Game of the Year Watch 2025

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Speaker 1 Hey, hey, guys. I'm so excited to do this episode.
I'm so excited to talk about what could be the game of the year this year. I love it.

Speaker 1 I love the idea of us going through a little bit of video footage of these games just to refresh our memories.

Speaker 2 Yeah, of course, yeah.

Speaker 1 But I also have some pretty crazy news. Okay,

Speaker 1 my grandma has been in a coma for 40 years.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 And she just woke up today. And I want to introduce you guys to her.
Hey, everyone, this is my grandma. Wow.

Speaker 2 Hi. Hi, Grandma Campbell.
Hello, everybody.

Speaker 2 Hi, Grandma. It's so good to meet you.
Oh, nice. That's similar to what I kind of said.

Speaker 2 You know, my granddaughter,

Speaker 2 she used to play the podcast on my ears, and I could hear it even though I was asleep. Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah, so how are you experiencing it? I feel very familiar with your voice.

Speaker 2 The last five to six years of your four-decade coma. So you went to a coma in 1985.
Yes, I did. Do you remember one of the last things I saw? What's that? Was the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. So you would have just seen maybe Super Mario Brothers.

Speaker 2 It was such an incredible game, and I, you know, I heard what you're talking about today, and that was game of the year that year.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Grandma, I hope you're ready to get your socks knocked off because games are a little bit different now. Oh, is that so? Is Mario still running around? Well, actually, yeah, here's the thing.

Speaker 2 He actually kind of is just running. He's just starting on that little guy.

Speaker 2 We can show you some footage of some of these games games so you get a sense of what gaming is like in 2025.

Speaker 2 I would love to see what I missed out on. You just talked about Nintendo.
You maybe remember Donkey Kong.

Speaker 2 Donkey Kong. Yeah, before you went to your, how did you get into your combo anyway? I hijacked a train because I needed to get my husband across the border.
Wait, what?

Speaker 2 I hijacked. You hijacked a train? I had to hijack my husband.
Like a freight train? Yeah, I hijacked a freight train. I just needed to get my husband across the border.
And

Speaker 2 this is Heather's grandfather. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yes, it's Heather's grandfather. And when I got off the Canadian mountains, they shot me with a beanbag gun.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 But my husband lived 39

Speaker 2 years longer.

Speaker 2 Wait. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 You just missed his passing. That's what they tell me, but I'm glad that he lived a good long life.
You know what sucks that he died a year ago?

Speaker 2 Because he never got to see Donkey Kong Bonanza with the game. Yeah, take a look at Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Speaker 2 Wow,

Speaker 2 look at that.

Speaker 2 Oh my god.

Speaker 2 That looks like a cartoon. Yeah,

Speaker 2 crazy, right? Well, that's gotta be game of the year right there. Oh, get a little of this.
This one's called Death Stranding 2, and there's a little too much to explain.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God, that's a real man! Yeah, it's based off of real action.

Speaker 2 It's almost a real guy. That's just a video game, yeah.
And he's riding a coffin that

Speaker 2 comes with

Speaker 2 that lady looks real, too. Oh, you know, it's indeed a good idea.
Oh, my God. Well, that's gotta be game of the year.
Well, there's also this game.

Speaker 2 This is another, this came out pretty recently, Ghost of Yote. What? Oh, am I in a time machine?

Speaker 2 Look at that. That looks so real.

Speaker 2 Oh, this is what the games are now. You just run around and some and it's real.

Speaker 2 It's pretty crazy what the graphical fidelity has come so far. Oh my god! Look at a couple of 40 years!

Speaker 2 Yeah, those boys. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 You kind of weren't a time machine of sorts. It felt like it.
I can't believe the games look like they're so beautiful. Look at that mountain.
Yeah, really beautiful stuff. Wow.

Speaker 2 That has to be game of the year.

Speaker 2 You might think this one is kind of interesting because I would imagine you've been, you spent some time in various rooms in your past.

Speaker 2 This game is called. Yeah, you spend some time in various rooms in your past.
I've spent various rooms. That's true.
This game is called Blue Prince. Okay.

Speaker 2 Wow, that is beautiful. Look at that.
Oh, you like it?

Speaker 2 It looks like a cartoon. It kind of does look like a cartoon.

Speaker 2 But hold on a second. Hold on.
Is that me?

Speaker 2 How's it coming out of my eyes?

Speaker 2 the one walking in the room. Oh, the first person perspective is throwing you on the wall.

Speaker 2 It's not you. Wow, that's amazing.
Oh, my God. I'm walking forward.
I feel like I'm going to fall. That has to be.
Has anybody done that before? Yeah, yeah. That's incredible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just a common thing. That man was just a sideways little son of a bitch.
Like, I.

Speaker 2 That man,

Speaker 2 I was never inside his head. What does the man look like that I'm inside of? Well, actually,

Speaker 2 that's less the point of this, though you can find

Speaker 2 this character design, but it's like it's more about just embodying this.

Speaker 2 Put me in front of a mirror so I can look at myself. That's inside.
That has to be game of the... And aren't these rooms changing? These rooms are different.

Speaker 2 Every time you'd start a new day,

Speaker 2 oh Mark, I wish my husband could have seen this. If only he had, yeah, lived another year.
Ah, well, he lived a happy life with all that money from the bank.

Speaker 2 I did live another year. Oh, my God, Grandpa Campbell? That's right.
My husband's alive. I went into a one-year coma, but I just woke up.
Wow, is this what games look like then?

Speaker 2 Oh, they look so different in 2024. Here's a gun.
Let's go get a break.

Speaker 2 We prognosticate and soothsay as we make our predictions for game of the year 2025 this week on Get Played.

Speaker 1 Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.
I'm your host, Heatheran Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger.

Speaker 2 That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Mr. Games Matt Apodaka.
Hello, everyone.

Speaker 1 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where it is almost time

Speaker 1 for the game of the year.

Speaker 1 And what does that mean for our podcast? We're here on the 2025 Game of the Year watch.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for those of you that are just listening, that's primarily the only way you could experience the show. Yeah.
Otherwise, you'd be seeing clips. There's not a way to watch the show completely.

Speaker 2 We have one of those

Speaker 2 big screens that you can touch and then expand images on and stuff in front of. And there's like a map of

Speaker 2 the world. Some of it's in different colors.
And the games are represented on that map as well.

Speaker 1 And then for no reason, we also have superimposed over that flood damage. So I am now currently 18 feet below where the storm surge is.

Speaker 2 Various parts of the map are just crossed out. Right.

Speaker 2 They're crossed out. Some of the names of the stuff has changed.
Yeah. But the games are on the map, and we're going to be talking about some of those games.
The games are on the map.

Speaker 1 The games are on the map. And so is the circa 2002 George W.
Bush terrorist threat level. And we are at yellow.

Speaker 2 We're all wearing khakis up to our fucking necks. We're ready to go.
God, I forgot about the terror alert level. It was like, I feel like it was just at level three for like 15 years.

Speaker 2 And then they're like, eh, we're just not going to do it anymore. He's discontinued it.
Because there's no help to anybody. I guess it's just kind of like that.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Because also, there was a time when it did go to red.

Speaker 1 Remember, it went to red, and we were all like, what can we do?

Speaker 2 Yeah, but then Night Owl and Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach all got back together and sort of stopped it.
Or I guess they didn't really stop it, did they?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, it depends on your interpretation. Yeah.
I was eating shit out of a paper bag.

Speaker 2 This city sucks. This city fucking sucks and this fucking stinks, but I love eating this shit.
In a way, Ozzy Mandius was, you know, he

Speaker 2 had a whole false flag thing. Yeah.
I watched a rat fuck a dog at a McDonald's

Speaker 2 and it didn't even order.

Speaker 2 This city sucks.

Speaker 2 What would happen if a giant alien squid got teleported in to Manhattan and killed a bunch of people?

Speaker 1 I got your answer. Yeah.
Absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2 You think people would just, we'd just be normalized.

Speaker 1 We would normalize that shit within one month. We'd be like, God, that was crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the fucking giant squid. Remember that alien that came by? And just, first off, aliens are real.
And then also like thousands of people were killed?

Speaker 1 Nothing would happen.

Speaker 2 I think it would happen.

Speaker 2 The only thing that would happen really is that more places would start selling calamari and we would just have it more available to us. And then

Speaker 2 someone would have like a shirt shirt that said like i'm the tentacle bitch

Speaker 2 gets fucked by one

Speaker 1 within i bet within

Speaker 1 two minutes of the attack the first meme would hit the internet that would be pervasive right you remember while while hurricane katrina was hitting

Speaker 2 i saw someone post a meme of um zang geef uh spinning pile driving the city of new orleans he's like

Speaker 2 this is insane. You can't do this immediately.
So many things I wish

Speaker 2 we could just put back in the tube.

Speaker 2 We can't because

Speaker 2 phones and the internet.

Speaker 1 I would love to do this show on the radio, just like the regular radio.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we all talk like this.

Speaker 2 Welcome to Get Play. Welcome to Radio.
We're radio guys here on the radio talking on Get Play. And I'm over here with Matt Appadaka, Mr.
Games.

Speaker 2 We love Matt. That's right.
They love me.

Speaker 2 Jesus Christ

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 your Lord and Savior.

Speaker 2 This is our

Speaker 2 most lucrative episode.

Speaker 2 Your donations!

Speaker 2 It's just interesting that people are catching on now because from the jump, this has been a Christian podcast. Always been a Christian podcast from day one.
We got you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Guess what? You love God, actually.

Speaker 2 Sorry. Looking down at their crucifix

Speaker 2 necklace. At least get on on here.
What the hell? Wait, what's this in my mouth? The fucking little cracker?

Speaker 2 Yes, the fucking little cracker. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You go to church, you take the holy sacrament, you get the fucking little cracker on your tongue.

Speaker 2 Yo, priest, give me one of them fucking little crackers. Usually, Matt is

Speaker 1 100%, and that was the first time I've seen him fire it. 3%.

Speaker 2 It's an honor you think I got more than that.

Speaker 2 It was great for you to cover for me

Speaker 2 seconds before not being able to find the word necklace. So thank you for doing that.
I'm in Netflix or anything like that.

Speaker 1 That's the kind of show you're in for today, everybody.

Speaker 1 It's the watch down of the game of the year runnings odds.

Speaker 2 Yeah, podcast. We obviously have our own awards that we'll do at the end of this year, as we do every year, as we have since we've, I think since we started the podcast.

Speaker 2 Maybe that's only a recent format thing.

Speaker 2 A format change thing.

Speaker 2 No, we've done it. I think we did it in our first year.
I think we've been doing it for a while. Never stopped.
Anyway, but we're looking at the larger gaming consensus, I think.

Speaker 2 I think we're more like saying, hey, the game awards, publications, you know,

Speaker 2 the Steam Awards, whatever, what have you. Like, what is going to potentially end up on top?

Speaker 1 What is the tea? What is the talk? What is the goss?

Speaker 1 And what is the game?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 We're going to get to the bottom of it. We will get to the bottom of it.
You'd ever have

Speaker 2 a really grim grim breakfast.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Let's go.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like, what do you, like, I mean... What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Like, gravy?

Speaker 2 Not like maybe like eggs with a bunch of shell in it or something. Straight gravy.

Speaker 1 Also, that's not that bad.

Speaker 2 I have that all the time.

Speaker 2 We did figure something out when you were not around recently.

Speaker 1 We did, we did.

Speaker 2 With that, I do think brown eggs are tougher than white eggs, and Heather only uses brown eggs.

Speaker 1 I exclusively use brown.

Speaker 2 Is that true? Yeah. Do you confirm that? Anecdotally,

Speaker 2 I use white eggs.

Speaker 2 I get large white most of the time.

Speaker 2 Had brown recently. Got some shell in there.
But I'm

Speaker 2 graduating.

Speaker 1 I've graduated on two things.

Speaker 1 I've got, I bet a 50% egg ratio now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I can also do latte art, which took three years.

Speaker 2 Again, this is deflecting. That's not about eggs.

Speaker 1 Three years of leveling in order to make a heart and a little leaf.

Speaker 2 Very impressive.

Speaker 1 Very, very, like, also what's funny about leveling up when you're trying a skill like that, the day before, you can't do it. The day after, you can do it over and over again.

Speaker 2 What a feeling. It's like finally cranking out a pull-up when you're trying to do that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or cranking

Speaker 1 on your pull out.

Speaker 2 Or cranking off, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, some days I just can't quite figure it out. Candy, Loya, what's going on here? Yeah.
You need to do that.

Speaker 2 Accidentally starting a fire, rubbing my hands together like this.

Speaker 2 What the fuck's going on with this thing?

Speaker 1 My favorite way to improvise, jerk jerk off is to only pull.

Speaker 2 That's funny. Like to just

Speaker 2 like a magician pulling hankies out of your sleeve. I did see somebody one time, I think maybe it was in a class or something with our pal Will Hines, who's been on the show.
He said, when you're,

Speaker 2 I think he was noting somebody in a scene. He's like, everybody does this.
Everybody, when they're standing at a urinal, they gesture like they're holding like the fucking biggest og.

Speaker 2 He's like, do you know how much funnier it is to just go like this?

Speaker 2 Just like between two fingers. Yes.
And I was like, that is funnier.

Speaker 1 An improviser that

Speaker 1 Nick and I used to work with all the time, this guy, Jim Woods.

Speaker 1 He would very often do the very small penis at a urinal. He also, his way of jerking off in a scene, was straight that

Speaker 2 a maniac. So funny.
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 Man, I remember Jim Woods doing a scene that I still remember where it was like, he was like a vet treating a spider, and then the spider went into like cardiac arrest.

Speaker 2 He was doing CPR on a spider with two fingers.

Speaker 2 And then he was like, it's not working.

Speaker 2 He tried to jack it off.

Speaker 2 It's a little invisible, like spider-sized spider. And he tried to blow it.

Speaker 1 I saw that guy in a scene.

Speaker 1 I saw that guy in a scene in Amsterdam.

Speaker 1 Somebody rang the door and like a doorbell, you know, and improvised, giving him a pizza. And he goes, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 Threw it on the ground, stomped on it.

Speaker 2 I love that shit. I love just silly people having fun.

Speaker 1 Scene work is fucking great.

Speaker 1 And you can't see the work we're doing because this is an audio podcast. That's true.

Speaker 1 1085 a.m.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right. 1085 a.m.
The jizz.

Speaker 2 Cages.

Speaker 2 I think because I was a kid and I listened to the radio so much, I like wanting to be on on the radio so bad. I did want to be on the radio.
I thought the radio was like the place to be.

Speaker 2 And then eventually the radio. Now it's like you can be on the radio and you're you have a bigger audience than a podcast for

Speaker 2 like a lot of the you know a lot of the these these terrestrial radio shows have like absolutely massive listenerships in terms of raw numbers, but it's just like a relevance thing.

Speaker 2 It's like the difference between having a network TV show and like, you know, a prestige show on HBO Max. More people are watching Blue Bloods on CBS than are watching, you know,

Speaker 2 what's the White Lotus, you know what I mean? Or a White Lotus is in the Zeitgeist.

Speaker 1 Well, I have a question about that, which is that I don't know. I feel like the zeitgeist, as is defined by online presence, actually isn't the zeitgeist.

Speaker 1 Like, I think when I see the numbers for shows like Yellowstone or whatever, and they dwarf everything, I'm like, the true, it's not the true America, but the true public, the most popular popular song on television, if it were, is Is It Were?

Speaker 1 As it were.

Speaker 1 If it was,

Speaker 1 I don't care.

Speaker 1 Is a thing that we just don't listen to.

Speaker 2 Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I don't think that makes it less popular. And I certainly don't think that makes it less zeitgeisty.
I think people in our little online circle just aren't talking about it.

Speaker 1 It's like how Mad Men was topping out at 500,000 viewers a week. And it's like,

Speaker 1 I was releasing YouTube videos with bigger numbers.

Speaker 2 Right. We all like, it's,

Speaker 2 interesting like it in terms because we also all have our own like little gated ecosystems now.

Speaker 2 And so like I think like like a lot of like for instance the country music, which is like enormously popular like just in our circles is just kind of we don't hear we don't hear a ton about. But no.

Speaker 2 It's like it's so fucking

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess I don't know how to characterize it. I guess I am thinking in terms of like what the the media like outlets that I obs that I consume, you know, are talking about.

Speaker 2 But, you know, know, like, what is that? That's also like self-selected.

Speaker 2 I do think, yeah, the zeitgeist is probably not dictated by the size of the audience of the thing, but the medium it's discussed on. Yeah.
Right. So, like,

Speaker 2 interesting. Like, millions and millions of people watch a second spin-off of the Big Bang Theory called George and Mandy's First Marriage.
Wait, that's a Big Bang Theory spin-off? Yes.

Speaker 2 What's it about? It is about Sheldon's brother. Sheldon's brother? Yeah, young Sheldon's brother.
As a young guy? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Young Sheldon's brother getting married. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Young Sheldon's brother's not on Big Bang Theory. I don't think he is.
No, he is. He appears.
He's Jerry O'Connell. Oh, he's Jerry O'Connell.

Speaker 2 Hey, if you can get Jerry O'Connell on your show, that fucking rule is. I like Jerry O'Connell.
He's awesome. Good guy, good guy.

Speaker 2 Hold on. So on.

Speaker 2 But it's not Jerry O'Connell and George Mandy's first time. Some young guy.

Speaker 1 I wonder if Jerry O'Connell gets residuals for helping establish the character. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 Oh, interesting. I hope so.
It is the, but, but wait, the premise of this is like by the end, it's like a reverse how I met you, your mother. By the end, they get divorced.

Speaker 2 You know, I actually, it's, it was a tough example because I actually don't know anything about this show at all. But I, to, to illustrate, I brought it up to illustrate a point.

Speaker 2 That's a show that, like, none of us know anything about, but millions of people watch this show. That's true.

Speaker 2 But I would imagine that like the size of like the Reddit community is either non-existent or small.

Speaker 1 I think that the only place where the zeitgeist aligns with, and I'm going to wrap wrap it back up to our show, the zeitgeist aligns with what people are playing is video games.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 But like if people are talking about the video game, it is also a big hit. Yeah.
Like there are not video game, like, I know you guys don't specifically talk about Fortnite, but it's certainly online.

Speaker 1 Fortnite is spoken about and is a massive hit.

Speaker 1 It's not like,

Speaker 1 it's not like everybody was talking about Blue Prince, but it didn't sell even 20,000 copies. Right, right.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Sure, but I do think there are games that are absolutely massive that don't get discussed much. Like, I imagine, like, a clash of clans is like played by so many more people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. These games are like absolutely fucking massive.
And so,

Speaker 2 and also, I think, like, the Call of Duties kind of get short shrift in the gaming press because they're just like coming out every year.

Speaker 2 The Maddens and the FIFAs of the world get a little bit less talk. And those are games that are like, like, played a ton.
So, I think it just depends

Speaker 2 somebody's gonna be so mad somebody's gonna be like i talk about call of duty all day i don't care all the time i don't care that's fine it's okay let him be mad i'm okay well no no i mean i'm i'm talking about i don't care i'm talking about like if you go to like you know if if you're looking at gaming the gaming press if you're looking at just kind of like where where what people are actually talking about and and also i i think there is something to there's a different sort of fandom for something like that you know versus like the kind of people who again would like go super deep in reddit threads and again the call of duty reddit uh reddit is probably absolutely massive yeah it's probably

Speaker 2 locked down

Speaker 2 i mean i get like is it battlefront like a battlefront clips on my timelines all the time of like somebody like jumping out of a fucking plane bazookaing another plane and then getting in that plane i get that shit all the time silly but it's all like it's all bubble stuff though right like like it's you're gonna be fed stuff that like you don't maybe have like a passing interest in that necessarily but because you like video games and these are like popular clips that's gonna make its way toward you versus something like country music or this show that

Speaker 2 I mentioned a second ago that I'm going to be making.

Speaker 2 Or just like anything like that. Like,

Speaker 2 people love the new Matlock. And I just don't know a single person that's

Speaker 2 good.

Speaker 2 Look, I'm happy. I'm happy that it is.

Speaker 1 Is it a fucking girl? Did they make Matlock a girl? It's Kathy Baine.

Speaker 2 They made it a woke.

Speaker 1 Unfucking believable. I fucking knew it.

Speaker 2 I knew it. But I think the thing about it.

Speaker 2 I think if I have

Speaker 1 clicked on it. his, by the way, that was my line.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm now.

Speaker 2 Look, welcome to the resistance. You know, like a guy I saw in the Dodge Ram driving over with a bumper sticker that said, not woke.
Dude, we saw your truck.

Speaker 2 Kind of a hat on a hat, buddy.

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Speaker 1 soon and grab what you can before their biggest sale of the year goes dark.

Speaker 1 I've seen so many cyber trucks this week. I thought, I thought I had, I thought cybertrucks had crested, and I wasn't going to see them anymore.
I've seen so many fucking cyber trucks this week.

Speaker 2 You're at the dealership. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Every time I see one, I have this reflex that I'm not in control of anymore, or I just go like this.

Speaker 2 You know what sucks?

Speaker 1 You know what sucks is that between the Cybertruck and the Optimus robot,

Speaker 1 Elon Musk is making the world I want to live in, but he's an awful fucking person, so I don't get to indulge myself in any of these crazy things.

Speaker 2 He's like, I'm also doing all this other bad stuff, but this other stuff. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Like, like the Optimus is the

Speaker 2 new thing?

Speaker 1 It's his robot that he's going to make.

Speaker 2 I built something because people have decided they don't want to fuck me anymore, so I'm going to fuck this thing.

Speaker 1 Well, there's like this week, there was this big robot announcement called the Neo. Yes.
Where they're like,

Speaker 1 yeah, where it's like

Speaker 1 20 grand, you get one next year. It can do your laundry.
it can wash your dishes, it walks around your house.

Speaker 2 But also, damn, that's all. Also,

Speaker 1 it is potentially remote operated by an off-site person. Oh, well, who's in like a VR helmet? If the task is too complicated, if it's like, hey, I need you to sort these cards,

Speaker 1 then it gets booted into a real person and the real person sorts the cards, which is

Speaker 1 unethical.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, but

Speaker 1 what I'm saying is, hey, I need you to shake this corn dog.

Speaker 2 Sort of near your mouth, kind of.

Speaker 1 I'm going to put a blindfold on you, robot, because I don't want you to see how gross my corn dog is.

Speaker 1 He's only doing it this way.

Speaker 2 It's only pulling.

Speaker 1 But that is the...

Speaker 1 Conceptual extension of the Ibo, which was Sony's dog that it released in like 99 and 2003 or whatever, right?

Speaker 1 Like that's the dream is to have a robot walking around your house that does shit right i kind of don't want a robot i do so fucking bad

Speaker 2 i i here's the thing we have a fucking roomba and i think it's a pain in the ass i was like i was like i this sometimes it's easier just a vacuum you gotta dump it out you gotta dump like like there's all sorts of maintenance you have to do there's all sorts of things you have to replace there's more shit that you have to maintain than wow on an on an actual vacuum and then also it's like things like like it's just like like roomba is stuck it's like okay i thought this thing was automated Now I got to go find this thing.

Speaker 2 I got to flip it open, flip it over. I got to like pull some like, you know, hair out of it or whatever.

Speaker 1 Figuring's just got a dog stuck in a trash can in his house.

Speaker 2 They named Roomba.

Speaker 2 So I don't know. I mean, I could see it being more, one of those things where it's more trouble than it's worth.

Speaker 2 It's like the sort of thing when you read about all the appliances that came about in the mid-20th century, all the things like dishwashers and washing machines

Speaker 2 and what have you, that like, like this stuff actually made housework take longer? Because what happened is the standard for the expectations for housework became higher because it was automated.

Speaker 2 It was like, well, now you should be able to do more.

Speaker 2 Things should be at a higher level. This is a tangent that we certainly don't have time to go down.
I think. I wonder what the, what the last

Speaker 2 most necessary invention was. But one of the last invention that was like, as a, that had a net good.
Air conditioning. Yeah, it probably was air conditioning.
You're absolutely right again.

Speaker 2 Air conditioning might have been a net bad.

Speaker 2 For the environment? Yes, bad for the environment. And it also led to a bunch of people moving to areas where it was really energy efficient.
Like it's like

Speaker 2 the gigantic populations in, for instance, Arizona. No offense to our Arizonans out there, but it's not a particularly efficient place for people to be moving.
It is interesting.

Speaker 2 I bet you have to go back further than you think to find

Speaker 2 the last necessary thing we actually needed.

Speaker 2 I think the telephone probably helped. Yeah.
The telephone feels pretty good. But now look where the phone is now.
The phone's bad now. Well, yeah, the phone is bad now.

Speaker 2 But I mean, like, the old-school wired telephone where you could call somebody, you know.

Speaker 1 But you could argue that it that killed Violet Evergarden's job.

Speaker 2 That did kill Violet Evergarden's job.

Speaker 2 I forgot about the toll it took on Violet Evergarden at the telephone. Here I am singing its praises, and yet look what it did.
Unemployment line?

Speaker 2 What is

Speaker 2 soup?

Speaker 1 This is all references to our sister show, Get Anime.

Speaker 2 We watched a show about a weird thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we watched a show about a very slow time in the world where you wrote letters and had somebody else write them for you.

Speaker 2 Well, I think you're kind of characterizing it in a negative way. It was

Speaker 2 the auto time of auto-memory dolls when they would people be enlisted in a time when not everyone was literate.

Speaker 1 I can't believe you remember the term auto-memory dolls.

Speaker 2 I thought it was not a bad thing. I enjoyed the show, okay? Sorry for liking Violet Evergarde.

Speaker 2 I thought the last movie I didn't love the ending of, but I thought overall it was a very satisfying show. Let's not forget there was

Speaker 2 a romantic subplot that had an age gap and a power dynamic too, okay?

Speaker 2 That was also part of it. Are you talking about the major?

Speaker 2 She loved the major. She loved the major, who was effectively her boss.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And her dad.

Speaker 2 And her dad.

Speaker 1 Ah, great.

Speaker 2 All right. All right.

Speaker 1 This is a show.

Speaker 2 Anyway, back to my breakfast. Oh, yeah.
So I had a.

Speaker 2 So I was just like one of of those things where I was just like,

Speaker 2 what am I going to fucking have? And I opened it up the fridge and I had like half of a leftover turkey sandwich.

Speaker 2 So I'm just like having a fucking turkey and cheese sandwich with like old lettuce at like 7.30 a.m. That's not nothing.

Speaker 2 You could do worse. You could do worse, but it was the kind of thing I'm just like,

Speaker 2 I guess I'm just going to eat this because I got to eat it at some point. I think you're right, Heather.

Speaker 2 We were saying something before we started, but something's in the air. I had my breakfast today.
It was the same breakfast I eat pretty much every single day.

Speaker 2 A chicken sausage, some spinach, an egg, and a piece of toast. I got to get four different items there.
Christ.

Speaker 2 An Ezekiel, like a piece of Ezekiel bread. Wow.
Dude, what do you saute that spinach? What do you do? I do, yeah, yeah. Fucking hell, man.
But I like couldn't eat it today. You couldn't eat it.

Speaker 2 Like, I ate some of it and was just kind of like,

Speaker 2 I think I was just like stressed out about the week or whatever.

Speaker 2 It's like work stuff, but like I was just like,

Speaker 2 I got to eat that. I got to, like, I was sort of eating it just to eat it.
And then I was like, I don't even want this anymore. And then I just left.

Speaker 1 I have the same thing I have every day, which is a single piece of sourdough bread covered in organic peanut butter and manuka honey. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And a cup of coffee.

Speaker 2 And that's my breakfast. I did have my espresso today and I loved it.
Yeah, good. God.
Espresso is so good. Ranch breakfast, Jack?

Speaker 1 Greek yogurt.

Speaker 1 Muesley.

Speaker 2 Muesley. I think it's Muesley, yeah.

Speaker 1 Muesley. And blackberries.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. That's pretty good.
That's good. That's good.
Yeah, but I was doing yogurt breakfast pretty consistently for a while. Then I pivoted to cottage cheese breakfast.

Speaker 2 Always with some sort of berry, always with some sort of fruity company. So I was like having like yogurt and fruit, and then I was having cottage cheese and fruit.

Speaker 2 And then now I'm in an oatmeal phase, and that's mostly what I've been doing. You love oatmeal?

Speaker 1 I love oatmeal.

Speaker 2 It's a little cooler in the morning, so nice to have something a little warm in the morning. It is nice, and it's a little heartier.

Speaker 2 I kind of also find myself like wanting, usually I'm fueling before I go to the gym. I want some carbs.
I don't know if that's the most efficient thing.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't know if that's like, but, but I just like, I find if I don't do that, my energy dips a little bit. There's probably like a better way, like a better pre-workout meal to eat.

Speaker 2 But I just, I find myself wanting a little bit of carbohydrates. So I usually have some, yeah, some oatmeal with a, with a banana tossing that some bitch.

Speaker 1 Oatmeal used to be my pre-boxing workout meal all the time.

Speaker 1 But then I pivoted to sourdough toast because I got a good toaster, and so I love eating my toaster.

Speaker 2 Toaster is really good. Toasters are good.
Yeah. Maybe that was the last invention that was really necessary.
Toaster's pretty good. I wonder when the toaster came about.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to think of like what else happened in the 20th century. There's a lot of telecommunications, obviously.
You can argue the microwave, maybe.

Speaker 2 I don't think the microwave is good.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I think it's just lowered the overall quality of home food, led to a lot of ultra-processed meals and shit.

Speaker 2 Can't even heat up a hot pocket the right way. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I think microwaves are probably a net negative, even though they're convenient.

Speaker 2 Let's see. You got,

Speaker 2 I mean, any sort of

Speaker 2 electricity infrastructure,

Speaker 2 maybe like electric rail

Speaker 2 come about. It's either that or like the Switch 2.
Switch 2, you know, Switch 2 is a good answer. So that was what, 2025? Yeah, it was like earlier this year.
Actually, maybe not so far back.

Speaker 2 So I guess we're doing pretty good. Actually, everything's perfect.

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Speaker 2 I did have one thing I wanted to talk about before we get into games, which is.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 2 I did. I have one thing.
This is games related. Okay.
And this is something that maybe has been discussed in the podcast at some point. I don't remember it, and it was new to me.

Speaker 2 So anyway, obviously in the news this week, as of this record, we'll see what happens. Maybe there's a complete stock market crash by the time this episode is out a couple of days from now.

Speaker 2 But NVIDIA is now valued at over $5 trillion

Speaker 2 and is something like 10% of the S ⁇ P 500. It's just like, it's such a bubble.
There's so much of the US economy isn't this one company because of AI speculation.

Speaker 2 And it's just crazy that we went from, you know, high-NPC graphics cards to crypto mining to this. Now it's like the backbone of the economy.

Speaker 2 I was looking into NVIDIA a little bit, and I found this 2025 Yahoo article. NVIDIA nearly went out of business in 1996 trying to make Sega's Dreamcast GPU.

Speaker 2 Instead, Sega America's CEO offered the company a $5 million lifeline. I'll read some from this article.
So how exactly did Nvidia end up getting such a reprieve from Sega?

Speaker 2 It stems from the history of the Sega Dreamcast, which initially

Speaker 2 Sega went to NVIDIA to develop the GPU for.

Speaker 2 While NVIDIA's following work in low-power GPUs may have helped the company make more power-efficient chips down the line, these low-power graphics were ultimately not up to the spec that Sega needed for the cutting-edge Dreamcast ahead of its 1998 release.

Speaker 2 Thus, the conclusion of the Sega NVIDIA contract seemed to be doomed to failure for both parties.

Speaker 2 NVIDIA had spent lots of time and money on RD and had nothing acceptable to show for it, which put NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, do you want to say his name? Huang Huang? In an unenviable position.

Speaker 2 Still the CEO, by the way.

Speaker 2 He wound up coming clean to Sega about not having their needed graphics hardware, but still asked for payment despite this.

Speaker 2 And ultimately, NVIDIA was still paid for its failed attempt at making the Dreamcast GPU thanks to then CEO of America, Shoichiro Iramajiri.

Speaker 2 The answer picked by Iramajiri and Sega wound up being a $5 million investment into NVIDIA.

Speaker 2 This investment was cashed out for $15 million afterward, helping keep Sega stable as the company departed the console business. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Sega

Speaker 2 gave NVIDIA a lifeline, kept the company afloat, and as such, they were able to parlay that into a $10 million gain, which kept the company going.

Speaker 1 What we are, though, looking at

Speaker 1 is a

Speaker 1 like a

Speaker 1 fortune, like a fortune globe. What do you call those?

Speaker 2 Sliding doors moment. Orb.

Speaker 1 A sliding doors moment whereby

Speaker 1 where Sega

Speaker 1 received financing from another source after making the initial investment in NVIDIA and then cashed out once it's a multi-trillion dollar company. Yes.

Speaker 1 And then became the dominant hardware on planet Earth. Like released a headset that was like light as glasses and then like let you see through walls.

Speaker 2 Put this on and you could run as fast as Sonic.

Speaker 1 What if, guys?

Speaker 2 What if? What if?

Speaker 2 kind of wild how much the the the dreamcast such a pivot point of history yeah and people look to it uh not just for stuff like this like you can always trace back sort of any sort of historical moment straight back to the dreamcast yeah right yeah yeah yep people are always talking about it yep boy ellen got canceled right that was part of it that was a big part of it ellen um

Speaker 2 uh actually i mean it's it's a lot a lot of the a lot of the people that got canceled it's all going back straight to the dreamcast um what else um

Speaker 2 I'm thinking of like horrible examples that I shouldn't say. Yeah, I was going to say every joke I can come up with would actually get me arrested

Speaker 2 here in our new America.

Speaker 2 All right, let's get to what we're supposed to be doing here. Let's talk about some video games we're playing now.
It's time for what are you playing? What are you playing?

Speaker 2 What are you playing? Hey, it's me, the resident even we're sitting in.

Speaker 2 I'm here with my friends, talking about what they're playing, and I'm talking about what they're playing by asking them what they're playing. Very comprehensive.
Yeah, very good. Very well done, REM.

Speaker 2 A,

Speaker 2 what,

Speaker 2 B,

Speaker 2 R?

Speaker 2 C,

Speaker 2 what? I was helping you. You looked like you didn't know what the next letter was.
I was just trying to help. What are you talking about? Never mind.

Speaker 2 Well, so here's the whole thing with pattern making. You don't know until you get to the third one.
If I hear A, B, I naturally assume C is coming next, but who knows?

Speaker 2 Could go back to A again. Who's talking about what? Never mind.
What, what, what, what,

Speaker 2 you did A, what, B, R.

Speaker 2 It sounded like you were going to say C,

Speaker 2 U, D, plan. That would be my assumption.
B, no, C comes after B, not R.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 A, B. Is it R? It's kind of one of these situations where I don't know if I'm allowed to be.
R.

Speaker 2 I mean, W-X-Y-Z. You can be upset, but maybe it's not appropriate to express it.
Yeah, you're right. You're right.

Speaker 2 What? C does come after B. Sequentially in the alphabet, R,

Speaker 2 we're not referring to the letter R. We're referring to its homophone, the word R spelled A-R-E.
I'm so fucking lost. It's okay.
It's okay. Why don't we just, we'll just...
Look, we'll just...

Speaker 2 Why don't you start over? We'll start over. We'll come on.
Land blane. Land and blame.
All right, all right.

Speaker 2 What are you playing? Like that? That's good. That's pretty good.
That was actually, that was a great read. That's smooth.
Maybe we'll just use that.

Speaker 2 I really appreciate you guys printing this script for me every week. Yeah, I know.
And thank you for reading the lines that

Speaker 2 we just did really well.

Speaker 2 It would be, I mean, like, just, you know, again, just to re-up this, if you want to bring like your, like an iPad or even just a phone, and we can just send you a PDF, it will save us the, the hassle of actually opening out.

Speaker 2 I got that. I got it.
You got it easier. Yeah, any kind of tablet really does.
You guys got rice?

Speaker 2 You know, we might.

Speaker 2 We can certainly get some rice. Yeah, if there's only, I just need to be able to put my device in some rice.
It's all wet. It's always wet.
It's always wet.

Speaker 2 Before, like, maybe I'll show up like 45 minutes so we can hang out. I don't know if Rice can bring back a device from the brink of death if it's been soaked for so long.

Speaker 2 I went to like a time limit type of thing. I went to back when I used to swim at the public pool.
I went to the pool to swim some laps and,

Speaker 2 you know, whatever, got in like a good, like, like a good long stretch. I was in the pool for a while.
I love this story. Yeah, anyway.
I got out. Felt something in my pocket.

Speaker 2 The story so far is that he went to the pool and swam laps. I went to the the pool and swam laps.
It was in there in the pool with the warming up and everything and cooling down.

Speaker 2 I was in there for about 45 minutes. Yeah.
I get out. I feel something in my pocket.
My phone. You're holding it.
My phone in my phone in my pocket the entire time.

Speaker 2 Just immersed in like chlorinated water. Wow, did it work? No, it was, it was, no, it was fucking dead.
Some of the new phones. Yeah, they were groove.
Some of the new phones, you can, I was at

Speaker 2 I was in Palm Springs with a bunch of my friends as I typically go once a year. Yeah.
Palm Springs. In the summertimes.
Home of the Diggy. That's right.

Speaker 2 I actually don't know.

Speaker 2 I actually can't sign off on that.

Speaker 2 Because I don't know. I actually don't know that to be true.

Speaker 2 I can't speak on it. But a friend of mine, we were all drinking in the pool and stuff.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 What kind of drinks? I mean, I was.

Speaker 2 Y'all know me. I was slamming beers.
There you go. Just like crushing beers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And a friend of ours dropped his phone in the pool, and nobody knew. But like,

Speaker 2 at some point later, all of us were like, Hey, there's a fucking phone down there. Whose phone is that? And our buddy was like, Oh, that's my phone.

Speaker 2 And he pulled it out, and it just like worked normal. Wow, how long was it in there for? I mean, here's it.
Nobody knows. We have no idea.
It wasn't, it didn't just get down there, but it

Speaker 2 was down there, like flat. It made some engineering.

Speaker 2 I need one of these water.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this water coming up? Do you have like a special case or anything? Inside of my phone.
Yeah. And I don't, the screen is dry.
Yeah. The inside is wet.
Okay, dude.

Speaker 2 Is it possible it's like it's one of those little toys with little floating rubber rings?

Speaker 2 What is that? And like two buttons. I don't know why.

Speaker 2 I'll get you one. You will? I'll get you one.
I'll make a call on anything. Call my friend.
I don't know if he'll. Murder Badaka.
Speaking of Murder Badaka, what are you, bro?

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me before Merchant. I'm going to make this brief.
I'm almost done with Pokemon Legend ZA. Oh, wow.
Almost done. I'm ranked D.

Speaker 2 Actually, I think right now I'm ranked C,

Speaker 2 which means I only have three more ranks to go, and then I'm assuming it's done. There's a lot to be said about this game, I think.
Oh.

Speaker 2 Is it completely bad?

Speaker 2 I would say no. I think in terms of the way it looks,

Speaker 2 yes.

Speaker 1 You sound like a hostage.

Speaker 2 Here's just what I think. I mean, it's like, I mean, I want to save my judgment, my full judgment for it once I've finished it.

Speaker 2 Where I'm at currently, I would like to be done.

Speaker 2 I would like to be done with it.

Speaker 2 It is,

Speaker 2 I think, for my money, and this is rich for a Pokemon game, it's a little bit too repetitive for me. Oh, boy.
Wow.

Speaker 2 It's a little...

Speaker 2 I wish there was just more to do. Like, I mean, there's a lot to do.

Speaker 2 There's like side quest stuff that I'm just like kind of at this point fully ignoring because it's a lot of like, get this Pokemon with this specific move.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, I'm just like not interested really in catching a bunch of the same kinds, hoping to find the right one with the thing or whatever.

Speaker 2 Ranked battling online is extremely fun. I think that is like probably like the best part of the game.

Speaker 2 But even that sort of has like its limit because like what am I gonna I'm gonna get to rank A online and then when the season starts over, do that again and just keep doing that maybe. But

Speaker 2 the stories in these games are always,

Speaker 2 what do you call it? They're like threadbare? Yeah, they're just kind of like nothing. They're just, they don't have any stakes ever.
Like, it just kind of just feels like, you know,

Speaker 2 and this is, I'm a, you know, nearly 35-year-old man.

Speaker 2 These games are for babies, so they don't necessarily need like a gripping story at all.

Speaker 2 But, like, there's just so many great games with great stories that it's kind of just like, you know, it sucks that the franchise hasn't grown up

Speaker 2 to a certain degree. It's got me wanting to check out this new Digimon game.
Everyone's saying that this new Digimon Digimon game is eating Pokemon ZA's fucking hunt.

Speaker 1 I've heard this about the Digimon game. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I downloaded the demo on my Steam Deck, so I'm going to see what that's about at some point. But I'm just kind of like,

Speaker 2 I don't think this is even like my least favorite of the Switch Pokemon games, but it's just kind of like, it's just not it.

Speaker 2 I liked Arceus the best. Yeah.
And that was like a high watermark and is in the top of like the franchise to me. And I just don't think this one clears it.

Speaker 2 It's It's a little worse than that version of it. But I hope to finish it soon so I can get back to my beloved.

Speaker 2 And this is the thing. I stopped playing games I fucking love

Speaker 2 to play this. And so it kind of feels like I want to finish it because I know that there's not much left.

Speaker 2 So I wasn't going to drop it completely. It's a compulsion at this point.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes, it is. I have a disease.

Speaker 2 But I'll hopefully get back to Silk Song and Ghost of Yote very soon. That's my update currently.
Not really, I kind of want it to be done.

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
Heather, what are you playing?

Speaker 1 Well, I've got a few updates across a bunch of different fronts. One, I continue to play the Ghost of Yote.
I played it so much that I bought myself a beginner's Shamisen.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 I'm going to learn how to play Shamisen.

Speaker 1 I don't know how long I will play Shamisen. Maybe it will only be for a few months and then I'll be like, this was not for me.

Speaker 1 Or maybe you'll see me being the extremely awkward white woman at the Japanese Cultural Center during like Shami-sen night. Yeah.
Who knows?

Speaker 2 Why not?

Speaker 1 Probably not the latter.

Speaker 1 But yeah, playing Ghost of Yote. Love that sweet spot that I found with the difficulty.
I actually had a clip that I was going to show you guys where I go through like a little barricade

Speaker 1 and another character's talking to me as we're like raiding a thing. And she goes, Atsu, and then I'm just stabbed and die.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, that's

Speaker 1 so emblematic of what the game has become for me is if I, if somebody gets a drop on me, it's done. I don't, I don't, there's nothing I can do.

Speaker 2 Love it.

Speaker 1 Two, this is the one year anniversary of Pokemon the card game Pocket.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 Huge quality of life update was released today as of record,

Speaker 1 along with a new booster.

Speaker 1 They have made it possible for players who have missed bonus cards in the past to access the chance to get them by engaging in the current event.

Speaker 1 So that's a real quality of life for people who are like missing those one card in a bonus set.

Speaker 1 They've made trading easier. They've made it so you can give cards to your friends.
Oh, nice. So you don't even have to do the trade.
You can just be like, hey, bro, I know you need this card.

Speaker 1 What else have they done?

Speaker 1 They made like just UI improvements.

Speaker 1 Really excited to sort of dig in.

Speaker 1 I played it for a while today,

Speaker 1 had a blast. I'm like really

Speaker 1 surprised that a year later I'm still playing a card game. Wow.

Speaker 1 This weekend,

Speaker 1 The Simpsons comes to Fortnite.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 As of right now, in the last 50 hours left of Fortnite's current season, season six, whatever,

Speaker 1 the aliens from The Simpsons, those little guys,

Speaker 2 those dudes.

Speaker 1 They're flying up beside the Battle Bus and making fun of it.

Speaker 2 I still have something. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Fortnite. Fortnite's pretty good.

Speaker 1 I got one for you, which is what the ad campaign is,

Speaker 1 which is that Bart is spray painting over the signs, like the signs in New York Times Square, the union stations and stuff. Yeah.
And so he's spraying an A, so it says Fartnight.

Speaker 2 Pretty good.

Speaker 1 And then he signs that Al Barto was here.

Speaker 2 El Barto is one step ahead. That's good stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's Fart Night is the next season. Fart night.
So

Speaker 1 though I am not a fan of The Simpsons, just missed that bus. I am excited to get on the battle bus and see what that season has to offer.
And then finally, finally, I got goods to show you guys.

Speaker 2 Oh, Heather's got goods. I got goods.

Speaker 1 So this last summer, I pre-ordered the

Speaker 1 Death Stranding 2

Speaker 1 ring from, I think it's Anacorn. Anacorn and Kojima Productions.

Speaker 1 And it comes in this fantastic

Speaker 1 drawbridge wrapper that has all the barcodes and shit on it. And then the Drawbridge

Speaker 1 steel

Speaker 2 case.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing, boys.

Speaker 1 I have to treat this like it is a

Speaker 1 like the way that when you buy a limited edition or premium edition of a game, you get like an item that you don't necessarily use, but instead sort of appreciate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 Because this ring is so much larger than I expected

Speaker 1 that it is unwearable for me. Oh, sure.
And not larger, it's adjustable.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 But it turns out that

Speaker 1 the ring itself,

Speaker 1 as is mapped in the game, which is a full metal replica

Speaker 1 of the thing,

Speaker 1 is just a... a massive fucking ring here.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the container it's within is kind of like a, you know, like a

Speaker 2 thing of a container of shoe polish or like a container of,

Speaker 2 you know, pomade or like one of those stubby Pringles can

Speaker 2 cans. It's pretty substantial.
And then the ring

Speaker 2 is a big honker.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, it's a giant ring.

Speaker 2 That's some bitches.

Speaker 2 Matt has it on his thumb and is giving a thumbs up. It's very cool.

Speaker 1 It glows in the dark and it has an NFC

Speaker 1 code built in or a thing where you tap it to like a phone or whatever, and it brings up a website. The website is just the ring and like Kojima productions.

Speaker 1 Like, it doesn't do anything, but people are talking about hacking that so that it brings you to something else, like a UI or whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It is really cool. I will say that the way it clasps, which is kind of like, you know, like a hairband, it's the, you know, it folds in on itself.
Yeah, it has little hinges. It hinges.

Speaker 2 It doesn't slide down like a traditional ring.

Speaker 2 So it feels a little bit flimsy. But the nice thing is you can expand its circumference.
You want to put it on your hog.

Speaker 1 Give that ring back to me right now.

Speaker 1 Saying it's an option. Just give it back to me.

Speaker 2 It's happened at this point. I think it had to be a little bit more.
Someone close it a little bit.

Speaker 2 The thing about this, though, is that I wish if there was a ring like this that was like a phone, your phone was the ring. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I would just have that. Right.
I wouldn't have the... I wouldn't have.

Speaker 2 Matt, I hate that. What do you mean? a fucking I don't want a phone fucking ring? I'm gonna be looking at my ring the whole day

Speaker 2 you give your thumbs up you get a little sort of like

Speaker 2 You get a little HUD

Speaker 2 screen of some kind you also have glasses

Speaker 2 I know you didn't you didn't you didn't play as much death stranding 2 as us Every time you pause the menu to look at the menu, he gives a thumbs up and goes like you're it's POV thumbs up. Right.

Speaker 2 it just made me feel so good the entire time i was playing just like every time just like i gotta open the menu if i just had all my stuff i would i my life would be better i feel like you'd just be staring at that getting angry because you'd just be like reading headlines

Speaker 2 yeah exactly

Speaker 2 no

Speaker 2 yeah i mean i don't want to i don't i i guess i just want like i want it to have the social strand system so i could talk to everybody that you know i'd talk to you guys on there i would do then uh a map i mostly just wanted to to have a map and then maybe like a phone i don't need to have like the news on it or something it would be it would just be on there it's it's just like how like like what like now i open apple maps just has ads in it now you just can't get like it's just inescapable i i wish that this ring

Speaker 1 had a recharge i wish it had like a usb rechargeable led in it Because I do wish that the light was brighter.

Speaker 1 I like that it glows in the dark, but ultimately, like when I look at this ring, what I have is something that's going to sit on my shelf next to my BB,

Speaker 1 and that's all it's going to be. Yeah.
Whereas I was really hoping to wear it. Like,

Speaker 1 I had a vision of wearing it the way that, like, the characters wear that ring around.

Speaker 2 Do you think you might try wearing it? You haven't taken it out for a spin, I'm guessing. No, I have.

Speaker 1 You have. I have.
I wore it around the house.

Speaker 1 and kept giving Mary a thumbs up and she's like, okay.

Speaker 2 Yes, but basically what I would do.

Speaker 1 And it's just, it's just a little bit unwieldy. It's just a little too chunky.

Speaker 2 I guess I don't need a special ring to annoy my wife.

Speaker 2 But it helps. But it helps.
It's easier. It's a faster way to do it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Give my wife a thumbs up as she packs a cardboard box.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 2 I think it's really, really cool. Not that I'm encouraging the ring, I think that would be the reaction.
No, she would, yeah, she would be doing that.

Speaker 1 I think what's great about the ring is the manufacturing of the ring is

Speaker 1 like it's pristine. It's the you

Speaker 1 sometimes will order something like this and it's like the keyblade from what and you get it and it's like you can see the seams where they like

Speaker 1 melted it together and like it's just not like it doesn't have the quality of the actual item as you conceive of it. This is I mean other than the fact that the screen doesn't work, that's the ring.

Speaker 2 Or even if it was just like

Speaker 2 a collaboration with like, you know, the aura ring or something. Like if it had some functionality,

Speaker 2 that'd be so, that'd be great.

Speaker 1 Well, the fake windows that I have were, uh, also had a Death Stranding collab. That's right.
And you can look at the windows and see, like, the landscape of the first game, and that's really nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And that's the sort of, I don't know, that's the kind of collab I like.

Speaker 2 Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Can I ask a question? Sure. What do y'all think about ring guys? Like, guys who wear a lot of rings.
Guys who wear a lot of rings? I don't know.

Speaker 1 That's not for me.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think it can be a good look.

Speaker 2 But it definitely is like like that's a that's a that's a that's a choice you're a ring guy i had never worn a ring before until i got married of course so like it was uh i thought it was gonna be very resistant to the way it feels but like i just like didn't notice it 10 minutes after we're wearing it basically right yeah um i you know there's like a i think there's a certain type of it depends on the fingers doesn't it

Speaker 2 I think three fingers for rings are safe

Speaker 2 for guys, there's like a power move thumb guy, power remove pinky guy. Yeah.
And it's tough. I know I have the wait, no, you only got that one.
You got the one on the index.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got an aura ring that I have to switch from index finger to index finger because my hands swell when I get warm. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which is also why I'm currently not wearing my wedding rings because it's too hot in the studio. And so it cuts off my circulation when we record.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think that's okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, pinky and thumb, it's kind of tough stuff. Ranch, what's the ring count?

Speaker 2 For a boy? No, well, for you and then for like in general, how do you feel about ring guys?

Speaker 1 I don't usually wear rings because they annoy me.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I like how they look on women, on men,

Speaker 1 getting like a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe.

Speaker 2 They're bad.

Speaker 2 There's not a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 They're like covering saying they're bad. Yeah.
They're like, it's like, they're either a bad intention or a cree guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Too many drinks at lunch kind of a guy.

Speaker 2 The one thing, one exception I will say is, and also, like, whenever your listeners are ring guys, hey, God bless you. Do whatever you want.
No.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm sorry. I've never said anything for myself.
Ranch says no. Yeah.
I think I guess ring guys aren't welcome, according to our producer at Shelton Ranch. Finish the fuck off.

Speaker 2 I think there is a place. Ring guy tears streaming down his face.

Speaker 1 There is a place at which your aura outpaces the rings. Yeah.
And like, if you're like that kind of a guy, then it doesn't matter. Yeah.
But that's a rare, that's a rare Venn diagram overlap.

Speaker 2 You know, the ultimate ring guy, Sonic.

Speaker 2 Sonic is kind of the ultimate ring guide, so it's a good point, Matt. And, you know, he's never really outpacing the rings because he's running right into them.
No, he's himself.

Speaker 2 Can't get enough of them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're shaking your head like you mean no, but you also kind of have to admit that I'm right.

Speaker 2 Because I am right. And it's okay.
Yote, you're still having a ball with.

Speaker 1 Having a ball with.

Speaker 2 You put a substantial number of hours into the game to it at this point.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah. Cause I've been waking up at 5.30 in the morning from like errors in sleep

Speaker 1 and playing until I go to work in the morning. Wow.
So I've gotten, I think I'm above 50 hours now.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 1 it's typically too early for me to write at 5.30. Yeah.
But I can have coffee and play Ghost of Yoté.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so, yeah, I'm, I don't know, murking my way across the landscape. Wow.

Speaker 2 It's fucking great. Wow.

Speaker 1 How about you, Nick? What are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking.

Speaker 1 I enjoyed asking. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I like being asked. Okay, great.
Nick, what are you playing? Matt, I liked hearing that too. Didn't like it as much, but that's okay.
No, I also liked it. I just like it was, I liked it too.

Speaker 2 I like both versions. It wasn't a competition and I wasn't trying to win or anything.
Fuck. Ranch?

Speaker 2 What are you playing? Dude, that one was working for me. Okay, interesting.
Okay. Interesting that mine's last somehow.
You did good. You did a good job.
Everyone did great.

Speaker 2 What are you playing?

Speaker 2 Tell us. Thanks for asking, Matt.

Speaker 2 I've been playing a game that I have been anticipating for some time that is on PC Game Bass from Obsidian, the Outer Worlds 2. Whoa!

Speaker 2 Now, I really enjoyed Outer Worlds 1, which came out back in 2019, which I can't believe, year one of our podcast. I just like, that's fucking, that made me want to edit.
But like the,

Speaker 2 I was,

Speaker 2 I would just, just like, that was one of those things where, man, the slow decay of time that was like pre-pandemic. And then all like like six years happened now we're with part two.

Speaker 2 But but I did like part one. It was a little bit less robust than this game, which is which feels like a straight up AAA game.

Speaker 2 It has it's a much more expansive design, has higher production values, and apparently had a development cycle that was about twice as long so it is it is a it is a meaty boy that feels very polished um and is uh you know i've heard some performance issues but it's running pretty pretty well on my gaming pc um so far i love the writing and the acting it has this satirical tone uh which is obviously you know it's it's coming from uh the some creators of fallout uh also you know like it evokes bioshock to some degree like also with its aesthetics but it's that sort of thing like like like basically if you want to call this game these games, and I know, I know people know this, and I know people are playing this, but if you're not familiar, if you want to basically characterize this as fallout in space, you really wouldn't be wrong.

Speaker 2 That's pretty much what it is.

Speaker 2 And so, it's kind of like fallout grafted onto mass effect. Okay.

Speaker 2 Right down to like you having like a kind of a ship that you're flying around in that you can go to different biomes, which are represented by planets here. But yeah, it's it's like genuinely funny.

Speaker 2 Um, it's got like a like a ton of diet, a ton of interesting dialogue options that are like feel substantially different. It feels like a, you know, like a

Speaker 2 and and

Speaker 2 and uh

Speaker 2 like a game like I'm not saying it's necessarily on this tier yet as I'm playing it, but like like a disco Elysium or a Baldur's Gate 3 type of thing where it feels like, oh, these are substantial choices that change how the game is played.

Speaker 2 And it feels like I can really, you know, role play this thing as far as

Speaker 2 as far as going through these dialogue trees.

Speaker 2 trees um and hey i love when people remember things and don't you love that in a game when someone will remember this yeah i do i i do like it even if it's a choice set i was not proud of uh because i'm like i'm interested narratively how they're gonna be upset with me later right

Speaker 1 yeah that's my only experience of playing these games

Speaker 2 So the character creation in Outer Worlds 2 is really fun.

Speaker 2 Obviously, me being me, as I've talked about before, one of the default options was pretty much good to go physically.

Speaker 2 I just basically just changed the facial hair and eye color, and then there we go. I was looking at a mirror.
But it's also one of those games where it's like cyberpunk, it's an FPS.

Speaker 2 For me, I didn't want to spend a ton of time in the character creator.

Speaker 2 But, you know, it's fun if you want to tweak the

Speaker 2 physical aspects a little bit. But what's really interesting is getting into

Speaker 2 who your character is and how you're going to role play it. The character has backgrounds like as options.
So you can choose basically, are you a lawman? Were you like a professor?

Speaker 2 Were you kind of like a rogue? I went with Gambler. That's awesome.
Yeah, you know, you got to know when to hold them. You got to know when to fold them.
Oh, fuck yeah. I'd lean into it.

Speaker 2 But no, I was like, I was like, this isn't normally what I would pick, but that feels kind of fun and it feels kind of like the kind of choice to make in this game.

Speaker 2 And also,

Speaker 2 you know, reminds me of Han Solo and his famous dice.

Speaker 2 That's the thing that I was hoping you'd get to because when I think of Han Solo, well, first of all, when I think of Gambler, I think of Han Solo first. Yes, yeah.
Then

Speaker 2 I think of his famous dice

Speaker 2 more than anything. I love those things.

Speaker 2 I hope he made it to Kanto Bite before he got fucking iced by

Speaker 2 Kylo Ren because he would have loved it. Maybe they

Speaker 2 did like a sort of family vacation before things went south. That would have been fun.
Can you imagine how cute that would be?

Speaker 2 Like, like you're taking little Ben Solo, Leia, and Han, young parents going to Kanto bite and you know Chewie's there too you know Chewie's gonna tag along yeah he's part of the family do you think that's maybe part of I know that like they sort of made it so that like you know Kylo Kylo Ren Ben Solo going to the dark side was sort of like the big thing that uh leia and han's relationship like couldn't stand yeah do you think maybe i don't know Chewie being around so fucking much that they couldn't ever have a moment to themselves.

Speaker 2 It was kind of like a Fableman sort of situation with Seth Rogan. Like, who's this guy just lingering all the time? What's going on?

Speaker 2 Wait a minute. I got to watch some whole movies to get to the bottom of this.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Spend Solo just watching.

Speaker 2 He watches what? Like The Empire Strikes Back. He's watching an eight millimeter film.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's watching The Empire Strikes Back. Wait a minute.

Speaker 2 How do they have that? My mom kissing her brother. What the hell? My uncle?

Speaker 2 Anyway, so you pick your background and then from there, and that affects some of your dialogue options. And then you have your traits.
And your traits are tangible bonuses to your character.

Speaker 2 So for me, I took two of them. Lucky, which gives you a boost to crit chance, and also gives you additional dialogue options, as a lot of these do.

Speaker 2 And Brilliant, which Brilliant allows you to take an additional skill, which we'll get to in a second, or I give you an additional bonus skill. So

Speaker 2 the way traits work is that you can take one for free.

Speaker 2 Or you can take two, but you have to take a negative one

Speaker 2 as a trade-off. And that is really fun.
And I was just like, I kind of want to do that.

Speaker 2 So I took Lucky. I took Brilliant.
And then the negative traits are abrasive, which basically gives you a charisma penalty. You can never go above neutral with any sort of faction.

Speaker 2 It's basically saying you're just annoying. Yeah.
And I was just like, I just don't want to role play an annoying guy.

Speaker 2 Would have been a good fit for you.

Speaker 2 Wager should have taken abrasive. Go let that person in.

Speaker 2 i don't know but come on leave it alone i'm trying to live my life yeah

Speaker 2 i listen to the podcast every week and wigger is abrasive i listen every week so i think i can make fun of you the same way that they make fun of you on the show

Speaker 2 anyway so

Speaker 2 the is so you have abrasive which is crisp penalty you have dumb

Speaker 2 which just means you're a fucking idiot and so and it also like limits the number of i I think skills you can take bonuses from. I went with sickly and sickly

Speaker 2 sickly gives you a penalty to your health. But I was like, you know what? I'm playing this game on normal.
I'm not necessarily worried about the difficulty.

Speaker 2 I think I can take like a 15% bonus to my maximum, or I'm sorry, penalty to my maximum health just to mess around with another trait.

Speaker 2 And then as far as skills go, like I took lockpicking, medical, and then observation, which just sort of like, you know, gives you more environmental cues.

Speaker 2 But again, like like like something like medical, as I was playing, opens up a surprising number of dialogue options,

Speaker 2 which is

Speaker 2 and additional possibilities for solving, you know, like like solving quests, solving puzzles and what have you.

Speaker 2 So we know the drill with these sorts of games. There's a cold open slash tutorial and then a time jump.
And, you know,

Speaker 2 and then when you have the time jump, it's the one time you can respect.

Speaker 2 After playing, because the rest of the game, I guess, respecs are just not a possibility.

Speaker 2 It's like you're really just locking into things, which I kind of like. As opposed to Cyberpunk, it felt like Cyberpunk 2077, which is a natural comparison for this game, even though tonally,

Speaker 2 I guess tonally,

Speaker 2 Cyberpunk is also a satire. Just like that's like more of an edgelord approach.
This one's a little bit

Speaker 2 smarter and more wholesome. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I really like Cyberpunk. We all love Cyberpunk here.
Oh, yeah. But anyway, but that one you can you can respec endlessly.

Speaker 2 And in fact, most of these, like most games like this, you can respec endlessly, right?

Speaker 2 Like you can, like, sometimes there's some sort of a currency cost or something like that, but usually you can just do whatever the fuck. You can completely change your build partway through.

Speaker 2 I do kind of like that, like, no, this one, you're going to roleplay this character and you're just going to stick with them all the way through. It seems like a fun way to play it.

Speaker 2 And I like just kind of committing something. However, when I did have the opportunity to respec,

Speaker 2 Through the first section, I found lockpick to be pretty boring. And basically, since I was using

Speaker 2 the brilliant trait, what it pretty much got me was the skill of lockpick

Speaker 2 because I got a bonus skill that I could pick. I was just like, I don't know if I need this.
I don't know if the trade-off of being able to lockpick is worth

Speaker 2 the health penalty. So, you know, I just like, I just ditched brilliant and sickly and got rid of lockpick and just sort of simplified my character a little bit.

Speaker 2 He's a lucky gambler, which feels like the kind of thing that, again, the game is sort of steering you towards, but why not lean into it? I love the palette of this game, like art-wise.

Speaker 2 I love the environmental design. I think the art direction is very strong.
You know, it's not the most like absolutely

Speaker 2 technically gorgeous game on the market, but it's a good-looking game with a get with, again, just a just a good aesthetic.

Speaker 2 When you get to the first planet, especially, I just like love the way the environment looks. It's very lush.
It's really distinct.

Speaker 2 One thing I will say about the combat, I think it's like, you know, it's FPS combat, which is

Speaker 2 like, I think it's well executed. It seems to be, it seems to be fun so far.
The stealth kind of feels like I'm going to compare it to cyberpunk again, cyberpunk stealth.

Speaker 2 I.e., it's that not super robust FPS sort of like, you know, just line of sight stuff. There's not a ton you can do with it.

Speaker 2 There's some distractions that you can have that you can create, but it doesn't feel like there's, as I was stealthing my way through a big part of the early game, I was just like, I don't know if how much fun I'm having doing this.

Speaker 2 I feel like I'd rather just kind of start blasting. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 also there's a

Speaker 2 piece of gear, speaking of cyberpunk, like the Sand Eveston, which lets you dilate time, which is pretty fun. Hell yeah.
Yeah. That's what you say, right? Sandevin?

Speaker 2 Sandavestin? Sandavestin? I don't know. Remember.

Speaker 2 We put collectively like 600 hours into this game. We don't have to say

Speaker 2 the name of

Speaker 2 the three of us played it twice. We all played it twice.

Speaker 2 We all watched Edge Runners twice.

Speaker 2 It's all just like, it's all gone.

Speaker 2 All the creases are just fully smooth now. What a waste of a life.

Speaker 2 No, it's worth it. Even the dumbest, the dumbest life possible is worth it.
Overall, I'm really enjoying it so far.

Speaker 2 I think it's fun and it's funny. And I think it's just

Speaker 2 a cool, vibrant, well-fleshed out world. I love the world building.
I love the satire. I like that it lays it on thick.

Speaker 2 And because, you know, why not? It's like reality is a fucking cartoon. Would you, There you go.

Speaker 1 And hey, if you like the Outer Worlds, be sure to check out my episode of Secret Level on Amazon Prime. That's right.
Where I wrote an Outer Worlds animated short.

Speaker 2 Hell yes. With CG.
Would you say the game, the second one, is worth jumping in on if you had not played the first one? Yeah, I would. I don't think you need to play the first one.
Okay.

Speaker 2 I think it seems very self-contained. I am interested in it.
And I think I own the first one. on multiple platforms like because I was like, oh, it's on sale.
And it's like just always now on sale.

Speaker 2 It's like $10. And I was like, I'll just get it.
Like maybe I'll, maybe I'll play it on this and just like, oh, never played it. Yeah.
I bought a game on Steam sale this weekend for 74 cents.

Speaker 2 I was like, I guess I'll just do that.

Speaker 2 Am I going to play it? No, but 74 cents are a game. With Fallout New Vegas on,

Speaker 2 I bought it on Xbox because it was like $2. I was like, oh, yeah, I'll just have this because I don't have Game Pass right now.

Speaker 2 It's like, if I ever feel like playing my Xbox again, maybe I'll play Fallout New Vegas. But, you know, who knows? Who knows?

Speaker 1 So that's what we're playing, right?

Speaker 2 That's right, that's right. But what about the greater world?

Speaker 2 What were they playing? It's interesting to consider what was the greater world playing. Yes, what was the greater world playing?

Speaker 2 I just talked about the outer worlds, but what about the greater world, meaning this blue marble we all stand upon called Spaceship Earth?

Speaker 2 Me personally, I don't think it's a marvel. I think it's like a blue sheet of paper or something.
Oh,

Speaker 2 kind of like a

Speaker 2 thing thing of plexiglass. We're just standing on top of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Just kidding.

Speaker 2 A horrid thing to think.

Speaker 2 I think there are about a thousand worse things.

Speaker 2 Honestly,

Speaker 2 give me back. Bring back flat earthers.
Remember when people were concerned about flat earthers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. God bless them.

Speaker 2 Even the most benign sort of like conspiracy, though, is always rooted in something bad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, at least when you could sort of like be like, well, actually, no, this is a fucking globe, you idiot. This one's very easy to prove.

Speaker 2 I feel like if you dig like six layers deep on basically like any conspiracy theory that it's hard, it's just, I'm racist. He's kidding.
Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 100%. Yeah, I remember talking to a guy when I was on a friend's bachelor party, and he was in the Navy.
And I just was sitting next to him. I didn't know this guy very well.

Speaker 2 So I just asked a question that I immediately regretted because I was like, oh, maybe I don't actually know what this person thinks about this.

Speaker 2 And I just immediately asked, hey, does it bother you when people ask you if the earth is flat or not? And he goes, I've seen the fucking curve. I lived on a ship for

Speaker 2 years.

Speaker 2 I was like, all right, this is my guy. And then we got

Speaker 2 wasted in Vegas.

Speaker 1 Right now, right now, though, because I feel like that was a gauntlet that was thrown down, I do think

Speaker 1 maybe

Speaker 1 that we didn't land on the moon is not a racist conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 Sure. Look, I was being hyper-balled.
Well, no, but

Speaker 2 I was like really going in on it.

Speaker 1 I I was really going in on it. And I was like, yeah, you could make an argument that certain JFK ones are still racist because

Speaker 1 of Lee Harvey Oswald. Like,

Speaker 1 you can, like, navigate your way there. Maybe the moon landing is just pure.

Speaker 2 Moon landing is, like, is base fun. Like, that is a fun one.
I will let you have that. Like, oh, you don't think that.
It's interesting. They showed it.
They showed it on the news and stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's, it's, look, again, compared to a lot of what we're dealing with, it's relatively harmless. but it is like one of those things where you're denying scientific reality.
Yeah. And

Speaker 2 you're saying that the media is lying, which I'm not saying the media doesn't like, is always 100% truthful.

Speaker 2 But it's like those kinds of things, those sorts of doubts about institutions are one thing that has kind of poisoned the well about discourse and

Speaker 2 politics in general.

Speaker 2 Without the conspiracy, you don't get Buzz Aldrin like punching a guy. That's true.
That's pretty fun. That was really funny when they did punch that guy.
What about Mr.

Speaker 1 Mime is Ash's dad?

Speaker 2 That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 That one doesn't have racist undertones, does it?

Speaker 2 Well, actually, you got to dig deep.

Speaker 2 You haven't seen what I've seen on the internet.

Speaker 2 That one seems fine. I regret saying the racist thing.
I was making a joke.

Speaker 2 I'm arguing a thesis to be defended. But a lot of them do go that way.

Speaker 2 I'm chewing on it.

Speaker 2 I'll say.

Speaker 2 A lot of them do go that way. I would say 95% to 99%.

Speaker 1 I agree with you.

Speaker 2 Here's a conspiracy that I'll a new one that I'm dropping. Okay.

Speaker 2 I texted this in the group chat last night. I think something's going on between the red MM and the yellow MM.
They're not in commercials right now together.

Speaker 2 They're putting yellow with green. They're putting yellow with orange.
What's going on? Those are the guys. There's some sort of schism going on.

Speaker 2 They're just like, yeah, the two big guys, the classic comedy duo from the Santa, they do exist spots, is

Speaker 2 just,

Speaker 2 they seem to have fractured.

Speaker 1 Red is plain, and yellow is peanut. Yeah, that's right.
Wow, I don't know the ads, but I already, have it's enough of a perm.

Speaker 2 It's permeated culture enough.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's permeated enough that I know they all have their individual

Speaker 2 individual personalities. They're all such actually.
Oh, yeah, they're all, they're all, and they're all like interesting characters. Yellow's dumb.
Yellow's dumb. Red is kind of like, you know,

Speaker 1 a slut. Red, the green one?

Speaker 2 Well, hang on. I don't know if I call her a slut, but yes.

Speaker 2 She's the one where you can choose a vagina online.

Speaker 2 The green one is supposedly the horny one. Yes.

Speaker 2 I think it's more she makes people horny. But the brown one also makes people horny.
Look, the female ones make people horny. Yeah, the females.
Those are their attributes. They're sex objects.

Speaker 2 Nobody wants to fuck the male M ⁇ Ms. The blue ones or the female ones are incredibly fuckable.

Speaker 2 Is the blue one a girl too? I think so, actually. I don't know if you guys are the green, brown, and blue are ladies.
I don't know. You know what? Hardy.

Speaker 2 I think it's just green and brown. I'm not sure about blue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the orange is the.

Speaker 2 Blue is like, hey, guys.

Speaker 2 Orange is caramel, right? Yeah, orange is caramel.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Or peanut butter.
I think it might depend. Anyway, they're not in the commercials right now, and I think something's going on.
Yeah. And

Speaker 2 the Mars Corporation's silence on this issue is deafening.

Speaker 1 I like to hear it. And it's not an ad, it's just Apodaka talking about MNA.

Speaker 2 I've seen two different commercials where the two guys, the two stars, you wouldn't put,

Speaker 2 you wouldn't put

Speaker 2 you wouldn't put like

Speaker 2 Garfunkel with a different guy.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't put, I'm a Mac, I'm a PC

Speaker 2 with the Verizon guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you wouldn't be like, I'm a Verizon.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you wouldn't do it. But just like you're just taking Justin Long.
Like, Justin Long is being the I'm a Mac guy, and he's the Verizon guy. You'd be like, what's going on?

Speaker 2 What happened to him and Hodgman? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm a Mac and I'm a KitchenAid.

Speaker 2 Pass get played guest, John Hodgman. That's right.
PC. A PC.

Speaker 2 Okay, I came on to talk on on an untitled goose game. Did we ever talk to him about PC gaming, actually?

Speaker 1 We should have done that. What a missed opportunity.

Speaker 2 There's so many sort of different sliding doors windows where you're like thinking this show could be good. If we had asked a question like that, that would have been great.

Speaker 2 The show is good, but it's a great idea. If we could make Colton a fourth host.
Colton, I mean, here's the thing.

Speaker 2 We'd all be the richest people alive.

Speaker 2 Hit your wagon to Colton Dunn. Forget it.

Speaker 2 But you were teeing us up for. Yes, what about the games of the greater world? That's right.
We're talking G-O-T-Y GotiWatch 2025.

Speaker 2 I mean, Matt, how are you thinking we should go through this? I was kind of just thinking, I actually pulled up a list of like

Speaker 2 just like some of the big games from this year that are

Speaker 2 by many publications count in contention for game of the year. Sure.
And I thought we would just kind of go through them possibly one by one and

Speaker 2 talk about them. Or I could just read the list right now.
Let's take them one at a time. Okay.

Speaker 2 Well, the first one on the list here is

Speaker 2 on my list that I'm working off of anyway. And then I also, I thought about this real quick, too.
I'll just flag this as a potentiality.

Speaker 2 I have a Metacritic list of games released in this year by their meta score. Yes.
And I just think that's just interesting data to see where we're at.

Speaker 2 The first two are, of course, I'll just read this real quick.

Speaker 2 Legends of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, Switch 2 edition, and Breath of the Wild Switch 2 edition. I don't think that counts, of course.

Speaker 2 No, I don't think those. I mean, like, even if you wanted to say they were technically qualified, if we're talking about what's going to be considered the consensus game of the year by the time

Speaker 2 we move on to 2026, it is not going to be either of those. It's not going to be re-releases with upgrades or a new platform.

Speaker 2 If

Speaker 2 the meta scores are to be believed, the highest rated game of this year is Hades 2. Okay, so Hades 2 is an interesting case.
I love Hades 2. I loved Hades 1, one of my favorite games.

Speaker 2 And Hades 2 comes out five years later, definitely improves upon it, iterates upon it, is a, like, like, like, you know, already like a perfectly tuned gameplay experience that is just even more expansive and refined and polished.

Speaker 2 The thing that I think Hades 2 is missing is novelty. Like, I feel like because Hades itself won, I think, Game of the Year at the Game Awards in 2020.

Speaker 2 It was just already like such a,

Speaker 2 or was it 2021? Whatever year came out, I think it was 2020. I think it was.
And

Speaker 2 it already has

Speaker 2 that commendation. It's kind of hard to see Hades 2 repeating when it is, in a lot of ways, in a very good way.

Speaker 2 And, you know, for people who are deeper into the game than me and maybe have a different take, I don't want to mischaracterize it, but it is kind of more of the same.

Speaker 2 It is like a like, hey, you know, this is, how do you improve upon perfection? Well, you know, it's like, this is, this is, again, just such a well-crafted game.

Speaker 2 Let's just do

Speaker 2 an even better version of it. And that's what a lot of Hades 2 feels like to me.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I have not completed Hades 2 yet. I'm still just

Speaker 2 something I'd like to get back to. I spent quite a few hours with it, though.
I think at least more than 10 hours with it. Something that I think about

Speaker 2 with Hades 2 in particular, it's that it's a real example to me of you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't because like i feel like after playing hades one there was like not maybe a groundswell but there were probably people that are like wow i loved this game so much i wish there was more of it i wish that there was a another one i could play immediately that was like just like this yeah and then that exact thing comes out where it is more of it and it's just like that and it's just kind of like okay Yeah, like it's good.

Speaker 2 It's exactly as good as you wanted it to be, but like, you know, that's still sometimes not enough.

Speaker 1 But it was also the curse of Death Stranding 2 yes uh was people were like i love death stranding i want more death stranding and they got a refined and elevated version of death stranding and stranding 2 that continued the story yes and a lot of the complaints my mine included was that oh this is the same game and in fact less weird in some ways let's come back to death stranding 2 let's let's take these one at a time but i i think that's the the the i i think there's the the difference between death stranding and its sequel and Hades and its sequel is that Hades was universally lauded.

Speaker 2 Yes. And Death Stranding, the first one, was a little bit more polarized in terms of its reaction, especially initially.

Speaker 2 But Hades 2,

Speaker 2 hey, there's a case that it's maybe the best roguelite ever. And because it's a better version of Hades 1.
But I just think the absence of novelty and, again, the fact that Hades 1

Speaker 2 already kind of, you know, like, like, like, like, tick that box already has that trophy. I think it'll just be a little bit harder for Hades 2 to repeat, but we'll see.

Speaker 2 And the thing that Hades 1 has over Hades 2 for me

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 Hades 2 doesn't have Dusa.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 yeah, but I mean, but I mean, this is the thing. Like,

Speaker 2 first off, I'm not deep enough into the game where maybe Deuce. Maybe actually, you know what? It's a good point.

Speaker 2 I'd say retract it, Matt. Because you want to look like a fool.
At this stage, I don't have enough information.

Speaker 2 I must retract.

Speaker 2 I deeply apologize to anybody I've offended by

Speaker 2 mischaracterizing whether or not Dusa is in the game or not. And

Speaker 2 this will be in a notes app, and this is actually a good time for me to just maybe listen and learn a little bit. Yeah, bring back the notes app apology.

Speaker 2 In fact, be one of those guys who writes it up on an iPad and then takes a picture of it with your phone. Always like that move.
I don't know how to take a screenshot, but I did on this.

Speaker 2 I was going to say the,

Speaker 2 the but you do bring up something interesting about Hades 2 specifically which is that because it's like a largely a new roster of NPCs

Speaker 2 people's reactions to it may partly be like I miss my guys I miss my old friends you know what I mean it's kind of like a not exactly but like like like a a a new uh you know a new Final Fantasy it's like a whole new roster of of of individuals to cut to you know and and and you may just have more affection for a previous cast it would be interesting if i mean it'd be a completely different world of course uh if final fantasy was like it's the same people every time you get the same people all every every game it's the same people well you always get a sid yeah you always get a sid you know there are some constants yeah uh i guess it would be more like resident evil i guess where like sometimes the characters just like are back yeah should should we do like how how what are you thinking for this matt should we have like a a list as we're going should we or or should we just kind of basically say whether we think it will or won't i i think that i think there's a there's a case for hades too but i i just just don't think it's the front runner.

Speaker 1 I have a spicy take that I just want to I just want to rush to the finish line here. Yeah.
And I have a spicy take.

Speaker 2 Go for it.

Speaker 1 And it's not because I thought this game was perfect. It's not because I thought that this game wasn't frustrating.
I think game of the year is blueprints.

Speaker 2 I think there's a strong case for blueprints.

Speaker 2 The thing is because certainly its initial reaction was so rapturous and it is so distinct and singular and it is a really, really really impressive achievement and you know certainly indie designs are very often lauded when when these these commendations come down so i could very much see it it being blue prints it's it's hard for me to say about any other game that i had an experience in that game that i had absolutely truthfully never had before

Speaker 1 and though obviously you know if you listen to our blue prints episode it we we we spend more than half of that episode complaining about the shortcomings and frustrations.

Speaker 2 Yeah, people did listen to it and they did get mad of blueprints.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 I can't think of a game that I will always think back on and always remember. For example, the first time I played Demon Souls, I was like, oh, this is a shift.

Speaker 1 Like the first time I play, you know, like the first time you play a Mario game, you're like, oh, this is a shift. With Blueprints, I was like, there are going to be games, and this is the

Speaker 1 genesis of this thing. And they're going to be descendants of Blueprints.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I had that feeling playing Vampire Survivors fairly recently, which I talked about. And obviously, that's become a whole thing.
You know, the game like Ball Pit owes its existence.

Speaker 2 Megabong. Yeah, exactly.
There's all these games. It's

Speaker 2 the sort of auto-shooter genres

Speaker 2 all comes from that. So I'm sure there will be Blueprints derivatives that will,

Speaker 2 you know, for sure. Blueprints likes.

Speaker 1 It was not my personal favorite game of the year. Like, that's also important to say is that I think that in terms of whatever the metric is here, I'm not saying Heather's game of the year.

Speaker 1 I'm saying what was the game of the year. It's really hard for me to see an argument against Blueprint.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I was going to say, like, it does sort of,

Speaker 2 the experience of playing the game sort of does mirror the year itself

Speaker 2 in a certain way where like you go into one room and it's not what you wanted at all. And you go into a different room and you're like, well, this is worse, actually.

Speaker 2 And then you're like, okay, what are my options for another room? Like, okay, none of these help. Yeah, this is all bad.
I'm just fucked. I guess I'll start over.
Actually, that's the difference.

Speaker 2 You can't start over in this reality. Yeah.
Like, I guess maybe if I go to sleep, sleep clean the slate. Try again.
No, yeah, dude.

Speaker 2 You're just stuck with the same shitty house now. You just wake up and you have this shitty house, and that's where you live.
Tonda Ross, the developer who made it solo,

Speaker 2 a labor of love, and just such an

Speaker 2 Again, we didn't necessarily personally respond to it. My big issue with Blueprints is I just thought it was not respectful of

Speaker 2 the user's time. Though I know some people, though I did put a ton of hours into it and I was transfixed by it for a while, I know a lot of people have put 100 plus hours into it and just

Speaker 2 love getting super deep into the lore and figuring out absolutely every secret in this thing. All of the lateral thinking puzzles are really impressively crafted.

Speaker 2 Just the core design, the sort of roguelike

Speaker 2 kind of

Speaker 2 pipe dream, sort of like building a house as you go and just sort of like all these decision points that you have to go, like that you have to make, like really, really just like incredible stuff.

Speaker 2 As far as your argument, Heather, yeah, if we're going through these, I think Blue Prince has a stronger case than Hades 2 for winning gaming year, just because of the novelty and also because the solo dev story is so

Speaker 2 the kind of thing that I think the gaming press graphs onto. I saw a clip of Blue Prince like within the last couple of days of somebody doing a puzzle that I had never seen.

Speaker 2 Like I was like, I played so so much of this fucking game. What is this person doing? Like, I was like, never even seen that.

Speaker 1 They're like screwing a faucet into a rabbit?

Speaker 2 It was the grid. It was like an image of the same grid that you're building houses on, but there was a single letter at the bottom of it, and it was like a letter puzzle.

Speaker 2 So you have to then figure out what other letters occupy which spaces based on something.

Speaker 2 I can't remember exactly what it was, but then you use that to like, that's a clue somehow. Not for me.
Yeah, no, no, no. Can't do that.

Speaker 2 It's the kind of thing you read about this and it's like the dude spent uh the individual spent eight years making this game and then i just rewind the clock eight years and i was like what was i doing man just imagine like if i if i just like started now i was like hey you know what i'm gonna spend eight years on a creative project something that like i care about and that i want to make that's going to be fully my own it may not have the sort of i mean it would it would not have the sort of success of some of a blueprints because that's like such a like it's a phenomenon and people are speed running this game, but it's like the kind of thing of like I bet that would be an incredibly creatively satisfying endeavor to come out on the other side of it.

Speaker 2 I feel like a million bucks.

Speaker 1 I disagree. Like when I turn in scripts, I get so depressed.
Like for like for like three days afterwards, I'm in an emotional and creative creator. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think that my experience of like giving birth to these fucking anything that I make,

Speaker 1 like if it's a show, if it's a script, if it's anything, like a drawing, I always feel so miserable on the other side. Yeah.
And I think a lot about when I

Speaker 1 think a lot about the way Hidi Achiano talks about Evangelion ruining his life when I have very small moments of creative output that then that then leave me miserable.

Speaker 1 And I think if I spent eight years on a project, no matter how it was received, there's a likelihood I need to be committed afterwards.

Speaker 2 I like I, you know, when I when I finish writing something like that, I usually feel pretty satisfied, but I also like I, and, and same thing

Speaker 2 when I used to make videos, when I, when I, I'd finish a video and finish editing a video and post it and see the reaction, even if the reaction was like muted, but sometimes the reaction would be like people would love it.

Speaker 2 I, I know, Heather, I know you used to make videos as well. It's like, I, I, I, to me, I feel, I, I don't feel that, the, like that sort of reaction that you have.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't have that feeling of emptiness necessarily. I, I more, necessarily, I more feel like like a series, like a feeling of finality and like accomplishment.

Speaker 2 But also so often I'm doing things that are just for hire. And I guess maybe that's the sort of thing you're talking about.

Speaker 2 That's the difference, I guess I'm saying. It's like something that's purely passion, a passion project versus something where I'm like doing this for money.

Speaker 2 That's those are the ones where I have a little bit of emptiness afterwards. For me, I hope to have a good idea someday.

Speaker 2 I think Blueprint's more so than Hades 2. I think that's a good argument, Heather.

Speaker 2 We should also talk about Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Yes, I do want to talk about this because a lot has been made about this particular game and this particular show, I think.
How so?

Speaker 2 Because people on like on the Discord in particular, a great community of folks. Yeah.
Truly, like honestly, in the last couple of weeks, I will say.

Speaker 2 Just as somebody who I think of the three of us is in there with the people, honestly, have just been like really like

Speaker 2 honestly like touched and just blown away by the community. The people, they're all so nice in there.
I thought that was going

Speaker 2 away.

Speaker 2 I feel like they all

Speaker 2 help each other in different ways, too. Like, somebody had an issue

Speaker 2 with

Speaker 2 figuring out how to get their Patreon sorted out, and the community stepped up and helped this person. I was like, This is just great.

Speaker 2 I just, this is what you hope for when people listen to the show and get together. No, it's a whole wholesome community over there.
Yeah, I really love it. Wow.
They're all really good.

Speaker 2 Is discord.gg/slash get played? Yeah, yeah, they are really great. They're all so lovely and nice, but they piss me the fuck off when

Speaker 2 they talk about about me not finishing Claire Obscure Expedition 33. And I'm like, look, sorry, I do want it is a game that I intend to pick back up.

Speaker 2 I would love to pick it back up once, but like this year, there were games that like, because Claire Obscure for me came out of nowhere, kind of, right?

Speaker 2 Like for a lot of people, I think it took people by surprise. It's this turn-based, uh, this turn-based French JRPG

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 people just just were just delighted and surprised by. And I was too when we

Speaker 2 played it for the little bit that we played it. But there were other games this year that I personally was more hyped for that when they came out, I had to, you know, to put away childish things.

Speaker 2 How dare you? Yeah, how dare you.

Speaker 2 I think this game rocks.

Speaker 2 I'll speak for myself. And

Speaker 2 this has been a really trying year for me, both just in terms of I've gotten extremely busy,

Speaker 2 which is a great problem to have. I'm very, very lucky

Speaker 2 to be working more, but I've just like I've gone from being,

Speaker 2 you know, like a, like very, to having a lot of, from having a lot of time for gaming to having minimal time for gaming.

Speaker 2 So unfortunately, games like Claire Obscure, which I normally would have devoured, I've just had minimal time to get into.

Speaker 2 And then also as we were going, as the year's been going, I've been battling some mental health issues, which has also made it harder for me to focus on, particularly more expansive gaming experiences.

Speaker 2 I do think Claire Obscure is fucking, is a triumph. I loved

Speaker 2 the parts of it that I played. My brother, my alpha brother Nate is almost done with it.
He loves this game. We got to get Nate on the show.
Nate Rocks. Yeah, do it.

Speaker 2 But anyway, it's such an impressive design and also like akin to Blue Prince, like you were saying, is like, like Matt, Matt, just to reiterate that is kind of out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 It just wasn't on anyone's radar. And I think that's the sort of story that people like when they're awarding a game of the year.
Yes.

Speaker 2 I think that, I mean, not to jump too far ahead, I do think that the story of Game of the Year this year is between Claire Obscure and Silk Song, probably.

Speaker 2 So you think you would put Claire Obscure above Blueprints? Because I would too. I think I'd probably, of the ones we're going Claire Obscure, Blueprints, Hades 2.

Speaker 2 Not talking about personal order in terms of how these games are, I'm just talking in terms of how they'd be ranked for a day.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, because I'd put Blueprints all the way at the bottom if it was my personal list.

Speaker 1 I would be surprised if Silk Song,

Speaker 1 I wouldn't be surprised if

Speaker 1 Silk Song won. Yes.

Speaker 2 Well, let's talk about Hollow Knight Silk Song, which I have not played.

Speaker 2 Ranch, you've played and Matt, you've spent

Speaker 2 a lot of time into. Yes.
I've obviously not fallen off of it. And this is the thing I actually want to do.

Speaker 2 We got to just rebrand this narrative.

Speaker 2 We

Speaker 2 fell off of it?

Speaker 2 No, sweetie. I put it away for a little bit.
I'm going to get it back.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get back to it. Just because I'm playing Pokemon doesn't mean I fell off of Silk Song.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get back to it. It's in the, it's, you know, it's not so deep in my backlog that I'm not going to not gonna see it to the end.
I'm gonna finish that game this year, I think.

Speaker 2 But it, you know, I finished the first Holo Knight the day, the night before Silk Song

Speaker 2 came out. So I feel like I have a little bit of stolen valor there where you know lots of people waited for seven years and I was just like, oh, great.
Now it's ready for me.

Speaker 2 But even so,

Speaker 2 it's such an impressive feat. I think Team Cherry is three people,

Speaker 2 and all the reporting about why it took them so long was just that they kept thinking of stuff and having a good time making the game. And, you know, that's all you could hope for,

Speaker 2 especially just with how tumultuous

Speaker 2 game production, game development is.

Speaker 2 You hear about that on other studios. So, like, the fact they will stick to their vision and execute it in

Speaker 2 an extremely high-quality way, I think, is extremely impressive.

Speaker 2 And then also just like, I think the game fucking whips ass.

Speaker 2 It's so good and so fun. And even the parts that are very challenging, I just, I think are, it's just incredible.
I think it's like, it's my personal favorite game this year.

Speaker 2 And you were saying there's creeping up at your favorite games of all time. Yes.
And you like it better than Hollow Knight. Oh, I think I like it like...
at least twice as much.

Speaker 2 Twice as much as Hollow Knight. It's harder.

Speaker 2 Not that I disliked the,

Speaker 2 I don't think Hollow night's an easy game yeah at all but like i think you know did my alpha brother nate

Speaker 2 he didn't actually say it was easy i i think he did 180 or whatever it was it's but it's also like in the same way that i liked i i think death stranding one yeah is a more unique experience right but i think i like death stranding two more yeah sure because it's just it's just more refined so like you're just getting more out of the already good formula and i do think it's just like uh i just like it more i like i like um hornets moveset more.

Speaker 2 I like the things that they've added, like crests and tools, I really like. So I think that's just a little more exciting to me.
Ranch,

Speaker 2 what about you? What are you thinking about Silk Song these years? Do you like it more than Hollow Knight?

Speaker 1 It's hard to say because since I also played Hollow Knight pretty recently,

Speaker 1 it kind of feels like I'm playing the same game.

Speaker 1 So I don't know if I, if there's like, I feel like one is better than the other.

Speaker 1 I think I like both equally.

Speaker 2 Well, and it's also, I mean, Silk Song was at one point originally DLC for Hollow Knight 1. So it is really just like, a lot of these sequels are 1.5s, right? Where it's like, it's just more,

Speaker 2 just a little bit better.

Speaker 2 But I do think, yeah, there's just something to do. I wish,

Speaker 2 I hope that there's a certain point you have time to try it out and see what it's like.

Speaker 2 I think you both would really love it. I'm sure I would.
And

Speaker 2 I also owe a full playthrough of Hollow Knight, which has been

Speaker 2 lingering for too long now.

Speaker 2 In my backlog, I will say that I think that

Speaker 2 from my outsider's perspective is that I would just compare Hollow Knight Silk Song to Hades 2, but it does seem like there's a little bit more, even though Hades 2 has a higher meta score, it does seem like Hollow Knight Silk Song has more of a like just sort of

Speaker 2 what's the word I'm looking for? More of an energy behind it, more momentum in terms of people saying that this could potentially be the game of the year. Again, maybe because Hades won

Speaker 2 was so lauded back in its day.

Speaker 2 I would say, all that said, where does Silk Song rank versus the other ones? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I could even see the groundswell for swinging back to Blue Prince by the time

Speaker 2 we're picking these awards versus Hollow Knight Silk Song, which is benefiting a little bit from recency bias right now. I do think, though, that the impact of the release of Silk Silksong though

Speaker 2 should be noted here as well because other games moved out of the way. Like they

Speaker 2 self-delayed even though they were basically about to come out at the same time and just like just to get out of Silksong's way.

Speaker 2 And the only other game that has done that, Granthet Auto VI when it was supposed to come out, games moved out of the way to make room for Granthet Auto VI and then it didn't even end up making that

Speaker 2 shelf date. Yeah, I just think there's something, there's a, I don't know, there is an energy.

Speaker 2 It's like sort of like a, you know, know, kind of like, not like a romantic story, but like it is like, there is like a bit of, I don't know, you kind of like that something like that people have wanted for so long came out and it was good.

Speaker 2 That's a great point. It was like, it could have been vaporware.

Speaker 2 It could have been like, you know, Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy, this thing that's long promised and then ultimately kind of under delivers or Duke Nukem forever.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was never going to be Duke Nukem forever, obviously. But I mean, just like an A.
I'm Hornet and I throw shit at people.

Speaker 2 What's that coming out of my dick? Oh, it's right. It's piss.

Speaker 2 I forgot what piss was and where it came from. I shit straight rice.

Speaker 2 And no, I know what you're thinking. That's not tapeworms.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about split fiction real quick. We should just touch on it because this is a game that I've seen on some of these lists.

Speaker 2 My thing for my case against Split Fiction, which is a co-op game. I fucked a stair

Speaker 2 and the other stairs got jealous.

Speaker 2 I shaved my teeth down to look like little penis.

Speaker 2 It is hard to stop doing here. It's hard to stop.

Speaker 1 It's like the worst thing.

Speaker 2 My pubes tell me to do things.

Speaker 2 So, split fiction. I want to marry my computer.

Speaker 2 My computer said no to my proposal.

Speaker 2 We're in couples counseling.

Speaker 2 You got to help me. I threw my computer in the dumpster.

Speaker 2 Don't know if I got a new computer.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, we killed that.

Speaker 2 The thing, here's what I'll say about Split Fiction.

Speaker 2 I think it's awesome that a company is making games like this. I think it's cool to be making co-op games.
Totally.

Speaker 2 Because co-op is, you know, that was like me and my brothers only played games together and stuff. So like that was, this would have, if I was,

Speaker 2 if I was like 20 years younger and this game was out, I'd be so excited to be playing this with my brother.

Speaker 1 We gotta release a mod.

Speaker 2 We should just record like a thousand of these and just release a mod for Duke Nuke. My favorite candle scent is carrot.

Speaker 2 My dick plays co-op with my balls.

Speaker 2 But only one of them, the other one, won't participate. He's jealous.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 here would be my one argument against Split Fiction. Or by argument against Slit Fiction, which I have not played.
I don't think any of us have played this game. No.

Speaker 2 I put a sandwich in my ass the wide way.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get my ass crack surgically removed.

Speaker 2 I want an outie butthole.

Speaker 2 Why don't they make steak-flavored gum?

Speaker 2 Because it takes to one game of the year at the game awards, I just don't think they're going to do it. I just don't think it's going to be repeated with splits.
They can't risk it.

Speaker 2 They can't let that guy on stage and let him cuss.

Speaker 2 They can't do it.

Speaker 2 But I just, I feel like there's other options that are maybe just a little bit less niche and a little bit more. I kind of wish I'd played it because the stuff I've seen in it looks fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 And I just, it's hard to, you know, a game like that if you don't have

Speaker 2 somebody in the house who wants to play who because I feel like that it's not just like playing Mario Kart or even just any sort of sort of like casual game.

Speaker 2 These games are like you have to like really know how to play

Speaker 2 games and like play like plat difficult platforming sections. So like getting my wife to like play a game like this, we would just never finish it.

Speaker 2 No, that I mean that's one thing I've heard about this just in terms of people who are criticizing this game again. I haven't played myself is that it is a little bit challenging.

Speaker 2 And because very often co-op is like, oh, I'm going to play with my non-gaming partner. I'm going to play with my kid.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 It's like who maybe is, you know, not as like, hey, some kids are awesome at games, maybe my kids a little bit younger. It's, it's like,

Speaker 2 you maybe want it to be a little bit more generous or have some sort of assist mode or something like that that makes it just like a little bit easier to get through.

Speaker 2 If when I have a kid and they're bad at games, they're going to go to bed with no dinner. Matt.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 2 Oh, you got a game over and split fiction with me? Go to your fucking room. I love it.

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 2 Mommy's about this. I'm going to be in so much much trouble.

Speaker 2 Go to your room, Duke Nukem.

Speaker 2 My dad grounded me in the bathroom.

Speaker 2 My bed is the toilet.

Speaker 2 My best friend is a soap dispenser.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it like.

Speaker 2 I can't get a feel for who this guy is.

Speaker 2 The character is just like obviously in a straitjacket.

Speaker 2 It's all over the place.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wish that there was like a, I mean, maybe there is

Speaker 2 like maybe an assist mode or like maybe you can adjust the difficulty,

Speaker 2 you know, on the other side of it, right? I know, but like, I know that there's like a version of it where you could play it with a friend who's not in the house.

Speaker 2 If you buy the game, you can get a code and send them the code and they can play it with you, which I think is really cool too. I did play It Takes Two and I played It Takes Two remotely.

Speaker 2 And I played, you know, you, yeah, so I imagine it's the same thing as Plus Visual. We shouldn't spend too much time speculating about this.
This info was out there. Yes.

Speaker 2 We just can't speak to it firsthand. Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Speaker 2 I love Bonanza. Ooh, banana.
Ooh, banana. Oh, banana.

Speaker 2 Oh, bono, no.

Speaker 2 He's holding grapes.

Speaker 2 I don't think Bonanza is going to win,

Speaker 2 even though it's so, so fun. It's such a hoot.
It's such a blast. And I think it's just like, it's like such a, again, a triumph for what it's trying to do.

Speaker 2 It is a big game, maybe bigger than it needs to be. Yeah, I could have shaved five levels off of it easily.

Speaker 1 Just like Donkey Kong himself.

Speaker 1 Maybe just a little too big.

Speaker 2 And maybe, you know, just does not quite have enough to it versus some of these other games that are a little bit more

Speaker 2 substantial.

Speaker 2 And also, I just think, I think the fact that it's just sort of like this,

Speaker 2 it's a platformer is just going to be a little bit of a strike against it in terms of it actually winning the award. I feel like I've seen a lot of people considering

Speaker 2 Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which I know you spent some time with, Heather.

Speaker 1 Gentlemen,

Speaker 1 let me say that this game was a triumph. Wow.
It was a thrill. It was as granular or as broad as you wanted it to be.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 1 never got out of the starting area.

Speaker 1 I played at least 12 hours, if not 20, of the game. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There was so much to do that it reminded me of being a child.

Speaker 1 with a copy of like, I think it was called Dagger Fall,

Speaker 1 where it was just like a game that was just like, I was, I was like, not, I, I was a, a baby, and I was given a world, and I was like, what do I do?

Speaker 1 And I think I just spent most of the time in like three houses in that game.

Speaker 1 And that's very much what my experience of kingdom come deliverance was, was I went to like four houses and I was so overwhelmed with the freedom and the scalability of that freedom.

Speaker 1 Like the, like, do I want to talk to this cop or whatever they were, knights, cops, whatever.

Speaker 1 Do I want to talk to that cop and like see if there's a relationship to be had there so that I can do a thing later? Like, it's, it's massive, massive, massive.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I don't know. I, I think, I think for people who

Speaker 1 want that kind of game, I think about you a lot when I think about that game.

Speaker 2 I'm sure I would love it if ever I dedicated some time to it.

Speaker 1 That, for people who want that kind of game, that kind of game is like the apex of that kind of game.

Speaker 2 It was staggering.

Speaker 1 Um, and I can't believe I got it on a whim and then probably spent an hour and a half in the menu screen being like,

Speaker 1 wait, I can change the thread on my

Speaker 1 pants?

Speaker 1 Like, why do I need to do this? Yeah, it was, it's,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I, I,

Speaker 1 I look back fondly. I'm afraid of it.

Speaker 2 I don't, I'm afraid of it. It could consume you if you let it.

Speaker 1 It's, it's like,

Speaker 1 it's like being like, I want to read a fantasy novel and somebody hands you the entirety of everything Brandon Sanderson has ever written and the, and the, the book list just goes down the block.

Speaker 1 And it's like, okay, I, I, I, I'll start on page one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And like, maybe I'm going to read like, I don't know, 100 pages of this over and over again, and then look down, and there's still 52,000 pages to read.

Speaker 2 It was crazy.

Speaker 1 And it was gorgeous.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Not Game of the Year.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about this. I think for this exercise, I can't imagine it winning Game of the Year just because I don't think enough people who have played it.

Speaker 2 And I also just kind of feel like it's, you know,

Speaker 2 if we look at some of these other games, there's just a little bit more. critical consensus behind them.

Speaker 2 But speaking of sequels that were considered substantial improvements over the original, Death Stranding 2 on the Beach.

Speaker 2 Now, this is one, going back to this, you were talking about this earlier, Heather. And I want you to, like, please, if there's anything else you want to fill in, please do so.

Speaker 2 But like, I think Death Stranding 2 on the Beach actually is a very strong case, partly because it is just like, like, Death Stranding 1, people were like, what the fuck is this game?

Speaker 2 A lot of people play, like, like, at first, a lot of people were like, this sucks. This is nothing.
This is a walking simulator. What is going on?

Speaker 2 And then over time, especially the director's cut comes out.

Speaker 2 There becomes more of a fan community behind it. There becomes more groundswell support.

Speaker 2 More people are like realizing kind of the genius of its core design and what it's saying about humanity and about our current world. And

Speaker 2 it becomes this like this beloved game.

Speaker 2 And then Death Stranding 2 on the beach comes out in the aftermath of that, where everyone kind of understands what a strand game is.

Speaker 2 And it just feels like it has just, again, just

Speaker 2 this rapturous reception uh upon its initial launch i think that the

Speaker 1 is it wasn't there like a game awards recently announced uh like some i i i don't not the game awards but a game awards and i think stranding only got four nominations one was troy baker for uh best supporting actor yeah uh one was uh

Speaker 1 what's his name ludwig fossil something like that for for no no no the other guy

Speaker 1 yeah yeah uh for score

Speaker 1 um and then it got like a an effects or something or like sound design and it what none of the the categories and I don't I didn't even investigate what this list was it popped up on my Twitter feed because I follow stranding on Twitter or Blue Sky or wherever the fuck I saw it yeah um but I was surprised that

Speaker 1 since this was an awards show that's clearly had both soundtrack and score and performance that I would assume it would also be game of the year or whatever, or like, you know, best game or best writing or whatever.

Speaker 1 And none of those categories were represented by this, again, thing I saw.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 You're doing the best you have with what information you have. Let me look it up.

Speaker 1 Let me look it up while you guys, while you guys muse a little bit.

Speaker 2 I would just say, like,

Speaker 2 I mean, Matt,

Speaker 2 you sunk a ton of time into Death Trend 2. Maybe, maybe just give us your thoughts.

Speaker 2 For me, I would say it's on my personal list.

Speaker 2 I have finished it, of course, so it kind of feels like for me, it's between

Speaker 2 Silk Song and

Speaker 2 Death Stranding 2, if I had to pick, even though Silk Song, as of now, remains unfinished. For your personal list.
Yeah, for my personal list.

Speaker 2 I do think it deserves a wider shot at Game of the Year just because of what we've said before, that it just took everything about the first one and

Speaker 2 like not only just like refined the systems and gameplay and stuff but like somehow made it more normal like like the the i the death stranding 2 is i think less jarring of a an experience for uh a new player than death stranding one is and that's only simply because

Speaker 2 There was not a Death Stranding before. Yeah.
So it felt crazy. But because there's one, there's a second one.
The second one, just by default is more normal because you're used to it or right.

Speaker 2 Um, so I, I, and I do think that it, you know, but people have asked if you could just play Death Stranding 2, and I'm like, yeah, you could, you could, but I think you got to experience the whole thing, uh, because it really is both, it's not where like the second game is like a completely different story or something like that.

Speaker 2 The, the story of two,

Speaker 2 the story of one is necessary for two. Like, like, two doesn't happen without one.
So it is just, I think it's a, it's, you know, it's a triumph, of course. And I, I think it's maybe,

Speaker 2 and this is going to, you know, people who love Metal Gear Solid V are going to be coming for me with this. I think it's Kojima's best gameplay in any, in any game that he's made.
I think it's

Speaker 2 just, it's all-time great stuff. But yeah, Death Stranding 2, I think there's a strong case for it.
I wonder if the wider sort of quote-unquote gaming public

Speaker 2 agrees. I know it's highly reviewed, but I kind of feel like people are

Speaker 2 maybe more likely to go with a Blue Prince over a Death Stranding 2, I think.

Speaker 1 May I read this list?

Speaker 2 Yeah, please. I found the list.

Speaker 1 It's the Golden Joystick Awards, which is the longest-running game awards that there are.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 1 And so, for your best storytelling, you've got Claire Obscure, Silent Hill F, Blue Prince, Mafia the Old Country, Lost Records, and The Hundred Line.

Speaker 1 For best multiplayer, you've got Battlefield Six, Peak, Elden Rain, Night Rain, Split Fiction, Mario Kart World, and Rematch. Like,

Speaker 1 there's, for best storytelling, if you're not, if you're not nominating Stranding 2 for storytelling, then it seems to me like it's a little bit on the periphery of what might be considered Game of the Year.

Speaker 2 Because that's primarily what that game is doing. Telling you a story.
It's fucking telling you a story.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess, you know, we're prognosticating here, so it seems like that is something of an indicator that's some source decided that is saying that we're going to exclude it from

Speaker 2 the nominations. But I think we're talking about overall game of the year.
I don't think it's like it would be out of the running.

Speaker 2 I would think Death Shining 2 actually has a better chance of getting an award than Hades 2, even though Hades 2 is maybe a more, you know, complete or a better overall game, but like less so than like Silk Song if we're comparing to, we're talking direct sequels.

Speaker 2 Right, yeah, yeah. And certainly more so than Kingdom Come Deliverance, too.
Oh, yeah, by far. It's not a shoe-in, but it's not,

Speaker 2 you know, completely out of the comments. No, No, I think, I think it's, I think there's a case that it, like, it could ultimately happen.

Speaker 2 So while we're talking sequels, we should touch on a couple that we've talked about on the podcast. One we just talked about, I just talked about here.

Speaker 2 We'll see what happens. I think just like keep an eye on Outer Worlds 2.
I don't think it would end up being Game of the Year. I think it's just like a little bit too...

Speaker 2 It's a little too specific, and it's also like probably feels a little too, too familiar tonally because of the Fallout

Speaker 2 know like um lineage that i i don't think it would actually and the gameplay is not quite as you know a revelatory as some of these other games it's pretty conventional gameplay but i i'm really liking it so far ghost of yote the other one ghost of tsushima so well regarded such an awesome game ghost of yote i don't know i could see a case for it but also i could see it it being a sort of a like a game that kind of gets lost in the shuffle because there's there's just so many heavy hitters this year yeah there's just a lot of big dogs this year like yeah, it wouldn't necessarily mean that, like, obviously it doesn't mean this for any of these games, that it's less than if it's not nominated in some way.

Speaker 2 Because, you know, it's arbitrary, of course. But I think like, so far, the story of Ghost of Yote is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's a great, maybe one of my favorite stories in a game that I've played this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's been really satisfying to play it.

Speaker 1 And it's, you know what I like? What I didn't like, but now I like about Ghost of Yote is you can't skip through dialogue. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 Like, you have to watch it, and you have to watch all of the scenes of all of the people giving these performances, and you can't just tap, tap, tap.

Speaker 1 At first, I was frustrated because I like to go to the next fight.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the longer I've played it, the more I'm like, wow, I really appreciate that I'm spending time theatrically in these moments where I get to really see some like acting on these characters' faces.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so far I haven't seen something that i was like i wish i could have skipped that it's always like been pretty enjoyable yeah yep i i think i i mean is there anything else we should uh we should note i mean i guess i guess just because it's been an indie darling lately ball pit i just can't i ball pit's awesome i just can't see it winning if we're going for an indie over blueprints yeah as much as i like ball pit i don't think it has the same sauce that vampire survivors has like even though it's uh yeah that's a good point yeah it's similar in in in in how you play it but i think you got to do a lot to sort of get to that seat i think so should we make a call what do we think we should like i i kind of feel like like like this part of the exercise is like we should just like say what our prediction is i if i'm gonna go on the record i think i think it's gonna end up being clear obscure expedition 33 is here i think that's what's gonna happen i kind of think that just because of how much people really enjoyed it and uh just down to the performances down to like the music and just the gameplay and people then being like oh actually turn-based combat is fun and good uh it can or it can be fun and good.

Speaker 2 Just like, it's just such a complete package. And I know that

Speaker 2 I would like to get back in there, of course, and

Speaker 2 finish it once and for all. So everybody gets off my fucking ass about this thing.

Speaker 1 To be the outlier

Speaker 1 in the votes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And to give the podcast a little bit more hope of actually nailing it, I think it's going to be Silk Song.

Speaker 2 I could very much see it being Silk Song. I think it's there.

Speaker 2 It's between the two of them. Because the other games, maybe, yeah, there's going to be some, there's probably going to be multiple nominations and maybe some that we didn't even get to.

Speaker 2 But the two, the two big, the biggest dogs this year are Silk Song and Clarobskier for sure. I'll show you a big dog.

Speaker 2 It's called my butthole.

Speaker 2 That on a big dog shirt, like on one of those shirts.

Speaker 2 Your stepdad wearing it at a barbecue.

Speaker 2 What's that shirt say? What the fuck?

Speaker 1 What is this game?

Speaker 2 It's time for a segment.

Speaker 2 Let's get into this one.

Speaker 2 Guys, we're back at the bargain, Ben. We're back at the bargain.
I love it. I'm giving you all $15.

Speaker 2 Woo! And y'all get to spend this money that I've given to you.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 2 On games of the year. Oh.

Speaker 2 So these are all various games of the year

Speaker 2 from last year down to 2004. All right.
So again, $15, they can either spend that on games of the year or a one matcha latte. Yeah,

Speaker 2 or a half a piece of avocado toast.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Okay.

Speaker 2 So we got some really heavy hitters, obviously. So in the $5 tier, so starting at, you know.
And how did you source these as Games of the Year? I just picked a single publication that

Speaker 2 with like the most available and went back. Oh, fuck.
Look at this. List.
So this is 20 years of games of the year.

Speaker 2 And so in the $5 tier, we have Astrobot, Baldur's Gate 3, Vampire Survivors, and Returnal.

Speaker 2 Returnal game of the year. Okay.
I mean, it's, I haven't finished it. It's incredible.
It's so fucking good. In the $4 tier, we have Hades, Outer Wilds, God of War, and What Remains of Edith Finch.

Speaker 2 In the $3 tier, Uncharted 4, A Thief's End, Fallout 4, Destiny, and The Last of Us. In the $2 tier, we have Dishonored, Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, and Batman, Arkham Asylum.

Speaker 2 And in the $1 tier, Super Mario Galaxy, Bioshock, Ghost Recon, Advanced Warfare, or Advanced Warfighter, excuse me, and Half-Life 2. Oh, boy, that last one made it tricky because I thought I had

Speaker 2 a garden path here. But I'll go first.

Speaker 2 There you go. $5,

Speaker 2 my favorite game, Baldur's Gate 3, gotta pick pick it. Endlessly replayable.
And just, you know, look at an incredibly satisfying gaming experience. $4 tier Hades.
I'm playing Hades.

Speaker 2 Again, just speaking of endlessly replayable, I play the shit out of that game and, you know,

Speaker 2 keep jacking up the heat and just

Speaker 2 keep doing more runs. Can you hear me? Keep jacking.

Speaker 2 Okay, Duke.

Speaker 2 I'm going to keep jacking.

Speaker 2 I jack limp.

Speaker 2 three dollar, I'll take Last of Us. I mean, I love Last of Us.
I like it better than part two.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I just, it's, it's a pretty perfect game. Um, two dollar tier, okay.
I think I got to do Portal 2.

Speaker 2 Man, as much as I, I, yeah, I mean, I just like Arkham Asylum is great. It's so good.
And, you know,

Speaker 2 I still like, like, for me, Asylum hit me so much.

Speaker 2 I know, I know Arkham City is like a more realized, fully realized game, but just like the way Asylum hit hit me and just I was, we were so surprised that someone, a game just like finally fucking nailed Batman slash being a superhero.

Speaker 2 That first Rocksteady Batman is awesome, but I'll take Portal 2, even though I really love Mass Effect 2. I just feel like I already got another MIDI RPG.

Speaker 2 And then the $1.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess I got a Valve game because I was going to say Half-Life 2, but maybe I'll pivot over and go Super Mario Galaxy. So yeah, those will be my five.

Speaker 2 Baldur's Gate 3, Hades, Last of Us, Portal 2, and Super Mario Galaxy.

Speaker 2 A lot of good options. A lot of great ones.

Speaker 2 Heather, you think you're ready to make some choices?

Speaker 1 I don't know how to spend enough money.

Speaker 2 Because you don't want some.

Speaker 1 I don't want enough of them. Well,

Speaker 2 spend what you want. Spend your budget.
You can spend 15.

Speaker 1 I can't. No, I'm saying I don't.

Speaker 1 I can't make it.

Speaker 2 Yes, you can. You can figure it out.

Speaker 1 I don't even want enough games.

Speaker 2 How is that possible?

Speaker 1 Because all I want is Mario Galaxy.

Speaker 2 $1.14 left.

Speaker 1 The Last of Us.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's $3. So that's $4 spent.
You have $11 left.

Speaker 2 God of War. $4.
That's what, $7?

Speaker 1 An Astrobot.

Speaker 1 There's not, I don't have enough money. You got $2 left.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 So you don't want anything from the $2 tier?

Speaker 1 I don't want anything from the $2 tier.

Speaker 2 You don't want Portal 2? It's like an all-timer.

Speaker 1 I think, honestly, I'm going to get Bioshock as like a bonus. And like Half-Life 2 is.

Speaker 2 There you go.

Speaker 2 that's not bonus. That's what you're allowed to have.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But those are my games. And really, the truth is, I only really, on the whole list, I only want Galaxy and The Last of Us.

Speaker 2 I don't need any of the other ones. I'm going to do something.

Speaker 2 I think I'm going to do something crazy. Wow.
Three copies of Vampire Survivors.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go. with Astrobot in the $5 tier.
Okay. Also in the $5 tier, I'm going with Baldur's Gate 3.
Wow. Wow.
$10.

Speaker 2 That's $10 right there. In the $4 tier, I'm, this one's hard actually, because I love two games in here so, so much, but I'm making a choice.
I'm going to go with Hades in the $4 tier.

Speaker 2 And then with my final dollar, I'm going to go with Super Mario Galaxy. I mean, Super Mario Galaxy, the $1 tier is such an incredible value.

Speaker 2 I mean, you got Super Mario Galaxy, Bioshock, and Half-Life 2. Yeah, you know, I know your price of these maps.
Those games could all very easily be $3 or $4 games. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And, you know, certainly What Remains of Edith Finch was a lot of fun to play through, but hard to justify at the $4 tier. So a lot of these things are just

Speaker 2 based on spending your budget. But yeah, that was a fun exercise.
I always like doing it, and I like hearing what you guys pick. And

Speaker 2 I like making the little graphic. Yeah.
It's fun to make the little graphic.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I'd spend $15 on factions and The Last of Us and let the rest of the board go.

Speaker 1 How'd I miss that fucking game?

Speaker 2 Hey, that was Bargain Ben. That's this week's Get Played.
Our producers are Shell Chen. Ranch, Yard underscore underscore sard.
Ranch, you're streaming anything? Still on Silent Hill F. Awesome.
Nice.

Speaker 2 Check that out. Twitch.tv/slash yard underscore underscore sard.
Our music is by Ben Prunty. BenPruntyMusic.com.
Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigay.com. Get Played Merge at KinshipGoods.com.

Speaker 2 And Get Animate, our sister show, is over on Patreon. Matt, what are we watching this week? We are watching our new series, Serial Experiments Lane.
And let me tell you something.

Speaker 2 It's an interesting show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's certainly not serial experience.

Speaker 2 Serial experiments.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, it's certainly not serial experiments lame.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 it's not.

Speaker 1 It's not even fucking worth it. I wish I'd never spoken.

Speaker 2 I do some serial experiments. I use piss instead of milk.

Speaker 2 Patreon.com slash get played for get animated.

Speaker 2 And that'll do it. And I guess, you know what? Who knows what the game of the year will be, but it got played.
It will have gotten played. It will have gotten played.

Speaker 2 And if we got it wrong, we got played.

Speaker 1 That was a Headgum podcast.

Speaker 2 What's going on? It's Lamorne Morris.

Speaker 1 And Hannah Simone.

Speaker 2 And we host The Mess Around, a New Girl rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now, here's the thing.
Every single week, we chat about an episode of New Girl, and we really get into it.

Speaker 2 Like we get up in there. We get up in there.
You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind the scenes tea.
We react to re-watching episodes that we haven't seen in years.

Speaker 2 We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog f ⁇ ing.

Speaker 1 That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet.
I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo.

Speaker 2 We're just two BFFs having a good old time, okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co-stars like Zoe Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Waynes Jr.

Speaker 2 And your dad, we talk to your dad on this show as well.

Speaker 1 Make sure you subscribe to the mess around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every single Tuesday.