessarily so my understanding from what i've read of this is that a lot of the the stuff that's in the movie uh comes from the subsequent five nights at freddy's games um And, you know,

so some of the other ones in the franchise, there's also like an authorized novel.

And, you know, some of the games are like things like there, there is, there are like the canonical Five Nights at Freddy's one through four.

I think that's where the series ends.

But then there's also games like, you know, like Five Nights at Freddy's sister location or Help Wanted that have their own.

They're kind of like sub, like, you know, spin-off games that have their own lore that all informs the larger thing.

But I think a big part of it, a big part of this game's success, especially with Zoomers who are very, very online, is because so much of it is told through inference.

So much of it is told through just like stuff that's like, like you were saying, like in the background.

It's a thing that you can like comb over on fucking subreddits and TikToks and

hour-long YouTube videos explaining what's really going on at Five Nights and Freddy's.

And people love the inscrutable nature of it.

I mean, it's a similar sort of thing that happens with FromSoft games, right?

It's like the stories of these games are not necessarily super explicit.

You might have to watch a super long,

you know, explainer to understand exactly what's going on.

And still, that's all just someone's fan theory.

But all of that is a big part of why it's so popular, I think, among people who are super online.

And the thing about the game that I'll say is it's rated T for Teen.

And I found it to be a lot scarier than the movie.

This is honestly...

So here's the thing.

I recognize that this is not for me.

I recognize that this is from what I've read anecdotally, people are like,

these theaters are filled with teenagers and they're all having a great time.

Everyone's like, you know, they're, they're, they're laughing and they're cheering and they're, they're recognizing all the references and they're clocking all the YouTuber cameos that all this shit that just flies over my head because I don't know the source and I'm not 17 years old.

Yeah.

So I understand it's not for me and that's okay.

Like things, not everything has to be for me.

But as a horror property, as something that is marketed as a horror movie, I found this to just have no real menace or, you know, sense of threat at all.

I found it just to be really pretty lifeless from a standpoint of being a thriller.

Yeah, there's no

mood in it.

And like, there's PG-13 horror movies that are fucking terrifying.

I want to say, I think Rosemary's Baby may be rated PG-13.

I know there are big, famous horror movies that are PG-13.

And I'm not capable of looking up anything at the moment.

So I can't.

Normally I'd Wikipedia this and I'd seem so smart, but instead I'm just going to speak.

There wasn't any threat.

There wasn't any pathos.

There wasn't any like atmosphere to this.

Like there weren't like you don't have to have jump scares to make something scary.

You can have shot choices that make things scary.

You can like frame everything

so that like your characters are out of focus in the foreground and a door deep in the background is in focus.

And that makes the audience feel like, oh, God, something's about to happen.

Something's about to happen.

And even if nothing does happen, you've created that tension and that anxiety in the viewer that allows them to keep their heart rate going, to keep the thrill coming.

And a lot of this movie, and I, you know, I don't want to denigrate anybody's.

This was every fucking thing in the world is so much work.

And I know I prefaced this entire podcast by saying if you make something, something, people hate it.

But for me, part of the like joylessness and the and the anti-fear of this film was like, it was like shot, two shot, two shot, over shoulder, over shoulder, over shoulder of conversations.

Like it was just like coverage instead of like, I don't know, you have conversations in the American remake of The Ring where I'm like, am is everybody on screen about to die?

Yeah.

And I don't know how, but like, this was like, just like talking.

It almost felt like it could have been shot for a network drama instead of like a horror property.

Unlike both of you guys, I did no research about Five Nights at Freddy's and I also didn't play the game.

And here's why.

I have for all of these other properties that we've watched, known the lore, been like able to pick out Easter eggs.

And this was the first time that I've seen a video game movie where I'm like, I am watching it as if I'm Roger Ebert watching Silent Hill.

Like I'm just

i'm just gonna be like it's gonna wash over me and like some of it might be confusing none of this was confusing but also none of it like ultimate i mean it was confusing in that i was like

why are these characters doing making these choices but not why is this place haunted like the the story is piped out pretty you know like someone's feeding you casserole like it's just like here it is and nobody discovers anything as much as they're told the thing yes but yeah it was it was not disorienting to know nothing about five nights at freddy's there was a there was a point in watching it where because i was really trying to give this movie the benefit of the doubt i have no frame of reference for the game i just know that it's popular like a youtube like generation like thing

and i did get kind of excited to go see it actually um

because i went to halloween horror nights this year and they had the animatronics and for some reason seeing the animatronics there i was like oh maybe i'll watch this that looks it's cool that they actually built these for the uh for the movie

and about

i i and the movie's not very long either it's like an hour and a half yeah and like maybe like an hour 49 it was actually longer than i expected yeah oh uh but at a certain point in the movie I said out loud, oh, so it's just bad?

I thought it was like gonna, something was gonna happen and I was like, gonna maybe start start enjoying it.

And I was like, oh, so it's just actually not enjoyable at all.

There was like, it's not even like, I wish it was even more interesting that it was bad.

Like that it was bad in a fun way.

It's kind of just not very effective in any, in any, because I'm not like not a huge, I like horror movies fine, but I'm not like a horror snob.

I'll watch, you know, Megan's PG-13 and I loved Megan.

I don't think Megan's that scary, but Megan's fun.

But yeah, with this, I would, I will say, Matthew Lillard's performance is a home run.

He's he's great, he's always good.

I always love to see him,

but it's great.

There was,

I just was kind of so surprised that you could have made this movie.

This could have been, you could have made one of the nights, and that's the whole movie.

And like, it's like saw, kind of, or something, where then you're sort of monitoring the camera with the main character and being like, oh, God,

it's getting close.

It's in the Pirate Cove part of the Pizzeria.

Let's, let's make sure that he stays over there or something like that.

But it's, I was not scared at all.

And then they were like fun.

Then they were like having fun with the animatronics and like hanging out with them.

So this is the big issue: is that the, and I've heard this, this, this same observation/slash complaint from other people, which is the idea of a haunted animatronic is obviously the core hook of the whole thing.

And there is some like inherent unnervingness,

you know, uncanny valley aspect to this thing that's that's not actually alive, that's mechanical, but what if it actually had like a soul in it?

Like, is it alive?

And the idea of that thing coming after you being this like large like robot that also looks friendly, it's all kind of upsetting and unnerving.

And in fact, the origin of Five Nights at Freddy's comes from the creator, Scott Cawthon, making a previous game.

I should have looked up his pronunciation, making a previous game where he had a character like this, and unknowingly, everyone was like, that character looks creepy.

And he just sort of took the ball and ran with that.

So he had like this character design of this beaver or something like that.

Everyone's like, that's really scary.

And so he's like, oh, what if I just build a whole game around that?

So that's the whole, that's the whole hook.

They're too fucking friendly.

The robots aren't scary.

They're so friendly.

They're immediately friendly.

They're befriending the kid.

It's just like, these need to be menacing and scary.

These things need to be fucking like, I think this thing is going to fucking kill me with its hookhand.

And we don't ever have that sense of threat.

And, you know, let's just, can we like fucking go?

Spoiler country from this point forward.

If you're going to see Five Nights at Freddy's, okay, go for it.

Pause.

It's on Peacock.

Yeah, it's on Peacock.

You can watch it at home.

But I feel like from this point forward, in order to discuss the film and maybe even a little bit before this, like, that's kind of a spoiler that they become friendly.

Here's what's frustrating to me is that we did get one scene where the fucking robots were crazy violent.

at the cold open.

Is that no?

During the break-in sequence.

Oh, the break-in sequence.

Sure, the break-in sequence, they're also violent.

Yeah, they have a violent cold open and the break-in sequence as well.

You get this convoluted, like so, you get a saw-style cold open where a guy is going to be like mutilated by one of these things.

Then you have a sequence where, in order to construct the most

backwards way of getting custody for a kid, this woman hires goonie-style goons to break into Five Nights at Freddy's place and

wreck an abandoned building.

Yeah.

Which, who the fuck would even know that that had happened?

And then the security guard will be responsible for that damage.

He'll get fired.

And then this woman will get custody of his younger sister.

And we don't know why she wants that.

It's only inferred by another character that she just wants the government check for taking care of a kid.

But

the sequence where these guys break in is pretty fucking gruesome.

Yes.

One of the characters is bitten in half by a animatronic

bear.

I think it's a bear.

Maybe it's a duck.

I don't remember.

And you're like, oh, shit.

Wow.

If we start here, These guys are going to be pulling people apart by the third act.

And then

nothing ever happens again.

The most violent death in your horror film should not be in the first 30 minutes of your horror film.

Like, you're supposed to arc up.

So, so let's take a step back for a second because I do think

I do overall think this, and I don't know the director, Emma Tammy.

I don't know their other work.

I do think it is, it is, you know, has some cool shots in it.

I think it is overall like well-directed, but I think there is an issue with this movie, which is just the, in the same way that E.L.

James, who wrote 50 Shades of Gray, had such a big IP that they were able to get like all this creative control over absolutely every, you know, like this really granular level of decision-making, which is just an impossible way to make a movie.

Apparently, Scott Cawthon had the same sort of agreement here.

There's a New York Times piece about this that's just basically mostly talking about how he used to make Christian games and semi-opportunistically flipped to make this horror game because, you know, he was having trouble finding an audience with his more explicitly evangelical content.

A couple quotes here from Jason Bloom from Bloom House.

There is no amount of money you could have offered Scott up front to say, let us have the rights to FNAF and we'll invite you to the premiere.

He would never, ever have done it.

And then continuing on.

It was a very, very complicated process, Bloom said.

Sometimes it was difficult.

Scott would say, this director isn't going to work or this writer isn't going to work.

It became clear that if I pushed it, it, Bloom said, he was going to throw me off the movie too.

So he's saying this on the record, and he's basically just kind of saying like this was, this is, we were, our hands were tied and that's how we ended up with this.

It's, it's kind of weird to be saying that just on the cusp of this thing being released, which is wildly commercially successful.

Yeah.

And, you know, just the, but I mean, I think that kind of speaks to anything that's kind of like weird or

just seems like, you know, nonsensical in this movie, I personally, I don't know how the production worked, but I personally assume to have somewhat been a byproduct of that broken process.

The Blumhouse

production model, though, I just saw him on Shark Tank.

So this is pretty fresh in my mind, actually.

I've been watching a lot of Shark Tank.

And

his whole thing, their whole thing is low budget, big box office.

They have 13 of the most profitable movies ever made.

Like in the history of $20 million budget, as I said earlier.

So this,

no matter what the quality ended up being, this thing is going to always make money no matter what.

Like it was, this was going to be a cash cow either way, I think.

And it's, you know, that's fine.

That's one way to make movies, but it's also like, we can, this could have, it, because I think the premise, the premise alone.

is rock solid.

I think the premise is good.

I think that's a fun, interesting, scary premise.

That if the movie was good, I would be sitting here right now being like, I love this.

Yeah.

But it's just, it wasn't very scary.

Speaking of things that

odd character motivations, there's a there's a police officer woman in this movie,

who apparently is a real character from the game, the one.

Yes.

But she was not a police officer.

They made her a cop.

They deputized her for the movie.

ACAB.

And

so she's his character.

She befriends the security guard and

his sister, his little sister.

And at one point, they have a falling out, sort of like midway through the movie.

And she gets very aggressive with him and is like, if you bring her back here again, I'll shoot you.

And I was just like, what?

Yep, yep.

Yeah, and later justified by

the idea that she,

we're deep into spoiler country now, that her, that the Freddy Fazbear bad guy

is her father,

who has been kidnapping kids and trapping them inside of these animatronic animals.

And so she's like,

she knows this is going to happen to the daughter, but can't say it for some reason.

But also, it's unclear why she can't say it.

I guess just so the story boosts work.

It's all very muddled and confusing.

You were right, Heather.

You were talking about the custody thing earlier.

It's just this B plot is completely unnecessary and adds like 20 minutes of runtime to this movie.

But just like, there's just zero need for any of this shit.

It's, it's so boring.

And I think this is, this is my, my big issue because I gave this movie my full attention.

Yeah, I've given it a chance.

I'm, I'm, I'm, my phone is away.

I'm locked in.

I'm watching this fucking thing.

I fell asleep twice.

And I'm just like,

I don't normally fall asleep during a movie.

I fell asleep twice.

I had to watch this in three different chunks.

It's sub-two-hour movie, too.

You probably sat through

Killers of the Flower Moon in one sitting.

Oh, my God.

Riveted.

Yes.

No P-break.

No P-break.

I watched it with, again, with my mother and my wife.

Oh, yes.

And Mary,

the movie itself...

entered her brain so lightly that when the next day we saw in a different on a TV show a kid in a tent on the ground like a like a like a bedroom tent which figures pretty prominently in this.

I was like, what is this?

The new trope for everybody?

And she went, what do you mean?

And I'm like, well, like the same as last night, kid inside the tent.

And she's like, what?

In Five Nights at Freddy's?

And I was like, yeah, the little girl kept sleeping in tents and she slept on the office floor.

And Mary went, she did?

And I went, yes.

And she went, I have no memory of hardly anything in the entire film.

And then my mom, who, you know, doesn't get to watch a lot of horror movies because like my dad's not really into it.

She was like super gung-ho.

She's like, oh, I can't wait.

This is going to be great.

And we'd watched, I think, some other horror movie since she's been here.

And

she was like, this is,

this is just boring.

And like,

it felt like she was sad.

And that I felt bad because like, you know, it's an hour and 40 some odd minutes of my mom's life that was taken from her by Five Nights at Freddy's and her wanting to get scared, like getting excited to get scared.

And it just wasn't scary.

I also, I know this is an unfair comparison because I'm about to compare it to one of the best movies of all time.

Um,

the original Ghostbusters is PG,

this is PG-13,

and the original Ghostbusters film, I think, has more actual scares in a film that is a comedy than

Five Nights at Freddy's does, and that film is not a comedy.

Like, there are zero laughs in Five Nights at Freddy's.

Well, yeah, I agree.

I didn't, it didn't, the comedy didn't work for me in here, although, again, apparently it's working for Zoomers.

I mean,

that's a good comparison to Ghostbusters.

Yeah,

here's what I would compare it to.

First off, I will say that I understand that Five Nights at Freddy's for a certain generation is like that was their introduction to the idea of something being spooky and scary but for like a tween and teen audience for like for like kids I understand that if you are if you were like eight years old in uh in 2011 and are an adult now uh that you pro you were watching PewDiePie and Markiplier uh stream you know five nights at Freddy's at a certain point whenever that came out came out a little later yeah

getting some interesting political information as well exactly yeah but you were you were watching that and that was your equivalent of like what for me, you know, I was reading

scary stories to tell in the dark, or you know, watching Are You Afraid of the Dark on Nickelodeon?

I was, you know, these were like early, like, this is horror for kids.

I understand it's the equivalent of that, so I understand it's going to, you're going to have some connection to it from that perspective.

Faces of Death, Faces of Death 2, Faces of Death of Death Death, Cannibal Holocaust.

Yeah, you're watching all these things.

Yeah,

as I did it in school.

Exactly.

Anyway, so

I get that.

I loved He-Man as a a kid, and when I went to see the He-Man movie with Dolph Lundgren Masters of the Universe, I thought it was awesome.

And as a kid, and

later, years later, returning to it, that movie is a complete piece of shit.

And I think that's what the thing is here.

If you're a kid and you like Five Nights at Freddy's and you're watching Five Nights at Freddy's as a kid, you're like, this movie is awesome because it's Five Nights at Freddy's, which you like.

But I think probably,

like, this is a movie that you want to be good in the same way that, like, you know, some other adaptations of kids' properties end up being actually good.

You want it to be, like, like fun,

but then probably when you view it, you look at it later on, you'll be like,

Yeah, that's actually, this actually isn't, just isn't a well-made movie.

It's just kind of a piece of shit.

Then again, also, maybe I'm just a fucking grandpa, and maybe you'll love it for the rest of your life.

I don't fucking know.

My final thought about this is because I just looked it up: the ring is PG-13.

Wow.

Oh, there you go.

So like you have, there was a lot of freedom here to make a terrifying film.

And I think, you know, you could make a terrifying film that

like teenagers in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s were able to watch The Ring.

So I don't know why you like, or like

to do that generationally, it would be like Friday the 13th, you know, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring, etc.

That like these were movies that like teens and tweens went to go see.

So I feel like there was a path for Five Nights at Freddy's to be terrifying and also be about animatronics that kill people.

All right.

Well, look, Heather, you got to take off.

Any closing thoughts?

I wish it had been Zero Nights at Freddy's.

I did see a letterbox review that made me howl because it was not clever,

but it made me laugh so much they said more like five nights at shitty's

i i was trying to think of like like an adaptation of a kid of a children's property as a movie that's like good i think like just a good film and i think like you know like paddington and paddington too those are like hey these are good movies that are adaptations that are like for kids and for family audiences but they're like also like well made i wish five nights at freddy's was that but for me at least it's not um anyway uh heather uh we'll see you later, and we're going to tackle the question block.

All right, here we go.

The first one, Nick.

This one's from It's Patrick.

Hi, it's Patrick.

On our Discord, discord.gg slash get played.

It's Patrick Wrights.

What was your favorite cookie brand?

I love cookie.

Are you a cookie guy?

Yeah, I'm kind of a

cookie crazed.

I do like cookies, cookie brands.

I guess the tates are kind of a go-to.

You know,

those green bagged tates.

Good crunch to them.

I kind of like that they're leaning into, you know, what, like, the issue with cookies, because, you know, there's obviously all the soft-batched riders that exist on the market, but they're just like, you know what, these things, if we package them and we ship them, they're going to be inherently like it's easier just to lean into the crunch side of things and make them crunchy, crispy.

So I say I'd go with that, but if we're talking like a, like, you know, like a long-standing brand,

I'll just do some of those Oreo variations.

Like a golden Oreo for me is always hitting.

I said over the weekend, golden Oreo should have surpassed regular Oreo at this point.

They're so good.

It definitely is the superior Oreo.

I mean, I think that seems pretty clear to me.

I feel like I can eat fewer of them.

Like, I, for some reason, can absentmindedly eat regular Oreos,

like, like nothing.

But with a golden Oreo, something about them is like, I got to slow down and really enjoy these bad boys.

Kind of the opposite for me.

I'll really blaze through fucking golden Oreo.

They're so good.

I'm partial to like a grocery store cookie.

I know that at the old, yeah, like the loft houses, but there's a bunch of different ones.

Yeah, the ones that they know, the ones that they make like in-store, I mean.

Oh, like the bakery ones, okay.

Like from a bakery.

Like, yeah, when I worked at Albertson's, you can get like a bag of back in the old days.

I don't know what it's like now, but you can get a bag of chocolate chip cookies that are fresh made at their bakery there for like $2.99.

And I would get one every single week, like a psycho, and just eat a bag of cookies in a week.

It's a power move.

Really crazy.

But then recently, you know,

at our old studio, we'd go

to Sprouts every now and then.

Sometimes I'd get a cookie from there.

It's just a single cookie.

And

they are perfect.

They're so, so good.

Rochelle, how about you?

Do you like, what's what do you look for in a cookie?

I love a soft baked cookie.

I'm not a crunchy gal.

So anything soft I'm good with.

That's great.

Yeah, I feel like I'm...

Of the two of you then, I'm Goldilocks.

And I like just right in the middle.

Just right.

A little crunch, a little soft.

It all works for me.

What's the middle bear?

Which is the just right bear?

Because there's Papa Bear, Mama Bear.

Is it Baby Bear that's just right?

I guess so.

Because

maybe Papa Bear's bed is too hard.

Mama Bear's bed is too soft.

Baby Bear's bed is just right.

Is that how it is?

And then Goldilocks likes Baby Bear's shit.

It makes sense that Goldilocks is like super into Baby Bear stuff because she's a kid too.

So they like the same kind of stuff because they're both kids.

Yeah.

They can just see through their differences, you know.

I know.

Put it aside.

Like, oh, you're a human and you're a bear.

Actually, we like a lot of the same stuff.

My, you know, I, when you say grocery store cookies, I thought you were talking about the loft houses, which are those, those, you know, those cakey ones that have the thick layer of frosting on top of them.

Oh,

those are

the ones that are.

Yeah, they're so heavy, but I always associate those with the grocery store.

Rochelle, is that in the sort of soft, like,

does that hit that soft texture,

you know, sort of feel for you?

Yeah, I love them.

Have you had those?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Okay, yeah, those are good as hell.

Yeah.

They just like reskin them for every holiday.

Like they put a little different color frosting on top or whatever.

Yeah, those are, those hit, but they're also so

I feel like they're so overly sweet sometimes that I can really only eat one and be like, that was it for the year on that.

That's good.

I had those frostings, those frostings also like trick you because like like because because like I'm dumb and so I'll be like, oh, like the green tastes better than the blue.

Like it's all the same.

But like there's ones I prefer.

I like the yellow ones.

100%.

Yeah.

Cause like the yellow one seems more natural.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those are the good ones.

They are the good ones right now.

Yeah.

Once you start doing green and blue, I'm like, okay, we're getting a little crazy over here.

Let's do something orange.

How about, huh?

This next one's from G Regulator.

Hi, G Regulator.

Hi, G Regulator.

G Regulator writes, How do you feel about pre-ordering games?

I know a lot of people don't like it.

Sometimes I like the extras that come with it,

but most of the time, the extras feel irrelevant.

If it's a game I'm going to play anyway, I will pre-order it.

Yes.

I do still kind of like physically going into a GameStop and pre-ordering a disc copy of games.

This is probably the last generation where you're going to be able to do that at all.

Like, it'll just be done.

Everything will be all digital moving forward, but I do still kind of like doing that.

You get burned is the thing.

Like, you get burned, you pre-order something, you're pot committed to it, and then it comes out and it sucks.

And that's a bummer.

So, yeah, so they figured out that now that people will pay a premium for the incentives in advance of release for all the extra skins and items and shit.

But also a lot of that stuff is

like I don't necessarily need

a downloadable version of the soundtrack.

I don't necessarily need

a digital art book or something like that.

A lot of stuff.

You can only look at it on the console.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff is like kind of like a little bit superfluous for me.

So I don't know.

I'm conflicted with it.

I guess if it's a game I'm going to play anyway, I probably end up pre-ordering it.

At the very least,

you probably shouldn't pre-order anything in this day and age.

Right.

Yeah.

No, I'm of two minds of that.

Like, I agree with that.

But then also, if I'm going to play it anyway, and I know that if it's, if I know for sure that something I'm going to like no matter what, like, I mean,

there was no way that Spider-Man 2 was going to be bad to me, right?

So I pre-ordered that because I've been in situations before where I didn't pre-order something and I show up to the store and they don't have it.

And then I'm driving around

if you're trying to get a physical copy.

Yeah.

Like, I feel like a physical copy of a big new release, then that's a thing that you have to pre-order.

And again, that's a thing that's, you know, that's that's a concern that's probably going away for good.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, they're making the choice for us, and then they'll shut down the digital storefronts for the next console that

won't have it either.

So then we'll have no access.

It'll be great.

They won't be able to play your old games because they won't be able to phone home to the server to authenticate that you bought it.

Yeah.

So digital games going the way of the E.T.

physical games getting freaking buried.

He can't phone home either, can he?

Part of the big plot of the whole movie.

That's a big thing that happens.

And then

he turns all white like dog poop when he gets all sick.

Nasty.

It's so gross.

Also, I've just been thinking about this actually pretty recently.

Drunk E.T., one of the funniest ever.

So funny.

When E.T.

gets drunk, it's so funny.

Yeah, that is fun.

This next one's from Paul Dorr.

Hi, Paul.

Hi, Paul.

What is your favorite time of day for gaming?

I have a take about this.

Go for it.

Daytime.

And here's why.

Just generally daytime.

Daytime.

Because you would think nighttime.

Because, like, oh, all I have the rest of the day is me and my game.

And then I'll go to sleep.

Yeah.

If I'm playing in the daytime, that probably means I should be doing something else.

But I'm playing my game.

So it's kind of like I'm getting away with something too.

You know, it's like, it's pretty nice.

I like it.

So, but also, then if it's nighttime, then I can do whatever I want at night.

That's pretty fun.

I'll probably put my game still.

I like the daytime answer.

I mean,

if I was going to drill it down a little bit more, I'd, I'd maybe say, you know, kind of mid-morning, sort of like, like, and, and early afternoon, kind of bracketing lunch.

Like, that's maybe the ideal for me.

Because the problem is, I used to play when I was younger, I used to play games after dinner or, or, or, or stay up late playing video games.

I just can't do it anymore.

I just get so tired.

Once I eat dinner, I'm done.

I'm just like, I can watch something or read something, but I can't, I'm just, I'm so tired at that point.

Yeah.

No.

I'm getting ready for bed, basically.

Once it's dinner time, just put me to bed.

That'd be an ideal move on.

You're not supposed to go straight to sleep after you eat a meal.

Definitely not supposed to do that.

But I can play something.

Okay, like if it's not particularly mentally taxing,

or

if it's just kind of like sort of chill, I can play that after dinner.

I can play that at the nighttime.

But for the most part, if it's something like, you know, if it's something like cyberpunk, which we covered recently, I was like,

I can't be playing this at like 9 p.m.

It's too involved.

It's just too much mental stimulation.

But like something like Mario Wonder, I could get a level of that down before I have to go to sleep.

But that's also borderline.

It's getting close.

Yeah, I think that, I think Mario Wonder is even too much action for me.

Wow.

Maybe something like,

I don't even know what.

Like something just purely chill.

Like a visual novel.

A coffee talk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

exactly.

Uh, well, that's that sounds good to me.

I like that.

This next one's from this next one's from Joey, but from Montreal.

So, it's not the other Joey.

This one's from Montreal.

Joey, but from Montreal.

Yeah, it's that Joey, the one from Montreal.

And they write, what are the games that really get your palms sweating?

I can get serious bog hands when playing Super Smash Brothers with my Smash Bros.

Great turn of phrase, bog hand.

But yeah, it's visceral and disgusting.

Yeah, definitely got him.

It's nasty.

Nasty shit.

I definitely got him back in the day, yeah, playing Smash Brothers and the old GameCube controller for sure.

I think for me, it's like really tense platformers.

It's a game like a Cuphead or a Celeste.

And also games where I have just a really intense boss fights.

I've actually tried to figure out what to do about sweaty palms because

it's just like,

should I wear gloves?

Do I do some LeBron like powder on my hands?

Like, what's the move?

Because it just actually does get in the way of controlling something.

Maybe

a plate of mom spaghetti will do the trick.

Yeah, I'm not sure if that'll counter the effects, but at least nicely pair with it.

Yeah, and hey, it'll get a nice meal out of it.

Right,

until it's vomit on your sweater already.

Oh, God.

I know.

One always sort of begets the other, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

That's on you, honestly, for having the big spaghetti dinner before your rap battle.

Like, maybe don't hit a Buka de Beppo before you are going to go throw down with some bars.

My dog, do you know?

I went to Buka

over the weekend.

Uh-huh.

My fiancé and I were like, should we just go to the city walk and hang out?

And we did.

We went and saw a movie.

Got the rebate for the parking.

And I was like, let's just stay here.

And we went to Buka.

It was awesome.

Yeah, the way, so that the Universal City Walk, it's next to Universal Studios for people that don't live in Los Angeles.

And you park, there's a very expensive parking structure because you're like paying for theme park parking.

But if you see a movie at the AMC theater, then you get like basically a full refund.

Yes.

And the way they, I don't know if they still do it like this.

The way they used to do it is they would just hand you, like it was parking was $20, they would just hand you a $20 bill like as the rebate.

It's $30 now.

And Jesus, you go into the

desk at the movie theater and they hand you $25 cash.

Wow.

And I think there's a way to pay five bucks for it.

So you're only paying five bucks, but I think there's a way to do it where you can skip that whole process and they can maybe scan your AMC app now when you're paying and then you pay five bucks

there.

But I have to look more into it.

I'm trying to make the City Walk

a thing again.

And because

we had the time of our lives just hanging out there.

Anyway, if you're A-list, if you're AMC A-list, it still works.

So you can just, you can go and you can put, you can park there.

You can

go like, use your A-list for a movie you don't even see, walk in there and get your parking rebate, and then you're just set.

It's a pretty good

little life hack.

Yeah.

But anyway, you hit a Buca de Beppo.

How'd you feel?

Like a million bucks, dude.

Some baked rigatoni?

It was.

Yeah, because you can really go ham with just a party of two at a Bukha de Beppo.

Yeah, we certainly ordered,

I mean, we ordered a salad and a pasta, and we were like, this is too much food.

It was so much, but it was great.

So many people had their birthdays, and then I was like, should we lie and say it's my birthday and get this

fucking Sunday the size of my head?

It was huge.

Get some spumoni.

But it was really great and a lot of fun.

And I just love the city walk.

But

let's get one more question, shall we?

All right, great.

This last question is from Jeff B.

What's up, Jeff?

Hi, Jeff.

Jeff writes, Do you prefer mini-maps with fixed direction or relative to the direction you're facing?

I always want on the map to be north so that I always want up on the map to be north and can't understand why anyone would want it differently.

So if you prefer relative, I'd love to hear why.

No, I fully agree.

Yes.

I need that map to be facing the same direction.

It just, it's so much.

First off, look, I have a general distaste for mini-maps.

Like, I get that they're there for navigation, but so often if a mini map is present, it's such an eye draw, especially if it's taking you towards an objective or something like that.

You're just looking at your mini map.

And it used to happen with stealth games all the time.

You're just looking at your mini map for cones of vision.

And I'm just like, design around not having a mini map.

That's my personal

thing.

Let's plan on there being no mini map and figure out some other way to convey that information to the player.

Like the ghost of Tsushima.

Like, hey, we got birds to guide you.

We've got foxes to guide you.

We got the direction of the wind to guide you.

That's like that's like a more engaging, immersive way to guide the player versus like I'm gonna look at a

1/16th of my screen to see where I'm supposed to be going.

Yeah, anyway, all that said, if a mini-map is present, yes, I want the direction to be north at all, the up to be north at all times for sure.

Yes, and I need that mini-map to work.

I need that mini-map to actually be effective because the map, I've talked about it before, the map in Star Wars,

not Jedi Survivor, but the previous one.

They fixed it a little bit in Jedi Survivor where it was not so much an issue, but in the first, that first Star Wars game that the name is escaping me for some reason.

I'll look it up.

I can't remember it either.

The map in that game.

Fallen Order.

In Jedi Fallen Order.

The map in that game is horrendous.

It is so bad.

And everything else about that game is good.

But the map is somehow, to me, impossible to read.

Could not figure it out.

I'd be lost in levels for what felt like hours.

Like just like trying to get back to my ship after finishing a task.

And they didn't have fast travel

in that one, I don't think.

But in this one, they fixed it by having fast travel, which is which is good.

But

I hate a bad map.

Yeah, I hate a bad map.

Yeah,

I think the, the,

I'm wondering what the timeline is going to be for us to all have AR vision, like in our own field of vision, just as human beings for us to have like mini maps.

Because that's coming.

I feel that way when I'm driving now.

My car has that, like the car play screen.

Sure.

And so when I have the map there, like even if I know where I'm going, I'm like, I can see the map.

The map's just kind of there.

Yeah, the map's kind of there.

But like the ideal version of that is you want that just like, you know, imposed onto the road.

You want to just see a line of where you're supposed to be driving.

Oh, that'd be projected in front of you.

That'd be great.

I love that.

Yeah.

I'll,

I don't want to do like what I've been seeing people doing with the Quest 3 headset.

And I'm so, like, I have the Quest 2 and I don't really use it.

But every Quest 3 thing I'm seeing, I'm like, do I trade my Quest 2 in for the Quest 3?

How do I do it?

What do I do?

It does the full color pass-through where you're basically just seeing the...

Because

for people who don't have VR, basically

what you're dealing with is that you can kind of see a

with a lot of the modern sets, you can see a representation, like there's a camera built in, so you can see the environment you're in.

And there's certain, you know, apps that take advantage of like, hey, this thing is, uh, this game where you're throwing balls to knock down bricks is actually happening in your living room where you're using this VR headset.

Yeah.

But the on the Quest 2,

it's really like a super low-res black and white.

And so it's, it's, you know, it's not particularly immersive, but it's full color with the Quest 3.

And at least the videos I've seen of it, it looks pretty impressive.

It looks really, really cool.

But like, I've seen people being like

using pass-through in an elevator.

And I'm watching Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse.

And like, I just can't, I'm, that's great for you.

I'm glad that you're comfortable.

I can't have somebody, I can't be seen doing that.

Yeah.

I just can't.

That's not for me.

But

hats off.

Hats off.

But that's it for the question block.

Thanks so much for writing in.

And if you'd like to participate in a future question block, you can join us over on our Discord, discord.gg/slash get played.

That's this week's Get Played.

Our producer for Headgum is Rochelle Chen.

Rochelle, do you have anything you'd like to plug?

Any social media or anything?

Sure.

My Instagram is at yard underscore underscore sard.

not gonna ask for an explanation

also check out our paywalled show get animated where matt we are the all three of us are covering interstella 45 correct that's right and if you don't know what that is that is a daft punk anime that is a visual album for their album discovery check it out it's on youtube if you type in interstella 5555

you'll you'll find it.

And yeah, we're talking about it this week on Get Animate.

And I'll just tell you right now, it's pretty cool.

I think if you also just search for a Daft Punk anime, it should come up.

But yeah, there are rips of it available.

You can watch the full movie on YouTube.

So if you want to watch along with us, join us over there.

That's at patreon.com slash get played.

And you know what?

I actually think

Freddy got played this week.

Oh, you know what's something else?

We didn't even really talk about this.

Yeah.

There's already a scary Freddy.

There's already a scary Freddy who's way scarier than the five nights at Freddy's.

Yeah, that's an issue.

If I'm at the real five nights, if I'm spending real five nights with the real Freddy, I'm getting called bitch five times.

And then you got played.

Yeah.

That was a hit gum podcast.

Quick, time to choose a meal deal with McValue.

The $5 McChicken meal deal, the $6 $6 McDouble Meal Deal, or the new $7 daily double meal deal.

Each with its own small fries, drink, and four-piece McNuggets.

There's actually no rush.

I'm just excited for McDonald's.

Price and participation may vary.