Beat-Em-Ups

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Speaker 1 Oh, man, I'm so excited to talk about this topic. You know,

Speaker 1 I have some significant thoughts. It's a good retro topic.
You know, like, I'm excited to see, like...

Speaker 1 What you guys remember about like certain IP, like aliens versus predator, beat-em-up games in general, locomotion in beat-em-up games.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, moving back and forth. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, find, and, you know, finding like little health items within, you know, trash cans or whatever.

Speaker 1 I like the sound of punching a trash can in a beat-em-up. I can't wait to talk about that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's good stuff.

Speaker 1 It's like clang, clang. Yeah.
Clang, clang.

Speaker 2 It's interesting that you think of these as retro games because

Speaker 2 I spend a lot of time with my contemporary gaming time with beat-em-offs.

Speaker 2 What I like about beat-em-offs is

Speaker 2 they're really engaging.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing.

Speaker 2 Always a red flag for a beat-em-off. I have just downloaded a separate uncensored patch.
It's just like, just let that content be included. Don't have Mimi jump through some hoops here.

Speaker 2 Also, I think with beat-em-offs,

Speaker 2 you got to be playable with one hand. I don't have to explain why, but I want to be able to just use my mouse.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I hate to blow up your spot or embarrass you or something. Yeah, what's going on? I think you read the calendar invite

Speaker 2 just barely a little bit wrong.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 We're talking about beat-em-offs, right?

Speaker 2 Actually, that's sort of the big mistake. Yeah.
Is that we're not talking about that.

Speaker 1 We're talking about beat-em-ups.

Speaker 2 Beat-em-ups. Beat-em-ups.
Punching and kicking and fighting and such.

Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 Now everyone knows I jack off.

Speaker 2 See, this is kind of the...

Speaker 2 You can sort of expect something like that to happen because

Speaker 2 as you can hear, he's kind of dumb.

Speaker 2 He's a little bit dumb, and he jacks off.

Speaker 2 He thought we were talking about jacking off, but because he's so dumb,

Speaker 2 he made a big mistake. Why did he become like Huck Finn?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 He like put on a dunce cap.

Speaker 2 I got my hand in a pickle jar. Oh my god, let go of the pickle, dick.
Let go of the pickle.

Speaker 2 We punch foot soldiers and eat food to restore our health as we discuss all things beat-em-up this week on Get Play.

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.

Speaker 1 I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Wiger.

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

Speaker 1 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about beat-em-ups.

Speaker 2 Right? That's right. Oh, thank God.

Speaker 2 I had the same impulse to do it

Speaker 2 a a half second before Nick started, and I was like, I'm not going to do that. Everyone's going to be annoyed with me.
And then Nick started doing it. It seemed really cool.

Speaker 2 I was like, I got to do it.

Speaker 2 I almost doing a hi-ya, and I was like, that's borderline.

Speaker 2 I should avoid that. Maybe don't do that anymore.

Speaker 2 You can do it.

Speaker 2 Oh, great. Game or something.

Speaker 2 Off to a rocky start.

Speaker 2 I do like, like, this is the thing. Like, games are so much about violence.
And aren't they? They really are.

Speaker 1 All the puzzle games, not games. Games are about violence.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah.
No, it's interesting you say that. I had never really made the connection between video games and violence before.
Somebody has to do something about this.

Speaker 2 Somebody really should, but no one's going to do anything about it.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 if anything, people are doing less than ever now. Nobody's doing enough violence these days.

Speaker 2 It should be an industry

Speaker 1 mandate.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Everybody in every game where there's violence also has to beg.

Speaker 2 No, fuck.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Please, no.

Speaker 2 Have mercy. It is I, Radon.

Speaker 2 I beg you.

Speaker 2 I do think

Speaker 2 we're talking about this topic. I feel like this is like a big topic.
There's like a big genre topic. It's good stuff.
It's broad. But I kind of have this take, and we'll get into this.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think beat-em-ups are back. Well, there's certainly been a contemporary resurgence of beat-em-ups, like, you know, an attempt to do some sort of retro refreshes.

Speaker 2 In fact, one of the reasons we're talking about this is that Marvel Cosmic Invasion just came out. Yes.
To mostly positive reception. It got the exact score where I said out loud, nice.
And lots.

Speaker 2 Like very average, good, sort of like, great, that's that's perfect.

Speaker 2 We've seen the return of this, and I think

Speaker 2 there's some retro appreciation

Speaker 2 for this genre that was once a staple of arcades back when those existed.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, the design of a beat-em-up is perfect for an arcade.

Speaker 1 Like, you have forward progression, you have forward map movement, but also there's sort of this built-in clock of your health that forces you to put in more quarters.

Speaker 2 Yeah, quarter-month quarter munchers, they called them. Yeah.
Two minutes a token is basically the formula for financial success back in the day. But

Speaker 2 here's

Speaker 2 what we should do before we get into that.

Speaker 2 We're a video game podcast. That's right.
But it's not the only medium we appreciate. Here we go.
Sometimes

Speaker 2 the Triforce of Friendship plus Rochelle, who's also our friend. Who's also, yeah,

Speaker 2 a third additional piece. Yeah.
An incomplete try, an incomplete second Triforce. Right, yes.
The Quad Force of Friendship. The Quad Force of Friendship

Speaker 2 Likes to see a feature film. And we all saw some movies.
We all saw some movies.

Speaker 1 We did.

Speaker 2 I watched, I saw Wicked for Good. Was that the only thing I saw in theaters? I think so.
We did watch. Did we watch? We had to have watched.

Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, I feel like it's in the rear view at this point. We watched Frankenstein Loved, but Wicked for Good.
And I will say they should have called it Wicked for Fine.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's weird to build an entire film out of the second act of a musical, which always, by design, you want to leave the audience with a real banger right before intermission. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So all your big moments in these big, showy musicals are almost always at the midpoint.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I would have taken a three and a half hour, one movie. That would have been just fine for me.
Two, two and a half hour movies was a lot, especially when there's...

Speaker 2 No arc to be seen in the second one. The arc's done in the first one.

Speaker 1 Also, it's weird because its musical structure,

Speaker 1 you know, spoilers for Wicked for Good ahead. So, cover your ears if you still haven't seen Wicked for Good on stage or in theater.

Speaker 1 In a movie, a sequel to a movie, you would never follow up defying gravity with, you know, what?

Speaker 2 Let's go talk to the wizard one more time just in case.

Speaker 2 Let's hear him out a little bit.

Speaker 1 Like, to be so determined to make a change and then go backwards a little bit, like, that works in a stage show,

Speaker 1 but doesn't work in a movie.

Speaker 2 I will say, I'm level, I'm

Speaker 2 leveling complaints currently.

Speaker 2 I must inform you all, I loved every second of being in the movie theater and I cried several times. I loved it.
That's great.

Speaker 2 It's just what, you know what? The movie theater, I will say, I thought the volume not loud enough. This is at a

Speaker 2 movie theater in the Bay Area.

Speaker 2 It's called Old Person Cinema. Old Person Cinema.

Speaker 2 It's too loud. Well, here's the thing.
A lot of people. Whenever the opposite complaint.
Yeah, they thought it was too loud. And I was like, we have to, this is actually not good.

Speaker 2 We have to come to an agreement of some kind. It was one of those theaters where there's food,

Speaker 2 you know, there are people

Speaker 2 running back and forth in the aisles.

Speaker 2 So I think they have to have it a little quieter so you could hear the server. The server can hear you and stuff.
So I think that whole experience has to go. We have to be done with that.
No.

Speaker 2 No, I love it. We have to be done with that.
I love it. You like the service in the theater.

Speaker 1 Yes, but I like it when it's app-based. So there's no communication with the server.

Speaker 1 you just, you, you, you click the thing. It's app-based before the movie begins and then cannot work during the movie, so you don't have the option of using your phone during the film.

Speaker 2 Because this was a problem I actually ran into.

Speaker 2 I asked my wife, do you want anything? You got to ask your wife that question. Do you want anything? I'm not ordering.

Speaker 2 We're all wife guys here. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to do it.

Speaker 2 I'm ordering, do you want anything? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm good. I'm good.
Oh. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to press it.
Are you sure? A second follow-up has been asked. Okay.

Speaker 2 Whispering that to George Bush while he reads my pit goat.

Speaker 2 A second follow-up has been asked.

Speaker 2 Now I'm okay. I have my, she came in with a coffee.
I'm like, okay, the movie's long. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm pressing, I'm pressing, you know, submit.

Speaker 2 Place my order. Maybe two minutes go by.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know what? I'd love a water. Maybe we could get a water.
And just as she's saying this, the lights come down. Can't scan a QR code to save my fucking life.

Speaker 2 QR code needs to be a different color in the dark.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think you shouldn't be able to use the QR code in the dark.

Speaker 2 I just want to be on my phone. No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 I think, so the way that Alamode does it, another dine-in theater, is there's a little button on your table

Speaker 1 and you have to write in pencil like what it is that you want and you press the little button and they just come and scoop it up.

Speaker 2 They don't say anything. It's a great system.

Speaker 1 Great system. Great system.
QR code before the movie. I don't want fucking pencil.
Pen and pencil or paper and pencil during the film.

Speaker 1 I have an opposite wife. My wife knows she wants something, doesn't know what it is.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So she's always like at the preamble to the film.

Speaker 2 Well, there's so many fun options. She's like,

Speaker 1 what should I get? What do I want? She asked me what I want. And I'm like, I don't know what you want.
You can have anything. And she's like, well, help me.
What do I want?

Speaker 1 I'm like, the chicken tenders. No, I don't want the chicken tenders.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then we got a third wife kind, which is the non-existent wife.

Speaker 2 My wife is real.

Speaker 2 I see her when I look at myself in the mirror wearing a wig.

Speaker 2 Just like Norman batesing yourself to no end.

Speaker 2 I saw Zootopia 2. Yes.
Teotopia. Yeah, I saw 2topia.
Let me say, 2topia, that's a real hoot. You liked it.
I thought, I was like, I went and I was like, all right, I'll see Totopia too.

Speaker 2 And then I'm seeing that I was like, I'm having a great time. I got to watch it.

Speaker 2 I loved the first one. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's another good detective story. It's just, it's like, it's really straightforward.
It's meant to be family accessible, but it's a sort, but it's like, it's well structured.

Speaker 2 And then it's got a lot of, it's just jam-packed with good jokes, and the animation looks great. I thought it was like a completely, completely satisfying cinema experience.
And let me tell you.

Speaker 2 Judy Hop's still looking good in those pants. Oh, my God.
This is why he wanted to talk about the movie so he could tell himself. Yeah, so he could just get excited.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Speaker 2 Setting himself up to get a horny. Judy Hops, my one true love, Judy Hopps.

Speaker 1 Uh, I saw Rental Family.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes, uh, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Speaker 1 Um, saw with my wife, uh, she ended up with the chicken tenders.

Speaker 2 Uh, did you like them?

Speaker 1 She liked the chicken tender.

Speaker 2 What sauce is Mary going with for a chicken tender? I'm going to guess ranch and barbecue sauce. Uh, she chooses ranch, she's a she's ranch, she likes ranch, wow,

Speaker 1 But but yeah, loved rental family. Nice little emotional, sweet film.

Speaker 2 Good times. Recommend.
What sauce do you go with with some tendies? You know what? I'm going to go honey mustard, actually. I was going to say honey mustard.
Honey mustard. This is why we're boys.

Speaker 2 Honey mustard, boy. Honey mustard is situational, but I think tendies is a place where it would shine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not putting a honey mustard on any old damn thing.
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 I'm not some fucking idiot. Some psycho.
Just.

Speaker 2 I have to tell you guys about something I saw that actually is sauce related. It was recently my birthday.
Happy birthday, Matt. Happy birthday, Matt.
Thank you, Matt. It was fine.
It was great.

Speaker 2 It was wonderful.

Speaker 2 Went to Disneyland, went to the.

Speaker 2 This was such an emergency. I almost texted the podcast, The Ride Boys.
I was like, I need to tell you guys about this. I still haven't told them about this.
I have to tell them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Meeting at Storytellers, which is the restaurant at the Grand Californian Hotel over there in downtown Disney. It's like a buffet sort of thing.

Speaker 2 I'm on plate two.

Speaker 2 Made some great choices with the first plate. Got a little slice of prime rib, got a lot of veggies.
Was just going nuts, trying all the little different meats.

Speaker 2 Round two, I was thinking, you know what?

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll get like a butternut squash ravioli.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll get another little salad.

Speaker 2 Maybe like a piece of turkey or something. Okay.
Yeah. I see this lady.

Speaker 2 I know this.

Speaker 2 I see this lady

Speaker 2 looking confused and kind of scared

Speaker 2 at a salad dressing.

Speaker 2 She then

Speaker 2 ladles

Speaker 2 a full ladle of salad dressing. It's like either ranch or blue cheese or some sort of white cream-based dressing.
dressing. She doesn't know what it is.
For all she knows, it could be clam chowder.

Speaker 2 Right. It's not labeled.

Speaker 2 It's not clam chowder because there's no soup. Yeah.
I heard a whole thing about the soup. The soup recipes are out right now.

Speaker 2 The guy who was doing charge of the soups retired, took the recipes with them. They don't have a solution.
How is that possible? We asked. We asked.

Speaker 2 Nothing we can do. Our hands are tied.
He took the good recipes.

Speaker 2 They said they haven't been able to figure out how to get one to scale. We asked.

Speaker 2 We were like, there was a really good corn chowder here before. What happened? The guy retired, took the recipe with him.
We haven't found a sustainable, repeatable recipe.

Speaker 1 They should do battleship curry.

Speaker 2 They should do it, honestly.

Speaker 1 Because that's designed specifically for scale.

Speaker 2 Yes, they couldn't do it. Okay.

Speaker 2 Seems like they could figure it out. It feels like they could toss the guy a payday and be like, hey, man,

Speaker 2 let us toss this. No! Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 He was like tattooed on his back.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 uh, this lady ladles a big

Speaker 2 ladle full of the salad dressing. I'm thinking that's a lot for the amount of salad she has.
What's she gonna do with all that? It's getting past her plate,

Speaker 2 closer and closer, ever closer to her face.

Speaker 2 She takes a sip of it from the ladle.

Speaker 2 Grimaces, yucky.

Speaker 2 don't like this don't like this yeah this dressing

Speaker 2 puts it back in the dressing truly unhinged i'm sitting there i'm like buffets are great i love this this is awesome this is like the most fun i've ever had and then i'm confronted with the exact horror of a buffet

Speaker 2 yeah i mean i thought they might not come back at all after covet yeah but they're back in a big way like that sort of behavior is i mean criminal everyone forgot how to interact socially during COVID.

Speaker 1 Like people just run red lights now.

Speaker 2 They don't, nobody cares about anything. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then also COVID itself is causing brain damage with each successive infection. Yes.
So people are also becoming less able to navigate social spaces.

Speaker 1 So the buffet is going to be the intersection of societal collapse.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And

Speaker 2 to be fair, If I saw

Speaker 2 a bunch of salads and some white goo next next to it, I'd be confused as to what that was, too. Sure, I'd have to taste it to see what it was, of course.

Speaker 1 But I think you would have made a different choice with how to taste it.

Speaker 2 I would have like bobbed for it, like put my whole head in it.

Speaker 2 You could also do the ladle above it, waterfall. There you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It was just, it was alarming, to say the least. Yeah, for sure.
Did you nark?

Speaker 2 What do you do in that situation? Well, here's the thing. I panicked.
Yeah. Because Isabel and I, my wife and I, were like, we have to to say something.

Speaker 2 Before we could get to anybody, for some reason, the most people I've ever seen, I've got to get some of this dread. People were getting.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 There's nothing you can do at that point. It's already happened.
If she's patient zero, patient one, two, three, four, and five already compromised. Yeah.
She should have taken the whole time. Just

Speaker 2 smack their plates out of their head. Stop.

Speaker 2 That lady tasted. Yeah.
And I, you know, the other fun part about this was it was not, you're probably, everyone here in hearing the the story thinks it was a normal dinner.

Speaker 2 Everyone thinks it was just like some sort of normal, where nothing crazy was happening at the dinner. You're probably thinking that.
Well, I'd say I've been a storyteller, so I know the drill.

Speaker 2 But keep going.

Speaker 2 There are a bunch of characters walking around. Mickey came over to my table, pretended to steal my wife.

Speaker 2 What? He was going like this. That was the thing he did.
He goes like this. He has one arm around her, and he's looking back at me going, shh.

Speaker 2 He was being really funny. And it's obviously, look, it's for the little kids.
It's true. It's for like five and under.
Right.

Speaker 2 My wife and I were going fucking nuts. We were like, it was so exciting.
Minnie came over to the table. My wife couldn't stop telling her how beautiful she was.

Speaker 2 Then she's like doing curtsies. Clarabelle the cow comes over, does a little fun, little like, little skirt lift, and everybody's scandalized by it.
Goofy was dressed as ghost for Christmas past.

Speaker 2 Scrooge walking around as the man who kills Goofy in this particular

Speaker 2 works him to an early grave.

Speaker 2 It's funny when like a mascot performer, and hey,

Speaker 2 that's a tough job being entertaining in one of those suits that's notoriously

Speaker 2 tough to move around in and inhospitable. But when they make like a big choice like, I'm going to steal your wife, because Mickey's not horny.
Like that's not like a key attribute of Mickey.

Speaker 2 If you're like Pepe Le Pue or something, it's like, okay, I get it. This is the horny French skunk.
This is kind of his whole thing. But now you're now, this guy's just riffing.
it was it was

Speaker 2 i was laughing so hard i couldn't get a photo of him doing it i was like missing the button i was like cracking up he really got my ass uh it was uh it was really really great that really saved the uh then you forget all about the dressing i i feel like you told the dressing story first though so yeah i mean here's the thing it haunts me because if i find out that there was like some sort of hepatitis c outbreak yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 1 starting starting there i could have stopped it you also and i i i love it when you go to Disneyland because you go pretty frequently.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. I had a pass for a year and it actually just ended.

Speaker 1 And I really, I like Star Wars land, but it's not enough for me to justify getting the full pass again.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 So you had a Ronto wrap.

Speaker 2 I had a Ronto wrap, which was really good.

Speaker 2 It's like always better than I remembered it was.

Speaker 1 Always, always. Did you have any other Star Wars foods?

Speaker 2 I did have. So I was going to go get a green milk because I'm a green milk over blue milk guy.
Sure. But

Speaker 2 for they're doing a whole life day thing, which is so crazy to me to think about because they like tried to bury this Christmas special that life day even is ever spoken.

Speaker 2 It's never spoken outside of it.

Speaker 2 It's for

Speaker 2 everybody knows what this is, right? I don't have to explain it.

Speaker 2 There was a Star Wars Christmas special that's notoriously unwatchable,

Speaker 2 but became like kind of a cult classic, and a lot of people saw it in the, what, late 70s, early 80s when it aired on TV. Yes, and as part of it, there is a there is an invented

Speaker 2 non-canonical Wookiee holiday called Life Day. That's what it's centered around.
So there's a lot of Life Day merch and treats within the park right now because it's holiday season over there,

Speaker 2 which it has been since I think the end of September. And they had a special blue milk life day treat that had like strawberry puree and like lychee, like popping candies.
And it was

Speaker 2 unbelievable wow it's so good

Speaker 2 it was great i loved it i love all the food there is like pretty good now i would think i gotta i gotta make conceptual fences around certain locations on planet earth where i can eat sugar yeah i think you can probably do it there one time a year is not gonna kill you disneyland's pretty great and those caramel apples my god yeah i you well i'll i'll off air talk to you about something Whoa.

Speaker 2 They have a pass that you can get that's like three days. It's just food? No, that's like you can go.
you don't have to commit to a whole year of going. You can just get this one thing.

Speaker 2 You can go three times in a year. And like, that's kind of like,

Speaker 2 that'll like scratch the itch for it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good value.

Speaker 2 Do you know when this horny Mickey's working?

Speaker 2 Nick wants to get rid of his wife.

Speaker 2 I was thinking about you, actually. I was thinking about you over the weekend because while I was there, I learned of the albino crocodile or albino alligator in San Francisco Claude who passed away.

Speaker 2 I was thinking about you because I know that you guys probably knew each other. And

Speaker 2 I had gone to see him many years ago, and I loved him. And I would tell people visiting San Francisco, oh, you got to go see Claude.
And so I'm at Disneyland. I learn of his passing.

Speaker 2 I'm in line for a ride and I start to cry. Wow.
I love God. And it caught me by surprise.
I think just because I've lost pets recently, you know, within the last couple of years.

Speaker 2 And so I was, you know, birthdays are already kind of emotional. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, oh, this guy, he was

Speaker 2 gunned down in in his prime, 30 years old, this alligator. Wow.
They can live to 50. I didn't know that.
Yeah. I looked it up to justify whether or not me crying was okay.

Speaker 2 Reptiles, lengthy lifespans. Yeah.
Reptiles also a key element,

Speaker 2 a key part of Zootopia 2. Oh.
Yeah. Reptiles are introduced.
They weren't really in the first one. No,

Speaker 2 it's all mammals. I don't know if there's like a segment of furries that like specifically reptilian form factors.
I don't know if they call themselves. They'd have to call them scalies, probably.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. Would they even be furries?

Speaker 2 I think it's all under one umbrella, but I mean, like, there must be some people who are specifically into like, oh, yeah, I want to be a gecko or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like, it's just like dragon suits.

Speaker 2 Right. You know,

Speaker 1 you'll see like a guy dressed as a dragon. You'll be like, oh, that's his thing.

Speaker 2 But they tend to still be fur suits.

Speaker 1 So you mean that the dragon is plush?

Speaker 2 Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I can see that.
I guess you could just make, yeah, you could just make anything plush. Yeah.
We solved it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Hi, I'm Beck Bennett.
I thought I was Beck Bennett. No, no, no, no, it's Kyle Mooney.
Sorry about that. Exactly.
No, all good.

Speaker 2 All good. Thanks, buddy.
Yeah, and we host the show, What's Our Podcast, here on Head Gum.

Speaker 2 But we want to make sure you heard about a very special episode with a very special guest that we just released in the feed. Yeah, it's in the feed.

Speaker 2 It was sponsored by Squarespace because they were appalled that we didn't have a website for our show yet. They were like, you don't have a website? What are you guys, like kindergartners?

Speaker 2 They wanted to do something something about that. So we built a flawless, beautiful, perfectly designed website live on the pod with our very special guest and very web-savvy guest.

Speaker 2 Should we tell them who it was?

Speaker 2 Let's see what we could play 20 questions.

Speaker 2 I don't think we have time for that. Is it a person? No, it's not.

Speaker 2 It's Finn Wolfard. But Finn had a bunch of great ideas for the website.
Beck, you had some amazing ideas for the website. Thanks, Man.
You had some amazing ideas.

Speaker 2 Well, I was sort of driving the thing. I was sort of like clicking.
And I was like, let's put a little, let's put some widgets in there. I was talking about widgets.

Speaker 2 You kept on using that phrase widgets. Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff there.
And you might want to check out the hippo. Just go check out the website.

Speaker 2 Know that there's a hippo video and know that you're going to want to watch that. We had a lot of fun making this episode.
We had a lot of fun making this website.

Speaker 2 I think you're going to have a fun time listening to it and maybe watching it. Think of it as our little Christmas present to you.
Yeah, yeah, this is a gift for you. Okay.

Speaker 2 It's just like, it's a selfless thing we did for you. Thanks to Squarespace for making us build a website, sponsoring the episode, and for supporting creators across the Head Gum Network.

Speaker 2 Go check out the bonus episode, what's our website from what's our podcast on youtube or wherever you listen to podcasts go to squarespace.com slash beckandkyle for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code beckand kyle yes sir to save 10 off your first purchase of a website oh my good kyle guys

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Speaker 2 Let's talk about some video games. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 The question for the room is: what are you playing? What are you playing? Hey, and speaking of Resident Evil Evil 4 Merchant, and I'm here to ask my friends what they're playing.

Speaker 2 And this December Eve.

Speaker 2 Murder Badaka,

Speaker 2 what are you playing?

Speaker 2 Resident Evil 4 Merchant, thank you so much. You're welcome.

Speaker 2 December Eve, did you just mean like an evening in December?

Speaker 2 Evening in December. Okay, because I usually.

Speaker 2 The lights are dim.

Speaker 2 The snow is falling. There's an Arctic polar chill vortex freezing the rivers in their tracks.
Hot cocoa is hard to come by. You gotta trade your daughter for it.

Speaker 2 Who's got shoes? I hear Johnny's got shoes. Get the gun.

Speaker 2 Gotta go down to the farm and do a raid.

Speaker 2 December Eve.

Speaker 2 It's the most wonderful time of the year. That's right.

Speaker 2 All that stuff's happening.

Speaker 2 There's lights everywhere. It's gorgeous.

Speaker 2 I'm playing a few things, of course. Still playing Pokemon Lazarus, enjoying that.
Haven't made much progress,

Speaker 2 but still just chipping away at it.

Speaker 2 Ghost of Yote,

Speaker 2 I am down to the last two.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess three

Speaker 2 of the Yote 6. One of them is a double.

Speaker 1 So you got a ghost of Gote.

Speaker 2 What do you mean?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I was trying one of your things.

Speaker 2 And I guess, in a way, I was trying yours.

Speaker 2 I'm still doing that. I'm loving it.

Speaker 2 In a way, I have a bit of a ghost of Gote.

Speaker 2 And so I'm trying to wrap that up because I also

Speaker 2 got this on sale. I started playing, I missed, I missed, I realized I missed baseball.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I miss it.

Speaker 2 Okay. So I started playing MLB the show,

Speaker 2 and I scanned my face and I put my face in the game. Let me tell you something.
That process works for nobody.

Speaker 2 You can never be happy with how it comes out. Right.

Speaker 2 It's horrible.

Speaker 2 But the game is fun.

Speaker 2 I'm enjoying that. Did you take a bespectacled pick? Because you're a glass wearer.

Speaker 2 I feel like I don't wear glasses in the

Speaker 2 necessarily like not always. Yeah, not always.

Speaker 2 These glasses I actually just got in their iterative on my last prescription, which they always should be, but I always forget to bring my glasses when I go to the appointment.

Speaker 2 And so now these are like sort of for everything,

Speaker 2 which is great um i don't hurt when i read now

Speaker 2 or look at computer yeah or look at tv or look at switch or

Speaker 2 anything when i drive at night computer computer uh

Speaker 2 i but i should take a buspectable but like they have they wear different glasses what did he say inside's computer what did he say who Trump. Everything's computer.

Speaker 2 Everything's computer.

Speaker 2 Not wrong. He kind of is right, actually.
Remote or TV computer now.

Speaker 2 Refrigerator computer now. Washing machine computer now.
Broken clock is right twice a day. That's right.
Clock's computer now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Matt, to your point.

Speaker 2 Like, you're going to tell me that clock's a clock? No, no. That's a computer.

Speaker 2 We're pointing at the stopwatch that is off-camera that lets us do our timekeeping. That thing don't got no gears in it.
Sorry, sweetie. That's not a clock.

Speaker 2 Anyway. Miss the days of big gears.
Me too, actually. We should become steampunk guys all right done okay see you next week in our top hats my boy

Speaker 2 don't forget your goggles um

Speaker 2 uh but i'm playing mlb the show i'm just like running through

Speaker 2 regular length games of baseball and enjoying it uh it play it's a it's a very normy game i feel like it's not really like there's not a lot to it it is like there are like the you can go through the campaign and like start at like you know uh trying to get recruited by a college and get a scholarship and things like that and that stuff's fine

Speaker 2 um but uh, I actually am very impressed by the announcers in the game because they're like calling things that are happening.

Speaker 2 I was like, that had to have been so much work, like, to like, there's probably like they're going to repeat certain things or whatever, but like to

Speaker 2 get so specific as to like what's actually happening is like it's it's it first feels like a magic trick, it feels really cool. Uh, pop fly to center.

Speaker 2 Oh no, Mike Johnson broke his leg like that, his pants fell completely down, showing his entire ass.

Speaker 2 Why is that in the game?

Speaker 2 It's interesting because obviously it was not for all of sports video games.

Speaker 2 There was an era where this is not technically possible, but basically once speech entered, you know, once we get to the era of CD-ROMs, we started to have speech and commentary in games, and that just became a fixture.

Speaker 2 But it's like,

Speaker 2 more generally, as someone who played a lot of sports games when I was younger, I don't really really play them as much anymore, but you still kind of track them.

Speaker 2 Like that, the presentation of a sports video game is always mirroring your experience as a TV viewer.

Speaker 2 Because there's a way to do it where you could be like, hey, artistically, let's simulate what it's like to actually play the game.

Speaker 2 And so we're not going to have like these UX elements that you'd see if you're watching a broadcast of a baseball game. We're not going to have the little mini diamond on screen.

Speaker 2 We're going to just like, it's going to be a little bit more immersive, but no one seems to have taken that approach, or maybe they've experimented with that approach and people just don't like god can you imagine like a first person baseball game called baseball the experience where as you walk up to plate you're just

Speaker 2 it is nuts like there's like a you can you can go first person when you're in the outfield like for when you're like catching in stuff but like it doesn't right help or hurt.

Speaker 2 Like it's just like a different way to look. But the other stuff is still, it is more tailored toward the viewing experience.

Speaker 2 So I'm doing that. And are you playing as the Dodgers?

Speaker 2 Well, oh,

Speaker 2 when you're doing your show, like when you're doing the show campaign, you don't start out there.

Speaker 2 I did pick them as my favorite team, of course. But I did, like, you can just kind of pick up a team and play against another team.

Speaker 2 And yeah, I did run back the World Series this year and I kicked Toronto's fucking ass.

Speaker 2 Sorry, I had to do it.

Speaker 2 It It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 But I also went to the Nintendo store in San Francisco. It was in San Francisco for

Speaker 2 the recent holiday. And I'll say it's a great store.
I loved it.

Speaker 2 I think the New York store is a little more interesting because there's more like sort of museum type pieces, like the old playing cards and old systems and things like that.

Speaker 2 This doesn't have any of that. It's more just like a store, which is fine.

Speaker 2 I got this sweatshirt there with Cat Mario on it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're wearing, it's a yellow sweatshirt with a yellow Cat Mario, but the Cat Mario itself is thick.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like it's tangible. It's like tangible.
It's like embroidered, patched on. It's really crazy.
It's really nice. There's a little embroidered bell right there.
Very nice.

Speaker 2 It seems like a high-quality sweatshirt. And also, just like it's kind of a

Speaker 2 canary sort of gold. It's like a different sort of tone.
It's two-tone yellow with the sweatshirt itself. It's like a cream color.
Would you say that? Cream-colored, yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 I mean, if that was the cream they served you in the back, you'd be like, oh no,

Speaker 2 what the fuck? You didn't mix the egg in

Speaker 2 kind of a honey-mustard color. It is honestly kind of honey-mustard, actually.

Speaker 2 I would say it's more honey

Speaker 2 in the mix. Yeah, they went heavy with the honey.
I would have liked a little bit more mustard, I think. Oh, no, I'm looking at that thing going, yum yum, give me some.
Yeah, he's fucking.

Speaker 2 Well, that explains why you shoved a chicken tender in my back earlier.

Speaker 2 But I also got these Pikachu socks that I'm wearing here.

Speaker 2 And while I was there, I was like, I got to get some gifts for my friends.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 2 What? What? What? What?

Speaker 2 What if I was like, psych?

Speaker 2 That'd be pretty funny.

Speaker 2 I got everybody

Speaker 2 some different socks here.

Speaker 2 I got you these Kirby socks. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 I got you this Christmas sort of socks. Nice question block with a little snow.

Speaker 1 Question block socks.

Speaker 2 And Ranch, I got you these Team Rocket socks that simply have an R on them. Wow.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Those are badass. There you go.

Speaker 1 Wow. What excellent gifts.

Speaker 2 I couldn't go there without getting a little something for my friend.

Speaker 1 My wife is going to steal these so fast. They are so soft.

Speaker 2 Really, really thoughtful. Also, I like on these Kirby socks.
Kirby's like pissed off. He's like, what the fuck did you say to me? It would be a fucking sock.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I have to

Speaker 2 suck up this guy's feet.

Speaker 2 Are you fucking kidding me? I will say,

Speaker 2 I was saying this earlier, they had a lot of

Speaker 2 Splatoon and a lot of Pikmin stuff, and it really did make me think I'm like, I'm missing out on something. Yeah, that I have to, I have to get to the bottom of it.

Speaker 1 It's weird to have the pizza of Nintendo IP and have two slices that are just essentially blank in my mind. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Because they're huge.
Yeah. They're absolutely like.

Speaker 2 The sections were basically

Speaker 2 General Nintendo, which encompassed like Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, Donkey Kong. That's like the first level.
The other sections of the store are

Speaker 2 Pokemon, Splatoon, Pikmin, and then a small section that's like everything else. Metroid, Zelda.
Zelda, not even its own huge section of the store. There's a Zelda statue.

Speaker 2 But like, it was kind of like, I was surprised. that the Zelda footprint was pretty small in the store.

Speaker 1 I can't believe that there is a time within viewing distance of where we are today where there will be a virtual boy section at the Nintendo store again.

Speaker 2 Because they had,

Speaker 2 I mean, they had all the Switch 2 like accessories out, including like the, you know, the GameCube controller, and they're like getting ready for the

Speaker 2 getting ready for it. The Virtual Boy.
Or the Virtual Boy. Absolutely.
Wow. That's what,

Speaker 2 that's what I've been playing, and that's what's what I did. Heather, what are you playing?

Speaker 1 Well, I continue on the journey of Cloud and his friends. I will say I slowed down my pace because when I got, I 100%ed that first section, got to the second section, and was a little bit

Speaker 1 disappointed to find out that the quest structure is the same. Yes.
So it's like, unlock the towers. The towers look the same.

Speaker 1 Go talk to these people. Go fight these few creatures on the map.
Like it's the same.

Speaker 1 I thought, oh, I've done all of these quests in this first section.

Speaker 1 The next section, it'll be like, oh, now there's cooking, or because Final Fantasy games are kind of known for like a variety of mini-games, like chocobo racing, squats, like all this weird shit.

Speaker 1 So for it to just be like cut and pasted from the first area kind of dulled my enthusiasm. So, um,

Speaker 1 so yeah, I'm playing that. Uh, I am, of course, uh, um, excited that uh, the new Fortnite season has started.
So, this is going to probably be my fortnight recap of

Speaker 1 both the for the month because I try and ease off the gas on Fortnite stuff on the podcast. So it's not the only thing I ever talk about.

Speaker 1 The Simpsons season ended. What a success.
Universally praised.

Speaker 1 I'm not even a huge Simpsons fan. Had a great time.

Speaker 1 Scratchy has become my main skin.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 And I even got the companion of Itchy, who runs around and is the only voiced character because none of these characters speak yeah so the companion going ha ha yeah like the whole time is the only time you'll hear speech outside of like your personal squad um i've decided that itchy and scratchy are the sort of core

Speaker 1 concept of what fortnite is which is mindless mute chaos so i feel empowered by the skin whereas like I feel like there's a subconscious experience when you are taking on the avatar role of a skin in the game that you feel a little bit like, oh, I'm playing an alien game.

Speaker 1 I'm playing as the xenomorph. Yeah.
I'm going to be a little sneaky. Yeah.
I'm playing as,

Speaker 1 you know, Naruto. I want to move fast.

Speaker 1 Scratchy. is mindless violence as like a concept.
Like I know Scratchy.

Speaker 1 So charging in and blowing stuff up and shooting a gun, all of it works canonically with Scratchy as a character, which makes the game a little bit more chaotic from for my squad because I am like charging in, blowing up gas stations, playing a lot less conservatively than I normally do.

Speaker 1 Um, I was able to play the season ending event for the first time since I've uh been playing Fortnite.

Speaker 1 Um, and in the season ending event, they took all the IP from the last chapter or season or whatever, yeah, chapter, uh, chapter six,

Speaker 1 and they sent all of it at this main new enemy enemy who was trying to do something to the Fortnite island.

Speaker 1 So you had Godzilla and King Kong teamed up with Hatsune Miku, teamed up with the girls from K-pop Demon Hunters who were singing their song.

Speaker 2 Golden?

Speaker 1 Well, they were singing Done.

Speaker 2 That's how it's done.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they're singing it, which is

Speaker 1 as the X-Wing fighters fly in and everybody, yourself included, is shooting at this main boss. It was a real feat of brand management.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Like, it felt like if you were going to tell people what Fortnite was, seeing all of these things grouped together, fighting a main bad guy, felt very ready player one, felt very like, oh, this is what the thing is.

Speaker 1 And then they also introduced next season's IP collaborations. So the DeLorean from Back to the Future flies in.
The bride from Kill Bill flies in. Scratchy gets on her motorcycle.

Speaker 1 She's voiced by Uma Thurman and is like, come on, let's go. And Scratchy's just like,

Speaker 1 it's so joyful and gleeful.

Speaker 1 This season of Fortnite is California conceptually.

Speaker 1 It is

Speaker 1 akin to a,

Speaker 1 you know, vice city where there are micro maps inside of a larger island that are all kind of representative of California areas.

Speaker 1 For example, there is a studio that looks kind of like Warner Brothers. There's an area that looks like Sunset Strip.
There's Vegas out in the desert. There's San Francisco up north.

Speaker 1 In between is like a big bear style giant redwoods. So the whole map right now is California, which is super fun.

Speaker 1 I have no complaints about that game. It's so fantastic.
The final thing I just want to review is that I'm an early adopter on tech.

Speaker 1 I went to Meta to try the new

Speaker 1 screen in glasses.

Speaker 1 They suck.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 1 Nick, you're up.

Speaker 2 Bum to hear about a meta with a whiff. A rare

Speaker 2 rare meta corporation.

Speaker 1 I'm currently wearing the last generation meta glasses. I like them because you can listen to music without covering up your ears.
That's fantastic. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't use any of the other features

Speaker 1 which are pointless to me. The cameras, why would I ever take a picture without using my phone to line it up? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't want to ask the AI to do anything because I don't want meta AI doing anything for me.

Speaker 1 I just like having the music on the

Speaker 1 sunglasses.

Speaker 2 That's great.

Speaker 1 I assumed that the next ones would be a step up from that. But boy, oh boy,

Speaker 1 the gestures are absolutely broken. It is an impossible device to use.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Off pod, you mentioned a little bit like how the gestures work, and they seemed really unintuitive.

Speaker 1 Super unintuitive. Super unintuitive.
Matt, I'll share with you.

Speaker 2 Here's how it works.

Speaker 1 Apple Vision, which I want to bring to the pod so that we can do an episode. Anyway, Apple Vision, you look at something, you click it.
Finger to thumb. That's it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you click, you click.

Speaker 1 You want to make a window bigger, you look at the corner corner of the window and you just pull it.

Speaker 2 Pull it.

Speaker 1 And it makes it bigger. Okay.
Shrink it down. But this is your jest.

Speaker 2 It's in like a locked position. You're sort of like, okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Or if you want to grab the window, you pinch the middle of it and you put it over there. All of it is just pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch.

Speaker 1 The meta glasses with the screen in them, I don't know what they're officially called, are heavy, thick.

Speaker 1 The interface is that you have to imagine the top of your finger as a trackpad and your thumb rubbing on the top of your finger.

Speaker 2 That doesn't doesn't even feel good.

Speaker 2 It feels gross. Feels gross.

Speaker 1 But then, in order to click on an item to open it, like click on an app,

Speaker 1 you would think you would just tap the top of your thumb.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going like this. It kind of makes sense that I would tap that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, instead, you select going like this, then you open up your hand and you tap your first finger and thumb together.

Speaker 2 I got to remember how to like.

Speaker 2 Move your hand. Do all these little movements.

Speaker 1 Wait, it gets worse. So then, if you want to go back from an app, then you touch your middle finger to your thumb.

Speaker 1 So already you're, you're, this is too much action. That's too, that's too many things.

Speaker 1 Worst part, worst part, when you take a photo and you want to zoom in, zoom in on it, because you've got this like postage stamp screen in your field of vision.

Speaker 1 Um, you know, we've all been taught that this is your zoom, like to zoom into something like on your phone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Children, when they look at a magazine, they will try and zoom in on a magazine.

Speaker 2 Sort of a bad example because kids are so stupid, right? They don't know anything. Right.

Speaker 1 With the meta glasses, you pinch all three fingers together three like your your thumb and your first two fingers you pinch that together and then you twist in the air like you're squeezing an invisible nipple

Speaker 1 you unzoom by twisting

Speaker 2 the other way

Speaker 2 First you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.

Speaker 1 But yeah,

Speaker 1 it was a gross experience and made me kind of seasick because also when you're sliding the your hand back and forth the in the it's reversed so like you click and drag with apple vision you drag to the right it moves it to the right you drag to the left it moves it left on this you swipe to the right and the thing goes to the left you swipe to the left and it goes to the right right uh well what's good about that is um

Speaker 2 i i

Speaker 2 they always take feedback into consideration and will improve upon this

Speaker 2 they're not gonna just just double down and make it worse going forward. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's the one thing we know about Meta as a company.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're iterative.

Speaker 1 I cannot wait for the Apple Glasses next year. I'm so excited about it.

Speaker 2 That'll be cool. Yeah, that'll be great.

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Speaker 1 Nick, what are you playing?

Speaker 2 Heather, thank you so much for asking. You're welcome.
I rolled credits on two video games since our last record. Holy shit.

Speaker 2 He's on fire.

Speaker 2 Look, neither of these are big honkers. These are, you know,

Speaker 2 constrained experiences, but they're two games I really enjoyed.

Speaker 2 The first game was a game I mentioned last time we had an episode, Dispatch.

Speaker 2 What a fucking video game. I absolutely loved it.
I found the story immensely satisfying. It's just such a great piece of writing.

Speaker 2 I did end up turning off QT's, QuickTime events, because I just found them kind of honestly immersion-breaking.

Speaker 2 I was just enjoying the story so much and I just kind of felt like this isn't adding much to the experience.

Speaker 2 And there's also like enough interactivity outside of this because there's the management sim aspect.

Speaker 2 There is the hacking mini games, which come up even if you've turned off QuickTime events, that's still a thing that will happen amidst one of these cinematic sequences.

Speaker 2 And there's still a bunch of decision points you have to make. And a lot of these are on a clock.
So I was like, I feel like

Speaker 2 I'm satisfied with these elements. And I can just take in the canonical story in this more cinematic presentation as opposed to, oh, shit, I got to click my mouse right now, you know? So

Speaker 2 I like the game more once I did that.

Speaker 2 I do really like a lot of the NPCs in this game.

Speaker 2 It's just like the, you know, the core love triangle.

Speaker 2 I found, you know, really

Speaker 2 with your character, the player character, Robert Robertson, the Aaron Paul character, and then the

Speaker 2 Invisigal, who's one option. It feels like that's who the game is trying to direct you towards, and then the Blonde Blazer, who's the other option.

Speaker 2 Kind of an interesting power dynamic thing there, because it's like a workplace thing. So you've got like

Speaker 2 Blonde Blazer is kind of your boss, and then Invisigal is kind of someone you're mentee. Like, I don't know, there is kind of a layer there.
HR nightmare.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 here's what one I think a big part of why this game works so well is the main character is great. And so often, especially in genre fiction, main characters tend to be bland.

Speaker 2 Like you think of like Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker or even like Superman. You know, it's like a lot of times the central character is not the most interesting part of the IP.

Speaker 2 It's the peripheral characters, the ancillary characters that fill out this world because that main character is just driving story.

Speaker 2 And here, especially in a game where,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 the player character is informed by your choices, like there is a world in which the game is still satisfying, but that character feels kind of generic, doesn't feel like it has a lot to it, but it's like this, like he's really snarky,

Speaker 2 but in a way that it's not like

Speaker 2 in an overplayed sort of Marvel superhero snark way, in a way that's like

Speaker 2 commenting on things but not undermining the serious the stakes of things he also really cares and that's a huge part of it of the the appeal of this character to me is that that he's like you get brought into this role uh you have this alter ego um who who's like a uh you know a uh a

Speaker 2 a a gundam basically gundam iron man um and uh you get brought into this kind of uh advisor role uh as as the sort of man at the cia man in the chair overseeing this this basically the suicide squad, but he really like genuinely cares about like doing a good job and also like of about

Speaker 2 all of these individual relationships with the people that he's

Speaker 2 coaching for lack of a better term.

Speaker 2 And I don't know. I mean, I just just like someone who's actually invested in it makes you as a player more invested in the stakes of it.
I also, the management sim aspect of it, I found really fun.

Speaker 2 I wish there was a little bit more gameplay consequence to it.

Speaker 2 There's like, you're kind of playing through this, like, hmm, I don't know if whether or not I succeed or fail these affects much in terms of where the story is going.

Speaker 2 And it kind of feels like that would be, that could have a little bit more,

Speaker 2 I don't know, just potency to it. But I still like had a lot of fun while I was playing it.
And there's also just so much banter that's going on.

Speaker 2 Like, cause they're, they're very often in those sequences, like the story is also advancing. So it's just like a different sort of way of

Speaker 2 moving things forward, but it has an incredible pace to it. Like it never gets boring.
There was never a chapter. I was like, all right, that one was kind of dud, kind of a dud.

Speaker 2 It was kind of like, you know, you ever watch like a, like, a limited

Speaker 2 series and it's just like, oh, wow, every episode of this was a fucking banger. And that's kind of how it felt this

Speaker 2 chapter-wise with this as well. Great Matt Mercer villain.
I watched this cast interview because the cast is universally excellent.

Speaker 2 And it was one of those things where it was, first off, it was really well moderated for a group interview that just like everyone was involved. And basically

Speaker 2 a lot of the major characters were there who were the NPCs. Aaron Paul was not there.
But just hearing how this, like, like, it's like, like,

Speaker 2 everyone had really good chemistry in the interview, which is, which I think, you know, is a testament to the casting and how they were able to figure out this team that had this sort of dynamic.

Speaker 2 But also, like, like, just the way it was cast, there were some, some veteran voice actors, you know, that there were like some really well-known people who are a part of the core cast, like Laura Bailey.

Speaker 2 but there's also like

Speaker 2 there's some people who are like new to me who I think maybe also would seem new to voice acting in general or to video game

Speaker 2 acting.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they were all really awesome and also seemed really invested in it.

Speaker 2 Like one of the writers for the game

Speaker 2 voices one of the characters or performs one of the characters.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 Coupe.

Speaker 2 And then,

Speaker 2 you know, there's also just like some musicians and some content creators who are brought on as part of the cast.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I don't know. It's just like, I liked that

Speaker 2 they look to like, yeah, we'll get some star power, like Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright. And we'll get some like, you know,

Speaker 2 we'll get the Laura Baileys and the Matthew Mercers to come in, just people who are absolutely

Speaker 2 just going to nail whatever role we give them. But then we'll also bring in someone like, oh, this is the performance I really like.

Speaker 2 This is someone who was was not on my radar at all as an individual, but like Thought Squad is the performer who plays Prism. And it's just like, it's a really cool performance.

Speaker 2 And then you watch their interview and it's like, it's like, oh, they really, really want, like, cared about this video game and we're really invested in it.

Speaker 2 And so, I don't know, it just seemed like a really collaborative process. And then that benefited.

Speaker 2 the feeling of a game that's all about teamwork. But yeah, I thought the ending was great.
Ending kind of has a few too many beats to it if I'm looking for something to criticize.

Speaker 2 But also, it's got so many plot threads it's trying to wrap up and also like, you know, accounting for all these different decision points that the player might be making.

Speaker 2 So I understand why it kind of has that feel to it. The other game I finished was, oh, Dispatch, absolutely loved it.
The other game I finished is, Is This Seat Taken? I got 100%

Speaker 2 achievements in this game in about six hours.

Speaker 2 It's pretty brief.

Speaker 2 But this is just like a great vibes, cozy puzzle game where it's basically you've got a bunch of different social situations and then you've got a bunch of different shapes, the sentient shapes, anthropomorphic shapes that have seating arrangements on like a bus or at a picnic or at a rock concert or something like that, but they've all got individual demands.

Speaker 2 So like for instance, like one,

Speaker 2 like like there's a hexagon who hasn't showered or something like that. And then there's a triangle who doesn't like strong odors.
So it's like, okay, so I can't sit these people next to each other.

Speaker 2 And then it's just basically a bunch of a logic puzzle of figuring out what the specific arrangement can be through all these different contingencies that people have.

Speaker 2 Someone's blasting music, someone else is reading a book, someone else is taking a nap, someone else needs sunscreen, someone else has sunscreen they're going to share, you know,

Speaker 2 whatever these things are, like just figuring out how to the cascade effect of how you place everybody. And it's really satisfying when you solve one of these.

Speaker 2 And it's also just like a really cute game with the fun aesthetic. Rochelle, you also played through is the seat taken.
Yeah, I loved it. Really fun.
It was too too short. I wanted more.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I hope there'll be a, I imagine there'll be some sort of follow-up. But yeah, it's, it's a really,

Speaker 2 just really gentle sort of experience. Um, but Rochelle, you also played another game, I, and I believe finished another game that's quite a bit more substantial.

Speaker 1 Um, I rolled credits on Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 Um, I think I last left off with it back when it came out.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I was canceling a bunch of subscriptions and I realized I still had Game Pass.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh my God, I need to finish this in like five days.

Speaker 2 And I did. Wow.
Amazing. Did you love it? I loved it.
Beautiful game.

Speaker 1 Awesome story.

Speaker 1 And yeah, by the end of it, I was like way too overpowered. Like, because I was getting really in the weeds of like the Picto building.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so it was kind of flying by towards the end there, but it was still super fun.

Speaker 2 Loved it. Cool.
What was your approximate total playtime, if you can recall?

Speaker 1 I think it was 60 hours.

Speaker 2 Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So you really binged this bad boy. Yeah.
Wow. Wow.
Congrats. Thank you.
I

Speaker 2 want to circle back to dispatch for just one second. Yeah, please.

Speaker 2 I am, I got it. I want to play it.
I think it's going to be sort of like my winter, like sort of like winter break sort of things.

Speaker 2 I love those games, like games like that, like the other Telltale games. Yeah, the developer ad hoc is a lot of Telltale vets.
I did mention this previously.

Speaker 2 And I felt like there was some other point that I was wanting to circle back to about it, and I don't remember now what it was.

Speaker 2 So I'm done talking. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Perhaps you were wondering if there's nudity, and the answer is yes. Yeah, no, I knew that.

Speaker 2 My Google search history will

Speaker 2 wrap my ass out.

Speaker 2 But there had to have been

Speaker 2 something about it.

Speaker 2 It was something about,

Speaker 2 oh, I remember now what it was yeah um it was that the developers uh have noticed that people are only making the good choices because you're sort of like you know you get these choices and you can there's a lot of things that the game like accounts for or whatever but they're like encouraging people to like be bad they're like like do like we want to see people these percentages go up mostly people are making like the choice that seems like uh that the ones that you would make i remember that being also a problem with the game fable which was that they had like good paths and bad paths, and people were only picking the good paths.

Speaker 1 And so, like, part of the game had just been unexplored. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, well, we've kind of been conditioned, though, as players that you are oftentimes punished for pursuing the dark path, even in a game where it's pretty fleshed out, like Baldur's Gate 3.

Speaker 2 There's just a lot less content if you like murder all the tieflings, as Heather did immediately. Oh, come on.

Speaker 2 Before the Dark Urge path was even patched into the game,

Speaker 2 there's like a

Speaker 2 like, like,

Speaker 2 so I think that there's, there's partly just like a gamer instinct of like, well, I want to see what the, what the canonical story is, and that's probably going to be the good path.

Speaker 2 But what I will say here is that, like, and I think I read the article you're referencing, and a lot of what they were talking about, if you dig into it, was like people making boring choices or safer choices or people pleaser choices, which I think is another gamer instinct of like you're trying to be on your best behavior so you can get the best outcome.

Speaker 2 The game does,

Speaker 2 here's it. I'm glad you brought this up, Matt.
In the way that like LucasArts adventures back in the day would allow you to

Speaker 2 choose a funny line of dialogue and the secret of Monkey Island, that's maybe, you know, like the sort of thing that you're not going to, you could get punished for in a different game, but this will just let you see what happens.

Speaker 2 It's the same sort of thing in the, in, in Dispatch, where like you can make like sometimes the, like, what you think is the more interesting choice or the funnier choice or the weirder choice just to see what happened.

Speaker 2 Even if that's like glassing a bartender or something like that

Speaker 2 or telling someone to fuck you, like it's like you can make those choices and it's not going to like punish you for it.

Speaker 2 And also you can still play like the virtuous path and get the good ending and romance who you want to romance while still choosing moments when you want to be, you know, like a snarky asshole or what have you.

Speaker 2 Got it. Got it.
And so, yeah, that is, I think, a satisfying element of the game that, yeah, maybe some people are underexploring because they're cautious about what might happen.

Speaker 2 I'm really looking looking forward to having some time to play it. But there's just like there's an embarrassment of riches this time of year.
Lots of fun games to play. Always too many games.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Some of these games, I kind of wish I could. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, squish, whoosh,

Speaker 2 ha.

Speaker 1 What an interesting transition to our main topic.

Speaker 2 Punch, punch, kick. Beat-em-ups, the genre I probably most, one of the genres I most strongly associate with arcades, as we mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2 Even before fighting games, I feel like beat-em-ups were like, you know, like

Speaker 2 before the fighting game renaissance, beat-em-ups, I feel like were a staple of arcades. Double dragon.
I think the big three

Speaker 2 for arcades. Okay.

Speaker 2 Beat-em-ups, not necessarily in any order. Okay.
Beat-em-ups, fighting games, pinball.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I think also, I think, you know,

Speaker 2 certainly, I feel like schmucks shooters are in there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, also guns.

Speaker 2 Also, gun games. And racing games.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're right. Those are, well, I said big three.
Those are the big five, certainly.

Speaker 2 See how I'm kind of not wrong?

Speaker 1 Kind of not wrong.

Speaker 1 My experience or

Speaker 1 my strongest memory of beat-em-ups is that, you know, after the initial wave of Double Dragon, Final Fight, et cetera, where you had these very stiff, sort of side-scrolling characters who were kind of walking like they were robots, there was like this era of Capcom fighters

Speaker 1 where like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, et cetera, suddenly looked like cartoons.

Speaker 2 Konami as well.

Speaker 2 Oh yeah, Konami.

Speaker 1 And you would have like these Konami games. Was Konami X-Men also?

Speaker 1 I believe. I know that was Capcom.

Speaker 2 I believe Konami made Ninja Turtles and Simpsons, and I think X-Men was Capcom, but I can look this up.

Speaker 2 I certainly know that.

Speaker 1 There's a moment in time in the arcade when suddenly everything looked like a cartoon that you could play, and it was so wild.

Speaker 1 I mean, we'd seen cartoons that you could literally play in things like Dragon Slayer, but those weren't video games in a traditional sense.

Speaker 1 It was that suddenly in the 16-bit era, games and 32-bit era, games were capable of... processing enough sprites that there were enough frames of animation that games started to look like television.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, and I think there's also,

Speaker 2 there's a a pretty simple thing here, which is that you saw like

Speaker 2 big sprites, you saw large characters, big boys, big boys. I mean, and yeah, there was like the characters were certainly scaled up in something like Final Fighter Golden Axe as well.

Speaker 2 But yeah, once you start seeing TMNT and Simpsons Arcade games, these license games, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, another one that comes a little bit later, it's like, oh, this is a, this is like a, the, the, the visual payoff is, is there in a way that it maybe wasn't with an earlier game, like, you know, like a Renegade or a Double Dragon.

Speaker 2 I also like the,

Speaker 2 it's the,

Speaker 2 I feel like so much of a beat-'em-up is, it's a, it's a side-scrolling game, but also you've got, you can, you have another axis you can move along, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just forward and back.

Speaker 2 No, yeah. And then if you want to go back, good fucking luck.
Actually, you can't do it. You got to keep moving forward.
You got to keep going,

Speaker 2 which is, I think,

Speaker 2 my only complaint about any of these games. Sometimes I want to go back a little bit.
I want to go back one step maybe, and then I can't.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 I one time

Speaker 2 sat like with some friends, hunkered down at a Simpsons arcade cabinet, and played the whole thing.

Speaker 2 And that was like so fun for us because it was just like, I had the experience of playing it on and off and never actually seeing the end of it and and getting to the end with my friends was just like a real triumph, I felt.

Speaker 1 Who's the final boss? Burns?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's Burns, right? I think so. I don't know.
I think it's Mr. Burns in some sort of mech suit.
Yeah. Memory serves.
It was a long time ago. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know. You have to get more familiar with the characters.
I like that you like itchy and scratchy.

Speaker 1 I love itchy and scratchy.

Speaker 2 That's fun.

Speaker 1 Why don't they have a show?

Speaker 2 Well, in the show, they do.

Speaker 1 No, I know, but like, they should have their own show.

Speaker 2 That's interesting. Are they doing like

Speaker 2 itchy and scratchy shorts for Disney Plus or anything like that? I don't know if they are. They should, at the very least, there should be.
I'm not going to do this.

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to get in trouble. There should be a TikTok account that just has itchy and scratchy shorts on it.

Speaker 1 I'm sure there is, and I'm sure there's also YouTube compilations, which is like every itchy and scratchy short.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to watch tonight and laugh my fucking ass off.

Speaker 2 Are itchy and scratchy now more known than Tom and Jerry, who they're a riff on?

Speaker 1 I don't think so. You don't think so?

Speaker 2 No, because

Speaker 2 you have to know The Simpsons to know Itchy and Scratchy. Sure.
Tom and Jerry stand on their own two feet. Got it.
And there was a Tom and Jerry movie not that long ago, right? That is true. Yeah.

Speaker 2 No cultural footprint. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 That has the cultural footprint that people claim Avatar has. None.

Speaker 1 I read the Wikipedia about beat-em-up games because I was like, what exactly are we talking about?

Speaker 1 And there's an interesting paragraph that discusses the mid-20s or mid-2000s to early 2010s character action games as beat-em-ups.

Speaker 1 For example, the original God of War, the original Bayonetta, the original Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors. They call those beat-em-ups.

Speaker 1 Now, do you boys agree with this assessment, or do you think that that's an entirely different genre?

Speaker 2 I think it's

Speaker 2 as close as you could get to being a beat-em-up in a 3D space, but like to me, those are that's

Speaker 2 what's the difference between

Speaker 2 beat-em-up and like hack and slash. Like, that to me is like hack and slash.

Speaker 1 I think one of the things is that most of those games listed have character growth, whereas a sort of hallmark of beat-em-ups is you've got, you're the guy, and that's it.

Speaker 1 You just got to fucking fight through it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, you might have some progression in a contemporary one, but when these classic ones, there's, there's usually not much to like, like, you know, there's not much to it.

Speaker 2 And I would say, like, if anything, like, like these, those games have a little bit more gameplay depth and they tend to have things like puzzles, which you don't usually see, or environmental, you know, like navigation that is a little bit more sophisticated than what you see in a beat-em-up, where that's all pretty elementary.

Speaker 2 But also, I think such a big part of beat-em-ups is just

Speaker 2 what Heather referenced earlier of just like that constant cycle of death and rebirth.

Speaker 2 Like these games are designed for you, like you get your ass kicked at a certain point, and then you have to respawn.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I do kind of feel like that's a, or in one of the multiplayer version, maybe you're, you know, one of your

Speaker 2 fellow players, your co-op players has to res you.

Speaker 2 But like, I do feel like part of these games, those games too, is just like you're beating guys up, but you're also like they're designed to make sure that you fail at a certain point.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I do think though that like, I think more than any type of game, beat-em-ups are like, in the same way that Tetris is like very like

Speaker 2 user-friendly, beat-em-ups are probably the most user-friendly game because, like, anybody could just play it and understand what to do and how to do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, if you got like the Ninja Turtles license there, you want it to be a game where like an eight-year-old can go up and figure out how to play it right away and have some degree of success and be able to do some cool-looking stuff.

Speaker 2 You know, a lot of times, like a special attack or super attack will just be like mapped to one button. It's not like a fighting game where you have to do a Shoryukin.
And they're weirdly like

Speaker 2 because they're not competitive, I feel like you can get into some

Speaker 2 bad vibes at like a Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet or like a Street Fighter cabinet where somebody's like obviously so good and like you're just trying to play and then they just, you know, maybe people are getting upset.

Speaker 2 I think beat-em-up cabinets are community building because people might, you know, you might have two friends, but there's four spots. Somebody might walk up.
Hey, can I play? Get on in there.

Speaker 2 There's another, now we got Gambit on the squad. This is great.
Okay, great. Oh, now somebody coming in.
Now, Nightcrawler's here. We got the whole squad now.
This is great.

Speaker 2 Now, all four of us are friends. All of us are working together.
And I think that's pretty nice. Never had that experience you just described.
You're doing all four at the same time. You're running.

Speaker 2 Where that can get tricky in co-op games is like if it feels like someone's not pulling their weight and people get frustrated with someone for, you know, slowing progress.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I totally, I totally get what you're saying. I mean, like, like, it's,

Speaker 2 I have a lot of affection for Cadillacs and Dinosaurs because that was a, like, I don't know anything about this IP other than the video game. It might just be a video game.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Is that a comics adaptation or anything? I thought it was a cartoon. Cartoon.
That was a cartoon of it. A Saturday morning cartoon.
Got it. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

Speaker 2 Not familiar with the cartoon, really, but I remember the cabinet being at a... at a neighborhood pizza place

Speaker 2 at Round Table Pizza,

Speaker 2 which was like, you know, the pizza parlor in Lakewood, California. And we'd go there.
that was one by the Lakewood Mall. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I used to go there, too.

Speaker 1 Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is a multimedia franchise that began as a comic book and expanded into popular arcade game and animated TV series.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And so

Speaker 2 the dinosaurs would drive the Cadillacs? No, it's like there's guys. Like, it's like, it's like, but there's dinosaurs too.
Nick,

Speaker 2 I'm out.

Speaker 2 If the dinosaurs aren't driving the Cadillacs, I'm not fucking watching. okay?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's, yeah, it's more that these two things coexist, that you can have a Cadillac and a dinosaur in the same space. I cannot stress it enough.
I'm out.

Speaker 2 I also really enjoyed the,

Speaker 2 and this is one that got, that got a re-release. uh

Speaker 2 yeah on uh and i and i on on modern you know that like this is this i got a remastered a certain point but the dungeons and dragons games yeah, um, particularly Shadow of Mystara, I think, was the one that I, that I put to spend the most time with.

Speaker 2 But those games did have some character progression, um, but they also were just like

Speaker 2 in the same way that I like golden axe because it's like, I'm not just running out of punching things, now I got a weapon, now I got spells, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, it's like kind of a different sort of

Speaker 2 not just a beat-em-up, but like a kind of like a hack and slash aspect to it. Yeah, uh, yeah, that's fun as well.
Um, I have to report that I've Googled Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 I'm in.

Speaker 2 I'm in, actually.

Speaker 2 Do you like the shot of the guy punching a T-Rex? I like the hot lady in the Cadillac with a shotgun or a rifle and dinosaurs chasing the car.

Speaker 1 Matt is currently looking at the Sega CD Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Speaker 1 on an entirely, entirely different Cadillacs and Dinosaurs experience, which was like a driving game that was also a full-motion video game.

Speaker 1 That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah,

Speaker 1 it's an IP. Can I be honest, guys? I'm going to come in with kind of a surprising take given my penchant for loving violence, which is beat-em-ups are not my favorite genre.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 I found them and find them frustrating and repetitive. And often it feels like

Speaker 1 there is only so much

Speaker 1 skill basis for your progression. And a lot of it is sort of like kind of hard locked behind these impossible to beat moments.

Speaker 1 I'm sure that there are people online who will put in 50 cents into a fucking Simpsons game and get all the way to the end of it.

Speaker 1 But generally it felt like you didn't have enough control over your character to really have meaningful

Speaker 1 dopamine hits. Like you would just keep pumping money in and that's how you would get farther.

Speaker 2 Yeah, at some point you'll go up against a mini boss who's got like super armor or something like that and is interrupting all your attacks and is just going to like like it feels almost like regardless of what you do, you're going to this thing is just designed to kill you because enough time has lapsed since you last put in a

Speaker 2 credit.

Speaker 2 So yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I think like the

Speaker 2 again, yes,

Speaker 2 their mastery exists with everything.

Speaker 2 There are going to be people who can get through all these games on a single credit or with a hitless run or whatever.

Speaker 2 But I like in general, yeah, it does feel like the

Speaker 2 how do you articulate this? The skill ceiling is pretty low for these games.

Speaker 2 I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know if that's exactly what I'm trying to say, but rather it's like the amount of control you have over it as a user is fairly limited. And yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 It's also like what

Speaker 2 Matt was saying earlier is like these games are tend to be pretty simple. Yeah.
Like it's like there's there's just like not a ton to them.

Speaker 2 But I'm curious, Heather, as a as a Sega kid, the Streets of Rage franchise is something that a lot of people have a lot of affection for. In particular, the soundtrack for Streets of Rage

Speaker 2 is unbelievable. But also, like, just like

Speaker 2 aesthetically,

Speaker 2 they're very vibrant, like, cool-looking games. And I feel like there was a little bit more sophistication to the fighting engine with the times I spent with the Streets of Rage franchise.
But, like,

Speaker 2 did you ever get into those games?

Speaker 1 I mean, I played both Streets of Rage and Streets of Rage 2.

Speaker 1 Again, attracted by the music. I think there's also a Sega C D Streets of Rage that I had.

Speaker 1 I'm not entirely certain if that's the case. I probably should look it up, but I swear I had Streets of Rage on Sega CD.

Speaker 1 But again, it was, it was,

Speaker 1 I felt like there's just so much interactivity in the game.

Speaker 1 So it didn't feel like I was

Speaker 1 like limited, limited experience, and that felt like a barricade to my enjoyment.

Speaker 2 When I think of Streets of Rage, I always think of the line, only trust your fists, police will never help you.

Speaker 2 That's fucking hard as hell, actually. That fucking rocks.

Speaker 2 Good flashing on screen. Hell yes.

Speaker 2 I mean, Streets of Rage 4, I feel like, well, maybe not.

Speaker 2 I think Streets of Rage 4, which is a recent entry in the franchise,

Speaker 2 sort of marks this time period where I'm saying that this type of game is back because that came out to sort of, I think, like rapturous praise. People were like, this is so good.

Speaker 2 The soundtrack's great. Gameplay is a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 A couple years before that, there's the Scott Pilgrim one, which I think is a lot of fun. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 And then there's the Ninja Turtle Shredder's Revenge. Shredder's Revenge, I think, done by the Streets of Rage team.

Speaker 2 And then this new one, Marvel's Cosmic Invasion,

Speaker 2 is just a classic sort of like, and there's other, there's others too. Like, there's a Power Rangers one that came out pretty recently that people are like, it's like fine.

Speaker 2 I think part of this genre is if there's an IP you like and they made one of these games, you'll probably just play it because it's like, it's fun to see characters you already know and like, and it's fun to just.

Speaker 2 This game is like popcorn. It's like these games are popcorn.
It's not really like, there's not a lot of meat on the bone there.

Speaker 2 It's kind of just like, I want to play a video game for a couple of minutes, want to play a level of something and just kind of get into one of these and have a little fun and it's engaging from an audio video standpoint.

Speaker 2 I mean, I played through Shudder's Revenge.

Speaker 2 I had fun with Shudder's Revenge. The soundtrack is incredible.

Speaker 2 It's awesome. And so, yeah, it's just like a, I don't know,

Speaker 2 it's a pleasing sort of experience that you don't have to invest too much

Speaker 2 of your brain power into, you know? I was playing Cosmic Invasion the other night, and as I was turning it off, I got a game chat notification on my Switch 2 from Zig inviting me to play with him.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I'm turning it off, but that would have been so fun to play online with him. I didn't want to get housed by my friend.
So

Speaker 2 I actually turned my Switch off, and then I went to bed. I was like, I guess we can't do this.

Speaker 2 What an adult move. Yeah, actually, I'm going to bed.
It was actually, it was too late to be playing. I was like, I have to go to bed.

Speaker 2 But this other game came out pretty recently that is a beat-em-up with

Speaker 2 roguelike elements that I

Speaker 2 really, really enjoy that I haven't spent too much time on, but it's called Absolum.

Speaker 2 And it's so cool and so fun. And it is that exact thing.
There's like different types of characters where you can pick like a guy with like a sword or like a little dwarf guy or whatever.

Speaker 2 And then you can you complete the

Speaker 2 you know these stages or whatever and then you can pick a thing

Speaker 2 to help you you know go forward in the next stage

Speaker 2 And when you die, you just kind of go back and start the run over. And I'm like, that's such a cool,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 these roguelits are every other kind of game now at this point. But it's cool that they're like, oh, let's put it on a beat-em-up game.
And the aesthetic is gorgeous. I really, really love it.

Speaker 2 It's a game I hope to have a little more time to play soon. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's interesting because

Speaker 2 it's such a, it's in a lot of ways, such a limited genre.

Speaker 2 It's so kind of specific what criteria what you have you have like all the the boxes you have to check to to to qualify as a beat'em up and so yeah i remember it's always like like i you know when

Speaker 2 getting into emulators back in the day and getting maimed and just like getting a bunch of these beat-em-ups and then you go through and you like whatever you play 10 minutes of aliens versus predator uh and you're just like oh yeah these are all these games are like the same you know they're all just basically reskinned versions of of golden axe yeah It's one of these, it's

Speaker 2 because of this and all like the retro fighting games that come out, it's like the thing that really makes me want to get a

Speaker 2 like a stick

Speaker 2 to like play with as a as a controller because I'm like, I don't have one of those and like I have so many of these types of games actually that it would be, I think, very fun to play it on, you know,

Speaker 2 a fight stick with the, you know, the flat buttons and, you know, a little ball on the on the stick.

Speaker 2 that's like such a fun way to to play those i think we should reference uh because i think if we just from a completionist standpoint we should reference castle crashers the xbox live arcade game which was a i i think one of those those xbla hits um of that of that era and yeah this is this had this had more of a of a cutesy sort of aesthetic but that was one of the like that came out at a time when we weren't having these sort of like retro feeling beat-'em-ups when the genre had kind of got gone away for a little bit in the late aughts and um I didn't get as into it as

Speaker 2 I kind of expected to, but I do remember having fun with Castle Crashers. I sort of remember that being a thing, but I never played it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Sounds cool. Castles are cool.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I mean, you take castles and then you can kind of crash into them. Yeah.
Dave Matthews loves it. He's fucking over the moon.

Speaker 2 Dropping deuces off the Chicago Bridge. Filling up the moat.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed Rivi, River City Girls.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, there's a big, there's a big cat bass from

Speaker 2 I do like that. That's really good.

Speaker 2 Yeah, River City Girls, I didn't play, but I mean, like, I remember River City Ransom. Tell me when it's River City Boys, and I'm in.

Speaker 2 It was River City Boys, and then they brought in the River City Girls later. The River City Ransom is like a, yeah, it's more of a boy game.

Speaker 2 Delete, cut that, cut it.

Speaker 2 I remember, well, it's interesting because,

Speaker 2 you know, these games can be kind of slight. There's not that much to do in them, right? You kind of just are doing the same things to,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 slightly harder degrees as

Speaker 2 you go on. Do you think we must, we must, like, if we have anyone

Speaker 2 who's a listener who's like really into beat-em-ups, we're probably pissing them the fuck off because by judge by talking about how like superficial and limited they are.

Speaker 2 Because I bet there's there's a lot more gameplay depth to some of these or there's some that just have a lot a lot of layers to them there are a bunch of different subtypes that we're just not familiar with but but i don't know

Speaker 2 they feel superficial to me here's the thing if we stopped and thought about how upset everybody was every anytime we talked we would never do this

Speaker 2 but like

Speaker 2 because going back For me, if you had asked me when I was a little kid what my favorite video game was, I would be like, oh, the Simpsons arcade game, because I love The Simpsons and it's like a fun game to go play at the arcade.

Speaker 2 I think it kind of like sucks now. Like, it's not very fun or good.
It's just kind of like it is interesting to see

Speaker 2 The Simpsons, but like, I don't think it's like a good game necessarily. Like, I wouldn't emulate it and play it and feel like this feels like a fun thing to do.
Right. I'd rather do something.

Speaker 2 I'd rather do anything else, I think. Right.

Speaker 1 I think that the genre's successes are

Speaker 1 in

Speaker 1 the time that they take up in a child's life when a parent wants a break.

Speaker 1 So it's like, oh, here, just take $5 and go, go, go play, go play over there. And so you go over and you drop quarters into this machine and you're occupied.

Speaker 1 Now all of that happens at the dinner table with an iPad.

Speaker 1 So part of it is

Speaker 1 the times in which this genre has come back and has been successful is when it is elevated beyond its roots, when you have growth, when you have character progression, when you have options, new moves you can unlock, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 When you have to make choices.

Speaker 1 But the classic foundations of the genre are extremely limited. And I don't think that that's

Speaker 1 irritating to say. I think that the early games, like you could make that argument about a ton of genres, right?

Speaker 1 Like you could say, I think with a pretty good position that Wolfenstein 3D is a fairly limited first-person shooter. Like, that doesn't mean that you're denigrating its existence.

Speaker 1 It just means that objectively, it doesn't have a ton of options. There aren't a ton of weapons.
There isn't a huge amount of pathway variability or enemy variety.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 1 similarly, the Simpsons beat-em-up, it's like... You got like six of the same guy on the screen.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's like an arcade staple we mentioned earlier, schmups, like shoot-em-ups.
It's like, like, like, yeah, yeah, some are vertically scrolling, some are side-scrolling.

Speaker 2 There are some that try something a little bit different, like an Ikaruga.

Speaker 2 But a lot of them are just kind of the same sort of bullet hell formula.

Speaker 2 Shooting a bunch of minions and then going after a big boss. And

Speaker 2 you have your standard

Speaker 2 a bunch of different weapon upgrades and super attacks.

Speaker 2 They tend to be pretty formulaic, but that's a really, like, I really like schmupps. I think that's a really cool genre

Speaker 2 and it's it's it's really fun and there's a lot of different variants within that set that sort of like you know fairly limited fairly restricted fairly you know somewhat superficial sort of

Speaker 2 type of gameplay. But it's interesting because like something like Ikaruga or something like

Speaker 2 Metal Slug or something like Contra, all four of those games are technically like the same genre of game, but all four of them are all three of them are so different and they play so differently.

Speaker 2 Whereas Whereas, like a beat-em-up game, if you play one, you can sort of do any of them. Is the issue you can do more with a gun than you can do with your fist?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I kind of think so because there's only so many ways you can punch, but like gun can do so many different types.

Speaker 2 Like, gun can do like flamethrower, sure, big ball, or bigger ball, you know, spread ball, curly ball, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, there's like a like a lightning thing,

Speaker 2 or god forbid, a beam, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Rocket. Yeah, you could have Rocket there.
Suck. Could do suck.

Speaker 2 Kirby games are kind of reverse shoot-em-ups, actually.

Speaker 2 Suck-em-ups. They're suck-em-ups.
I think the real success of something like

Speaker 2 Marvel Cosmic Invasion or TMNT Shredder's Revenge is that they made...

Speaker 2 this kind of classic game, but they made it good. Yeah.
Like they're kind of like, oh, like Shredder's Revenge is just like these other TMNT beat-em-ups, but this one is like modern and good.

Speaker 2 Like, it's like, and it's, it's it looks awesome. The soundtrack's great, and like the story is fun, and the gameplay is really cool.
And you get to be the ninja turtles.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember playing the shit out of Turtles and Time on the Super Nintendo with my friends, and that was a game.

Speaker 2 That was like, that also felt like it had a little bit more heft to it than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game,

Speaker 2 but like

Speaker 2 the cabinet. But then again, that could just be my kid brain

Speaker 2 applying more to it than

Speaker 2 it actually has. But I like, like, yeah, I think some of that explains it.
He's got a kid brain.

Speaker 2 Now I understand him.

Speaker 1 It's loose inside the head.

Speaker 2 It's rattling around in there.

Speaker 1 Every time Weiger turns, he just goes, ah!

Speaker 2 Ah, fuck.

Speaker 2 Ah, fuck.

Speaker 2 The sprite work in, have you messed around with Cosmic Invasion at all? Are you going to like dip into it? Like,

Speaker 2 it's $30.

Speaker 2 Right now on Switch, it's $27. Okay, all right.
Because I was like, I was like, kind of, kind of good.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was like, hmm, I feel, am I going to, I feel like I should wait for this to go on Game Pass or go on sale or something like that.

Speaker 2 I did watch some footage, and I was like, I was like, oh, this looks cool.

Speaker 2 I have found the sprite work to be pretty impressive, actually.

Speaker 2 Because with some of these, these older ones, they kind of can only do so much, but like, since now, these are like modern games, I feel like the movesets are more like intentional, and like the design, the animations are a little more bespoke rather than, you know,

Speaker 2 Wolverine is punching the same way that like Cyclops is punching or something like that. Or in this case, like Wolverine has a completely different moveset than Cosmic Ghost Rider, who's I

Speaker 2 just learned of

Speaker 2 in playing this game. I thought he was only from hell or earth.
I didn't know he got all the way up there. And there's a space one.

Speaker 1 He can be from space.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that they could get up there. Is he riding a bike? What's he riding? He's sort of.
Yeah, he's still riding a bike. But it's like a space bike? It's kind of like a space.

Speaker 2 He's got like a space helmet. I guess they get a space surfboard.
I guess if you can go to hell, you can go to space. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I guess it's fine. We should just be fine with it.
I mean, that's kind of the doom thing, you know? Yeah. You got a space marine that ends up in hell.
Yeah, it is true.

Speaker 2 He, he, he gets all, man, that guy gets everywhere. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 I, I do,

Speaker 2 I, I, I, I, I am happy that this, this, this genre persists. I just really, that's just, I was like, that's a scary thought.

Speaker 2 The idea that you go to like Mars, but like, hell can still get you because it's like another dimension. It's not like, oh, I'm off of Earth.
I, well, I'm, I'm away, I'm safe from hell now.

Speaker 2 Because hell's not, like, underground. It's just like

Speaker 2 you would think different plane.

Speaker 2 As somebody, if, if, if, if you're somebody who believes in hell, yeah, and you're from earth, you think hell is under earth or like in some sort of plane that exists under earth, underground, because you're going down.

Speaker 2 Heaven is above, hell is down. Yeah, you go to another planet, you're sort of like, well, at least hell's not here.
Right. Hell is like somewhere else, actually.
Thank God I'm somewhere else.

Speaker 2 Heaven's not even part of it here. So like I'm kind of just like in this neutral zone, another planet, Mars.
Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 Hell's here too, actually.

Speaker 1 It's funny funny to think of any of the characters in interstellar, like halfway across the galaxy, dying and going to hell.

Speaker 2 But like not Earth, hell, hell of over there. So they're just like in hell of like this ocean planet.
They got Event Horizon. Yeah.
I got to see that.

Speaker 2 It's pretty good.

Speaker 2 Pretty good. It's been in like my queue for, I think, 15 years.

Speaker 1 I think Event Horizon is there.

Speaker 2 It's worth a watch. Watch it.
Fine. No.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to say don't watch it. I think Sunshine is the better of the two.
Sunshine is great. Sunshine, like Event Horizon is an interesting but flawed movie.
Sunshine is awesome.

Speaker 2 Sunshine is a masterpiece. You see, sometimes you guys are like an angel and a devil on my shoulder.
And sometimes you switch shoulders and then you're on the other side.

Speaker 2 So then sometimes you're on one shoulder and then there's nobody over here. And it kind of depends on which shoulder is which.
I think Sunshine is up there with Interstellar.

Speaker 2 They're doing the same sort of thing. I think they're both really compelling.
I'll watch them both. Space movies, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 My wife recently. I like space movies.
She said something. I thought this was very funny in our household.
She goes, Matt, I have a confession to make. I go, oh, God, what? Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 She's like, I like sci-fi. And I was like, okay, interesting.
That's good information. Yeah.
Because now

Speaker 2 I'll ask you if you want to watch this type of thing instead of the thing that I normally think you like, which is crime. She likes a crime.
Or a heist. Oh, sure.
That's good stuff.

Speaker 2 Now we're sort of broadening the scope. We're into the sci-fi territory.
Ask her if she wants to see Avatar. Not interested.
Oh.

Speaker 2 Because it's too fantasy. Sci-fi fantasy is not too interested in.

Speaker 1 Wow, interesting. There's very, I think, very little fantasy in Avatar.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, of course, because it's real.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 because there's no magic. Magic to me is the hallmark of fantasy.

Speaker 2 Sure, I think

Speaker 2 there's maybe a fantasy feel to it, though. It's like kind of like, you know,

Speaker 2 the culture of the Navi.

Speaker 2 You're basically riding on the back of dragons, you know what I mean? Like, that kind of has a sort of fantasy sort of aesthetic to it. And we haven't seen fire science fiction.

Speaker 2 We actually don't know that there's not magic in this one. That's true.
We don't know.

Speaker 1 There could be magic.

Speaker 2 It would be interesting. I wouldn't bat an eye if there was magic.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't think twice about it. Nope.
Well, I don't mean, like, is what's going on with Iowa all that different than what's going on with, say, like the materia in Final Fantasy VII.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? It's like there is kind of like some sort of, like, it seems like some sort of mystical

Speaker 2 or like the force in Star Wars.

Speaker 2 The tree that keeps their memories is not different than

Speaker 2 Yggdrazil or whatever it's called. Right.
Right.

Speaker 1 If your hair is your penis, is that magic?

Speaker 2 I kind of think everybody's got to get over that. Why? It's just part of it.
I know.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 1 Why get over it?

Speaker 2 I just like it.

Speaker 2 I feel like it's the first thing that people that don't like Avatar go to. And they're like, find something else.

Speaker 1 I love Avatar, but the hair is a penis.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 I saw each of them more than once in the theater.

Speaker 2 I like it when they jack into things.

Speaker 1 You would.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I like when they. Can you masturbate by doing your hair in avatar?

Speaker 2 Yeah, giving yourself braids is kind of like jacking off.

Speaker 2 What, is there an IP you guys think should have a beat-em-up? How about Avatar? I mean, yeah, kind of. It'd be kind of good.
Running around like it, like in a mech, or you're running around

Speaker 2 as an A V and then you're like, you're fucking awesome. Oh, that'd be so horrible if you were in a mech gunning down Na V.

Speaker 1 What if it was like that

Speaker 1 altered beast style?

Speaker 2 Oh, sure. Rise from your brain.

Speaker 1 Where you start as a person and you power up into avatar size? Yeah, that's fun. And then if you get hit as the avatar, you downgrade into person size.

Speaker 2 That'd be cool.

Speaker 2 there should be a

Speaker 2 uh no country for old man uh beat-em-up

Speaker 2 great i'd play it why not they could just do it with them i mean i know that there's that uh terminator game coming out i don't think that's a beat-em-up right there

Speaker 2 i don't think so either yeah i think it's like a sort of action platformer type thing i think all of fox animation domination is up for grabs like yeah

Speaker 2 like give me a family guy give me an american dad give me a bob's burgers those would all be fun beat-em-ups What's the one with

Speaker 2 there's a show on right now. I can't remember what it's called, and I'm not trying to, no disrespect to anybody that works on this show.

Speaker 2 I think it's been on for like five seasons, and like every time I see a commercial for it, I'm like, what the fuck is this? It's the are you, is it the John Ham show?

Speaker 2 It's like it's like they're like two guys or some shit. Oh, the Universal Basic guys, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I'm sure it's maybe it's funny, I just haven't seen it, but every time I see a commercial for it, I'm like, that's not true. They're really pushing Universal Basic.

Speaker 2 And yeah, I've never seen an episode, but you know, I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's great. Yeah.
Get American Dad in there.

Speaker 2 Man, I watched an American Dad over the weekend when I was at a hotel and I was laughing my fucking ass off. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Stu staged a home invasion and it was a prank. But it was like the home invasion was like really

Speaker 2 played very scary.

Speaker 2 The family was really freaked out. And then he takes off his ski mask.
It's fucking Stu. His name's Stu, right? The dad? I don't know.
I think his name is Stu.

Speaker 2 That sounds right. Yeah,

Speaker 1 that sounds approximate.

Speaker 2 Get King of the Hill in the beat-em-up. Cropopolis.
Cropopolis, sure. Oh, there you go.
Yeah, I like King of the Hills is a fun one. Hey, toss Rick and or Morty in one.

Speaker 1 Well, they're not a Fox property, but sure. Sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's all going to be one thing soon.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 Get them in there.

Speaker 1 When we can finally go back to just saying, I'm going to watch television. Yeah.
yeah and you literally mean all of it yeah yeah all of it at once yeah sort of like um in the matrix an enormous pipe

Speaker 2 uh the the john ham show i was going to think of which is another fox animation domination show is grimsburg grims grimsburg

Speaker 2 axe cop in there get uh

Speaker 1 again i don't think that's an i mean it is old animation domination i think it was on fox i think oh no it definitely was yeah

Speaker 2 not on it hasn't been on tv for over 10 10 years, I think.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was the company I worked at, ADHD, which was Animation Domination High Def.

Speaker 2 What else is on there?

Speaker 2 The Jonah Hill one?

Speaker 2 You know, it could be like, it's, I feel like it's a thing you see less of where you're taking

Speaker 2 like like it like you know the way they'll like Lego-fi a game or they'll they'll just be like they'll be like Lego Star Wars the game you know I mean like it's like like whatever there's there's a whole there's a whole bunch of those like like like I feel like taking other

Speaker 2 in the same way that you got, like, like, like, you know, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, taking another video game and then turning it into a beat-em-up, um, like Hyrule Warriors or something like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 Like, Fortnite as a beat-em-up would be phenomenal because you'd have like such an incredible roster of people to choose from.

Speaker 2 What about this?

Speaker 2 Street Fighter as a beat-em-up, but the Street Fighter characters have all their moves. Have all their moves.

Speaker 1 I feel like they tried that.

Speaker 2 It sounds good.

Speaker 2 Maybe it sucks, but it kind of sounds good.

Speaker 1 I feel like they tried that at some point. Maybe it was like there was like a Chun Li game.
I don't remember.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
We can't make video games.

Speaker 2 What are we doing? We can't make them. All we're doing is dreaming.

Speaker 2 All we can do is dream and play them.

Speaker 1 But it sucks to dream. Because then you wake up.

Speaker 2 You don't have to.

Speaker 2 You can stay in the dream. I wish.

Speaker 2 I wish. When I worked at the video in video game development, I mentioned when I talked through the Fantastic Fantastic Four games, the

Speaker 2 Fantastic Four game I worked on started as a beat-em-up. And that was the whole

Speaker 2 original pitch for it. It was like, oh, yeah, this will be just like a classic sort of like superhero beat-em-up game.

Speaker 2 And then once they were like, we're going to make this movie, then it got rejiggered on the fly to be turned into from a from a beat-em-up to more of a character action game with platforming and puzzles and all that sort of shit.

Speaker 2 And that was part of why it was such a

Speaker 2 an arduous process to pull that game together.

Speaker 1 I just want to say Ranch thought she could sneak a snack in here and eat it very quietly. And she's managed to eat it quietly, but I don't want her to think she got away with sneaking.

Speaker 2 What's the snack? Little popcorn, little smart pop, it looks like. Okay.

Speaker 1 She's over there across the studio eating a snack and she's trying to do it like it was a secret. And I'm not letting her keep that secret.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to say she was unsuccessful in the sneaking because she did do a good job. Right.
Thought she can get under our nose. Uh, guess what? I heard the fucking bag, dude.
I heard the bag, too.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure if we got picked up on the microphone. What I will say is that it's a power producer move to leave the studio during a recording and grab a snack and then return.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing: I would go a step further,

Speaker 2 never come back afterwards. Because, like, this is not worth it.
This is with

Speaker 2 you had the opportunity to fix your life.

Speaker 2 Instead, you said, please, sir, can I have another?

Speaker 2 Guinea pop, one of the great pops.

Speaker 1 Any final thoughts on beat-em-ups?

Speaker 2 I like screen clears. I like when you get some sort of super move that gets to kill, like, kick out a bunch of.

Speaker 2 I'm thinking of like, in particular, like Golden Axe,

Speaker 2 you have the resource of like you can, you can accumulate

Speaker 2 enough mana where you can get like a super attack that like old fucking dragon will come in and blast everyone. That's always really satisfying.
I like that. I like that for some reason.

Speaker 2 I mean, we talked about this a little bit, but like the soundtracks for a lot of these games just go so hard for no reason kind of like i mean the shredder's revenge one is great uh animanaguchi does the scott pilgrim video game one and it's fucking phenomenal it's really really good i i also like when like a boss comes in and has some sort of like like bespoke animation like some sort of pose or taunt that they're doing as the thing as the match starts or as the uh the the the the combat sequence starts up that's a lot of fun what about this this is like this is such a okay

Speaker 2 because the the common enemies that you'll get necessarily won't necessarily have like a health bar You just kind of know that like a couple hits is gonna take them out. That's that boss comes around

Speaker 2 Big old health bar on the screen, and you know that you're chipping away at it very much two tones usually yeah yellow bar that goes then to the red yellow bar is like okay you did it first then red starts depleting and then you see then it starts to look empty and he'll get and he'll get angry and he'll get faster oh yeah unlock another set of moves i also like and this is a particular a ninja turtles thing but like when you can throw an enemy at the screen, that's fun.

Speaker 2 That's really fun. I like throwing enemy.
I like throwing guys just in general. I think it's really funny.

Speaker 2 In Shredder's Revenge and probably in the other Ninja Turtles ones, there's like these airboard

Speaker 2 levels where you're

Speaker 2 a sort of hoverboard type thing. Continuous scrolling.
That's really fun.

Speaker 2 And then, of course, all the food. We haven't even talked about finding food.
The food, like finding

Speaker 2 a chicken and a barrel of oil or something like that that restores your health. Finding a pizza in in a mailbox or something like that.
I love that.

Speaker 2 Doesn't make sense, but it's fun. I love it.

Speaker 2 And yeah, I think these games are great, and I'm glad that they seem to be here to stay.

Speaker 2 Should we do a segment?

Speaker 1 I would love to do a segment. Let's say it up.

Speaker 2 All right. It's time for the question block.

Speaker 2 These are, of course, from our discord, discord.gg slash get played. And here we go.
This first one from Lieb. What's up, Lieb? Lieb writes:

Speaker 2 What video game creator or team would you give a blank check of money and time to create whatever crazy passion project they want? Would that check clear or would it bounce, baby?

Speaker 2 Of course, reference to the blank check podcast, but I have an immediate answer to this. Go for it.
Sam Lake. Sam Lake from Remedy.
I just think that

Speaker 2 the output is good. The output is strong.

Speaker 2 Gets better

Speaker 2 pretty much every time. Like, people liked, people, I feel like, had really fun memories of Max Payne.
People were really into Alan Wake. Control comes out.
People are like, oh, okay. Control.

Speaker 2 This is really, this is really something. Alan Wake 2 comes out.
This guy's at the fucking height of his powers here.

Speaker 2 I like to just see what he could go, how crazy he could go with unlimited time and money. Okay.
You don't have it. I mean, this is the thing is, a lot of the

Speaker 2 developers

Speaker 2 I really like are people who already are kind of like unrestrained because they're independent or have had massive financial success. Like Larian is going to be able to do whatever they want.

Speaker 2 Concerned Ape, who can do whatever they want. Hitataka Miyazaki

Speaker 2 does not have the constraints that a lot of people have on them.

Speaker 2 So my answer will be recency bias ahoy, but I honestly feel like the ad hoc team who had a, it was a, you know, they need, they, they got, thankfully got critical role to come in and, and finance

Speaker 2 development, but, but, you know, that game almost didn't happen. And, uh,

Speaker 2 and I'd love to just see ad hoc not have to, uh, you know, be as limited in what they do with a, with, with, with an upcoming project, whether that's a sequel to Dispatch, Something Else in the World, or something new entirely.

Speaker 1 Okay. My answer,

Speaker 1 you know, similarly, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm not going to give an infinite budget to Kunjima because the guy's already doing what he wants to do.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The person that I want to give an infinite budget and infinite time to is Tetsua Nomura. And here's why.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I daydream about Final Fantasy 13 versus, which was ultimately scrapped and returned and repurposed as Final Fantasy XV. But there was an entirely different game.

Speaker 1 being made and it was in development for so long and then you know,

Speaker 1 like vultures picked the meat off the bone and made it into a different animal. I want to give that guy infinite budget in 20 years

Speaker 1 and see what kind of clothing he designs.

Speaker 2 What clothing he invents. Yeah.

Speaker 1 In a city, because he's always trying to get his boys to be like running around in a city.

Speaker 1 But I think he wants the city to be fully realized where you can go in any building and every office is filled.

Speaker 1 And I just want want him to have all of the time there is. I want to free him from the shackles of the Kingdom Hearts IP and just let him go, ham.
And that is my answer.

Speaker 2 I'll also shout out Subset Games who made FTL and an Into the Breach.

Speaker 2 Again, a very successful indie developer, but

Speaker 2 I'd like to see what they could do with an absolutely unlimited budget. Yeah.
And you know what? I don't have his name in front of me, but the guy that did Animal Well, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That was such an impressive game to me.
I like to see what he does next, and I want it to be so good.

Speaker 2 This next one from Triple Aces EZ. A triple? EZ.

Speaker 2 And they write.

Speaker 2 All caps, by the way.

Speaker 2 Why have none of you talked about Ark Raiders yet? I feel like Heather would enjoy. The reason for that, I think, we can all say.
None of us have played it.

Speaker 2 This is probably the big reason we haven't talked about it.

Speaker 2 New shooter game that everybody says is good.

Speaker 1 Ark Raiders.

Speaker 2 Arc Raiders.

Speaker 1 I won't pretend that I haven't heard of it because I have heard of it and I've seen the hype about it.

Speaker 1 I just haven't

Speaker 1 given it a shot.

Speaker 2 Extraction game, I mean, like, you know, it's, and this is just not the kind of game,

Speaker 2 the sort of multiplayer

Speaker 2 experience with

Speaker 2 it's just usually not the sort of thing that I would tend to gravitate towards. I'm usually someone who plays single-player games.

Speaker 2 If I am going to play something online, it's usually something that's a little bit

Speaker 2 less twitchy, like

Speaker 2 a card game or something like that.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I mean, so I think it's maybe just not for me.

Speaker 2 Or my take on it would not add much beyond like I can appreciate it for what it is, but it's not the sort of game that I would I would play

Speaker 2 regularly. Seems cool.
I just, yeah, I just don't really, I don't really play games like that,

Speaker 2 but happy for people

Speaker 2 to have it.

Speaker 2 People love Arc Raiders. Yeah.
I've heard it. That's a huge hit.
Gotten very enthusiastic endorsements from some gamer friends who are spending time with it.

Speaker 2 Kind of feels like it's like, you know, when Helldivers 2, and people still play in Helldivers 2, but like Helldivers had such

Speaker 2 a set of

Speaker 2 mind share for a time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you think in the game Arc Raiders are like, oh, great. Two of Every Animal.

Speaker 2 They're like breaking into these arcs and they're like, oh, great. Two of Every Animal.

Speaker 2 Yeah, probably also tossing out like a this belongs in a museum

Speaker 2 on occasion.

Speaker 2 This arc's not so lost anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Put that in a. Heather, would you like to do one? Put that in a crate.

Speaker 1 No, thanks.

Speaker 2 Warehouse. We'll never find it.

Speaker 2 What else? What else? What else? What else? Nazis melting.

Speaker 2 Probably.

Speaker 2 Hat. Hat.
Hat. There's hat.

Speaker 2 Snakes. I want to stay.
I want to stay. Yeah.
Let it go.

Speaker 2 Friends with Archimedes.

Speaker 2 I don't.

Speaker 2 Billy Basso, by the way, is the animal well.

Speaker 2 Solo dev. Billy Basso.

Speaker 2 I loved Animal Well. This next one.

Speaker 2 Jenny Drac. Hi, Jenny.
Hi, Jenny. I hope the rest of your last name isn't Ula.

Speaker 2 Because I'll be really scared if so.

Speaker 2 My name, yes, my name is Dracula. I'm not a Dracula.
It's just a family name. Are you sure about that?

Speaker 2 Jenny? Name happens to be Jenny Dracula. You can't, but like, whatever.
Like, I can't, can't hold that against me.

Speaker 2 I think I can.

Speaker 2 All right, I'll change it. All right.

Speaker 2 All I'm saying is, if my last name was associated with the bad guy, that would not be my last name no more. I'd change it.

Speaker 1 Your last name basically is Dracula. No.
Apo Dracula.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, of course. When you say the full name of it, it, it's almost exactly the same.

Speaker 2 But my version's different.

Speaker 2 Jenny Rites. If you say that, you say that.
Meanwhile, I think in Italy, there's politicians who just have the last name Mussolini.

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, like my grandfather, who I like.

Speaker 2 I feel like that rule is only true for one very specific person.

Speaker 2 Nobody's got either name anymore.

Speaker 2 Jenny writes, with the Xbox future looking uncertain, do you think it's worth investing into Steam? Parentheses, box, deck, or whatever. I think, yes.

Speaker 2 And not necessarily because, well, I think Steam Decks. I love the Steam Deck.
I'm actually really excited about the Steam box, actually.

Speaker 2 It seems like it's going to be priced as like a PC, but like the PC,

Speaker 2 like the cost of building a PC is probably

Speaker 2 higher than most people want, but I feel like a lot of stuff that's on Steam

Speaker 2 is not necessarily that intense. Like if you want like a sort of AAA sort of like rig, that stuff's on there too.
But like the little games that are on Steam that I,

Speaker 2 the little games I buy on Steam are not too, they're not gonna be too taxing on even the lowest hardware. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's also like,

Speaker 2 you know, if you want to to play in 4K with

Speaker 2 settings maxed out, you know, you're probably going to have to invest in a substantial gaming rig. But like, even if you're playing a game like

Speaker 2 a Cyberpunk 2077 that can push your hardware, you don't have to like turn everything to the max.

Speaker 2 You can have what will still be a satisfactory experience,

Speaker 2 you know, even visually.

Speaker 2 And that will be closer to what you might get on a similarly priced console. I imagine this question is coming

Speaker 2 from Jenny that it's like,

Speaker 2 I imagine it's someone who isn't

Speaker 2 like already a PC gamer.

Speaker 2 And maybe Xbox is their primary platform.

Speaker 2 So yeah, if I was in that situation and I maybe had like a Series S or something like that, and I was weighing my next move, yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 some piece of Steam hardware is as valid of a purchase as a

Speaker 2 as a as a Switch 2 or a PlayStation 5? It's just, as always, it's just like, where are the exclusives that you want to play?

Speaker 2 What do you do you tend towards? Like, hey, what actually, what I really like about Xbox is that all the indie games that are available on Game Pass, if that's the sort of thing that

Speaker 2 you really like right now, then yeah, maybe the...

Speaker 2 the Steam ecosystem experience might be for you.

Speaker 2 We used to say, I think, that

Speaker 2 Game Pass was the best value in gaming, which is no longer true. Now it's like $80 a month or whatever.

Speaker 2 I think the best value in gaming is like any Steam sale, really. Because at Steam sales, you can get great games sometimes for like $2, depending on what the sale is.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then you'd buy it and you just never play it. And yeah, exactly.
So you just

Speaker 2 add to your digital horde.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Get into Steam. Did we answer that? I think so.
Get into Steam. Steam's great.
I think Steam's making a big play. I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about that

Speaker 2 box in the new year.

Speaker 2 And finally, Gary Stake Spice writes.

Speaker 2 What are your white whale backlog games? A game that you know you would love, but have put off trying for X reason, work too many games, being the finisher, etc. Why haven't you started it yet?

Speaker 2 For some reason, the first answer that comes to my mind, well, it's not a white whale because I have started it and I just never finished it, but I would really love to have rolled credits on

Speaker 2 Persona 5 at some point in my life. Would like to do that.

Speaker 2 But for a game that I haven't started, that is sort of a white whale for me is the first thing that comes to mind for some reason is the Octopath Traveler game. Oh.

Speaker 2 Those games seem so lovely and fun, and I know I would love it. I just have not

Speaker 2 investigated and I would like to, I would like to play it. I feel like I would have like a cozy time with that.

Speaker 2 I wish I had my Steam library in front of me because I'm sure I'd look at something and be like, oh yeah, I always meant to play that. PayPop 3.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, wish listed. Not out yet.

Speaker 2 Taking their sweet time.

Speaker 2 But it does make me think of a game that I've also

Speaker 2 spent limited time with. And I'm like, I know I would love this full experience.
I don't know why this never really got its hooks in me. And I don't know why I've never dedicated the time to it.

Speaker 2 Because the CD Projekt Red, the same developer, made Cyberpunk, which we all love.

Speaker 2 But The Witcher 3 is just like a game I've played and attempted and bounced off of. And

Speaker 2 I'm sure if I actually got into that, it would be one of my favorite games.

Speaker 2 I'll also shout out,

Speaker 2 recently referenced the thing that I keep saying, Hollow Knight, is

Speaker 2 I've always meant to finish Hollow Knight and then especially Silksong out.

Speaker 2 But I think the big one in terms of like, I've never put any time in this. In fact, I don't even own this game is Bloodborne.

Speaker 2 Oh, and you know, every I already mentioned Miyazaki, but every FromSoft game that I've got around to playing, I've absolutely loved.

Speaker 2 And when I went back to Sekiro, I was like, this is the fucking triumph, and this is so much fun.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure I'd have the same experience with Bloodborne. I wish I could play it on PC.
I wish there was a version beyond the PS4 version, but you know, I should get around to that at some point.

Speaker 1 My answers are God of War Ragnarok, which I need to finish.

Speaker 1 It's got to be one of my favorite games that I haven't played.

Speaker 1 Persona 5, which I continue to chip away at so slowly, it's almost as if I'm not playing the game.

Speaker 1 I leapt on the backlog of Final Fantasy Rebirth and have been making progress there.

Speaker 1 Star Wars Outlaws is on that list for me

Speaker 1 because I love Star Wars and it has been patched now now to a place of like great playability.

Speaker 1 I don't know, man. Ragnarok is probably the top of the list though for me.
Wow.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I'm just trying to think a little bit more historically and a franchise that I never really got into and a game that I always heard was awesome was the Sega Saturn game Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Speaker 2 I've never touched it. Like I know what I know it's its reputation

Speaker 2 and I, you know, I do love JRPGs, and I'm sure that one would feel a little bit of its time coming out having been released in the 90s, but I, but 90s, JRPGs are some of my, my favorite games.

Speaker 2 So, um, but yeah, that's a, it's a good question.

Speaker 1 I still have a sealed copy of a Dreamcast RPG that I have just not gotten around to playing. Wow.
Um,

Speaker 1 which I can't think of the name of right now, but it's like the Dreamcast RPG.

Speaker 2 Skies of Arcadia, I mean, yeah, that's it. Yeah, Skies of Arcadia is great.
And you mentioned Persona 5. I have finished Persona 5 Royal, and I did fucking loved it.
Great game. I'm thinking,

Speaker 2 thinking historically, I'm thinking of like old Zelda games because I really only checked in with Zelda on Switch.

Speaker 2 So Breath of the Wild and Tears, I, of course, did, but I have not ever finished Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. Interesting.
Yeah, or Wind Waker, yeah.

Speaker 2 I wonder how you'd risk how you'd respond to like,

Speaker 2 yeah, I did a wait, you said Link to the Past. I did do, oh, no, I did Link's Awakening, but I haven't played Link to the the Past.
Yeah, that's you said you said Ocarine of Time and Majora's Mask.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Link to the Past is, I'd be interested in your response to that. I should just say, or Link Between Worlds.

Speaker 2 I played some of Between Worlds. That's the flat one.
Yeah. Or you can become flat.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Was that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, yes, yes, yes, yes. And you can become flat.

Speaker 2 I was thinking of the minish cap, but the minish cap has a different game. I haven't done that either.

Speaker 2 There's too many of them. I'm not going to do all of them.
Yeah. But like all the really good ones, I'm going to probably do.
Heather took my pillow away. Oh,

Speaker 2 you know what? It was worth it, it was good. Heather put a pillow on her head.
Heather took my pillow and put it on her head to do a pillow. What is going on here?

Speaker 2 Oh, Rochelle, you got anything outstanding in your backlog? Any games that you've always wanted to get around to that you ever had time for?

Speaker 1 Um, I really want to play

Speaker 2 Soma. Okay, oh,

Speaker 1 I also want to play Persona 5, yeah, but I'm scared.

Speaker 2 Okay, you want to play Soma, but you're afraid afraid of Persona 5.

Speaker 2 Great game. It is daunting.
It is. I mean, like, I spent over 100 hours playing through this.

Speaker 1 And then I'll say finally,

Speaker 1 a game that is and has been my white whale for finishing my whole life is Tactics Advance, which I had packed for my Thanksgiving trip.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then our Thanksgiving trip got canceled because our dog got sick. Yeah.
But I was forcing myself. I was like, I'm going to have six hours on this fucking airplane.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I'm just going to bring tactics advance and I'll force myself into the corner of playing and maybe even beating this game. And then the trip got canceled.
It's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. Like

Speaker 2 that game has like a sort of like reverse final destination. Or it's like it follows you or something.
Some sort of cursed sort of thing. I don't know what the rules are exactly.
Cursed game. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think it's you being punished for playing a tactics game

Speaker 2 outside of your typical genre oh yeah that's true that's fair yeah that's fair

Speaker 2 but uh that's it for the question block guys uh that's that can be those can oh my god you okay doing great

Speaker 2 as i mentioned earlier

Speaker 2 those are all sourced from our discord discord.gg slash get played get in there why don't you it's a lot of fun yeah get in there chop it up toss us some queries and make some friends that's this week's get played and hey

Speaker 2 no beating them up in there No, no, whoosh, whoosh, none of that. Punch.
None of that.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you, the mods are going to give you a whooping.

Speaker 2 And the mods are really tough and fucking strong. Yeah, your fucking ass if you act up.
Our producers are Charles Chen Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore, sard.

Speaker 2 Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com. Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.
And we got merch over at kinshipgoods.com. And

Speaker 2 Still going, get animate, our sister show on Patreon. Matt, what are we doing this week? We're finishing up.

Speaker 2 I think we're finishing up Serial Experiments Lane. Wow.

Speaker 2 And let me tell you something.

Speaker 2 That's a fucking doozy. Classic late 90s anime.
Here are our thoughts on the final episodes over at patreon.com/slash get played.

Speaker 2 And you know who got played?

Speaker 1 That was a Headgum podcast.

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Nicole Bayer.

Speaker 1 Hi, I'm Sashir Zemeda.

Speaker 2 And this is the podcast, Best Friends.

Speaker 2 And we're here at Headgum.

Speaker 1 So, this is just a podcast where we just talk.

Speaker 2 Yeah. We're best friends.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We talk, and then we have a segment where we answer questions and queries.

Speaker 1 So, audience members can ask questions about friendships and we can answer them to the best of our abilities. Yes.
We are professional friends. We are professional friends.

Speaker 1 Subscribe to best friends on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast and watch videos on YouTube. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
That's the middle of a work week.

Speaker 1 I was deeply unhelpful to you during that whole thing.

Speaker 2 You were. I'm really solved the support.

Speaker 1 I was so okay. I was trying to be supportive.

Speaker 2 but I was like, I don't know, reading seems pretty hard right now. It's a lot.

Speaker 1 I think you did good. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 You're welcome.