44: The Geekenders: Jesse and Dodger Discuss Fantasy Shows and More!

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Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

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Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

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It's Jesse and Dodger.

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Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

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It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

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Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it be kid.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

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

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders

with your hosts, Jessip and Dugar.

Hello.

Oh, my goodness.

How are you doing, buddy?

You're back in the United States.

Home, where I belong.

Although, immediately automatically miss the UK tremendously, terribly.

The first day I was back, I had to.

So

I don't know what UPS's deal is, but a package was sent to me.

And I needed to get it.

But for some reason, instead of sending it directly to my home or to the office, they have two addresses they can choose from.

They sent it to a UPS like sorting facility and we're like, you got to pick it up there.

I'm like, what?

So

I called and was like, hey, I am out of the country right now.

I can't get to that.

And they're like, well,

that sounds like a you problem.

They were like, sorry, nothing we can do.

I was like, can I send someone to get it?

They're like, unless that's someone's you.

No, sweetie.

And I was like, okay,

so what are my options?

They're like, you have until October 1st to pick it up.

And I was like,

so

I landed,

went home, jumped in the shower, jumped in a car, drove to this sorting facility, got the package.

But what I realized is in that process of driving, I was like,

yo, I hate driving.

I hate this.

I hate everyone on the road.

I get so, I'm so mad right now.

This guy, why is he driving like that?

That guy almost hit me.

I was like, man, I had two weeks where all I did was walk places and it was so liberating.

And I was like, to be fair.

I hate this.

There are places in the United States you could live that are extremely walkable.

Yeah, but those places are like

not this place.

Sure.

So like that doesn't help me now.

I'm just saying.

It's not.

I'm just saying it's not a

current

U.S.

thing is all I'm saying.

That doesn't really help the current situation.

I know.

All that does is make me as jealous of those places as I was when I was in London.

It doesn't help me now.

Fair, fair, fair, fair.

I know that people are going to ask.

And so I will go ahead

and take the fall and tell this story.

You should.

No, Jesse and I did not see each other while he was here.

And if you recall, if you're a consistent Geekenders viewer slash listener, you probably heard me giving this man a lot of guff about coming out at the farm, about seeing us, about

meeting my child for the first time since she was an infant, etc.

And he was gonna come out.

This man was making plans to come out to the farm.

And then

we flooded.

And then we flooded.

And I had to message and be like, hey, if you come down here, you might not be able to get out.

So

then it was, but you know what?

It's supposed to look better beginning of next week, right before you leave.

Come on down.

Let's have a look at it.

I want to go to London.

And then the curse of having a child in the house hit, and I was borfin.

I was borfin

on Monday.

So

that's fine.

I made the best of a situation of Dodger not ever wanting to hang out with me and dodging me twice.

Hence the name.

I get it now.

It makes sense.

I spent those days where I had nothing to do.

And it was, by the way, great.

I went to museums.

I full tourist.

I touristed to the extreme.

I went, I saw a Book of Mormon and Phantom of the Opera.

I was like,

I was living my life.

Amazing.

I, yeah, I went down to, I did all the tourist stuff.

I went down to Borough Market and got like one of those like fancy donuts and a coffee and walked around.

I went along the Thames River.

I did the whole thing.

I went to Tate Modern Art.

I went to the History Museum.

I went to the Science Museum.

It was great.

It was awesome, dude.

Yeah.

I had nothing to do.

Like, I had five days there of absolutely nothing to do.

Man, four and then one to go home.

But like,

it was great.

It was, it was a good time.

I went and hung out with

my dear pal, Ben Starr, and his amazing cast for their show Natural Six.

And I got to see them do their D ⁇ D stuff.

I love all of them.

They're all sweethearts.

I got

sidewinded.

I don't even know if that's the right word.

Doug,

or the voice of the witcher, as I'm sure many people know, is on that show.

Right.

And I went to their offices and he did like the nicest of niceties for me.

And I can't even stress how much I was like, this man.

We went to this coffee shop.

Because they were like, we got to get ready to do the show.

I was like, yeah, yeah.

So we go to the coffee shop.

And while we're there, a guy who, yes, Doug Cockle, while we're there,

it was a Cockle Cocks moment.

While we're there, a guy, I guess, who works there was very into The Witcher.

And Ben was like, that's the Witcher.

And the guy was like, no, no,

no.

And

Doug started talking to him.

He's like, well, actually,

that guy right there pointing at me.

And I was like, what is he about to say?

He's like, that's the voice.

of one of the trolls that farts in that and the guy was like you the cave troll dude i was like

turned it around on you, dude.

Stop it.

I was like, that's very sweet.

It was very sweet.

So, yeah.

And I got to see how they work.

And it made me so jealous because their setup is like

awesome.

Yeah.

Supremely awesome.

They're doing stuff that.

reminded me of the maker days, if that makes any sense, where they had like, I think it was a tri-caster.

They have like stuff set up.

And I was like,

I wish,

I wish,

but one day I'll figure it all out.

One day I'll learn it.

I um I've been having a conversation with a lot of, so I came back and my camera setup was all weird.

So I've been having a conversation online, trying to figure out like, what, what am I doing?

Why am I bad at this?

I've been doing this for 15 years.

Why am I bad at this still?

The reasoning, of course, being

I haven't ever really tried.

So

that, you know, a lot of times that is is what it all comes down to.

Yeah.

God, I don't want to put people on blast, but I was having a conversation with someone about, I was like, guys, I have just

every time I'm on stream, no matter even if I slept 80 hours, I just have like shadowy bags under my eyes.

And the comment I got was, makeup, dude.

I was like, I can't.

I can't do that every, like, look, ladies,

makeup, whoever, anyone anyone who wears makeup.

It's not for me.

Whenever I'm on set and they have to do that to me, the next day and a half, I'm like, my eyes.

Well, I stuff my eyes.

And I like scrub and I wipe and I wash.

Can't do it.

Can't do it.

I do think that there's a big difference between like full face of makeup for camera and I'm going to be in front of my own camera and I don't give a shit.

And I'm just going to put a little bop bop bop bop under my eyes.

I wouldn't even know where to begin for my facial tone.

I don't want to end up like with an oika.

Again, you could you could figure it out if you care that much about the bags under the eyes.

This is see, this is a slippery slope because what happens here is first I start putting the makeup under the eyes because it becomes obsessed with it.

Then it's like, oh boy, I'm gonna have to like get some transplants put in.

Then I'm gonna have to get some like

surgery.

Then I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have like bat wings.

This truly was a slippery slope.

I wasn't sure.

I thought you were going to scale up in makeup, not in no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm, no, I'm talking about my transformation into man-bat.

Oh.

Yeah.

That would be a good thing.

Speaking of cool bat.

That would be cool to be there for, though.

Yeah.

Let's see the process.

There's something different about you.

I can't quite put my finger on it.

Yeah.

I

must stress to you, speaking of man-bat,

so yeah, Emo was sponsored.

Emo was totally sponsored.

Yesterday, I went to go play Starfield for the first time.

First time ever.

So going in, I was like, all right, I know the internet's vibe.

I'm not too stressed on this.

They wanted me to play the new Shattered Space, I believe is the name of the new expansion.

Okay.

But

I

have never played before.

So I had to start level one.

And everyone chat was like, it's level 35, dude.

And I was like, all right, well, maybe I'm not doing that.

But I started playing and goofing, and everything was fine.

And I was just following along the missions, trying to get as far as I could to maybe

get to something I could show off from the new stuff.

And while I was playing, I'm running around, and I am on a space station, and I shoot this guy, and I get a data pad, and the data pad's like, Come to the secret location,

the trial awaits you there.

And I was like, what?

And I went off to like some system way far away, landed on a planet, and then began the search for the layer of the mantis.

And I was like, what the hell is the mantis?

Everyone there was like 20 levels higher than me, but I was acing them and I felt really good about the whole situation.

And I was like, oh my God, am I cool at this?

And so I'm doing all this amazing stuff.

And I'm murdering these guys.

And I get to a part where it's like,

You must undergo the trials of the mantis.

It's straight up Space Batman.

It was Space Batman.

It was the coolest thing I've ever done.

I don't want to spoil the story, but at the end, your rewards are like a full-on Space Batman outfit and like a Space Batman ship.

And I was like,

what is this game?

Obviously,

it's not a perfect game, but that mission was cool as hell.

I was like, what just happened here?

And so the rest of the time I was playing, I was like, you got to tell me where to go.

Say it to me.

Everywhere I went.

And then on the news broadcast, it was like, The Mantis, rumored to be dead, has returned into the underworld to like defeat evil.

I was like, yeah,

this is cool as hell.

I was so impressed with that.

Mind you, I didn't do the things the game kept being like, hey, do you want to go explore worlds and

farm and build a house?

And I was like, no, dude, I'm a mantis.

Yeah, no, I don't want to do any of that stuff.

That sounds boring as hell.

I want to be the mantis.

And so, yeah, you you get like this whole outfit and i went around and like it made me feel every time i met bad guys i was like i've come in for you

you can't accept the badges

it was awesome i loved that i had so much fun with that obviously that is a slice of the game but that bit right there was dope i was like that was pretty cool so

A bunch of chat are saying it's literally their favorite quest in the game.

So that tracks.

Yeah.

And it was one of those things that was totally random.

I was like, this is really fun.

Um, and it explains stuff to me in that, even though I was level seven at the time, I was killing guys who were level 20, level 30.

And I was like, Well, maybe I don't need to be

35 to go do the new stuff.

Maybe those are just level 35 guys.

Because when I went to the zone, or not zone, but like the system where the new stuff was, it was pinging me, like, hey, come help me, please.

I need your help.

And I was like,

Okay.

So I'm almost positive that, at least from my experience in the game, that there are some really great moments.

But at least I feel like for the most part, all the extra stuff,

like, I think I avoided the things that were probably the things that were slowing people down.

You know, it has the same vibe to me, at least from what I've experienced, as Dragon Age Inquisition, where if you played it like a normal game, you'd be stuck in the hinterlands for days, bored out of your mind.

And the whole point was to get out of there and come back every once in a while, but I didn't do that.

I sat there in the hinterlands and literally played like countless hours of the hinterlands thinking, yeah, cool.

And it slowly got worse and worse and more boring and more boring.

And then it goes

like that.

And then it really focuses the story as time goes on.

But I was like,

I hate the hinterlands.

And I wonder if that's a lot of what's going on here.

Cause the game, everywhere I went, someone's like, hey, man, can you help me out?

and i'm like no

i'd rather not yeah i made my back story basically han solo

um

yeah i don't remember what we named it his name was like dirk rock groin or something like that was the character's name and uh we went around and the only people i talked to are people that looked like badasses there was one guy in a bar who was like standing there like this and i was like that guy's cool and whenever i talked to him everyone else they're like help me sir my children i'm like nope don't care and i was like all right this is fun so lessons learned i suppose

yeah

i played a game this week called atlas

atlas yeah at ly s

i think okay

and

speaking of games where like

You could market it off of what is really just a small bit of what the game actually is.

This game, Sam Sam was like, I bought you this game off of itch.

It's not done yet.

It's like in development still.

It's going on to Steam as like early access, you know, in a couple of months here.

So it's still pretty early days for it.

But it's like furry Hades.

And I was like,

okay.

The first image I see is of like

the furriest of furries.

Yeah.

Okay.

So yeah, and we always do warning lists when I'm going to stream a game.

And one of my mods had gone to make a warning list before I hit it.

I went totally blind into this game, right?

And the warning list had general mature content, quote unquote.

And I was like, what does that mean?

And then I went into the character creator and I figured out what that means.

Because you truly can just make a big booty, big booba, hot fox lady if you want.

If that's what you want to play in the game, you can have a gigantic dumpy.

You can decide whether or not your boobies jiggle.

It's the whole thing, right?

And the game itself

is so fun.

It's a dungeon crawler.

It's third person.

There are a couple of different classes in the game right now.

It's very much a, you like, go talk to characters.

They give you quests.

You go into the dungeon.

You kill a million slimes.

You come back.

They're like catacombs, like actual dungeons that you like run around in and like solve puzzles and things.

It's definitely the beginning of like a super cool, really fun game, I think.

The graphics are very like PlayStation, like old PlayStation,

which I kind of love.

It's there's something very, very charming about it.

The character that I made

is technically an imp, but really, with how we randomized it,

it wound up looking like an absolutely psychotic Zora from Zelda.

And I love it.

And it's great.

I just look like a tiny weird shark.

And you don't know why they're there.

But

yeah, the game is really fun.

I guess on their Patreon, they were giving out keys that let you do multiplayer.

But they don't have keys for that anymore.

So that's something that will be available to people once they go into actual early access, I believe.

Sorry if that's incorrect information.

But yeah, really fun game.

And if

you also happen.

It's very fun.

Yeah, if you also happen to want to make a big booba mouse girl, you can.

So

I have two games I don't want to spend too much time talking about because one is massively spoilery and the other is like, I don't even know how I would describe it to people.

So

while I was away this past weekend, I was looking for games again.

We talked about how I played Wedding Witch before.

And so I was on that, like, well, what games can I play on a laptop?

I want to stream this from the beginning again because it's so cool.

But the game Beyond Galaxy Land is

an old school RPG game

that is

so good.

It is basically a like

Titan AE-esque adventure through the stars, but like has the vibe of a classic Squaresoft RPG.

It is so cool.

And to describe more to you would be to immediately spoil things.

It is awesome.

And I will simply say, if you like a good old RPG, it

feels,

we've talked about before.

In the past, like what retro is versus what like an actual old game is.

It has the retro style.

It makes you like

feel like you're 13 again.

It's so cool.

Love it.

Big fan.

I want to play from the beginning

because there's so much good things to say about that.

Then,

on a totally different wavelength, I was recommended a game to play while I was, it was a laptop game.

And here's the problem.

I don't remember it.

And I don't have the, I don't have the name, I don't have the laptop, but I can describe it to you completely because there's no spoilers here.

Okay.

Imagine Star Fox, and this is what I was sold on.

Star Fox, but for adults.

And I was like, yo, adult Star Fox?

What's that mean?

Is it like violent stuff?

Cool.

No, y'all.

No.

It's Star Fox, except instead of being a Fox, you're like a slime man kind of thing.

And then

all the crew members are just like sexy girls.

And when you go through missions, if you raise their rank enough, they're like, you want a bone?

And I'm like, what is happening right now?

First off, yes, I did want a bone.

Second off, it plays really well.

Like, it plays like Star Fox.

It has the same mechanic.

You can do the power-up charge and shoot.

You can do the, like, it is, I was like, what is happening right now?

It was actually very funny.

It's Star Fox, but a, but also a dating sim?

Or I don't know if it's, I mean, like, dating sim is a relative term, but so, like, you know, when

in Star Fox, when somebody's like, help me, Fox, and he's like, goes, and you have to shoot and save him?

Same premise, but when you shoot and save these people, they get like a plus two or a plus four, and that improves their barn their relationship with you grows and as they do it's like

yo you want to blow off some steam and i'm like i do i do want to blow off some steam yes but but it it visually looks like star fox the it has you know how star fox went i mean like it feels like just a ripoff of star fox it has a like uh the first level had had a gorilla and uh a pig man

as an enemy and the pig man's like you can't beat me i'm gonna destroy your entire world and as you do it as you fight him you blow up his ship and the next level is this jungle planet and he's back but it's like half his face is all like scarred up and he's got a robot mask he's like i'm gonna get my revenge i was like

they had his voice acting i was like what is

this is like professionally done and it's freaking me out that this exists because i'm like someone put time into this and this is more effort for like dirty erotica than i've ever seen in my entire life i was like you know i appreciate this was it um

crowdfunded?

Again, I have no clue.

I just was, I got a link.

A lot of those sexy games go way over the amount that they ask for, and then they're able to add, you know, full voice acting and things.

That is very true.

It's what's interesting to me is

like

Kickstartering things or whatever that stuff that people use now, the different versions of Kickstarter.

It's always interesting to see what game is focused and gets done and made versus what games are clearly like Star Citizen, where they're just like, let's keep adding and making money and we don't even have to release anything.

That is an indictment of you, Star Citizen.

I'm still waiting for, I bought a ship 10 years ago from your Kickstarter, and I see nothing.

My ship don't even exist.

So I'm just saying, like,

I'm very, very curious how that got made.

I feel like legally,

probably, it's like the ship looks like an R-Wing.

like it is, it is basically Star Fox.

But I love Star Fox, and so I was, they were right.

Mechanically, it plays like Star Fox, it feels like Star Fox.

I enjoyed every minute of it, but it was one of those things where I, no one told me what I was playing.

They're like, oh, it's just a doll.

And I was like, cool.

And yeah, they were swearing and stuff.

And I was like, oh, that's fun.

Like, this is, it seems more modern.

But no,

no, afterwards, just they're like, and it's, it's animated, but but like

not 3D, but like cartoons.

I was like, what am I doing?

It's, it's a weird vibe just be alone in your hotel room at like 10 p.m.

Playing on a control, like, yeah,

yeah, that's right.

Pew, pew, pew.

It was so.

I hope I get a smooch after this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Like to say, I saved them from the, they attached the ship, but I saved her.

I hope she's into me.

Yeah.

But it's got something for everyone.

Admittedly, all the different girls are, you got different species, you got different, you know.

I was like, all right, great, good for y'all.

I wish I could tell you what it's called.

I look it up, Google it.

How many people said Subverse?

Is that it?

No, that's a totally different game.

That's a totally different game.

That's,

yeah, that's, that is one of those games I think I was talking about where they probably got too much money and didn't know what to do with the money they got.

Kind of.

Not safe for work.

Flight Sim on Steam comes back with Starbreed.

again.

I don't you just have to google this yourself, y'all.

I don't remember, and I, the game is on my laptop, which is in a backpack.

I only ever use my laptop when I travel.

That laptop is old, old by streamer standards.

That laptop is ancient.

The laptop, I got it in 2017.

So it is like not running anything new, that's for sure.

So

I honestly don't remember.

I'm gonna let you know.

I played it one night and was like, well, that was cute.

And that

I was like, all right.

And then I went and saw musicals.

You know what?

That sounds like a lovely couple of days, honestly.

It was lovely.

It was lovely.

Yeah.

The only other thing that I played that isn't like my norm, really, was another itch game.

It started off as part of a game jam, I believe.

And it was called Shroom and Gloom.

It's a deck builder,

but you're going deeper and deeper and deeper underground.

Like there's a thing that is like calling to you from deep underground.

And it operates slightly differently from like Slay the Spire.

It's first person, first of all, but sure.

You're essentially like going through these really tight little caverns.

The art style is a little like clay, darkest dungeon, like with those really thick, like sort of comic lines and stuff.

The cards are very funny.

The abilities are funny.

I think the thing that really sets it apart is that every space you go into, you first have a fight against some sort of like fungus creature.

They get more and more like body horror, like creepy gross as you get deeper and deeper down.

But you have your fight, and then you have a whole separate deck of cards that are your camp cards.

So you go into the second phase of like that section you've walked into after you've defeated everybody.

And you have a camping phase that has its own amount of energy that you can use.

You will have either one or two altar spots where you can set up things if you have the cards for them.

One of the things, for example, is like a training dummy.

so that you can upgrade cards.

One of them is a frog shrine and that's what helps you like forget cards.

And so it's not like you have fight, fight, fight, and then maybe a camp, fight, fight, fight, and then maybe a camp.

It's you have the opportunity to do a camping quote unquote type thing after every single fight.

And somehow it still manages to be

like pretty challenging, honestly.

There's from what I can tell, 15 floors.

I got to the 14th floor twice.

So I still haven't beaten it.

I still haven't beaten it because the monster on floor 14 is so hard, but I'm pretty determined to get to floor 15 and see what that's all about.

According to the itch page, it says it's a prototype and it's a like you were saying, it's a kind of work in progress thing, but like

it visually looks really cool.

It's so, again, the cards are really funny.

Visually, it's fantastic.

If they wanted to expand it into a bigger thing, I would love that because I played it over and over and over again.

Yeah, it's got a really good vibe to it, and there's like little subtle things.

Every time you go into a new area, you lift up a map, and so you've got like your little hand holding a map.

And the deeper you go in, your skin, the skin on your hand, starts to look like more and more decayed and weird.

You know, like we're doing like Cthulhu.

There's, yeah, there's some sort of a thing like

like, I don't know, baby trying to use you, or you don't, I don't know.

I haven't gotten to 414, 15.

I don't know, but

I definitely recommend it.

It's, I think it was,

I think it was two bucks on itch.

Cool.

I really, really like it.

I hope they turn it into a bigger thing because, yeah, it's great.

It's fun.

It looks great.

I'm, uh, I'm all for

card, I don't want to say card battlers, but you know, like card roguelike games that are

very

focused.

Like a lot of the time you play a game and it kind of seems like it's all over the place.

And this one seems a very focused, like, you're going down.

You got to survive.

That's it.

And it gets weird.

Oh, it's pay what you want, someone said.

I think they suggest $2.

It's pay what you want.

So that's nice.

Sure, but also like you can pay them $2.

It's fine.

It's just, you got to play the game.

It's $2.

That's neat.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think if I jumped on anything else, but really, I, I haven't.

I sadly have so many games on my desktop and about 8 billion games that are in the realm of, boy, I would love to play this scary game.

Like, uh,

oh man, Floor 9 is a game I want to check out.

Corpse Ocean is a game I want to check out.

Home Safety Hotline, which we played on Scary Game Squad, has like a new

holiday theme thing coming, which seems like fun.

What is that?

Zoo Coast,

Zoo Joseph, whatever the hell that game is, that's the creepy monsters

at the zoo.

I wanted to check that game out.

Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff that is like spooky for October that I want to check out.

But then, literally in the middle of all of that,

I think,

man.

Sometime next week, I think Lucky Towers comes out.

Or maybe it's already out.

I don't know.

Metaphor comes out.

Like, Neva comes out.

A lot of people are really looking forward to Metaphor.

I am, oh my God.

Metaphor slaps.

It is so good.

I cannot stress to you how much I, it's literally persona, but fantasy.

When else?

Pitch it to me.

Sure.

First off, it's it's persona, but instead of high school kids, it's fantasy.

You play as a

young man.

So it's like you actually have a protagonist who is

a talking character who isn't like silent.

Okay.

And you have a little fairy that hangs out with you and it's in a fantasy world.

And in this fantasy world, the king has died.

And by died, I mean just straight up murdered.

And the prince is sick with something.

And so the time mechanic, at least as far as I can tell, the time mechanic is the prince is slowly dying.

Right.

Okay.

Meanwhile, there's a

like a weird potentially meta narrative where like it keeps showing like the fantasy characters are like, there's a world where life is different and like that kind of vibe.

And they show like a book and it literally looks like like Tokyo.

And you're like, what is happening here?

But at the same time, there's a character who talks directly to you, the player, like, hello, welcome.

I see the veil.

And it's like.

This is all in the first five minutes, by the way.

Like, this is the setup to the game.

This isn't even like, like, this is the setup.

And so I don't know what any of this means.

And the world that exists, it's under siege by these monsters.

I don't want to spoil the monsters for you.

It's really cool.

Okay.

But at the same time, there's also a mechanic where

they are trying to determine who the new king will be.

And you are like having to compete for that.

And I assume the idea is going to be that you are competing so the prince can take the throne.

But I don't know if that's accurate.

I have have no clue.

So there's a whole other thing going on there.

The combat is so much fun.

The UI is hyper persona.

It's very cool.

It has all this cool stuff going on in it.

And it just,

everything

about it is so much fun to play.

I cannot stress it.

It is, and it does a lot of the cool stuff that, you know, have been in previous games.

Like if you're leveled high enough, if you've seen an enemy on the world screen and you attack him, usually if you attack them, they'll go ow and they'll be a little hurt in combat okay but if you get high enough level and you attack them they just die and give you everything and you can keep moving like that's that's my jam that's where i'm at where i'm a i'm a serial over leveler so if i run around i can just bash guys without ever having to fight them that's a sweet spot for me so i was feeling it it's it's the characters are very good The only ones that I got, and I think they're probably in the demo.

I'm pretty sure the demo is what I've played.

But,

you know, like there's

the races of this world are like horned, horned goat people, and elves, and like cat people, and like the dog people, for example, and one of the cinematics are shown as like living on the street and like begging for scraps and things like that.

So it's like a hierarchy in their caste systems.

And one of the interesting things about it is that your character has none of those, you're just like a person, like a, like a human, but you're not because there are no humans, humans in this world.

Although there are, but that's a whole different thing, but you're not one of them.

You're an elder.

You're a different type of person.

And everyone hates you.

Your people are like spit on.

People do not like you.

And you have a book.

And this book was given to you by the prince.

And this book, for some damn reason, has images that look like our world in it.

And it's very interesting.

And I don't know what the hell this game's going to be.

It seems super trippy.

Some sort of metaphor, probably.

and probably

yeah and it's it's it's very well done so i cannot wait like this is gonna be a huge game this is gonna be big how long is the demo because there's a demo for this game right yeah how long is the demo that's a great question i haven't played the demo but i imagine it's three four hours long if it's if it's what i played It's for the full name, it's metaphor.

Five to eight hours.

That sounds right.

Dang.

The game itself is going to be.

They they said 80 hours to beat 100 hours if you do everything else.

Like, it's going to be a big game.

It's going to be huge.

That's nice, though.

That's not like, I don't know.

For an RPG,

I'm so used to now, like, there being so much extra stuff to do that it basically doubles the game.

80 hours to beat it and 100 hours to do everything else sounds kind of reasonable for an RPG.

Well, again, I think a lot of it is so you meet characters and you form bonds with them.

Oh, i forgot the core mechanic so as you play you make you you create bonds with characters and this isn't like a romantic bond you're just buds right but the bonds you create unlock these abilities that you have and you summon forth archetypes and archetypes are sort of like um

In this world, for example, like your main character will rip out his heart and do like, you know, the persona thing where instead of like, you know, the different persona thing, he'll rip out his heart, which is like this cool metal heart, and he'll be like, yeah.

And then he'll turn to this giant badass

robotic looking thing.

And each one of the archetypes, there's several you can choose from, and you can unlock, and you can get better versions as time goes on.

And it's everything, you know, like there's the one you start with is sort of wind-based.

There's one later on that's like a berserker that looks really cool.

There's all sorts of different things you can pick.

But yeah, it's a persona summoning mechanic, but it's in this world.

Dude.

And it's this whole other thing, but you form bonds.

Those bonds unlock stuff.

But at the same time, by forming bonds, it helps you in your goal of achieving

whatever the hell the point of the race to become king is.

And so you have this multi-tiered system where I think the whole point is if you want to win, you need to do most of the side stuff to begin with.

So that's probably why

it isn't like another hundred hours tacked on because you got to do a lot of stuff if if you want 10 to win.

But I don't know if there's a fail state to that.

There's also a time mechanic that I don't know what that leads to.

A lot of questions.

No answers.

Very excited for this one.

I've been waiting for a game to truly show us the power of platonic friendship.

So.

Yeah.

No smoochin, even though in the demo, right away you meet like...

An elf mommy who I just want to destroy me, but she's like, this is a tough town, kid.

and I don't like you.

And I'm like, Yeah,

so I'm very excited.

It's gonna be a good one.

It's funny because I'll just want to say that now.

Coming out next week,

next week, there you go, kids.

Dang, okay, so yeah, lots of stuff to play, it sounds like.

Yep, yep.

I'm uh, yeah, I'm excited for like then.

We Square is finally releasing at the end of October, beginning of November.

Dragon Quest III comes out, I think.

I think that's November.

I mean, it existed before, but it's like the redo.

And then Romancing Saga 2.

Like, there's just,

it's a lot happening right now, and I am very excited for all of it.

I do feel like when spooky season comes around, because you do like Scary Game Squad and stuff, you're much more like tuned in on what is going to be coming out than I am, you know?

I, my, yeah, Dragon Age, I mean, that's another one that I'm like, oh, boy, oh, boy.

So I got to

expect more streams than usual because I'm just overwhelmed.

And I'm like, I got to, I got to play stuff.

I got to get stuff done.

People ask me, like, you could play this, this, this.

I'm like, I'm going to dry, y'all.

There's so much coming out.

It's a lot.

So, how often would you say that you finish games nowadays?

Oh,

unless it's a game that I am absolutely 100% in love with.

Not often.

And that's just people are going to have to live with that.

Cause I'm like, look, I could push through this, but it's all right.

Like, it's fun.

But, and there's some things like we were playing that, um,

oh God, together in between.

Like, I would love to finish that, but do I need to finish it?

Nah.

But like, I'd love to for the sake of closure, but like, I don't need to finish it.

A great example is I played a bunch of outlaws, Star Wars Outlaws.

And

I

like just got so frustrated with some of the mechanics.

I loved the story, I thought the story was really good.

I loved some, like, some of the really cool things you could do, like, mess with the imperials and some of the great the faction system and the stealthing stuff, which we talked about before, I hate, and I don't, I didn't want to do that anymore.

And I was like, well,

maybe I'll come back to it.

Will I?

Probably not.

But then, a game like Astrobot, I literally literally returned home from the UK and, you know, at first kind of like, am I, I'm half awake and whatever.

I platinumed that trophy on play.

I like sat down and was like, let's go.

All of it.

Love that game.

So much fun.

Yeah, that's, I don't know.

I have to really be into it.

Like, really be into it.

So I get that.

I think it's the same for me.

I tend to choose games that are like around 10 hours long now because I know I'll be able to finish that, you know?

Right.

But

yeah, it's one of the reasons I avoid RPGs generally

because I

most of the time I won't get invested enough to want to finish it anyway.

Which is weird because when I was a kid, that's all I ever wanted to play was RPGs.

I wanted to just like go on a grand adventure for hours of my life, you know, but like it's really hard for me to

because a lot of times, especially JRPGs, they like introduce so many characters and the story goes on for so long and I just find myself sort of falling out of love with it before I've, you know, resolved anything, which I think is unfortunate, but I don't, maybe that's just part of getting older.

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, like, I just, I just wanted to go look up really quickly because my

trinity of RPGs when I was a kid, the ones that speak to me chron trigger secret of mana final fantasy six that was back to back year after year in the mid 90s those three games came out one after the other and those games i played all the time hyper religiously like i love them they're some of my favorite games ever made those games to do a run-through of Final Fantasy VI

to do almost completion.

I'm going to say full completion sub 40 hours I know to beat the game just going through it and getting all the cast members 26 hours

Secret of mana I think is like to do everything is like 30 hours

so

That's what I that's like where my mindset is like that to me.

I'm like that's an RPG that's a lot going into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for example

That I to do everything I was pushing 100 hours I still haven't touched that game because I know there's just so much that I have to do.

Baldur's Gate, one playthrough.

My Jesse the Good playthrough was 117 hours.

I loved every minute of it.

And it's one of the few games where I completed everything and then replayed it multiple times.

And

maybe even play it tomorrow, Dodger.

Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.

But I still love it.

It's still a fantastic game.

But I think.

I don't know.

Again, this is a privileged place of speaking, but I always am upset when a game is too big and too long.

Even if it's warranted and justified and is like, what a great experience.

It's just sometimes I need a little short boy.

And

I understand that for many people, you like people like, I get one game a year, dude, or I get two games over the summer.

And I need, I want them to be big and long so I can get in them and play and get my money's worth.

I get it.

As this, what we do, it's impossible to do stuff like that.

It just doesn't happen.

It's rough.

Unless you're a Sam or something and you're like, yeah, I'll just, you know,

I'll do 20 hours a night.

Sam does,

unless it's like Nier in which he did a lot of stuff where he was like in it.

Watching Sam, most of it is like hyper-focus.

Yes.

Like he's going to do the story and move on.

That's an impossibility for me.

And

the only way I did it yesterday with Starfield was to like, oh, I want to get to the part I need to see for this brand thing

rather than, so I was like skipping quests.

Normal, Jesse would be like, you want me to go save your child?

Okay.

Of course, I would love to.

Oh, what's that?

Okay.

And I absolutely can't help myself.

I want to do the things in order so I don't miss something.

But no, I was like, don't know you, don't care, moving on.

And I was like blowing through story.

The only thing I did was the only thing side quest I did was like, become the Mantis.

And I was like, guys, I got to go become the Mantis.

That was it.

Everything else was ignoring.

I had

a whole list of quests to go to.

And I was like, don't care.

Don't know.

Do that.

And I feel like that might be the only way to get stuff done.

But on the flip side,

it's not how I like to play games.

I just don't like that.

Yeah.

And because I feel like I'm missing stuff.

And a great example is Final Fantasy 16, which, by the way, still cursed.

For everyone asking, Jesse, where's the end of Final Fantasy 16?

Every time I turn to my PlayStation, a thing pops up in the corner and says,

can't reconcile save file, please.

Something.

Literally, we had a lightning storm and it destroyed, it hit my PlayStation.

I don't know what happened.

And now my PlayStation, it lost all its saves.

And it keeps trying to back it up from the cloud, but it's like, can't do that, bro.

So.

what a mess.

But I'm constantly reminded of my failure to complete that game because literally over here, it tells me all the time.

But, like, with that one, if you skipped the side quests, you missed amazing story moments, like really good things that fleshed out the world even better.

And it was like, if you didn't do those, what the hell kind of, why would you even play this?

You're missing the whole point.

Right.

And so, like, that breaks my heart too.

Where I was like, man,

I watch people blow through that and not do the side quests.

I'm like, but that, that, that's an important thing.

That's actually very important.

For sure.

I mean,

I think the first game that made me think about that sort of a thing, and this was when I was really young, but one of the reasons that I love Chrono Trigger so much is because that was a game where I was really rewarded

and not in a way that took up like a ton of extra time, but I was rewarded for getting invested in trying to like sort everything out, you know,

pursue side stuff.

And yeah, like you were saying, it didn't mean that the game was a million hours long, but it did mean that I had more context for things and I knew more about characters.

And

I like, I like that sort of reward.

So when a game is insanely long

and they also say,

By the way, if you don't do all of the side stuff, you won't really know everything about the story.

Then it's like, God.

So then

to me, then, all of it's necessary, none of it's side stuff then, really, you know?

And like, thank God I loved Banishers as much as I did.

Because if I didn't, like, that was definitely one of those games where like all of the side stories, all of the side quests were put together with so much love.

They were all like so

like woven in with everything else that was going on that I was like, I'm so glad I did all of these.

But also, that means that they're not side quests to me, you know?

Like you could say, of course they're side quests because you don't need to do them in order to finish the game.

But if I'm invested, then I'm going to want to do them.

Absolutely.

It's, it's frustrating.

Like Red Dead Redemption 2, there's a lot of side stuff.

A lot of side stuff.

But

in my estimation, the side stuff is like what makes it worth playing.

Like the main story's fine, but it's the side stuff of like just exploring the west and getting caught up in things that makes it the the adventure it is and

To not do those it's like why even play a game this big why why do this but again that comes down to there's just so much

Here's another great example of the differences mass effect 2 into mass effect 3 because I'll have people chatting about mass effect mass effect 2 in one playthrough I got 92% of the achievements.

And I did, and it was like just going through, having a good time, living my life.

I didn't have to like do a bunch of Mass Effect 3 is like, hey, here's a bunch of insane stuff.

And then the little bit I played at Mass Effect Andromeda, it was like, hey,

here's a bunch of stuff to do.

And it's like,

We had a sweet spot.

We had a sweet spot.

And I don't know how the hell.

Like,

the side stuff in Mass Effect 2 was fun and engaging.

And then Mass Effect 3 was like, there's just a lot of side stuff.

And then Andromeda was like, there's side stuff, but

it's not fun.

It's get 15 bare asses side stuff.

It was, but even worse, it's like send your crew to go do things on an online server, like side missions, but also

you can make it go faster by getting better crew if you pay to get unlock soldiers to fight for you.

Like that kind of shit.

Andromeda had a scheme going on behind.

Like, that is not cool.

The worst part was, is that when I played it, it was so long after the fact where I guess Andromeda tanks that they straight up, like, I couldn't do half of it because the character, it was like, sorry, that server doesn't exist.

I'm like, what do you mean?

I guess, you know, at the end of the day, I guess it really is a quantity versus quality conversation, just like so many things wind up being.

It's like, yeah,

it's great to be able to say, there's so much to do in our game.

You know, it's really going to be worth the price point.

You can really just live in this world and do all of this stuff.

But at a certain point,

there's a line that you cross where you just, you can't have put love and care into every single quest.

It's just, it's just impossible, right?

Yeah.

There are going to be a few where somebody was like, I have an idea for a quest.

I think it's going to be really cool.

And then there's going to be basically video game filler, you know, like open world filler.

I mean, that's why everyone said Witcher 3 was brilliant is because they found a way to make the what should have been filler compelling and fun.

Even like random quests, you'd find notes that would lead you to a thing.

Like

I feel like people tried to emulate that, but

it

I don't know, man.

I don't, I feel like a lot of the time it just doesn't work unless unless you really sit there and take the time to put stuff into it.

Like everything about this, we're going to make a lot of it interesting.

When, you know, Dragon Age, going back to that, for example,

everyone was talking about how Velgarde, they're like, it's slimmed down, it's more focused, it is like, it is less of a, we're going to have a good, that sounds great to me.

I, I'm so happy.

People are like, it's not Dragon Age then.

I was like, I'm, no, I'm fine.

I'm all right.

I'm all right.

If you want to railroad me through a story, if it's just a hallway simulator, I don't give a damn.

Like, if I can get through the RPG story,

so be it.

I realize that is not the take many people are excited for and they want to have like a big, expansive, honestly, at this point, I don't know that I

trust EA to give me like an open world game and it not be a complete mess.

So I'm fine with

like, it's just a story and you fight guys.

Like, I'd be fine with that.

It would not upset me at all.

But

we'll see.

We'll see how that turns out.

I want it to be good.

I'm excited for it.

I hope it's good.

But,

you know,

I don't want a lot of side quest stuff from EA or Ubisoft.

It's always, it's always the

lowest hanging fruit version of side content.

And I'm like, I can't do this.

Guys, I can't do this anymore.

Yeah.

I don't know how we got here, but that's okay.

Yeah.

You know what?

Who cares?

Hey, have you, have you?

Speaking of spicy,

I'm going to get so much flack for this and I just don't care.

Okay.

While I was away,

you know, sometimes you're tired and you just want to put on TV, but there's just nothing to watch.

So I watched from start to finish, or not finish, but at least the current season of Rings of Power.

Okay.

And everyone was like, that show sucks, dude.

That show sucks.

It is not great.

Admittedly, it's not great.

But I enjoyed watching it for what it was.

And what it was.

And more importantly,

like,

I don't know, like Lord of the Rings fan fiction.

Okay.

And honestly, once I turned that off, I was like, boop.

And I just enjoyed it because I was getting to see some like, oh, that's cute.

That's fun.

Honestly, I kind of like

Sauron.

I think as a character, at least in season one, it's kind of all over the place.

But season two, like, watching just one character mess with all the characters that are in this world and him being, like, cooler than everyone else, I was like,

all right.

And Kellobrimborg is a character, the actor was really good.

And I was like,

all right, yeah.

I don't know.

I kind of dug some of it.

Again, I'm not going to say I would recommend this show to anyone, but if you were bored like me, I had fun with it.

It's not like you're watching Lord of the Rings again.

It's not the case at all.

It is not

like going to change your life.

But if you're just like, oh, this is fan fiction-y,

I kind of dig it.

I was like, yeah, I'll watch season three.

I'm fine with this.

It isn't, you know, it's not.

I don't know if it's one of those things you seek out.

Like, the great example is at the same time I was watching that, I started watching The Penguin on HBO.

I heard that's great.

That show is amazing.

It really is more of like

a mat.

I don't want to say it feels the same as The Joker because the new Joker movie sucks, but

it has the same vibe where it's like, it's Batman, but there's no Batman.

It feels more like a mob show.

Like, but it just exists in Gotham.

And Batman exists and is around, but who knows what Batman's up to when this is going down?

Plus, it's like low-level criminal stuff.

But oh my God, it is so well done.

It's every episode, it's like the most tension-filled Sopranos thing that ever existed.

Watching the penguin just be amazing on screen, like every actor is killing it.

It is so well done compared to

Race of Power, which is like, again, it's fun.

It's fan fiction.

But it's fan fiction.

Yeah.

It's like a fun romp.

It's like watching,

it has the same qualities of like watching a high-quality HBO drama and then turning on the CW and watching like any CW show.

They're fun.

They're not great, but they're fun.

And I enjoyed watching Rings of Power because like, again, I didn't go in expecting to be like, wow, this is going to be my new Lord of the Rings replacement.

It's been 20 years and, you know, it's.

Boy, this is.

I think Rings of Power is better than some of the the Hobbit movies.

Damn.

That's where I'm at.

Like, it's not Lord of the Rings, but it's definitely better than some of those Hobbit movies for sure.

And

man, I actually really enjoy the Hobbit movies.

I don't know why.

The first one I actually really liked.

I thought the first one was great.

The next two, not a fan of.

Did not like them.

Just, I don't know what it was, but like.

wasn't terrific for me.

Like, did not enjoy those last two.

The first one.

It it shouldn't have been three movies

I mean you're totally right, but the first one I enjoyed tremendously I thought it was like yeah, all right, this is fun This is I know a lot of people were pissed because it was just like two and a half hours of burps, but you know, I was like, yeah, I like dwarves.

I like this whole vibe.

I like the music.

I like the casts.

I like all this.

But yeah, it sort of fell off.

And this has the vibe of like somewhere in between the first and the last two movies where it's like, it's fun.

There's a lot of interesting stuff but also a lot of it is like um wink and nod so a great example is they will they literally do a scene where it's like galadriel no she like remember how in this is the vibe it's like remember how in lord of the rings gladriil's like you can't give me that ring because if i get the ring i'll become like a super powerful queen and rule with fear but like light right

They like do a callback to that at the end of season one where it's like, oh, Galadriel, if you join with Sauron, oh boy, that's good.

And then it's like, remember that scene from the movie?

Remember that?

Like, it's like that vibe.

Right.

Or, um, like, it's like that stuff, but it's fun.

And there's like a moment in this season where they're like, remember that sword?

That, uh, remember the sword at the end of Lord of the Rings, uh, Return of the King, where uh, Ergon had it and he like lifted it and like held it a certain way?

We're gonna do the exact same, like, exact same, like, shiny.

I was like, okay, it's like that kind of thing, but it feels, it's like fun.

And again,

as

like the first season was kind of whatever.

But the second season is literally just every episode Sauron is like messing with people.

And it's fun to watch him be like, you know what it's like?

The Sauron and Kellobrimborg stuff, having played Shadows of Mordor and stuff, those kind of things.

First off, no sexy Shilob in this.

I'm so sorry, everyone.

But I know.

But I mean, if you're going to do sexy she, I just want to point out

They made sexy sheilab and people were like, that's weird, but no one was complaining.

I'm just saying, and that's goofy as hell, and no one complained.

Actually, they probably did, but not in my corners of the internet.

People were like, yeah, sexy spider.

Um, the uh

it's watching the two actors, they're like, it was very good to watch them work, and I was like, I like these scenes.

I would lie if I said I didn't like those scenes.

And it was like watching a, um,

i don't i don't know if like abusive couple is but like very toxic where like sauron every time kella brimber would do something and realize he was wrong for it sauron would be like

why'd you do that bro and it's clear that sauron made him do it and he's like you did this to yourself the reason why you're feeling pain right now is because you did this i was trying to help you it's like fascinating to watch and i was like that's an interesting take on this and i kind of love this and i'm here for this but i thought that was i thought that was pretty interesting and um yeah yeah, at the same time, there's a lot of stuff where I was like, why is this character still around?

What is the point of this plot line?

Why are we doing this?

This is stupid.

But then it'd go back and it'd be like,

I'm evil and I'm trying to do this and this and this.

And it's like, all right, this is kind of sweet.

So.

Yeah, Gisara was a gaslight girl boss.

It's pretty much what was going on.

It was great.

I thought it was amazing.

Watching them forge the rings, I was like, oh, this is fun.

But again, it falls in like pure fan fiction lines.

Like it is you know it's like okay all right like the dwarf stuff some of the dwarf stuff is awesome some of the dwarf stuff you're like what are we what are we doing what is what is this the human stuff across the board i just don't care about the human stuff anytime a human's on screen i'm like yo i don't know what this is or why i should care like y'all suck this is so boring and then it'll be like nah but guessar and i'm like yeah that's how

so that i don't know i don't know if it's because i watched all of it over the course of like

I don't know five days, but like, I don't know.

I was into it.

I was having fun.

With that said, like I was saying before, Penguin is like here comparatively.

It is so much better over, like, quality and everything.

It's just incredible.

Like, it's, you can tell what a focused, like, writing team they have compared to Rings of Power.

But

it's interesting.

Since we're on the topic, would you like a Reading the Hobbit to my six-year-old update?

I would love a Reading the Hobbit to my six-year-old update.

So

we've reached page 50 as of last night.

It's slow going, but we've reached the point where

they stumble onto trolls that try to eat them.

Spoilers for The Hobbit.

And I got a troll.

There are trolls in that book?

Huh?

There are trolls in that book?

There are trolls in that book, yeah.

Basically, they've been traveling for days.

It's rainy.

They can't get a fire started.

All of their foods floated away.

And they see a light off in the distance.

And they argue for a while about whether or not they should check it out.

And then they're like, we should check it out just in case.

It's like nice people with food.

Right.

Right.

And it's trolls.

Anyways.

I thought that maybe this whole troll sequence would be a little spookerino for my child, but no.

she

got

really laser focused on the fact that Gandalf got to ride on a big, beautiful white horse

and everyone else rode on ponies and Bilbo had to ride on a very small pony.

Yep.

An even smaller horse than everyone else.

And she was like, they should have given Bilbo the same pony as everyone else.

And I was like, well, you know,

he's, he needs to be able to get on and get off of it safely, you know, and she was like, but won't it be harder for him to keep up with everybody?

I was like, yeah, probably.

Probably did have trouble keeping up with everybody.

And then Gandalf, of course,

like right as shit starts going down, he just vanishes.

And she was very affronted about the fact that Gandalf just left them high and dry.

And I didn't want to spoil anything, but I really wanted to be like, you should get used to that.

You should get used to this man just being like, anyway, I'll see you guys around.

I admittedly, even though I have a lot of issues with the Hobbit, I'm glad they were like, we're going to show Gandalf doing things rather than him just leaving.

Because it's very frustrating in the book.

I understand from a child's perspective of like, what the hell is he up to?

I'm glad they at least showed him doing things in the movie because I was like, that would have been annoying.

Yeah.

Also,

did you so Clark isn't like a huge Myrtle stan?

Like, they go to save Myrtle from the trolls.

That's the whole...

Myrtle's great.

Myrtle?

Isn't Myrtle the name of the pony?

Bilbo's very small pony?

Oh my gosh, I don't even remember if Myrtle is.

I think it's Myrtle.

I could be wrong.

I don't recall

them

saying any names for the horses so far.

Was that an inclusion that they added in the movie and I'm just gaslighting myself?

I have no idea.

I'm not quite sure.

But currently,

we haven't resolved the troll situation yet.

Bilbo was told because, you know, he's been sort of,

he's pretending that he's a burglar.

And so we got the lore that hobbits can travel through the forest without being heard, even by other animals.

They're so silent.

So they're actually perfect burglars.

And he was like, oh my God, they're trolls.

And the took side of him took over and was like, I should steal something so that when I go back to the dwarves, they'll be like, yo, this guy's got it going on.

And he tried to steal something and immediately fucked it up and they found him.

And then the dwarves showed up because they were like, hey, if something goes wrong, you got to make a bunch of owl noises.

And Bilbo was too embarrassed to admit that he had no idea how to make an owl noise.

So the trolls captured him and discussed whether or not to let him go or to eat him.

But the troll that had him was too full and knew that he wouldn't be able to eat him anyway.

So it was like, we should just let him go because I'm full, dude.

And meanwhile, Bilbo is desperately trying to figure out how to make owl noises, and then dwarves show up.

And the book says that trolls hate dwarves if they're uncooked, which I thought was a very funny sentence.

And that's where we're at so far.

So is Clark feeling the like Tolkien vibe?

Like, was that land?

She's

uncooked.

She's losing the thread occasionally she'll need a reminder of like where are they going what are they doing and i'm like honey they're going to the mountain they have to go to the to the georgia

to defeat smaug

who kicked them out of their mountain and now hoards all of their gold and she's like oh

so

But occasionally she forgets and needs a reminder.

There's only one thing they're doing.

They're just trying to get to a mountain.

Yeah.

They're going to get to the mountain.

But to be fair, Tolkien books, it's about the getting there, right?

Right.

So, even if for her, in comparison to books that we've read before, this

the journey to get there is taking quite a while.

She's like, What are we doing?

What is what's happening?

I'm like, They're traveling, they're on an adventure, honey,

on their little horses.

I wonder what the vibe with

Smaug will be.

Me too.

That'll be interesting.

I'm very excited to get there and get to the Smaug section for sure.

But we also,

we have like, we meet Radagast in this book and the bear, the bear man.

There's all kinds of stuff that happens in this book.

Yep.

It is a whole adventure.

But yeah, that's...

It's interesting that, you know, in all the TV and cinema properties for Lord of the Rings, they very much, or I guess Middle-earth will say, they

condense dramatically because in the books, there's a reason why it takes so much time to do anything because they're off doing, like, yeah, so we tried to walk down the street, but then got caught.

It's straight up just an RPG adventure.

Like, we got caught up doing 18 other things.

And okay, now we'll get back on our adventure.

And it's like, okay.

I mean, like I, like I was saying, most of what we read last night was like, and they got on their ponies and then they started traveling and they traveled for a while and they were in the shire for a bit, but then suddenly they were not in the shire and suddenly there weren't any taverns at all and in fact no shops.

And Bilbo got sad and really wanted his kettle and wanted to be home with his things.

And then it started to rain.

And for not the only time on this adventure, he wished that he was home.

You know, it's just, it's just like, it really is like this is taking a while and you we want you the reader to realize that they are truly just plodding along trying to get to this mountain dude you know so by the time they reach the trolls you're like oh shit

yeah and i think what's funny is in the in the movies they do that like cut to montage of them running on like beautiful New Zealand mountains to an awesome song and then they're there.

And it's like that running probably took them weeks.

Yeah.

When you think about the end of a fellowship and in the beginning of two towers, the whole like, let's go hunt some orcs.

The time between, like, they run to a different kingdom.

Like, they're running just to a whole different, where horse lords live.

Like, they're in a different land now.

That's crazy.

If I recall correctly, I've only read the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring and had trouble getting past like the very beginning.

But if I recall correctly, Frodo just kind of sits on the ring for like a few years before going on his adventure.

Yes.

Which it isn't as quick as the movie.

It is.

Yeah.

In the movies, it's like,

go!

Keep it secret.

It's safe.

And then he shows up again.

He's like, I ain't dropping no eaves, Mr.

Gandarf, right?

Like, that's a whole,

that's a whole other thing.

But he like sits on it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's what.

And that also,

I guess in the movies, the interpretation of Bilbo being very old at the end is that the ring lost its power over him.

But like, in the books, he's old, old because he's old.

Like, years have gone by.

Like, he aged.

And,

yeah, I mean, obviously, it's not something that

matters all that much in the storytelling of it.

But, yeah, I'm sure at the time when Fellowship came out, there was someone who was like,

that isn't accurate.

And it is not correct.

So

it's just

difference in like,

you know, the difference between a book and a movie, but also just, you know, intentions with pacing.

Right.

Right.

Like, do you like, how, how much of like a big thorough adventure do you want this to feel like?

Sure.

I mean, and I see in chat the scouring of the Shire kind of matters, though.

Sure.

But in the storytelling you're doing for a movie, it does not fit in movie storytelling.

Like it just doesn't.

Like you can't just tack on a whole other thing.

Like we did it, everyone.

And now a whole other thing.

Like you just can't, you just, you can't do that.

And so I understand.

And I don't think it matters all that much, truly, to what the movie was trying to show to people.

But

yeah,

nothing's ever going to be perfect when it comes to a movie.

That's why all movies are based on.

They're based on a book by.

They're not, this is an actual book that we just made into like it's impossible you can't do it i mean they're different mediums yeah

right and i think we already had literally lord of the rings uh return of the king has three four endings like you can't just have another another

like ending ending a whole other story two more endings like you just can't do that

like

and And so I think I'm just much more forgiving when it comes to that kind of storytelling, which is probably why I'm over here like, I actually kind of enjoyed season two of Reed's Brower.

That's fine.

Roast away.

I don't care.

Like, you know, you got to enjoy it for what it is because it's not the original thing.

And the same thing with

like House of the Dragon.

It's not the stories.

Like, there's some things to love, and there's some things I'm like, what the hell are they doing?

This is.

Apparently, House of the Dragon's really good.

I haven't.

It is.

Season one is incredible.

Season two has the same vibe as when Lost was like, we don't know what we're doing yet.

Okay.

A great example is Matt Smith,

one of the best actors in the show, killing it.

So well done.

Just playing what may be the best character in all of like the George R.

R.R.

Martin verse.

So good in season one.

Season two, they sideline him and he's stuck in a castle for the entire season.

And you're like,

what are we doing?

What are we doing right now?

It's that kind of thing where it's very clear that like oh, we know what we're doing with him in the future

But because his character arc, there's basically in that story There are two people the two Matt Smith's character and then I don't remember who the other actor is bless his sweet soul.

He's very good as well.

Uh, but he's just the guy with the chin and the eye patch that everyone is like that guy has the face.

Yeah,

and the two of them are both like the brother of the leader.

They're both like up their own butts.

They think they're the best warriors in the world.

And it leads to them clashing and like one of the most epic moments in all of the like Westeros verse, right?

Like that's, it's going to happen.

The thing is, they're clearly like, well, the minute that happens,

like, that's, we are towards the end of this story.

So in order to keep it going as long as possible, we need to make sure they do not fight.

So this entire season is the two of them being like really close to fighting, but not not going to fight.

It sounds exactly like when there are characters that have like sexual tension and the writers are like, we can't let them kiss.

We can't let them actually get together because then it ruins it.

Yes.

Yeah.

It has that like the, the, so the entirety of season two is like, to war.

We've tried to be friends.

We can't do it anymore to war.

And then nothing happens.

The last episode is soldiers marching to war.

And I was like, are you kidding me?

We're not even going to see the war this season.

And I don't know if it's money issues or, you know, like, there's always behind the scenes things.

You and I have been parts of many shows.

We've done things.

Budgets change, timing changes.

There's all sorts of reasons why things can change.

But it's just frustrating when everyone's like, it's time to fight.

Oh, let's not fight.

No, we're going to fight.

No, but should we fight?

Okay, we're definitely fighting.

Next season.

And you're like, uh,

it's just not, it doesn't feel good to watch.

And so

we'll see what happens.

The season two felt like a setup season more than an actual

100%.

And there was a lot of, like, there's a lot of things that were unnecessary.

There's a lot of scenes that like, it sucks that the two main women characters were like, in season one, there's so much fun.

In season two, there's, I guess everyone just became kind of boring.

And they, like, the.

Reniera, the main, one of the main characters, like every scene she's in, I'm like, just do something.

Just do any, like, stop being indecisive.

Just do anything.

And it's frustrating that that happens.

But then they add things that I'm like, well, that's weird they added that, but I kind of like it.

They added a whole storyline for Matt Smith's character where like, you know, the trees, the, the, the red trees with like the drooping eyes and the stuff, right?

That are connected to like the, the, the green folk and the people, the forest children.

They gave him like a whole plot line where he's like seeing visions and stuff.

And then like in one scene, there's like a Minotaur man next to the tree and he's like, what the hell is that?

And they're like, don't worry about that.

And I'm like, what are they doing with this character?

Here's the thing.

I kind of like that.

I kind of think that's cool.

I like when they get weird and trippy.

But it's what, yeah, it's one of those things where another great example of this whole like, oh, we're just stalling is I became very into Dragon Prince.

The first four seasons of that were like.

Like season after season, I was like, it keeps getting better and better and better.

Yeah.

And then they got the beginning of Dragon Prince.

They got a, I guess they they got a full series where they were like, hey,

this is how many seasons we're going to give you.

Tell the story.

And once they had a full, we know how big this is going to get, the last two seasons have just been all set up for something to happen.

Like the seasons just end and there is no cliffhanger.

There is no like big moment.

They just end and it's like, see you next season because we know we have these seasons.

And it kind of like, I'm like,

should I just wait and watch this all at once?

Because clearly it's, you know, it's that kind of vibe where I'm like,

I just want, I want, I want to be invested in what's going to happen next, but you clearly know what you're doing.

So I bet if you watched it all at once, it would be awesome.

But to wait a year between each season and nothing,

nothing happened.

You know, the last season happens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The last season, not much actually happened, except the, the, finally, the villain who's been behind the whole thing finally,

finally is like, oh, hey, what's up?

And you're like, okay,

probably next season is going to be amazing, but But I just said it's another season where nothing happened.

It's like, oh,

yeah.

Like, if you're given that many seasons,

use them, right?

Like,

use them to develop something.

I watched a, I love like deep dive videos about shows that have had a lot of seasons that go into like

how the longer that it goes, and this happens with so many shows, they stop bothering to like develop characters.

They aren't sure what to do with a bunch of people.

So they just don't use them for anything.

And like, at the start, there's such a clear vision of what needs to be done and how the characters are supposed to grow.

And then as it keeps going on, you'll be like,

wait, this character got reset because apparently now they're boring because they learned their lesson.

This character I saw for like 15 minutes in the entire season.

Like, you know,

it's just sad because if you got really invested here, then by the time you get here, you're just frustrated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

it's sad because I think

a lot of shows start with the idea of this is what our show is.

And then if it becomes a big enough success,

That second season and the stuff after that, they're like, oh, we can just keep going.

So whatever our focus was, well, we know where where we need to get to.

So, let's, instead of a straight path, let's wind to get there.

And in that winding, you get kind of lost in the weeds sometimes and you create a side character.

And now you have all this other stuff you have to focus on and think about when you should have just

to the end.

And that's why shows that are

hyper-focused, very much like this is

what our story is, turn out to be so good, even if they're, you know,

three seasons long.

I see in chat Walking Dead, perfect example of we meandered way off the path.

Like,

the first couple seasons were awesome, and then it was, I like, literally could not watch that show because I don't know who this person is.

I don't care about this.

Walking Dead is such an incredible fall from Grace show.

Like,

it was huge.

Like, everybody that we knew was doing watch parties for it.

Like, it was massive.

Yep.

And then at a certain point, everyone was like, all right, I'm done.

You know?

Yeah.

I, uh,

this is totally true.

And it's so sad.

I remember during season eight of Game of Thrones, you know, we used to have watch parties and stuff.

And I remember one of our friends' girlfriends

was, after an episode, just like started crying at how bad it was.

She was like, it's one of the worst things I've ever seen.

And I love this show.

And it's breaking my heart how terrible it is.

And I was like,

yeah, that does suck.

It does suck when that happens.

Yeah.

And then you hear about shows like Stranger Things was supposed to be a show where like each season, if they were greenlit to keep going,

that each season would be its own story, right?

Set in like different decades.

They would explore like, you know, like

different sort of like Twilight Zone almost-esque like stories that didn't didn't need to like be overexplained and resolved and all these things and now

it's now it's what it is you know yep what's what's weird about it is you can see a mild attempt I think during season two where they introduce a whole other cast of characters and people are like that's the worst episode they've ever made terrible i never want to see those characters again i know

it's even more frustrating they created a whole other group of like powered kids, and then we never saw them again.

Like, why

apparently that was supposed to be for a spin-off?

Not surprising.

Yeah, no, and it's that sucks.

That sucks that that, like, I mean,

that's what they did with Walking Dead, right?

Is they did all of this stuff in the last couple of seasons that were supposed to be like, and we'll see that character in our new show about so-and-so, you know, like they were supposed to turn it into like.

Gucci returned to his home planet at the end.

Like, yeah, it sucks.

It happens frequently.

And again, it's because that idea of we were given this thing and not often do shows nail it.

Like the amount of shows that get one season and you never hear from them again is astronomical.

It's most shows.

And so to

have success, it does change the equation of what you've created.

Suddenly, you're now like, okay,

I guess, yeah, no, we can come up with four seasons.

Yeah.

And then you just, you can imagine the writers just, okay, guys, what are we going to do?

Right.

I think one of my favorite versions of that as well is,

hey, this show's doing really well.

How many seasons did you plan for this thing to be?

And they say, this many.

And they go, okay, great.

Do it.

Right.

And they do it.

And it all like wraps up nicely and it's all obviously planned out and it has a good ending and then they go i mean it's still really popular though you should just keep going and i go wait but

but we wrapped it all up this is a shout out to supernatural by the way yep

yep i mean lost i think is the perfect the perfect example of uh popularity ruining a show like it was very clearly designed to be three seasons in the end, I think.

Something like originally they only had the one season outline and they were like, we can do it in three.

and then they made it six because they were just like we'll filler it

and it's like no you added so much a whole like bunch of new characters it's obvious where it went is not where it originally was going to go and it's it's it sucks when it's obvious you're like oh boy okay yeah and as a fan of that show i remember being super into like the mystery there was no mystery y'all that wasn't a mystery it's it was a matrix three again everything's a everything comes back to matrix three it makes me so mad I remember being a kid, sitting in, like, talking with friends about Matrix 2.

And like, how is it possible that Agent Smith is in the real world?

That makes it a Matrix and a Matrix dude.

It makes no sense otherwise.

No, it just made no sense.

They didn't really explain it.

It just made no sense.

And then it was like a Jesus allegory.

And you're like, cool, cool,

cool.

Yeah, it upset me tremendously.

Shout out to the shows that needed a few more seasons.

Never shout out to the shows that had too many.

Yep.

Yep.

What would you say is a like a perfect?

Here's the thing.

I preface this by saying a lot of people say that

Breaking Bad is a perfect show.

I think some of the seasons towards the end, they could have, I feel like they could have just

with that.

A lot of it,

but it was still an amazing show, but I don't think it's perfect.

What would you say is a perfect show from start to finish?

Oh my gosh.

A show that I can't remember that I feel like had a strong start and a strong end.

And I never found myself being like, where are we going with this, guys?

Be the good place.

I think the good place is a fantastic show from start to finish.

A bunch of people in chat are saying, Mr.

Robot.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.

that i think mr robot had some slow moments for sure um what the hell is the name of the guy who wasn't mr robot but the dude who worked at the company who was like his like

i don't know counter his like antagonist that

they like misused him so much yes towards the end i love that character no spoilers but yes i was so frustrated with how some of the characters were used specifically that guy for sure he but at the same time

in that last season they did a full-on one camera one take episode that might have been the most amazing thing i've ever seen on tv like they do like that show is amazing but is it perfect no no no by no means no

i think

like

gravity falls is good avatar last ambient is good but they both have like

some some pacing issues in different parts they come together in the end very well but like the beginning of the last season of avatar for example is like it's kind of a slow

there's there's straight up an episode where they go and like even though it's awesome they go to the fire nation and then it's kind of like meandering in the fire nation until we get to the end you know it happens

yeah i i don't know that i would any show where

the the the beginning of it

was really different from how it ended or like the beginning felt slower.

I was less invested at the beginning.

I don't know.

I guess that's a bad way to put it because of course you're less invested at the beginning.

But like

Avatar of the Last Airbender, I think the first season is weaker than the rest of it.

Same with Gravity Falls.

Same with Gravity Falls.

And I fucking adore Gravity Falls.

I think that show is so good.

And the way that they used the ciphers and the mystery, the way that they did the ARGs for that show, like incredible, right?

Everything surrounding that has been amazing.

But but when I started watching it I was like okay that's all right you know like it took investment time yeah absolutely I mean I think there's plenty of examples of great first seasons that then peter out like I see in and I think Expanse has an amazing first season and it's a good show but I think

I've read the book I haven't watched the show The show's great.

It's just not like, to me, it just peters out the longer it goes on.

And I think that's the case for a lot of shows where it's like, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I'm trying to think of one that I really, that I think nailed it.

If there's one show that I think I want to see more of and was disappointed, it's probably Rome on HBO.

That show was awesome.

Titus was my man.

That show was great.

And it only got two seasons.

And I was like, I wish I would have gotten more of that show.

I wish I would have gotten more.

I felt like it was unfinished, even though it was finished.

I don't know.

Like the second season felt a little rushed.

Same with

Spartacus.

Spartacus was a dope show, and then the lead actor died, and I don't think they knew what to do with it, and they kept it going.

Right.

And then it just kind of like limped to the end of what it was.

But like, the first two seasons, first season and a half, whatever it was, were

so good.

And then it was like, let's keep going.

And it was like, it doesn't have the same vibe.

We're missing, we're missing stuff.

But like,

yeah, there's a lot of.

I don't know.

There's, I don't know that I can think of one that is like a perfect show.

Good place for sure, I think,

is

also

good place is very good, but first season is like a perfect season of television.

Like, that is, from start to finish, that first season of Good Place is like

so good.

Wonderful.

If you can, dear gentle viewers, gentle listeners,

if you can, go into the good place blind.

Don't spoil yourself.

Yeah.

Don't look anything up.

I would say don't even read the summary.

Like, just

watch it.

Because I agree with Jesse.

The first season is so

good.

Yeah.

I remember sitting in my living room as this first season, the last episode, and I was like, no.

What?

I was so happy.

I was like, this is incredible.

I think this must be the perfect season.

I was like, this is just so good.

I was like, brilliant, brilliant.

I was like, I was so just taken aback.

I was like, they did it.

They did it.

I was like, they landed this so well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's great.

Band of Brothers, I think, is very good, but I think towards the end, it kind of peters out a little bit

just because...

Their story kind of ends and wraps up.

And I think some of the wrap-up is kind of like, eh.

But like the easy company episode is like,

there's so many good episodes in that.

Well, the war does end.

True.

I mean, obviously.

But

yeah, like as much as I want to see David Schwimmer get his comeuppance in that, I just don't.

I'm like, sorry, Ross.

I just don't care.

You know, it's like, okay, sure.

Yeah, I don't,

man, I can't think of one that I would say is like the perfect show.

But I guess that goes to say there is no such thing, really.

Yeah, and that's okay.

Yeah, and maybe people should stop judging shows and just enjoy for what it is because there may not be a perfect show.

Maybe that's the point.

I'm realizing that we've hit time, my dude.

All good.

So guess what, chat?

Your homework is the good place season one.

Watch it blind.

It's very good.

We mean this with the most sincerity.

Going blind.

Don't talk to anyone about it.

Just watch the first season and enjoy yourself.

You'll laugh the entire time, and then you'll be like, wow.

Wow.

Oh, wait.

We have news, though, Dodgers.

But we don't have time for newses, though.

I can talk really quick.

Is this like I'm going to go?

What?

Go fast.

Okay, in the news that you can use, Riot is hinting that Valorant teams maybe, kind of, sorta, maybe are working on an Unreal Engine 5 something to create new experiences and expand the Valorant universe.

What that means, who knows?

Maybe they're doing something akin to what they try to do with League, but with Valorant, I guess.

I don't know a damn thing about Valorant,

but I wish Overwatch had thought about doing something like that.

Cool.

All right.

Scalpers continue to ruin everything.

Obviously, the new 30th anniversary PS5 was sold out quickly and end up on ebay and all sorts of different things and um they were taken down because everyone knew that was going to happen in fact it's gotten so bad that in japan the 30th anniversary playstation 5 is being restricted on who can buy it so

congrats to japan good work japan speaking in japan the nintendo museum in japan uh has been having some issues where they confirmed this past tuesday they're limiting the sale of items from the gift shop.

Everything from large Nintendo controller cushions to console keychains to mugs and famous characters and all these different.

Basically, they're being scalped because scalpers ruin everything and I hate them.

Speaking of Nintendo, hey, apparently Palworld and

their peers don't give a damn about the legal threats Nintendo is throwing their way because immediately after Nintendo went after them, they showed up in the state of play.

And then now Pulp G's owners, craftin are signing with them to release it on mobile games so apparently no one cares about nintendo and uh amazing as we discussed before earlier uh mezzo uh metaphor rezo refantasio metaphor refantasio and silent hill 2 are coming uh the updated silent hill 2 and we got some early reviews from famitsu apparently

Metaphor is getting nines and tens across the board, and Silent Hill got all nines and eight.

And the way they kind of do it over there is they do it out of 40.

So basically, Silent Hill got three nines and an eight, and Metaphor got three nines and a 10.

And that's all that.

They come out on

Metaphor is the 11th, and I think Silent Hill 2 is

the 8th.

I don't remember.

It's one of those days.

Hot top, but that's it.

That's the news.

I did it as fast as I could.

You did it great.

That was lightning round type news.

Boss.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Jessup what's going on with you now that you're back in the United States?

What can people expect from you this week?

Well, uh, filming more Scary Game Squad stuff today with the boys, and then tomorrow,

Jesse, Dodger, Crendor, Baldur's Gate 3, Goblins.

I'm skipping date night to be a goblin.

So,

first off,

thank you.

Second off,

why can't it be why can't the three of us go on date night as goblins in Baldur's Gate 3?

You know what?

I'll hit up Sam and be like, we're going to be goblins, but not you.

Yeah, you're not welcome.

First off, you're not welcome.

We can't make a handsome goblin, okay?

It's just impossible.

It's not, the functionality doesn't exist.

No Gabio.

I can't be Gabio.

Is Gabio a thing you've had in your back pocket?

I'll send you pictures.

I love Gabio.

That's amazing.

That's us tomorrow.

What time?

I don't know.

1 p.m.

PST.

Probably that.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yep.

Fantastic.

Yeah, you know, I'm just doing my thing.

I'm going to be a goblin with these Yahoos.

And

then just playing a bunch of games, I hope.

Not getting sick, not getting flooded in, fingies crossed.

You know, all that, all that and more.

So

that's it for us.

Thanks so much for watching Geekenders, everybody.

Hey, if you want to watch this later, or if you want to watch previous episodes, you can find them on youtube.com slash jessecox.

And also, we're on all of the podcasty things.

So if you want to just listen to our gorgeous voices,

you can do that wherever you listen to podcasts.

200,000 views.

Dodger tattoos.

Think about it.

You could make it happen.

You could make it happen.

The offer's perpetually on the table.

You could put a weird mushroom on Jesse.

I could have a weird mushroom on my body.

So let's use our eyeballs for good or evil.

Yep.

You can do it.

Whatever you want to look at.

Take care of yourselves, guys.

Have a fantastic weekend.

And we will see you next Friday.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it be kids.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekenders are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it be kid.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid.

I know that you all beat.

So, take a second, grab a drink, and vibe while we catch you up in just a matter of time.

On gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now, follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dinja.

So, give them a follow.

Number one, Geek Podcast, without a doubt.

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