86: Dodger Goes Full Heretic in 40k

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Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

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Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

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Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one, keep podcast Podcast without a doubt.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders.

Welcome

to Bew Bew Fireworks.

With special guest Jesse Cox, everybody.

So happy to be here.

Thank you so much.

With special guest

Dodger Thorne.

Yeah, that's me.

I just don't know.

Do I do we say do we include the last name with Dodger now?

Or is it just Dodger still?

If you want, I like when we meet people and they don't know you at all except through your Twitch streams.

Yeah, so like, what's up, Dex?

I think that's pretty good.

What's up, Dex?

Yeah, I like that a lot.

Yeah, and I feel

bad because,

you know, the the the layers of name lore at this point, it's no one's fault but mine.

Really?

What's up, Prince?

Or do I call you continue?

Madam Continue would be great.

Yeah.

Madam Continue?

Madam Continue, I think is a good name.

Yeah.

In like the video game.

Version of the Spider-Verse, Madame Continue rules over all of it.

Right?

Yeah.

She can see all the possibilities of what would happen after you continue.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

How are you, buddy?

I'm doing great.

As you can see, if you're watching and not listening, my camera is insane right now.

But I think maybe because it's so dark in LA, you know,

it's trying to auto-adjust light.

I don't know.

It's like dark outside.

It's weird.

Whenever you complain about the camera, it's not that bad.

You say that.

All i see is if i raise my hand a little bit it auto adjusts back to what it really should look like and then i lower it again suddenly it's very bright it drives me crazy

i don't like it but uh you know it is what it is i was using a thermal camera for the first time the other day why

what because if you'll recall we were trying to find a snake Oh, I thought you were hunting the predator.

No.

Wait, no, you would have been the predator.

Oh, you're that snake's predator.

Okay, continue.

I was predator, yeah.

To catch everybody up, we lost a snake on the farm for a hot minute, it has been found.

Thank goodness.

What do you mean?

I

hold on.

Yeah, you losing the snake means that you had some authority over that snake to begin with.

The snake belongs to you.

Is this like a family friend?

Who is the snake?

The snake belongs to my sister-in-law.

And

the law.

Of course it does.

Yeah.

And it's a banana ball python.

He's very beautiful, but he's very strong.

He's very strong.

And he can get his container open if you don't perfectly lock the door.

And the door was not perfectly locked.

So he used his sweet little tail or his face or whatever to push the door open and got out.

And that turned into a deep dive into, can you find a snake with a thermal camera?

And the jury's out.

They do absorb heat.

There's a reason that they curl up next to heat sources, right?

Cold-blooded.

But they are cold-blooded as well.

Right.

So like it kind of depends how much heat have they absorbed at the time that you're trying to thermal camera for them.

Okay.

Whoa.

So you really were the predator and that snake was on Schwarzenegger Schwarzenegger who covered himself with mud and it was like, you can't detect me, predator.

And you were like,

Yeah.

Yeah, I may have to go full nuke on this.

Yeah, no, okay, I get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I've now learned sheep, very hard to see in a thermal camera because

sheep.

Yeah.

He was going around the farm, like checking out stuff.

Yeah, of course.

Oh my gosh.

They're so fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

The reason I thought about it is because with the settings as they are naturally, it will just identify where is the coldest, at what you're looking at right now.

What is the coldest thing and what is the hottest thing?

And it will adjust the color balance.

So if you're just looking at, you know, a field in the middle of the night when it's really cold, it's not just all going to be blue.

It will be like, well, this thing at what you're looking at right now, this part is warmer than this part.

So we'll make it so that that's clear, right?

Right.

And that's annoying because I only want to see if an animal's there or not.

I don't, I don't want you to adjust for me and trip me up, right?

But yeah, sheep, their face, their faces light up, but their fleece does not.

Wild.

Snakes cannot get a snake to pop up on that goddamn camera.

So that's our situation.

At the very least, if ever you're trying to use a thermal camera to find a snake, may you have better luck than me.

But it was very fun.

I feel like the snake wins.

I mean, at baseline, it's cold-blooded, so it's already got an advantage on you.

The thing is, it's a python's huge, right?

He's, yeah, he's about like this long and like this thick.

So, like, I don't know.

Feel like you could figure out where he was.

They get still found him.

We found him.

Okay.

No, but they

it's

reptiles are crazy.

They hide

they hide so well.

Um, I've had a lot of different reptiles in my life.

And if you're just like walking around with one on your shoulder or something and they decide to jump off of you, the likelihood is you're going to be looking for that fucking guy for the rest of the day.

Snakes can get super flat.

They get so flat.

They can fit under the craziest shit.

My sister's place is essentially a tiny home.

It's, it's so tiny.

And we ransacked that place.

We looked everywhere, multiple times.

What's happening?

Hold on.

In the house?

It was in the house.

It was still in the house.

We took everywhere.

You were in the woods looking for a snake with the thermal camera.

You were in a hole.

We were because we had gone through the house so many times that we were like, It must have escaped.

One of her windows can't close properly.

So she was like, oh my God, he must have tried to escape, pushed on just the right window and got out.

That was the only thing we could think of because we could not find this fucking snake.

And it was in the house the whole time.

You know what you should have done?

Sam, because you know Sam likes to do this stuff.

Yeah.

Dressed him up like a wounded rat and have him sit in the living room and be like, ow, my leg.

I can't escape.

Hopefully nothing will eat me.

I sure hope that's not the same thing.

Hopefully the snake will be like,

yeah, the snakes can be like, oh, hello there.

and they'll slither over and he's like that's the biggest rat i've ever seen and then you got him i was looking up what are ways to try and find a ball python out like outside and one of them was if it's used to eating mice

Plop some dead mice around where you think it is.

And I was like, that sounds so unsanitary, but I bet it works a treat.

I bet it works really well.

Yeah.

Sam would be the biggest one of all.

He'd be like, oh, no.

Just a trail of little mice and then a giant Sam and a mouse outfit.

And then it goes up to him and the snake is like, hey, Day, baby.

And then he jumps on him and he wrestles a snake.

The end.

The end.

Why did we think of that?

I don't know.

Instead, you got a thermal camera and went looking for a snake inside a home.

I thought the entire time I thought you were outside.

I was outside.

No, this is what I'm saying.

I only use the thermal camera outside.

Oh, I thought you said we it was in the home and we used the thermal camera in the home.

And I was like, that's madness.

No, so that's crazy.

So timeline is snake goes missing.

It's an indoor snake.

So we trash the house looking for snake for like three hours.

We're like, it's not in the house.

This house is so small.

We've been everywhere.

It's not here.

Order thermal camera.

Go outside, look all over the place for snake for like

two days and find snake in the house because she had put her whole house back together, climbed into bed and was like, I wonder if I'll ever see him again.

And then he was right behind her in bed.

Can you imagine?

I can.

That's mostly frequently.

Anytime I lose something, it's like straight up right there every time.

And I'm like, oh,

all right.

Well, I feel foolish, but okay, that's fine.

Whatever.

So,

and our and our tiny rooster started crowing.

That's really proud of him.

Yeah.

He's like this big, and his name is Hercules.

And he's, he's finally figured out how to crow.

And I'm so proud, and he does it all day long.

I was about to say, you the proud would wear off very quickly after a while for me.

I'd be like, cool, shut up now.

He's working so hard.

Will he ever get bigger or is he like a little mini?

I don't know.

Because I was shocked.

I like the idea of having giant chickens and then one little rooster, but he's like a tiny baby boy the entire time.

Yes.

I don't want him to get bad.

He needs to be bigger if he's going to like do anything with these hens.

But like.

No.

I love the idea that he just

gets big because he literally can just fit in your hand.

He's so tiny.

And my friend who has raised a lot of chickens was like he might be a bantam chicken which are tinier

um

so

yeah i love that shout out to my short king yeah we've got a little short king here he's very cute you got i love him it's so funny

oh goodness that's good stuff anyway yeah yeah so that's what i've been doing Running around with a thermal camera, which are very fun to play with.

But not very cheap.

So I would use it to find like ghosts and stuff.

I know, I'm not saying I believe in

yeah, I'm not saying I believe in the ghosts, but I like the idea of when people do those thermal camera things.

They do the one that has like the stick figure outline of a person on the screen.

And then they show you the footage and it's like someone laying in bed and the stick figure gets in bed with them or something or like the thermal camera picks up like a movement and you're like, that's a ghost.

I'm like, I don't know if that's what that is, but I like it.

And I think it's really creepy and it's super fun.

My favorite thermal camera videos are when they're looking at like a cat or something and you see them fart.

Have you ever seen those?

It's so funny.

Yes, they're so good.

All this heat just billows out of the back of them.

You're like, they farted.

It's so funny.

I love it.

I just want to see a fart on the thermal camera, I guess.

It doesn't matter the animal.

It could be any animal.

what you enjoy is amazing to me i love the phrase

they fart i love it

i love watching them fart is yeah dodgers that's like you're i love watching them fart tune in kids

like so why'd you buy that thermal camera well i'm i'm a big fan of farts you see i just love farts

And I wanted to.

I was also trying to find a snake.

I thought to myself, I'm tired of just smelling farts.

I want to see farts.

Yes.

I want to, yeah, I want, I want the the whole, what is that?

The 4X movie experience of farts.

Yeah.

See, hear, feel,

smell.

That's a 4D.

The 4D experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've never been to one of those, but I've always wanted to.

There's a Shrek one in London.

We could go to it next time we're out here.

A Shrek one in London.

Yeah.

My kid went to it.

I don't remember getting any feedback on whether or not it was fun.

What is it?

Is it Shrek one, two, three, four, eight?

I think it's just Shrek characters, and you're in like seats that move around.

And they like spray smells at you and stuff.

Donkey.

I'm going to fart on the audience.

And then he does, and the audience is like, yay!

It could be that.

It could be.

Don't get.

I just

in the audience's face.

Right.

And then everyone's like, yay!

Yay!

I love it.

I love you, Shrek.

And then they play,

I don't know, like a 90s classic hit.

From a one-hit wonder from the 90s.

And life is good.

Yeah.

How did we get on your love of farts?

We were talking about the thermal camera.

Right, right, right.

Because you love farts.

Gotcha.

I love farts.

The other useful thing is you can point it at windows and you can see whether or not the chill is leaking in.

You live in an area.

You said that like it was going to kill you.

Like, beware of the chill.

You can tell if the chill was leaking in.

It could.

Chill.

Are you a fantasy writer?

What the hell?

You were just like, long ago, the chill crept from the north.

Those in the south must watch for the chill.

Every 100 years, a new generation of warriors goes to the frozen north to battle.

The chill.

Our boiler.

You created a thing.

Our boiler has been broken for nearly a year now, I think.

We went through a whole winter without hot water and

heating.

And so I

don't want to do that anymore.

So, yes, I hate the chill.

I hate it.

What?

And anything I can do to beat it back to from whence it came.

I feel like we're skipping over the fact that you went through an entire winter with cold water.

Yeah.

So

we have an electric shower.

So it heats itself.

Washing machines heat themselves.

Dishwashers heat themselves.

Those three things are fine.

We are, we are clean and our clothes are clean.

Okay.

Okay.

I thought you were saying every morning I woke up and took an ice-cold shower.

It really made me feel like I have lived that life before and I'm not doing that again.

I was about to say that is the least fun version of existence.

Like, don't do that to yourself.

What do you mean?

but like our radiators don't work right

um

and

it sucks it does suck so that's we're trying to replace the boiler finally because no amount of kicking and resetting and part replacing is fixing it anymore but so so you then you also just in the winter

had no hot air

yeah that's why we got really into making making fires.

We got really good at making fires because we've got a wood burner,

but the radiators don't work.

Yikes.

So what you're saying is when you say, so in my mind, I'm trying to piece together how this farm works.

Radiator, you're talking hot water pumping through the radiators, right?

Yes.

To then, okay, sure, sure, sure.

So you just didn't have any of that.

So you existed in a kind of like

17th century farmstead where it's like, we must get the firewood today.

And then you had to go.

I was putting coals and like the cast iron things to put in the bed.

And yeah.

Is that true?

Were you really doing that?

Oh, my God.

I was about to be like, yo, hold up now.

Okay, Lady Liberty.

What the hell are you doing?

No, no, no.

We've got hot water bottles now.

We're in the modernity.

We don't need to be doing that.

All right.

I was very excited.

I was about to be like, yeah?

I feel like

there's a quick way to set something on fire.

Yeah.

I'm not sure what.

About to Abigail Adams' whole thing.

I was like, okay.

What are we doing here?

I was very excited to learn about, like, you know, after I baked the bread and churned the butter and tended to the livestock.

Yes.

I had to go in and make sure Mr.

Adams was writing his lectures.

For we all know Mr.

Adams likes to get caught up in fanciful flights of fancy.

He does.

Sometimes I can't even get him to come to dinner.

Right, because he's too busy writing.

He's changing.

He's too busy writing.

I know.

He's working so hard.

So, so hard with writing.

Meanwhile, there I was, raising the kids and the animals and the house and taking care of everything.

And I didn't resist.

His writings were so important.

Because his writings were so important.

Sometimes it falls on the the wife to run everything, and I mean everything,

literally everything, but they say he ran the country.

I want the sassy verse, I want that version, sassy Abigail.

That should be the name of the Abigail.

Yeah, sassy Abby, and it's all Abigail Adams just being sassy as hell.

Someone write it, please.

They say John was in charge, please.

I'll tell you who was in charge.

I

was

of course.

Yeah.

Sassy Abby, the musical.

I've really found

musicals, man.

Yeah.

Just theater in general.

I haven't seen the Beetlejuice play.

I haven't seen Six.

Six is apparently fantastic.

Six.

Yeah.

There's so.

It's about the...

you're up on the theater world in a way.

I'm not

It's I'm not

see what I'm saying.

I haven't seen anything in so long, but you know of them and probably at some point listen to the songs online.

I don't like listen if it's a musical

if it's a musical I don't like to listen to the songs ahead of time because I don't have context

I still haven't listened to you like the musical theater experience of not actually hearing half the lyrics.

I don't want I don't want to know what the songs are until I'm there.

So, like, it's been very difficult to stay away from Hamilton songs.

Really?

Have you ever seen Hamilton?

I've never seen Hamilton, and I would love to one day, but it means that I need to avoid Hamilton songs.

I get it.

I understand.

So,

yeah.

There's a lot.

of shows that have been around for a long time that I've never seen as well, though.

Like, never seen Book of Mormon?

I I don't know if you ever saw that.

I have seen it twice.

I love it.

It's so fun.

It makes me laugh

tremendously.

I enjoy it tremendously.

Yeah, I'm not like a big theater goer, but I've definitely seen stuff.

Like even the last time I was in London, I got bored one day and went and saw

Phantom of the Opera just because.

I was like, I'm gonna go to the face.

It was great.

It was like, I had a whole day just to chill.

And I was like, I'll go see Phantom.

It was so much fun.

The audience was the best part.

Phantom's great.

I will be real.

It's fine.

I'm not like a big fan of the opera guy.

I think it's more of a spectacle than it is a good musical.

And I will always believe that.

It's got like two good songs.

The rest of it, I'm like, hey, it's fine.

But like spectacle-wise, it's fantastic.

Spectacle-wise, I'm like, yo, it's very fun.

I think Phantom of the Opera is so fun.

Not to tuck my hair behind my ear and sound like a hipster, but

I was the Phantom before it was cool.

I read the Phantom of the Opera book before I ever saw the musical.

So

yeah,

it was, I would say the, the show's fine, but the audience was great.

It was 90.

I don't know what day.

I don't remember what, I think I went on like a Monday.

It was 90%.

It was the way to go.

Yeah.

It was like 90%.

Chinese tourist.

They all bust in and they were all in the audience and it was great because everyone in the audience was also trying to describe what was happening on stage to each other while it was going on, and it was great because they got to watch like eight different versions of the actual musical.

And then at one point, the couple in front of me, the husband got up and left and never returned.

And the woman was by herself.

And I had so many questions.

What happened to the husband?

Where'd he go?

What did he not like this?

Or, like, I don't know what was going on.

It was great.

Maybe he just pulled a Steve Lawson and was like, I got to go take a smoke.

And then just didn't

bother coming back.

Maybe.

It was great.

I love that stuff.

I was happy.

I got some good stuff.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think.

It's interesting.

I genuinely one day want to see

Hamilton in London because I don't know what that would be like.

Yes.

I know exactly what you mean.

You know what I mean?

It's like a really American history.

It would be weird.

With access.

As an example of the differences

and like the way they do stuff, I've seen, like I said, I saw Book of Mormon twice.

I saw it once here in the States and once in the UK.

Okay.

And

they change things in it for the audience.

So there are jokes in Book of Mormon that are very British.

That have been edited and changed to like

land with a British audience rather than an American.

Or very American, you mean?

That have been changed.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, there's an English audience.

So, in Book of Mormon, there's a few like shout-outs to things that they say, and they, and it's like a little skewering because it's, you know, South Park guy.

So it's got like, you know, there's a few jokes here.

And so they change the names of who they're skewing for the British audience.

And I was like, oh, that's super interesting.

And now I'm like, what do they change in Hamilton?

It's like the king comes out and he's like,

I'm the best.

You know what I mean?

Like, which I guess is the point.

The king does do that.

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

know i have questions i really want to see yeah

yeah that would be fascinating for sure i booked tickets to

to the

moomen christmas circus show

whoa whoa hold up now what do you mean by this are the is it moomens but they're

here's my i guess this is my question Are the Moomans the ringmasters or the animals in the show?

From what I tell, it's like an ensemble cast where everyone is sort of dressed the same.

And the characters are kind of not to the same extent as Lion King, but all of the characters are like puppets that are moved around by the ensemble cast.

Sure.

Depending on who's needed for the scene.

And then they do like tumbling and stuff in the story, I guess.

I don't know.

I don't know, but I'm excited to find out.

That's the kind of theater I love.

The more weird and experimental, the better.

Yeah.

Again, I must stress that time you said, Jesse, do you want to go with me to see

a musical

die hard?

And I was like, yes.

Yes, I do.

To this day, I think about the fact that the cop in Die Hard was Frosty the Snowman in the musical, and that shit's hilarious.

He was like, Let me tell you about my friend John McKay.

That was so fun.

Because I just happened, I just happened to have a friend who was like doing a bunch of black box theater shows, and I was like, Holy shit!

And she was like, Yeah, one of them is Die Hard the Musical.

And I was like, Wait a minute, we have to go to that.

Best Christmas musical I've ever seen in my entire life.

It was amazing!

It was so good.

It was so much fun.

Yeah, I um,

the last, I'm trying to think of the strangely enough, because LA doesn't have a throat.

I mean, like, there's some theater here, but it's not as thriving as like New York, for example, or London.

Sure.

And so when I'm in those cities, I like to like make time to go find something to see.

Like the last time I saw a weird thing in London was that

God, like the horror play that, well, I'm trying to think, it was the thing that was like 211 or 222 or something.

It was a number.

And it was,

it's essentially a,

the best way to describe it is imagine like a, uh, one of those spooky books you would get as a kid, like goosebumps or something, but a, a, that version of this, but on stage play.

And I've never seen a stage play do jump scares before.

They did jump scares.

And I was like, okay,

all right, this is great.

And the best part was I sat next to

three

very drunk women who were all still drinking during it.

And I was like, oh yeah, they're going to get so messed up by this.

I'm so excited.

This is incredible.

And so I had a lot of fun watching them scream.

But it's kind of like,

I don't know.

I realized at some point I played too many horror games because 10 minutes in, I was like, I know what this is.

I know exactly what this story is.

And I was like, all right, let's see how it plays out.

But like, I knew immediately what was going on.

I'm like,

yeah you ingest enough of a genre and you can make educated guesses oh yeah immediately the tropes pop in you're like right okay i know what this is you know all right it's like when you're playing a game and you know that there's like a psychological element to it and an hour in you start questioning wait has anybody directly talked to that person is that person even there is that person a ghost is are they did we make them up right it's like i'm actively ruining my own experience but i can't help but think that

i i'm going back through i'm having this experience again i'm going back through this is so parasocial but i don't care there's this couple on youtube and i love watching them react to things because they're very sweet they're like an older couple and so they're like fun to watch they're currently going through mr robot And they're still in season one.

They're like towards the end of season one where all the reveals start to happen.

Yes.

And watching them react to things.

Like they just got to the one where we find out about the sister.

I'll leave it at that.

And so they're like, what?

Did we miss an episode?

What's going to like they freak it out?

Cause they like, you know, the way they reveal stuff in that story.

And it's fun watching them.

Is it like sane to like watch someone else have such a reaction?

Yeah.

Yeah, because they're very clearly

having a lot of like,

we're not sure what to make of this, but we know it's compelling tv yeah and so it's really fun to watch them be like

what the hell it's great it's it's absolutely great to watch people discover a thing you already know and i you know what that's probably why i like watching like

random people react to the end of final fantasy 14 stuff or watching people go through and see different things in different games or movies like i'm a big fan of watching people who are clearly 20 21 reacting to Lord of the Rings for the first time.

Because in my mind, I'm like, how have they not seen this?

And I realized they weren't even born when that came out.

So I love watching, and it's the same way every time.

Dude, it's hilarious.

Every time.

This movie's three hours, and by the end of it, they're like, it was too short.

I was too short.

I'm like,

it's so much fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Big fan of that.

That's very cute.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think of what I would want to watch somebody else experience.

Mr.

Robot's a good one.

I remember texting you a couple, like, what, one or two years ago.

I finally just sat down and watched all of Mr.

Robot.

Not a perfect show, but I'm so glad I finished it.

Yeah.

Because

it was a fucking roller coaster.

There's, I still have questions to this day how much was actually real

because there's an episode in the forest.

Like, at the end of the show, I know exactly what episode you're talking about.

That forest episode with the light and all that stuff.

And I'm like,

is none of this actually real?

Like, I genuinely, I don't, I couldn't tell you, walking away from that, what the truth of it was.

I genuinely don't know.

But I loved every minute of it.

I was like, this show is so well done.

The episode where it's just one camera the entire time might be one of my favorite episodes of TV, period.

It's very good.

So good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know what I would want.

What, like, had such a huge reveal that I would want to like watch them play, like

watch it or play it.

But I guess,

I guess there are games in my mind where I think to myself, oh, I wish I could just forget about this game and replay it.

So those are good options, right?

Be like, well, I can,

I can play it through another person, kind of.

The weirdest part about all that is, and i think about this often when they talk about remakes or you know re-releases or whatever there are many games where i remember loving it and it being my favorite and i just want to go back and play it again and again and again and then when i do i realize

maybe it was just maybe it was just the time period

the nostalgia the rose glasses

there's definitely it goes back to the idea of people making retro games and you realizing that it's the retro feeling, not actually retro.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, it feels like how I felt back then, but it isn't exactly that.

I think that's kind of the way I think about a lot of, like,

I

loved

what they did with the Dead Space remake because it was Dead Space, but with modern controls and things.

If you go back and try to play the original Dead Space that was originally released on your computer, that shit's like one of the most impossible things to play.

It is clearly designed for controller.

Your mouse is like,

you can barely move.

It sucks.

And the fact that that's things that I'm like, yes, more of that, please.

Yeah.

But when that was so good.

Yeah.

The remake of that was.

It was also just a ton of fun because I knew where all the scares were except for like the two new ones they added.

But since I knew where everything was, I was like, I'm going to go over here.

Oh, no.

A blast.

I had so much fun playing that.

But it's.

I keep thinking about the other games.

I'm like, yeah, I'll go back and play that.

I'll give it a shot.

Just sometimes you can't go home again.

Sometimes I'm like, you know, the memory was better.

Let it keep it at that.

Stay pure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But then there are some that I would love to.

Like, I again, I'm still very obsessed with the game Vagrant Story.

I think it is one of the most visually stunning games from its time period.

If you haven't ever seen footage of it, look it up.

It's incredible.

It is like this really cool art style.

And the gameplay just sucks.

It is not modern gameplay.

If you were to try and play it right now, you'd be like, This is

so convoluted.

Yeah.

And if they just redesigned the gameplay and bumped the graphics a little bit, that'd be a solid re-release.

I'd buy that in a heartbeat because I want to go back and play it.

And I remember we were, I think Alex and I were talking about it, and Davis was like, I've never played that before.

And we all decided, let's play that.

We all got together, drinks in hand, food was available.

We played for like an hour, hour, and it was just so rough.

No.

You're like,

yikes.

It's hard to be like, hey, man, that game's amazing.

And then people to play it and be like, I couldn't.

The controls were a pain in the ass.

And they are.

The controls are jank.

I've experienced the anime version of that, which is, oh my God.

I loved this anime from when I was a teenager.

And a person has said, oh, my gosh, let's watch it tonight.

Let's just sit and watch it.

And we turn it on and immediately, like, it takes one episode for me to be like, Jesus Christ, the pacing is terrible on this show.

And it's not at the time it was fine.

It's because you've changed the way that we edit stuff now, right?

And anime

feels so different to watch now.

So

sitting down with somebody and being like, this is so good.

You're going to love it.

Oh my God.

One episode in and having to be like, all right, I've eaten my humble pie.

This is hard to watch.

Yes.

It's weird because I have that same thing with,

like, I guess I would say anime fans in general, their tastes are much different than what I think they are.

Sure.

So for me, when I say I love Cowboy Bebop and I think it's amazing, anytime I've ever shown Cowboy Bebop to people, they're like, it's so slow.

It's so boring.

And I'm like, this is art, dude.

And they're like, no.

no, it's not.

Dare you.

I'm like, this is perfect.

And they're like, no.

No, it's all right.

Like, okay, fine.

Well, like what you like.

I don't care.

Yeah,

I have that problem often where there's stuff that I love and I want to give it a go again.

And it's not nearly as amazing as I thought it was.

And it's kind of like,

all right.

I'm going to leave it up here.

We'll,

I, so now everyone's like, people are like, go back, play that thing.

I'm like, no,

no, that's okay.

No, I'm all right.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hate it.

I really, I, it's one of those things where I'm like, I wish, I wish I could relive those moments or have them again the first time, which I think everyone does for all their favorite things.

But also,

I have to realize that probably.

the memory of it is significantly better than actually what it was.

Yeah.

Because there are more variables than we actually think about, right?

It's not just the thing that you're watching, playing, whatever, trapped in a bottle.

It's like the time period, what you were already watching or had watched or had played before that.

The time period you were at in your life.

How old were you, right?

Like there's so many things that contribute to how you experience media.

And going back to it, you will never, you will never be able to recreate that exact situation.

Yeah.

I mean, what's weird though, sometimes,

sometimes things come along where the minute you go back to it, you're like,

damn.

Again, even though I, I'm still not convinced Mass Effect one or three are like

as amazing as two, two's still one of the best games ever made.

And I can go back and play that, and I have, and been like, worth it, worth the playthrough again.

Absolutely love that super fun like it just is a great game and every time I've gone back I've been like yeah

yep nope still flawless I love this game I went like I was saying when I had COVID I went back and I played one two and three

I got 90 some percent of the achievements on two without even trying just because I enjoyed it so much yeah

like that's

Big fan of that.

So like those kinds of things I love.

And I also love when we get little minor updates.

So a great example is the stuff they keep adding to Baldur's Gate 3.

Genuinely, I think, like, what if I went back and played?

No, you can't do it, Jesse.

You can't do it.

No.

You spent 117 hours on one playthrough.

You can't keep doing that to yourself.

So I have to like stop myself from some of these things.

But

there's some games where when you play them, you're like, damn, this really was

better than

just

of the time or just like, like it was a good game.

Like some games, you're like, yes, this rules.

It's weird because

there are many games that when you think about them, like a great example is Bioshock Infinite, is a game that at the time I loved.

But looking back, I'm like, Bioshock 1 was just

so much better.

Like, I just, why?

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

I have a weird,

like, sometimes they cross over, you know, and I don't know.

I'm like, well, maybe I was just

maybe I'm just thinking fondly of Bioshock and maybe it's not really that great.

But then I watch people play it.

I'm like, it's really that great.

They do have very different

vibes, I think.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They really decided to do something different with a follow-up game, you know?

And the first one, I think the reason that the first one still feels so interesting is because they spent a lot of time developing the aesthetic and the interest.

And like,

it really does have like a stressful feeling playing that game that I think the second one didn't have as much.

I mean, like, the second one is its own thing, but like,

when I think of infinite, I think of like, uh,

you know what?

Never mind.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna put myself and every person on blast.

Infinite, for as much as the game was fine, is entirely carried by the fact that, like,

Elizabeth is a cutie pie and you definitely wish you had a girlfriend like Elizabeth.

That's absolutely, absolutely what happened.

I'm going to just like, I'm going to just out myself right now.

Like, yeah, it was all right, but I was 100% all horned up for Elizabeth.

Never mind.

We're good.

It's all right.

We've solved it.

Solved it.

Yeah, solved it.

Look, maybe cold take to add on to all of this, but I think sometimes when I'm feeling really nostalgic for a game or a show or something, one of the things that really helps me is fan art and fanfic because there's this element of like,

this is another person who also really liked this thing and they made a cool thing that

is about that without me having to fully revisit it, you know?

Yes, yes, yes.

Also, everyone chats like, Jesse,

they're spoiling the game, by the way.

First off, I didn't know that at the time while playing the game.

And second off, if we're being real,

the only Elizabeth that actually matters is the sexy one from the DLC who looks like a 1940s, like, uh, like, hey there, Mista.

That's the one.

Any other Elizabeth?

Trash, trash Elizabeth.

That one?

Good Elizabeth.

Anyway,

I was having the same vibe like with fan art, except it was like fan music.

You know, it's fan art.

Yeah.

Of Xeno Gears.

Oh, somebody was doing some remixes or

no, it was like a so there's a song that plays that's kind of like

I don't know the name of the song.

I wish I did.

There's a song that plays in Xeno Gears that's like it sounds like it's on a

like one of those wind-up music boxes

and it's so

absolutely

beautiful.

I think it's like

remembrance or memories like whatever the song is It's like such a perfect, beautiful song.

And it hit me.

I was like, oh, man.

Damn.

Should I go back and

like check out Xenogears again?

But then I remember being a kid, sitting in my room.

And the first, it's two discs, Xeno Gears, if you played the original.

And Disc one.

might be one of the most perfect games ever made.

And disc two, oh, is it far away Promise?

Is that whatever the song is?

When you hear it, you'll be like, oh, damn, right in the heart.

But like, disc 2 is literally just text.

Most of disc 2 is a book.

And it's very clear that money ran out.

And they're like, well, now to

finish the story.

And it's not great.

And it's part of it made me think, like, okay.

We need, we need to like, that's it, game to remake.

They keep making, you know, all the Xeno Blades and whatever.

Xeno Gears.

Remake that.

In fact, while we're making Gears, what was that?

Wild Gears?

What is the name of that?

Make that too.

Make all the weird gears

for fun.

Yeah.

Oh, so good.

I was like, I got down the rabbit hole and was like, man, this game, should I play this game again?

Should I?

Wild Arms is what I'm talking about.

Yes.

Thank you, Jack.

Like, remake that.

Yeah, it's one of those things where I really, really had a day of

I would love to go back and play this, and then I had to think really hard: like, hold up, no, Jesse, you don't, you'll just be let down again, like you were as a kid.

Don't do it.

I've been thinking about replaying Krono Trigger again.

Oh, see, that's one of those ones, like I was saying with Mass Effect too.

Play it, holds up still to this day.

I know, perfect game, so it's fun.

I haven't played it since we since we did the like all-nighter playing it

years ago.

Best hour.

Best hour is coming up.

Best hour.

Best hour.

That was so fun, though.

And I used to replay that game every few years.

I literally haven't played it since

a perfect.

The fact that there are so many endings.

And a game like that is just

brilliant stuff.

So much fun.

The thing I want to go back and play and see if it's a different experience is Chronocross.

Because as a kid.

You know what?

Yes.

Continue.

Yeah.

As a kid, I think I played it wrong because my desire for Chrono.

So Chronocross is

a spiritual wink follow-up to Chrono Trigger.

And while it isn't directly wink-related in any sort of way,

it does have some vibes of like, instead of Chronocross's time travel, or I'm sorry, Chronic Triggers time travel, Chronicross is more like multi-dimensional, right?

And so in that, there are many,

many characters, like 40 characters to get.

And each one has their own story, question mark.

I mean, some are much more story than others, but the thing I did as a kid was, I'm going to try and get every one of the characters rather than I'm just going to play and see see what happens as I go through it.

Right.

So I would end up on convoluted quest lines to get people to join my team.

And I wonder if it would be a better experience.

Because when I played it, I was like, it's all right.

I wonder if it would be a better experience to play Chrono Cross

without trying to get everyone and just experiencing it as you play.

I did not get very far in Chrono Cross

because I went into it with such a bad attitude because it wasn't my chrono trigger characters.

Sure.

So yeah, I've thought to myself that I should play that game.

It's

the intro, still to this day, absolutely beautiful.

Yeah, it's just, it just, it's missing.

Again, I think because there's so many characters, if you try to get everyone, it waters down the game significantly.

And so I wonder if that's probably a fallacy on my part as a kid.

I was like, I want them all.

Give me the print strategy guide.

We were Pokemoning and shit, you know?

Like, yeah, get all of how many characters?

I want every single one.

I think that would, that's a normal reaction mentally to have.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting because there's, there's a

weird, there's clearly a divide, like a moment where you've gone too far.

Probably 40 characters is too far.

But Final Fantasy VI, one of my favorite games of all time, has like

16 characters?

It has a lot of characters.

I'm trying to think of all of them.

It has a lot.

Maybe 13.

I don't know.

But it has a bunch of different characters, and every single one of them has a story.

And one of the things that's interesting about it is

the way they tell the story of those characters.

If you play through the game once, you're not going to get the entire story.

Which I think is super interesting.

That I don't know why I was

fine with that in six.

Maybe because it was a mystery.

You know, like a great example of optimistic storytelling is they're like, hey, hey,

look,

you don't have to take Shadow in your party at all.

But if he's in your party and you sleep in an inn, you'll get a really weird, messed up background music scene of him and get a little bit of his story.

But that means if you want the full story, you have to bring him all the time with you.

And if you didn't realize that right away, you're like, what?

So then you're, you know,

then you're deep into it.

And i'd like and maybe that's what the hook was

and so to get the full backstory you have to do so much nonsense to have them in your party yeah and i was like interesting okay

and

there's also like little secret characters and side things that then add stuff over time i don't know why i thought well this seems fine but the chronocross version i was like nah and i think maybe it's because it was just at a certain point you cross like the 20 character threshold And at that point, I'm like, I just,

well, I don't even know which one of you I want to bring to the party.

Yeah.

You know?

It was, it's hard enough in a normal JRPG to be like, who's in my three-person team?

Why can't I bring everybody?

It's already.

That's why a lot of games got rid of that.

And now it's like, there's three characters.

That's it.

Yeah.

And we'll take time to explore their stories and that kind of stuff.

But

I don't know.

I kind of, I kind of want to go back and chronocross it.

See what the vibe was.

A little chronocross-y.

Yeah.

But with that said,

I'll have to wait because Final Fantasy Texas is coming out soon.

And I'm just so excited.

That's true.

I'm so excited.

September?

Is that right?

I am.

I think so.

I can't wait.

That's going to be so much fun.

Apparently.

Even though they're like, we have the old version and the new version, the old version they still had to remake because they like lost files for the old version.

So they still had to just remake some stuff.

That's so funny.

Like, okay, yeah.

Weird.

So that should be fun.

Very excited for that when that comes out.

By the way, speaking of like,

we're talking about story and the little, like, I don't know how I would answer this or what this story is about.

Yesterday, I played through Dead Take.

Which is

Dead Take is a game that I'm pretty sure was conceptually created at the 2023 Video Game Awards because everyone that I saw at the awards is in that game.

Okay.

It's so wild.

I'm like, voice-wise, or like actually them?

Like the actors.

And I'm like, I think they all got together at this event and were like, let's make a game.

Oh, it's the FMV.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I saw this.

Okay.

Yes.

Continue.

So, Dead Take, premise-wise, is

very like

Hollywood critique kind of thing.

You play as Neil Newbin's character, who is

a actor who is going to the house of a big-time Hollywood movie mogul, and you are auditioning for his newest production, which is called like Last Voyage or something like that.

And the minute you get there, boy, things are off.

Things are weird.

And you, the game is interesting because it is a first-person walking horror simulator.

Like it's a horror game, but you are also uncovering video footage like you're playing Immortality or Her Story or one of those things.

And then...

you're taking clips and splicing them together to create new clips that then you like basically the the the movie movie mogul guy has this giant theater that you can then go sit in a chair and watch the video you've just made or found.

Okay.

And it is, I don't want to spoil like the premise of what's actually going on, but it's one of those things where when the game ended, it was very clear.

I got like 14 of 19 achievements.

It's very clear there was a few things I missed and one thing I just got locked out of and was like, no, right.

Yeah.

But there's, it's very clear that this is one of those, we're not going to tell you what was really going on here.

Although, maybe, again, like I was saying, I did not find the real answer.

But I think I got enough information to make some educated guesses.

But the thing I thought was really interesting about this is essentially it is about the casting process for this movie.

And all the old, like all, all the like critical role cast shows up.

You know, there's like

Ben Starr is in this.

There's like, it's fascinating to watch because basically it's a little inside baseball for hollywood and it's very critical of the hollywood like casting system and stuff but anyway there's one part that i absolutely loved because it is straight up

both ben and neil are auditioning for the same role

and

in that

They both do the exact same performance and the exact same take and the exact same audition read.

But because they're two different, it's two actors acting, it's two completely different takes.

Right.

Watching that is so much fun for me because, like, as someone who sits there and watches auditions frequently, I'm like, oh, this is so much fun because they're playing like, um, like, I'm just a southern man doing more.

Right.

But it's again, two guys with British accents doing it, which is even more fun.

And I'm like, oh, their American accents are so much fun.

And the entire time, to anyone who plays this, I must stress, I'm 100% convinced Ben Starr is channeling Leonardo Caprio.

The voice he uses sounds like Leonardo Caprio in interviews.

And I could not get over it.

I was like, stop.

Stop it, Ben.

That is just Leo.

Please go check that out.

It's so funny.

I was like, no.

But it's watching these two.

And

I guess I'll say, without spoils, the premise of the game is what would you do for a role?

And that's that's that's I'll leave it at that.

Okay.

And it's very again,

there's jump scares, but not like,

yeah, but in the form of if you if you played,

I will say at some point a certain Finnish game director is in this game, appears in this game.

And it's there, some of the scares are very much of the Alan Wake 2 variety where you're just walking along and and it's like brap, and then it's you're still walking because it was just a flash on the screen.

And nine times out of ten, it's just Ben Starr's face, which is I'm like terrifying.

Like, don't do that.

The said game director do a happy dance?

Uh, no comment.

No comment.

It's, it's a, it's definitely a

fascinating game, and I absolutely love to play it.

It's like four hours long.

Nice.

Yeah.

Dude, I definitely say play it.

You should play it.

It's it's very good.

It's a solid mystery.

And if you're like me, again, I've said this before in this podcast.

I'll say it continually.

If your horror game gives me objectives and those objectives are like a job, you cannot scare me.

I'm unscarable.

I'm like, I got shit to do right now, ghost.

I can't.

There's one part of the game.

I have talked about this before.

Yeah.

There's one part of the game where you have to do a thing, and there's five steps to it.

So I'm focusing on remembering the steps.

They're trying to like

get you with like stuff's moving and there's shit in the room.

And I'm like,

I just don't care.

I have got to do these five things.

And if I forget, you're the one who instead of telling me,

yeah, I'm like, instead of telling me with the, you know, like what I needed to do, they put codes.

So now in my brain, I'm like, all right, this code associates with this thing.

And I have to remember five steps.

Right.

I'm like,

all right.

No, I don't.

I just don't have time.

I don't.

It's like when I played

whatever, that Mortician simulator game or whatever that was.

Mortuary Assistant.

That game tried so hard to scare me.

And I was like, no.

Yes.

I got to get three bodies done by Monday.

They had a job to do ghosts.

Leave me alone.

They really tried.

And I was like, I'd look at the ghost and be like, are we done?

Great.

And I just go back to it.

I don't have patience for you right now.

I feel like that's the case with every, when people talk about aliens and UFOs and they're like, there's things in the sky, dude.

It's like, yeah, but I have bills to pay, bro.

I don't care.

We're in capitalism.

I have a job to do.

I don't have time to worry about the world.

Yeah.

That's, you know, and that's also.

Not to get too dour, but like, that's also so, such a real response as well.

It's like,

if, if you in your real active present life

are too overwhelmed with shit, it's like,

I literally can't.

I can't acknowledge all that other shit.

I can't do it.

I will fall to pieces.

Like, look,

you want me to cry?

You want me to cry at the Applebee's?

I got bills to pay.

I don't have time.

Because I will.

I will.

My manager will get real upset at me again, and then I might lose that job.

I can't cry.

Yeah.

At the Applebee's?

Not at the Applebee's, dude.

Yeah.

Now I'm going to get a message that's like, actually, at Applebee's, we have the most crying per capita of all restaurants.

Actually, we have a crying room built into every single Applebee's.

Right.

Every Applebee's has one.

We want to make sure that when you step out there, it's with a smiling face.

So

get rid of

all that.

Tears out.

Yeah.

There's a mirror in that.

Refreshing yourself up and then get back out there, man.

Got to serve those hopes in your popwork.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

Anyways.

That's so sad.

Can you tell that both of us have been really upset at a job?

Me?

No.

Never.

I mean, just kidding.

Never.

I've always held it together perfectly.

All restaurants do.

It's called a walk-in cooler.

That's the realest.

That's the truth.

That is absolutely the truth.

The walk-in cooler.

You go in there to get

your space to your face, man.

Yeah.

And then you just go in there and you cry a little bit.

Yeah.

Not me, though.

No, not.

I just get angry and throw my shirt in the beans.

In the beans?

Have I told you this?

was

when i lived in new york i worked at uh a a taco place

and okay yeah

and there was a girl there who we dated for like i don't know a little bit and at the time the reason we broke up is and this is absolutely true this is such

this is insane i'm so excited go on she called me and was like hey um

i can't be with you anymore i'm like

why?

She's like, I don't want to talk about it.

I'm like, oh, oh, oh, okay.

See you at work, right?

Like, it was already awkward.

I roll into work.

She's there.

And all the other people there, all my friends who work there, were like, dude, do you know that she's hooking up with the manager?

And I was like,

what?

So.

I had a minor freak out.

It was like, F this job, F you.

I took my shirt off.

Valid.

I took my, and as I walked out, I was like, I'm done.

I took my shirt off and chucked it back behind the counter and it landed right in the refight beans.

And I just left.

I was like, I'm done.

And I just walked out.

And I never went back to that job.

But like, yeah, that was, that was, I think I was like freshman year of college.

Yikes.

You know what I love about that i

nothing nothing about the relationship stuff all of that sucked but

you know how like taco bell people used to spread rumors about people like pooping in taco bell beans sure yeah yeah yeah so i like to think that as people were coming in and being like hey can i get a you know etc etc

And they would have to say, sorry, we don't have any beans today.

A weird rumor went around about why they had to dump all the beans.

Yeah, some guy's shirt got in there.

With that said, it did free me up because I couldn't go back to that taco place because it was so close to campus.

Couldn't go back there.

Couldn't ever walk in there again.

No, of course not.

But it did liberate me to go discover Mighty Taco.

Shout out to Buffalo, New York's very own Mighty Taco.

Is it real tacos?

No.

Do they include a strip of white cheese in every order?

Yes.

But it's delicious.

And I don't give a damn.

If you're from Buffalo, you know Mighty Taco Rocks.

Shout out to Mighty Taco.

It allowed me to discover its existence.

There's an audio.

I don't know all of the words, but the most important part of it is white people taco night.

It is not.

So it is more white than white people taco night.

Because we think white people taco night, you're thinking you made the meat at home.

You got the packet of spice.

You put all the

cheese and stuff.

And then you put the taco seasoning on the meat.

And then you chop up some lettuce and some tomatoes.

Yeah.

Right, yeah.

Definitely, I grew up that way.

That's definitely my tacos.

Yeah.

But Mighty Taco is like,

they're definitely trying, but it's so, for some reason, Western New York coated that it's like

they'll give you the tortilla.

And they'll give you like some seasoned meat they made, but instead of sprinkled cheese, it's literally a strip of white, I guess, American cheese.

It's so, it's like very, I don't know how to describe it.

It's very weird.

It's a completely,

completely strange place, but I love it.

Also, they did have a thing called the El Niño, which was a giant burrito.

And then one time my friends and I got really drunk and we all ordered an El Bino,

which we just said replace all the meat with beans.

Terrible choice.

Terrible choice.

That was the worst thing we've ever done.

Sam and I used to, oh, when Sam first moved to America and we'd get Taco Bell, he really hated the taste of the Taco Bell meat.

So we always replaced the meat with beans.

I'm going to tell you

fart city, but it still tasted great.

The beans and Taco Bell, Taco Bell,

for everyone outside the U.S.,

it's all right.

But

yeah, the taco meat's trash.

However, the beans slap and will never not, it's hard to mess up refried bean.

It's just, it's just hard to do that.

And then if you ever tried like the steak or all the other things, they're not like, it's not, I don't know.

That's why in LA we have Del Taco.

Shout out to Del Taco.

Shout out to Del Taco.

Del Taco rocks.

It's good stuff.

I don't know how we got on Del Taco, but now I'm like, yo, what if I get Del Taco today, though, dude?

It's because we were talking about crying at past jobs.

right right right right right i didn't cry you said i didn't cry took off my shirt and threw it chuck a shirt into the beans i didn't mean to hit the beans it wasn't my objective i was trying to imagine that though that you were toby just went right into the beans i was trying to do like a dramatic i quit and i tossed it because i was trying to be like f you and the stupid manager you check it up with you know like one of those and i just took it off and threw it and i was like

and everyone went in the beans but you were already out the door.

I was already, I was leaving.

Yeah, I was out.

I definitely had the thought of like, I better go.

I don't want the cops called on me.

I was like, I better leave now.

I threw a thing and now I'm out.

Yeah, I got to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not going to stick around.

I'm no fool.

You're not going to get me caught doing that.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

I have so many good college stories.

I really was a goofball.

I'll never forget one time I was like,

I tried.

So there was this girl in one of my classes, and she was absolutely just like.

So many of these stories revolve around a girl.

All of them.

So I, there's this girl every single one.

There's this girl in class, and I asked her out, and she's like, oh my God, here's my number.

Give me a call.

And I called, I called the number, and I hear like, yo, what's up?

And rather than be like, hey, is, I don't remember her name, is girl there,

I just went, wrong number, hung up, and never done.

I was like, is that her dad?

Is that her bro?

I don't want to deal with this.

I got to talk about it.

Yeah, what was the,

at the time of recording, what was the, the ratio of landlines to cell phones at this point in your college life?

Like, was it plausible that that was just a landline?

I never had a landline in college.

I only ever had a cell phone.

Ironically, though, there was a time where I like, I probably should be worried because I had one of those

flip phones, one of the razor phones.

And I remember laying on a pillow talking to a girlfriend for like nights and nights and like, you know, countless nights.

And then they were like, no, that gives you brain tumors.

I'm like, cool, great,

great.

It wasn't like I held it here.

I laid on the phone.

Oh.

Yeah.

So I'm definitely cooked, but anyway.

I mean,

you know,

regardless.

I got to think about killing us regardless, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I just, I don't know why.

For some reason, I just immediately, because it just sounded like an old, angry man.

And I was like, oh, I can't deal with that.

I don't know why.

I gave up immediately.

immediately

18 year old jesse chickened the hell out he's like no dude i'm done can't do this with that said i also had i i for some reason

also had

uncanny abilities to like

throw all caution to the wind

one time we were in a drive it was a bunch of us we were in a car in a drive-thru in a taco bell and there was a car behind us with like a bunch of girls in it.

And I literally just put my phone number up and was like,

and they did.

I don't know what, I don't know what happened.

At some point, I became this, but there was a moment, a brief, shining moment where I was unstoppable, except when calling someone and a dad answers.

In which case, yeah,

I was like, sorry, sir, I've got to go.

Wrong number.

Um, wrong number.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

Did you know I've been really hankering for some nostalgia over the last like year or so, I feel like.

So everything we've talked about today really syncs up with that.

But I found out that there are things that you can get.

You can buy like old,

like any phone you want, like a rotary phone or, or like a, you know, like a wall-mounted phone, whatever.

And there are little things you can hook up to them that turn them into, that that Bluetooth sync them to your phone so you just pick it up and say like call so and so the same way that you might do with your phone and it'll just do it and I was like yeah

I want to do that so bad

I feel

I feel like I'm with you on this but conceptually

the that that pickup truck that I've been like talking about for a while that Ford that looks like it's from like the 1970s but the inside's all electric and future screens and shit but the outside just looks old.

Yeah, I think I'm there too, where I'm like, all right, can we use some of this modern technology to make things look cool again instead of everything looking the exact same, please?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, I would love to have a phone with the twisty cord again.

I would love to just sit down

with a phone and twist my fingers around a cord while I'm talking to my mom or something.

Like that.

sounds delightful to me right now.

And I think one of the, one of the major things that makes me go, well, I can't just like actually put my phone completely away in the mornings is what if there's an emergency?

What if somebody's trying to get a hold of me?

Right.

And I feel like this would be the thing that makes me go, if somebody's trying to call me, they can call me.

It'll come to, it'll come to my cute bright yellow rotary phone.

And otherwise I can just put it in a drawer.

This is so funny because you bring up calls and people can always reach me.

Immediately reminded me, speaking of nostalgia, this is pure nostalgia bait.

I saw someone post this huge thing because every once in a while on Reddit, a thing will appear that's like, wait a minute, real question.

For like people who were raised in the 80s and 90s, were you just allowed to like leave the house

and no one could find you?

And all the responses are like, yeah, it was a crazy time.

It was so much fun.

And I think about that, but from a different angle that

today,

we exist in a society where everyone has a phone on them all the time.

So you can always be contacted.

Yeah.

And I feel like

the way people think about it is:

as a parent, you always know where your kid is.

You can always reach out to your kid.

You don't have to worry about, you know, like that kind of thing.

Like, that's the idea.

You don't have to worry.

But in reality, you're constantly like, we have to be in contact.

We have to talk, like that kind of thing.

Where if you were a mom, let's say in 1985

and your kid went out with friends,

yeah, you wouldn't be able to contact them or hear from them for 10 hours, right?

But in reality, also, that's 10 solid hours of mom having freedom,

which is not a thing that exists right now.

Because the kid could call at any point too and be like, hey, mom, I need you to do this, this, right?

But if you have no contact, mom could be like,

yeah, I'm going to go read my book or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to go take me time.

And I always think about how that's different.

Like parents also had freedom too.

Everyone talks about the kids being like, oh, yeah, I went out and I was on my bike and we were gone for like 16 hours that day.

My parents had no clue where I was.

Yeah, but your parents also had 16 free hours without you, which is, no one thinks about that.

And I just kept thinking about it.

Like,

yeah, that was it.

Parents lucked out too.

They had it so much easier.

They could just be like, yeah, the kid went out.

Who knows where he went?

Now everyone's like, I'm terrified of my child leaving.

I don't know where they're going.

I have to be in contact at all times.

My seven-year-old called me overprotective yesterday.

I was dropping her off for her, like, her like performance class thing.

And she was like, I'm just going to hop out of the car and walk to the door.

I was like, okay.

She was like, so you can go.

And I was like, no, I'm going to make sure you get in the door.

And she was like, oh my God, you are so overprotected.

I was like, dude.

Oh, I'm so excited.

It's beginning.

Oh, yeah.

Seven.

Go.

I thought for sure this would start at 13, but I forget the kids, they get so old so quick.

I think it also depends on the personality.

She's got like a good mix of salmon to just be

like

an independent sass monster.

Like honestly, you think I can't handle myself?

Yeah.

Okay.

Truthfully, the best you can do is prepare Clark for like, all right, go live your life.

Let's see what happens.

And like, can you handle what happens when you totally screw up?

Cause you will, you know?

So I let her cut her own hair.

Oh boy.

And

two separate people have been like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Because here was my thinking.

Okay.

I, here's a, here's a kid, kid Dodger story.

Um, I

really wanted to cut my own hair and my parents were absolute fucking lutely not.

And I just went to school and cut my hair at school.

Sure, yeah.

And got into huge trouble because they were like, what the fuck are you doing?

Um,

so I was like, this kid has enough of me

to eventually be like,

to just have the like DIY audacity to be like, I can cut my own hair.

Like,

so I was like, I'm just going to tell her that she can cut her own hair as long as she follows my instructions and I'll just let her do all of it.

And it turned out really cute.

And she's really happy with it.

And then we had to have a whole conversation where I was like, but side note, if any of your friends are ever like, Clark, will you cut my hair?

You say, absolutely not.

I will not do that.

She was like, why not?

I was like, because I don't need you giving somebody a terrible haircut and them going home and being like, it's because Clark cut my hair and I didn't even want her to.

And she was like, hmm.

She did do that.

That's some good parenting right there.

I love that.

I just figure it's better than her like squirreling away in her room with a...

pair of like shitty scissors trying to cut her hair and then being like, oh no.

Yeah.

Again, it's all about preparing.

It's like,

I think it's, as a person who is a teacher, it's very obvious to see that in school with friends, they learn so much more than at home.

Like your kid, as much as you want to try and determine who your child is, there's definitely like a, oh no,

they will reject half of what you just said.

And go with what their friends say instead.

There's a Michelle Obama interview where she's like, I was the first lady of the United States and my kids still talk to me like I'm an idiot.

Like, you know,

no one's immune.

Like, every kid thinks they know more than their parents.

You just kind of have to accept it.

Yeah, just got to, you know, understand that that kid's going to be its own person.

So

it's great.

I love, I love some solid parenting.

Although I'm shocked it's coming from you, but like I'll allow it.

Thanks, buddy.

What did you play?

What did you play this week aside from Dead Take?

So, yeah, Dead Take loved that.

Also, I went through and was trying to play more of the King is Watching.

I love that game.

That's super fun.

That's fun, isn't it?

Yeah.

I realized at some point that I had really screwed up.

Like,

this is why you don't take me places.

I am such a mess.

So, one of the game mechanics, very obvious, very early, very like

clearly defined, is on the front screen, the start screen of when you're at your kingdom, you have your main let's start missions, but also you have an upgrade place, and then you have a place for quests and a place, like all these, like a gallery, all these different things.

For some reason, I got it in my head that the abilities upgrades for the kings were on the same screen as the upgrades for your kingdom.

And so I was like, well, when I get to those upgrades, I'll do them.

But I kept having things that were like, use your king's abilities.

Upgrade your.

I'm like, well, I don't have any abilities yet.

I just, I might have gone through 12 runs, dudes.

And I had never used an ability from my king, not once.

Right.

And only then did I realize it's an entirely different building.

And it was like, are you kidding me?

So I bought all the abilities right away and was like, I have, I couldn't use the.

I'm so dumb.

So what I'm saying is,

read, read, kids.

If the game tells you how to do things, don't just skip through it.

Just read it and you'll be fine.

Sometimes we miss stuff.

That's human.

It's fine.

Did you find runs?

Did you find that it made a huge difference after?

Massive difference.

Yeah.

I was stuck on

the fourth level of the first kingdom.

So it's like the easy mode, then you get another one, and then another one, and then it's marked as three, and you have to beat that in order to go on to the next kingdom thing.

And I was just stuck on it because I couldn't beat the last boss.

And I realized, oh.

I just wasn't doing it correctly at all.

But the fact that I got as far as I did without any abilities, I was very proud of myself.

But I was also just like,

oh, you're so dumb.

What?

What?

And I just, again, because it was a different part of the main screen.

And it isn't like there's text over it that says, this is where you get this.

It's a building.

You have to mouse over the building and then unlock it in order to get those upgrades.

And I just never unlocked it because next to that is the gallery and a bunch of other non-essential things that I did not care about.

I'm like, why would I need to unlock those?

So I just, I don't know.

It was dumb, but I figured it out.

Life is good and I love it.

I have made the single greatest team ever and I need to get them, even though it's kind of random.

Archers maxed out all the way.

They stun guys immediately.

And then, yeah, then longbowmen also have a stun.

And the archer stun is if they're full life, they get stunned.

And if the longbow one is like, just you can stun like crazy.

So I just have a back row of guys like

blacking out the sun.

It's great.

And then in the front,

gnomes and mushroom men.

Ooh, and bees and geese.

I like the bees a lot.

I like the geese riders.

I like the bees.

I have little mushroom men and then gnomes.

And I like to have them all work in tandem together.

It's great.

There's other things like dragons and whatever they can get, but I'm just like, cost effectiveness.

It's extremely,

for the amount I have to put into this, it's out of control.

But the bees, I I love it.

Plus, the bees have a poison, and that poison destroys bosses.

Love it.

Solid game.

Big fan.

Yeah, I played that.

And then I also, even though I didn't get a chance to play it, which I guess is not going to happen until I get back, I also

went through and got...

Oh my God, where did it go?

Is it called He is Coming?

Why can't I find it?

Maybe I downloaded it at home.

Yikes.

But it seemed like another fun game that was sort of like a roguelike-y.

There is a game called He is Coming.

Yes.

Yes.

I have not played this, but I have seen it.

Yeah, I wanted to get this, and so I downloaded that as well.

And then I also got,

you know, I downloaded the Drifter because everyone was talking about that.

I was like, that seems like fun.

Basically, my desktop is filled with a bajillion games.

And I absolutely haven't had the chance to mess around with them.

I would love to talk about the drifter drifter because I've finished played it.

Yeah, I played it.

It took me about, I want to say 11 hours.

Damn.

Okay.

It's fantastic.

It's really, really good.

It is a point-and-click mystery game, I guess you could say.

It's great.

Yeah.

You play as this older guy who is what you might colloquially call a drifter.

He

hold on.

Question.

Question.

Yes.

What, like, like drugged out drifter or Jack Reacher drifter?

Neither.

Jack Reacher's got too much going on for him.

Like,

going on for him.

No, he, like,

you know, he, he hitchhikes on trains and he sort of like gets from place to place however he can or

he's a little old.

Yes, works there a little bit and then moves on to the next place.

And

he gets called back to his hometown where he has not been there for five years because his son died five years ago.

And that's when he started

when he left basically.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

And so the story starts with him having received a call from his sister saying, hey, our mom has died.

It would really mean a lot if you could come back into town for the funeral.

And the second he comes back into town, really weird shit starts happening, and he has to decide whether or not he's going to try and figure out why that weird shit is happening.

Like Silent Hill?

2?

No.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you for that very concise response.

No.

I loved it.

I thought it was really, really really good, really well done.

Something that this game does amazingly because it's all like really nice pixel art.

Bro, the way that they use like the atmosphere, the backgrounds, the music, like this, this game sets tone

so insanely well.

It's really, really, really good.

So yeah, you will love it.

I do think it took me about 11 hours.

All right.

Something like that.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's definitely one that I was like, damn, I want to play that.

I just didn't have time.

I was

someone, no names, someone was very lazy and realized that the season,

the PvP season in Final Fantasy XIV ends when I'm gone.

And so I was like, I got to do my PvP so I can get my mount.

And I just didn't do it.

So I definitely had to like back end work that for a little bit, which is

sometimes you just got to do things not the last minute.

But that's not the Jesse Cox MO.

Last minute is where I shine.

So,

yeah.

Yikes.

I'm trying to think what else I was messing with, and I can't.

The problem is, I've been playing a lot of games at home too.

So, like, this is, so I'll let you in on the Jesse Cox cycle of life.

So, I, um,

when I get home from the office, I immediately,

almost immediately, try to do some sort of workout.

Like that's my objective in life.

Try and do something.

And when I'm done, usually I'm a sweat monster.

And so I need a good like 30, 45 minute cooldown before I attempt to do anything else.

Because if I like jump in the shower immediately, all I do is continue to sweat when I get out of the shower.

It's just, it's a thing that happens.

So I'm like, I need a cool down.

So during that time period, I'll get on my computer and just play a game.

So my mind is off like the fact that I'm a gross.

And then I'll play a game.

And then I will, like, all right, I'm good.

And then go about my night.

So during that time period when I'm playing a game, I'm usually trying to play something quick I can get in and out of.

And then,

and I've realized, like, for some reason, the game lately, and I've talked about this before, is I keep going back to Dark Tide,

which I absolutely love playing an old man with a dog at his side.

I'm having a good time.

But I've realized lately,

I don't think people have spatial awareness.

Just like in real life,

I don't think people are aware of what's going on around them.

And it's shocking to me because I'll be playing that game, and there will be like someone down in a corner, hurt, and you can hear them, like, help,

get me up.

And I'll be like, okay, I'm coming.

No one else does ever.

They all just kind of like,

I'll kill this thing.

I'm like,

behind us, someone is dying.

Right.

Save them.

And the thing is, when I'm the guy dying, no one comes to help.

Right.

And I'm like, am I the only one who cares?

And I realize that's only on lower-level stuff.

If you do like the hardest stuff in the game, everyone's like, I got you, brother.

Let's go.

We're in this to the end.

The lower level stuff, I'm like, interesting.

Oh, it's the casual.

With that all said,

I must shout out.

I was in a game.

It was myself

and one other guy.

And this other guy, I'm pretty sure was 10.

And he was playing a giant Ogrin.

And I don't know if he was streaming or just talking to himself.

But he was running around in his like little 10-year-old voice doing like,

I'll help you take out the monsters.

And he was on voice chat in the game on, I assume, like whatever console he was playing on, because it wasn't Steam.

And he was just, and I couldn't, I was like, if this was anyone else, like, I was playing one time where some guy was on his, his Xbox or whatever, and he was just listening to metal music in the background, and he had it on the entire time, blasting through voice chat.

And I was like, this sucks.

I hate this.

What are you doing?

Yeah.

But this kid was literally role-playing his Ogrin, and it was so cute.

I was like, oh, I'm just going to let him.

I'm not going to say a damn thing.

I'm going to let the, I don't know if he knows.

I can hear everything he's doing.

At one point, we're on this bridge fighting, and there's two, you know, NPCs with us.

And

I hear some noise, and he leaves.

And I hear him having a full conversation with his mom in the room.

And his character's just like his ogre's just sitting there like this on the bridge, not moving.

And so I stood there protecting him.

I was like, no, kid, I got you.

It was so cute.

I loved every, it was, I was like, I'm not going to ruin this kid's fun.

Cause I imagine him getting into a, you know, a game and then some guy be like, turn the fucking microphone off, kid.

Yeah.

I was like, you don't want to be that guy.

No, I was like, no, I'm going to let this kid live his life.

It was so funny.

He was like, don't worry.

I've got you.

He tried to do the voice and everything.

It was the cutest.

That is so cute.

Yeah.

He wasn't great, but he was also 10.

So, you know what I mean?

Like, thank God I was there with my guy who had a dog that could jump on guys and kill things.

And other, it was, you know, we beat it and I was like, good luck, kid.

Have fun.

Go live your life.

It was very, very cute.

AIDS.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I beat it, got my gear and was like, peace.

Cute.

Yeah.

I guess really quickly while we're on 40K,

I messaged you about this, but I did start.

I did start Rogue Trader finally.

So I guess like preemptive thing is Sam and I have been trying to start reading the Warhammer 40K books.

Yikes, don't do it.

Don't do it.

So

we brought on our trip, we brought the infinite and the divine.

And when I tell you that every paragraph, I was going, what is this word?

What does this mean?

Who are these people?

And Sam was having

to explain

everything.

Are they robots?

Wait, those guys are robots.

No, those guys are all, they're all robots.

Sam, are they all robots?

Like, it was just, I couldn't, I couldn't make any progress, right?

So I complained about it to chat.

Chat was like, you should try reading Eisenhorn because that's basically Warhammer 40K Sherlock Holmes.

He's an Inquisitor.

And I was like, okay.

So I bought Eisenhorn and I've started reading Eisenhorn.

I got to be real with you guys.

Every paragraph, I'm going, what the fuck does this word mean?

Who are these people?

Most of it is that.

Yes.

Most of it.

The thing about the books that I think is interesting is it requires some knowledge of the actual game.

It really does.

They don't

understand the universe to some extent to make humorous at all, I feel like.

Yeah, it's again.

I'm sure the books are great,

but I've never had the desire to be like, yeah, yeah, I want to do more than just look at the Wikipedia for this.

I need to get over the hump.

But

one of my mods is in the same position as me and recently started Rogue Trader and was like, you already said you wanted to start Rogue Trader.

It honestly is going to help so much because it has the highlighted text thing, right?

So anything that is world specific, you can hover over and get the blurb.

They're like, I've found that it has really helped me solidify the core concepts, right?

So I started playing Rogue Trader.

I made my little Rogue Trader and it's very fun.

It is really fun.

I was telling you in our DMs

that it reminded me a little bit of playing Path of Exile because

I would go to level and immediately everyone would get very concerned.

Do you need help?

You might want to ask chat for like what you should, where your levels should go.

Do you want, do you want us to assist you with this at all?

And I was like, I'm playing on story mode no i don't i surely i don't need that right guys surely i don't that when i'm playing on story mode please

so yeah

that's been my experience so far but i really like the characters the other complaint that i that i sent jesse was that i chose the madness voice I chose the

sort of voice.

And

they don't give me nearly enough crazy shit to say, man.

There's, there's a, like, everything is so serious right now.

You'll get a lot of, I don't know how far you're into it, but you'll start getting a lot of heretical things you can do.

And

I'm really like trying to go full heretic and really corrupt everyone.

The problem is there's some times where, based on the choices you make, it'll lock you out of heretic options, which is infuriating to me.

I'm like,

all I want to do

is corrupt and destroy.

And y'all are making it real difficult for me to do that.

But I'm hoping it pays off because there's some crazy stuff that I want like tentacles is what I'm saying.

I want my entire crew to have tentacles and be gross.

And we'll see if that happens.

We'll see.

I don't know.

The Master of Whispers at the very beginning of the game.

I was like, I like this guy.

He sounds like Loki.

He sounds like Tom Hiddleston playing Loki in the Marvel movies.

And then spoilers, right at the start of the game, he does a bunch of shit.

And you have the option to be like,

could I also do a bunch of shit?

It's like, he's like, fuck this place.

I'm burning it down.

And you can be like, I'll help.

And I said that.

And he was like,

maybe.

I don't trust you yet.

And they didn't let me.

They didn't let me just be like, you know what?

Also, fuck this place.

I'll help the bad guys.

They wouldn't let me.

Here's my problem is my desire to complete quests sometimes outrides my desire to be evil.

So there's one

when you get to the map, I'm not sure how far you are into it, but when you get to the overall map of the star system and you can go to planets, it does that thing where it's like, hey, man, hey.

The place you choose will affect the other places you go.

So if you go to certain places at certain times, it'll change things that happen at other things.

So in my mind, I'm like, cool, all right.

Let's cause the most evil we can cause.

But everything I choose is like,

ah, okay.

So this quest says that this woman needs to get back to her husband.

They're both, I think they were both pilots or one's a pilot, one's a guard.

And the whole thing is, I'm like, I must reunite these two.

I don't care what happens.

Meanwhile, it does not matter.

In my evil scheme, they would all die anyway, but I'm like, no,

I need to get these two back together because I want them to be in love because they're separated by war.

And by God, I'm going to get this to happen.

It's absolutely pointless.

I don't know what.

Meanwhile, the rest of my choices are like, who cares about your world?

Ban it to the ground.

And I'm like, yeah, there's.

There's like the choices I'm making are insane.

There's one option where it's like,

you have to pick a new navigator, I think.

And they give you options, but one of the options is like, oh no, that lady's crazy.

She

accidentally kills people all the time with her mind.

And I'm like, that's the one I want.

Sign me up.

And the entire time, I'm like, okay, I'm going to get her.

I'm going to make her crazy and corrupted.

This will be amazing.

And then her plot line is like,

I'm a lady.

Treat me like a lady.

And I'm like, I don't want to kill anyone.

Fine.

I'll

fuck.

Fine.

Yes.

I will treat you like a lady as long as you fall in love with me and then I can corrupt you.

Deal?

Like, it's that kind of thing.

So now I'm like, how has that gone?

I'm picking choices that aren't evil just to do this.

Right?

Right.

Like, okay, fine.

I'll make good choices.

Ah, goodness.

But I do, I, yeah, people are saying it takes, what, like 120 hours or something to play through.

It is.

It's long.

It's very long, yeah.

I am

many hours in and just beat that first,

like,

solar system, I guess.

So I, uh, yeah, I was like, how long is this game?

Very is the answer.

Very.

The only problem I have, the biggest problem I have, and I think it's a quality of life issue that sadly Baldur's Gate 3 destroyed for me.

Rogue Trader has some fun voice acting, but it is in only 20% of the game.

The rest, you're reading.

And at a certain point, I was like,

This is why I don't do visual novels on stream.

I can only read so long before I'm just like, my throat hurts.

I'm tired.

I like I've been doing this for four hours.

Man was not meant to just talk continually for four hours and do multiple voices.

I'm like, I just can't.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Yeah, I feel you.

No.

I don't.

I see that there's the text-to-speech mod.

Like, I'm fine.

I don't need that.

I don't need.

I'm glad that exists.

Hello.

But

that would make it worse for me.

I don't want.

I'd rather do my dumb voices than like, hello, Jesse.

I am here to navigate your ship.

Is your rogue trader named Jesse?

No, his name is Vorgen von Valantius.

Ooh, I like it.

Yeah, he's a creep.

He has a wig, and when he talks, he goes, Yes,

my plans are coming together.

The fact that no one understands he's evil is crazy to me.

When I walk into a room sometime, he goes,

My plans are coming together.

And I'm like, everyone should be suspicious.

Everyone.

I love that.

My girl's name is Mycella Snot Rocket.

Well, of course she is.

But then you should be a Von Valancius as well.

Right.

Mycella Snott Rocket.

Von Valancius, yes, of course.

Yeah.

She's a former pirate.

Ooh.

And she has the madness voice.

What is your class?

My archetype.

Yeah.

Operator operations.

What's the rogue?

Oh, I don't know.

The one that's roguey, that's like stealthy, sneaky.

Interesting.

I would,

thank you.

I was thinking, I don't want to do

like my main character, I don't want him to be anything other than a guy who can convince people to become evil.

So I picked the one that has, I have no discernible offensive talents, but I can command others to do things.

Right.

You do lots of buffs and things.

Yeah.

All I do is sit in the back and yell at people.

And then when I get into conversations in game with, it's, I always roll like a 100 every time.

So people will be like, well, I don't know.

You seem pretty evil.

And I'd be like, no, I'm not, bitch.

And they're like, yeah, never mind.

And I'm like, yes, yes, good.

Perfect.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, wow, this guy's really on the up and up.

And meanwhile, I'm like, grow tentacles on your butt.

Yes.

There's moments where like demons and like dark voices will appear and be like, you will be mine.

And my guy's like, all right.

He does not.

I would love to.

Could you pick up the pace, maybe?

He's like, that's the point.

I'm totally here for this.

Why is it taking so long?

You know.

Writing love letters to Nurgle, putting them on the window.

There you go, Grandpapa.

Yeah.

Like, hurry up.

I would love to know.

I think it's a...

I think Rogue Trader is a zinc story.

I don't know.

I'm trying to figure out what the chaos god is that's trying to like mess with us, but I have no clue.

I don't know.

But I'm fine with that.

I'd love to turn into some sort of weird bird thing.

I'm fine with that.

Yeah, as long as you start morphing into something grotesque, that's the goal.

Yeah.

Oh, I want to be full grotesque.

Yeah.

I want to be like a nasty boy in personality and physical body.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

That's what I want.

I want to get super gross.

But I want my crew to get gross too, right?

Of course, but

it's not fun when you're all by yourself.

Yeah, I get the one DLC girl who's like into blood, and her whole, even though she's like very good and she's like, I'm aligned with the Emperor, she seems like a complete mess.

And I feel like turning her into some sort of demon thing would be fun.

And then I got a sister of battle.

I want to corrupt the hell out of her, but I feel like you probably can't, which I'm going to have to airlock her, and that's fine.

I'll do that.

But I just, you know, I want to really corrupt everyone and and turn them into like monstrosities just to see what happens.

You know, have you killed anybody yet?

Do you have the whole team currently?

I have a whole team.

I'm not sure what you can get on the team.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

There's definitely some options here and there.

And I just don't know.

Because I'm still in the intro.

And people in my chat were like, man, I really regret killing this character.

And I was like,

damn.

You can definitely kill everybody.

When you get to the bridge later, you can definitely be like, I don't want you here anymore.

Leave.

So you can do that.

I haven't done that yet.

Although there are some characters on my team that are super redundant.

Like I have a few characters that are literally just my same archetype.

And I'm like, I don't need you.

You're just here taking up space.

I am, I'm this guy.

You don't need more of this guy.

Yeah.

But one of them is my girl Salad Fingers.

And so I want to get.

I'm not going to, I'm not, I'm not going to spoil who Salad Fingers is.

I love her.

I love Salad Fingers, and I want to get her.

The problem is, all of her abilities are the same as mine, except she has one that shoots fire from her mind.

And I'm like, yo, Salad Fingers, let's fucking go.

I love Salad Fingers.

A friend of mine sent me a picture of a person doing drag as Salad Finger.

They were doing a drag show as Salad Fingers.

So that's what I was

saying.

Yeah, that's the girl I'm trying to romance right now.

I'm so happy for you.

She's a mess, but like, I feel like it could make her more of a mess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can make her worse, et cetera.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

Pretty excited.

I will say the one negative thing I have to say about it, besides the voice acting thing, is there are moments where you think

you're going to a mission for like,

you know, one battle and it turns into like an eight battle long arc.

And you're like, dude, I wanted, I had stuff to do today.

And the battle keeps going.

And you move five, and then more guys show up, and you're like, this is taking forever.

Am I just weak?

Should all these guys be dead?

Or is this just we're throwing fights at you because that's what this game is?

Right.

And you're like,

okay.

All right.

But other than that, having a blast.

Yeah.

Fun game.

How quickly do you think we can blast through the news?

Oh, I'll blast, baby.

I'll blast.

Let's let's blast, buddy.

All right.

Hey, let's talk news.

First off, Sony is releasing a fight stick called the Flex Strike, which if you're at Evo this weekend, you'll get to check out.

And I guess that's, you know, considering Sony has some ownership in the tournament, they'll definitely be there.

Yes, Evo is this weekend.

I forgot Evo was happening.

Hilariously, I will be over in the UK.

And so the finals for Street Fighter will be at 4 a.m.

on Sunday for me.

So I may not actually actually get to watch it, which, or maybe I'll just stay up real late and get crazy.

But yeah, usually either I'm there, I'm streaming it, and not this year.

But apparently, the Flex Strike will be compatible with PC and PS5.

If you want to get a fight stick that looks pretty neat, the thing is,

with the PS6 around the corner, I don't know why they will release it now, but

all right.

I'm who am I to judge?

Anyway, also,

speaking of things overseas,

legend tells of Silksong actually being playable at Gamescom.

Shut up.

Taking place August 20th through 24th.

You might actually be able to play it if you're going to Gamescom.

Here's the thing.

It's going to be in the Xbox area.

And we'll see.

That's just what the word is, that it's in the Xbox area.

And it might actually happen, but I will hold off saying it's real until someone actually goes to the event and plays it yeah I need somebody to like slip a camera in there and be like yeah take a photo of the booth yes yeah I uh we'll need someone there to actually go verify it is in fact a real thing yeah then

hey I'm sure all of you this week saw that there was a kerfluffle we'll say kerfluffle

So there is,

the best way I can put this is a bunch of kooks

have decided that they are going to leverage their power to get credit card companies to stop allowing transactions for games.

Originally, it was adult games, and then suddenly it became games that, and when you think adult, you're thinking like porn.

But also horror games started to get hit.

And mouthwashing was one that people were like, hold on, that's down right now.

And there was a lot of conflicting stories about mouthwashing being a game that was targeted, targeted, but then wasn't targeted, but then was a back and forth, and no one really knows what's going on there.

But what you do need to know is itch also said, fine, we will stop featuring any adult games in its own category.

So there used to be a category for adult games that's gone now.

However, now they've reversed that.

And if it's an adult game that is free, it is now searchable.

So, So, yeah, this is this is literally from today.

It just happened.

Adult not safe for work content was removed.

But if it's free and not paid, it is now listed again.

It's relisting free, not safe for work games today.

Paid games will remain hidden from now on.

That's weird, weird, weird choice.

But I guess because it's free and you're not paying for it, they don't have to worry about credit card companies saying, we will not honor payment for this.

If it's free, it's insane to me that credit card companies are doing this anyway.

Absolutely.

It is,

again, it's bowing to pressure from various organizations who are like, how dare you?

Right.

It is, you know, same as it was in the 80s and 90s and all these different things.

It just changes what it was, be it music or movies or books or whatever.

It's always something.

It's always, it's always something.

And this time,

instead of going after Steam or going after the companies, which didn't listen to them because they rely on, they're like, no, they're selling.

So we're going to keep selling them.

This time they went after the people that control the money and said, don't use this.

And Visa and all them said,

of course,

of course, no boobies.

And so now here we are.

It's very weird.

It's super convoluted.

Will it last long?

I don't know.

But we're also in a space now where YouTube is bringing AI age verification.

So good luck with that.

I just can't.

I just can't.

It is.

The number of websites I have been on, and I don't know if it's because I'm in the United Kingdom, but like the number of websites I've been on recently that have been like, there's some material here that we can't show you until we verified your age.

And I'm like,

okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

It's pretty gross.

I'm super interested to see what YouTube's like,

I know their whole thing is we're trying to do it for the kids but it doesn't seem very

user-friendly for adults it seems like a massive pain in the ass because if you want to watch something without being logged in tough

so now you have to have an account you have to log in you have to prove to them that you're an adult like I get it I understand what their point is but I think it's poorly handled and really stupid and not

whatever they're gonna do it anyway so here we are

Yikes.

Yeah.

Then

we got some news from the Claire Obscure team.

They were talking about what comes next, where we go from here.

And they were asked if they would expand their team.

And they were like, no, we're going to keep the same size.

And I love that for them.

Mostly because anytime someone gets bigger when it comes to size, costs go up.

And then things become more expensive.

And then suddenly your game that sells, you know, 3 million copies isn't good enough because you need it to sell 10 million copies.

So

good.

Keep costs down.

Thank you very much.

Also, Nintendo had a bunch of stuff for us.

And so Nintendo has sold 6 million Switch consoles, Switch 2 consoles, and hilariously, almost the same number of Mario Kart world copies, which means Mario Kart was shipping Nintendo Switch.

People wanted to play Mario Kart so badly that they bought a Switch 2, which is fascinating and goes to show you the power of Mario Kart as a franchise.

Also, it was a part of a bundle, so maybe it was just that's that's part of that too.

I don't know.

Hey, then

brand new Katamari game coming to PC and consoles in October.

Look at us, it's been

15 years since we've had a Katamari game.

I'm so excited.

La la la la la la la la la la.

If you want to have a great day, just right now, when you're done with this show,

go to YouTube, type in first your age verification information,

then

type in 8-bit big band, Katamari,

and enjoy.

It's great.

It's great.

Just so much fun.

That is coming to us.

Later this year.

Very excited.

Then,

just one of the weirdest things, I'm not sure I understand truly what's going on here, but

companies be

companying.

And EA, EA CEO, says that with the Battlefield Six stuff that we got this week, they are investing more behind this battlefield than any other battlefield before.

And it's all in as a company.

And more importantly, with Battlefield Six,

they're not building a product.

They're building a platform.

And I must stress,

all of that

I hate.

I hate all of that.

Every word of that, I hate.

And that is usually

most of what happens when it comes with EA and Ubisoft.

They're like, we're not building, it's not a game.

It's an experiential device used to sell you ads.

Immediate checkout.

Yeah.

So that's a thing.

Yeah.

This is, this quote is just yikes.

Certainly, you're gonna see a lot more in a couple of days.

We've been investing more behind this battlefield than any battlefield product before it.

And really, the big reason for that is this isn't just a product.

We're really building out Battlefield as a platform.

And you'll hear a lot more about this in just two days' time.

And all will be more clear about the nature of our investment over the last four years with four studios building against this launch to date.

Do you think, is that like there because

he talks to business guys and stock market people all the time?

That that's just how he talks constantly, and he's such a business bro that he's lost the ability to communicate like a person?

Yes.

Yes, but do you think

this is them

like winking that they are trying to compete with like when people play COD, right?

People load up COD to play all kinds of different things now that are now built in.

Now they have, like,

it's like Rick and Maury, or like, there's weird, you know, like, it's barely, I'm a soldier now.

I'm just like, I'm Ariana Grande for some reason.

And prop hunt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm wondering if that's what they're trying to say is like, there's going to be so much to do in this game.

It's going to be amazing.

Which already exhausts me.

Like Battlefield, the reason why I love Battlefield in general, like as a concept to me at least, is

I liked being like, Screw it, I'm not gonna run around with my gun.

I'm gonna go get in this anti-aircraft vehicle, drive out in the middle of nowhere, and shoot down every asshole who thinks he's gonna be a badass in a plane.

Yeah, and I love doing that, and I loved when the angry pilots come to try and kill me.

That was always fun for me.

That's all I want from Battlefield: the ability to do different things on the battlefield.

I don't want to be like

forced to do all these other things.

Yeah, what if Battlefield was what if

let's if I could bring your attention to the board

the kids are really into

Fortnite

they call it Roblox

They do

clips

so we think we should try to fortnitify

Battlefield

with a variety of games and experiences developed by a variety of different developers.

You'll never have to close Battlefield again.

They'll keep it open all the time.

We'll start having concerts in Battlefield.

Now you're thinking.

You get a raise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What if we got

the entire cast

of K-pop demon hunters to appear in our game?

I'll get them on the phone right now.

We launched them from a rocket launcher into the sky and they put on a concert for us.

That's

kind of what it is.

That's the idea of everyone's trying to create the next thing that just gives them a ton of money and they don't have to make a new product.

And it just sucks.

Everybody wants a thing that they can just keep like poking at.

for years and years and years.

Well, and this goes to the next article, which was literally Warner Brothers, following following suicide squads flop says hey we learned nothing we're gonna try and make another live service game

hey guess what didn't learn a goddamn thing here's our everyone's just they're chasing every company's like we must chase our like white dragon of infinite money

Like, if we could just land it, we win.

And it's insane because they're like, well, if we make multiple single-player games, one could be great, but the next one could suck.

But if we have one game that is always on and always making us money, we're the winners.

And it's so obvious and gross.

Speaking of obvious and gross, Sony is finally suing Tencent over their game Light of Motirum.

Which literally just, if you've seen the footage, you've seen the screenshots, whatever.

Hilarious.

Just looks like Horizon.

It is Horizon.

They just stole Horizon Zero Dawn.

Completely stole it.

And Sony's finally suing them.

So we'll see how that works.

I'm not sure what you can do against a Chinese company in court.

I know that American companies have sued

for all sorts of copyright infringement and China's like tough.

So we'll see what happens.

And then one last little bit of good news that just will brighten your day.

Speaking of Nintendo.

Yeah.

If you have a Switch 2, you know that your Joy-Con on the side can also be used as mice.

And those mice can be used now with Mario Paint being added to the SNES library.

They're bringing it back.

You can play Mario Paint with one of your Joy-Cons as a mouse.

And that's really the best news.

Cute?

Period.

That's so cute.

I love that.

Yeah, very excited.

Aw, I love that.

That's the news.

That's the news.

Buddy, it's always so fun to talk to you.

What are you up to this week?

Headed off to the

Merry Old England.

Literally tonight at 10.50 p.m., I leave.

Whoa.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then

I got to like

do stuff with the FMV game.

Fingers crossed.

That'll be close to being done there.

And then, yeah, gonna bum around.

And it's weird.

I guess, like, there's other people I know who are going to be in the UK at the same time.

They're like, yo, we should hang out.

I'm like, okay.

So I'm just be chilling, but working.

And then I end up at a wedding in a week from now with a certain someone.

With somebody, maybe somebody else who's on this podcast.

Yeah, that's crazy.

And then, uh, that's

all

that.

You saying that out loud just reminded me that I need something I could wear to a wedding.

Oh, I'm letting you know.

I already have

my summer ensemble.

I've got like a shirt.

Should we match?

That would be fun.

I'll let you know what I have.

I have a gray suit jacket and suit pants and a pink shirt underneath it.

Okay.

Okay.

Yes, I will try to match you.

Pink and gray.

I can do that.

Nice.

Yes.

Nice.

Jesse's getting married only to only to myself.

It's a ceremony ceremony of myself and myself.

It's me

in a mirror.

I'm really excited to sign the papers

as the as the witness.

As the witness here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's me kissing my mirror.

Some call it creepy.

I call it love.

Everybody says you got self-love is the most important form of love.

I just took it to the logical extent.

It makes sense.

Yeah.

If you can't marry yourself, then maybe you don't deserve to be married.

How in the hell are you going to marry anybody else?

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

Preach.

For me,

I'm going to be gone this weekend, but then next week, hopefully finishing the most recent Rise of the Golden Idol investigation.

And then, I don't know, maybe playing Dead Take.

That sounds really cool.

Yeah.

That's my, that's, that's me.

That's us.

Hey, thanks so much for watching Geek Enders, guys.

You can find all of the previous Geekenders on youtube.com slash jessecox.

We are also on all of the podcast websites and apps if you would like to listen to us instead.

But have an amazing weekend and week.

And we will see you next Friday.

Bye.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

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So, take a second, grab a drink, and vibe.

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