Tetris

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All right, Tetris is absolutely burning up the charts on all platforms.

Arcade Cabinet is crushing it.

The home console versions selling like fucking hotcakes.

Don't get me started on the Game Boy version, which is moving hardware all by itself.

We need a killer puzzle game to compete with Tetris.

I'm taking any ideas.

We can blue sky this thing.

Okay, yeah, let's see.

So, what if it's like

you see like a singular plane, right?

And

there are

love this so far.

There are like these like pieces

that are falling.

And you have to put them together

and make like a line.

Uh-huh.

And

that's Tetris.

And what shape are these pieces?

I'm sorry.

I was going to say, I was going to try to bail you out by.

I was going to try to bail you out by saying like maybe they're different shapes, but it seems like you were just pitching Tetris.

That's okay.

No, but we could, but that's a good note.

Maybe they're

maybe they're rectangular.

Is that different enough?

I mean,

some of the pieces are rectangular if you want to be pedantic about square rectangle, but yeah, they're

already.

Okay, well, you know, it's already begun.

You want an idea, so I'll just think.

Hey, hi, sorry.

I don't actually work here.

I was just I had a coupon for the cafeteria in the building.

I I thought, my name's Dougette, but I couldn't help but hear you guys pitching ideas for Tedris.

I want you to know on my resume, I've been fired from many game companies, so I feel singularly positioned for this.

But

do you mind if I pitch?

Please, Dougette.

I mean, you know, might as well while you're here.

If you, it, if you will, compensate you if we use it.

So, you see

like parts of a dog,

okay, like its hind legs and it's

like guts and it's like little eyes and stuff.

And the puzzle is how do I get this put back together?

So we're trying to,

I mean, I'm inferring what you mean.

We're trying to reassemble a dead dog.

That's what I'm picturing.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, like something like that.

Maybe there's like a music playing so that it's not grim and it's playing happy birthday.

So

well, you know, happy birthday is not yet in the public domain, so we cannot use that.

Okay, so a happy birthday like

Sean that evokes happy birthday.

Like it's like happy birthday.

There's really only one.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday to you and you're putting together the dog.

Well, look, I don't hate it.

I think we have to get away from some of the more graphic elements.

Maybe it's like a pinata you're stuffing.

Or maybe it's a, did you say no?

Was that just a hard no?

That's not my vision.

Okay, well, I mean, this game would have to be for all ages, so but thank you, Dougette.

That's feel free to go to the cafeteria now.

Yeah, I got some more if you want.

But I feel like the employees should have

a say, sir.

Do you have any other ideas for a puzzle game?

Yeah, Matt, you got another idea.

Okay, so what I'm thinking of is it's like a skeleton of a human man.

Okay, it's sort of

jumping off from the dog one,

and there's pieces falling, and you have to put them on the correct spot of the skeleton.

So, like,

there's like

organs and

stuff like that, and then also, like, his like hog,

and you have to put it, like, where his hog goes.

Okay, I'm gonna catch you up.

Yeah, it's okay.

This is clearly your mind was poisoned by Doug Ett's pitch, which I am rejecting.

Uh, and you're just pitching an even less appropriate version of it.

We can't

do that corpse.

My turn.

Bottom of the screen.

You've seen the game's not hard to make, or are you saying the

quote-unquote hog you referenced?

Yeah,

it's not pornographic.

Yeah, yeah.

I think you should make that guy's game.

No, we're not, we're not doing that.

I think you should make that guy's game and mine.

And my pitch is this.

At the bottom of the screen is a face, like a profile of a face, eight-bit graphic.

And the face just keeps going, I'm so thirsty.

It's got like a speech bubble.

I'm so thirsty.

And there's like a Ziploc bag above the head with like a pinhole in it.

So like,

and then you have like a huge array of liquids on the side of the screen, and they keep falling.

And the liquids are like not good.

So it's like urine or like

spider poison.

And you have to make something that this, the face can drink without dying.

And the rest goes on the face.

You have to choose whether it goes in the bag or not.

Matt, I'm going to ask you to just take like a personal leave of absence just based off of today.

And then Dougette, I'm going to ask you to fill out some start paperwork

so I can officially fire you because I know you're not actually an employee here.

That's really hard to hear because off of that pitch, I do have an idea, but it sounds like you don't want to hear it and I'm being stifled creatively.

We might as well hear it.

So, like, the game is like

it's like a human man's like ball sack, right?

I'm in.

Okay.

I'm in.

And, like,

it's over.

I'm

over.

We drop blocks to clear lines and watch Taryn Edgerton play an Indonesian guy in Tetris the movie, the podcast, 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 our fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger.

I'm here with our third host, Matt Abodaka.

Hello, everyone, and happy 200th episode, baby.

Happy 200th episode here on the Premier Video Game Podcast.

We used to be, how did this get played?

And then we switched.

to get played.

That's right.

And that's what you're listening to now.

You are getting played.

That's Edge.

Oh,

he said it.

He brought it back.

I said Edge.

What?

He's going to have sold it.

Welcome back, Bucket.

Oh, she said it.

It's back.

It's back.

Okay, here's where I would say, Edge.

Wow.

I had a little too much business up top.

Hey, it's okay.

Hey.

Hey, can I drop by and say hi to everybody?

Wow, it's Ash.

Hey, Ash, catch him.

Hey, everyone up there.

Go fuck yourself.

All right, see you later.

Ash, hey, but you know what?

Efficient.

Yeah, I got the job done.

Just kind of tossed a grenade in here.

Is that this 200th episode you're looking for?

Wow, is that wow?

It's Joel for The Last of Us.

It's Joel from The Last of Us.

Gotta go.

Bye.

For everybody who's dropping by, I think it's time to say hi.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my god.

He's back.

He's full.

The 24 merchant has returned.

How are you guys doing?

We're doing okay.

I mean, like, I gotta be honest.

I fucking miss you.

We miss you so much.

We thought that we'd reached a point where you're just like, oh, man, this is kind of...

Just an annoying sort of hassle we have to deal with at the top of every show.

And then we reached a point where we were like, you know what?

I think

this was an essential cog in the machine called Get Played, the Resident Evil merchant's presence.

Well, that's that's nice to hear.

Uh, it also sounds like Stockholm syndrome, just to be frank.

But uh,

I missed you guys too.

I've had a couple of business ventures that haven't gone well in my absence.

Uh,

like selling like a black bass under a trench coat.

Well, what was going on?

Well, yeah, I tried to stick to my own uh strengths, which is merchanting of course not not podcast casting

uh i started a little business where i was doing some uh

second-hand market prescription drug selling okay

uh then i invented a new a new kind of tv dinner where every one of the little slots is macaroni and cheese

But I was using the older.

You don't need a slot for that then.

I think you could just have the whole thing.

Yeah, just a whole big tray.

Like that already exists also.

yeah like a mess

and chitters yeah so here's a mistake i made uh-huh

one you're right on everything you just said two i feel like the prat package it in with a capri sun like a lunchable

turns out a hot capri sun not delicious no no that straw is gonna melt right to the bag too yeah that's tough stuff at minimum you'd need a way to remove that There's a class action lawsuit against me right now, but it's nice to see you guys.

It's great.

i'm here to ask one question

here it comes

what are you playing wow wow he said it he

said it

also in case you're wondering why i'm in a cast i broke my arm trying to slam dunk

Yeah, I wasn't going to ask because it felt invasive, but thank you for clarifying.

You're trying to slam dunk?

I'm canonically like seven foot two.

You are very large, yeah.

I thought I

thought maybe I'd aim for the NBA in my this second

era of my career.

Sure, usually that's flipped.

Usually, someone like starts like, hey, I'm gonna be a pro athlete when I'm young and have my best, you know, years of physicality.

And then on the back end of my life, that's when I'll maybe go into sales.

He's in his business, he's in his NBA era.

Well, I'm not.

I went to the tryouts,

which,

yeah, you know, they were like, well, look at this guy.

He's got this much hops with that much gear.

But, yeah, I opened with a slam dunk and just broke my arm

in the hoop.

I'm not impressed you can even dunk.

Well, yeah, I was

the idea of you even jumping high is like, for some reason, frightening.

Well, if you're seven, if you're talking you're 7-2, 7-3, I mean, you're probably your standing reach is close to 10 feet already.

So

my shoulders are uniquely hinged.

Okay.

So

they come up to about elbow height.

So I had to get my hops required me to get my head a full two feet above the hoop.

Wow.

Yeah, that is an incredible amount of leaping for someone your size.

And sort of, and sort of dunk from the stomach area.

Right.

Hey, Risen Evil Merchant, remember what we said earlier about how we missed you?

I'm going to take that back.

Holy shit.

That's all right.

I won't be here for long.

Okay.

I already asked a question.

Why didn't you answer?

Happy to well, there was a little tangent about a cast.

I don't think either of us started.

No.

Maybe I'm Matt.

Maybe you started it.

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I don't think I

came from either of us.

Said that you have a cast.

What's wrong with you?

Yeah, what's going on with your cast?

I think that was volunteered.

Well,

I was waiting for it.

And then when you did it.

I'll start.

And Matt, I think you can chime in on this because I think we are the two who have seen the Super Mario Bros.

movie.

That's right.

I'm imagining that most of our audience or a large part of our audience has seen the movie by the time this episode comes out, two weekends after the movie's release, because it seems like everyone in America is seeing this fucking thing.

Yeah.

Highest-grossing animated film

release ever.

I will be, I will be still, I think, we should stay spoiler light and like not really like, you know, not that there's much to spoil in this, in this movie.

I feel like you can kind of, if you know the narrative of a Mario game, you can, you know,

divine what's going to happen in this movie version of it.

But just to share thoughts, I'll be honest, I really liked it.

I thought it was a lot of fun.

i had a blast

and here's the thing i didn't i didn't not enjoy myself because i went in very low expectations because i sort of just had the had a feeling that um

it was going to be just exactly what it is right yeah like i didn't i didn't think they were going to be reinventing the wheel at all um or like have like the sort of like

hooks that like other animated films that I enjoy seem to have, you know, like,

um,

but I

did enjoy it.

I mostly just kind of thought it was fine, like only because it is just very much exactly what you think it is.

It's not like

there's no, they didn't take any like big swings or anything.

It's just, it's, I, I, my biggest criticism of it, if I have one, is I kind of just wished I was playing Mario at home instead.

Um, because I was just like, well, I'd rather just be doing this myself.

It seems like I would just rather do that.

And then I did do that.

I went home and played some Super Mario 3D World.

And

I do think it has just the problem of like any sort of

type of these movies where you have like the main characters

sort of just being like, what is all this the whole time?

And so I do think a second entry in the franchise will be better because you don't have to spend all that time

learning the rules.

You can just get straight into it.

They'll be competent in the world that they're in and not be so confused all the time.

You know what I mean?

I totally get that.

And I think that's valid.

And I will say that, like, you know,

the one issue I had with the movie is something that's just like, I just take for granted as part of

the illumination sort of, you know,

the overall aesthetic, which is

these really on-the-nose needle drops.

Like, it's like they've got like the

Kill Bill song happens early on.

It's just like, that's like such an overused needle drop.

I saw that in like a Benny Hana commercial 10 years ago.

There's a song that they use.

There's like ACDC's Thunderstruck comes on during the kart races.

And I was like, I've seen this used so many times.

I heard this used so many times

in this sort of specific context for some sort of like motoring that's going on.

And then

there's a couple of tracks that Nally was like, oh,

I need a hero.

Send me a hero.

That song that kicks in at a certain point.

And Nally's like, they use that in Shrek,

which is like, it's one thing to pull from Kill Bill, but to just pull from a DreamWorks animated film that's one of the

most well-known animated franchises in recent memory, it just feels a little bit too, too close

for comfort.

All that said,

the story is breezy.

It's a tight 90 minutes.

I think Pratt's performance, which we've made fun of, including, you know,

like we, the gaming community, has made fun of, and we have made fun of it on this podcast in particular, actually works in the context of this movie.

I think it's like

totally fine.

The game and Charlie Day play off of each other well, and he is a good actor.

And

the thing that I think the movie,

my defense of the movie is

a film, especially an animated film, is something that you look at

and it is a gorgeous

bit of animation.

It just is filled with joys for the eyes.

It's just absolutely.

And if you just appreciate it on that level, it's a gorgeous realization of the Mario franchise that stays true to the existing character designs.

And yeah, I know that they've got a bunch of baked in, you know, equity in

the way the Mario characters and the Mario worlds have been designed, but they stay true to that and they expand upon it and they realize it in motion in ways that, you know,

that takes advantage of that.

And I think

that's to the film's credit.

I think in particular, it does a great cinematic job of capturing the kinetic joy of platforming.

There's some sequences like the training sequence where there's like a training course

of basically, here's all the platforming stuff that you know from the Mario games, and Mario has to go through this to prove his metal.

Like that sequence, I think, is just like so fun to look at.

And there's more of that that's called back throughout.

I don't know.

I just really loved it as a

to use a cliche as a feast for the eyes.

It's one of those.

And it's just like, and the combination of that plus the Mario stings,

you know, the scoring that uses the Koji Kondo elements, I think all really works.

It was just the needle drops they found alienating.

I know I'm usually out of the segment by this time, but I want to, I want to just,

I feel like we should stop using the phrase feast for the eyes.

Well, I admitted it was a cliche before I said it.

You know, no, no, no, because I, like,

you're going to confuse a couple of people.

For example,

I once tried to get an entire turkey leg into my eyeballs.

Okay.

Yeah, well, you're not supposed to eat like that.

Yeah, that's you just interpret.

Why would you call it a feast for the eyes?

Oh, but not.

I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Literally.

No, I was going to say

everyone's been saying this about it.

Yeah.

Shit's for the mouth.

What?

Jesus Christ.

What the hell?

Shit's for the mouth?

Feast for the eyes.

I hear.

Shit's for the mouth.

Completely 180 on what I was saying earlier.

I hear him.

I'm going to hop on Reddit and

just start letting my fingers do the blasting.

Ruining the 200th episode of minute by minute.

I don't hate you.

Jack Black is so good in it.

And

I just love Jack Black every time, no matter what.

He's just got my number.

I just think he's the best.

I love Jack Black.

The national treasure.

A national treasure.

And he can tell too.

Yeah.

And you can tell he was having an absolute fucking blast doing it.

And the song, there's a song that he sings that's all over TikTok now that everyone's going nuts for.

It's one of the best parts of the movie.

It's very funny.

There's some good jokes.

There's some jokes that land.

And, you know, that's one of them.

I think that part's

super funny.

I was going to say the...

The other thing is that they figured out the logic of power-ups in like movie terms and kind of put them in like, okay, here's how a power-up works.

You take one.

It's the rules that exist in the game, but they have to like explain it a little bit more because, you know, for

gamer, for non-gamers who are in the audience, just having some context of what they're seeing.

And I think it makes sense and I think it works for the story that they tell

or the story beats where they take advantage of power-ups.

So I don't know.

I'm a defender.

I like this a lot.

I will 100% see it again.

I would like to watch it again, too.

And I look forward to future entries in the

Nintendo

cinematic universe.

I'd like to see more

the rumored Donkey Kong spin-off.

I'd love to see that.

I'd love to see a Luigi's Mansion movie.

I'd love to see a lot.

And if this culminates in a Super Smash Bros.

movie of some kind, great.

I don't know how Illumination would do Metroid.

They would not be

the right team to handle Metroid.

I would say that, and I'm a fan of Illumination.

You can see there's a minion in

my tableau here on the video chat.

That's right.

I am going to say that

speaking of Kong, there's a bit of canon that gets tampered with in here.

Cranky Kong, aka the original Donkey Kong, has long been established as Donkey Kong's, the current red tie wearing Donkey Kong's grandfather.

That's right, yeah.

In the Mario movie, Cranky Kong

explicitly says Donkey Kong is my son.

So they've removed a generation.

They've eradicated Donkey Kong Jr., his dad, Donkey Kong's dad, from the canon.

I don't know.

It's a wild decision.

I wonder if

they'll correct it or something, you know, get Fred Armison back in the booth.

Do you think that there's a possibility that Nintendo is having emergency meetings succession style about that change in canon?

Donkey Kong's there, and he's just like, fuck off.

You fucked me.

You fucked me.

Yeah.

Also, no appearance of for Wrinkly Kong, Cranky Kong's dead wife.

I would have loved a ghost appear.

I would have loved her to have appeared as a ghost.

Yeah.

And just like have it be fine and accept.

That's why he's cranky.

Yeah.

He's haunted.

Yeah.

But yeah, all that said,

I can't wait to see more.

Because I think they did a fine job on this one, and they could only go nowhere to go but up, I say.

I'll say, I'll tell the story.

I met one of the directors of the Mario movie years ago.

This has nothing to do with me with me defending it.

There's no way he remembers me or remembers this meeting.

I was introduced to him.

I was working on a different animated project at the time, and he was over there at the same offices, and I was introduced to him.

The guy said my name is Nick Weiger.

And the guy says, oh, wow, the monster fuck.

Wow.

He knew my bit from comedy bang bang, the monster fuck.

That rock.

My recurring extremely detailed and profane song about a monster orgy that is something that

is in the brain of one of the people behind the Mario movie.

I liked it.

They should have given you a special special thanks for it.

Yeah, they should have given me a special thought.

Special thanks.

Special thanks, the monster fuck

in this PG

film.

Hi, this is Jordan Morris.

Congratulations on 200 episodes of Get Played.

I'm a little mad at you because of all the terrible Sonic games you've made me play, except for Sonic Frontiers, which is both good and bad.

I can't enjoy erotic Sonic fan art anymore.

Luckily, there's lots of nasty banjo-kazooie stuff out there.

Thanks for the great show, y'all.

Hey, Heather, Nick, and Matt.

This is Shirako Dunlap.

I played Ace of Seafood with you guys, and it was the best day of my life.

So I'm just

calling to say...

Happy 200th episode.

Thank you for changing the course of my life.

Bye.

Hey, Matt.

Hey, Heather.

Hey, Weiger.

It's Oscar Montoya, and I just want to say congratulations on your 200th episode.

That is a huge accomplishment.

So many shitty games y'all played.

Like,

are y'all okay?

I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for letting me sit in with y'all and talk video games.

It is my number one passion.

I always, always, always had fun sitting in with you you guys.

I will never forgive y'all though for letting me play back in 1995.

That game was absolute garbage.

I mean, a survival horror game on the Switch?

Yuck.

Seriously, guys, no.

But anyway, congrats on your 200th episode.

Please play some good games once in a while.

Y'all deserve it.

Bye.

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Hi, get played.

Heather, Nick, Matt.

I cannot believe it's been 200 episodes.

Congratulations.

That is such a huge accomplishment.

I can't believe you haven't been canceled yet.

No, I'm joking.

I think the show is absolutely amazing, and I am so honored to have played a very small part in it by coming on and talking about a couple of games, including Psychonauts.

That was my most recent episode.

And since then, I have written The Art of Psychonauts 2.

It is the official Psychonauts 2 art book that's coming out this year in the summer.

Hopefully, you can pre-order it at imapid.com.

That is a shameless self-plug.

But I am so, so proud of everything you guys have created on Get Played.

And I can't wait for 200 more episodes.

Love you guys.

Be good.

Hi, Heather, Nick, and Matt.

This is Mono

sending you a congratulations on 200 episodes of Get Played.

I so loved, actually hated the games I've had the pleasure of playing with you, my video game buds and Jesus.

And I just want to use this opportunity to recommend Dwarf Romantic.

Go play Dwarf Romantic.

It's such a fun little weird game that I don't think anyone knows about.

And it is consuming my entire brain.

Here's to 200 more.

See you in the video gameverse.

Hello, Heather and Nick.

Matthew.

This is Friend of the Pod, Cody Ziggler.

just swinging by to say congratulations on 200 episodes of Get Played.

I think you and I, and all the listeners, can agree that the best episode and their favorite episode was when I was on to talk about cyberpunk and how it absolutely break my PS5 two weeks into owning it.

What a time to be alive.

Anyway, here's to 200 more episodes of Get Played, and I hope you appreciated me using my official radio voice.

I love you.

Heather, what are you playing?

Why don't we cue that song, Apodaka?

Yes.

Oh, hell yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of Fortnite News.

I'm proud to announce

the Attack on Titan Fortnite collaboration has begun.

As of this record, this morning, but as of this release, two weeks ago, ODM gear was brought into the game.

You can launch yourself from trees, buildings, and attack with your swords from the sky, or you can throw your Thunderbolt fucking missile things.

I've never seen before.

You can throw them.

And they hit stuff and they explode.

They've also released three skins.

Aaron Yeager, Mikasa, and

Levi, I think.

Levi, yeah.

Yeah, Levi.

I got to play two rounds of it this morning.

Wow.

Landed on the island, immediately opened a box, a chat.

Like, I was playing with

four or three Discord slash

get played listeners.

Thank you guys for

squatting up with me on such short notice.

Landed, immediately found ODM gear and was like, oh, I've got this.

Fucking blasted at a group of people and was wiped out immediately because I had no idea how to use any of it.

But it was,

I don't know.

I'm really looking forward to playing with it a tiny bit more before I disappear on a two-week break from Fortnite.

The longest break I can possibly imagine.

Wow.

Well, I guess I am bringing my Switch Switch, and you can play Fortnite on the Switch.

Hmm.

Not a great version, though.

Yeah, but any version of Fortnite is a great version.

Can you play it on your can you play it on mobile with a backbone?

Is that an option?

You can't play it on iOS.

Oh, that's right.

Because

Epic Game Store controversy.

You could play it remote on Xbox with a.

I feel like playing it on the Switch locally would be better than

cloud gaming it.

Well, no options.

No, no option is great.

And the truth is, maybe I should let it go for two months or two weeks.

I should let it go.

It just seems like such a missed opportunity for a little bit of Fortnite playing.

Anyway, it was really good morning.

That's all the Fortnite news.

I haven't played video games at all, really, for the last few weeks, as I've mentioned on the pod here

he said you know I I said hey I've got a bird app that I like come on yeah

come on

yes come gamer

but yeah that's um

that's all the Fortnite news that's fit to print

and

hey guys I think it's time to talk about the topic at hand well I do want to I do want to I do have something else I want to talk about but on attack on Titan real quick oh okay

I watched a uh, I saw a meme of this today

of uh, Levi.

This was on the Attack on Titan subreddit.

It's like uh, uh, it's Levi, and he's dancing to the um

uh Megan Trainer song, Made You Look,

which is just like it's the show is, if you're not familiar with the anime, it is so bleak

and so fucking just you know, you're all your favorites just

like receiving the most punishing fates

imaginable and then here he is doing it like one of the one of those characters uh who's endured so much torment uh doing a tick tock dance it's like it's the equivalent of like the dad from the road like you know uh it's it's

it's such a it's such a i don't know it's what's great about the show or about the um about the fortnite franchise yeah is that it makes no fucking sense i mean

anytime i have the alien or the terminator do any of those dances it is, it like, the incongruity upsets your stomach a little.

Because, like, you never want to see the alien

swinging its hips and, like, doing a little, a little boob flash, like a little shoulder move, like, with its, like, second jaw unhinged and extended, like its tongue-tooth.

It's fucking, it's, it's wild.

Love a Fortnite.

Love an attack on Titan.

Haven't seen Beyond the First Season, I don't think.

I've watched it all.

It's a lot.

I actually am tempted to get back in the same way that I did when Giannis appeared, to log back into Fortnite and

just claim, just get the characters, just blow some V-Bucks, and then not actually play it.

They fucking got me.

Matt, do you have anything else you're planning?

Just this month's We Play You Play, really.

I've been sinking a lot of time into Resident Evil 4, which we'll of course talk about next week

But other than that not a whole not a whole lot I like I said, I played a little bit of

Super Mario 3D World after seeing the Mario movie and I hadn't played that in a long time and I had completed it, but I have a couple stamps and a couple of

stars that I didn't get so I've just kind of been going through some of those levels and

that game is maybe one of my all-time favorite Mario games.

Wow.

It's fucking awesome.

I love it.

It's so good.

And it's not easy.

It's pretty challenging.

What I like,

it's really great 3D platforming.

What I like about

another thing I'll say to the movie's credit, like they're not just taking the most obvious pulls.

They're pulling from all parts of the franchise, from all the different franchises.

There's galaxy nods and there's 3D World nods.

There's stuff that's just, you know, it's all kind of in there.

And from that standpoint, I really appreciate it because it came from a place of true deep fandom, I feel like, or at least like intricate knowledge of the IP.

Well, Matt, I also know that you streamed some Resident Evil 4.

I really did.

Yeah.

And

I guess,

I guess you were a bit of a stream daddy.

I guess you could say that, couldn't you?

it was me this time shout out to jordan for making that cue yeah it's me

thank you jordan jordan for making that cue

i i feel like it's going to be a lawsuit

in in like 10 years.

You'll look back on it.

Jordan will look back on this and be like,

maybe that wasn't okay.

I did stream it.

Jordan's in the chat.

I've made a mistake.

I streamed some of my playing of Resident Evil 4 because I thought it would be fun to not only subject myself to public humiliation in the form of my being afraid, but for other people's entertainment.

And I think I did a pretty good job.

There's definitely

clips in that stream of me being afraid.

And

I've noticed that when I was playing it, when I hear something and don't see it yet, my instinct is just to shout, where?

Like, where is it?

And then you see them.

And then, like, I have no problem dispatching enemies, though,

which we'll talk about more.

I've gotten comfortable, I'll say.

I'm not too scared.

I'm scared enough.

We definitely have a lot to discuss on that game, which we will do next week with a very special guest.

We're excited to have.

I am going to, I'll say, real quick in terms of what I've been streaming.

I played this, I played a game called Unheard Voices of Crime.

This is by a developer Next Studios.

And this is really highly regarded at the Steam store.

And it was one of those things that was like $3 on Steam sale.

So I was like, oh, I get all take a flyer on this.

And

it is an acoustic detective game.

What that means is that you are looking at like a top-down,

you know, map of an area.

And you can go to different parts of that area.

You can kind of take your avatar and travel different parts of those area and just hear like audio cues of what's happening.

There are also like, you know, stick-figure representations of people that, you know, very simple models that move around the environments as they're moving, and you can follow their voices and track them as well.

But you're doing all this to kind of solve a crime by inferring what took place based off of all these overheard conversations.

Some of them are between two people, some of them are one side of a phone call, and some of them are: here's one side of a phone call in this bathroom, here's another side of this phone call in the stairwell, and so have you, and

so, and what have you.

And, and so eventually you're just trying to assemble all of these data points into a narrative of the crime that you're investigating.

It is really fun.

It's not ideal for streaming because you have to listen very closely with, you know, like and intently.

And so it's a little bit, you know,

it kind of demands singular focus, which is not conducive to streaming.

But

it is a lot of fun to play.

I will say playing through the first

few missions in the game, it does have a lot of, and I think this is meant to be like kind of tutorial hand-holding.

Like, the voices are very broad, so you can distinguish one character from another.

So, it's like, hey, it's me, I'm a Brooklyn guy.

You know, it's like, it's like really, really broad.

I didn't even sound like a Brooklyn guy, but you get what I'm saying.

You sound like Mario.

Uh, yeah, I sound like Mario.

Hey, it's me, Pratt Mario.

Um, and uh, you, so I was just like,

like, like, the voices are very broad characterizations to try to help you distinguish them.

And then also things like,

come on, you know me.

I steal umbrellas all the time, or my name isn't Ulysses Cartwright.

You know, it's just like people verbalizing things that you would never actually say to kind of give those cues to the user.

But it is a really cool design and a lot of fun.

And if you're looking for something a little different, something a little ASMR, something a little moody, and you hey, you like detecting, maybe check it out.

If it's still on sale, it's quite a bargain.

Unheard voices of crime.

Hey, Heather, Nick, and Matt.

This is Jason Treyer.

Big congrats, 200 episodes.

This is so exciting.

Hopefully, next time, you won't make me play Mario is Missing, one of the worst games of all time, and instead we could do something more fun like play The Legend of Zelda on CDI or Bubsy, or maybe I could just stick nails into my eyeballs.

Either way, congrats to you guys and let's hope to come on again sometime soon.

Hey, Heather, Nick, and Matt.

This is Lauren Lapkus.

Congratulations on 200 episodes of Get Played.

That's just amazing.

I have to say this show has changed my life because I have been playing that Star Wars game that we played when I was on every single day.

all day, every day since I was on the show.

So I've lost all my friends, family, and money.

But

I really appreciate you guys having me on.

And thank you for introducing me to the world of that game because it is everything to me.

I hope you have 200 more episodes or more.

Bye.

Hi, Heather, Nick, and Matt.

This is Sean Diston.

Congratulations on 200 episodes of Get Played.

Guys, love the podcast.

Love being on the podcast.

Wanted to just describe three things I love about the podcast.

One, listening to Heather talk about playing the Last of Us DLC

and, you know, just feeling that sort of representation in media that you love, you know, as a person of color, I resonated with so much and I thought that is S-tier podcasting, one of my all-time favorite episodes.

Nick, I love that I made you say Edge

for a really long time.

It was every time I listened, I thought it was very funny that I made you make your catchphrase the word edge.

So, gosh, and when it got retired, I did feel slighted, but you know what?

It's fine.

I know it will come back at some point.

I'm wheeling it into the world.

And also, Matt, I love when you say stuff like

Mario in a porn would say, let's come.

So, thank you so much, guys,

for all the work that you do.

And

hey, you got played.

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Hi Heather, Nick, and Matt.

Congratulations on 200 supersized episodes of Get Played.

This is Jason Concepcion, a former guest on this fantastic podcast program about some of the worst video games ever created by the hands of humankind.

It was truly an honor to discuss with you just some terrible video games with some of the smartest people around.

That means you.

Thanks for having me again and congratulations, 200 episodes.

Incredible achievement.

Hey, Heather, Nick, and Matt, it's Zane Carney here.

Man, you guys did 200 episodes, which is crazy because I'm pretty sure I've listened to more than 200, considering that I have Stitcher Premium and listen even to the anime episodes, which I don't watch anime except for Full Metal Alchemists, but I just, I love your guys' take on things and it's always always so fun to get to spend a little bit of time while I'm pumping iron, lifting those weights, trying to get real yoked up, but not muscle mass.

Anyway, I love getting a chance to speak with you guys and guest host, and I hope I get to do it again someday just because it's so much fun and I get so excited talking video games with you guys.

But here's to 200 more episodes at least, which I think mathematically is pretty close to that four years.

So that's a real nightmare thing to think about.

So I'm going to need four more years from you guys minimum to satiate my uh my podcasting needs.

Genuinely, genuinely love your guys' show, and it's such an honor and privilege to have gotten to share some time with you as guest host.

Congratulations, you guys have done it, and you continue to do it.

Just do it, go Nike, Edge, or something.

Oh, God, thank you so much, everyone.

Congratulations, looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Bye-bye.

Wow, 200 episodes.

Congrats, get played.

Congrats to Heather and Matt and

Nick.

Congrats, Nick.

Congrats to Nick, too.

I had a blast when I came on the show and played Cool Spot.

I haven't played it since, but it was a great game.

And you guys have a great show.

And as someone who has recorded 200 episodes with Nick,

I just want to commend Heather and Matt for doing so.

It's not an easy task.

And I hope that you guys are doing all right.

And hey, here's to 200 more.

Congrats, guys.

All right, let's talk about today's topic: Tetris.

Not the game, the 2023 Apple movie.

I think we'll talk about the game a little bit and also the game.

It would be insane to only talk about the movie.

I've talked on this podcast before about my aunt being very good at Tetris when I was a kid.

That was my first.

What was your first exposure to Tetris, boys?

It was on a Game Boy.

I think it honestly was a gate, it was a Display Kiosk Game Boy.

And I think, and then I think that motivated me.

I did not have a Game Boy as a kid, but I asked for Tetris for NES

for

Christmas Christmas and played the shit out of that thing.

Love Tetris on, love that 8-bit Nintendo version of Tetris.

The one published by Nintendo.

I, for the life of me,

don't recall my first experience with Tetris.

It's just been ever present in my life in the same way that like Ronald McDonald was or like.

Santa or something.

You know what I mean?

It predates your birth.

Yes.

Like Heather and I were alive for the beginning of Tetris, but this is, it's, this was a thing that was always around.

I had a, I actually am also remembering the Tengen, which is what Atari rebranded at.

Tengen had an arcade cabinet for Tetris.

And I remember seeing that at the arcade.

I don't remember what sequence it was, but I remember that being like, this looks different.

I remember it feel looking and feeling like a different version of the Tetris than it was familiar with.

But

that's definitely what

my earliest memories is: was the Game Game Boy version, the NES version, and the Tengen arcade version.

Something that I didn't realize, like I was just looking up

images of early Tetris cartridges and arcade cabinets and stuff.

I know that its origin is Russian, and that's obviously like a big part of the movie.

The box art is so Russian.

They really leaned into it.

Yeah.

And this was, I guess, we're kind of in the era of Glasnost.

We're in the era of like, you know, this sort of détente period where Gorbachev, who's also featured in the movie and is,

you know, opening

the Soviet Union up and a little bit more to the West.

So there was a little bit less of Russophobia, you know?

Yeah.

There's a little bit less of the Cold War us versus them sort of thing.

But it is, it is interesting that it was so marketed as so explicitly Russian during the Cold War, or at least the end of the Cold War.

Because I took a picture, I was playing it on, I played the Game Boy version on my analog pocket.

And

even in the original, there's a like a sprite version of like a Russian building.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

Not a love it, but I think it's interesting.

It certainly, as a child, it made Russia less scary.

And even as a kid, you were constantly being bombarded with this idea that these people you didn't know were going to nuclear weapon you to death.

Right.

And so, like, to turn that into like a little 8-bit song with a little, like, it's the same word, Zangef.

I think Zangef and Tetris did more to

sort of,

what's the word I'm looking for?

De-escalate.

De-escalate.

Also,

like, if you've been caught doing something bad, rehabilitate, rehabilitate

Russia's image in the

children yeah sure

sure

heather I think you're right and about Zangief and that's partly why I was so angry with Wreck-It Ralph in particular how it opened um the whole thing but the the Wreck-It Ralph like its characterization of Zangefit starts off as like I am Zangef I am bad guy it's like he's not a fucking bad guy You don't know what you're,

this is why I will take the Mario movie over something like Wreck-It Ralph any day, and certainly over the tetras movie which we'll get to

they like it comes from a place of knowing and appreciating the source material whereas clearly wreck-it-ralph was like ah let's make a video game movie i don't know zane geef will be in there oh zane geef i'm a bad guy he's got to be a bad guy right he's russian he's not he's not bad he's a good guy from russia that's just your internalized fucking cold war value system

and

And it's a fucking candy movie.

That's the other thing about Wreck-It Ralph.

It's not even really a candy game movie.

It's not a video game movie.

It's a candy movie.

it stars a video game character a fake movie it stars a video game character goes to a candy world and then it stays in the candy world and all the third act set pieces are about candy not video games fucking candy movie

bullshit

i saw an early screening of that yeah uh and i got to like give feedback and i felt like a genius

like i don't know why like i i it was unfinished too so like i saw like

like pre-rendered like animation for it and stuff.

And they were like asking, there was a lot of kids there, too.

I don't know how I got to this.

They were just like, they're like, what did the kids think about it?

And they're like, oh, blah, blah, blah.

Like, I like it.

It looks cool.

I love Ralph.

And I was just like, I think it's cool that the human character is a girl.

I was like, that rocks.

I was like, it'd be very easy for it to be a boy.

And they're like, wow, that's a great.

Great feedback.

I'm glad

you thought so.

I was like, yeah, I'm really smart.

You're like 29.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And look, what can I say?

I'm woke.

I'm an ally.

Sarah Silverbridge plays Vanellope, and

Sarah's,

I've worked with her, lovely person.

Alan Tudick is in it.

King of Candy.

One, wonderful performance.

John C.

Riley, of course, who's funnier?

There's a great cast.

Nothing gets the cast.

Jane Lynch.

Jane Lynch is in the city.

Jane Lynch.

Yeah,

these are great performers.

This is great voice work.

It looks great.

Great animation.

I just feel like it's a candy man.

I haven't seen it film.

It betrays Zane Geef.

I can't comment on the animation, actually.

Anyway, that's a tangent.

This isn't the Wreck-It Ralph/slash Candy movie episode.

This is the Tetris.

But we should probably have a Wreck-It Ralph at some point.

Maybe.

We got two riled up.

John S.

Baird directed this, and Noah Pink wrote this movie.

It's interesting that when it's releasing, because there is another movie that is out right now,

I don't mean the Mario movie.

There's another movie that's about

a very zeitgeisty

piece of 80s culture

and the process behind making that,

like bringing that to

fruition.

And that is Air, the movie about the Michael Jordan line of footwear and eventually apparel out right now, the Ben Affleck Matt Dave movie, which I think fucking rips.

I think Air is fucking terrific.

And it does not compare favorably to Tetris.

Like, I feel like Air is such a better version of this sort of story.

Here's the thing that I got to say about

this as a as just as a broad

idea.

This type of movie

is maybe one of my favorite genres of movie where it's just like a piece of real thing that happened, like piece of history.

Yeah.

And you just, I don't know.

I'm having a hard time thinking about how to put this into words, actually.

When the movie is about people just doing their job, that's my shit.

I love it.

Like, I was talking to you guys off-pod recently about Argo, how I had never seen it before, and I watched it on a plane, and I was like, they're just doing their job the whole time.

It fucking rules.

It's so, it's so good.

There's obviously higher stakes because it's like a bit of espionage.

But then there's like, I'm trying to think like that, or like the post or something, or they're just like

the post rules.

It sucks because the subject is bad.

But like, they're just like trying to get this story out.

And I just think that's like, that's my favorite type of movie.

I love doing that.

Yeah, I think I've said before that one of my favorite types of movies is newspaper movie for that specific reason.

Just like people doing their jobs.

Do you think if movies still exist in 50 years, that the newspaper movie will just be about like a blog?

I guess.

I guess it would have to be about like breaking.

I mean, like, cause there are, there have been more contemporary movies about journalism uh but i'm not sure how they they realize that aspect of it because it's not the same as like like it's very cinematic to go to the presses yeah stop the presses that's a very cinematic method like to to to get the the headline that's printed and spinning into frame uh you don't really have that equivalent with like the huffington post or even newyorktimes.com or buzzfeed sure

So yeah, I don't know.

I guess so.

I guess the answer is yes.

It'll probably be about like a podcast, like a video game podcast or something.

Stream Daddy, the story of Get Play.

Yeah, that'll lead to you.

The rise and fall of the premier video game podcast.

Can we, you want to, you want to talk about, there's a couple of things I want to talk about.

One is there, there is a, there have been a lot of people online talking about how

inaccurate this film is to the actual Tetris story.

But simultaneous to that, there is an interview with Hank Rogers.

And the quote is, they captured what happened to me over a year and a half in two hours.

And then Alexei

Peshnitov?

I think it's Pajitnov.

Pajitnov

says that was emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually a very truthful movie.

So

when you are compacting a huge amount of time into a narratively satisfying film, you have to make changes to the story in order to tell a story that functions as a movie.

It's the same way,

and I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of biopics.

It's the same way that when you're in a bar and you're telling somebody about something that happened to you, you don't include shit that wouldn't make the story good to tell to somebody at a bar yeah like you're not that makes you a character that makes you a sketch character to do that yeah like you'll be you you wouldn't be like and then i had to deal with all this paperwork and i filled out a bunch of paperwork and you won't believe what happened to me at a like if you're telling a story about like how you acquired a thing you eliminate the part where you had to like negotiate a bureaucracy

unless it's fundamentally interesting to to include it as part of the story Like, I know that some of the characters have

initial

friction in the film that they didn't in real life because they were like compatible as people and were just trying to figure out how to get things done.

But if you don't have that friction, there's nowhere to grow.

There's nowhere for the story to go in terms of like delivering it to an audience.

The only other thing I want to say

is that

Maxwell, the guy who's like the villain, like a cartoonish villain in this film, like a Spider-Man.

Well, I,

I,

I'll be the, like that guy.

Yeah.

In real life, that's Ghelane Maxwell's dad.

Yeah.

Yes.

So

I feel like that characterization might be in the family of accurate.

I don't have, look, I, I think that what you just said is well argued.

I don't have a problem with taking liberties with the history.

Like, I feel like that is, like you were saying, is oftentimes a narrative necessity.

And hey, a movie I fucking love, the social network, is super guilty of that, makes so many changes.

Yes.

Like, completely invents a girlfriend character for Mark Zuckerberg that makes the movie more interesting.

So, like, I think that.

Fucking Dweeb can't get a real girlfriend.

Yeah, and he's a good idea.

It makes a story that I have a girlfriend.

Yeah, and then you can just say whatever you want about me.

That's fine.

He's also like clever in the movie.

Like he like has like all these like extremely, you know,

hyper-articulate, like sorkin flourishes.

Yeah.

And then in real life, when he's like at a,

he's like testifying at Congress, he's like, oh, Gar, Shadow, no.

Yeah, fucking worm.

Looked like a little worm.

Yeah.

Anyway, they like, like, I have no problem with any of that.

I kind of, my issues with the movie are, A, I think it's overly stylized.

Like, I think all the pixel art interludes, I feel like they're a little too twee and distracting.

And, you know, it just kind of is thrown as they're like, ah, it's a video game, right?

It's got that kind of stuff.

But I also feel like the departures from the reality,

the actual story, make it less interesting because there's a lot of shit that is like cool about the real story that they could have included.

And it feels like they omitted or changed in order to like accomplish the movie's central thesis, which is this weird,

you know, I mean, it's not weird, it's on, it's very common in American media.

It's like this hyper-pro-capitalist agenda, basically.

And that also

completely changes the actual character of Alexei Pajitinov, who himself is not like this super, like, eventually immigrates to the U.S., but if you look into his personal history, he was not a person who has felt like I'm oppressed by Soviet values.

If only I could monetize my creation.

Like, and here it kind of

depicts him as this sort of dour, glum, you know, victim of socialism.

I got to say,

yeah, go on, please.

And this is unfair.

I think Taryn Egerton is a great actor.

Yeah.

He's too handsome to be in this.

Have you seen the real Hank Rogers?

Also a handsome guy.

Yeah.

I mean, he looks like a cool guy.

He's got a cool.

He does not look like Taryn Egerton.

No.

And part of that is be part of that is that he is Indonesian.

Yes.

Which is a thing that they kind of nod at in the movie.

Like they're just sort of like, he's like, he's like,

I'm Dutch and I have some Indonesian heritage.

And I'm also, but it's raised in New York.

You're like, he just kind of like throws it away.

And I live in Japan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's like, it's, I don't know.

Like, he's, he's not just like a, he's not just like a straight up white guy, which is kind of how he's depicted in the movie.

And

they argoed him a bit.

I also think like things like omitting Goompei Yokoi, which I know they did to streamline it, but like the dude who invented the Game Boy could have been an element of this.

The way they characterize Minoru Arakawa as just kind of this like business guy functionary, when in reality, he's like a super interesting dude, the president of an old president of Nintendo of America.

First off, He's Hiroshi Yamauchi's son-in-law.

That's how he got the job.

He married

Yoko, who is his wife, Yoko Arakawa, is Hiroshi Yamauchi's daughter.

And like, that's like not touched on in the movie.

They're just kind of like, ah, here's Howard and Arakawa.

Those are the two who run the company.

He also is the person who came up with the idea for getting Tetris on the Game Boy.

And here it comes from Hank Rogers going in and being like, oh, I'll program this on the fly to run the Game Boy.

There you go.

Look, isn't it perfect?

Like, Hank Rogers is kind of like this, you know, this kind of savior figure who goes and fixes every problem and, you know, has influence over aspects of design that he doesn't otherwise just because he's like the protagonist of this movie.

But I don't know.

Why does it hurt to depict this thing?

Why does it hurt the movie to depict that accurately?

I'll also say one other thing about Minora Arakawa that I think would have been like every time I've read about this story, I've always been like, that would be a fascinating scene in the movie.

And it's completely not even touched on.

He has narcolepsy or had narcolepsy.

I can't remember if he's if he's still alive.

Anyway, like he's he's narcoleptic.

That's a a big part of his, there's a big liability for him in the business world.

There's a story Howard Lincoln tells in this book, Game Over, Press Start to Continue, which I have right over here, which goes into depth on a lot of this, about he was golfing with Arakawa, and Arakawa just walked over onto the putting green, lied down, and like took a nap for 20 minutes.

And then he stood up like nothing was unusual.

Like he'll just fall asleep wherever.

So while they were talking, Nintendo had conversations with Tengen, aka Atari, at the time about about possibly them handling the NES port of Tetris.

Tengen ends up releasing like a bootleg cart

basically, and there's this huge lawsuit where Nintendo takes it off the market and favored their own first-party version.

While those negotiations are going on, Arakawa, at the meeting with Tengen, falls asleep because he's narcoleptic.

And the Tengen side takes it as an act of great offense.

And there's speculation that that's part of the reason they decide to go off on their own and kill the whole business deals.

Like, that's fucking interesting shit.

These could be, this could be good cinematically.

Why can't we, like, like, if you want to have Hank Rogers be the protagonist who's in every scene, just insert him in that meeting, but like, at least keep that bit of context because that's something interesting

to watch and

try to appreciate in terms of its historical impact.

Something that I think about with like documentary series.

There are usually too many episodes that'll like tell a story over six episodes when it probably needed to only be like two.

100%.

I do think this story probably works as a documentary.

You could probably get two, maybe three episodes out of just the details of all this, like,

and just like from all the different angles and have them all culminate in the end or whatever.

I don't know if like every story like this needs to be dramatized.

I think you could just present it as facts.

And like a lot of these people are still alive.

You can interview them and be like, yeah, that was fucking crazy i

okay

i've heard everything you guys have said and i think

one i feel i i stand corrected about

some of it but i do think that there's

you can't get a lot of people to watch a documentary that's true and

that changing changing these things to dramatize them and then giving that story to a larger audience.

I know that, I know that video games don't have to fucking prove themselves to the olds, but I do think that the only way my mom is going to sit down and watch the story of Tetris and be like, oh, I guess video games are a big enough deal that people's lives were almost at risk

is like, is like to provide the story.

My mom watches documentaries.

I didn't mean to make it sound like she didn't, but like my mom's adjacent friends.

Like,

it's a, it's a way to be like, oh, this, this is free on Apple.

What's this?

Although, then again, maybe they wouldn't click on it because they'd be like, I don't want to play Tetris.

They think it's a game, yeah.

Yeah.

Or they, they, like,

I've never even heard of Tetris, like that review.

Yeah, like that one guy.

Yes.

I think that, yeah,

again, I don't have an issue with changing things for a dramatic effect.

I like, like, I like, my issue is I think the changes that they made

made this a less interesting story than it could have been.

Which is what most of the complaints I've seen on Twitter have been,

is exactly that.

Having not known the original story very well, I was like, okay.

Mostly my problems were about the structure of the film itself, where like

the first half of the movie, I mean, like, the first 10 minutes of the movie is a guy telling you everything, which is wild.

And like, I can't imagine getting a draft of something in where the first 10 minutes is just like the main character being like, okay, here's what happened.

And it's not like sorkin dialogue where like the other person is like,

wait, the game?

No, the game, the game that we're playing when we converse with one another.

I don't understand.

I thought you were talking about the game in the Nintendo.

Nintendo, it's a Nintendo.

Honestly, Janice, I can't believe you.

Like, unless it's like that kind of like popcorn bullshit.

Yeah.

Just a guy being like, Nail, you'll never believe this.

I saw the game on the floor of the CES.

You're right.

It is very, it is just kind of like very basic functionary dialogue.

By the way, when Heather was improvising that

bit of Sorkin dialogue, her camera turned into a steady cam and just followed her in a loop.

Yeah, that was pretty crazy, Raj.

That's pretty cool.

But so,

what was my point here?

Oh, so the first half of this movie is

surprisingly slow.

And then the second half of the movie is like

Bridge of Spies, like action movie stuff where like you got to get out of a room before somebody walks into it.

And like

I was sold on the movie using the trailer of the second half of the movie.

Uh-huh.

I think that the second half is stronger.

I do have some issues with, you know, the production design of the Soviet Union is like the first order.

They're just resent.

They're just saying like, this is evil.

There's like literally, it's like black with red lighting is like a big part of it.

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

I'm kind of, I may be hypersensitive to that sort of thing, but I feel like there's just like such an anti-Russian strain going on right now.

And it just kind of sucks.

It's like, what are we doing here?

This should be a celebration of Russia, if anything, you know, instead of this, this anti, like we're refighting the Cold War again.

But as part of that.

The way Alexey Pajitnov is characterized, again, he's kind of like this dour Russian stereotype.

I've lived in the same apartment my whole life.

But in real life, if you watch like interviews with him, he seems like a smiley goofy guy.

And I guess there's a reading where you could say, like, well, yeah, that's after he was exposed to the greatness of American capitalism.

But I don't know.

Like, if you look at, if you, if

I have a quote for him, I'll just do this.

On the other hand, if Pagitinov had retained the Tetris rights and signed a deal typical to those in the United States, he would have earned up to 15% of net revenues.

Pajitinov would have seen at least $3 million if he was earning the standard percentage of the Soviet government's share.

If he had licensed it directly, the number would have been as high as 20 million, perhaps more.

Instead, the the computer center, this is where he worked, awarded Pajitinov his own personal computer, an IBM AT clone, for which he was grateful since it would have taken him 16 years to be able to buy one on his Academy of Science salary.

He worked for the government.

Scroll down a little bit.

And here's the next block of decks.

It amazed the Pajitinov that Americans couldn't believe he wasn't bitter.

This, he came to realize, was one of the key differences between him and most of the people he met in the West, where financial reward was the measure of accomplishment.

For me to have my game played everywhere is the greatest thing to know, he says.

In 1989, he was called to the telephone at the computer center in the Soviet Union to talk to a reporter who was writing a story about Tetris.

Every question was slanted to make Pajitnov admit he was resentful, but he told the reporter, I will make my games and send them to you.

You can fight over them.

So he just has a different value system than we have in America.

And the movie doesn't characterize him like that.

The movie characterized him as like this victim, which he never felt he was.

And in fact, if you look at the creation of this thing, he wasn't creating Tetris out of financial gain, like a desire for financial gain.

He was creating it out of passion for, you know, game design.

He was just like, I have this idea.

Let me realize it in my spare time as a hobby.

Hey, everyone's going to play it.

He has a different value system, which isn't about just like, I want to have as much money as possible.

And the only reason to create a work of art is to be able to monetize it.

So I don't know.

Like,

it was a lazy way, I feel like, to characterize it, where you could have had a really interesting clash of values between Hank Rogers' character and Pajitnov's character, and they ultimately end up collaborating and forming the Tetris company anyway.

But it's like,

it just felt like we had to characterize Russians again as like this exploited, oppressed group of people instead of individuals with their own goals and aims.

I didn't love that aspect of it.

I feel like he's so much more of an interesting guy than he was characterized in the movie.

There's another bit interesting Alexey Pagitnov incident, which I thought was going to be in the movie, and I'm surprised it wasn't, which is that when Nintendo of America goes over there with Hank Rogers to try and secure the deal, goes to the Soviet Union, they take him out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Russia, in Moscow, and he's never had sushi before.

And he's just eating little bits of sushi and he's like, oh, this is fun.

This is good.

And then he just grabs a glob of wasabi, just thinking it's another thing to eat and pops it in his mouth.

And just like, you know, just eyes watering, nose running.

I don't know.

It just felt like, hey, that's a fun little detail.

That's something for him to do.

But no, it's omitted in favor of this weird Imagine Club sequence.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on it.

I think a lot of my issues with it is just like the pacing of it, which like you were saying, Heather,

it's sluggish in the first half, but also

it's like edited in a way where it feels like it's got a lot of forward momentum, except it doesn't, just nothing's really happening.

And then the second end, it kind of just turns into a weird, you know, weird spy thriller, which, you know, I think they've said Hank Rogers and Alexei Pajitnov have said that that's like the least accurate parts of the film is the most interesting.

A couple of other things while we're

nitpicking, there is a goof over Zelda that has been shared online, been memed.

And I think that's, it's one of those things where it's just like, to me, that's disqualifying.

Like the movie's lost me at that point where they show like two links

from, you know, from like four swords or something like that.

And they're just like, Link and Zelda.

It's like, what, what's no.

Like, how do you know?

How is there no one in the production that was like, hey, how about we show Zelda Asleep from Adventures of Link with Link next to her or something like that?

I was going to say, there's not like any, there's like,

they could pick anything.

They could have picked anything.

Yeah.

I think also

the footage of

Mike Tyson's punch out was

sort of archaeologically discovered to be be just footage from game grumps.

Oh, wow.

I see.

So they just pulled it from a YouTube video.

Yeah.

That's really funny.

That also speaks to that's the point where Hank Rogers is like getting through to Hiroshi Yamauchi by putting things in his terms.

By like, it's like Mario and Luigi.

It's like the actual Hiroshi Yamauchi, who I will say, the actor looks fucking great in this movie.

Yes.

That's like probably my favorite thing is how much they nailed the look of Hiroshi Yamauchi.

But his whole, he never played games.

He like had like, like, there's a sequence where he's using a Nintendo controller.

They just have, they're like, magically, a Famicom port of Tetris has appeared for him to play in his office as a proof of concept, and he's playing it.

He never like touched a controller.

Like, he's like, like, he's just, that was his whole thing.

And so, like, it's, that was part of what was interesting about him as a businessman is that he's oversight, overseeing this transformative video game business empire, but he himself had zero enthusiasm or interest for the products.

That is interesting um

i mean i guess there's also like an alternate version of this movie where like they make it about the blocks

like they just like adapt they try to adapt yeah like

the game rather than tell the story

right l block square yeah t block long boy they've all got their own sort of vibes yeah

uh which would have been worse

But maybe it wouldn't have.

Who knows?

And they all have like thick Russian accents and they're fucking evil.

Yes.

Yeah, we hate them.

Yeah.

Bad.

Can we talk about Tetris the game a little bit?

Yeah, I'd love to.

So

I've played it on the Game Boy.

I've played it on the NES.

I've played it on

Switch.

I've played that Tetris 99, which was so fucking good.

Oh, I love that.

This week, in celebration of this episode, I downloaded the PSVR2

Tetris.

What is Tetris Unchained?

What the fuck is it called?

Tetris Connected.

There it is.

Tetris Effect Connected.

I donned my PS VR2 helmet.

This game is available on Oculus.

I think it might be available for PSVR1.

Your VR of choice.

And you are submerged into a three-dimensional 360 playing environment, which evokes the

sonic stylings of the game Luminese for the PSP.

Oh, yeah.

And then also, like,

1990s

commercials for like Enya.

Like, you're underwater and there's like a whale flying at you and the music changes every like 20 Tetris lines you clear and so does the environment.

And I was playing this game of Tetris,

which has two mechanics that are very modern and I'm not a huge fan of because I think they change the actual game.

One is holding a piece.

I feel like that goes against the ethos of Tetris itself, which is you deal with the hand you're dealt.

And that's what makes the strategy compelling.

It's like, ah, fuck, I just need a fucking line.

Where's my fucking line?

right yeah you can hold a line until you need it it's it's less stressful the other is the instant drop and the highlighting of where your piece fits on the puzzle

to uh activate instant drop those two things change the game make it easier make it more comfortable but doesn't feel as tetrousy as that game boy grittiness that tetris but i was thinking as i was playing this game that i wish i could time travel to Alexi

and put him in the helmet

and be like, hey, man, this is where it goes.

And just, I mean, he'd probably throw up.

Like, he'd probably just like start screaming or vomiting.

Yeah.

Because like what he'd be experiencing would be

magic.

But

I don't know.

It was a really, it's also interesting because you're never locked into looking at tetris

in all the other uh

formats that you play it on like if if you need to look away you have the freedom of like head movement and

right

in tetris effect tetris is always directly in your line of vision in front of you you cannot look away from tetris no matter where you go That is oddly unnerving when you describe it like that.

Yeah, it's like it's like a clockwork orange Tetris experience right um but ultimately extremely good fun

comforting game

i really enjoyed it

so what what you were saying about the tetris rules i believe and i'm not certain some of those are enforced now as part of the license from the tetris company So like, it's, it's like, if you are going to make a Tetris game, I believe now you have to have the next field that shows not just one, but three or four pieces, whatever it is.

I think you have to have the hold.

And I'm not sure about the outline, but I think that might at least have to be presented as an option.

And you used to have a little bit more leeway in terms of how you were going to present the game.

I agree with you.

I actually don't like the hold.

I like the next only being one box, or only one piece, not four.

And I like that being that you can toggle that off because I think that makes it more frenetic.

But I think that the Tetris company, again, Hank Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov

established and used to license the game worldwide.

Like, I think that's just part of their rules.

The thing that I find

absolutely astonishing about Tetris, and I know there are versions of it that are not good, right?

Yeah, like the Virtual Boy version.

Yes.

The thing about it that I think is so crazy, because I've played Tetris Effect Connected, and I love it.

I think it's great.

But I've also played, like, the original Tetris.

I've been playing the original Tetris recently, just like for the exercise, for the show.

I could play that for fucking hours still.

And it's so basic and it's so incredible game.

It's just so simplistic.

And you almost don't need to change anything about it.

Like, right?

Like, it's the iterations on it are,

I think, slight.

And the effective ones are slight anyway.

The ones that try to change too much, like make it 3D or whatever, is tough.

But

it's just

you could, you could get stuck playing a game that's 40 years old for hours.

And that's really remarkable.

I think this is Heather's take, and I've stolen it, and I've internalized it, which is that Tetris is the best game ever made.

Yeah, Yeah, the only perfect.

I think it's just

the perfect video game.

It's really, you can't,

there's nothing to adjust.

It is

anybody can play it as demonstrated by my aunt or a child or a hardcore gamer.

It is,

you can't, there's nothing missing from it.

And it's frustrating because of the kind of game it is.

Like, I want Fortnite to be the best game of all time or Street Fighter, or Doom, even.

Yeah.

Sure.

But

there is

a space between actions in those games, which mean that you are not playing, but waiting.

And Tetris doesn't have those spaces.

Tetris is constant flow and constant gameplay, like a tube of casserole being pumped into your mouth, and you can't get away from it.

But you love it, but You don't want it.

You're like Homer having the donuts in hell.

Yeah.

And that's what Tetris is.

And that's, I think, what makes it perfect.

The only other game I can think of that might be close is Pong.

But Pong is just a virtual representation of a thing that you can do in real life to some degree.

Whereas Tetris is not a thing you can do.

Pong also has an opponent, and it's not, and its first form was not AI.

So you needed a human to play against.

You could not play it single player.

Whereas in Tetris, the opponent is yourself.

Yeah.

It's just like, how long can you last doing this task?

Yep.

God, it's such a good game.

It's so wild to think of a dude in Sovia being like, what about this?

What if I did this?

What if I made this?

Do we know if...

Again,

I don't want...

I would go back to Harper.

Oh, go on.

Do we know if Hank Rogers was the guy who said you should be able to clear four lines at once, or was that just invented?

Absolutely not true.

Completely invented.

No, that was part of Alexius' core design.

Yuck.

That I don't approve of.

That I don't approve of.

Fucking take that shit out.

Did not like that.

Take it out.

Did not like that at all.

I didn't like that there were that, you know, again, he was the guy who had the idea to put it on the Game Boy.

That too.

A lot of this stuff they were doing.

At a certain point, it felt like the invented cop from the Mark Wahlberg movie about the Boston bombing.

Yeah.

Where it's just like, wait,

they just invented a a composite character who like did every heroic thing over the course of a single day um just so they could make it a mark wall or the lady in Chernobyl

like they were like you represent like 50 scientists yeah

let's see if I can find it there was a there was a passage there is a passage in this book about how

Pegitnov came up with the idea of Tetris and it's like it's one of those things where it's like ah I feel I feel like that could have been depicted They have like a hint of it in the movie.

There's a point where he just is looking at some blocks in a toy store.

And it's just sort of like, oh, was that his inspiration?

But it's like, it's like two shots.

But again, yeah, I feel like they didn't, they kind of sold his character out.

Yeah.

And they could have, like, I would have liked to have seen more about him and his inspiration.

And like this little dude, this dude, little,

whatever,

this quirky dude who

loved to tinker with his computer and come up with games on his own for people to play.

It's, yeah.

It's just amazing that

when I just really stop and think about it, like

just how long it's endured and how like it'll probably still stand a test of time 20 years from now.

People will still be like Tetris, all-timer.

Like a thousand years from now.

It's going to be like chess.

Oh, yeah.

It is for fucking ever.

Yeah.

It's a mark like Shakespeare.

Has he made any other games?

Yeah, he actually did make a few.

And one of them, actually, there's one that he made that I like is called Hattress.

And it's one of those things where it's just such a funny follow-up to, like, you know, the biggest game at the time of all time is this game where it's about stacking hats.

Wait, let's see if we can find an image of it.

Or maybe some gameplay.

It's kind of fun.

It's a lot, there's a lot less to it, obviously.

Here's some of the PC Engine version I'll share with the two of you.

So, again, kind of, we're hearing the music, it's kind of

vaguely Soviet in theme as well.

Here we go.

So, again, you're just stacking

hats on the heads of various characters.

That are so funny.

And they're falling from the sky.

I mean,

this is the game Columns.

Yes.

It's Columns, it's Burger Time.

It's

whereas Tetris is Tetris.

Yes.

God, can you imagine being at Sega and being like, huh?

We gotta, we gotta invent a Tetris, and somebody being like, jewels.

And then, what?

Jewels.

That's what you like more than shapes.

Jewels.

Oh,

all right.

Maybe we should have used this for the opening, but I feel like here in the middle of the episode, organically as it's arrived,

you guys, you guys love shapes, but have you consider gems,

stones,

jewels,

more

valuable than blocks, than arguable.

If you put a Game Gear next to

a Game Boy playing Tetris, which one do you get attracted to?

The green and black palette of shapes or the sparkly allure

of jewels.

Imagine yourself

royalty and somebody has provided you with the game experience that describes your everyday life it would be

jewels

but also i really love columns so uh columns is fun my brother my my my brother nate is like fucking awesome at columns

just was a thing he got super into for a time i also like i kind of like dr mario It's not great, but it's kind of fun.

And you ever mess with like a Puyo Puyo versus Tetris?

I feel like that format's really fun.

We got Puyo Puyo on one side and Tetris on the other.

Yeah, I like, I mean, the sort of stacking,

stacking similar colored things

and clearing lines.

Yeah.

Always works for me.

I like that.

That's good.

Tetris Attack, which they, which had nothing to do with Tetris, but, Nintendo just had the brand.

They made Tetris Attack for Super Nintendo.

It's one of the better Super Nintendo games.

They've rebranded it now as Pokemon Puzzle League.

Yeah, that's true.

Which still fucking rips.

Yeah.

It's a lot of fun.

That's really good.

I finally found this passage in this book.

It was several chapters back then where I was.

Pajitnov had read about pentaminos, geometric puzzles designed by an American mathematician named Solomon Ghulam.

The puzzle pieces were formed out of different configurations of five squares, a line, a T, an L shape, and so on.

The pieces could be fitted together into a perfect rectangle.

In a small toy toy shop, Pajitnov found a pentamino puzzle.

When he removed the dozen pieces from the rectangular case and mixed them up, he discovered that it was a big problem to put them back.

He imagined a computerized version of the game in which randomly generated pieces would appear one at a time and with intensifying rapidity.

An electronic version of pentanamo would require very quick thinking.

He envisioned the puzzle pieces plumbing down from computer heaven and the frantic attempt to arrange them.

Sitting in front of his computer, Pajitnov experimented with permutations of pentamino and finally settled on a simple version, with each piece made out of four instead of five squares.

From Tetra, a form of the Greek word for four, he named the game Tetris.

Another thing I think

the movie maybe attributes to Hank Rogers.

Anyway, there's a theory in psychology that humans can process seven things, plus or minus two at once.

Seven digits, seven shapes, seven concepts.

It is the reason many people can remember seven digit phone numbers, but have difficulty beyond that.

It so happened that seven different configurations of the four squares were possible.

Kind of a happy just accident of geometry.

Seven Tetris shapes, Pejitnov reasoned, could be memorized and instantly recognized, and the reaction to any one of them could be almost visceral and reflexive.

To me, all of that, and yes, it's some work to figure out how to realize it on camera, but that's a solvable problem.

To me, that is all that context is so much more interesting to see and know about than seeing this invented scene where his sons are threatened by the KGB while playing Tetris or while playing a tennis, rather.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, whatever.

I think they should have shown Ghulane in the movie.

I would have loved to see Ghelane, just as a little nod.

Yeah.

Settle down, Ghulane.

Daddy has business to do.

You're the good one in the family.

I have high hopes for my daughter, Ghillaine.

Always making friends.

Young and old.

Yeah, I feel like you could have beautiful-minded that whole segment that you just talked through, Nick.

I think it could have been like

him like staring at the ceiling and like looking at pieces in his mind and reforming them.

And I, yeah, I mean, you could have

there could have been like almost like a

Amadeus, you know, where like

he's he's trying to puzzle out how the game would work, and somebody interrupts him and he has no idea what that person is talking about and just sees like a fucking block where the guy's head should be.

And you push in on the eureka moment you know

totally agree i you know what my suspicion is

that

the sort of a lot of the stuff about the the profit motive came from executive notes because from my experience with execs a lot of them cannot understand the idea of doing something creative for a reason other than financial gain and like just cannot it just does not make sense in their head it's like trying to it's like trying to envision a new color it's like what are you talking about like well the only reason to make something is because you can make money off of it.

And so I think they were trying, like, probably they were noting it and trying to get it to a point where they could understand it from a lizard brain standpoint of like, you do this thing because then that gives you more resources.

But Pajitinov, clearly, like a lot of people, like, like people who make fan art or like people who write fanfic or like people who produce songs and upload them for free was just in it for this sheer joy of creation.

And all he cared about was sharing his art with the world.

And God bless him for it because it's a fucking perfect game.

It's kind of like us with the podcast.

Yeah, it's a lot like us with the podcast.

I would not do this if I wasn't paid.

No, what we're doing is altruistic and good.

Just flat out.

I'd be gone.

That's not true.

That's not true.

It's entirely true.

Which one is it?

Should we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

Let's do a segment.

I feel like, but in the spirit of the old format, we should rate Tetris.

Oh,

that's a fucking a million, baby.

A million out of a million.

Yeah, it's yeah, infinite.

It's the only game you ever need.

Infinity plus one.

Yeah, that's the way scored.

It's perfect.

And Tetris, we love you, baby.

We love you, Tetris.

We love you, Tetris.

Hank Rogers also seems like a good dude.

He seems fucking boss.

I like that

it seems like the movie characterized him in a pretty wholesome way, but.

At the very least, he's a capitalist with great taste.

Like, yeah,

it's like being a capitalist is bad, but he was like right about this very specific thing, and you got to give it up.

100%.

Got to give it up.

But it's time for a segment.

Can Nick and Heather guess the game based on the reviews alone?

It's time for Blind Item Reviews.

Okay, Blind Adam Reviews is a tricky game.

Yes.

It's not quite at the challenge level of vague rent story.

No, and it has it is it is difficult.

It has a balance issue in the points that I couldn't remember how we decided to fix it.

So my fix for it is there are fewer options,

there are fewer entries, and no matter what, you can only get one point

wherever you guess but it's still so I think it's it still can be a competitive game this way

here we go here's the first so as you if you may recall I have negative reviews mixed reviews and positive reviews of some uh some games uh you guys have to guess what they are based on the reviews

here's your first negative review

after hours of useless conversation wasted time and unrewarding returns chances are that blank will start to remind you you of your ex-girlfriends.

Weiger.

Nick.

Lots of dialogue, unsatisfying returns

makes me think death-stranding.

Oh, that is incorrect.

Heather.

Heather, do you have a guess?

Persona five.

Also incorrect.

Moving on to the mixed review.

Okay.

Although Blank himself looks good, his bleak environment offers nothing to entertain the eyes or ears while you're waiting for evolution to happen.

Okay, although Blank looks good, so the player character, I'm assuming, waiting for evolution to happen.

I mean, the evolution is maybe the Pokemon, but I don't think there's a Pokemon.

There's got to be another game where that's an evolution mechanic.

Can you read that again?

Although Blank himself looks good, his bleak environment offers nothing to entertain the eyes or ears while you're waiting for evolution to happen.

Oof.

So saying blank makes the character's name as the title.

It's gotta be, right?

Heather.

We were waiting for evolution to happen.

Heather.

Spore.

That's a great guess.

That is incorrect, Heather.

It's a good guess.

I don't know what it is.

Yeah, but it's also funny to me that the idea that that would have been the right answer.

Yeah.

Mad Up and I'm going to be like, holy shit, you got it.

Spore.

Spore.

I picked something that I have no idea what it is.

Spore was a Will Wright game, I believe.

Designer of SimCity.

And I remember that game being so hyped.

Like it's basically like, this game is going to come out and like you'll forget every other game that's been released previously.

It's like such a work of art.

And then it came out and people are like, ah, this is weird.

I got to just take a guess here.

I don't fucking know, man.

Is it a big franchise character?

No, absolutely not.

So this is like a one-off.

I think there might be two.

There might be two.

I think there is, in fact, two.

I don't think the second one released statewide.

It's not going to be this, but I'll guess Okami.

That is incorrect.

Moving on to the positive review.

Heather.

You simply need.

What's that?

Viva Piñata.

Fuck, it'd be awesome if it was Viva Pinata.

It is not.

I'll give you another chance to guess because

I have to read the clue.

Okay, okay.

Okay, great.

You simply need to keep giving blank a few minutes of your time each day.

You'll be rewarded with the freak show, the likes of which you've never seen.

Oh, Weiger, it's C-Man, right?

C-Man, Nick's on the board with one point.

Nicely done,

yeah, that's right.

You conversate, you're talking with this guy endlessly, and most of the conversations are meandering into go-nowhere.

I thought that first negative review was actually quite rude.

It's funny that C-Man is more progressive than like

most

conservative states of the United States when it comes to gay rights today.

Oh, yeah, like C-Man's conversation.

I had the conversation I I had with C-Man about being gay was like him being like, well, there's a lot of different ways to achieve happiness.

And I'm glad you're hunting for your own

happiness.

That being said, it must be very difficult to be

a minority.

Like, I was like, what the fuck?

C-Man would know.

Yeah, C-Man would know.

You know?

Here's the next one.

Negative.

The poor controls, tricky camera, and irritation-filled gaming experience is unfortunately what blank is presented as, and this doesn't deserve to be

and this doesn't deserve to be found under too many Christmas trees this year.

One more time?

The poor controls, tricky camera, and irritation-filled gaming experience is unfortunately what Blank is presented as, and this doesn't deserve to be found under too many Christmas trees this year.

The Christmas tree thing is throwing me, but I uh but but from the first part, I'm going to guess it's Katamari Damasi.

That is incorrect.

Whoa, Heather.

Sonic 2006.

That is incorrect.

Mixed review.

The premise would still be stupid even if Blank didn't suffer from slowdown issues, a non-existent lock-on system, a horrible camera, and bottomless pits in which to fall.

But it does, and it is stupid, just like this is a stupid way to spend 50 bucks.

Man, bottomless pitch.

Is it a Sonic game?

It's not, well, I can't speak to that.

Okay, so it's maybe a part of the Sonic franchise.

Is it Shadow the Hedgehog?

Nick's on the board.

Two points.

This is bullshit.

I mean, I feel like I should have gotten like a point, like a 0.1%

of a point.

I can't start throwing out points for wrong answers, Heather.

I don't know what to tell you.

I figured out the theme here.

This is games we've covered on the podcast.

And Nick didn't know this Matt's working with that's also worth a point.

We covered Sonic,

we covered Sonic 06.

I didn't pick it up for sure.

I didn't pick it for the game.

This is bullshit.

We covered a lot of stuff.

I think you should.

We covered Death Stranding, too.

I won't be able to swing for the fences with games like Viva Piñata.

We should have covered Viva Pinata.

It's a perfect game.

We could.

Let's do it.

Let's go in.

Yes?

Okay.

Let's do it before 32X and Killer 7.

Unbelievable.

No.

Is it on?

Can you get that on the Xbox store right now?

Killer 7?

I'm guessing you can.

Viva Piñata.

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, you absolutely can.

$14.

Not bad.

It's included with Game Packs.

We should absolutely cover that fucking weird game.

All right.

Viva Piñata coming soon.

Unbelievable.

This is going to be a lightning one.

Heather, you might be able to.

Well, you're not going to be able to win.

I was going to make this one worth two points.

And then the game would just be tied and then it'd be over.

Great.

Here's a negative review.

It's good to see that Blank finally made it past the development finish line, but the race to get there clearly took its toll.

Heather.

I know what this is.

I heard Heather.

Duke Noogam forever.

And that's how you play.

That was going to be my guess.

That's how you play

Blind Eye and Reviews, baby.

Tied up the game.

We did it.

And here's a little message from Duke.

My piss is thick.

Fucking disgusting, man.

I took a shit out of the toilet with my bare hands.

It's funny that, like,

basically contemporaneous with Duke Nukem was Austin Powers and Austin Powers whole thing was like this sort of archetype is unacceptable but Duke Nukem was just like unironically I'm just a fucking misogynist like piece of shit

and then they just ran with that indefinitely

it sucks yeah that

wait Duke Nukem oh it's so so that was it three games there That was three.

We did

for the games we picked here, we did Seaman, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Duke Nukem Forever.

I think that's the order I'd want to replay them.

Like Duke Nukem Forever, definitely the one I'd want to replay the least.

A game is fucking terrible.

Seaman is interesting, and Shadow is not great, but fine.

Is it too late to do my Duke Nukem quote that I came up with?

No, please do.

My dick's so big, when I run, it touches my butthole.

200 episodes.

200 episodes.

We did.

I simply must say, doing this show with you two, two great collaborators, two great friends, two great hosts, two great entertainers, I feel like a very lucky man to be seated here with the two of you, two of the all-time greats.

And I appreciate you guys for sticking it out 200 episodes.

we're looking at,

what and I've been, yeah, we're all the same

prisoners.

I know, I just feel like it.

I just wanted to state some appreciation for you guys on the 200th.

You know, we do this.

I appreciate that.

That's really nice.

I appreciate you guys.

You guys are the best.

This podcast,

we appreciate you, buddy.

This podcast is an escape room, and none of us have the capacity to solve it.

No, I love it.

I love the show.

I love you guys.

I love our listeners.

I love you, Jordan.

I love our

like the whole, the whole thing is,

you know, it's been a,

it's, it's been tough at times, but it has never not been rewarding.

And it's never left me feeling anything but better.

Yeah, it's, it's a, I've, it's a blast.

Honestly, this is, this is simple, but I just like having a couple of friends to talk about video games with.

It's not necessarily something you, like when when you reach a certain age, it's just like

friends.

Friends?

Yeah, friends.

Let's go.

She brought it back.

Also, we should shout out Devin Bryant, who was our engineer for much of the first part of our run and who did a lot to, you know, shape the identity of this show.

And we miss him.

He's on to bigger and better things.

Yeah.

Devin,

you'll never hear this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, enough with the schmaltz.

Let's wrap this fucker up.

What do you say?

Let's wrap it up.

You can find links to our social media in the episode description.

Our engineering is by the aforementioned Jordan Duffy, Jordan K.

Duffy on Instagram.

And also, we got Get Animate going.

Heather, you're going to be gone for a couple weeks from Get Played, but you'll be with us over on Get Anime, where we're watching Blu-ray.

That's true.

I don't know when this episode airs so i have no idea what episode we're on for blue lock but it might be somewhere in the 20s we're watching blue lock the sports anime that is actually an action anime but designed to be a sports anime and we're absolutely loving it and when when i come back from my two-week break uh I will be excited to join the boys on a new series, which we have, or movie, which we have not yet announced.

Yeah, I haven't figured that out yet, but we are enjoying Blue Lock, and you can enjoy it along with us at Stitcher Premium about a month after release or get fresh episodes at patreon.com/slash get played.

And you guys, I just, I feel like, I feel like we should all say it all together.

How would we do that?

So you would just go one, two, three, and then you say it.

Here's the thing: it's not a good idea.

Let's try it.

Here we go.

You ready?

One,

two, three, three.

Two, three,

three.

Fuck, we got.

Oh, no.