Mascot Draft with Craig Lee Thomas

This is a Headgum podcast.

Oh

no, have you guys seen the latest numbers?

No.

The listener numbers are down.

They're down, guys.

We need to sell this show in a way we've never sold it before.

It's our numbers are down so much that Headgum had to lay off a bunch of its employees.

Isn't that crazy that we're single-handedly responsible for that?

I feel so guilty.

Solely on our backs and our backs alone.

It's just like we got the official explanation.

Get Played's performance is why Headgum laid off a substantial amount of its staff.

And this is true.

They didn't punish us.

They took it out of the state.

No, we didn't get punished.

Well, we didn't punish us.

We're stars.

We're stars.

We've lost over 260,000 subscribers in the last two months alone.

And the numbers are just dropping.

We're now in the low 500s.

yeah we're really really uh feeling it last i saw it was 501 fuck that's about as low as you can get in the 500s it's pretty much as as the the bottom of the barrel you know so i've been thinking what we need is a showcase personality we need we need something you can put on a t-shirt something that can draw the listeners in we need a mascot oh that's a great idea get played mascot yeah that's really good good idea get played mascot i i got it i got a name pitch okay getty getty is good Getty's good.

That's good.

Like,

it's adjacent to Gotty,

which is, you know, dangerous and threatening.

John Gotty, the mob boss, but also John Paul Getty, who's the oil magnate who became a great philanthropist.

Some great images I've seen.

Yeah.

So great.

Absolutely.

The stock images are huge.

Getty, Getty.

Getty.

Is it going to be hard to Google him?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll spell it with an umlot over the E.

That's good.

Okay.

So it'll be distinct that way.

Yeti.

Yeti.

I I have an idea just off of the name alone.

I know you probably had maybe an image in mind.

I want to step up.

I hear Getty.

I'm thinking Yeti.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like a like he's like a kind of a grabby sort of Yeti.

Yeah.

He's like grabby.

Like, I'm going to get you.

I'm going to get you.

I'll fucking get you.

I'll fucking kill you.

And he's covered in fur except for his dick.

Like, he's just like the whole thing.

Yeah.

He's very, very furry, but like has a pristine and like

shiny penis.

He has a beautiful penis.

Just a beautiful uncut pink dick.

Just gleaming.

Yeah, no, this is good.

This is good.

Yeah, yeah, and we can put this on a shirt.

Does he have shoes?

He has shoes.

The shoes.

He's wearing Crocs.

He's wearing Crocs.

He's wearing Crocs, but

his catchphrase is:

my Crocs smell bad.

Yeah, he's like, So he's got his dick out.

He's wearing Crocs, and he's saying, My Crocs smell bad.

My Crocs smell bad.

And underneath it says, Getty.

It says, Getty, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

This is good.

No, this is good.

And he'll be on a t-shirt.

But he has to have like a, he has to have a power.

Like, Sonic is fast.

Mario's got, like, get punched through a brick.

Maybe he takes like big shits or something.

I think he takes huge shits.

Right.

So you can tell before he even does it that he's done big ones before.

Okay.

Okay.

So he's got Crocs.

He's got his catchphrase.

The implication that his crocs smell bad because he stepped in his own shit.

Yeah, and he's like, he shits outside.

He's an animal.

The design of a croc, they have a bunch of holes.

Yeah.

So it came, the shit came out like Play-Doh hair.

Okay.

Yeah.

So

he got with his foot.

He got inside the shoe.

Yeah.

So he takes his shoes off the shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He squats.

He's not an animal.

Yeah, he's not an animal.

He's a yellow.

Well, he is an animal, but yeah.

Well, yeah, I take my shoes off the shoe.

He kicks off the crocs to shit, looks for a place kind of like a dog.

Yeah.

Shits in his own shoes and then stuffs his feet back in and it comes out like Play-Doh hair.

He says my shoes smell bad.

His shoes are not in sport mode.

They're in the more casual mode.

So the little flap is more of a slide than it is a shoe at this point.

What color are they well they should be something other than than brown so that they should bright yellow bright yellow that's really good it also evokes pea which is a poop's friend yeah poop is pea's friend they're friends for sure all right getty the yeti yes getty the yeti uh he shits in his own shoes um says his croc smell bad um and uncut perfect pink penis yeah we just lost a bunch more subscribers we are hemorrhaging that's well okay what if we made him like five four

yeah he should be a short king, like,

he's a little Yeti.

He's got to give us something.

Yeah, he's a modest Yeti.

Yeah.

All right.

I think we got it, guys.

Now, does he have any association with the podcast whatsoever?

He hates the podcast.

We talk Talking for a Living and List Guys from Games as we draft video game mascots with Craig Lee Thomas this week on Get Played.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast.

Where this week, we've done it again.

We have welcomed somebody into our hive of villainy, our disgusting little pit.

Our gross, what?

Our little hole.

Yeah, our little gross hole.

Yeah.

Our little bucket in a backyard.

Our little stew pot.

Our little...

That's not so bad.

We all like stew.

We're all on the record of liking stew.

Our little poison stew pot.

Okay, okay, okay.

No, no, no yikes.

I'm getting away from that one.

Our little diarrhea pond.

No.

You know, I pride myself on my podcasting pipes, but I'm going to be put to shame today by today by today's guest because he is a pro, an actor from Helldivers 2, Dynasty Warriors, and DC Dark Legion.

Craig Lee Thomas is back.

Craig, thanks so much for being here.

I'm fumbling just having you next to me.

What a treat to be in your disgusting little car.

Yes.

Just to be in the duodenum of scum that this podcast is just sliding through.

It's a real treat.

We record ankle deep, but also face down.

Face down, ankle deep.

That's the way I like to talk about the S and E S, I guess.

Craig,

we were honored to have you the first time, and it was just one of those things where Helldivers 2 had launched, and we were doing an episode, and we found out in that process that you were a fan of the show.

Huge fan of the show.

And so it was,

what a great way to welcome you into our guest pool, and so thrilled to have you back.

As far as since the last time you were on the show,

you were cast in DC Dark Legion as Superman himself.

Indeed.

They let me put on the cape.

Wow.

That's pretty.

They let you put on a cape?

Well, I mean, I wore a cape.

I mean, I was wearing.

I was wearing.

This is the year of the cape for me.

Helldivers is all cape.

I'm pretty much exclusively playing cape and cape adjacent parts now.

So I'm hoping for like a, I don't know, a Count of Monte Cristo video game coming up by the way.

Why not?

If Ubisoft is listening,

Assassin's Creed.

Who has the best cape?

Superman.

Superman Superman.

Do you think it's Dracula?

Dracula's got a great cape.

Batman's got a good cape.

I have a take about that.

Does Doctor Strange have a cape or is that a shawl?

Is that a cape?

I think cape.

It's Mr.

Cape.

Mr.

Cape.

I kind of think that, well, Dracula, to me, that's more cloak.

And cloak and cape is different.

Yeah.

What about Darkwing Duck?

Or is that more of a trench coat?

That's a trench coat.

That's a trench coat.

Man, but Darkwing Duck is really good.

He looks cool.

Let's get dangerous.

Oh, man.

It's the jam.

I remember that, like, watching that and having adjacent, like, tailspin shared universe.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

My mind.

Launchpad McQuack.

Yes, exactly.

There was a a time when Disney was really building something.

And then I think the Telecommunications Act of 1996

destroys it.

And then none of it continues.

It all perishes in the flames of government.

I met this during the WGA strike.

I met this guy on the picket line, an older writer, and

he had a custom sign he'd made that was like, this is my fifth strike and listing the years of all the entertainment strikes he'd been through.

But he had written like something like 109 episodes of Tailspin.

Wow.

And like, and I was like, how much you make for this?

Like, nothing.

That cloud kicker money is not coming in the mail.

Yeah, I've never heard the phrase, this is my mansion I bought with all my tailspin money.

Wow.

Which they should be.

They should be the wealthiest people on the world.

They wrote a Casablanca cartoon about animals.

That is an achievement unparalleled.

They should have been rewarded.

But, no, that's not the way it works.

No, that's not how it works.

And all those little, those, those good, juicy, like, day gigs that people used to have in between other jobs, those are all gone now.

Yeah.

That's all been replaced with like

podcasting.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, it's still here.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to your guys' vertical coming up.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, man.

Just wait till people get their eyes on the vertical.

It's going to be so good.

It's going to be incredible.

The keyword is synchronicity.

Synchronicity.

Real quick while we're on this, everyone, what's your favorite vertical?

Oh, God.

How to choose.

Yeah, there's too many I love.

I can't.

Yeah, I can't.

I love all of them.

I'd say all of them.

That's all they're tight for first place.

I like the one that's shoddily shot in an obvious Airbnb in a hurry.

Yeah.

I like that one.

I like the one where the actors are performing like they're about to cry because they don't remember what they're about to say.

Yes.

I remember, like, because anytime there's some new thing and you work anywhere in the entertainment industry, like, I guess, should I know what this new thing is?

I remember that with Snapchat, was the first I was like, what the fuck is Snapchat when that came on the scene?

Yeah, uh, and uh, you know, I remember watching a YouTube tutorial on what how to like start a Snapchat account or whatever.

I was like that level of like, just completely avoiding it.

Yeah, I was there, I was there, power user.

Wait,

these videos disappeared.

Whoa,

why do you like these?

But there were like people were making content for Snapchat released.

That was like a time when people were getting paid to do that.

I mentioned that's completely gone away.

Vertical is the same sort of thing.

It's like, look, am I going to, and then I just was like, I'm not going to learn what verticals are.

I'm just going to like let that gloss over.

Yeah.

I just don't need to know that.

Just step out of the pool.

That's fine.

What am I going to do with that knowledge?

Make a fucking vertical?

No.

I say this and I get out of this and I turn on my phone.

I'm like, oh, I have to learn these signs

because it's the only audition that I will have in my inbox.

I've done that with music recently.

There's like just some new music that I'm like, you know what?

I just don't know.

I just need, I don't need to know.

I don't need to know who that is.

That's fine.

That's okay.

I love that Fortnite keeps me up on music.

Yeah.

That is kind of nice.

Because I like, I'll hear something in Fortnite and I'll be like, oh, that must be the new song.

And it often is.

Or they'll highlight an artist and I'll be like, ah, that must be the new artist.

That's a nice little curation for you.

I like that.

It's usually like Jonathan XD25.

All right.

And like, he's got his own avatar and the guy's got, like, a jacket and a mascot.

And you're like, okay, this Jonathan must be big.

Sure.

He must be a big dude.

Rochelle Chennaire, producer, Ranch.

Are you up on verticals?

Are you watching any verticals?

I do have friends who direct verticals.

Wait, really?

Oh, so verticals are great then?

No, I mean, it's the last resort kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Totally fucked up industry.

I have to imagine.

Worse than you can even imagine.

Oh, what?

So my mom's going to be listening to this.

How do we describe verticals to my mom?

They're what?

And my understanding could be incorrect.

Are they like little shows?

Can you please direct this directly to Gail Campbell?

Gail, if you're listening, hi.

I hope you're doing well.

Yeah.

Next time you're in town, we'd love to see you.

Yeah, we'd love to have you on the show.

But you know how your phone, mom, is held vertically?

Yes, yes.

So that's a great jumping off point.

So this is like a show that's like trapped in your phone.

Yeah.

And it's not watchable anywhere else.

And it's formatted to be shaped like your phone.

And it's like, it's a, it's a show from your phone.

It's a phone show.

Was quibby too scrutable?

Vertical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Now I heard your, and you just heard a lot of crazy things right now.

Quibby, scrutable.

It's all okay.

It's all okay.

And just remember, just everybody, anybody listening.

Don't give your banking information to anybody on the phone.

No, don't do that.

I remember, I like that.

Yes, that's me.

Oh, that's Heather.

Heather Leonard.

Heather is not in trouble.

That is an AI synthetic version of Heather.

I had a scripted esports series that I made with my friend Maddie Smith for Go 90, defunct Verizon service.

I remember Go 90.

Go 90's whole thing was it was the opposite of verticals because you would hold your phone vertically and then you would go 90 to watch it, meaning turn it horizontally so you could watch it at the correct aspect ratio.

But it was like the dumbest thing because you had to have like a Verizon phone to watch any of their content.

And all of it, I think, is just like completely invisible.

And I have no idea how you'd even find it.

I think my new mantra for when I'm thinking that when I'm getting bogged down with the reality that everything is stupid and sucks now,

is just true.

My new mantra is going to be: it's always been this way.

Sure, everything's always been bad.

Everything is very stupid.

That is a comfort.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, well, it's not, it's, it's worse, but it's always been like this.

I thought you were going to say your mantra is going to be, dude, just go 90.

Just go 90.

Yeah, honestly.

Works for the freeway.

Works for.

We went on a Capes tangent and then a bunch of other tangents.

So we didn't even talk about you playing Superman.

What was that like?

It was, yeah.

I mean, you know,

every job is exciting.

But

I was about to teach a class.

Wow.

I was just checking my phone and I got that email.

And I mean, in the email, because I have the same agent as him, I mean, it was literally,

send me your veils, Roger Craig Smith, Batman, Craig Lee Thomas, Superman.

Wow.

Wow.

And I burst into tears and had to like excuse myself and like get myself to.

And this is two years ago the double craig production it was yeah the Welsh were strongly

that day which is wow but yeah unbelievable and the guy who directs the game is a guy named Cal El whose dad John drew a lot of the seminal

90s that's ridiculous and his name is Cal so he's the guy who directs that game and he's a genius he's one of the best video directors in the game that's so drew excellers as well oh yeah so yeah I got told how to sound like Superman by a guy named Cal El

pretty amazing You get this,

this great news, this great exciting news right before you teach a class.

Do you get to be like, hey, students, guess what?

I actually just got this really good gig.

And so, you should actually really be listening to me.

I'm a really good teacher.

Let me tell you: the previous class, my chair was facing the correct direction.

Yeah, yeah.

That class, that motherfucker.

Hell yeah.

They went 180.

Yeah, I went 180.

I took Horizon's adverse twice.

But yeah, I just had to sort of collect myself and not.

Yeah.

That's your life.

It's just a a whole lot of you not

yes for sure yeah yeah yeah but uh hugely gratifying crazy voice cast it's the first video game my wife has ever played okay in her adult life to like a high degree and she's like so far ahead of me wow wise wow she's like loving it so it's very it's very cute she like didn't want to stop until she unlocked me which was like amazing and now she's like oh my god kicking ass at this game it's great rocks that's exciting it's really sweet and since you've been here last too uh held ivers 2 2 has been released on Xbox, which is huge.

We ended the Console Wars as well.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll take responsibility for that.

Nice.

Why not?

It was you, I think.

Yeah, let's just say it was me.

Why not?

It still has the best theme song of the last three years.

Yeah, non-stop.

It plays in my head when I'm about to do something good.

Yeah.

That sting every time.

Greatest of all time, for sure.

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Speaking of how livers, too, you were armor at the Game Award.

I did.

That one's insane.

You were telling us that it was the same costume designer

as who did Erica Ishii's Yote cosplay.

Yes, I was so excited that you guys had Erica.

I love Erica.

They're amazing.

We're in a couple of games together.

They played a very cool, like, undercut, non-binary butcher in a dating sim that we're in together.

Where I played like a coded Scientologist, former actor, cult leader.

And the studio would troll me because it was like, it was like 11 different romanceable options, and I never cracked double digits.

And the studio would just post about, hey, guess who's last again here?

Thanks, guys.

I appreciate it.

Erica was, it was Eric and Ray Chase at the top.

Ray Chase played a sexy werewolf librarian.

Yes.

Erica was a non-binary, cool as fuck butcher.

Yeah.

How the fuck am I going to compete with that?

This is unbelievable.

But yeah, I believe at like Linda is their at, I think.

I believe they're from Italy, but they're an amazing cosplayer.

They made Erica's Yote costume.

They made my tunic and like my gloves and my utility belts.

They had a friend like forge the skull belt for the game awards.

And then a guy here,

Lancer Studios, 3D printed all the armor.

Amazing.

Yeah, and got to

go do the game awards.

I saw Kojima, it was gonna be.

I have, I have googled them, they are from Italy.

Uh, they have 12 years on Etsy with uh over 1,500 sales.

Um, I'm not lying when I say that I want to wear everything,

every

single thing that is on their splash page.

I want to own and wear around like holsters and belts and buckles.

You might need to soon.

Fair.

Fair.

Just the way things are going.

But you said, so you got to see Kojima.

Did you, were you wearing the armor when you saw him?

Oh, yeah.

I was 100% wearing the armor.

I mean, like, you know,

it was a secret appearance.

So, like, I wasn't allowed to talk about it, obviously.

And then, like, I was kind of sequestered.

So, like, I put the armor on.

I was like, okay, I can hang out in my dressing room or the kind of foyer until I went upstairs.

But Gary Barth, who's,

I think, like the second longest tenured employee at Sony, he kind of like, he did the E3 last of a subway station.

He, he kind of is like the contractor when they make stuff for people.

So he like helped contract the guitar, the Death Strandy 2 guitar and a BB and stuff.

So he was down in LA from San Fran where he lives.

And he had worked with Kajima-san before.

And I was like shitting bricks that he was there.

So Gary, very kind of, well, maybe you keep the armor on after we kind of hang out outside.

We see what happens.

And I was just like standing there bouncing around, hoping against hope and i got to meet him for a second and take a picture which i just i died yeah yeah that rock insane yeah it's absolutely insane the aura on that man yeah is like gravitational yeah what was it like wearing the armor

i never wanted to take it off

i mean every power fantasy you've ever had yeah they made me wide get up i had to shave my head oh hell yeah um which also i mean you you really you felt a certain way yeah for sure stomping around in that thing, taking up, taking up even more space than I do normally.

Right.

Um, it was pretty wild.

I bumped him.

He's got deployed to Chicago.

I was like, oh, I don't even have to change out of this.

I bumped into Aaron Paul twice backstage because he was presenting for his, uh, God, I'm blanking on the name, the game where he's going to be like the superhero.

I think Dispatch is what it's called.

I think that's right.

Can't wait for that.

I bumped into him in the armor.

I was like, hey, looking good, man.

I was like, you're amazing.

Oh, my God.

And then like two hours later, I changed into my tux and I bumped into him again.

He's like, this guy always looks fucking better than me.

This guy's a problem.

He's in armor before, and now he's wearing a jacket.

And I just, I was like, you're Aaron Paul are beautiful and perfect.

That's so funny.

It was a wild experience.

Wow.

For sure.

Wow.

Another

thing we were talking about before we started recording.

And

apologies if this is something, if this is something you were going to step on for the question I'm going to ask soon, let me know.

But you've been talking about playing a walkabout mini golf VR.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So embarrassingly enough, as I admitted to Ranch, she's like, hey, like, what have you been playing?

What is something?

And I'm like, honestly, what is the game that has given me the most pleasure in the recent future?

Yeah.

Walk about mini golf VR on my MetaQuest is incredible.

What is it about this game?

It's kind of two games in one.

It's a mini golf simulator.

Right.

Yeah.

But also, every time you sort of like unlock a course, there is a scavenger hunt component and they're all themed.

So

you go onto a course and the music is perfect and it's fully immersive.

The sound of the ball and the putter is just like absolutely perfect.

So you had that experience.

And then it's like, oh, you played the pirate course.

Here's a 14 clue,

really nicely written scavenger hunt to find.

And you are moving around in 3D space trying to find the pirate hat, trying to find the coins and stuff.

And I just find myself like standing in my living room and the hours just melting by as I dissociate on like a Mars space station or whatever.

It's crazy.

How do you do

in that type of movement?

I always get so sick when there's like movement in a 3D space in VR because

my, you know, I'm standing completely still, so I'm not like walking.

Your inner ear is going crazy.

I get so, so ill.

I think the reason it works, like you can move exclusively, sort of like fade to white, fade to white.

You just sort of bounce place to place so there is no movement.

Or you could fly around,

but you don't have to.

Okay.

You could do all the components of the game.

You sort of click and it's like, oh, I put.

Ball goes over there.

You click the trigger.

You're just sort of softly teleported there.

There's no traversal.

That's not so bad.

So that helps with the motion sickness for sure.

But yeah.

Yeah, because it feels like they've been iterating on that because I've definitely played VR games where you've had like a click to move and you just kind of teleport.

But like the fade to white feels like a nice little bit of.

Yeah.

I'm in Asgard's Wrath 2, which is is another like MetaQuest game, but that's like very action-y AAA.

It's so much fun, but it is more like you're moving around, and I got about.

I have like a virtual boy's length of time on that.

My tongue is just like, you gotta stop playing this for a little bit.

I just remember when we did

the Blair Witch game.

It wasn't that I was just very scared of the game.

That game laid me out.

Like, I was so sick.

Legitimately super nauseated.

Yeah, I mean, well, that game specifically was bad.

Yeah.

And also was bad at the traversal.

Because I've done traversal in VR that doesn't suck.

And in that one, I felt like I was going to pew.

Yeah, I think part of that was,

and I think I like that game more than you, but like the.

Because it was a port, I think they had like kind of not done the, you know, there was, I think, a click-to-move option in that,

but that was a teleport.

But yeah, I do, it was originally just for PC.

And so like, like, I think the VR version just like didn't have like all of the

customization for that particular platform.

Have any of you guys ever played the Sega 360

arcade sphere?

Yeah, I remember that thing.

It was like an afterburner style airplane game, but it was in a full 360-degree rotation sphere.

It looked like the thing from contact.

They used to have one, I believe, with the Disneyland Arcade, the one in Future, what the Tomorrowland.

What the hell is that called?

The Arcade Area?

Yeah.

I don't remember, but it's because that's a name for it.

It's line extension now, right?

Basically.

But they simulate it.

I think a lot about how would you solve the problem of VR movement.

And I think it would involve like a

Da Vinci's man

sort of thing.

Yeah, where

you're positioned in a sphere, and when you're moving forward, the thing maybe tips backwards so that your brain has the sense of movement.

Yeah, tricking your gyroscope.

Yeah, that it would fuck with your gyroscope because all it would do in the flying game is when you were like taking off at full speed, the sphere would just drop you

like flat on your back.

For me, in VR, the best experience is like on rails.

Like

you're in a boat.

There's yeah, in a boat.

That's fine.

Where you're moving, it's moving you basically, and you're sort of stationary.

That's like, that's completely fine to me.

But I even did the

Resident Evil 4

VR before the remake VR came out, which I would have probably preferred to see.

But it was still such a, I think, maybe also like the environments in the Blair Witch game and in Resident Evil 4 are so ugly.

It's sickening anyway that like being there is sort of like you can't comprehend the horrors.

Yeah.

You're just like, oh, this fucking sucks.

I told the anecdote on the show when I, when I used to play, because I had like half of my garage dedicated to a VR space.

Yeah.

And I used to play the medieval combat game where you were just in an arena and you can like grab any weapon and kill anybody that came through the door.

Yeah.

And got so into it that I punched my concrete floor as hard as I could.

Like didn't like, cause, because you can also, like, you can knock people down

and it was full body tracking.

So I got on top of the guy and just started punching his face.

Yeah.

And at one point connected with my floor as hard as I could.

Wow, Jesus.

Mary walks in on you, just like pummeling somebody to death on the ground, screaming.

So they gotta fix that problem, Terry.

Yeah, that as well.

Yeah, you should be able to do it and not hurt your hand.

There needs to be like just a jelly suit.

Yeah.

You're in jelly

and you're in a sphere.

Yeah, honestly.

That's what'll help you nauseating experiences.

Just a lot of goo.

If you could get in like a sort of like wipeout style like hamster ball that is that is stationary but moves on the inside that's fun that's well yeah it's fun yeah

it's it's a blast yeah maybe people are commenting

with that sitting in the wall you know that's that's a welcome addition yeah yeah you know maybe uh

you uh you kick your parents out of the ADU or whatever and you put it in there.

Sorry, mom and dad.

Yeah.

I mean, like, there are, if you look online, there are people who are solving this problem constantly in VR.

There's like some kind of a thing that's like basically ball bearings in like a conical shape and you can like walk on that and stay in place.

There's also that Microsoft floor.

Did you guys see the video for the Microsoft floor?

Oh, I think I have that.

Like you like walk and it just moves you backwards.

It's made of like a bunch of little Baymax, like the things from Big Hero 6.

Yeah,

that turn.

Yeah.

I just saw that movie for the first time this year and I loved it.

It's good.

Baymax is my boy.

I love Baymax.

Do you know about Baymax?

I know about Baymax.

He's good.

Yeah.

He's in Fortnite.

No complaints with Baymax.

Baymax is in Fortnite?

Yeah, everybody's got a lot of people.

There's a hell of a hitbox on that.

Yeah.

How do they scale that down?

Well, in theory, what they tell you is that all the hitboxes are the same no matter what.

Because, like, Optimus Prime is in the game, also person-sized.

But there are tests online that imply that maybe the hitboxes are slightly different on the big boys.

Pay to lose.

Yeah.

Well, they should make Optimus Prime full-size.

They shouldn't make him personal size.

He should be the size of a fucking semi-truck.

It'd be interesting to see what the balance did if every character was to scale.

It'd be so funny.

You're going to build, no build, and scale.

Yeah, just be a game guy.

That's so fucking cool.

I was with my villa's in it, too.

Oh, my God.

I did not understand the hold that Fortnite has on the under-12 set

until a recent trip back home.

Yeah.

Absolutely insane.

Yeah.

And they were making fun of how bad I was.

Pretty vociferously.

You're washed, unknown.

They said I was butt cheeks.

Was not

butt cheeks.

Oh, my God.

I was like, I'm good at video games.

I didn't realize they were trying to kill you.

Yeah, they killed me dead.

I'm a ghost.

Ghost of Yote?

Ghost of Craig.

Fucking cooked by a nine-year-old.

Unbelievable.

Sony's next sequel, Ghost of Craig.

A game everyone would want to play.

I would play

an ancient Japan simulator with a guy

like this.

Like a triple-A game where a guy was going up, couldn't understand anybody.

Who the fuck is this?

Didn't know how to cook anything.

Doesn't speak Japanese.

Yeah, completely attired.

But also, he's trying to call him a cell phone.

He's like, please rotate right stick to D-tear hamstring.

Your likeness.

Yeah, that's it.

That's just my life.

That's just it.

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Uh, Craig, I have another question for you, which we ask every week on the podcast.

That question is, what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hi, it's me the residenty emergent and i'm here with

guest after guest on the show is it a hint

what do you mean

no no we're not gonna what because we have guests in the studio no you have a different role yeah but they got good voices you have a great voice too yeah it's in inimitable inimitable and it's an inimitable

all right don't be

fucking roasting me over here trying to say inimitable i couldn't say it I've never drank that word in my life.

Inimitable.

Inimitable.

Yeah.

That's

a little tricky.

Yeah.

Merch, give me a quick, like, when all you could fry chicken is think about, postmates.

Just give me a read.

When all you could fry chicken is think about

postmates.

Pretty good.

That's hell of a read.

Yeah.

That is a hell of a

good lot of punch.

Yeah.

Voice of an angel.

Hi, Rich.

Hi.

I don't like this.

I don't like this.

No.

No.

That's an alliance that Matt does not need.

Two ages of chaos.

Wow.

For some reason, I was okay, but uncomfortable with the merch saying hi to Ranch.

Ranch's response threw me over the edge.

Can't allow it.

I can't allow it.

Matt, what are you playing?

I'll tell you.

I thought I'd be here today being like a really exciting kind of guy.

Yeah.

Oh.

Because as of today, as of record, a new Pokemon game has come out, Pokemon ZA.

And, you know, I pre-ordered it from

directly from the Pokemon Center.

Those are your guys.

Those are my guys.

The Pokemon's my guys.

They're your guys.

I pre-ordered it straight from them because they had, to me, the most appealing pre-order

incentive.

And it, which is a random plush of one of the starters.

Incredible.

Love that.

And so I was thinking, I'm going to get this.

And the plush will dictate my starter in the game.

I have a choice of Chikorita, which I don't want.

I think Chikorita's cute.

I think Chikorita's cute.

Not my favorite.

Totodile, my number one.

I love Totodile of the bunch.

Of this bunch, I love Totodile.

It was like, you're number one.

Number one.

Totodile.

No, I mean, because like Cyndaquil from the second generation is my favorite.

Sure.

But Totodile, I love Totodile.

I think he's a funny looking guy.

He looks great.

And then the fire starter in this one is Tepig, which I don't have a connection to because I did not play Pokemon Black or White.

Okay.

So I just am not, I just, I'm not familiar with his game, but I'd be excited to pick him.

But the, you know, the plush will dictate.

I thought, okay, the package is going to come today.

We're recording today.

I'll bring it to the studio, unbox, and we'll all get to learn.

which starter I get.

And so Ranch has pulled up the starters from Pokemon ZA.

And here's the thing: they're all really cute.

They're so cute.

Yeah, I guess I'm probably partial to Chikorita, but that's also because a lot of my Pokemon interaction comes from via Smash Brothers.

And Chikorita was an assist trophy.

Yeah, and we did play Gold Silver on the

short, of course.

But this specific, the 3D character design reminds me of Smash Brothers implementation.

Yeah.

Matt, can I ask you a question?

Yeah.

How do you weigh in on the controversy that they took out the three-dimensional

rendered balconies in in the

in the city environments you know to me it's I mean obviously historically the games look and run bad yes I think they did this

because

they must have not made the game run good wow

because they've they've they've flattened they flattened the cities yes and took out all the detailing on on the on the sort of storefronts and everything else but early renders of the game had those balconies.

Yes.

What do you think is going on with them?

I think it must have made the game chug.

I think it just like right, but why don't they?

Well, because they because they're just they're not good at making games.

They make bad games or they make games poorly.

But the reception on this game is good.

It's hovering at around like sort of like

mid to low eighties, which is sort of like about all you can ask for

about all you can ask for, but it's about it's about what they do.

Yeah.

With this, they never really get higher than that.

So it's right now it's second to Legends Arceus, which I really loved.

So I'm excited to give it a try.

Hopefully, it's there when I get home.

But I'm still

chipping away at Silk Song still.

Ranch, I need a Silk Song update from you.

I'm in some areas that I'm very surprised by.

I'm in this Cog area.

I took down an optional boss called the Phantom.

Have you found the Phantom?

I'm on that today.

The Phantom

is

an insanely fun boss fight.

Wow.

It is completely optional, missable.

Don't need to do it.

He's kind of like the Phantom of the Opera.

He's got like a, there's like an, he's playing an organ

in there.

He's got like a little like half mask.

He's here inside your mind.

He's here inside my mind.

I wish, you know, the only time I've seen the musical, I was up for 24 hours because the UCB Del Close Marathon was here in Los Angeles, and I had an improv show at

11:30 a.m., 11.30 p.m.

and 4 a.m.

So I just stayed up all night and then went to the house.

How'd you get scheduled that way?

Because nobody does a good job and nobody gives a shit about me.

The Pokemon company of scheduling.

I mean, honestly, truly.

But I had plans to see the musical at the Pantages with my

then-girlfriend, now wife, and my in-laws.

And I was like,

I'll stick it out.

Hopefully I don't fall asleep.

And let me tell you something about Phantom.

That thing keeps your attention.

That's a good show.

Yeah.

And it's a killer show.

Yeah.

Great little show.

When the chandelier comes down?

Yep.

Oh, man.

When the chandelier came down, I was fucking scared.

Although I've been up for 24 hours.

Music of the night just ringing.

Yeah.

But so I'm doing this, but

I'm still having a blast.

I'm really, really enjoying the show.

I need more stuff.

I got a new ability that's like you throw your needle and it pulls you to where you throw your needle kind of thing, which is clutch for traversal.

So I think I'm finding little pockets of areas now where I'm basically in the second, I feel like I'm in the true second part of the game, where there's a secondary fast travel mechanism that is not like the bell beast.

And that is sort of taking me to different areas.

And then the new modes of traversal that I have are getting me to different areas.

And it's just like,

I kind of am worried about the guy I'm going to become when I finish this game.

Yeah.

Because as it stands right now, I'm like, this could be, I know everybody sort of jokes, because I do say this a lot, that this is going to be like an all-timer for me.

This is like, this is potentially reaching like number one territory.

It's so fucking good.

Holy shit.

It's insane to me.

I'm just really, really loving it.

Ranch,

give us an update on Silk Song.

What are you doing?

Where are you at?

Why are you allowed to talk to her and I'm not?

Because I don't talk to her the way you did, and I didn't like it.

I said, Hi.

Hi,

stop, stop.

I actually have not played since we last talked.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

I was surrounded by children and had no time for anything.

Yeah, there's probably no reason around here you've been super busy.

Surrounded by children, meaning she was talking about you producing get played.

Well, I can't wait to hear when you get a little further along because there's some really, really great stuff coming along that I got to talk to somebody about.

But that's it for me.

Wow.

Craig, what are you playing?

Yeah, Silk Song.

Silk Song is number one.

So good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

I feel like I cheated a little bit because I played Hollow Knight for the first time.

this year.

Yes.

So I just never came around to it.

So like all these people, oh, I waited all this time.

And I'm like, oh, I kind of finished.

And then pretty shortly after.

So that

an embarrassment of riches to have two great games like that.

I've had, I've been through all of the stages of grief with Silk Song.

I think it's, it's hard.

Yeah.

And it's opaque in so many ways.

Yeah.

And I was talking to Ranch before, just like when, when you reach that cog

Citadel portion, there was, there was a good two days where I felt like all of my video game time was playing Silk Song and I was just literally running around in circles, not even metaphorically, just like, I don't know what to do.

And I was trying so hard to not look stuff up.

Yes.

Because I want to be a good, I want to be a good little gamer.

And I was able to get most of Act 2 through without looking stuff up.

I am beginning to erode now.

When I butt my head up against a wall for an hour, I'm like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah, because at this point, there are guides now.

Cause like nobody had

review copies or anything.

So there was like no, like there was no guides at the time that the game came out.

But I was stuck on something the other day and I looked something up and even something,

maybe just poor reading comprehension but like I'll look something up in this game and be like what the fuck are they talking about what and then I'll have to go back like further and be like oh I it's because I didn't do this yeah so then I have to go and like figure out like an old thing that I hadn't done yet it's it's interesting with guides because I try to avoid them sometimes you know

again if I'm just banging my head against a wall I've got to just resort to using them but I certainly am enjoying a game more if I'm discovering things on my own

but I I I'm thinking of the, you know, the research I read about ChatGPT and using it to write essays, compose

a piece of writing, is that it actually takes longer than just writing it, but it uses less mental power to like do it.

So people will use it because they're just like, like, this is more time consuming, but it's easier.

And I wonder if there's a similar sort of thing with like guides of just like, you just reach a point of frustration where you're just like, well, I'm just going to look this thing up, but I wonder if it actually, is it a shortcut?

or you know, I don't know, or is it because I gotta like get my computer, I gotta look for the thing, I gotta sort of decipher the information, maybe watch a YouTube video where I could just be actually doing the thing that it's trying to show them.

And they're trying so hard to implement like streamlined versions of that.

Like, I know that, like, PlayStation hints are built into my television, like, not even like the PlayStation, they're built into my TV.

And somehow, the TV knows when I'm playing a game that hints are available for that game.

So it'll pop up like a thing and it'll be like, consult your PlayStation menu for hints and walkthroughs on this game or press this button on your Bravia.

And I'm like, what?

I can just play the game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whatever fucking is.

What is Sony doing?

I have a great question.

Get good fucking television.

Exactly.

You fucking robot bastard.

I'll tell you what Sony's doing.

They're making the most beautiful television I've ever seen in my life.

Bravia is a good looking panel.

God damn it.

But built-in PlayStation hints.

Come on, that's anarchy.

Also, it has built-in PlayStation streaming.

So if you have a Bravia somewhere else in your house, it has remote play built into the actual panel.

Yeah.

But you need to connect a Vio laptop.

Yeah.

And it plugs into an IV driven.

Yeah.

I remember my brother got a Sony Vio laptop like years ago.

He might have been working for Sony at the time.

And I was like, how's this thing?

He's like, it fucking sucks.

Immediately.

I still have a Vio because it's the only way I can get, I can make mini-disc records.

So I had to get an entire Sony system so that I could go functionally from today's iTunes or Apple Music through a chain of events that outputs the music onto my mini disc with track information.

And it involves a Vio that I got off eBay for like $25 that doesn't have a battery.

And like the only thing on it is the mini disc program because I was like, I can't do anything else on this computer.

It'll destroy itself.

It only runs from a cigarette lighter to a car.

When the cyber attack comes and the internet is erased, you are going to be like the Library of Congress because you will have the only isolated system.

People will come to me for music and I will deal like drugs.

And they will be so bummed at my selection.

You got any tracks?

I'll be like, great.

More Oasis.

Yeah, More Oasis.

Well, good.

The later stuff.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well,

I haven't had a lot of time for video games in my life, but I figured out a solution, and that's waking up at five in the morning.

So for the last week, I've woken up at five in the fucking morning, and I've been playing Ghost of Yote.

I've been able to put in 20 hours on the game this way because I've been playing before anybody gets up.

As the sun rises in Los Angeles, so does the sun rise over Yote.

Beautiful.

I did bump up the difficulty.

I didn't bump it up to lethal.

I tried lethal, but it made it unenjoyable.

Hard difficulty makes it souls-esque.

And I beat one of my first of the Yote six.

I went after Oni, who's like the big dude.

And I had to fight him for 35 minutes

because I don't, again, is this one continuous session or were you losing and and having to go?

Losing, losing, losing, losing over and over and over and over again.

I don't know what I've done wrong.

It's probably that

wherever I see a red flag, I run at the red flag and kill everybody at the red flag.

So much so that I actually had a cutscene that made me laugh out loud.

I killed

a bounty, and the bounty said, Did that farmer send you?

And the game is programmed if you haven't spoken to anybody

for the ghost of Yote to say, what farmer

and he goes what

that's extremely good it's so good you're confused in npc yeah yeah why are you here

i really really love that there's been a few conversations i've had with npcs where they're referencing stuff and and uh uh she goes like i don't know what you're talking about and i it has to be covering for the fact that i have avoided sections of the map to just kill people.

From their perspective, you just walked into their town and killed a guy.

Yeah.

And this guy was like, well, obviously, like, the farmer hated this guy.

So, like, I'll even ask about it.

And he's like,

Yeah, there was a there was like a

guy that I killed.

And

afterwards, she found a bounty flyer and was like, oh, there's a bounty

because I hadn't stopped at any of the signs.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it took me about about 35 minutes to beat Oni because

he could one hit kill me.

So I had to learn every, and he had, like, spoilers for the Oni.

Spoilers for the Oni.

He had two stages of battle.

So I got through the first stage of battle and I was like, oh, fucking, like,

great.

You know, I killed the boss.

And then he powers up.

And I was like, oh, no.

My reset point

is I've now expensed everything that I had on the first version.

All of my arrows are gone.

All of my bombs are gone.

Everything is gone.

It's just me and this dude who one hit kills me every single time.

Yeah.

So I had to learn.

My only option was a perfect parry session because he also could kill me on block.

Oh.

So I had to learn all of his fucking moves and perfect parry my way through the entire fight, which took me so fucking long that, like, I would press pause and I would sit on my couch, and I'd be like, I know that the way this works is that you take a breath and you walk away, and then you come back, and it's easy.

And I would force myself to do it, and I'd sit back down, and that, and it was not, it would be harder because I had forgotten.

Yeah, yeah, you're always so close to tilt.

But I did beat, I did beat him.

Wait, it took you 35 minutes total.

Yeah, that's not much of a struggle.

What?

For a regular 35 minutes to figure out how to perfect parry this guy?

I was stuck on a boss in Silk Song for three days.

That's what I was just going to say.

Yeah, one station sword saying that at the end of Secural took me three fucking days.

Yeah,

well, I had never gotten a prompt that said, Would you like to abandon this?

Oh, and it started giving me the prompt.

Oh, wow.

Because, like, also, when I would lose, it was like this.

So it was 35 minutes of like 20 seconds at a time.

Got it, got it, got it.

Ah, yeah.

Okay, okay, okay.

So I took him on, took him on at least 150 times or so, like so many fucking times.

That is crazy.

I find it interesting, though, that you did this,

and yet

the game is so pleasurable and enjoyable that it didn't deter you from

playing this way.

No, I don't like you using the word pleasurable.

Yeah, no, it's like it's kind of like

almost erotic.

Oh boy, I'm glad I'm on this couch,

Like a December chat GPT.

No, but I super, super enjoying it.

But I had like an adjacent to gaming thing that I've been doing, and I wanted to talk about it because I had a really huge success today.

Please.

So I've been metal detecting.

Hell yes.

Hell yes.

That's simply hell yes.

I mean, completely on brand.

What the fuck does that mean?

I don't know.

It just feels like the kind of thing you would do.

Yeah.

I've been metal detecting.

in six months' time, we're going to find out Heather got into digging for oil.

And

I've been digging

exclusively in my own yard.

Like,

you know, I'm not going out.

I did.

dig at Griffith Park once, but then I was like, I don't know the legality of this.

And up until today,

I had only found a 1949 penny.

It was the coolest thing I had found.

Cool.

I had tons of nails and hooks and fucking like apparently everybody in Los Angeles just has for hundreds of years just thrown everything in their own yard.

Nails out of here.

But you know, we've got a we've got a helldiver on our show.

So today's find was

pretty pretty spectacular.

A relic of Super Earth.

And I want to show it, which is that today I found a World War I

lead

soldier.

Whoa, whoa, look at that.

And it was

in my yard, and it's like a legit,

a legit like 1920s World War I soldier that I found.

How did you get it identified?

What, well,

so I thought it was a World War II soldier.

Yeah.

But my wife's father was like, no, that uniform is World War I.

I know it's lead because of how fucking heavy it is, even though it's like the size of the palm of your hand, it's lead.

So, you can zero in on when were they giving children lead toys.

Yes, yeah, up until very recently.

So, you zoom in, so you zoom in to like

you zoom in on 20, like 1920s to 1940s is when they're making these toys, and then based on the uniform, you can find out what war it is.

And they weren't making World War I toys during World War II, they're making World War II guys for everybody.

So, this particular uniform with the high-waisted belt and the sword

at its side is a World War I uniform.

So, this is a 1920s

lead toy that I found in my yard.

You know, the American soldiers in World War I had a nickname, Doughboys.

How about that?

How?

Yeah, fun fact.

Dolan Valor.

Motherfuckers didn't need any Taco Bell.

I love it.

That's the direction Valor was going.

Great.

Yeah.

Breaking chews from those assholes.

They would have fucking killed their little soft asses pussies.

Imagine feeding a cheesy Gordita crunch to someone on a depression-era diet.

They swell.

The edema is immediately displeased.

They couldn't comprehend diet Dr.

Pepper.

Well, well, well, what's all this about?

Oh my god.

Yeah, being in the same room as a fucking hot Cheeto.

Dearest Victoria, the Baja Blasts you sent were a hit with the rest of the regiment.

They're dead.

Please don't leave me.

I'm coming back.

So anyway, I feel like I've gamified, because I'm trying to clean up my yard and like digging nails out of the dirt and like cleaning it up is

like a kind of a long-term project.

And I feel like I gamified it by getting a metal detector.

And sure enough,

it did give me two treasures, a 1949 penny, and that

little soldier.

Wager, what are you playing?

Heather, thank you so much for asking.

It's a pit renaissance lately.

Last week, I was talking Clover Pit.

This week, it's Ball Pit.

Wow.

There's an X in between that if you're searching for it.

Ball X Pit, although I believe it's not vocalized.

It's on Game Pass, which I guess is Microsoft's only gaming product anymore, besides the floor.

It is a roguelite brick-smashing game that feels part Vampire Survivors, part Paygall.

So,

Heather, I know when we were playing, when we were covering Vampire Survivors, you felt like the game was pretty passive because, like, really, it's an auto-shooter.

That's part of what I like about it, just pure gameplay.

But this is one where it's like a little bit of an iteration on it, where you've got active cursor control.

So, you've got WASTA movement to kind of move your

player character around on screen, and then you are aiming your cursor.

And the process of doing that, you fire a ball that ricochets off of these advancing enemies, like you're playing, you know,

one of those old, those ball, those block smashing games i can't get the name of that as arkanoid right that's the the main one uh the one of the big ones uh but you know

it's it's super fun it's it's just this absorbing you know experience that's like all dopamine hits it reminds me of this old pc engine game called devil's crush which was a pinball game with bad guys and it was just basically pinball but it was just like it was taking advantage of it being a video game and so you'd see you know all these like these minions marching around um also just really cool character designs these upgrade mechanics that really change how the play space feels uh for instance there's an early one that gives you like like your own sort of troop your own solar sort of advancing uh stone soldier that comes up against the marching um legions uh and and it's just got this fun feeling of i i guess i should describe it more it's it's like a vertical uh

stretch of screen and the enemies are coming from top to bottom so and you're the player character is on the bottom and then you're just basically shooting um this pagele like uh ricocheting projectile to knock them out.

And so there's like also the

strategy of trying to aim it where it will maximize the number of things it's bouncing against.

Sometimes it's like, oh, you've got this enemy you're trying to blockade who's higher up on the screen.

So you don't want to destroy

the smaller, less threatening minions in front of it to spare yourself some grief.

And yeah, just just,

it's just really, really

such a creative, clever design with just like a really nice aesthetic to it.

I'd heard a lot of hype about this game, and I'm glad it's on Game Pass because I think that'll lead to a lot more people trying it out.

But

it's just really, really fun and anyone who's playing it can attest to the same thing.

Yeah, it's the same sort of feeling I had when I was playing Vampire Survivors or Deep Rock Galactic.

You just getting into that sort of zen-like flow state.

And

yeah, just really, really enjoying myself.

I really want to check it out.

We were texting about this.

Yes, yeah.

And it seems like

I'm going to love it.

I really, really can't wait to try it.

There's another one that's like a 3D Vampire Survivors type thing called

Mega Bonk.

Yes, I've seen Mega Bonk.

I haven't messed around with it yet.

It's just interesting now that

this is a genre.

Maybe Vampire Survivors didn't invent it, but I feel like since then, there's

just a bunch of games like this that are just,

you know, number go up type thing.

I love it.

I mean, I love just just like anything that exposes just how, I was kind of saying what I was saying about Clover Pit, just how like what dumb animals we are.

It's really, really fun just reducing a video game to its essence, but also like feeling maximalist in its presentation.

I just checked our text exchange to see what it was, and it was, you texted me, why is you playing ball pit yet?

Yeah.

And I was like, not yet, but I'm going to.

It's reminding me of, and then I played the shit out of it.

It's reminding me of like when we were talking about Belatro.

I remember when that first came out.

I think you were like, why are you playing Bilatro yet?

And I was like, I was like, not yet.

I'm downloading it.

And then my next text was, I played seven hours of Bilatro.

What year is this going to be?

So

in some ways, I've done this to you twice.

First one's free ones.

First one's free.

I can always sniff out a Wager ass game.

I think that this is a Matt game, too.

Yo, Mr.

Games will love this.

So that's what we've been playing.

That's it.

That's what we've been playing.

That's what we've been playing.

Should we get to this draft?

Yeah.

Yeah, let's get to a draft.

Yeah.

So this came about because I asked Craig, Craig, what's your favorite types of games in general?

Craig gave me an answer that honestly shocked me.

Not shocked because it was like,

it's a bad game.

But I just like, it's, you know, it's rare that people are uttering his name, I think, in the year of our Lord 2025.

Craig, big crash guy.

Love.

Oh, Crash Bandicoot.

Okay.

I love Crash Bandicoot.

Sure.

And

pretty good.

Big Crash.

There you go.

This guy's good.

Don't tell Scott what it is.

He'll kick my ass.

They're stolen valid for me.

Spin around really fast.

Yeah.

I don't have Wampa fruit.

So that got me thinking.

I was like, okay, okay.

There's like so many, there's so many mascots that I feel like we talk about a lot of the ones that we love, but we haven't really dug in on a bunch of them.

So I thought, why don't we draft some of our favorites and kind of just go, you know, we can do it snake style.

We could do it however we, you know, however we see fit.

Snake style.

Others migraine begins.

Or we could do, we could do it.

I can't believe we've never done this before.

Snake style.

A draft.

A draft.

It can't be.

That's right, snake.

The draft began during the Civil War.

Talking for 30 minutes.

Exactly.

The socio-political ramifications of the draft were at the height in the 60s.

And all of us just sitting back being like, ooh, cool.

This is gaming.

Yeah, I figured it's just, you know, just a classic draft episode.

Everybody's got their favorite mascots.

Which side of the couch do you want to start on?

You want to start on that side of the couch, Nick, or do you want to our side of the couch?

I think it would be, I think we should give our esteemed guests the first pick.

Great.

I mean, it feels derivative of me to say this, but it would be disingenuous of me not to say, I gotta, if I have the first pick, I gotta get Crash.

All right.

I mean,

very good choice.

Crash 2, I think,

it is on my Mount Rushmore of games.

Great game.

I think.

Played the shit out of it.

Yeah, I think it was the perfect time.

It's like

95 or 96, I think.

It was the perfect time of like the days of not having a lot of games.

Right.

Yes.

And my sister and I had a PlayStation, and for whatever reason, we got Crash 2 first, I think.

Yeah, same in my house, actually.

And I like went to Blockbuster and got a used Crash 1 afterward.

But that game,

the amount of times I played Crash 2 probably is only rivaled by the amount of times I played the first Metal Gear Solid.

Wow.

And

every secret area, every warp level, every single, the polar bear chase in Crash 2 is so, he's so cute.

I love that little guy.

He's one of my favorite little guys.

Yeah.

A top-tier little guy.

All-time little guy.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think

Crash was the best.

He was a big PlayStation mascot

trying to fight sonic a little bit maybe unsuccessfully but he's he's my guy he's got no shirt and pants well my favorite aesthetics here's the thing like uh it's a great look um

and and you're rocking in the studio which i appreciate yeah absolutely

uh the just john cena john cena before john cena

gloves short jeans giant boots yeah and that's it

that's a look there's a so the the the thing about crash is that you mentioned the comparison to Sonic, and yeah, that's clearly what they were trying to evoke.

But the thing is, like, Sonic was starting to get a little, feel a little try-hard and sweaty at that point.

And Crash, when he emerged in the market, the PlayStation marketing in the 90s was like cool and kind of like had that sort of edginess that you'd see in a lot.

Like the Gran Turismo ads also like had like that same sort of thing to it.

Um, they weren't, they weren't accomplishing the same thing, they weren't attempting the same thing tonally, but they also just like made PlayStation feel like a cool brand, and that was a big part of it.

Like, he didn't feel like a kiddie mascot, he felt like a thing that was for teens and adults.

and um uh well

you know we we we previously had i mentioned this on the guest uh alex berg who is one of the actors who donned the suit who was crash bandicoot in one of those spots

the thing i love about crash he is funny he is funny he does funny stuff he's dancing is good yeah i love when he dances he'll like turn around he'll show his little butt yeah that dance is a good dance he'll show his butt but he just did the dance for our baby it's kind of a this kind of thing and he goes down down it's kind of the lebron yeah

or whatever he calls it he'll turn around he'll show his butt but then from showing his butt he'll sort of like peek around and be like can you believe I'm showing my butt

it's good stuff sick fuck and

what's that it's a sick fuck he's I mean he's actually it's actually disgusting actually he shouldn't do that but he's also like he is cool but he's also kind of like hey whatever man he's a bandicoot yeah he's cool

yeah that's right uh he's got cool friends and cortex funny because he got big head cortex is funny

But we're not talking Cortex.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's for the antagonist draft.

What you're doing right after that.

We're going to do it as well.

We're going to do it immediately.

Wages, you want to go next?

Yeah, I'll go next.

I'll gladly take the second pick and take off the board the mascot of video game mascots.

Give me Mario.

Holy shit.

I'm not going to take Mario.

Mario's available.

Give me fucking Mario.

Yeah, Mario's good.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

Mario's clothes are really good.

Mario's clothes are really good.

He's got a great look.

The suspenders, the coveralls, and then the, you know,

the red and blue, the colorways.

Great shoes, which don't get talked about enough.

Yeah, the brown shoes are really good.

And he's got the classic sort of cartoon character gloves, which is a big, you know, a big part of his style.

But like, but like, even the, even like, if you look at that, like, Mari, like 2D Mario back from the jumpman era, he's still so identifiable.

He still passes the silhouette test.

And

also, just like a character that has endured over the decades.

If you ask someone, like, what is video gaming?

Like, what's a video game character?

Top of mind.

Got to be a top three answer, maybe number one overall.

I love all of Mario's games as well, is the other thing.

It's just like great 2D games, Super Mario World, one of my favorite games of all time on my all-timer list.

I love Odyssey, obviously.

You know, just

so many bangers over the years.

Basically, every mainline Mario game, Absent Sunshine,

which is still pretty good, is just an absolute classic.

So I think Mario is the natural pick for me here.

It's a great pick.

It's a great...

I mean, somebody had to take him first.

Yeah, someone had to take him.

Yeah.

Might as well be me.

I never really thought about the gloves, actually, now that you talk about it.

Nobody.

No human being wears gloves like that.

It's only cartoon characters that wear gloves like that.

Yeah.

Hmm.

What is that?

The routes of it are actually not

great.

That's the roots of it.

It's like it has its.

I believe it has its origins in like minstrel shows.

And so the early cartoon characters were like trying to shape that aesthetic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Got it.

Got it.

But it's fine now.

It's fine now.

Mario can wear them.

Hey, Mario, lose the gloves.

Oh, what do his hands look like after all this time?

Just ready?

Yeah.

He's already, he's an aquatic worker.

He's a plumber.

So those hands are, that's disgusting.

Man, he takes them off now, they fucking stink.

He made the 2D, 3D jump, I think, like you said.

Yeah.

Looks great in the side-scrollers.

Doesn't look weird in 3D.

No, no, he also looks good in 3D.

Yeah.

He looks a little weird in the Mario movie.

A little bit.

Just a little bit.

Sounds great.

Sounds

good.

Indisputable.

Yeah.

We all like it.

But yeah, he's got...

Why is what's going on there, Heather?

Because you're right.

Why does he look just a little bit weird?

Yeah.

He looks more like a baby.

Does that make sense?

Like,

his features are more baby-like.

It feels like the kind of thing.

And look, I'm a big Illumination fan,

and I do overall like the Mario movie.

I think some of those sequences are just absolutely dazzling.

Especially the platforming that you're seeing feels like the game on the big screen.

I think that

this feels like the kind of thing where they made tweaks just because they felt like they needed to.

You know what I mean?

It's just almost like, well, we got to have our version of Mario.

But if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Part of it, I think, is bottom teeth.

Yeah, bottom teeth.

Peeking through that mustache.

He very rarely has bottom teeth.

Like, if you look at the official art, he's got top teeth all the time, but very rarely does he have bottom teeth.

It's kind of like when you see Bart Simpson's bottom teeth, it's very weird.

Yeah, you don't want to be looking at it.

No, you don't need to be seeing that.

No.

The other thing is

the collar-to-button ratio is wrong.

His clothes are hyper-realistic.

Yeah.

And his, like, the overalls come way high up, and he has a collared shirt.

Oh, my God, he does.

Yeah, you know, the collared shirt is a little bit off.

Yeah.

He's got human clothes on.

I can't believe they fucked up this bad.

Hold on.

They fucked up.

That movie could have made $10 billion.

It's not only made like $3 billion.

I would have gone to see it twice instead of just once.

Heather, you want to go next?

Yeah, sure.

I'm going to pick a mascot that nobody gives a fuck about except me.

Toro

is the Sony cat.

Wow.

And the official mascot of Sony in

Japan.

On the PlayStation 3, Toro had his own daily news show.

And this was, and here's why he represents gaming to me.

Because gaming has always been something that you read in a magazine and you can't get your hands on.

It's an import product.

It's the

Nintendo 64 disc drive.

It's the Famicom disc drive.

It's weird add-ons and niche titles.

And the fact that there is a mascot that we've seen, I mean, he shows up in like PlayStation All-Stars All-Stars and stuff.

Like, it's not like he isn't completely gatekept from us here, but we don't see him constantly.

And he is, he's been this, he's been, he's been such a fixture of Sony that he had a daily updated news program on the PlayStation 3 that you couldn't watch if you had an American PlayStation 3 and he would tell you the news with his friend.

Like, how fucking cool is that?

Remember the Wii News channel?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

There was like a time when video game consoles were were trying to give us the news.

They can't do it anymore.

Bashar al-Assad again today.

One of my favorite things about his wiki, I'll just read a paragraph here.

He seems to live a life very human.

He has owned an apartment and was evicted.

Hosted a daily and weekly news program along with other activities.

That's the

caption

of who this guy is.

I have an action figure of him on my shelf.

I think he's got a really good look, and they often will sort of juxtapose him with extremely realistic environments and his extremely basic look.

We're looking at him vacuuming on the Lord.

He's cool as hell.

He's great.

I will say,

Ranch, is it safe to assume you had never seen Toro before?

I've never seen Toro.

So upon Googling Toro, I looked over to, you know, upon Ranch Googling Toro, I looked over just to see if I can get some sort of reaction.

Went from basically Stoneface to big smile.

Ranch is loving Toro.

Yeah, immediate big fan of Toro.

Yeah, look at that.

His smirk.

His little swirly smirk is incredible.

Yeah, he's good.

Yeah.

He's good.

I like him.

So that's my pick.

And that leaves a lot of really big mascots on the table, but he's the only mascot in my office.

Yeah.

You had to have him.

Wow.

There's some really big ones on the table, and I think I'm potentially taking the biggest one of all.

Wow.

For my first pick, I think I got to go with the big man,

Pikachu.

Yeah.

Wow.

Pikachu.

That's a great first round.

Not even my favorite Pokemon.

Like, kind of a, to me, Pikachu is basic.

Yeah, but he is the mascot of Pokemon.

He's the guy.

He's the guy.

He's the mascot.

He's, he, he, you don't.

There are people who don't necessarily identify.

They don't know what a Pokemon is beyond Pikachu.

He's the one that stands on his own.

And I just think he's important to

the mascot lexicon.

And look at him.

He's really cute.

I wish they made him...

They keep making him thinner.

He gets thinner and thinner over time.

I wanted to address

the zet boundification of Pikachu that we've been going through.

Have you seen the leaked art of new Pikachu?

I can't get into it.

Yeah.

What?

Leaked art of New Pikachu for the upcoming gens because there was a big Pokemon hack this week.

Yeah.

And they made them all like, yeah, look at them.

There's a, there's a, I gave him a neck.

A strange.

Yeah, that, that top, that top Pikachu on the left there

is New Pikachu from the region, from the region, because, you know, they all have variants.

I think he's strange looking.

It is a little odd.

It's a little uncanny valley.

Yeah.

Like, Pikachu looks like Pikachu.

Right.

His cheek circles are too low.

Yeah.

And then you're kind of blush-colored instead of just like a pure color.

It looks like Pikachu drawn from memory.

You know, like, it's like kind of like not exactly it, but pretty close.

Yeah.

Like, I'm thinking of Pikachu from like the original animated series as like the proto.

Like Pikachu.

Like, he's like, because he's kind of, he's kind of thick.

But he's like, he's got a lot of personality.

He's

He's a lot of fun.

But

that's my first pick, Pikachu.

Great pick.

Great pick.

I do love.

Pikachu rules.

Yeah.

He is cool.

Pikachu's pretty fucking good.

I wish I had one.

Yeah.

It'd be cool if I had one.

I don't care canonically.

How big do you think?

I don't care what it says in the Pokedex.

How big, when you envision a Pikachu, what's the size?

I feel like...

Pikachu to me is like the size of like a one-year-old.

Like about like

you could hold Pikachu like this and like cradle pikachu like a small dog kind of yeah i got corgi in my head that's what it was

same thing yeah is is pikachu the number one video game

and i know pikachu is not a pet but if you could import any pet from a video game would pikachu be the the pet i would do anything anything

to have a real Pikachu.

I would sell my soul.

I don't care what.

I'll headline next year's Riyadh Festival if I can get a real-life Pikachu.

2026.

Get played.

They gave him a Pikachu.

They did it.

They made him real.

They did it.

Matt has the only one.

Yeah.

I don't want that talking head from God of War.

You want the mirror?

Yeah,

I don't want to know what you're going to do with it.

Just sitting there next to you.

Hey, buddy.

Not again.

Please bring me back to that tree.

Jesus Christ.

What is our show?

Craig, you're back up in the second pick.

Wait, so you're not doing two in a row.

We're just going to actually snake style.

I'll do two in a row.

Yeah, it's all the way back.

Snake, I forgot.

Okay.

I feel like I got to claim this guy, even though we don't talk about him.

How many total are we doing?

I say let's do four.

Four, okay.

Four.

Four is good.

Four is good.

I feel like we would typically do five, but since there's four of us, let's do four.

Okay, great.

We don't talk about this guy enough.

Doesn't this franchise and maybe this

console doesn't come up enough on the show, really?

But I got to claim this guy because he's like the guy.

I'm taking Master Chief for my second pick.

I fucking knew it.

It makes a lot of sense.

It's a great pick.

Master Chief.

Is he's got a great look.

He looks fucking awesome, actually.

The armor is really cool.

He's, you know, the funny thing about Master Chief, he was not in the only Halo game I've ever played, which is Halo Reach.

Incredible.

But, you know,

the Spartan look anyway is really, really cool.

He's fucking awesome.

I like him.

I would like to investigate Halo more, actually.

Game Pass...

Got a little too rich for my blood, so I did cancel it.

But

I'll find some way to play.

I feel like you need to just thrift to 360 and get like a physical Halo 3.

It's one of my all-time favorites.

The time that I spent with, well, I loved Reach.

I think Reach is an incredible video game.

But I would like to see more of Halo and Master Chief.

That's my second pick.

I got Pikachu and I got Master Chief.

Wow.

Man, you are stacked.

HAC, back to you.

All right.

So I'm going to go with,

I think his name was Segata San Shiro, who was the mascot of the Sega Saturn.

What's the matter?

It's a man?

That's a human being.

I remember this man.

There is a man on the screws.

What the fuck is happening?

Heaven six.

A cat no one's heard of.

And a man.

How did the Saturn lose that generation?

I can't believe it.

And I will say.

They had a guy in a gi.

A normal man.

Yeah, that's just a man.

Yeah.

No, I remember this guy.

I remember this guy.

If you may or may not recall,

Sega did not release a Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Saturn.

So who was their mascot?

It was that man.

Wow.

Seeing him on the screen with the rest of the characters sucks.

I defend this pick.

You rocks actually, even though Heather is clearly trying to lose.

It's still very funny to draft him.

Wait,

how do you win?

You win by picking the best, you're having the best draft.

I don't know.

You might be having the best draft.

What is it to win this?

What does that mean?

What is it to win anything?

These are my guys.

No,

there's always a winner.

Look, I mean, imagine

you roll up to some place

and

you've got to bring these guys with you.

And it's like, okay, who's going to you?

Pikachu and Halo, Master Chief show up from Halo,

and you're like, oh, fuck.

Okay, Matt's serious.

Mario and Crash Bandicoot show up, and you're like, these guys know what's happening.

My picks, if you walk into a garage with these two guys, you're like, I don't know what they're capable of.

Yeah.

This is some real participation trophy ass logic here.

There's going to be a winner.

Okay.

What was this guy's deal?

What did he do with Sega Saturn?

So this was the era of extreme, right?

Extreme advertising.

And in order to get people to play the Sega Saturn, the commercials featured this man bullying them until they started.

So he's just a bully.

He's just a mean man.

The information is worse than worse.

I hear the name, I'm like, okay, interesting.

I see it's a man.

Okay, great.

Now I learn he's a bully.

I'll read from the AI overview from Google.

The mascot of the Sega Saturn was Segata Senshiro, a martial artist, character who starred in Japanese commercials from 1997 to 1998.

He was portrayed by actor Hiroshi Fujioka, and his commercials featured him physically intimidating people into playing Saga Saturn.

Ranch has a screenshot on the board.

It says, You must play Sega Saturn.

He's only a must play Sega Saturn.

Very good.

In the most threatening way I could say.

It's frightening, actually.

We should watch a commercial with him.

We should just, you know, we should watch a Segata Senshiro

commercial

with English subtitles.

Let's watch one right now since you guys haven't seen any.

Some baseball players walking down an alley.

They both end a Sagana Sanchiro.

Lords over them intimidatingly.

He just hit through a child, beating the shit out of them.

Three kids.

Yeah, they're in a pile.

Cut to Sonic and the French.

So we beat the shit out of some children and then presented them with a Sega Saturn.

Well, let's watch one more.

Let's watch one more.

He's going to go to the club.

Yeah, he's dancing.

He wants to, maybe he's going to...

There's people dancing.

Another throw.

He's beating up a woman.

He beat up an entire crowd of people.

They're like saying his name with their dying breath, and he just says it right back.

Nice footage of Shiny Force 3.

That's fun.

All right, this guy rules.

Yeah, I would watch the rest of the 10 minutes and 33 seconds of this video.

Yeah, fucking rules, man.

I love the idea of the man who kills you.

The only exchange you have with them is you say their name, and they just look at you and they say it right back.

No other explanation.

That's very hard.

Craig.

Craig.

Craig.

That's

All right, I'm off.

Yeah, that's right.

Give me Sonic the Hedgehog.

What are we doing?

I can't believe it.

I can't believe it.

I think perhaps slightly more impactful is Sega mascots go and Sega Sanchiro.

But yeah,

look, the Blue Blur, just

like, I think he's great.

He's fucking awesome.

He's cool as hell.

He's the natural counterpart to Mario.

I can't believe I was able to get both on my roster.

And also, like, I like that he likes chili dogs, because so do I.

Man.

The chili dog thing has fallen away, but I remember my sister and I watched the cartoon a lot when we were younger.

And man,

it was like chili dog lobby level chili dog representation to the point that I remember my sister would make my dad take us to get chili dogs.

Yeah, because she liked Sonic so much.

And I don't think she liked chili dogs all that much, but would like suffer them just to get a little closer to Sonic.

And that's that's fucking awesome.

Yeah.

I remember that for whatever reason, the Chili Dogs thing just lingers in my mind because of

the specific thing that lingers in my mind, Chili Dog and Sonic related, is

a lewd piece of fan art I saw that was Tails wearing

short jorts.

And Sonic's holding a chili dog and it says, Sonic learned there are some things even hotter than chili dogs.

Just Tails' ass.

And by the piece of fan art you saw, that is the background of it.

Yeah, that's my lock screen.

Yeah.

Cool.

We don't have time for this tangent, but

are chili dogs the best alt hot dog?

Alt to the

as opposed to what, like corn dog?

What do you mean?

Yeah, maybe

Chicago dog an alt, or is that a hot dog?

What fucking podcast am I?

Which fucking show is this?

I just had to raise it.

We don't have time for it.

We won't get a resolution to it.

I ate a Costco dog today.

Fuck yeah, dude.

Fucking.

Chili dogs are incredible.

Nice.

Chili dogs are great.

Yeah, they're soaked.

They're so great.

Imagine if Costco had chili.

Boy.

It'd be American Dream.

Yeah, anyway.

Anyway, we don't got time for that.

You know what they have now?

They do have a calzone.

I was shocked by that.

I've been interested in trying it, actually.

I went yesterday.

I got a slice of pizza.

Oh, man.

That's fun.

Yeah, that's good.

Anyway.

How many booms was it?

I gave it five big booms.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That's a pretty typical number of big booms.

They dragged me out kicking and screaming, but I gave them.

Craig, you had two big picks in a row.

I know.

So

here's where I'm going to go.

I got to go go another one of my boys.

I think you guys have

no idea the canonical gender of this delightful creature, but he'll be one of my little guys, let's say.

I got to go Kirby.

Wow.

Kirby.

Oh, man.

Good, good mascot.

I love Kirby.

Another cute little guy.

Another little red-shoed little freak.

Yeah.

So maybe that's just one of my unifying factors.

Again, Kirby's Dreamland.

Huge for me on my OG Gray Game Boy.

Great soundtrack.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

That's been echoing in my head low these past 35 years.

Yeah, a lot of bangers on there.

Exactly.

I've been playing the 3DS Kirby game where he gets in the robots.

I can't remember what it's called, but it's really, really.

He gets in like mech suits that then use the Kirby power.

That's crazy.

It's nuts.

Yeah.

I love the kirby games i love his mechanic it's so fun that he's just like a void that inhales enemies and then when he kind of like can't i don't know i guess kirby's remanded too for sure he can sort of imbue himself with the powers of them kind of mega man style yeah which i also really like uh he's a little pink cute little guy He's got sort of like natural double jump and float, which I remember I appreciated platforming-wise when I was younger.

Great for Smash Brothers, too.

Yeah, I just think Kirby rules.

Great story, as you guys have covered.

Oh, yeah.

Great origin with the name.

With John Kirby, the lawyer who was argued on Nintendo's behalf in a pivotal court case.

Yeah.

So, yeah,

Kirby is a solid second pick for me.

Ranch, I'm not sure about this Google search for a Kirby gender.

I don't think that's going to turn out too well for us.

Yeah,

just leave that alone.

This purple link where Kirby's woke now, I guess.

Joe Rogan has a whole episode.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's weird.

Weirdly, Kirby's on it?

Yeah.

He's just sucking in the microphone.

There is a post that, can I read this out loud, please?

From 2018,

Ranch has pulled this up on thekirbyfandom.com.

Kirby, male or female.

Very few.

punctuation marks here, so I'll try and read it in its

in its

intention.

Do you you think Kirby is male or female?

And give reasons.

I'll go first.

Up, his voice.

It has a bit of male in it, especially if you listen to him and smash.

Second, his appetite.

It's stereotypical, but it's worth mentioning.

Third, his hats.

All of Kirby's copy ability hats are all for males like Ninja, Sword, Ice, Fire, Beetle.

Fourth and final, his personality.

He's extremely curious and quick to help stubborn.

And his favorite things are food and sleep.

Also, he just has that vibe.

I know it's not helpful, but he just has that male vibe, period.

Feel free to voice your opinions on this.

I just want to end this conflict once and for all because everyone's drawing Kirby one gender or the other when the make him human.

Why don't they do this?

I don't know, maybe for fun.

Those are the DC snipers' last words.

Oh, God.

That's scrawled into a restroom stall.

I don't know what to think about that.

Yeah, Kirby's an incredible pick, but you have a second one.

I do.

I do.

And I mean, you know, again,

as long as they're up here, I think I'm going to say that this is a mascot, although we're maybe drifting a little bit.

I got to go Laura Croft.

Oh, sure.

If I have her, I got to take her.

You know, I was a PlayStation kid.

Sony has been very good to me in my adult life.

I got to keep.

I know

she's sort of cross-platform, but I think of her as a Sony.

Very much so in the early going, yeah.

Yeah, in the early going.

That's a great pick.

That's a great pick.

Just, I was the right age at the right time for Lara Croft to mean a lot of troubling things to me.

I think we all were.

Yeah, yeah.

So there's definitely a little bit of that going in here.

Great ponytail.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The two guns is cool.

Yes.

She passes the silhouette test for good reasons and bad.

But an amazing outfit.

I like in the image that Ranch has pulled up, she's tripping herself.

Yes.

Her foot is stuck behind her other foot and she's about to fall down.

I'm holding two guns.

Maybe the lore reason is mosquito bite bit her other leg and she scratched her leg with the

lore reason.

I loved her house that you could run around.

That's right.

I loved locking that goddamn butler in the refrigerator.

That was an all-timer activity for me.

The remaster of the first three, unfortunately, I think is broken.

I have a physical copy of it and it just bricks my PS5 when I try to print it.

I haven't been able to revisit it, but I still have all my OG games and my OG PlayStation.

So I just have to go up to the attic when I want to hang out with my girl Laura.

Dinosaur Fighter, Tiger, Tamer.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Great.

Great pick.

I've talked before on this show about how much Lara Croft meant to me as a female gamer back in the day.

And I know she wasn't designed with that intentionally to be inspiring to young young women, but man, she was inspiring to me.

I was like, I can't believe I get to be a girl in a game.

It was awesome.

Very cool.

She rules.

All right, I'm up again.

What's it going to be?

I mean, it's not even one of my games, but I guess I got to, I'll just do Minecraft Steve.

Holy

shit.

Are you kidding me?

I wasn't even, my head was not even in that space.

No.

He's got into the lava chicken?

Yeah.

Chicken jockey?

Yeah, I mean, the Jack Black personification is a, you know, obviously takes it to another level, but it's like, you know,

I don't know.

I mean, I feel like it's just like another character that's just so iconic as a video game mascot.

And

yeah,

I guess he belongs up there at this point with Mario and Sonic.

I mean, he's kind of like the same sort of tier.

So I guess if I'm just going for all the eight listers, I'll just add him to my stable.

That's great.

That's a great.

I mean, yeah, you've got a triple-A roster there, and I think you should be proud of it.

That's like the best 10-year-old's birthday party I've ever seen.

Game Master Anthony.

It's so good.

Too bad Zagata is going to show up and beat the shit out of those 10-year-olds.

I'd like to see him try.

I guess I'm up.

Yeah.

And okay, okay.

I hear the notes.

Too niche, too niche, pull back, pick something that everybody knows.

And so I pick something that everybody knows, and that's blue slime.

Wow.

This is a great pick.

This is Dragon Quest.

Blue Slime is

not,

there he is, from Dragon Quest.

Also, the mascot of Enix.

Blue Slime is

fucking awesome to look at.

Great design.

Awesome controller.

Yes,

there was a slime controller for, do you remember what platform that was for?

Multi-platform.

Multi-platform, yeah.

Multi-platform.

But it looked like a slime you could hold.

And,

uh but yeah it was it was just i'm not sure how functional it was but it looked cool as hell uh i think they even made one for the switch so i bet you could still use it for switch too yeah um

very few things say adventure the way blue slime immediate you see blue slime and you're like time for an adventure

um and that's the spirit i would like to evoke with my mascots is one of wondering what could be over the hill, wondering what could be in the distance, wondering what games you can import.

And that's the theme also of mine is that for a long time, you couldn't get all those Dragon Quest games, and you would see Blue Slime in a magazine, and you would be like, what is that?

I want that.

It looks good.

Yeah.

Amazing.

I do like him a lot.

Yeah, he's cool.

All right.

Abadaka's you.

With my final two picks.

That's right.

So

I got to make some tough choices.

I haven't represented

PlayStation yet.

And I grew up a PlayStation boy, and there's a lot of great mascots to choose from.

Where do I draw the line?

You know, I guess I have two picks.

I could make two very specific picks, but I'm going to pick one PlayStation mascot to round out this one right here.

You know, I could go.

Actually, this is what I'm going to do.

I'm picking Ratchet and Clank.

Ratchet and Clank.

Wow.

I'm getting two.

Wow.

And I think I'm allowed to get two there.

That's one entry.

Ratchet and Clank.

I think Ratchet and Clank is one entry.

Could go to booth review, Ranch.

I think that counts, right?

Yeah,

I think it's fine.

I think Ratchet and Clank together is one entry.

Yeah.

Because

they're the guys.

They're the guys, ultimately.

And like, yeah, Clank has had some games on his own.

Ratchet's never had his own solo game.

He needs Clank.

We do.

Yeah.

Is it damning that when you Google Ratchet and Clank, only solo pictures of Ratchet come up?

Absolutely.

But

I kind of think it counts.

Of the PlayStation mascots, I think they're the games I've played the most.

Their recent entries have been really fantastic.

I would love a follow-up to

Rift Apart, but

with Insomniac seemingly only making superhero games now, it's unlikely we'll ever get another one.

But what an entry to go out on.

Incredible game.

Incredible, incredible video game.

And so for my final pick, I'm sort of like, okay.

What's left on the table for me?

There's a lot of big ones.

And I think I just got to go with my gun on this.

I'm going with Tony Hawk.

Wow.

Tony Hawk of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater fame.

Tony Hawk.

He is another man.

Another god.

Another human man.

But I will say, as opposed to Sagata Sanchiro,

not characterized by an actor, but like an actual guy.

Yeah.

He's obviously, you know, he's really cool.

I would, I would probably classify him as one of my heroes.

Yeah.

And

I

he's the

his name is in the title of the game.

It's his game.

His name's in the title.

So he's the mascot of that franchise and he's on the cover of all of them.

So he gets to be he gets to be on my roster.

Ranch has pulled up a TP Tony Hawk.

Very good look for him.

Sucks.

I love it.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

They made him do the mocap for that.

Hilarious.

Really, really funny.

But yeah,

those are my picks.

Ratchet and Clank and Tony Hawk.

Wow.

I love it.

I love it.

Quite a roster you got there.

That is a varied group.

I like it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it kind of covers a lot of different bases.

Anytime Tony Hawk comes up on the podcast, I will once again tell the story that I probably told 10 times at this point, but when Tony Hawk guested on the Comedy Bang Bang TV show, when I was a writer for it, I got to wear his clothes.

We did a bit where I was his stunt double for talk show show appearances because, you know,

the bit naturally being those very low stakes.

Yeah.

And so I got to, they got doubles.

I wasn't wearing his actual clothes.

I didn't get that Tony Hawk Musk.

Yeah.

But, but.

You're about to give me your underwear, buddy.

But I get to wear the exact same thing.

I get to wear the exact same thing as him.

Did you like the style?

You had to get weird.

You were cool as shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You should probably.

You should dress like that now.

That'd be cool.

You're a chater era.

I guess I'm kind of at the age where I could just dress like that and people would just think I'm one of those guys.

Yeah.

why not?

Yeah, all right, well, I'll just do it.

Get some big change of shoes.

Yeah,

change of boards.

Yeah, that's what they mean when they say that.

Heather, you're up with your final pick.

All right, my final pick.

There's so many.

There's so many great

ones still on board.

I got five.

Oh, you did it, though.

I'm going to go with the mascot.

So I've gone with the mascot of a company, the mascot of a console, the mascot of a game series.

And now I'm going to go with the mascot of

one more,

of a publisher, an artist, and that's Ludens from Kojima Productions.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

I love the audacity of making your own mascot that doesn't appear in games

and still opens all of your games.

Ludens, of course, means, I think, play or to practice in,

is that Latin?

Probably.

He's a dude in a spacesuit with a skull mask, and there's a big statue of him at Kojima Productions offices.

He exists exclusively as a mascot, as merchandise, and not in-game in any like...

like certainly not any like deep or meaningful way, but is the representative of the hope of the corporation.

So uh, yeah, Ludens is my uh,

is my final pick to round out my uh, my mascot roster.

They should do a Ludens game, why not?

He looks cool, but also

he's cool, but why?

I guess we're right, like they can

just keep that fucking terrifying dude at the beginning of the games.

Another cool kind of abstract pick from Heather.

What does that mean?

No, I like it.

I think it's, I think it's great.

I think it's a, it's a, you know, it's very you.

okay great i mean that i mean that in a nice way it's the kind of you would pick well yeah so so is mario sonic and steve

it's the kind of

we have to just be grateful that you didn't pick the umd somehow yes sneak that in there or the the uh what was the

you know first off it isn't doing

there is a dreamcast mascot and she is a a girl who represents the internet and is made out of a dreamcast i think her name is called Remy.

I can't believe she didn't make it up there.

Like, Rumi?

Rumi.

R-U-M-I Dreamcast mascot.

Nope.

There's another Rumi.

Maybe it's Remy.

Maybe it's Reynolds.

Rumi's going to be a tough search right now.

With an I, Remy?

Remy Chan.

Remy Chan.

Maybe that's her name.

Remy Chan.

I don't know.

There she is.

It's just over.

That's her.

That's her right there.

Yeah.

she's got a controller head.

I like her.

She she kind of sucks, so I didn't go.

Um,

I also thought, you know, and maybe, and maybe this will be uh Nick's final pick, so I'll say, I hesitate to say it out loud, but no, go for it, but Ryu.

Ryu's a great pick.

Ryu is a good, a good pick, but but he also kind of looks like he's already on my board.

I think a ghee is extremely tough looking.

Yeah, it's a good look.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Sony Cat is still, he had a news program on PSP, and you can still play that game, sort of.

Yeah.

So Sony Cat kind of works as a PSP

guy.

Wow.

All right.

Nick, you're up.

Here's the thing.

I got Mario, I got Sonic, I got Minecraft, Steve.

I've just got like three max players, basically, if we're talking in NBA salary cap terms.

My roster is absolutely loaded.

So I can just kind of riff here.

I would say, like, you know, I was thinking of going with another, with another absolute banger.

And

I, yeah, I was thinking of going with someone who's like a similar sort of status.

But then I was thinking through all of the video game mascots over the years and realized only one gets fucked by Josh Gadd in the movie Pixels.

Give me Qbert.

Oh, my God.

Great pick.

Qbert canonically has sex with Josh Gadd and then produces Qbert-Gad hybrid babies.

So

that's tough.

It's tough information all around.

Yeah.

Is that considered docking?

Because of Qbert's nose.

I guess so.

Is it proboscis or fallus?

I think it's kind of a little from column A, a little from Column B.

It does seem to be the only orifice on his face.

So one hole does it all.

Wow.

It's like a super cloaca.

One hole, one use.

Do you think Qbert shits out of it, too?

I mean, you'd have to.

You got to dispose of waste somehow.

He eats, shits,

comes, gives birth.

Not pisses.

Pisses.

No.

Yeah, all out of that thing.

His face too.

It's, it's.

They didn't know that they were going to do that.

No, I really didn't.

Looking at the design, there was only one way this was going to go.

It was just a matter of time before somebody fucked Qbert out.

I'm glad it was Ged.

Yeah, that's right.

He deserves it.

Yeah, yeah.

Good for him.

There's so many, you know, when you license out one of these

characters, there's so many approvals that have to be gone through.

And I just kind of feel like whoever owns the Q-bert was just so desperate for whatever cash they were offering.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, fuck it.

Gad can fuck him in the post credits.

I don't know.

Yeah, fine, whatever.

The most Q-bert has come up probably in the last maybe 15,

20 years

is people talking about how Gad fucks him.

Yes, yeah.

Like, it's, they, they did something right.

Qbert will be holding a Confederate flag in the scene.

Yeah, fucking whatever.

$250,000.

It's all good.

Wow.

All right, Craig, you have one last pick.

I'm reeling from Qbert still.

I'm sorry.

There's so many different ways I could go with this, but I got to go.

I got to go with my heart.

I got to go with one of the most iconic performances of all time, voiceover-wise.

Wow.

I got to go with a great look.

I got to go with like meme penetration.

And I think I got to go GLaDOS.

Wow.

Wow.

That's a great pick.

I thought you were going to pick yourself up.

Hell divert.

What an awful, awful turn this podcast would have taken.

I thought you were setting up the heel turn of just choosing yourself from Helldiver.

I wish I had because it would have also

what a way to learn that I suck.

Oh, yeah, I listened to Get Play.

Oh, he fucking sucks.

That guy is the worst.

You got to go with the best who ever heard of him.

He is the worst guy.

No,

GLaDOS is amazing.

Yeah, it's a great thing.

So funny, but so scary, and really both at the same time.

The boss fight is unbelievable.

Oh,

aperture science.

Song is so good.

Yeah, I listen to the song sometimes for just enjoyment.

It's great.

Yeah, it's a great song.

Really good.

You can do it, you must, because you can, man.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I feel good about that.

There were a lot of other ideas.

Earthworm Jim was floating around.

Oh, nice.

He was important to me, but I got to go GLaDOS.

Nobody chose Pac-Man.

I was thinking about Pac-Man, but I went with Qbert.

Not even that.

Because Qbert fucked gad.

Yeah.

Because

Pac-Man doesn't fuck actually.

Pac-Man has a wife.

Yeah.

And he's still selling.

They sleep in different twin beds like Lucy and Desi.

All right.

Shall we recap?

Craig, let's start with you.

Yeah, so my mascot draft: Crash Bandicoot, Kirby, Larcroft, and GLaDOS.

I got myself Mario Sonic, Minecraft Steven Huber,

like a fucking cereal box.

I have the Sony Cat Toro, Sagata Sensuro, Ludens from Kojima Productions, and Slime, Blue Slime.

And I got Pikachu, Master Chief, Ratchet, and Clank, and Tony Hawk.

What a lineup.

A guy.

Just a guy.

Yeah.

That was mascot draft.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

And guys, Craig prepared the segment this week.

Wow.

I did.

So what's about to transpire is my fault.

You know, we talked a little bit last time about, you know, just some of the processes of doing video games.

So I wanted to give you guys a little bit of maybe like a clue

the other side of the mic, what we go through.

And a lot of what we go through is just being given absolutely inscrutable physical actions to portray

and having to do alts of those that sometimes convey that reality.

So I thought, what if I made them even stupider and forced you guys to do them?

So I have a segment I prepared called Good Effort.

Nice.

And Rochelle and I are, I mean, I don't know.

Rochelle, the world's our oyster.

We could do points.

We could just give praise.

I don't know.

We could gamify this however we want, but I prepared some effort scenarios for you guys each to do.

Great.

So yeah,

we could just sort of cue these up.

I will read out and then each one of you guys will perform this to the best of your ability and Ranch and I will award some points.

Dynamite.

Amazing.

So Heather, your first

toad from the Mario universe flees from his life from a pack of wild dogs.

That's pretty good.

She's incredible.

She's good.

I would say, yeah, maybe we could judge on two factors.

I would say, like, in terms of seeing it in my theater of the mind, I give you a three out of three.

Okay.

And yeah, in terms of dedication and performance, I also give three out of three.

What do you think, Ranch?

Same.

Full points.

Perfect.

Full points for you.

Matt, let's say

goofy from your favorite Kingdom Hearts suffers from a terrible nightmare for around five seconds and then awakes with a gas.

I'm getting into the space.

That's fine.

I'm getting into the space.

Take your time.

I'm going to sleep.

Gorsch.

Donald.

Wow.

That was sensational.

I mean, I think this might be becoming a trend, but that's a full score for me.

You got Gorsch in there, and we had a Yahoo.

That was really

what I was looking for.

Ranch?

Wow, okay.

It's all tied up at the end.

You're going to be Dr.

Point because I wasn't prepared to

turn the dial on.

Okay, that's my fault.

You lost one point for engineering.

Ranch wasn't prepared, and that's my fault.

Wages,

all right, team me up.

I'm ready.

All right, Wiggs.

Deckard Kane desperately chugs a jar of water, finds it is irradiated, and is violently ill.

Deckard Kane from Diablo.

Okay.

Can you give me the direction one more time?

Deckard Kane, he chugs a jar of water only to find it is irradiated, kind of fallout style, and is violently ill.

Okay, got it.

Oh boy.

That is not the direction I thought the illness was going to come from.

But you did, you used the old voice actor trick.

Hey, your character's drinking.

You get that water bottle out.

Got it.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

That's full points.

Wow, that was incredible.

Okay, so so far, I'm the only one that has not full points.

You take that up.

Take that up with Ranch.

I think her and Merch are hanging out later.

This is Fuck.

He's sort of talking.

Fuck.

I'm actually docking one because that was gross.

Okay, fair enough.

Fair enough.

Ranch don't like potty humor.

Heather, I don't mean to stretch you because this is a character that I know is not really in your wheelhouse.

And I don't know that you've ever done an impersonation of this character before.

But what if the Resident Evil merchant took a bite of something delicious that was not theirs, a la like window cooling, pie cooling on a window, and then had to flee away?

Okay, so you want me to do an impression of the merchant?

Have you?

They're on the show a lot.

Do you have them walking on the mouse?

They ignore me.

What was it again?

They take a bite of something delicious and then are surprised by the owner of that food and have to sort of splutter an explanation.

Yum, yum,

yum.

I like it.

Yum, yum.

Oh, no.

There's.

I got caught.

We've never tried that voice.

I have.

And like I said, that's so good.

I'm not saying I was like him.

Pretty good.

He was sending you out of your tight.

He would be like that, though.

Yeah.

I mean,

listen, I ain't too bad.

That's a full score for me.

I thought that was fantastic.

Thank you so much.

That was crazy.

Well done.

Matt.

Yes.

This is another one.

I keep making you guys stretch, and I apologize.

I don't know if you've ever done this before.

I know he's been on the show, but Joel from The Last of Us

is caught in a room full of rakes a la sideshow boss.

Okay.

If I were to lose you.

Oh, wait, there it is.

It's one of those comic books that he likes.

It's just beyond something that can't quite see.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, ah, God.

Damn.

Oh, that hurt really bad.

Hey, wait.

It's one of them comic books Ellie Lax.

It's something in the way.

Oh, fuck off.

Second one.

Who put all these,

what are they called?

Big forks or something.

Incredible.

So Joel's stupid?

Yeah.

I would give you a full score, Matt.

I am going to have to dock you a point because I think Joel knows what a rake is.

Yeah, I know.

That was a little bit immersion-breaking for me.

I was getting cute with it.

It's my biggest flaw.

No, no, no.

You're a cutie pie.

I try it.

You live by the sword.

You live by the big fork.

You die by the big fork.

You know what a rape is.

Is this similar to a note I would have gotten on Herald Night?

Absolutely.

Incredible.

Nick,

I'm so sorry, guys.

I'm a fan of the show, and I should have made this easier for you.

There's another out of the box.

No offense.

You keep apologizing.

It kind of seems like you're doing it on purpose.

I don't know what he's talking about.

It gotta seem like you're doing it on the purpose.

Nick Bugsy is hooked up to a car battery and intermittently tortured for information.

Got it, got it.

Okay,

okay.

This is a catastrophe.

You were dancing on the edge of a deduction until the pun.

Real pun sealed.

Full score.

Full score.

Was the battery in the car still?

I assume so.

Okay, so did the car sound like Bubsy 2?

Bubsy's car sounds like it.

It's a button motor.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

He sucks enough for that to be true.

I thought that was fantastic.

Okay, Heather,

I saved one of my favorite characters for last.

I don't know that they've appeared in a lot of video games, but I think you can get a lock on this.

Nick Weiger is dragged out of a courtroom after being found guilty of a capital offense.

Dragged out?

Dragged out of a courtroom.

You know how court works.

Once you're in there, they drag you out.

Well, fair enough.

I brought my own noose.

So it's a public execution and it's convenient as well.

No way to.

We got to get to the trial today.

Shakespeare said it best: brevity is the soul of wit.

12 out of 12 for me.

Excellent.

Matt, again,

not a character that appears in a lot of games, but certainly is involved in games.

Heather and Campbell flies into a rage after someone knocks over her recent gunplub prop.

Okay, no, yeah, you got it.

Who do I have a

Heather?

Okay.

Okay,

I'm just searching for it.

I'm just like kind of going through my dance.

No, go into your box.

Go into the palace.

I'm watching

anime.

I'm on eBay looking at

defunct

media format.

You're individually cracking coffee beans with a tungsten tool.

My hands are just covered in egg yolk.

My fists are bald filled with eggshell.

What was the prompt?

Heather Ann Campbell flies into a rage after someone knocks over her recent gunplay.

Yeah,

I think that was incredible.

Full points, reperformance.

I am going to have to document because you did scare me and I peed a little.

That's fair.

I'm so sorry.

So that's more on me.

But that means I did a good job.

Nick, you're going to bring us home.

Matt, Mr.

Games Appodaka reacts to Christopher's Death on the Sopranos.

Okay, all right.

So I'm Matt.

So I'm probably petting my cat, wearing a Dodger's hat.

Okay, okay.

Christopher Moldasanti has just been iced by Tony Soprano.

Uncle Surrogate Fontaine.

Yeah, right after a car crash.

He's plugging his nose.

And he's asphyxiating on his own blood.

I'll never pass a drug test.

I'll never pass a drug.

That's what he's saying in the show.

I just re-watched it.

Akadaka looks up from his play date.

He sees this scene play out on the screen.

Huh.

12 out of 12.

That's good effort.

Thank you so much, Joyce.

That's good effort.

What a segment.

What a great segment.

Really well crafted, Craig.

Hey, that's this week's Get Play at our Producers for Channel 10.

Ranch Yard underscore underscore sard.

You streaming Ranch?

I am.

I'm playing Silent Hill F.

Awesome.

Nice.

Check that out over on her Twitch.

Our music is by Ben Prenti, BenPrentiMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckRegay Design, DuckRegay.com.

Get Played Merch at KinshipGoods.com.

And check out Get Animate our sister show on Patreon.

Matt, what are you watching this week?

We're going to be done with Elfin Lead.

Craig.

Almost done.

We're sorry.

We're sorry.

We're fucking sorry.

We're sorry.

We fucked up.

Fucked up.

Patreon.com slash get played.

Craigly Thomas, what an absolute delight to have you back in studio.

Thank you so much.

Just the treat of treats.

I spend so much time with you guys every week, and it is truly the joy of a lifetime to get to actually spend a little bit of time with you guys.

So thank you for having me back every week.

Thank you for being here.

Such an incredible voiceover artist and such a funny dude.

It's so great to have you in the studio.

Anything you'd like to plug?

No, I mean,

if you want to see pictures of my dogs and me wearing my Helldivers helmet somebody sent me just doing tasks in my house, you can look at my Instagram, which is at it's me, Craigly, and then you'll see those.

Those are the things you'll see.

And Craig, I'm going to turn the exercise back on you.

Incredible.

And I would like you to react as Craigly Thomas finding out you just got played.

Well, let me open up this message here.

Good old Weiger has emailed me once again.

Oh,

dear God.

You son of a bitch.

I'm going to flay that tiger tattoo off of your leg and make you eat it.

You fucking podcasting little bitch.

You're never going to be able to write another parody song again.

You absolute asshole.

That's definitely.

Affluent marks.

That was a hit gum podcast.

What's up, everybody?

I'm Kyle Mooney.

And what's up, everybody?

I'm back Ben.

And man, ooh,

we got something to tell you.

Oh, yeah, we definitely do.

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

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

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

Yeah, we don't.

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

Yep, guests like Mark Maron, Jack Black, Brittany Broski, Cape Berland, Bobby Moynihan, Make Stalter, and Tim Ball, Landon Axler, Joey,

Joni McGrees,

and Dender.

And Dender.

New episodes release every Wednesday.

So subscribe to What's Our Podcast on YouTube or any of your favorite podcast platforms.

Yeah.

I'm going to go do it right now.