Console Draft: PlayStation 2

Hey Nick, did you hear Matt has the PlayStation 2?

He said the new PlayStation 2.

Yeah, that's why we're over at his house.

I can't wait to play this thing.

Okay, guys, I'm really excited you guys are here.

I have a pretty extensive game collection.

Already?

Yeah, I have a bunch.

Wow, this thing just came out.

Wait.

Yeah.

Do you guys want to do you guys want to play the mask?

I didn't.

Wait, I

mean, that's a Genesis game, right?

I didn't know it came out for PS2.

No, it's a yeah, it's it's it's uh it's it's so crazy, too.

It's like uh, it almost it looks so good on the PlayStation 2.

It almost looks live action.

It's awesome.

Uh, there's this like, I mean, I haven't heard of this game, but it's, it's, you know, the current uh date is uh November of 2000.

So, you know, the system is still new, and so I don't know its full library.

Yeah, it's so crazy.

They get like Jim Carrey's in the game.

Is this just a a D?

Okay, let me see that.

Yeah, this is just a DVD of the name.

No, dude, it plays on the PlayStation 2.

It's a video game.

Well, let's set it.

Let's set it aside for now.

Let's see what else you got.

Okay.

It's like maybe a Dragon Slayer situation where he's just thought he was playing.

I don't know.

No, it's

all my games run on the PlayStation 2.

Okay.

They don't work on anything else.

Okay.

Great.

What do you got?

I want to play.

Yeah, I want to play something.

Do you guys want to play A Time to Kill?

Was that like an action game?

It's sort of like a like, I think it's like a murder mystery game, actually.

It's it's um, it's pretty good.

Uh, I've played it a couple of times already, it's pretty quick.

Uh, it's uh, they got Matthew McConaughey to be in the game, and it's like kind of like a breakout

sort of role

for him in this game.

Let me see, let me look, let me look at the box for this game.

All right, this box looks like a movie poster.

It's got Sandra Bullock, uh, Sam Jackson, my favorite actor, Kevin Spacey.

This is the DVD for the movie at Time to Kill.

I keep saying this word DVD, and it's making me fucking furious, okay?

Because these are games they play on the PlayStation 2 of video game console.

You understand?

Look, do you have like SXX or something?

Or Madden?

I have Twister, my dude.

Dark Cloud.

Twister?

Twister?

They made a game out of Twister?

Yeah, and it's not what you're thinking.

It's not the board game.

It's this video game where you play as these tornadoes and you suck up the cows and stuff.

Okay, you play as them, you can control the tornado.

Whereas this is the movie with Bill Paxton and Helen University.

But it's sort of like the implications that you're dealing with.

It's another DVD movie.

Okay, okay, okay.

What about Unforgiven?

Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman.

Is that who we're dealing with?

It's crazy that they're in a video game.

Who even knew that they did?

I think.

Yeah, this is...

No.

Matt's dumb.

That's the issue.

You guys made up this DVD thing.

I don't even know what that is.

Okay.

Fine.

Okay.

Why don't we play the Road Warrior?

Where did you go to buy these games?

Sea Coast.

That's a place that only sells.

It's a movie.

They sell movies.

They're in every mall in America right now.

They do not sell video games.

I'm going to ask you guys to leave unless you guys want to play the Bridges of Madison County with me.

Honestly, I do want to play that.

Yeah.

I feel like we're all up for a good, sensitive time.

Great.

Let's pop it in.

Here we go.

The first level, the credits.

This game's hard.

We plug in our Dual Shock 2s and clear space on our memory cards as we draft PlayStation 2 games this week on Get Played.

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

It's time to get

played.

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

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back, Bucket, to the best.

Oh, the premiere.

Wow.

The

lead video game podcast on the internet.

Nothing supersedes get played.

No, and this came out this week, actually.

That's true.

If you're listening to this,

don't worry about where it was said or

what publication said it, but that is the, that it's, it's in print.

It may have been said on this podcast, and the print was a transcript of this podcast.

Yeah, don't worry.

I think we can say.

Yeah.

Time magazine,

life magazine yeah the new york times failing news matt i said the failing new york times the failing new york times and president joe biden all called

uh get played the premium video game podcast this week I mean, Biden said it, and everybody else had a quote out.

Yeah, well, sure.

Biden's a day one listener.

So this is huge.

And yeah, it's about time he, it's about time he said something.

I think I should, I think I should be up front with the listener.

Wow.

We record at different time zones.

That's right.

I'm at the nighttime.

The boys are in the daytime.

We're in the morning.

These are completely like, we're like 13 hours apart.

It's 8 a.m.

Pacific when we, when our record session starts.

And it's that that is equivalent to 5 p.m.

for you.

Yeah, it's nighttime.

Um, it's not nighttime, nighttime.

It's not like I'm going to bed nighttime, but it's nighttime.

And I want to see you're wearing a sleeping cap.

I'm going to bed in the middle of the podcast.

That's what I'm doing today.

Um, no, I just feel like I've got to admit that I've had for the first time during our records a couple of drinks.

Hell yeah,

yeah.

Uh, Nick, anything you want to come clean with?

Uh,

I'm also hammered.

I actually, that's great.

I love it.

Yeah, I love it.

I think this is awesome.

This is a great energy for us.

Yeah.

Also, I might laugh at you guys today.

I won't count on it, but that's huge.

That's like a challenge to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You texted, by the way, you texted us ahead of time that you'd had a few drinks.

And so when the record started, I, you know, you're, you're very cogent and you seem like normal Heather without even if you, you know, if you, if you hadn't made that disclaimer, I wouldn't know anything was different.

Uh, but I was expecting you to be like, let's do a podcast.

You're going to be a sleepy cartoon drunk.

Yeah.

No, no, no, no.

No,

I'm a loosey goose.

That's what I am.

I'm just a little loose, a little goose.

A little loose, little goose.

It's going to be a good show.

I'm really excited about today's topic.

I'm excited about the future of video gaming as a medium.

Before we get into that, while you're talking alcohol, I have a related story, uh which is that matt i ran into our mutual friend tyler moss at the farmer's market okay yeah and he he tells me he said i saw matt apodaka at a bar yeah he was by himself playing balder's gate three on a steam deck yeah

yes yeah

i uh the other night i ran into yeah well this is the this is the funny thing is that

it's so alpha it's so alpha it is this i there's a fire right by my house.

I had to

leave my home for just like an hour.

My girlfriend had to do something.

And I was like, you know what?

I'm just going to get out of here.

She had an appointment on the phone.

And I was like, I'll just get out just to give you some space.

I'll go have a drink at a local spot.

And I'll bring my Steam Deck because I wanted to play Baldur's Gate anyway.

And I was like, I'll just take this with me.

And I had been there for approximately an hour and I was literally getting ready to leave.

And I know Tyler.

This is the funny thing too, is that like

you've told stories about Tyler before,

this cool guy that you know from the farmer's market.

And I was like, wow, I hope I ever get to meet Tyler someday.

I already know this motherfucker.

He's my friend.

Didn't realize it was the same Tyler for a while.

Yeah.

So then now, so seeing him there, we chatted a little bit

about

games and stuff.

And I was showing him that I was, yeah, playing Baldur's Gate 3.

But let me tell you something about this bar there's like a mosquito problem there right now and two times in a row two weeks in a row i've been there and i got mosquito bites and i from inside that's a nightmare what's going on over there

but you know it's a it's a local spot so i don't want to this bar is called stagnant water right it's called

it's called the mosquito den

uh but yeah it was really it was a big thrill to see uh tyler out in the wild and uh

I had also,

I had a brew dog with me.

Hell yeah.

I was sipping on a brew dog.

Hell yeah.

It was ice cold.

I have gone to a bar with my Switch.

Like when

the first Zelda came out, I went to a bar with my Switch and I felt pretty, people were like, oh, you're playing.

Because one.

Early Zelda, Switch was in high demand, not a lot of Switches around.

So people were coming out and saying,

wow,

is that the Nintendo?

And then also, is that the Zelda?

And it felt pretty hype.

Did you have anybody come up to you and say, is that Baldur's Gate 3 on the Steam deck, Matt?

Most people

completely ignored me

for the most part, or they looked at me, saw that I was doing something that they didn't understand, and just kind of

kept going.

There were some people next to me that I think were on possibly a second date.

They were having a great time

laughing, telling stories.

And I was like, shut the fuck up.

I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3.

Did you have headphones?

Are you playing on mute?

I had my AirPods.

God damn.

So you were like disconnected from the world.

Yeah, but I was totally in Baldur's Gate 3.

The music was too loud.

at the bar.

So like, that was the problem I was running into where I was like, okay, I can't really, I can hear a little bit, but I'm blasting.

Yeah.

You know, but yeah, I was trying not to talk to anybody, but then I saw Tyler.

I put the whole thing down, had a nice chat.

There you go.

I'm not rude.

No,

we know you're not rude.

You're lovely.

I'm sick of people saying I'm rude.

Next time, next time, if somebody comes up to you in the middle of a BG3

session, I can just excuse you.

This is not going to happen again.

You should just say,

excused,

excused, just like this is good until they leave.

Finger up, single finger up.

That's pretty good.

Very good.

Very good.

Very good.

As soon as they keep trying to talk, I hit him with a zip it.

Like,

yeah, that's what I was going to say.

The Austin Power zip it.

You could, you could also do like a confounding time travel bit where you like say, oh, no, no, no, no, we don't have this conversation.

We don't, no, this doesn't, this, we can't have it because we don't, we had, we didn't have it.

it.

Yeah.

And we can't throw off the line.

I'm going to tell you right now.

Be so confused.

I'm not smart enough to pull that off.

I think.

I can't do it.

I think you could.

That's a fun thing for you to do because

you have your mind.

I have done it.

I believe you.

I did it at birds.

Oh, God.

Oh, I won't even never mind.

We should discuss, by the way, birds is the name of a bar.

Heather didn't do that to birds.

No, no, no.

Just for people.

And I stopped myself from.

So, okay, we should talk a little bit about, before we get into what are you playing, we should talk a little bit about this month's We Play, You Play, because we have not settled it.

We may not settle it today, but I wanted to at least open the conversation because we usually have a disclaimer about

what game we're going to cover at length.

Final episode of every month for new listeners is always an extended discussion about one particular game that all of us are playing.

And,

you know, last month we did Dredge, the indie horror fishing game.

This month, there's, okay, so there's just like kind of like a bunch of big releases right now.

And some of them are kind of daunting in their scope.

The aforementioned Baldur's Gate 3, which we thought about covering last month, and we kind of all were, you know, Heather's still on Mac, so she only has the early access build.

Though

some

really intrepid Discord users have taught me how to play on the Mac on the release client so that I can

so that I can start a full new fresh game and play it, essentially live stream it to myself.

Oh, there you go.

So I could play Baldur's Gate, but I'm not certain.

Look, I got 10 days left as of this record, 10 days left in Holland.

And then I'm returning to the United States of Shamerica.

Where you belong.

Where I belong.

It's just like an asham.

Anyway.

So I will be able to play more aggressively when I'm home.

But these 10 days, I'm going to lose.

Yes.

I will also say part of my concern with doing a BG3 episode at the end of September is that I could see the discourse being exhausted by that point.

Like, will we have anything novel to say?

Right.

You know, because I'm already seeing, not that I've gotten to the end game or anything, but I've already seen so many

YouTube breakdowns of story and characters and shit that have been uploaded.

I haven't watched them, but I know that stuff is out there.

There's also Armored Core 6, which I know both of you are playing.

I wasn't planning on playing right away, but

I'm open to the possibility, although jumping into a from game right now to me seems daunting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I bet it's a possibility.

Save it, Matt.

Okay.

There's Starfield, which is going to, we're recording this still in August, but will be coming out and on Game Pass, so widely available in the next

wait.

It is available on Game Pass?

A day one Game Pass.

Starfield.

Yeah, 100%.

A week away as of this record.

That says a lot to me about what their perceived quality of that game is internally.

I disagree.

I think that says that they think that this is a fucking AAA game that is going to get people on Game Pass.

Yeah,

it might be a mic drop.

They might be flopping their dick out on the table or something.

Yeah, because this all has to do with, you know, their...

Do you hold your mic with your dick?

Don't worry about it.

If I saw a stand-up hold the mic with his penis.

I think.

Yeah.

If no comic has done this, I think they should do this.

If you could take a microphone and pretend it's your dick, I would laugh my ass off probably for the rest of my life.

It would be very funny.

That's so funny.

It's so funny.

And like try to fuck stuff with the mic.

That's funny.

I'm about to cry laughing right now.

That is so funny.

Well, you can do other dick stuff too, like, you know, jack it off or like suck it off or whatever.

All that stuff.

Come on.

These are all possibilities.

No one's done it.

It's too funny.

I agree.

I'm laughing thinking about it.

See, the thing that sucks is I am laughing.

I think we're thinking of different things, though.

I'm thinking of a human person coming out on stage

with a microphone duct taped to their penis.

Got it.

Okay.

Yeah.

That is, I was not thinking like a, like a, like a T, a T structure.

And then they try and do the entire set leaning over.

Like you're trying to suck themselves off.

No, I mean, I, I, no.

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so we got armored core six we got starfield

and then you know another game so we we could again these are all big boys the including bg3 these are all big boys these are all These are all massive games or games that are large in scope.

And another game we've talked about, which is a throwback, but we've been trying to find a spot for it.

And one approach is like, this is just the month to do it.

And we're all playing whatever big new releases we want to play on our own, and we can talk about them.

But if we got in, if we finally did Killer 7,

do we finally do Killer 7?

Five years into the podcast.

Has it been five years?

I think it has.

That doesn't sound right.

It's been four and a half.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's been four and a half because

I think the first time that Nick said, what about a podcast like this?

I replied with, I've just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

That's right.

Yeah.

Good job.

So it's almost exactly five years ago.

Our first episode was recorded in December of 2018, and it wouldn't release until

June,

the following June in 2019.

Well, then, no, no, it precedes it.

It precedes it.

Whatever.

Doesn't matter.

And it took a lot of time.

Like, I didn't mean to be a down.

I'm not trying to be a downer.

I'm fine.

People, the listeners know.

I don't know if they all know.

Oh, really?

That's not.

To get breast cancer?

No, no, no, no.

I don't think

take your time with that.

I don't think anybody should

rush to that uh i was thinking about like because i'm trying to remember why the first episode took so long but i think there was you had a lot of things going on i think we did have to sort of take a break after yeah i think i think it was yeah i had to have surgery and and treatment and then and then we we rolled right in to the premiere video game podcast mid 2019.

that's right

so

so kill so yes it has been a while since we've talked about doing this game killer 7 it is on Steam.

It is a, you know,

it's a well-reviewed port.

So, I think we can

have a good representation of it.

Yeah.

Of the options,

the shortest one, and

it's still 14 hours to finish.

Yeah, but I'm also like, we don't have to sell it now.

We could also,

there's other stuff that may come up.

We could also put this to a poll, which we did in the past which worked out great for us so you know i don't i have a big pitch okay go for it i think we could

because we just played a modern game we could pick a game based on today's draft that's a fun idea

we could pick one of these games that not everybody has played and we could like lean in hard on a classic.

Fuck,

I have some I'd want to do.

That's That's a fun idea.

Okay,

we'll get to that topic and we'll see if that informs what you're doing.

What's fun you get from me after I've had a couple of drinks?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

That's a really good idea.

I hope y'all are ready to play.

Don't spoil it.

But okay, that's for the future.

As for now, everyone, what are you playing?

I'm hoping he doesn't show up.

I was going to say,

I think he'd be out of control.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, keeping him at bay.

Right.

Staying out of the moonlight.

Well, I want to go third here

because I want to talk a little bit about a place that I went on my World Warrior journey

here in Holland.

So, so, Nick,

what are you playing?

Well, as of this recording, a game I'd had my eye on, Sea of Stars, released yesterday.

Sea of Stars is a throwback,

it's a throwback JRPG styled game with a bunch of streamlining and modern quality of life improvements.

And it is getting rave reviews.

It's also on Game Pass.

A few months back, maybe a year back, I can't remember.

It was a while back, I discussed the demo,

which was,

you know, which I was really impressed by.

And

I was worried that the first few hours of gameplay would just be a retreat to the demo, but it's actually a different chunk of the game.

So it felt like mostly new stuff.

Also, I've discussed at some point in the

what do you play?

And I've talked about the developer Sabotage Studios' previous game, The Messenger, which is a platformer that turns into a Metroidvania midway through.

And it's, you know, just it's a cool design that I kind of fell off of, but I really, I really appreciated the craft.

This game is rad.

It is so fun.

I've just, again, it came out like yesterday.

So I just started playing it last night.

So I have like two hours of gameplay.

But it is, it has, you know, I talked about the quality of life improvements.

It's just like things like the map is, the maps of the individual areas and the world map are like just a little bit more compact than they might be in in a classic design, just so you have a little bit less, like it's still fun to explore, but it's just like a little bit less like ground to cover.

And your run cycle is super duper fast.

You're just sprinting all over the map.

So you don't have to like, you know, waste a bunch of time backtracking.

Also, like if you finish an area, you'll unlock like a shortcut that will lead back to, so you can sprint through it again if you need to go back to it.

And speaking of the traversal, there's all sorts of environmental traversal that just makes it a little bit more dynamic.

You know, there's all these different levels you can ascend and descend to

via via, you know.

jumps and climbing and ladders and what have you.

There's all sorts of,

you know, caverns that you can

cross.

And then also, you know, like areas like tightropes you can walk and

little ledges

you can edge along.

All this sort of stuff just to make it feel a little bit more like you're just running around.

So it's it and then that leads into the combat, which you see the enemies on screen, which I really like.

It all feels very, very Chrono Trigger.

I mean, it feels like a direct spiritual air, right down to having some music by Yesunori Mitsuda, the composer of Chrono Trigger,

which is awesome.

But like, so you see the enemies on screen like you do in Chrono Trigger.

They're combo attacks like in Chrono Trigger between your different party members.

But then the combat is so fun because it has those elements that are, you know, that have been added to a lot of

that became a part of a lot of RPGs, which is just like some a little bit of timed attacks and timed parries.

So you can parry attacks from enemies.

You can enhance your individual attacks when you land them.

And

for instance, one of the

there's two protagonists.

You choose which one you control

or you choose which one is your main.

One is like more of a magic user, is like a sun magic, and the other is more of a moon magic user.

And that one's a little bit more of a more direct damage focused.

But like...

The moon magic user has a spell that

you're shooting

a crescent blast towards your enemy, and then it ricochets back at you.

And then you can kind of boomerang strike it back and forth until it hits a max threshold, and it accelerates as you do so, kind of like you're just ponging it back and forth at the enemy, and it does more damage as a result.

And that's it's just super active and it's super fun, and it just keeps the combat from just being like toggling through menus.

And that ties into the boss fights, which are super, which the

couple I've been through have been like, you know, these huge

models of

these characters, these huge, huge, like,

I don't know if they're sprites or I don't know what the engine's doing exactly.

I don't know if they're 3D models that are

kind of cell-shaded and made to look like pixel art, but they are like really well animated and like fuck just fucking big.

Like, I just like seeing a big old, a big old boss, especially in this sort of throwback game.

And those have been super fun and had their own mechanics.

Also,

there is a great party member, Garl the Warrior Cook.

What a class.

Warrior Cook.

That sounds like Final Fantasy 9.

Right.

Quinna.

Quinna.

Quina.

Quinna.

Yeah.

With a big tongue.

As an aside, I just wanted to say, I love this segment because it's like I'm on the playground as a kid and somebody has a game and I don't have that game and they're telling me all about that game.

And I'm just, I'm fucking riveted.

What is the art style like Nick

let me get I mean I should just bring some up because it's it you know it it's like a it looks like a Super Nintendo it looks like a

Super Nintendo JRPG with really good art direction it also has like kind of like a

kind of like a um uh reminded me of like lunar silver star saga or like some of the yeast games where it would like it will throw to like a full screen animation like for like a 2d style animation for some of the the cinematics for some key ones um Hold on, let me just share it.

Can I share my screen?

There, just this sort of look to it.

Let's see if I can get through some more.

Yeah, just this sort of really lush palette.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, it's a gorgeous game.

It really gives you.

I mean, the art feels a little, the art feels like Western but anime inspired.

And I don't know if that's the case.

But it really evokes Saturn game to me.

Yeah, no, that's a good call.

It's like when they really perfected like 2D design and art.

Yeah, so maybe it is like, or like a, yeah, or like a PlayStation, you know, what the

rare like PlayStation 2D game.

Yeah, it's, it's, I think it is a Western developer.

Actually, where the hell are they actually from?

But it's a, it's a really impressive game so far.

They're in, they're in quebec yeah so a western developer creating this chrono trigger-esque uh lunar silver star story uh astral it's giving me astral from sega saturn um that sort of like

big beautiful sprite work it's a pretty game and i'm i'm interested in that soundtrack too hey could be we play you play candidate oh it could be

regardless we don't have to settle that now, but regardless, I think this is, if you're into these sort of games, it's on Game Pass.

It's also on everything, as far as I know.

It's definitely on Switch.

I think it's on, I think there's a PlayStation port.

If you're into this sort of thing, definitely check it out.

I'm having a hoot with it.

Matt, what are you playing?

Yeah, Matt, what are you playing?

Well,

I'm still playing Baldur's Gate 3, right?

At a bar.

At a bar.

Currently.

Right now.

Yeah.

They won't let me in.

in.

I've still been playing that.

And

I'm finally

like

for the last like two weeks of me playing the game, I've been doing kind of the same stuff.

Like, I've been dying, trying to go a different way, dying, trying to go a different way.

And then sometimes I'm playing

and I'm just walking around and seeing what I find.

And like, I found like some side quests and stuff.

I found some very interesting side quests, some interesting characters along the way.

And

I'm finally now, I feel like progressing the story, which I think is

I'm excited about because I was getting kind of sick of

what I was doing, like losing a lot.

And sure, I'm still losing on occasion, but I'm losing to different things now, which is

good.

But I'm really just trying to level up

because I'm level four right now

for those playing along at home.

And I'm in the underdark, and I just met these really interesting

mushroom creatures.

Oh, okay.

And I'm just fascinated by them.

I don't know what's going on with them yet, but I'm just like, I think this is the thing about D and D and

I guess these games.

The world is so interesting.

Anything they show me, I want to know everything about it.

I'm just like, this is so cool.

This, like, these, this race of mushroom people,

they have this own, and everybody's got their own fucking thing going on, their own battle that they're like, hey, can you help me with this?

And you can either be like, ah, fuck off.

Or, okay, I'll help.

And I'm just helping everybody.

I know that there's a way to play this game where you can be bad or whatever, but I'm just kind of

helping everybody along the way.

And

I just, I think I'll be, I mean,

I'm not even out of act one.

I'm still in act one.

I've played 20 hours so far.

I'm still, I'm still very much in, I think,

early act one.

So I'll be playing this game possibly for the rest of my life.

But I'm really enjoying it.

I said this before, but I just really can't believe, like,

I just can't believe this game.

Every time I play it, even for just a little bit, I'm just like, wow, that was so fun.

I could have done nothing.

And I was like, this was a blast.

I love this.

But

all that to say.

I also started

Armored Core 6, which I didn't think I was going to do.

But then Heather was talking about it a little bit.

Our pal Zig.

Zig was really in my ear, I got to say.

Wow.

I think I partially pulled, I wasn't really going to maybe do this, but I think I pulled the trigger because Zig was like, you just have to get in here, man.

You just have to.

And I was like, okay.

I played it for 10 minutes

and immediately was like,

this is a video game.

This

is it.

This is it right here.

This is what we're all trying.

This is what everybody's trying to do.

Everybody making a video game is trying to make this.

It's fucking robots, man.

It's robots.

It's big guns.

It's big jumping.

It's big hitting.

It's very good.

It's, it's,

it's so good.

And, and,

you know, it's, it's from soft, but it's different, right?

It's a different type of game.

It's not what I would consider

like, I feel like when people talk about from soft games, they're talking about like the souls of it all, right?

Like

those types of games.

Yes.

The first boss in this fucker in the fucking tutorial level

stomped my ass like 20 times.

So it is a from soft game.

So it is.

Yeah, which point?

I guess, yeah,

didn't know this one was like that, too.

I guess I don't think they typically are, but like, it's not like the same way where, like, I mean, I can't parry.

There's not a lot of like,

I mean, I guess there are.

I have a sword, I have a gun, and I have like missiles.

And what I had to really figure out was when it was appropriate to use what attack, right?

And that had a different strategy for this boss because you just went in and attacked, I'm sure.

Yeah, my strategy on this first boss was I lost twice and I was like, oh,

this sucks.

What the fuck is happening?

Why am I losing?

I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Dodge around, use the buildings, use a cover, zip around in the sky.

I was like, this isn't me.

I know who I am.

And so I

did a different strategy.

But Matt, talk about your, talk about your experience.

Well, I'm bad at games.

So, of course, you took to it pretty, you know, you took to to it like one.

I reject that assessment.

Was that?

Yeah, I reject that assessment.

I reject that assessment.

You finished some big boy games.

I finished big boy games, and you know,

I don't play the same way, I guess, is what I'm saying.

I take

the learning curve

is steeper for me with games like this.

And I had never played an armored core game before.

But when I took this fucker down, this like helicopter or whatever it was,

felt, I felt amazing.

I felt so good.

Yeah.

I, because I, I learned.

It was,

it, it felt like live, die, repeat, kind of.

Or, you know,

all you need is kill, for that matter.

Sure.

I'm getting smoked.

I don't know why.

I'm watching this helicopter.

Okay.

It's staying stationary.

That's a good time to use my missiles.

Okay, those take, because you have to stagger them to then get

up close and use your big blade on them.

And that does a lot of damage.

So you stagger them.

You're shooting regular blasts at them the whole time.

They stop.

And you got to be dodging too.

You got to be dodging a lot.

They stop, shoot some missiles, start running around again, shooting at them a lot.

Missiles.

They're staggered.

Then you fucking get up there and use your big blade on them, take out like half their life.

And I was like, Okay, now I'm feeling good.

You kind of just repeat, you know, rinse and repeat.

Yeah, that situation, and then you take them down.

And I know that that's not going to work for everybody, but it worked for this guy.

And I was like, okay, now, now I understand the game.

Now I know that you have to play, you have to watch what they're doing, figure out when's a good time to use your attacks, and then get in there.

But then I guess now there's also like a building component that I haven't done yet.

There's like a you can design your own mechs, you can use different kinds.

There are different kinds,

yeah, it's not

different kinds, there are different kinds, it's not just one type of robot in there.

You can have a tank, you could have uh,

you know, that's the only other kind that I've seen,

but that's a different one, it's a different kind than what I thought.

So, I'm gonna be playing this a lot too.

And uh, you know,

the

looks fucking cool, it's fucking great, man.

It's so good, and the thing that, you know, I just, I can't,

I just can't address the

backlog.

I've made a lot of promises to myself this year that I've just really let go.

Yeah, I've got to, you know, like just on that note, I've kind of had to take the approach of games are books.

If you were like, I'm going to read the entire library, that's a life's work you will not achieve.

No, you just have to, you know what?

Like, I'm going to, I'm going to play some games.

I'm going to not play some others.

Playing a game is a decision to not play another game and I can't play everything.

I was introduced.

I was introduced to a new phrase, perhaps from TikTok, through my wife.

Wow, and it's DNF.

Dude, Duke him forever.

No,

uh, Nick, holy shit, you're

really fast.

It's disgusting.

You're sick.

Um, DNF damn, I'm looking good.

My piss is thick.

Watch me fuck a horse.

Why?

Vote for me for president of the United States.

Okay, I will.

My vice president is going to be the shit I'm about to take.

I have one long ball.

And somehow all these lines are from John Carpenter movies, the stolen.

DNF means did not finish.

And it is a, it is like a book talk.

I think it's a book talk.

This is my assumption here, but Mary used it in conversation the other day.

And I was like, oh, okay, DNF.

And I think that that, like you said, it applies to games.

I have a DNF on my list of games that I played this week that I probably won't return to.

Wow.

Is it my turn?

It's your turn.

Go for it.

All right.

First off, what I say.

I'll tell you what I'm playing.

And then I got a little talk about the World Warrior journey I'm on.

One,

I played Armored Core 6.

Fought that boss a couple of times and I was like, this sucks.

What is happening?

I never have this kind of issue.

Like,

what is going on?

And then I was like, oh, I'm not being true to myself.

What would I do if I was in a mech and this thing was facing me down?

And it was, never fire missiles, never fire your gun, rush that motherfucker and use your sword only.

So I flew, it arrives and I flew directly at it.

jammed my mech into its wing so that it could not free me and just sorted it over and over again until it was dead.

And then I was like, okay, that's that.

This feels like Heather's Armored Core.

And then you immediately get access to the garage where you can change up your mech.

And I painted mine bright red, just like Char, my hero.

Uh, you know, Char now, Nick.

Oh, yeah, Char Abignale from uh, uh, from Gundam.

Yeah, so I, what did you call him?

Asnabel, Asnable,

Abnal.

I've only watched the one series.

So I, so I, I painted my I knew it started with an A and had three syllables.

I, I, I painted my,

my mech boy red, and I'm ready to go.

But that was one of three games I played this week.

Wow.

And that's not including the segment I'm going to, I'll tell you guys about.

Uh, the other was, I, uh, you know, I've still got Viking madness from

our sister podcasts.

Uh,

my exposure to Vinland saga has reignited my love for the Viking, uh, reading a Viking book and talked about Vikings last week.

And so I was like, I got to play a Viking game.

So I tried Hellblade,

Sinoa's sacrifice.

I think I called it Setsuna's sacrifice.

It doesn't fucking matter,

which was recommended to me by the Discord people on the pod.

This game, you play as, I think, like a...

a Celtic warrior who's got to go to the Viking afterlife for, I think, to free the soul of your husband or something.

Um,

lots of lore early on in the game can go up to these like monoliths and like hear about Viking lore.

And I was like, oh, yes, this is good.

This is the, this is the chunky meat that I want.

Fucking, this is a puzzle game.

It's a fucking puzzle game.

You, the, the instructions show combat, but then you get into it and you've got to, and the puzzles also,

because I didn't get very far in the game because I was like, I'm not doing this.

Uh, we're like, here are two runes on a gate.

You look at the runes and then you have to look around until you can find them.

And how do you find them in the environment?

You have to like line up tree branches so that they make a rune by like moving your body around and moving the camera around.

And I was like, I do not, I can, the idea of, I stopped when I could see the rune

and could not get.

it to activate

by lining it up because I wasn't properly aligned.

I'm like, I'm looking at the fucking giant R.

You know that I'm looking at the R.

Give me the fucking R so that I can lock it into the gate and I can progress to the next area.

Very frustrating gameplay.

So I gave that up.

Then I started God of War Ragnarok finally.

Years after

Matt has told us that this game is fantastic.

And you know what?

Matt was right.

Wow.

That's huge for me.

That I was so nervous.

Matt's fucking right.

It's fucking great so far.

It's giving me what I need, which is, you know, them talking about

the mythology of Ragnarok, the concept, which I just want.

I wish I could just go to Viking school and just hear this shit all the time.

Fantastic game so far.

Really enjoying it.

Really excited to play it.

I'm going to think I'm going to play that.

I'm going to lean into that before I play more of Armored Corps 6, or maybe I'll swing back and forth.

Who knows?

But the most exciting thing of the last week for me, guys,

was that I went to the National Video Game Museum in the Netherlands.

Wow.

Amsterdam!

Which,

why the fuck?

aren't there national video game museums everywhere?

Because we have all this precious art that we stole that we have to show off here.

I'm going to, what?

I'm going to read the history of the National Video Game Museum, which is in Zutimir.

A garage in The Hague is the place where the adventure began in 2008 with two friends, Hassan Tasdamir and Pascal Rapiles or Rapies.

I don't know how to say it.

The garage soon became too small, after which they moved to a shed in an industrial area.

Unfortunately, the shed was not heated, and everything had to be transferred to, and this is a translated website, so if I'm doing this wrong, I'm sorry.

But

they moved to a shed in the Ministry of Agriculture in the middle of the winter.

When this building had to be emptied, the collection of 10 arcade video games and some spare parts was stored in an old showroom for classic cars.

Because there was no room to renovate or play the cabinets, they were looking forward to a suitable space.

It was founded in, it was, the space was found in 2011 on Kolbatstraat in Zutmir.

There, Hassan decided to rent the location with four friends, and the adventure could grow into a meeting place of their own to practice their hobby and relax with a game.

So,

this starts as

a personal collection.

By the time Heather visits this place in 2023, it is among the coolest buildings I have ever been in in my entire fucking life.

Wow.

It is a full functioning, pristine arcade and museum with contextually accurate rooms that you could play the games in.

So for example, if you were wanted to, if you wanted to play an Atari 2600, there was a sectioned off area that was a 1970s living room with a 1970s television so that you could sit in the room and be like, this is what it was like to play

the Atari when it was, when it was released.

I'm going to share my, I'm going to share my screen with you guys so that you can see a little bit of what I saw at the

museum.

As you enter into the museum, there's like a hallway full of like accessories and like video game themed stuff.

So the first thing I took a photo of is a Street Fighter 2 rock'em sock'em robots, like a handheld tabletop game.

Like fucking great.

I was like, oh, I'm in good hands.

Skylin Ryu, facing off.

You round the corner and you see an original Pong, like an original Pong machine with the original dial paddles in order to play.

And I, as you guys can see from this photo, the quality of this machine was as if it came out of the past and was dropped here in the present.

Yeah, I don't know if this has been restored or what, but it is pristine.

It's pristine.

Every machine in there was pristine.

they had um

just real quick because i don't think i've ever seen an original an og pong cabinet in the wild had you had you encountered this i'd never seen it i'd never seen it before looks cool as hell to the left of this uh this photo and we're going to put a lot of these up on social media uh is the 1970s living room where you could play uh atari 2600 or the vectrex

both in pristine condition unfathomable you can see uh a glass case that has uh all of the accessories for these old 70s video games.

Also, all just like each one had like its own card with like the history of the accessory and how they came into possession of it.

They had candy cabinets from the 1990s that like every joystick was in perfect working order.

Every button wasn't sticky.

The cabinets themselves were like clean and precise.

I've got a photo here of Street Fighter 3 Third Strike on a Astro City, which is my personal dream cabinet.

There were Neo Geomes.

They had,

you see, in the background, they had an entire section of racing games.

So you could play Daytona USA or Initial D, and everything was all linked, and everything worked, and everything

was free to play.

You enter the museum and you pay

to get in, but then every machine you can play for the two hours that your ticket is good for.

Wow.

They had Guitar Hero.

What an awesome bit of curation and preservation.

Yeah, it's so cool.

It's incredible.

They had Guitar Hero Arcade map, which I'm sure you want to fuck.

I was actually,

I do like that.

I was always hesitant to play Guitar Hero out because I was just very aware of how much you were touching the buttons.

Oh, sure.

They had cabinets for

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics 2020, which I didn't know there were cabinets for.

And these are interactive, like We Fit style.

You run, you jump.

Yeah.

And that's how you interact with your character on the screen.

They had my favorite cabinet of all time, which I've talked about on the show, Baby Pac-Man.

This is wild.

Where you play Pac-Man on the top screen, and then you can

send him through a

like a gate at the bottom, and then it becomes a pinball machine.

And it was, I've never seen this machine pristine before.

Wow.

And it is perfect.

There aren't scratches on the art.

There's no graffiti anywhere on the machine.

And all the buttons are clicky.

They had an entire retrospective of Pac-Man.

And they had every handheld video game that has ever fucking been released, each of them with rare variant.

copies of the handheld machine.

I've zoomed in here on a cabinet

that also had,

I mean, I haven't even, I've never heard of this fucking Game Gear.

They had a GG White,

which is a Game Gear that had the TV tuner built into the Game Gear.

I've never fucking seen or heard of this machine.

And it was there

at in Zootomir.

Wow.

They had

rare variants of like mainstream consoles.

They had one of the 6,500 gold PS4s happen to be at this fucking Zootomir Museum.

They had the PlayStation Taco Bell edition.

Wow.

Which

you can see here in this photo I took.

PlayStation and Taco Bell started an interesting collaboration in 2014.

If customers bought a big box menu, they could win this golden PlayStation 4.

The collaboration was not a big success, and multiple giveaway actions were necessary.

This is a fucking machine that you couldn't get unless you won it from Taco Bell.

They have one of the PlayStation 4 20th anniversary colorways, which is, I think,

there's only like,

there's only 12,000s, 12,000 of these

were made.

They have Nintendo 64 and all the Nintendo 64, like Donkey Kongas.

They have rooms set up so you can play Super Nintendo.

They have, I mean, They had a section dedicated to computer gaming with era-specific computers that you could play Windows 95 games on, mid-2000s games on, late 2000s games on.

There's some,

this looks like a,

I'm trying to, to, is this Warcraft 3?

What do they have on the

looks like a Warcraft?

I don't know.

But I can't quite tell the era from the screenshot.

They had an entire section of gun games, like Terminator 2 Judgment Day or Time Christ.

They had the evolution of virtual reality, starting with a virtual boy and going all the way to the PSVR2.

They had all of the accessories for the original NES, including a robot controller that I've never seen.

Mary got to play a game called Starblade, which had a huge wraparound cabinet

and like flat-shaded polygons.

They had a 1980s section that was BurgerTheim, asteroids, Galaga, Ladybug, Tron,

and all of them, all of them were in perfect condition.

I don't know if

I don't know how this

place exists.

You just blazed past a shot of Mary in a fucking cabinet with her tongue out.

Like, look at this.

I've got a photo here of this like 1970s room with a rotary phone, a working Vectrix that you could just pick up.

Like, you just can like sit in this room and like play these old games.

And they are, they're perfect.

It was

that, that, that, like, commitment to the, this, this era specificity and the aesthetic of the playrooms is really cool.

That, that room looks like where, uh, where Bob Crane was murdered.

It's like, it's a perfect encapsulation of the 1970s.

I have a photo here of a Commodore 64 that was set up at a desk.

And

you could, there's a huge thick instruction manual next to the keyboard in case you didn't know what you were doing.

But you could also, it had

a cabinet of floppy disks.

And you could just choose which game to play on a Commodore 64, which is so cool.

I can't imagine that level of trust.

existing at an American museum.

Like, I can't imagine people.

No, go steal shit or fucking rip it up.

Yeah.

Write their names on it just to be assholes.

Here's a photo of Mary playing Space Invaders.

Look at how fucking clean this cabinet is.

It looks like it was made yesterday.

Like,

it,

I can't stress enough.

Here's a 1980s room.

I can't stress enough how.

Also, they had a cabinet that was only Kojima.

And I was like, that's fucking great.

Oh, look at that.

That's fucking cool.

Um, wow, it was,

it was,

it was almost a religious experience.

I've never,

there's a game that I'm showing you guys here called Densha De Go, which is a Japanese train simulator from

the fucking, I think, early 2000s or late 90s, which is built into a

full-sized train car.

And they had the entire cabinet at this place.

Yeah, Nick's gonna Howard Hughes himself in there.

The final piece I have up is the rarest thing for me personally, which is the Game Boy Color sewing machine, where you could play a game to make patterns, and then you slot your Game Boy color into the sewing machine and you could sew it onto a

on a

fabric.

I've

what

you can,

it's like a

it it was a game

it what would it sew

patterns that you made on the game boy

i don't know why this of all the things was like the most shocking that's wild because it's so elaborate and unnecessary it's it's to the point of like i can't believe someone thought of that and then made it It's, you know, I think, I think that's, I think the idea is, you know, that, because there's always a, there's, especially with a new platform, there's all, there's always like, how can we expand this beyond the existing demographic that's already buying it?

It's like, I don't know, people, sewing enthusiasts.

Let's make a sewing gate.

And some of that shit worked.

You know, it was things like brain training or we fit.

Right.

But, you know, you know, like,

I don't know.

That's a cool swing.

This place was in a mall.

So when I got there, I was a little confused.

First off, nobody, like, Zooktomir is not like a big city.

Like, we took a train there.

We brought our bikes so that afterwards we could bike to The Hague and have like lunch or something, right?

watch a war crime trial yeah um

visit the grave of slobodan milosevic uh

so we we go there and we bike into the center of the city and i was like oh no this is this is going to be rough this is like i'm going to a mall i've been duped like the website's flashy but they're not going to have anything i

i cannot sing the praises of this place enough.

If you are ever in the Netherlands, visit the National Video Game Museum and pay your respects to the entire history of video gaming.

It's remarkable.

What an amazing slideshow that was.

Yeah, thanks, Heather.

Yeah.

Thanks, Heather.

We'll put it up on social media if you're listening.

Go to our Zitter

or our Instagram, and

you can see those

shitty photos.

I just took photos with my phone.

I didn't bring my camera.

I didn't expect to need it.

Fucking amazing.

A lot of cool shit.

Hey, you know, speaking of video game history,

still the biggest selling, or is it number two?

Console of all time.

What are your PlayStation?

Okay, no, it's too late.

No, it's no, you're like an hour late.

I don't know what your excuse is, but we just, at this point, we don't need you.

I'll be in the den.

Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm fine.

Everything okay?

I'm fine.

I took a taxi.

Send us a text next time because then we can just say, like, hey, you don't need to show up, you know?

Because you come in all this way and we're already done with the segment.

It's just kind of a waste of everyone's time.

You're going to give me your numbers?

Nick,

yeah.

Can I talk to you for a second?

Oh, yeah, yeah, what's up?

I don't think we should do that.

Okay.

And I think this is kind of what happens is that, like, you know, he shows up and we're like, oh, great.

But then we engage with him.

We sort of enable this behavior.

And I think it's like, kind of like a, you know, I think, hey, thanks, but you didn't have to be, you don't have to be here.

The segment's over.

That's it.

You know what I mean?

Maybe just leave it at that.

Just leave it at that.

New listeners, I'm the Resident Evil 4 merchant.

And I'm here to ask you.

What are you playing?

Okay, we'll just actually, you know what we'll do?

We'll, we'll, we'll take this part and we'll just put it earlier.

And then that way he can give you some money.

And that, that's just kind of how we'll just do it.

We'll just do it like that.

We'll do it like that.

Yeah, but that makes sense.

It won't make any sense, though, because it'll be like, How'd he lose his fingers?

We didn't even know that.

I did.

Yeah, I didn't see.

I didn't see it.

I know taking an inventory of people's digits when they come in.

All right.

Frankly, I just assumed those fingers are always missing.

I jumped it.

I was water skiing.

Okay.

And sure, tell us the story.

And I, and I,

look, I was going to jump.

I jumped off the back of the boat to get, you know, to get into the water to ski.

Mm-hmm.

The water skiing rope

stuck got trapped.

I got tangled up in it.

And so I was dragged

face into the water, legs on the boat.

And

the engine,

which you guys know from Dredge, can be a dangerous machine.

That's right.

Yeah, you gotta be careful with that thing.

Wround up my hands willy-nilly,

and I lost my fingers.

I'm having trouble even envisioning you, Resident Evil merchant, water skiing.

Like, do you have a trench coat full of stun grenades you're still wearing?

Or yeah, do you put on like a swimsuit?

Yeah, swimming costume, as the English.

Because that's all almost weirder, picturing you in, like, a speedo.

No, no, full get up.

I could wear shorts.

It didn't have to be a speedo.

I wear a full getup.

I wear my full getup.

Got it.

Drench coat, mask, hat,

water skis.

Did you take the backpack off at least?

Nope.

That might have been part of your issue.

That's tougher to balance.

You might be...

What do they call it in Diablo when you have too much stuff?

Encumbered.

You're encumbered.

Yeah.

All right.

I'll let you guys go.

Yeah.

Sorry about your fingers.

Yeah, sorry about that.

Me too.

Yeah.

But anyway, yeah, just we're,

we can just use what you said earlier.

What are you playing?

We could just use that for the next few weeks, so don't worry about it.

You got it.

You got it.

Okay.

All right.

Take care.

I'm a virgin.

Okay.

Okay.

That's fine.

I didn't want to know that.

That's fine.

That's fine.

That's okay.

I'll be in the den.

Okay.

A den?

I thought.

Do we have a den?

Here's the thing.

I got a den?

I thought this podcast only hired people that fucked, okay?

I'm furious.

All right, the PlayStation 2 is in fact

still the biggest selling game console of all time.

Wow.

It is Switch is closing in on it, and I think Switch is on a trajectory to surpass it.

But as of now, PlayStation 2 has 155 million units sold.

The successor to the PlayStation 1, which was itself a massive success.

And yeah, just

one of the big boy consoles with just perhaps the most impressive library of any console.

I think that you can make that argument.

It just occurred to me why the Switch 2 hasn't been announced or released yet.

And it's because Nintendo wants that record.

They want to top the PS2.

I think they can see that.

I think they also could just have the calculation of like, we will just keep selling these fucking things.

Right, because nobody's getting the Switch because it's a powerhouse.

No.

You're getting the Switch because you can play kind of everything

switch level or below on the switch.

Yeah.

You don't like, I don't know that anybody who has a switch wants to play Starfield on it

when you can, you can, you can play Disco Elysium on it.

Yeah.

You can play Skyrim.

Yeah.

Matt, you were playing Red Dead Redemption on.

Yeah, I didn't talk about it, but yeah, I'm playing it there and it fucking rocks.

It's so good.

It plays perfectly.

But yeah, it's well, yeah.

The PS2 was still in the era where of big exclusives.

I mean, those still exist.

Sony still has its big exclusives, and Nintendo has its big exclusive, but that would, I think it was a much more, you know,

consoles, I think, had much more exclusive libraries.

There was a lot less overlap.

Although that was starting to, I think this was the generation where that was starting to also dissolve.

So it's kind of like a little bit of a transitional period where you'd see big games that would maybe launch on PS2 and then get Xbox and GameCube ports and what have you,

or vice versa.

I do think there are a lot of big quality PS2 games, like well-known games that are multi-platform games.

And we'll see if some of those

get picked here.

But yeah, this is like, this is across our old DLC format and our current format, we've drafted so far the Nintendo DS, another massive selling console, the PS1, and the Nintendo 64.

And now we are here in the most current of these drafts doing PS2.

So who wants to go first?

We talked about this a little bit off pod off pod before we started.

I'm not worried about any of mine.

Right.

Got it.

I think

it's going to be you two.

Not about any of the.

I'm not worried about any of them.

I have a couple that might be on your list.

I think, here's what I think, because I was considering this also, and I was like, I'm not worried about any of mine.

I think the PS2 library is so huge that to choose 15 games,

which is what we're going to do, 15 total.

Five a piece.

Five a piece.

I also wonder if we're going to have any overlap or if there are 15 solid,

like A plus for each of us titles.

that none like that that everybody will be like, God, that's a good game.

That's a good game.

But none of us are going to be super jealous of.

But we'll see.

I think we'll also get to the end of this and we will 100% be getting feedback.

Like, how could they possibly have left this on the board?

How could they not have picked this?

And the issue is there's just like such a breadth of the tear point, Heather, of the library.

There's just like so many fucking good games for this particular console that, you know, you may not get to the deeper cuts.

You may not even get to some of the

well-known AAA tags.

And since we've said that,

don't say it to us.

No, sorry.

We made the disclaimer.

We're anticipating it.

Sign up for our Discord, which is discord.gg/slash get play.

Heather.

Just say it to us.

Say it to us.

Do you know what the way to do it is?

I think just say what your five would be.

Right.

I think that's the way.

Oh, they're five.

No, they, they, yeah.

If you want to have feedback, like, like, like, hey, here's what I would have picked.

You know, like, I think that's, that's the way to do it.

Join me.

As opposed to, you fucking idiots.

Yeah.

How the fuck could you have forgotten this game?

I don't mind it.

You can tag me and say, you fucking idiot.

Don't do it.

It's going to make me sad to see it.

Just don't do that.

I got a ring.

I got a ring at a jewelry store that declares war on the world.

I'm really excited to live.

Yeah.

I'm ready to go.

Heather has really upped

her own personal game.

Who wants to go first?

Having terrifying items.

I'll just knock this one out.

Go ahead, Matt.

One at a time, though, right?

One at a time.

Yeah, we'll go one at at a time.

Nick, do you want to go second or third?

I mean, are we doing snake style or are we just going one, two, three?

Snake style.

Okay, we're not doing snake style.

Snake style.

I say that I'm not worried.

Uh-huh.

Let's just do one, two, three.

I think this will be fine.

We'll just each take turns.

Okay.

But who's two?

You know, I'll go third.

I don't give a shit.

Hold on.

Who gives a shit?

All right, here we we go.

Matt Apodaka.

All right.

First one on the board.

No one's going to take this one.

And is it a waste?

Perhaps.

I'm going my first pick, Kingdom Hearts 2 player.

You got to get what you want.

Yeah.

That's just how I think that's the best drafting strategy in sports is like, you know, there's a thing that they'll say in a draft that'll be like, that guy's a reach in terms of I drafted him at number one, but he'd be available at number four.

But historically, it works out if a team really has their eye on somebody that they take what they want.

So, yeah, I don't think Heather and I would have taken Kingdom Hearts 2.

No.

But obviously, it's an important part of your

construction of your roster.

So, I think you're right.

The thing about it, too, is if I only had one pick, it's probably the game I would pick.

I love it.

I've played it.

That's great.

I've played it so many times.

And the only way that either of you would take it would be to spite me.

So, I just thought, I'll get it first.

I know that they're not going to do that anyway, but I just got to get it out of the way because everybody knows I'm going to pick it anyway.

Let's

number two.

Let's, let's, let's, let's move along.

Wow.

In my restless dreams, I see that town.

God damn it.

Silent Hill.

You promised you'd take me there again someday, but you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now in our special place,

waiting for Silent Hill 2.

One of the greatest PS2 games of all time and one of the greatest games of all time.

Got my boy Pyramid Head.

It's got my, it's got my,

I mean, like, my boy, it's got the hole, it's got the fucking hole in it.

There was a hole here.

It's gone now.

Scariest thing I've ever read in my life.

Yeah, it's such a perfect short story.

Holy shit.

So these two picks, I think, are iterative of their first entries and improve upon

what made those first ones good to begin with and present a perfect package.

Yeah.

Silent Hill 2 was the first Silent Hill on PlayStation 2, but Silent Hill 1 was on the PlayStation 1.

Excellent game.

Silent Hill 2, fucking masterpiece.

That's my first pick.

Nick Weiger, you're up.

You know,

this isn't the direction I was going to go, but

while we're drafting sequels that were improvements upon the original, and this is a game that I played through a bunch, And I think it is one of the defining games of this console.

Even though it's not necessarily my favorite in this individual series, it is just such an important game.

Oh, no.

And so,

I'm nervous.

I have to say, don't do it.

An anemone or clemantis plants juice can cause a rash.

When pruning them, it's a good idea to wear gloves.

To quote the Colonel from Metal Gear Solid 2.

Wow.

I can't tell if Matt's upset.

I know that's not his favorite in the series, but I can't tell if Matt's upset because

he does have a finger on the button of Metal Gear.

Metal Gear?

Metal Gear.

Yeah, no, I.

Oh, man, I like you guys.

Yeah, you could always sort of

rely on us doing the same thing that we always do and never improving upon it.

But Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty is such a cool game.

And it also is a thing when we revisited it for the podcast and I played it through in its entirety, I was like, this fucking holds up.

And of course, I had the same feeling about its sequel, Metal Ghost Solid 3, which I think is maybe a better game.

But there's something about that as a...

Again, as a second entry in the franchise and is kind of like a defining game in terms of like, holy shit, this is a whole new generation.

This is amazing what this hard work can do.

think it deserves a spot on someone's roster.

That someone is me.

I think you can have it.

That's yours.

Wow.

Yeah.

Uh, so is it back to me?

Yeah, it's back to you.

Okay, this is now tough, right?

Uh, because, like, I have plenty of options in front of me, but I'm trying to make a

fucking roster here.

Uh, and I only got four more spots.

And you know,

I think

fuck.

This is not a sequel, but it is not the first game

in

the series either.

In an ongoing series.

There's many different types of.

What am I trying to say?

There are a lot of games in this genre.

Okay.

And there's a particular

man at the head of this genre.

And there's sequels to games.

Okay, now I know what you're talking about.

There's different, there's like

different types of games with sequels in this series.

But I'm going to go

with this entry:

Tony Hawk's Underground.

Wow.

Tony Hawk's Underground

takes everything you love about the Tony Hawks Pro Skater franchise

and makes it

Grand Theft Auto, kind of.

Like, it gives it like

there's story missions and stuff and things you have to accomplish.

You can get off the board.

It's a rags to riches story where you're

a local skater trying to make it pro.

And

it's great.

It's such a great game.

It plays really well.

I revisited it.

pretty recently when i got my steam deck uh installed it on there and it rips it is so fucking good.

So Tony Hawk's Underground is my second pick.

I figured you'd take a Tony Hawk and I just for my own curiosity, I just looked up what the highest rated one was on the platform.

It is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.

Yes.

Is in fact the highest rated PS2 game overall tied with Grand Theft Auto 2010.

I did see that.

Yeah.

Big old 97 on Metacritic.

I do love.

I do love Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.

That one is probably

my favorite after, well, it's probably tied for favorite for for the first one.

But Underground,

Underground is just great because the fact that you can get off the board adds an interesting element, and there's just like a lot more you can do.

They really refined the combo system in Underground, I thought.

So it's, I think it's a great pick.

Yeah, really great.

So far, we've got four games on the board, and this is looking like one of the best systems of all time.

Yeah, there's an argument.

There's a case for it.

One of the best.

Matt, I've shared a song

in the chat here that I'd love to play for my second pick.

A work of genius.

A tower beast of a game.

that pushed the PS2 to its very limits.

This wasn't just an exceptional title.

Indeed, this itself is a colossus, and we are but in its shadow.

Shadow of the Colossus 2005 PlayStation 2

fucking masterpiece.

That's all I got.

That's what it is.

I mean, that's my second pick.

If I had done that, it would have been like a no FX song or something.

I was pretty confident you were going to pick that.

I know that that's a game that you really love.

It's an all-timer.

It's a great game.

And

there you go.

It's incredible.

I still have never played it.

What?

There's a remaster.

Hey, you know what?

That could be our wee play.

That could be the wee player you play.

That could be it.

Oh my God.

I would just fucking break down crying.

It's such a fucking good game.

It's, it's one of my favorite games.

Can you just play that on a P on on a PS5?

Yeah, I don't know.

I assume so.

I think it is.

I think the remake is.

It's a PS4 remake.

You can play it on PS5.

Fuck.

What if we did that, guys?

It's not super long either.

It's not super long.

It's a fucking awesome game.

Heartbreaking.

Brilliant.

Also, Adam Sandler plays it in Rain Over Me.

We could watch that.

For an episode.

We could watch Rain Over Me.

Yeah.

Maybe we could just...

A replay you play could be the movie Rain Over Me.

the Adam Sandler 9/11 movie,

Nick.

You're up.

Uh, you know, while we're sharing

music,

I mean, I wasn't expecting this to be on the board, but how can I not pick it at this point?

Oh no, Matt, if you want to go ahead and play this track, oh no, what's it gonna be?

I'm nervous.

Go yourself.

Oh, shit.

Okay,

I don't know what it is.

Wait, are you

Nick, are you just

choosing metal gears?

I wasn't planning on it.

I thought I'd take two.

I was going to take three with my number one pick, but then everyone was taking number two.

So I was like, ah, well.

It'll be better if I just take another.

You know, it would be better sequel.

Yeah, but then I was like, but then three is still here.

So I was like, fuck it.

I'll take three with my number two picking piece of shit.

Do you remember just a couple pics ago

when you said Metal Gear Solid 2, and I said, you can have that?

You fucked me.

Another game that's just like, you know, we, hey, look, we, we tackled them both, I think in different, different versions of Cojember,

where we played through a bunch of Kojima games.

And I think the three,

which we tackled with, do we have Gene Park on to talk about Metal Gear Solid 2?

Yeah.

Gene's the best.

We had, and I think where all of us were just like, wow, this is fucking this game, A, holds up, and B, just has like a bunch of like big ideas that helped define,

you know, how stealth plays in video games.

And it's also like, as a as a sea at the time, like as a follow-up to Metal Gear Solid 2, which had

certainly some strong reactions to it, certainly was kind of a polarizing game because of the misdirect of who the protagonist ended up being.

Like, like was both a course correction, but also something that satisfied people who actually liked MGS2,

like me.

So, yeah,

a great game and it fills up my roster.

Matt, back to you.

That was ice cold, buddy.

Yes.

I'm absolutely fucked over.

Well, Matt's out here fucking saying no one else is going to pick any of my games with that level of confidence.

He had two picks to take this game.

It wasn't a.

It was, that was, you were supposed to hear what I'm saying and then not do that.

You're supposed to sort of be like, okay, Matt says no one's going to pick my games.

I better not pick.

You made an enemy, Weiger.

Okay, well, okay, so now I'm worried because I think the, my, my number, my, the game I was going to to take, I feel pretty

favorite game.

Like, do you want to do a tray?

No, it's okay.

I'm just kidding.

When we do the 3DS draft, I'll draft it for the 3DS.

Which is where I did play it on when we did the episode.

And it's great on there.

And in many ways, improved.

My third pick.

So now I'm going to zag a little bit.

He's zagging.

Because I have some ones that I know that are safe, but there are some on here that I don't know.

Just pick Nick's favorite game.

I don't think

they had Panty Party on

I2.

Game they covered on here with Ifiwatiwe.

So I can't pick Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater,

but

I'm going to pick a game that I don't, I think I've talked about a little bit that might be a surprise pick for every a surprise pick for me from you guys

because I don't really engage with sports at all

in this way.

She's going to pick Madden.

I'm going to pick Madden 04, no,

which I did play a lot as a teenager with my uncle.

This game I would play non-stop

and have been chasing this high for years.

I think it's an excellent sports video game.

I think it's a fun game to play at a party with friends.

This is an all-timer for me.

NBA Street Volume 2.

This was on my list, and I'm glad it got picked.

The NBA Street games were a lot of fun.

I'm not quite sure why they fell off because it felt like they'd kind of figured out how to iterate on NBA Jam.

I thought that franchise was going to stick around, but those were both really, really fun.

And they like,

they made a third one that I didn't play because I think by that point I was kind of done with that.

But I thought

they could just bring it back.

And all I actually want is a port of two to the switch.

That's it.

They don't have to do anything to it.

I'll take a port.

And that's fine.

But I just want a way to play it again

because it's, I thought that game was so much fun and so great.

And it's a home run, I think.

Well, or a slam dunk, I should say.

All right.

No, home run is right.

It's a home run.

Uh, Heather, you're up.

I put another uh a song in the chat.

She's gonna fucking do it.

What do you?

What could I possibly do?

Yeah, I'm looking.

This is the exact same URL of the song that I was gonna put in the chat.

All right, yes,

yes, I did it.

Appodaka.

I got revenge.

She didn't oppodaka you, she waggard you, dude.

Okay, I didn't wager.

I didn't do a goddamn thing.

Also, I didn't wager him.

Like, he could have chosen.

It doesn't matter.

No, play the fucking ass.

You waggered him.

Here we go.

The PlayStation 2 was an opportunity for many developers to create new, singular gaming experiences that have never been experienced before.

Experience, experience?

I'm a little drunk.

It's okay.

Among these

was

second to none ball rolling Earth Simulator Katamari Damasi with one of the best soundtracks of all time.

You can't fucking beat this game.

It's been my ringtone for, what, 20 fucking years?

It's like no matter who calls you, if this goes off when you're when you're you're like, oh, okay, I'll answer that.

um

my my third pick katamari damasi fucking perfect crazy game

absolute delight

i'm there was a time there was a time when games like this wouldn't have come out in the west

like you would have like seen it in a magazine and you would have been like whoa what's that and i'm really glad that um

that our uh that our that our overlords at band dynamco released Katamari Damasi to us.

Nick, you're right.

Great game, great pick.

It was on my list, was going to be my pick here.

I'll pivot, though.

Heather, you picked a game, Shadow of the Colossus,

from Team Eco.

And you know what?

Team Eco is named after a game that they released previously that is an awesome experience, less heralded.

less impactful, but I do think it's one of the better games on PS2 and a game that I played at a time when I was like, holy shit, this is expanding what a video game can be artistically.

That is the game Eco,

where you are a boy with horns with a princess in some sort of castle.

You don't speak the same language.

The combat is, you know, mostly is limited to you protecting.

uh your charge in this this game-length escort mission uh and uh you know it's it's a game where you're really in peril most of the time, where you're not powerful.

It's not a power fantasy.

Rather, it's a game about just like surviving.

And it's artistic and it's beautiful.

And it has

just an amazing story and an amazing

coda.

And

it's one of the, you know, again, the games I think of when I think of the PlayStation 2.

So I'm going to pick Eco for my number three.

That's a great pick.

I'm only familiar familiar with it when we've talked about um

how they fucked up the box art here in the West.

The box art is extremely funny, yeah.

It looks the the uh

the the the the Japanese box art is like a work of art on the same level as the game itself, and then the American box art is like the uh American box art for Mega Man.

It's just like some like gnarled, like, who's that guy?

That's not the fucking protagonist.

Very strange.

Eco's a great game.

It wasn't on my list.

But it's an excellent game.

And

I'm glad somebody gave it the love it deserves.

Now,

the danger I risk is that the next game on my list is going to also be picked by Heather.

And I'm pretty certain it will be.

That's okay.

There's lots of options here.

Matt, your turn.

How to behave in the way you pick up your face.

Is Matt frozen or is he just

Matt's frozen, but it looks like he's just furious at you.

Yes.

And I hope we keep this part of the podcast in.

I froze.

He's like frozen in contemplation.

Anger.

I was saying

enraged contemplation.

I was saying here,

I'm learning from Nick in these moments because

the way Nick is responding to maybe getting picked,

getting his things picked, has made me reevaluate

maybe how I reacted.

Wow.

And you know,

all I can say is, I'm sorry.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

I shouldn't have blown up like that.

And

you're fine, buddy.

No, no, no.

He deserved it.

Okay, wait, no, Heather's on.

Maybe Heather's right.

I wear a ring of war now.

I'm ready for combat.

Take it to him.

Appodaka, take the fight to him.

Well, this is the thing: I just don't know which ones Nick would pick, and I'm not a spite picker.

I'm not going to do that.

But what I am going to do,

Heather just mentioned combat.

This game

is non-stop combat.

You're a man.

You're a singular man

on the quest.

In destroying destroying the gods

and kill them and end their reign of terror once and for all because they have too much power and they shouldn't be fucking around the way they're fucking around.

So my pick

is the PlayStation 2 video game, God of War.

The first one.

Nice.

The first one,

they're all great.

But I'm picking the first one

because

somehow this game didn't even come out at the end of the PS2's life cycle.

And it like

pushed the PS2 for everything it got.

I'm shocked that God of War 2 even came out on PlayStation 2.

It is, they, I don't know what they were doing over there.

But I got God of War on my original PlayStation 2 and it didn't work because my PlayStation 2 had been used so much that because I had brothers also playing it, that thing was probably running eight hours a day every single day.

By the time I got God of War, it couldn't handle it.

I had to get the Slim and then I was in business.

But boy, oh boy, I've played that game a lot.

I think I played that game earlier this year,

replayed it, and it rips.

It's so, it's fantastic.

It's so good.

So that's my fourth pick.

Those, those, those games that come out towards the very end of a console generation, uh, very often first-party games with big budget that just like really just push the hardware as hard as they can are really

like, you know, the, that, that's, that's, that's just a fucking showpiece.

And that game also, I, you know, I, I, I played the shit out of that when it came out.

It's so fun.

Um,

so, so gorgeous.

The combat, really, you know, kind of on a different level from a lot of the other

Devil May Cry also was out at the time.

So, that's, that's not completely fair, but it was like it, like, for that sort of, that sort of game

to have that, that level of depth to the combat was really something.

Yeah, the really super fun.

And then, what it did with fixed camera angles, which was a big part of how it was able to push the PlayStation 2, the aging PlayStation 2 hardware so, so hard.

Um, yeah, really, really, really impressive game.

Great pick.

Yep.

Yeah.

it was so and a matt pick a very matt pick excellent pick one of my all-time one of my all-time games i don't think heather you're i don't think you have to worry about anything nick because i think i'm on my own trajectory over here except for catamari damassey which you had no right to um

well i also had silent hill 2 at the top of my final list

I wasn't going to take Shadow of the Colossus.

I knew you'd want that.

For a short minute,

for a long minute

for maybe even years this final fantasy game was my favorite final fantasy game and that is final fantasy 12.

this is exactly what i thought you were going to pick that i was going to pick it's okay final fantasy 12 not 10

is

the most capable final fantasy on the playstation 2.

It is a fully lived in world.

It was delayed and delayed and delayed.

And when it finally released, it felt like nobody but me was playing it.

But I love Final Fantasy XII.

It has an excellent script.

It has great voice acting.

And it has

the most unique combat system, I think, of the entire lineage.

which is the Gambit system, where you basically program your heroes to take certain actions given certain circumstances.

And then you create a flowchart for each of them so if you have a healer, you set a parameter that's like, if your ally falls below 30% of their health, then cast cure.

It's an excellent game with a unique story.

You don't quite play the protagonist.

You kind of play a guy who's along with the protagonists in this incredible world of Ivalis.

Final Fantasy 12 is my, was that the fourth pick?

My fourth pants.

Yeah, it's your fourth pick.

Yeah.

Nick Weiger, you're up.

Well, I was going to pick Final Fantasy 12.

It's okay.

I did have something to worry about, contra

Heather's assessment.

But you know what?

Final Fantasy 12 is taken.

You know how I respond to that?

I say,

ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Holy shit.

Because there's another Final Fantasy game.

I'm like, I am scared.

there's another final fantasy game for the playstation 2 that i also love and for a time was my favorite entry in the franchise final fantasy 10

wow i'm taking final fantasy 10 talk about a world i mean like look just sort of the the archipelago uh that you're uh that you're uh inhabiting uh the sort of beachy okinawa inspired uh fantasy world was so novel to me at the time

Sin is such an amazing presence, this just ominous force that follows you at all times.

I think the storyline

has some, you know, it has its goofiness.

It has its issues with some of the voice acting,

like the reference laughing scene.

But I think it is just like such a

was such a great narrative that that and and then also the the sphere grid system uh the way that that you build your characters uh just gives you a lot of of customization and feels very active in the same way that the Materia system did.

So, yeah, Final Fantasy X is going to be my number four.

A good pick.

I feel pretty good about it.

Now it's.

Now it's back to Matt.

Your final point.

My final pick.

There's a lot I could say.

There's a lot left on the table for me.

You know.

And

I'm looking at some options, and I sort of have I have my RPG.

I have my skateboarding game.

I have my basketball game.

And I have my story

combat game.

What else do I need?

Right?

I kind of have the whole thing.

I'd be remiss

to not have

a game with a specific peripheral.

So, my final pick:

Guitar Hero 2.

Nice.

Wow.

Nice.

Guitar Hero 2.

Wow.

It's, you know, Guitar Hero 1, great.

Guitar Hero 2, really, they picked it, they upped the ante.

The songs are better.

There are more songs.

They like refine some of the gameplay a little bit.

And boy.

I just love Shredding, baby.

That's it.

That's it for me.

Whether it's on a board or with a guitar, Matt loves to show it.

Call me fucking Shredder.

Surprised you didn't take SSX Tricky.

It was on my list.

Shred down the slopes.

I almost picked that over Tony Hawk's Underground, but Underground's it for me.

But I loved SSX Tricky as well.

But that brings my list to Kingdom Hearts 2, Tony Hawk's Underground, NBA Street Volume 2, God of War, and Guitar Hero 2.

Anyone surprised?

Absolutely not.

I'm just surprised that Metal Gear Solid 3 wasn't on your list.

Yeah, me too.

Me too.

Could have picked it first or second.

You had two opportunities.

Yeah, but I went with the ones that nobody would pick first because I'm a fucking idiot, I guess.

Heather, your final pick.

Look, there is a behemoth that is still on the board.

A game changer.

Behemoth.

A game changer that changed games

from

a sequel to games that barely made a splash from a UK developer

to one of the most Titanic game franchises of all time.

Right.

That's not the game I'm going to choose.

Wow.

I'm going with God Hand as my final pick.

God Hand, which I've talked about on this podcast before, is non-stop fun, an incredible combat system, and is made by one of the fucking master geniuses of video game design.

God Hand is my final pick for the PlayStation 2.

I don't think a lot of people are going to be knocking down my door trying to get my copy of Godhand, but I've got one.

And if I was in the United States and I was staring at my shelf of playstation 2 games there shining in all its glory would be every single game that i've just listed wow ending with

god hand

also what a name for a video game like a what says video game more than god hand

nick you're up

I think people listening to this will be because you were you were obviously talking about Grand Theft Auto 3.

And I think people will probably be shocked to see these lists of PlayStation 2 games, and there's no Grand Theft Auto on it because I'm not going to take one, although I do appreciate those games.

Vice City in particular, I know a lot of people really love San Andreas, and I did play the shit out of three.

And also Resident Evil 4, to me, that's a GameCube game.

I know it's got a PlayStation 4, but I just don't think of it that way.

You know, the Devil May Cry franchise, I appreciate DMC3 was on my list.

I'm not going to pick it.

Okami, a game that people love.

I'm not going to pick it.

It's down to two games for me.

And these are both, you know, not the deepest of cuts.

I wish I had something super duper indie, you know, super duper like a little bit more obscure to sort of show some cred here.

But

for me, it's down to

has also Dragon Quest VIII on this on PS2.

For me, it's down to

Klonoa 2, Lunatea's Veil.

Wow.

Or, hey, you know what?

Fucking great platformers.

Yeah.

And Klonoa Door to Phantom Isle

on PlayStation 1 was one of my favorite PlayStation 1 games.

But I'm not going to pick that because although there were a lot of great character action games and there were a lot of great

platformers, 2D and 3D on the PlayStation 2,

but I'm, you know, the Jack and Daxters and Ratchet and Clanks of the world and the, although those are both more combat-y.

But I'm not going to pick that game.

Instead, I'm going to pick a game that I played the shit out of and that had a great co-op experience.

And to me, Couch Co-op is such a big part of this generation.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.

Baldur's Gate back in the Zeitgeist.

This was the action RPG version of it.

It was so fucking fun, especially you could play through the entire campaign, two-player, one-screen, going around hacking and slashing your way, collecting EXP, collecting treasure.

Now, here's the thing.

You look at all five of my games, Metal Garcela 2, Sons of Liberty, Metal Garcel 3, Snake Eater, Eco, Final Fantasy 10, Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance.

You know,

this is darker, more adult stuff.

But, and, and I like, hey, I'm, I, I like a, I like a cute game.

I like a, you know, I like a fucking,

I like a fucking Rayman game.

I like a fucking Mario game, but they just didn't end up on my list the way things were drafted.

I think that's maybe where Katamari would have slit would have slotted in.

As such, I'm pretty happy with my roster.

I think I got some

bangers on here.

Let's recap our list real quick.

One more time.

Mine is Metal Gestalt 2, Sons of Liberty, Metal Gestolid 3, Snake Eater, Eco, Final Fantasy 10, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.

I chose Silent Hill 2, Katamari Damasi, Final Fantasy 12, God Hand,

and

what was the other one?

Shadow of the Colossus.

Oh, Shadow of the Favorite Colossus.

And my picks were Kingdom Hearts 2, Tony Hawks Underground, NBA Street Volume 2, God of War, and Guitar Hero 2.

I had DVD remote on my list, which I was going to say.

A lot of my stuff was going to be.

But I was like, but here's the thing.

Part of why I bought a PS2 was as a DVD player.

That was a big part of why that just absolutely dominated that console generation because it was the dawn of DVDs.

And people were like, well, hey, this is a DVD player that also plays video games.

I'll get that.

That's probably why, too, my first PlayStation 2 burned out the way that it did because we also

was the family DVD player.

So we were just constantly using it.

Just always, it was always on.

Always watching Austin Powers, the spy who snagged me over and over again.

Yes, that I feel like that and the Matrix were like the two most played DVDs.

And then the first X-Men too was like one of our first

DVDs, too.

But yeah,

those were like, I mean,

Austin Powers was on anyway.

We were always surprised.

But like,

when it came, yeah, when we had the DVD, forget about it.

How about a segment, you guys?

Okay, let's do it.

All right.

Can Nick and Heather guess how long it takes to beat a game without going over?

It's game overtime.

PlayStation 2 Edition.

Nice.

Wow.

So these are all games

from PlayStation 2, some of which we've talked about today.

What's that?

17 hours.

Okay, well, just wait.

I have to say a game first.

Well, that should count as their first guess, I think.

Okay.

I don't think you want it to.

I'm just going to say that right now.

So I'm going to give Heather another chance.

But I'll say some games.

We're talking main story here.

How long does it take to beat the main story of these video games, starting with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas?

So, this is on like of the there's like main story is the lowest threshold on how long to beat, right?

And then there's main and extra.

So, like you do the main story, and then I guess a little bit more.

I really don't know what that is.

Uh, and then some side quests, dabbling of side quests, and then a little bit more grand completionist is all of it, everything that you can do,

yeah, 100%.

Okay,

main story, Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas.

I'll say, hmm, main story only.

Still, it's a beefy game.

I'm ready to go.

I'm locked down.

61 hours.

Okay, Heather says 61 hours.

Are we doing prices right rules?

Yeah, closes without going over.

Oh, okay.

Then I'll say 30 hours.

Nick is correct.

The answer

is 30 and a half hours.

Wow.

I almost said 31 hours.

You fucked up.

What a different fate that would be for me.

So Nick's on the board with one point.

Hell yeah.

Final Fantasy X.

How long does it take to beat the main story in Final Fantasy X?

Oh, boy.

Main story only.

Baby-doo-boob.

Heather.

25 hours.

Heather says 25 hours.

I'm not just going to go over one because I don't think that's fair.

I'm going to say, but I do think it's a little longer than that in my memory.

I'm going to say 34 hours.

Nick is the closest.

The answer, 46 hours.

Wow.

For main story only.

This is a substantial game.

Yeah, I don't play these games that way.

Like, I don't play RPGs, just like mainlining them.

So it is kind of like amazing to hear that even just mainlining it, it's still, I must have taken 60, 70 hours to play that game.

Even just mainlining it, it's still that big, that bulky.

Big boy, boy, you know.

Wow.

There's not a metric for Blitzball only.

But I assume that'd be pretty high as well.

The next one: Katamari Damasi.

I'll go first here.

Main story only, I'm going to say seven hours.

Nick says seven hours.

Heather's going to say two hours.

The rules are: it's closest without going over.

Nick, you went over.

Damn.

The answer

is six hours.

Wow.

So Heather's on the board.

It's two to one right now.

Let's keep going.

The next game.

Jack and Daxter, the precursor legacy.

I don't fucking know.

12 hours.

Is this the first one?

The precursor legacy is the first one.

12, 12.

The second one is just called Jack 2.

12 hours.

Heather says 12 hours.

12 hours did jack two have a subtitle it was just jack two and then jack three

and then jack x combat racing

got it heather says 12 hours and daxter the psp game um

and that's the franchise uh yeah heather says 12 hours i'm thinking back on jack one

was it 12 was it longer than that

uh

i'm gonna take the under i'm gonna say nine hours nicks got it.

10 hours for the main story.

Nice.

Moving right along.

We're in the

PlayStation.

Which one's our mascot era?

Ratchet and Clank, the original.

OG, Ratchet and Clank.

I'm going to stick with nine hours.

It was the same, same ballpark.

Which says nine?

12 hours.

Heather with a bullet.

12 hours.

Wow.

Bam.

Bam.

An appropriate bullet, given the Ratchet and Clank franchise.

Exactly.

Next, to conclude,

which one's our mascot era?

Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonis.

I should have picked a Sly Cooper game.

I know.

Sly Cooper.

Let's see.

Fuck it.

I'll run it back.

Nine hours.

12 hours.

Nobody gets a point.

You both went over.

Oh.

It's seven hours.

The shortest one of the three.

But who else was in that mascot, like running?

Spyro, Crash Bandicoot.

Yeah.

And then they were like, oh, I guess it's Kratos.

I guess it's him.

This is the grieving father.

Yeah, the guy that killed his family.

Okay, just two more here.

We talked about this one.

Eco.

How long does it take to complete the main story of Eco?

I'm going to say this is a

pretty modest game.

I think this is, I'm going to say four hours.

Nick says four hours.

Just to mainline it.

Six.

Six hours.

Heather gets it.

Six and a half hours.

Six.

Wow.

So now we're at an interesting point because the game is tied up.

And

we have one more pick.

So the winner takes it.

I love it.

Such high stakes.

Although we can tie if neither, if we both go over.

This is true.

It can tie if you both go over.

Got it.

Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time.

A game I didn't.

How did you not pick this one?

Yeah.

Don't you love that franchise?

But I think

it's just tough.

Like, I don't know.

It's,

I just didn't pick it.

It's because it's multi-platform.

It's kind of not a PS2 game.

I mean, I played it on PS2.

I really should have just picked it, but

I picked it.

I didn't.

Prince of Persia, Sands of Time.

Nine hours.

Heather says nine hours.

Which direction do I want to go?

Do I want to take the over or do I want to take the under?

Fuck.

I feel like it's less than nine hours, but that seems wrong.

Because I can prices right it in either direction.

I'm going to be a little stinker and say one hour.

Well, Nick, even the dagger of time couldn't save you here because

Heather got it exactly right.

Nine hours.

Wow.

That's our winner.

Do we get a bonus point for getting it exactly right?

No.

Yeah, I don't

need it.

Okay, well, then Heather has five points then.

She's the only one that did it.

Twice.

Yeah, I got one at six.

Okay, yeah, you did.

Fine.

What does it change?

Heather wins still.

I don't know.

It's just fun.

It's just fun.

It's a fun little design.

I'll be the best point of view.

Exactly.

Add it to the notes for

future iterations of the game.

Extra point

for getting it right.

Getting it spot on.

But here's our winner, and that's this week's Get Played.

Wow.

A lot of fun.

Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.

You can check out our paywalled show, Get Anime.

Heather, we're wrapping up the melancholy of Harui Suzumiya.

Yeah, mid-2000s mega hit.

Haruhi Suzumiya, the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is what we're watching over on Get Anime.

We're finishing up season two in broadcast order, which thankfully has been very linear.

And then we're going to be watching the movie, The Disappearance of Harihi Suzumiya.

So if you like anime or if you just like listening to us talk to each other, come check us out at

patreon.com slash get played for our sister show, Get Anime.

Y'all want to hear an impression of one of our listeners listening to this episode?

Yeah, sure.

It's somehow accurate, but worse when you do it.