41: The Geekenders: Astro Bot and MMOs with The Grinding Gear Podcast!

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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.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

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

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast without a doubt.

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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

Oh, hello, everyone.

Welcome to Geekenders.

Today is a very special day because Dodger's letting me start this one, which you might say, Jesse, what?

Why?

Well,

two things.

Two things are happening today.

This is one of those shows where we're listening to you, the viewers, finally.

And I know you might say, shouldn't that be every show?

Wrong.

You're wrong.

But

many of you have messaged us and said, hey, when are you going to bring the Grinding Gears guys on?

And here's the best part.

Literally yesterday, a guy asked while I was on stream, and I was like, tomorrow at 8 a.m.

So you're like, guess what, buddy?

Gabs?

Yeah, I hope you're having a good time, dude.

But joining us today, of course are garrett and kyle from grinding gears uh one of my favorite podcast slash streaming duos honestly probably better prepared than dodger and i but i am only saying that to kiss their butt not because i believe it but uh

kiss away yeah thank you for being on the show thanks for inviting us yeah thanks for having us to the beer

It's, it's, we also have been much requested by our audience to go on your show, to which we always reply, that's not how it works.

No, that's not how that works at all.

It really is, actually.

Turns out that is exactly how it works.

Yeah, but also today,

we have gotten many requests that people are like, why don't you just make a segment that is news-based for the gaming world or just the nerdy world in general?

And to you, I say,

Fine, we'll do it.

Yeah, okay.

At the end of the show, we'll do a whole thing.

Instead of just randomly throwing stuff in, we're going like actually be professional

and i don't know if i'm prepared and frankly i don't know if you are either so i just i was concerned that it would become a slippery slope of structure you know yeah i didn't want a lot of structure either i felt like we were freeballing and like the wind was blowing through us and we were just like oh and i didn't want

You to feel like we had you we were putting y'all in boxes, but apparently the box is where you wanted us to put you and us us you want

like i'm in a box right now it's literally in a box my life is in a box behold my box no yeah

so we'll do the whole thing but more importantly

as we welcome the two of you to the show i'm just going to open this up right now because i feel like we need to get this out of the way how do you feel about beefs There's two of you, there's two of us.

What's your thought on beefs?

Like beefing with other streamers?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you open to it?

Oh, it's not.

I've been dying for a beef because I think that's how you take yourself to the next level of internet fans.

That's what I've been doing.

That's what we've been talking about.

Yeah, we've, we've actually talked about, we've, it's not like we've done a video, but like internet beefs comes up, has come up multiple times over the course of us streaming together.

And we've, on more than one occasion, have talked about which one of our streamer friends would be the most fun to beef with.

And you frequently come up, Jesse, and so does Joe Cat because we feel like if you get a beef with jokat you have a chance of getting an animated response

oh that's so true and that's good yeah i like that yeah

it can happen yeah i i've come to appreciate beefs and i want more beefs and dodger a little hesitant to the beef dodger's like but what if they're what if they're better than us No one's better than us.

That's why we have beefs.

You got to come with the attitude.

You got to come in like, no one's the trash.

Trash.

We invited two of you on to call you trash.

See, my argument.

My argument was that if you go in too hot and the other,

the people you're trying to beef with have no idea who you are, then

it's rough.

It's a rough dynamic to get out of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

You got to like invite them on a podcast and inform them of the building beef situation first.

Right.

Gotcha.

So welcome to the beef.

Thank you guys for joining us.

Okay, excellent.

So excited.

We're changing the name to Beefenders.

Yes.

And this is where it begins.

Beefenders sucks because it sounds like a British podcast where they just talk about like very British topics.

It's like Bee Theaters adjacent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Bee Theaters adjacent, but it's just very British.

All right, enough stupidity,

which I say knowing that will be the rest of the show.

Guys, if you could could best summarize, I mean, I could explain how I discovered the two of you.

I am a Final Fantasy 14 nerd, and you two were swinging Final Fantasy 14 on the old, actually, I don't know if you were streaming at the time, but you were making videos on YouTube, and I watched and was like, oh.

Some intelligent gents with thoughts.

Interesting.

I guess I'll watch.

And so I did.

And then I watched streams.

And then I felt awkward because I would show up to every stream and just be like

look at him play this game and I was like oh no have I become a creep but then I embrace the creepery

and uh I'm feeling pretty good about it but

in your own words how did we get to this point where like your entire lives when you were children how did we get from that point to here

And you being on the show today?

Oh, that's easy.

Getting bullied for liking video games and then thinking it'd be real funny if I paid for my house by playing video games.

That was really just a

comedy.

Just a complete lack of giving up and wanting to own my school bullies.

That's really the short of it.

Imagine what you said was beautiful, Jesse.

Like, there's nothing more pure than the distant friendship where you see somebody and go, I want to be friends with that person and you work towards that goal.

I love it.

I've done that with a lot of artists.

I love stalking.

Yeah, I love to stalk artists on social media and be like, wouldn't it be so crazy if we were friends?

And then if I manage to have an interaction with them, I'm like, I'm doing it.

I'm doing it.

Friendship is forged in these moments.

No.

Oh, yeah.

But you didn't show up with WoW.

You started elsewhere and slowly migrated.

And you've been doing this for a while.

I guess that's what I'm getting at.

What is the origin story of the grinding gears?

My motivation started with WoW, though.

I so badly wanted to be a WoW content creator but i was i was looking in on it and being like this is so saturated this would be such a dumb idea to try and and step into this um but i was really interested in content creation and this is like we're i'm old enough that we're talking pre-streaming days streaming was not a thing um i was

in college uh in art class i was i went to an art school so every day for hours on end i was just like sitting there drawing naked people and i wanted something in my ears and i discovered podcasts like real like actually downloading them to an iPod because we didn't have internet streaming capable devices yet so I'd I'd I'd load up my my iPod with World of Warcraft podcasts and I'd sit there and listen to wow

stuff when I couldn't be playing wow because I had to be drawing naked people um that sounds terrible yeah it's a hard life dude yeah yeah it was like the first year it was like nothing but old dudes so I wasn't really loving it you know it wasn't it wasn't great I remember we I would have uh made those guys look amazing I know i know in art you want to like capture the realism whatever but i would have done the best abstract of like ripped old dudes they would have been like do you have fetish by the time i was done i would have just been doing it enhanced reality yeah those old guys would have been like could i have that could i have a copy of that and be like take it my man

frame it

Yeah, so that happened.

And then

Kyle and me are the same age, did not go to the same school or even know each other, but he lived with like a childhood friend of mine in college which is how we got to know like kind of got connected he fell asleep on my floor at a house party one time

yeah yeah and then we graduated in 09 which as we all know was the best time to graduate and try and find employment um you know america was just we were killing it doing really well yeah by killing it i mean the economy

murdered the economy it was dead uh and suddenly i had you know eighty thousand dollars of like student debt and i was making eight dollars an hour working on pico Boulevard because I thought moving to the most expensive state in the union was a smart idea.

So, yeah, yeah.

And I was bored and I was still talking to this lovely gentleman because we like played a couple things out together, I think.

And we were also part of a Skype think tank for out-of-work creatives, just trying to come up with anything that we could do that would be fun and maybe make it buck.

And one day we showed back up to that Skype group and we were the only two people left.

No one else could show showed up.

But then Garrett got a StarCraft beta key.

Yes.

The manager at the pet store that I worked at on Pico Boulevard, shout out to Pet Depot in Los Angeles,

was,

I don't know if they're, anyway, I think they were dating somebody who worked at Activision.

And she came in one day and was like, Garrett, you like Blizzard games.

You want a StarCraft 2 beta key?

I was like, hell yeah, I do.

That sounds great.

And

I got one.

And then it gave me an invite of friend code and i call up this chucklehead because we've been trying to find something creative to do together and i was like hey man i know you love starcraft i got a starcraft 2 beta key but it comes with a catch i will send it to you but we got to start a starcraft 2 podcast and that's very wholesome

yeah yeah and so we uh we started like uh i think the the the the 10th best starcraft podcast uh

got absolutely destroyed by anything uh it me jp did uh or Day9 did or Tasteless did

or anybody with tactics.

It was a hard market around that time.

Yeah.

Yeah, we got absolutely destroyed, but we learned a lot.

And I think in three months, we went from like the downloads on our first episode was me, Kyle, and my mom.

We had three downloads.

And by the time it came out of beta, we were doing 2,000 downloads a week, and we thought that was really cool.

That is really cool.

Yeah.

And then, I don't know, we've started and restarted and left games and joined new games many many times since And I ended up going on to do a bunch of different World of Warcraft content with with various friends around the internet space and then I got really burnt out on World of Warcraft and this guy We were doing here's a storm con together Kyle was like we should you should try Final Fantasy 14 and I was like I don't know man.

The game looks kind of lame

I'm not really moved to play a game just because it looks kind of anime.

I like anime, but it's not like a style and video game that makes me want to pick the game up.

Yeah.

You know, I'm very blizzard brained like that.

I like, I like my games to look like they could be airbrushed on the side of a van.

That's, that's the art style I, I tend to gravitate toward.

And

so we, and we also wanted to try something that was more YouTube focused.

So we started making videos about like one gaming news topic a week.

We changed the name twice while doing it.

At one point, it was called Nexus Gaming News because we had a show called Into the Nexus and wanted to keep Nexus around.

It didn't matter.

It didn't last that long.

And one week we did a video on the trend of everyone leaving World of Warcraft to go play Final Fantasy 14.

And I famously, in the video, said, I am sure shit, never going to play this game.

And it is now on the internet, living forever.

And like a month later, Kyle finally got through to me.

I was like, all right, I'll give it another shot.

Cause I had tried it like a year earlier.

And I was like, it's, it's fine enough to have targeted before.

It's not set my world on fire.

But I was looking for a chill game, at least on the narrative aspect at that point.

So it got its hooks in me.

And I was like, okay, all right, all right.

I'm kind of getting into this.

And we started making videos and we started doing well.

And people were like, you should stream this together.

And we're like, you can't do that.

That's against the law.

You can't stream a game with two people.

And here we are.

We stream

four days a week together, co-op.

Two of those days every week is Final Fantasy 14.

We do other MMOs on Wednesdays and we podcast on Monday.

And yeah, that's how we got to where we're at.

Kyle, did I miss anything?

No, that was a good summary, man.

I was there.

I wasn't

there.

But I was sent to that time.

You know, I experienced it all again.

If it makes y'all feel any better,

so many interactions between Jesse and I was me going, still playing Final Fantasy 14, it's really fun.

Jesse and Jesse being like, I've tried it, dude.

It's not for me, it's boring, it's not grabbing me whatsoever.

And this was like years of occasionally being like, You should really try Final Fantasy, dude.

14 is popping off, the story's really good.

He was like, It's not for me, dude, I'm not gonna to enjoy it.

And I don't remember at what point

the switch flipped,

but Jesse knows so much more about 14 than I do now.

He's just come so hard.

That sounds good because we've had Jesse on our show a bunch of times.

And

I don't think we've ever talked about your hesitation to play the game, Jesse, because to me, like from talking to you over on our corner of the internet, I've already always gotten the vibe that you're like a massive Final Fantasy fan and you've played all of the other games.

And so I just assumed 14 was like a cornucopia for you because it just,

it's its own good story, but there's also tons of tie-ins and references to every other Final Fantasy.

It's a weird vibe because Final Fantasy for the majority of my existence has been before I did all of this.

I don't remember what year it actually came out, but Final Fantasy 13 came out when kind of this whole

thing started, the internet streaming, YouTubing as a whole started.

So that was sort of the baseline for this version of me.

But before that, I played every single one, right?

Like all the,

even Final Fantasy XI, I played.

And then I moved on to WoW.

So I was playing Final Fantasy XI before WoW was my first YouTube content.

So I was, Final Fantasy 11 and 12 were like before.

YouTube was a thing for me.

And so 13 hit.

I do not like 13.

And then they decided to triple down on it.

They were like, let's make a 13.2 and a 13.3.

And I was like, I hate you.

Why?

And that just broke me.

And so I was never really doing Final Fantasy content early on.

It wasn't a thing.

Like, I would talk about Final Fantasy VI.

I was like, I love Final Fantasy VI.

It's a great game.

But I would never do Final Fantasy content.

And then Final Fantasy XIV came out and I played it on launch and was like, this game sucks.

all the balls.

When you say on launch, you mean 1.0?

Oh, yeah.

And then I played it for 2.0 as well and was like, nah, this is boring.

I played it and got to level 40.

And I know you guys have been through that.

Even Dodger, everyone who's played it, has played that weird,

like you start to get to Curtis, and it's kind of like, oh,

I'm just walking around.

It's a slog.

And so

I just stopped.

I stopped level 40 and

10 years later, I don't know how many, 2020 rolled around.

It took a literal pandemic and for WoW to disappoint me so much that I stopped playing that and was like,

I mean, I guess I could give it a try.

I have a level 40 character.

So I just loaded up my level 40 character and kept going.

And

somehow, here we are.

Look, I don't know how to explain the magic.

I don't know what happened, but here we are.

Honestly, to be real, I think it's because

I started playing again the week 5.3 dropped, I think.

And with that patch they

put in flying in the old a Realm Reborn zones

and now that I had flying I could zip around and finish a Realm Reborn very quickly and it changed how I felt about it rather than like oh I gotta get there this is some bullshit right I actually could do things quickly and it caught me up faster and suddenly I was like oh yeah no this actually is kind of cool and um yeah I honestly if they didn't have that, it would probably be a different story.

Because that's what made me feel like I was progressing faster than I initially was.

Also, again, it was the height of COVID.

So I was like, I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not doing anything.

The world's falling apart.

My video game had been played for 15 years.

Did a story about this guy.

I don't even know that dude.

Why do I care?

Life is terrible.

Yeah.

And so I just, it was a perfect storm.

And suddenly here we are.

I never thought about doing Realm Reporn without flying, and that does sound like it would physically pain me.

I don't even know what happened online.

Did you guys, did you guys struggle with the beginning of the game at all?

Or

did you sort of like fall into it easily?

Yeah.

I mean, I fell asleep in Sestasha and woke up to three commendations.

So, like, the community was there, the vibe was there.

And it was just.

He tried.

Yeah.

And you know,

he's just a little still in in the back and no big deal.

We were fine.

But like, that was just kind of like this book.

I had like this book comfort with it.

And it didn't really matter how far I got into it.

I love just opening like

Warhammer Wikipedia at night and just being like, oh, that's cozy.

He did what now with the plague?

Oh, my God.

That's amazing.

And just passes me out.

So it was just, it was just cozy.

It was just comfortable.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm not an MMO person, really.

So I didn't go into 14 with like a base of expectations necessarily.

I had played vanilla wow and then dropped it because I wasn't going to any of my classes.

I was like, I got to do something about this.

And 14 is like the first MMO that I've like actually picked up since then.

So I think even though

even though I started playing before there was flying and everything, because it was before the first expansion dropped, I didn't have like, I don't remember feeling like, man, this is going so slow.

I was just like, oh, this is really fun.

But I, I honestly think part of that is because I, there wasn't a pacing comparison for me with another MMO really in recent memory, you know?

It's, it's also like free trial business.

So like your investments and so low, like, why not just pick it up here and there?

And eventually you kind of crest that hill.

and go, well, yeah,

I guess I care about these people.

But I also like didn't, I didn't stream any of my early stuff, which was wonderful.

Like the UDA theme is mine.

I hear it and I go, oh, that, that's all me.

No one told me to like that.

It's just,

let me wander around and work on my jewelry, right?

That's Limpsa for me.

Yeah.

And I have like, because we're, we're slowly working our way through Dawn Trail because we make like videos kind of as we go.

And we don't want to make a video and then continue playing because there's a group of folks in our community that love when we try and predict what happens next.

And we don't want to inform those thoughts.

And so I haven't been to Limsa in like a month and we went to Limsa this past week to do the rising event and game.

And I was just like, oh my God, I am nostalgic for this music for this.

Exactly what you said, Kyle.

I'm like, no one told me to like this music.

I like it on my own accord.

Yeah.

That's how I feel about the Gradania theme because it just sounds like the Hobbit theme after a while.

And I'm like, yeah.

Hobbits are cool.

And I know it has no bearing on the game.

I'm just like, yeah,

yeah, I do remember this sounding like something that I liked liked before.

I like them establishing that the rising event, or at least implying that the rising event is now going to take place in different cities each time.

Because

it's always been an old daw before now, hasn't it?

They got to get away from that.

That's the stage in Gridania.

That's like everything.

Everything goes down to the D.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah,

I incite the Gridania lovers all the time because I'm just like, that's my least favorite city in that place.

I'm like,

this forest needs some verticality.

it's flatter than Florida?

What are we doing?

It's not an exciting town.

No, not even remotely.

It's uh, although a lot of people like it because that's where a lot of the uh like uh

what's the nice

dirtier things go down there, dude.

There's some dirt going down in there.

You know, you know, my perverts know.

So

I do think it's the simplest town to start in.

It's like the clearest town of like where things are, I think.

Oh, yeah.

I agree.

Yeah.

Cause the

loading between going up and down and Limsa was really confusing for me the first time I was there.

And then like the hub and spoke design of old DAW.

Again, because there's loading walls, it actually kind of screws up their brain more.

You would think a circular theme city would be kind of easy to wrap your brain around because that's really common in MMOs.

Yeah, the number of times that I'm standing on top of a marker and I'm like, all right, is it above me?

Is it below me?

Can I jump down?

No, there's an invisible wall.

wall it's fine i'll find it it's okay

there's um it's weird because they made a circle town but it's not a circle it's it's like one fourth of a circle and then half of an inner circle and then an upper level of that circle it's an incredibly weird way to do it but that's what they did and so you know it's i guess they tried to make it easier but a circle at least you could go

this is like no no no you hit a wall and then you got to to go back and you could go in and go

but then like no you got to go this it's insane ulta's an insane town terrible start someone stole one piece of my pizza that's ulta that's yes that's how they design people said these are fun to design you know if you've ever dungeon mastered oh it's so easy and then you play something like frostpunk and you're like this is bullshit

Do you guys play a lot of D and D?

Are you TTRPGers?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I enjoy that stuff.

I think it's why I really connected with the Final Fantasy kind of writing team and what they're up to because they're hyper-aware of their characters.

Like you can practically picture Thancred on a boat out at sea and they're like, no, no, we can't.

We can't use him.

He's busy right now.

He's walking somewhere.

Alphano, however.

He's been reading a book over here for a while.

You can still find him over there.

And they just lay it out in a way that just makes sense.

And then you get into like the tropey campiness of like the Sailor Moon vibes, and you can apply all your sort of media knowledge straight to it to kind of predict.

You're constantly being rewarded for this prediction loop you get in with the creators.

Let me let me ask real quick then.

Uh, first off, before I ask this, Dodger, yes, where are you currently at in Dawn Trail?

Same spot

where what spot is that

Rhinder for me?

We're doing

the second.

I'm trying not to say trial again because that got too confusing.

We're trying to make

a second challenge for WooClement.

Oh, so you're still really early.

Yeah, I play it really slowly with my cousin.

She and I have played every expansion together, so I don't play it without her.

And unfortunately, I mean, that sounds shitty.

Both of us have kids.

I was about to say, unfortunately, we both have kids.

They're fortunate.

They're beautiful.

We love them very much, but they do make it seven.

I have three kids.

I am aware of like the tiptoeing you do in our generation to like communicate.

Ah, you know, I can't.

I have kids now.

And people are like, oh, so they're a burden.

You're like, no,

no, no.

No,

they do get in the way of me behaving.

like I would with no child.

Absolutely.

Yes, 100%.

Space Marine 2 can't be on the TV when they're in the room.

It's hard sometimes.

Yeah, no,

you just flip the script.

You say, unfortunately, I am a present parent.

That's what you say.

Unfortunately.

Oh, I like that.

Well, yeah, that's a little cute.

That's how you're right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but listen,

I am childless

and I also live in Florida, which means I go to Disney a lot.

And as a childless person at Disney, you are aware of everyone with children.

And there's a lot of not present parents, let me tell you.

So I think our beef has layers.

You you know, we can really put Garrett versus Jesse and

Dodger here.

And like, we'll really kind of really make sure this thing has some depth.

Yeah, I like it.

I'm going to start parent beef and then non-parent beef.

Is that what we're doing?

Right.

Oh, well, that's just one layer.

That's just one layer.

Yeah, and then we can switch it up.

Like, people will, that's like season two.

Like, oh, my God, Garrett, you and I joined forces.

Oh, well, that's the great part of that.

The only thing better than a beef is squashing a beef.

Like, that's the beef arc.

Right, right.

You have to do it at the right time, though.

People have to feel like they earned it, you know?

You got to do it.

Yeah, yeah, Mega.

I mean, everyone likes Final Fantasy 14 because it essentially is eventually a giant beef gets squashed.

And that's when everyone's like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Question.

Oh my God.

Have we cracked the code?

Do you think the reason why people have problems with Dawn Trail is because all beefs are squashed instantly?

I mean, it's definitely one of my issues with Dawn Trail.

Do think that

have you cracked it?

Where it's like, we have all these beefs and the beefs last for years and years and years and then they get squashed.

But right now, dude, all beefs are squashed instantly and we're not earning the squash.

We are here for beef, not squash.

This is not a vegetarian video game.

I feel like you've cracked it.

I think we should steal the structure, the patch structure.

We come out with expansions of beef and there's a full story arc.

You know, we complete that section

and then we do about five smaller chapters in there, you know, really build up to whatever that beef number two is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes,

as long as at some point I can hit Dodger with a chair.

Ooh, right?

Like, I can't just get

it.

Are we still talking Dodge now?

You went to that point for sure.

Oh, you thought I meant fake.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

I just wanted to hit Dodger with a chair.

Is that?

I mean, I don't know why we're thinking about wrestling when the best chair hit is in the mummy with Brendan Frazier from across the room.

True.

Can we just recreate that?

As long as we can also recreate that be, as long as we can also recreate the scene where they're on two sides of the river, so I can, so you can just be like, Benny, we can do a whole bit like, oh, God.

It's going to be amazing.

And then somebody bombs flies.

It's perfect.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

I love it.

It all works out.

Dodger can come up and be like, he thanks you for your eyes and your thumb, dog.

And I just be in the background like,

where's the yo?

It's the pocket sand that's mouth closed.

Oh my God.

That's great.

I love that.

I love that.

That's how we do it.

Yeah.

The number of times that Jesse and I devolve a bit into, wouldn't it be cool if we recreated perfectly this scene from this show or movie?

Wouldn't it be amazing if we rewrote all of the lyrics to the Phantom of the Opera just to really drive the bit home?

Listen, cosplay's a thing.

Why can't sceneplay be a thing?

Right?

Like, what is the peak of fandom other than complete recreation?

Like singing songs to your cat.

Same energy.

Did you guys, when that when that means?

I'm not sure I connect those threads, Kyle.

You don't sing songs about your little cat.

I'm going to need, I'm going to.

No, no, I mostly just verbally berate my cat.

The most common thing I say to my cat is, you are an asshole.

Kyle, I'm with you.

Okay.

Okay, good.

We're already switching.

Oh, my God.

The beasts are already squashed.

This is.

Again, you guys need to, Jesse, Garrett, need to find that Megatron Optimus

level where it's like, I'll only work with you for so long.

Did you guys?

When the new

Katy Perry song came out I almost said Kyle Perry you're welcome when the new Katy Perry song came you can be Katy Perry when we recreate the song.

It'll be fine.

What?

What?

I'm so good.

What is the new Katy Perry song when it came out it's like sexy confident

so intelligent.

Right.

And a bunch of people were goofing on it because it's literally just like descriptor words, but it sounds like a song that you would sing to your cat.

So a bunch of people kept like picking up their cats and being like sexy cut.

So anyways, when we eventually developed this bit to the point where we're recreating the Katy Perry music video, Kyle can be Katy Perry and a whole yeah, it's hard.

Why did Katy Perry get so much crap for that?

I mean, that happens all the time in hip-hop and it happens all the time in country music.

It's not crap, though.

It's joy that she made what is equivalent of a cat song, you know?

Timeout.

She made a cat sound.

Timeout.

Yes.

Timeout.

There was a full backstory associated with Dodger's little like, you know, you can Katy Perry.

And all I know about Katy Perry is people were like, Yeah, she worked with like some not good people on this last song.

And I was like, What are you trying to say?

That is

Kyle and Garrett.

And you're like, You can sing it to your cat.

There's a through line that you did not fix.

We're going to fix the song is what's going to happen here

by adding a cat

and removing Katy Perry.

You don't think about it too much, you know?

When you're singing Les Miz at your cat, it's not about Les Miz anymore.

It's about his paws out in the darkness.

And, you know, you're javering him.

Dude, have you seen, seen?

Oh my gosh, have you seen the person who did the like big

combination ballad from Les Miz, but replaced all of the words with the words to hot to go?

My Freyu page is a mess.

Oh my goodness.

That sounds joyous.

I'm going to send it to you guys.

Not now, but I'm going to send it to you guys.

The only hot to go that the world needs is

H-O-T-D-O-G-S.

Hot dogs are the fucking best.

That's what we need.

That's also good.

Yeah.

Hot dogs.

I'm a fan of hot dogs.

I'm into it.

So there's a part in a Realm Reborn where the guys punch in the rocks, and that's where it really came together.

Yes.

Actually, there's a part in a Realm Reborn where a bunch of Lollafells beat up an old man, and he becomes stronger because they beat him up, and that's where it really comes together.

And if you've never played the Monk Quest, you're missing out on life.

What's the name of

the the best quest

no she's not a lolla fell the leader of of the gridania area wait she is a lolla fell is she a lolla no gridania no that's you're thinking about

excuse me no you know kani sauna with the unicorn necklace upside down

yes yes the cow necklace you mean

you see a cow it's got a horn it's got a horn it's an upside-down unicorn upside-down cow it's got the big cow nose

yeah but how do you it has a single horn in the dead center there we go

anyway.

She's a child of the forest, is what you were, is what you were she's a child of the forest.

I should know what what they're called because you exclusively hang out with them for the white mage quests.

But every single time I see her in a scene, I can't stop thinking about how her hair makes no sense, and I have no idea how I would create that hair.

So

I can't stop thinking about how she just like

walks into a scene and it's just like, I'm here to bore everyone.

and now you are all bored she does it's like oh she doesn't have that merlwib energy dude she's no one knows and that's why merlib is the best

yeah

merlib rolls up with a gun and like michael scott just makes every scene more interesting she's great yeah i love her so much better

Really quickly, because I feel like I haven't, and I know Dodger hasn't.

Have you guys played any of the WoW expansion that's come out so far?

Yes.

Yes.

A little bit.

I'm trying to get a collective vibe check on people.

We've almost completed the first zone of the expansion.

I don't think we've announced yet, but we are planning to slowly get all the way through the story.

We want to have that experience.

But yeah,

what Dodger was saying about getting through Final Fantasy, that's our stream.

Like we have to always be together.

So things move at a

parental pace

at times.

Yeah.

But sorry, your your question was just what do we think of it so far?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to like part of me kind of wants to check it out.

Everyone I've talked to has been like, dude, slaps, you gotta play that thing.

It's so good.

And I'm like, is it good?

Or is it just like fine?

Or what's the vibe?

So I'm trying to.

Yeah.

Like my three to four hour review is that I'm really impressed so far.

Narratively, like just talking about the narrative, which was the main reason we wanted to go experience it because previously I never gave a crap about narrative in MMOs.

It was not a thing.

I played World of Warcraft, even though I do like Warcraft lore.

I 90% of my interest in it was I liked raiding with my friends.

I went there to, I liked tanking, I liked grinding dungeons, I liked getting geared up and going and punching Arthas in the face.

That was like my main reason

I played it.

But then Final Fantasy 14 happened, also on the tail end of me actually caring about Wild's lore and being furious at it because I thought Shadowbringers was or not Shadow Lands.

Shadow Lands was just one of the worst narratives I've ever experienced in games.

So I went to 14, was really impressed.

And now

just come, I'm in Prove-It territory because I'm like, if you're going to market your game this much on the narrative of your MMO after I just experienced Shadowbringers and the End Walker, which was like one of the most insane narrative arcs I've ever experienced in a game,

I want to, I don't want the internet to tell me how to feel about it.

I want to make my own damn opinion because I know I'm going to have, there's going to be people in the chat who are like, it sucks.

I can't hold a candle to Final Fantasy 14.

I'm like, that's fine.

I would like to come up with my own opinion.

So yeah, based on like the narrative alone, I'm super impressed because like I do not, you couldn't pay me to feign interest in dwarves.

And the whole first like three hours is dwarf, dwarf, dwarf, dwarf, dwarf.

And I do care.

The voice acting is really good.

And they've got this new stay a while and listen mechanic where if you care to just You know, like we usually play World of Warcraft, head down, go, go, go, go, go, accept, don't read anything, don't pay attention.

But if you do care about additional information, a lot of times like this chat bubble comes up, you can right-click on it and these characters in the game will interact and it's fully voice acted, which really impressed me.

Their in-game cutscenes, like there's still that kind of hierarchy of there's like the pre-render ones will look amazing.

There's the not pre-render ones, which look still pretty good because your character's not in it.

And then there's the pre-rendered or the non-pre-rendered ones that include your character and they don't look that great.

That is still a thing.

But I think they make it up in just the voice acting.

There's so much of it.

It is wild.

And

comparing it to Dawn Trail as we're playing through it, I'm just looking at Dawn.

There's so many times in Dawn Trail.

I'm like, how is this cutscene not voiced?

Like, what are we doing?

Amazing voice cast.

Yes, that has been, and I've never heard an excuse for it that's made any sense to me.

No.

Or why there are other games that are fully voice acted and this game doesn't have as many voiced cut scenes.

Like, please, I don't know if you can see it.

What's even crazier?

If you turn on Japanese audio, sometimes scenes that have no VO in the English version have VO in the Japanese version.

What?

Yeah.

I've heard this.

I've heard this recently.

And it's one important scene, apparently.

A lot, but it's more.

And it is.

Yeah, and again, I think it has to do with

doing some sort of,

I don't know, like the

translation or maybe some of the audio recording here in the US or whatever the case may be or how much time they have to do stuff.

But there's definitely some things that don't make sense.

And absolutely, even though I forgot to include it, I should have in my video for Dawn Trail.

They need to do more.

Like the amount of reading I had to do in this one was too damn high.

For a game that has so much voice acting, they included so much dialogue that was like, just read, no, just read this.

And then the next scene would be voice, and then the voice would stop, and then I'd have to read more.

And I'm like,

what?

So

I don't know.

I would very much like, especially if they do something like they just did with Dawn Trail, where they're like, here are a bunch of words you've never seen before in your entire life.

Pronounce them on stream.

I would rather they start with like a guy coming in saying the word to me so that I would know if I had to read stuff later.

I don't know.

It just seems that there's a lot of moments, especially main story moments.

Just pay the people to voice act.

You guys are making money hand over fist.

Makes no sense why they wouldn't do that.

I mean, you definitely

take all the facets of the MMOs.

Like, we've been playing some Guild Wars, and you just want to push them all together and be like, just take all the, and just condense and just become this person.

Like, the wow thing, it is absolutely like you find Andy when you're sitting by a fire and you click on him and he's like, oh, champion.

Oh, man.

And he's, and he's so like, and it's heartfelt and it's intense.

And you're like, wow, wow, wow can kind of have this heart to it.

But then you have the mouth flapping scene.

You're just like, ooh, I can't even relate to this.

Please do the Final Fantasy theater thing where hand on heart means this is emotional.

Hands out means you're explaining things.

And it kind of gives you this vibe of what they're saying.

I love Yakuza.

Or like Persona 5, like they'll sometimes have like a,

like the guy just kind of like, and you're like, I know this statement is said with an energy.

Right.

But if he's like, oh,

kind of like a Banjo-Kazooie thing, you're like, oh, this is excitement.

Banjo is excited about what he's saying.

And you can find this middle ground to tell your story.

I think both are kind of struggling to find what that is.

That's for where I'm at comparing the two.

I think like in-game cutscene quality, 14 still takes it.

Like even the most mundane, kind of just dispensing information cutscenes, still, it's just a little tighter, looks better visually, even if it's not voice acted than world of warcraft but war within i think is really bringing it with the voice acting both the quality and just the sheer amount i'm astounded by how much voice acting there is in in war within i think they they took a note from guild wars guild wars has so much vo like a ludicrous amount of vo in their game and half the time it is just you're walking around and dudes are talking to you and you don't even have to pay attention to it and they still invested the time they could have just found other ways to convey that information.

And they chose to have characters talk to you while you like, I'm running around and I'm doing my stuff.

And I love that.

And I've always wanted more of that in,

you know,

like just MMOs in general.

I think Walse is finally picking up on, hey, we don't have to have.

loads of text.

We can just, like you were saying, have people talk to your character if you want that information.

And if you also play where I see quest, I see marker on map, I go to marker on map, I don't care.

That's another way you can, there's different options there.

And so I'm very intrigued because part of me wants deeply wow to be

good because it's a thing that I love and invested like time in.

And just like anything, I am here for a good comeback.

I'm also just like, all right.

Is it is it good or is everyone just like caught up in the sauce right now?

Like what's going on?

So I keep asking everyone, what do you think?

And everyone across the board has been like, dude, I'm having a blast.

It's been a lot of fun.

Even if they are, like you guys, just, you know, a couple hours in doing stuff, everyone's feeling it.

And so part of me is like, do I, do I, do I do this?

Do I go back and play this?

I don't know.

And isn't the most important thing to you?

Like, is that always 100% across the board?

Story's the most important.

I, uh, I've played games where the gameplay has been hot trash.

And as long as the story's good,

I will keep playing.

Oh, so you played Alan Wake?

One and two.

Although two is amazing.

I do not love the gameplay of two.

I think it's tough to do that after control.

I mean, control's a different vibe.

But

yeah, like any and all

games that have a great story, I'm...

Completely in.

It does not matter.

I think you should try it then, man, because like all reports I've heard, getting through the, like, the main story is, is very surmountable.

It doesn't seem like it's particularly long.

So I think you could kind of declare it as a week or two project and probably knock it out.

You seem intrigued enough that I'm like, you should just do it.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where I think about it, but then I also think about all the other things that are coming down the pipeline.

Like a great example is,

I'm very intrigued about the new Dragon Age.

I want to play that, even though some of the previous Dragon ages have not been great games story-wise they're fascinating to me and i'm like okay yeah yeah yeah i would like to invest several hours in wooing cassandra like let me do this like yeah okay like i you know and so i'm totally down to you know i would like to spend the next couple hours making sure harding falls in love with me you're the best scout harding what i'm trying to like I want that experience.

And so I'm like, all right, well, oh, God, do I have the time and patience for investing into WoW again while also investing into 42, while also all these other games I have to play?

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

And so part of me thinks, what if I wait and see what happens as the release patches for WoW?

And is it smarter to jump back in to World of Warcraft right before the next expansion because of the fact that, to be real, Warcraft rewards you for arriving late.

Like the later you are to playing the game, the easier it is to do everything and so i'm like well i wouldn't have to work hard for it and i get the story i want so maybe that's the plan i don't know i i saw

valid you know i mean it depends on the type player you are like right because like because like we're we're trying to time travel in final fantasy 14 when we go back and do old extremes we turn everything on that makes them as hard as humanly possible and and so i do when it comes to like boss encounters i like it when they're more difficult and so there's playing world of warcraft somewhat current.

I see that as a bit of a positive.

But

the big thing I'm waiting to find out with War Within is

if I feel unsatisfied at the narrative stopping point of the launch product because they have historically not completed their story until like two years after the expansion drops because they tell a whole story across all the patches.

And that was something that impressed the hell out of me with Final Fantasy XIV the first time I got started getting to the MSQ was that there were two sets of credits per expansion.

At the end of the boxed expansion that you buy with a 0.0 patch, you get a full arc story.

There's still more to tell, but it's not just the complete, we're going to hold you over the Kohl's cliffhanger.

Like it's not all hinging on what comes after.

You feel like you read a whole book.

And then for the 0.3 patch, you have another major climax and kind of closing of an arc moment.

And then credits roll again.

And I love that.

And I've always talked, I've been, one of my favorite topics of conversation on our stream is like, could WoW do this?

Do they need to do this?

Do they care?

How would I have felt as a giant Warcraft 3 fan if in Wrath of Lich King, at the end of the leveling experience, the very first raid was already there and I went and killed Arthas right then and there.

And everything that came after

was a new arc that took place in Northram.

What if they did an old gods arc after you killed Arthas?

That is, it is jarring to think back.

Even though I think Wrath is an incredible expansion,

the process with which it gets to killing Arthas is like, okay,

first thing, we're going to go and we're going to do a raid we've already done before.

Second thing, we're going to go and we're going to do a raid for old gods.

And at that point, you were like,

but wait, what?

And that there's two cross lines because everyone keeps talking about the god of death.

And suddenly you're like, wait, is that Arthas or is that the old god?

So now you're getting confusing leveling things going on when it comes to concepts.

And then they're like, yo,

how do you feel about

actually fighting the bad guy?

And you're like, I guess, are you doing this?

And I love that at the time.

But when I look back at it, I'm like, it's kind of all over the place, vibe-wise.

And it would have been smarter, I think.

You know, you beat Arthas, and then after that, it's the fallout of that moment for the rest of the patches.

And then you can throw old gods in, and it can get like super cool and weird.

Now that I think about it, I'm like, that sounds fantastic.

I would have loved that idea.

But while it was never about storytelling, it was about like cool moments.

It's like, here's a cool moment, and here's a cool moment, and here's a cool dungeon, and here's a cool level, and here's a cool thing to do.

And oh, yeah, we're going to do this like Death Wing thing, and we're going to time travel, and we're going to do some.

But none of it was ever like, we're going to make it really cohesive.

It was all sort of, here's something very cool you can do.

And at the time, you're like, this is very cool.

But looking back, I'm like, it was all kind of all over the place.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's just, I find it to be a fun, like, mental exercise to be like, how would I remix other MMO narratives that I give a crap about to be more satisfying in the moment the way 14 is?

Um, because I, because I love, I, I'm like, I think I'm the perfect mark for 14 because I also just love MMO, like the Holy Trinity style combat of healer, DPS, tank.

And so I am perfectly fine to kind of spend a massive chunk of my time in 14 playing it as essentially as a visual novel and getting invested in the story.

And then on the back end, I just have a giant MMO playground to just go nuts in.

And I really like that.

With that said,

without spoiling, obviously I don't want to ruin things for Dodger at all.

General vibe check on Dawn Trail with the two of you.

Well,

funny you should ask because we just put out a video an hour before this program with our vibe check.

Oh, yes.

It is quite a vibe check.

Yes.

Yes, the MSQ videos have returned.

I've really, I've been struggling with it.

I think it's, this is the most I've struggled with in being invested in the MSQ since Realm Reborn.

That's, I mean,

uh-oh, headphones went off.

Okay, okay.

Honestly, I am, no, I was just saying the headphones went off, and I thought it was very

honestly,

I think it's the way I thought it was going to be is like a Realm Reborn.

I was like, oh, they're starting over.

It's going to be them throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

And that's the vibe I get from the vast majority of it.

The best way I can think to describe it, though, is it feels, at least in expansion-wise, it feels like the World of Warcraft movie, where the first half of that movie is just 80,000 things happening.

And then the second half is like, oh, now we have to tell the plot.

That's the vibe I get from this.

And

it feels like a realm reborn to me.

And so I'm like, oh, okay.

Sure.

It hasn't affected me much.

And I don't particularly care.

I'm like, all right, it's, it's whatever, but

there's some things I would change, but there's some things I love.

And I'm just like curious what everyone thinks because I'm kind of like right down the middle.

Interesting.

I definitely, I mean, like, Garrett and I, of course, have different opinions.

We kind of voice them together in the videos and it kind of makes this eventual cohesion lump of what our feeling is.

So for me, like I, there's a lot of threads I think I pulled wrong to get going.

Like I got really excited about the storm and I was like, well, that's, I mean, that's just,

there's a kraken or something in the plot demise to get other things to happen, yes.

And, you know, like, there's a lot of threads you can pull.

Um, like, one thing I'd love about it is that the difficulty continues to rise.

It's something I'm finding a struggle in World of Warcraft sometimes.

This reset of your player skill, like the first dungeon being so easy is kind of like, well,

but no, like Dawn Trailer has this escalation.

If you didn't do the solo battles before, the duties before this, the trials before this, you're not going to do very good here because it sits on top of the previous games in terms of gameplay, and that's really satisfying.

But I'll use for the spoiler-freeness of it, I'll use a Dragon Age Inquisition analogy.

I can handle it, I love exploration, I love political maps.

Are you in the hinterlands right now?

I love the map stuff.

I love anytime we do map stuff when Hancock's talking, I'm in.

There's tons of stuff I absolutely love that drives Garrett insane.

But I always, what

absolutely sends me is when a really fun thing is made and not used, like a set piece.

And in Dragon Age Inquisition, it was the chair.

Remember the guy who showed up and like threw a goat at your castle?

Like, that was so insane.

And you were, and you had this Inquisition chair that you'd sit in and like rule from on high, but it happened like twice and it never escalated.

You never used the chair.

You were the man of the Inquisition.

You were the whole point of this entire organization.

And it just never got utilized.

So one of the rights that involved

culinary expertise.

Sure.

It drove me insane.

I went a little insane for a hot moment.

That was definitely, I think, the peak for both of us.

And when we agree on not liking something, that's when I just give in to my deepest and darkest desires and become a completely insufferable asshole.

If Kyle isn't there to kind of like be in me, I'm like, yeah, you're right.

It was like the worst food cutscene in the history of this game.

Food cutscenes are usually full of charm and joy

and instead it's just like here's here's a taco eat the taco congratulations you won

move on and it it it sent me and we scrapped a whole video because we both spent the entire time just yelling at clouds well we and and we've talked about it since on stream like hey we didn't like this and we've explained why so like i want to be very clear we're not like censoring ourselves but also like that's not the kind of product i want to put out i do not want a box product of a video that lives there on the internet forever, just be this cesspool of negativity.

But we also stopped there because we thought that was the end of that chapter, only to play a little more and be like, oh, this is a way better stop point for a video.

So let's actually scrap that one, play a little more, and then put out what we did today.

So, yeah.

Yep.

All right.

That's all I want to know.

That's it.

That's all I was just curious about.

I don't want to get too deep into it.

We got to bring, we got to bring the actual host back.

Hello, Dodger.

We're fine now.

We're fine.

We're good.

You can

Reverse your muffs.

You can hear your muffs.

Yeah, you can put them back on now.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Enough talk about MMOs.

I want to talk about something amazing.

Oh.

Yes, dudes.

I was going to ask if I could talk about a game.

It's okay, though.

I'll wait.

No, I was going to talk about a game, too.

Okay.

But you can talk about your game first.

Can I?

I really want to talk about Wukong.

Oh,

can I talk about Blackmouth Wukong, please?

Sure.

Okay.

So so I started playing it.

It came out on PS5 a while ago, but it's on Steam now, so more people are playing it now.

It's a Souls-like that is based on the Journey to the West story.

And

I've been surprised by a few things.

The game is gorgeous, first off.

If you are unfamiliar with

the story of Journey to the West,

you will be a little bit lost, but in sort of the same way that you wind up being lost in most Souls games, unless you're pursuing the information.

Does that make sense?

It's not like direct storytelling.

It's kind of an inferred storytelling.

So it's definitely telling a story.

The issue is that it's a follow-up to the story of Journey to the West.

So at the very beginning, you are Son Wukong and you are powerful as shit.

And there's this huge, amazing cutscene and like the tutorial for the game and stuff.

And I was thinking to myself, like,

where does this game go from here?

Because we're already like super powerful song wukong, right?

So, so what happens here?

And I was expecting sort of a standard video game trope, which is you start off powerful, something happens that takes away your power, and you have to start from zero, right?

Metroid.

Yeah.

Right.

So it's, it's not that, but it's, it's a similar sort of situation where you are not starting off as a super powerful entity, right?

But it sort of, as you're going through, you are interacting with things that happen in Journey to the West, but obviously they happened before.

And so

I kept running into situations where I was like, okay, so this guy, he's this and he did this.

And people that were watching that knew the story would have to clarify stuff and would make it clear like you will not find this information in the game.

You can't play this game enough or read enough things to know this bit of information.

You would have to read the book or engage with the original story in some way in order to actually get the full picture of what's going on.

So kind of like a God of War situation, like Zeus walks in the room and you go and everyone's like, oh, here it comes.

And you would just wait.

You're like, oh, that guy sure seems sparkly, I guess.

Yeah, so

the reason I say it's sort of similar to how a lot of Dark Souls games are is that a lot of times in Dark Souls, yeah, the story is a bit more obtuse.

Maybe if you read like items, you can piece information together, right?

So in this game, there's definitely tons of nods to the story.

All of the characters that you interact with and fight, it sounds like they're all from the book or at least explained from the book.

But

here's the interesting thing for me is chapter one

is basically a boss rush.

So you have a fight, you walk a little bit, and then there's another fight and you're like, oh.

And then you walk a little bit more and there's another fight.

And maybe you're like, oh, I'll go off.

Obviously, the game wants me to go this way.

So I'll go this way instead.

Secret extra fight, right?

Like there's just, there's just things to fight everywhere.

And I was like, is this the game?

Because apparently in the original book, there's what, 81 battles.

So I was like, are there 81 things to fight in this game?

Chapter two is almost the opposite issue where there are boss fights.

They're not hard to find, but it is so easy to get lost and be like,

where am I?

I like the exploration is so broad in chapter two in comparison to chapter one that I consistently was like, I don't even know where I am anymore.

And I think the way that they try to combat that is that you have immediately from the get-go, you have fast travel between the like legally distinct bonfires, right?

You have these little shrines that you tap.

So you can always fast travel between all of the shrines from the very start of the game.

And I think that's the way that they try to help you engage with the exploration without panicking too much and being like, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, you know?

But it's great.

It's very, very fun.

It's a beautiful game.

If you like Journey to the West, apparently a lot of people that enjoy Journey to the West or have like some connection with it really like the game and like what they've done with the story.

Also, if you're really into buff hot animals, it's a good game for you.

It's a very good game for you.

There's a huge ripped horse that I found, and I was like, why did they make this horse so hot?

That was unnecessary.

It's everywhere.

Is this a horse man or a horse?

This is just a horse.

Just a rockin' horse, a real specimen.

So all of them are like anthropomorphized animals, right?

So for the most part, it's like from here down, it's generally like a humanoid body and then the head is like animal.

I'm just gonna Google Blackmouth Wukong horse.

Blackmith Wukong horse.

horse NPC.

I was like, really?

Wow.

Yeah.

This is like a bump man with a horse head.

Yes.

What is that?

This is like Jason Momoa's body at the peak performance with a horse head on top.

Put a horsehead on him.

Yeah.

That's really fun.

The what?

Okay.

He's like messing around with a whip while he talks to you.

It's, it's very, and then there's a ripped tiger that you fight who's drinking blood.

So he's like covered in blood while he's fighting you.

Sure.

But then there's a bear guy who's literally just a bear.

So it's, it's inconsistent, but I'm fine with it.

So did you have experience with the story?

Or have you read the book?

Or how did you?

No, so I'm the guy going, I don't know who Zeus is, but he seems as important.

I'm that guy.

You watch Dragon Ball Z.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So I was like, ooh, we got the Nimbus Cloud.

And

you know, where the Dragon Ball's at.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the item descriptions are enough to be like, oh, so-and-so begot so-and-so.

And now we have a horseman, and it's all good.

So at the end of chapter one, and I assume this happens at the end of each chapter, at the end of chapter one, there was a gorgeous music video, and you can go back and like watch them.

You can go to the title screen and like re-watch them as many times as you want, but it was like a gorgeously animated

video to a song.

And it sort of in an, I don't want to say abstract.

I don't think it was really abstract, but it like, it took the elements elements of what happened in that chapter and sort of showed the story or like the stuff that you might have missed about what happened.

It sort of performs it for you with music.

And it was so cool.

It was, I loved it.

So it's interesting because, because I definitely, without chat, I would have walked away being like, I'm missing information.

Right.

But, but generally, I get the vibe of like the importance importance of these characters and what their relationships are with each other.

And if something they were hoping for was that more people would go read Journey to the West after playing this game, I'm sure they have.

I'm very curious now what the original story is like.

So it's less like the end of chapters in Alan Wake 2, where you got a song that was...

associated but not directly about the the chapter you just played.

You're getting a musical number that's like explaining the plot I couldn't understand I don't I don't think it had vocals I think it was just music and then the characters performing sort of like acting out a story and

interpretive dance

is it like puppetry is it

or is it literally just animated hold on I'm gonna show it to you.

Okay, I'm here for it.

By the way, I just want to say uh i looked up the guy's name the the horse man is named horse guy here's the thing if you played dynasty warriors you know that for many many years guy was just pronounced guy so in my mind this dude's name is just horse guy and i love that for him

because he is in fact a horse guy

so i will trust uh shout out by the way to jesse for putting in like pictures and video and stuff as well.

It's been great.

Here is the video.

If you want to just click through that and get a vibe for it, it's just beautiful.

Did you get it to us?

I did.

Oh, it is in the Discord chat.

Yes.

I'll put it in

Twitch chat.

Oh, it's like animated.

It's a gorgeous animated video.

Yeah.

I wasn't lying to you.

Shit.

This is really pretty.

Yeah.

That's very nice.

Yeah.

Wow.

So

the things that are showing up in this video, I was able to pretty easily make assumptions about like, oh, this kid is so-and-so.

And, oh, we just interacted with that bear.

And like, you know, and so you can kind of piece together the story.

Interacted asn't killed, then this played?

Defeat?

I wasn't going to spoil it.

You do fight the bear.

Yeah.

Is it a bear or a bear man?

He's a bear.

I mean, he's a man that transforms into a bear.

He's a bear.

That sounds excellent because that's exactly how I play dark souls games is i go in i i kill the the boss and then i go ah and then open a wikipedia and read all about right then you then you yeah you get someone else to tell you you would definitely be able to do that with this but i don't want to know before you know but so this sounds kind of like a demon slayer sort of like vision of their life and emotions past them being an absolute ass to me and yes beating me up for hours it was that yeah

you feel justified in the murder of that man bear pig yeah yeah

Or not.

Or you feel really bad for them and you're like, oh man, they never wanted to fight me.

You know, so you never know.

It's like that Godzilla thing.

You put down Godzilla, you feel kind of bad, but also like Godzilla.

What were you doing?

Feel me bad.

And also

a world-ending threat.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But we're kind of responsible for it.

And like, we didn't have to if the world was different.

But Matthew Broderick really needs to feel sad about what he did.

Right, right.

Before those Velociraptors, I mean, Godzillas chase him down.

Yeah, those graphics were nuts.

That gumball, they were tripping on those gumballs.

It was great.

That movie sucks so bad.

Anyway, oh, oh, and we can't forget the soundtrack with P.

Diddy

singing

Come With Me or whatever that song was.

Oh, yeah.

And the laziest

of Green Day's Brains Dew, where it's just the same song with a couple Godzilla Roars dropped in.

We all know.

We all know.

What a time to be alive.

But I'm sorry.

I'm confused.

I thought we all like Godzilla.

Why are you trashing on the titular Godzilla release?

Oh, you mean, you mean the best Godzilla?

Stars Matthew Broderick.

Yeah, I don't understand your shade, Jesse.

I thought you were a Godzilla fan.

What a fool I've been.

Yeah,

I just, what a liar.

What game did you want to talk about, Jesse?

Boy, oh boy.

Everyone,

let me tell you about what I think might be game of the year, hands down.

I know everyone's talking about Wukong, but you're all fools.

um

it's a little ditty called astrobot

um let me set up the premise for you so bad

astrobot is a game that on the surface appears to be pure

product placement

and shamelessness on behalf of sony playstation the premise this is absolutely real the premise is you are the mascot of playstation 5 astrobot okay traveling through space on your ship that is a PlayStation 5

and a green creature don't know what that means a green creature shows up and destroys your PlayStation 5 and takes the processor and takes the GPU and takes like the like takes the parts and you have to go as Astrobot travel around the galaxy to different war like galaxies like the gorilla galaxy or the snake galaxy and do levels to finally beat the boss to get the parts back for your your console.

You, astrobot, crash onto a desert world along with the remnants of your console and a controller.

The controller is the ship in which you used to travel between galaxies.

And so

the premise is you need to go around to the various galaxies and collect not only the parts of your ship, the PlayStation 5, but also collect all the 300 other astrobots that exist and these astrobots are representatives of all these other games that exist on the sonyverse oh wait just to be clear they're representative of all of the ip that sony doesn't have that the ceo is sad about

and uh and other things yes they have uh uh it is is also it's it's just so funny like there are things i don't even recognize these games some of them i'm like who is this character so uh yes a lot of IP that they don't use anymore, but like they definitely don't have.

Anyway,

so you would think, okay, well, that's stupid.

Like, that's like, all right, fun, I guess.

Here's the thing.

Once you leave the desert world and you go off and you,

again, yeah, I see someone said, member buries the game.

You would think, okay, yeah, that's it.

False.

You go off and you, you go to the galaxies.

Each level, even late in the game each level is it feels handcrafted to be different and create some new weird fun mechanics in each level so you a great example one of my favorite levels in the game is the astrobot what will happen is you you fly your little controller and the controller itself is finally using all the gyro shit that they put in it years and years and years ago.

So mechanics just from the controller, when you're flying on your ship doing this you can barrel roll your controller you can like make the ship move you can do all sorts of crazy stuff with the ship So sometimes when you start a level before you land you're flying down from from the stratosphere and there's like collectibles and shit to get on your way down or there's things to dodge They're already doing a minigame before you even start the game Then you'll land and the level could be for example one of my favorite ones is you land and it's it seems like a very confined sort of level it doesn't seem very big and you see a big thing of cheese and you punch that cheese enough and it reveals a treasure chest.

And the treasure chest opens up and a mouse is inside.

The mouse jumps on your back and mechanically, what has happened now, if you press right trigger, you shrink to the size of a mouse.

So now you can explore the level as just normal size, but also a mouse.

And you can get into all the nooks and crannies of the level.

You can do all sorts of crap.

You can like get into a clock, collect coins, find the other.

So this level is a mouse level.

You are a mouse running around the level.

Another level is you are going to casino and at the casino you arrive and it's like a busy world where there's like cars everywhere.

It's like a flying metropolis in the sky and you a car crashes in front of you and out from the back of the car, a box pops.

You punch open the box and it's a clock.

It's a stopwatch.

And you now can stop time.

So you're in a speeding metropolis where you can now stop time and mechanically you're jumping on the cars.

You're going to the casino.

You're rating rigging the games to win in the casino.

You are,

there's an enemy that's this car, and he throws other cards at you.

In order to kill, because he's way up high, in order to kill him, you have to stop time, jump on his cards that he's throwing you, and then punch him in the face.

But because you have little lasers on your feet, mechanically, as you're jumping, you're also cutting the cards, and they cut in half and like fall out of the ground.

It is charming as shit.

It is awesome.

So, that's one level is we're doing like the end of the level level is a slot machine gets pulled.

It's a giant slot machine.

You have to jump up the chips as the slot machine.

It's in slow motion because you've paused time.

So you have to get up there.

And that's one level.

One level is a volcano is like sick.

He's like, oh, man.

And he's like exploding.

He keeps sneezing.

And

lava is covering the level.

You have a rubber duck and the rubber duck squirts water.

And you have to make the ground solid.

But if you, you know, it only lasts a certain amount of time so you have to keep going or you fall in the lava um there are levels where you i just did one last night where you are um

in the sky and a bunch of flowers in the sky and you have to go from flower to flower but mechanically you blow up like a balloon but there's some enemies that try to suck you up so like do things so you have to like kill them with the power of your you have to deflate into them and they go bew and fly away

there are there's one level where a robot is like chained down.

You have to help the robot and in order and then when you help him he's like come on little dude and like you like go off and like do a whole thing with the robot

and then and that's just levels that are not associated with anything.

They're just fun little goofy levels and there's so many of them they constantly change.

One is you're underwater.

It's like an underwater level but it's the first underwater level that isn't a giant pain in the ass because you can go above and below the water because you have a little

penguin that straps to your back and he makes it go like

speed through the water.

And so you can jump out of the water and land on stuff and do things out of the water and jump and go like even deeper into the water and go to an area where you need a light to see.

It's so cute.

And the whole thing is just every level is X number of bots to find, X number of puzzle pieces to find, and maybe a portal to a secret area that will give you more cool stuff.

That's just every level is just built to that.

And then in each galaxy, there are a bunch of hidden levels you can find.

But for the most part, it is you do the main levels and then there's a boss.

and the boss would be uh there's like a giant snake one that was super fun there's a giant octopus that i did there's a gorilla the gorilla fights amazing uh i'm doing one where now i have to find a giant iguana they're like you know just like goofy things to fight but then the the hero that you collect in the last level is a mainstay of the playstation like just as a console and so a great example is

I beat an enemy and at the end, I saved Kratos.

And Kratos was like, come on.

I actually saved Kratos and boy.

And they were like, come on, let's go to this secret level.

And now you're in a God of War level where Kratos gives you his axe and you literally play mechanically what feels exactly like God of War.

Oh, that's true.

You're throwing your axe.

You're like stopping, like, you throw your axe.

You stop like a mechanic, like gears from moving so you can climb up stuff.

You freeze enemies.

You have to look for the ravens,

the like green ravens that fly around to unlock things you do a boss fight against a thing you have to swing like it is purely they're just like we're gonna take that and put it in this game and it feels so good

and the music across the board is some of the best music I've ever heard it's and then for each level that is based off of a major franchise staple they just do a remix of the main theme but it's like upbeat and super fun

and everything about it suddenly you're just like oh my god is this game in is this the best game I've ever played?

Then once you get all the people and all the puzzle pieces, you travel back to your, to your desert planet and you start unlocking things on it to make it better.

Sure, you're rebuilding your ship, but also all the people, all the little bots are now on the planet with you.

And working together,

you can access other parts.

So if you need a hundred bots, you press the bots, they all run over, like,

they run over and they'll form like a giant ladder that falls over and then you run across them and they're like, yay!

And you get across, you've accessed a new area.

and also hilariously is the puzzle pieces unlock different mechanics in the starting area so if you collect enough puzzle pieces you'll unlock a gotcha game so the coins in the game can be used the gotcha game to buy accessories for the various characters that exist so a great example is if you unlock the gotcha for ryu and ken the two of them will get their powers and be able to fight so now you can walk up up to them and make them fight each other.

And that actually unlocks an achievement is by getting them to do a full combo on each other.

So they'll do like a, or

I just got Lara Croft the other day, and she's sitting there standing there like, yeah, all right, yeah, I'm an adventurer.

But if you unlock her accessory, it's a velociraptor and it just chases her around the entire area the entire time.

That's that's like her gimmick.

You can get like the Castlevania characters are there.

So Alucard is in his coffin.

And when you punch, and he doesn't have a coffin at first, if you get him a coffin, he'll be in the coffin.

You punch the coffin.

He'll open up.

His hair is all messed.

And he like quickly combs his hair.

Then he looks in the mirror, but sees nothing.

And he's like, yeah.

And then he goes back to bed.

It's pure goofery.

It's very charming.

It's very charming.

And there's things to do there.

And then you can do all these other bonus things.

So, for example, you can, if you get him puzzle pieces, you unlock a thing that lets you change the way your controller looks.

Or you unlock a thing that lets you change your outfits.

Or you unlock a Safari zone where you can go and do picture mode on random stuff in the Safari Zone that then goes back to the real world where if you're going like

doing missions and stuff and you're doing actual levels, you can find secret photo spots.

And there'll be like, you get behind one of those big cardboard cutouts, you stick your face in, then a bunch of characters from the level show up and you can take a picture of it.

It's so incredibly charming that you almost forget it is shameless promotion for Sony products.

It is everything about it is like like, remember this game?

Remember that game?

But then you'll do things like go to the levels that are based off of Uncharted.

And it plays and feels like an Uncharted game.

You'll go and you'll do that ape escape game or the one where you have to like chase the monkeys of the net.

And it feels like you're doing that.

You are frustrated with those damn apes because they're just like running in circles.

You're like, just stand still.

It is

so

just,

it's great.

It's an incredible game.

I cannot stress this enough.

enough it is

like i was talking with crendor about this i was like this game is a you game if you like mario galaxy or banjo kazooie or any like this is right up there it is incredibly incredibly good and it's it's weird to say that because i acknowledge up front it is pure again the concept of the game is a green creature attacked the PlayStation and the PlayStation's like, we got to fight back against that green thing.

It's, you know, but it's just everything about it.

Every level feels different.

Every mechanic,

it feels like they keep adding things even late into the game where you're just like, where the hell did this come from?

It really feels like a celebration of the entire

just like catalog of games.

And there'll be times where you're just playing through a level and you'll see a character and you'll be like, like, I did a desert level.

And then one of the guys I saved was the dude from Journey.

And I was like, hey, I know this guy.

And he's like, Mike.

And he jumps into your controller.

And you're like, yeah, that was nice.

That was pretty cool.

I don't know.

It's a lovely game.

I kind of like it.

I adore the original.

And I had a similar experience.

I was like, it's a pack-in game where we're just like,

like,

it's like, it's basically, it's like pornographic on a PlayStation level, the first one, because you collect all of the history of PlayStation hardware, but it's like rendered with extreme detail.

And then it's in like a museum at the end.

And, and I remember going in knowing that and just being like I'm honestly not that big of a Sony fan this probably will do nothing for me and the original like pack-in game with the PS5 is an incredible platformer

so

I totally forgot just another example of things I didn't know that the PlayStation could do that no one ever uses and it's shocking to me that

there are parts where so there's parts where like you a giant water gum will appear and you have to use the controller sort of maneuver the water gun and I was like oh that's fun I'm doing different things but there's one part where there's a giant dandelion and the game's like hey blow on the dandelion you literally hold up a controller to your mouth and go

and the dandelion blows away and i was like how did it know to do that what like what in the controller said this is it yeah and i was like is it a microphone thing what probably how did it pick up on that yeah you're blown it was so i was blown away by that and there's so many things that exist in this that they're using that they i don't know how many times developers have chosen to use that stuff and it made me almost upset that they aren't that they aren't using the tech that is clearly built in my controller that I'm using is one that came with the original PlayStation back when I got it years or PlayStation 5 years ago so this isn't like some new tech it's been in that damn controller and I'm just like

have we been getting subpar games Where they're not using what this was clearly designed to be used like this is fun I'm having fun and I was like oh man

like there's one where you get it an ape and he straps on your back and he has two giant like

Whatever that game was arms or whatever for Nintendo where you'd punch and do the fighting game.

Yeah, it is spring arms, but the way the spring arms work is you have to like do this to pick which side your character is gonna move

And and so then you press the triggers to grapple, but you have to do this to decide so you're actively doing things in this game.

You're not just sitting there playing and I'm like, this is so creative and fun.

What have we done?

I feel so let down by you, PlayStation.

This was here the entire time.

I'm loving it.

Oh, it's a massive demo of that controller.

It's so,

the way that it can stiffen up the triggers, I find so impressive.

I have found it impressive all the way back when I played the original Astrobot.

And the only other game where I ever even noticed that is Spider-Man.

Just sometimes.

Right.

Sometimes when you're swinging, they screw with the trigger tech a little bit.

I'm like, oh, that's cool.

I forgot that this is a thing.

Every other game I'll play on my PlayStation, I feel like, doesn't take advantage of that.

And it's hilarious because they also use the tech that they espouse PlayStation 5 being good for.

So there's one, there's more than one.

There's several series of special levels that are basically just voxel pixely levels.

And you can just break the whole and they shatter into pieces.

And it's all retro things you're doing.

So you're saving retro characters and you're fighting retro.

And it's just like,

this was the promise this was the promise of this console and it took you this many years to finally make a game that i'm like oh my god

it's fun to play it's unexpected and it just is a joy every moment i'm playing it i'm smiling and i cannot stress it is

incredibly fun i mean have have you played mario wonder like that thing's got some crazy crap in it

Yeah, and it feels that it's, it's,

it's a weird thing to say, but it takes the fun that Nintendo tries to put in their games and puts it in a PlayStation game.

Something that PlayStation tries to be cool and it tries to be awesome and, like, oh, yeah, this is for the adults.

We don't want that kiddie shit.

And this feels like

they took some of that Nintendo goofery, put it in this game, and it does so well.

It just, they nail it.

And I, rarely am I this passionate about a game.

I will evangelize Astrobot until I die.

It is so much fun.

Yeah, it got me.

I mean,

everybody seems to be agreeing with you.

It apparently feels amazing to play, if nothing else.

So

I'll let you know.

I'll let you know my little personal tragedy at the moment, which is

my almost five-year-old found Astro's Playroom and loved it after playing Mario Odyssey and Mario Wonder.

And he found the basement.

We beat the T-Rex.

found the basement where had the countdown.

And if you know what that means, it means you had to impose the parental monetary teaching tool of, you got to save up your money, kiddo.

So I want to buy it.

I want to get it like this weekend.

I want to play it, but he wants it.

So he's got to wait that.

He's got to wait that two-month time to save up his bucks.

True.

Get himself Astrobot.

The great news is there are three safe slots.

So you can play and like, you can have family play time.

You can, there's all sorts of different ways to play.

It's

man just so sweet it sounds perfect it sounds like a perfect evolution of that original playroom

it is it's it's stunning that again

i must stress

everything if you were to tell me about this game on paper i'd be like that's shameless trash that's so gross

like that is i can't believe that they had the audacity to make a game where you play as the mascot and you like collect parts of a playstation and PlayStation care like that's stupid somehow it's charming and lovely and everything about it is just so cute I haven't even got obviously there's there's more to it I haven't even gotten to have like you discover there are god there are levels or challenge levels that are based off the buttons on the controller

So there's an X challenge levels, there's triangle challenge levels, there's circle challenge.

I'm like, again, on paper, that is the stupidest shit I've ever heard.

In reality, it's awesome.

And

I can't express it to people enough.

Like, it seems dumb, but it's just

great.

The dev team knocked it out of the park.

I have to play it.

You've

convinced me.

You would love it.

You would genuinely love it.

Obviously, I'm sure that has to do with some of the news we'll talk about today.

But

yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, what a good segue.

Shall we move move into news?

Oh,

our newest segment.

I've heard about this.

I'm so excited to be here for this.

Yeah, it's a good segue.

The two of you have joined at the right time.

So first off, the news that everyone was talking about yesterday, at least on the internet version known as Twitter or whatever it's called now, the PlayStation 5 Pro.

It's coming finally.

And the price is a ludicrous amount.

It's $700.

And depending on where you are in the world, more.

And

it is something that I would say,

you know, 700, all right, that's a lot of money.

But at least you can take all the CDs that you have and put it in there and be fine.

Is what I would say if it came with some sort of Blu-ray player, but it does not.

You have to buy a separate thing to attach for another $99.

So no disk.

So super expensive, no disk drive.

Right.

Fantastic.

Cool.

Right.

And a lot of people are saying like, okay, well, you know, this old console was more expensive.

I think Jeff Keely put out a list of all the old consoles for PlayStation with price adjustments and whatever.

But even then,

all those had

disk drives.

And so it's like, well, the comparison does not matter because

it doesn't have a disk drive.

You are giving us a digital only console.

Oh, and it doesn't have a stand either, apparently, at least what Chad is saying.

So, and I get it.

We're all on PCs right now.

And as PC owners, you can tell us what trash we are for complaining about the price of a console.

But the idea of a console is that people who don't want to go in on a PC can have something to play.

And that's the whole point, is it's supposed to be an affordable option.

But you're literally just like, not all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to not have the disk drive does not make a lot of sense.

It is one of the reasons why people got the console anyway.

With that said,

statistically, people are using more

download, less disc-based gaming lately.

So I get why they did it.

It probably saved them money, but jacking up the price is a wacky thing.

And yeah, that's the big hubbub.

So while I sit here and say, boy, this game based on Sony is amazing, Sony based on Sony, not so great is what.

My takeaway is.

Okay,

I see the parallel, the celebration at the same time as the big throw down and ask for money for a thing that might not be worth it.

Yeah, I saw some of the footage of it.

I think it was Last of Us.

They showed footage of Last of Us.

It is negligible at best.

You can't,

yeah.

I mean, same thing with PlayStation 4.

I had a PlayStation 4.

They said, get PS4 Pro, and I was like, nah, I'm all right.

Like, I don't, I don't know.

I don't feel the desire to run out and get it.

I have my PlayStation.

It's right here.

It's been doing a thing.

If, you know, if you wanted to wait and you're like i got to wait a couple years then like all right i'm not gonna tell you what to buy people buy iphones every year for some reason but like i don't understand it i have no desire to get it but uh

you know i don't know it's a weird it's a weird thing to do especially in a time when everyone's like yo i don't have any money

shopping is odd yeah There was a time about a year ago shopping for a new screen.

So I started watching screen reviewers, monitor reviewers.

There's a whole industry of people who just do this all day long.

It's their whole YouTube channel.

And you're watching somebody explain how good a 4K looks when you're sitting there on a 1080p and he's got the screen on your screen telling you to believe him that it looks this good because your screen's not good enough to see how good this screen looks currently on screen.

Right.

So perhaps

just like a mental journey, is there perhaps a world where

I don't have a TV nice enough to even fathom how great the ratchet and clank leaves now look due to AI upscaling?

To be honest,

I feel like there is some of that, but also I think it's the same thing when people say like, this TV can broadcast in up to 12K.

They're like, yeah, but nothing is broadcasted at that.

So what's the point?

Like, that's nice.

I guess we're future-proofing, but we're not doing anything like that.

Yeah, I'm also,

I'm in this weird thing.

So I've been playing a little bit of Star Wars Outlaws.

This game I was very excited about because I'm Star Wars trash.

I love everything, Star Wars.

It does not matter how good or how bad is it.

I love all Star Wars.

And so I was really excited for that.

And

it's pretty rare these days I even have time to play a game when it's new.

But I'm just personally so excited for this game.

I was like, all right, I know I'm gonna pay full new game price for this.

So, I've done something I haven't done in a long time, which was I went and watched reviews of how it performs on either Xbox or PlayStation versus the PC because I have all of it and I can play where I want.

But it seemed like a couch game.

I've got a I've got a pretty nice TV.

It seems like the kind of thing I want to like lay on the couch and play with the controller.

And everything I saw of the console version, I'm like, this looks like crap.

Like, the frame rate is terrible.

And then if you go into performance mode, like it really detunes the visual, the visuals of the game.

And so I am at this point in my life where I'm actually kind of looking at consoles going like, I just bought you and new games don't look that great on it.

So I get to some degree having this kind of mid-cycle refresh option and then kind of treating it like a phone.

Even though when it happened last generation with the PS4 and the Xbox One, that was the dumb name that gave it right.

I was just like, why are we doing this?

Why are we, I'm not going to buy a console twice before the next generation.

But so, yeah, I don't know.

I'm in this weird spot because I'm like, I'm not going to do it.

I already have a PS5.

I'm just going to make Dutch as it is.

And games like Astrobot perform wonderfully.

And then I guess I'll just pick up games that are a little bit.

are really pushing these consoles to the limit.

Like Outlaws, I guess I'll just pick them up on PC.

And I think that's how I'm going to live my life.

But that's, you know, that's not for everybody.

You know, I, I, my, my extremely powerful PC is a business expense.

That's not the that's not the case for everybody.

However, I do think for $700, you are knocking on the door of a halfway decent PC.

Like, you could spend a little bit more and probably push it further, but

yeah,

it is a tough sell.

But at the same time, too, I'm like, the people are going to buy this, they're already going to buy it.

Like, so

what's the point in the discourse?

Like, you already know if you're going to buy this or not.

And I believe the console cycle, at least what they're telling devs, is 2008

is the next wave of consoles.

So,

I mean, like,

we're getting there.

It'll be a thing.

So, you know, chill out.

It'll be fine.

But if you want to save some money, this is kind of interesting.

Steam has launched families.

And this is super neat.

So basically, it launched Steam Families.

And Steam Families means that five members of a family can purchase one game and then everyone can play that.

Right.

I love this.

I think it's very neat.

Developers can choose whether to be a part of it or not.

I'm letting you know right now, hey, developers, choose to be a part of it.

Just for the goodwill of it, choose to be a part of it.

And the way it works, at least according to them, is if two members of the family want to play a game at the same time, they have to purchase two copies of the game.

So you can't all play at the same time.

Okay.

So it isn't like I buy a game and then for some reason I'm like, Dodger, you're my family.

Let's play this game together, wink.

Like that's, that's not going to fly.

They're not going to let you do that.

But if you have other family members and say there are four family members, at least according to them, Valve explains it this way.

Let's say you are a family of four and you own a copy of Portal 2 and a copy of Half-Life.

At any time, one member can play Portal 2 and the other can play Half-Life.

If two of you would like to play Portal 2 at the same time, someone else in the family will need to purchase a copy of the game.

After the purchase, there are two owned copies of Portal 2 across the family.

Any two members can play at the same time.

And this example, if your family chooses not to buy a second copy, you can play any other game in your library while waiting for the person who is playing Portal 2 to finish.

And I was like, that seems pretty reasonable to me.

Okay, so an evolution of their sharing system they already had, but you could not play on that account if they were currently playing a different game.

Yep.

Also, if I recall correctly, their laws or their rules around if somebody in your family gets caught cheating on a game, whoever is like the head of the family registered as the head of it, both they and the person who is caught cheating, both of you are banned from the game.

Damn.

So

yeah, so

some people are saying that.

Parenting might not be involved, eh?

Yeah.

Some people were saying that's kind of harsh, but like

if that's going to make it so parents are keeping an eye on what their kids are doing in a game so that they don't also screw up their ability to play the game, then sure.

I love the idea of parents having to start parenting on game EULAs.

Just like, don't you dare, don't you dare fire up Final Fantasy 14 with mods and get my account banned.

Yeah, I think it's pretty neat.

I think the idea of you can buy more than one copy so more people can play, especially Portal 2, because I imagine you want to like Peabody and Norbert or whatever the hell those two guys, Atlas Atlas and Peabody you can like

playing together would be a thing, but I love the idea of hey, we bought it the whole household can play it.

It isn't just a lot of the time.

I've had many conversations where people are like, look, I have an account and I want to have other people in my family use my account on their computer.

Right.

Because if we're going to buy it, I want to buy one copy of the game.

I don't want to end up buying two.

But what ends up happening is that if you try to share, that means I can't play it all.

And so I'm totally down for people having access to play all their different games whenever they want.

And everyone's under like one roof.

Yeah.

I think probably the next thing that

the thing that people are going to want that I don't think they're going to have the infrastructure for is to combine two accounts to say like, well,

If under other circumstances, we would be under a family account.

So can we just combine our two accounts into one family account but i don't think they're gonna have the infrastructure to do that

i might be wrong but

yeah it's i um

yeah man i am i am

Very curious to see how it all pans out in the end because you know there's going to be some sort of thing I haven't thought of where it's like, actually, it's terrible.

And I'm very curious what that will be because there's got to be.

It can't be like the most perfect thing in the world.

so I'm very curious what

interesting fallout there will be from that or what people will find that it's like

but if it turns out to be awesome like account inheritance was another great yes chat's absolutely correct account inheritance was a whole other thing so I mean there is a snag there if like I buy it and we're all under one roof if I lose my account or I'm dead what happens to that game If I bought it, is it my game?

Or can you still play it?

Is this their answer to that?

Right.

I don't know.

That's an interesting thought.

Yeah, because that did kind of, they just went, no, it's gone forever.

Right.

So if you're part of the family and the primary holder passes, do you get access to it?

And then what Dodger was saying, almost almost like you like marry your accounts, like, you know, we've been together a long time.

I think I'm ready

for your Steam account to combine with my Steam account.

And together we get two copies of Elden Ring.

Will you be a part of my Steam family?

Exactly.

yeah i don't know it's an interesting topic i'm i'm glad they're doing it but it's also kind of like all right where's this leading to uh but then the big news story yesterday obviously was annapurna interactive of course yeah it's the one that everyone's been talking about it is basically for those who don't know the staff apparently wanted to spin annapurna interactive into another independent entity like a completely different company.

For the record, Annapurna Interactive and Annapurna the Pictures, the company that is involved with making the movies and more importantly for those who are really curious about it because a lot of people were asking me the remedy verse just all the remedy games Control 2 was being funded through Anna Perner.

That's all Anna Perner Anna Perner.

Yep.

That's all through the pictures So that is not this annapurna interactive is Outer Wild Stray Cocoon lore line the laser eyes they were working on blade runner 2033

That's that portion of this.

The picture side apparently is not affected at all.

And the picture side is what was associated with Remedy.

Now, it's up to Remedy what the vibe is over there, because I don't know if it's like a terrific look to be involved in like controversies and stuff, but that's a different thing.

It's a completely different associated thing.

But basically...

The staff wanted to make this independent entity and then negotiations broke down.

So following that, they straight up just all 25 members collectively resigned and i guess interactive president nathan uh gary was like yeah it was a hard decision but we're committed to you know not only our existing slated games but also expanding our presence in the interactive space and we're just gonna like look to tell more stories and they all just dipped which collectively

that's unheard of.

Like that's really impressive.

They all had the audacity to be like, no,

we will not do this anymore.

And so it's brave, it's daring.

And honestly, I'm kind of here for the collective action going on over there.

Now, obviously, I don't know enough of the details of what was going behind the scenes.

I don't know what the negotiations were or why they broke down, but I think it's very interesting that they all just straight up just peaced out.

That's intense.

Yeah.

Very interesting.

I don't know where they go from here.

I don't know if that means they're going to form a new company or if it means they're all going to get hired to go work at other places.

Right now, we just have no answers.

But again, this is like their interactive team had some really great games and they were doing good work.

And so I don't necessarily know if it was about the games or sales or anything.

I think it was just about the direction of the company and they chose to go a different way.

But that's just me interpreting.

I don't know.

Found it fascinating.

It's very much ongoing.

I mean, here, all you see is like, we're going to protect the games we have from one side.

And then the

resigning employees being like, it was a hard decision.

And that's it.

Like, there's no other word.

Yeah, there's a surprising lack of like mud throwing.

Yeah.

I don't know what to make of that.

Honestly, big same.

I don't necessarily know any of the behind-the-scenes stuff, but

oh, oh, so the Hollywood reporter, according to Sparks in chat, mentioned Annapurna wanted to expand to AAA and bring their gaming division under their supervision.

The gaming team wanted to stay indie.

And so that was a good idea.

No, thank you.

Oh, look at that.

I get it.

That makes all sense.

That makes perfect sense.

Yeah.

You know what?

I trust the Hollywood reporter on that.

So that, yeah, if that's the big headbutting, then that makes perfect sense.

There's another way this could go.

You know, the other option, I don't think I heard you mention, Jesse, was they make up, the team wakes up to, I'm sorry, baby, come back.

I'm sorry.

They can wake up to that email.

Girl, are you telling me that they're going to do the Jason Derulo?

Like, what'd you say?

They're going to do that whole thing.

It's like, sorry, baby, I hurt you.

By the way, that song's insane.

Listen to the lyrics.

Anyway,

just saying, that song's crazy.

I don't spend a lot of my time listening to Jason Derulo, but I'm sure.

I think everyone should.

That song, the lyrics are just like, baby, I know I cheated on you, girl, and I treated you like shit, but we were meant to be together.

I thought Dave Girl wrote that.

Boom, boom.

That's news, baby.

All right.

Next week, just a heads up for all you big nerds out there, on the 17th, Final Fantasy 16 releases on PC for everyone who wanted to play that.

But also the same day, I'm going to say maybe the biggest challenger ever.

Plucky Squire finally releases.

And that is going to be just an amazing game.

Having played some of it, that game is fire.

So you should play that.

It is an incredible platformer.

That's Devolver.

If you're a big nerd for the TV, apparently it is pure comic bookery.

On the 18th, Agatha All Long finally comes out.

And then on the 19th, the Penguin Show is on HBO.

If you liked that,

actually, I really wanted to see that.

I'm so curious, dude.

Yeah, apparently Colin Farrell was like, I'm never doing Penguin again.

I get it.

He doesn't look like himself.

That man has gone through so much makeup.

I can only imagine what that's like.

And then for those of you who care and can tolerate the Transformers still, Transformers 1 is in theaters next Friday.

There you go.

The reviews are good for it.

It looks bad, but the reviews are good.

Every Transformers gets good reviews.

I can't do it anymore.

Do they?

Yeah.

Hold on.

I got to look up Dark of the Moon because there's no way.

I refuse to believe this.

It's mooned in the toy line, let me tell you.

They're all old models.

They don't even look like the things.

They just slap Transformers 1 on it.

The toys are not good.

Dirk of the Moon is 35% on the Tomato Meter.

Bro, never mind.

I've gained my faith in humanity.

Okay.

Thank God.

That movie is going to be a good thing.

It's made $18

billion, though.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Well, I mean, so does, yeah.

So does the, so does Joker.

So, you know,

hurdley success does not equal a movie I want to watch.

Nope.

I'm mad at that.

But that is the

Beast Wars.

What was that?

Oh, my my goodness.

Oh,

Beast Wars.

But not the movie.

The movie was terrible.

No, they weren't even in there.

Yeah.

They had like three lines, and then one got rode like a horse at the end.

And I was like, what is this?

You do not ride Grimlock.

Grimlock don't get ridden.

Somehow we came all the way back around to horses.

I'm really proud of us.

Nice.

Yeah.

Is there?

I don't think there is.

Kyle Garrett, thank you so much for joining us today.

Do you want to tell everybody where they can find you?

What you're up to?

What's going on in your world?

Yeah, just search for Grinding Gear on YouTube because we can't change what comes after the slash on our channel.

And it's actually youtube.com slash amovetv, which is terrible branding, A-M-O-V-E-T-V.

So just search for Grinding Gear.

You'll find us.

It's two chuckleheads, probably a lot of 14 stuff.

We stream on YouTube.

We're good like that.

And we also upload videos.

And we have a brand new Final Fantasy XIV video out today called When Dawn Trail Gets Good.

Yeah.

Cute.

I believe there's a finally in there too, but don't worry about that part.

Oh, I think, yeah, you're right.

The title we currently went with was Finally Some Good MSQ.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, so go give that a look.

And we stream every Monday through Thursday on the Grinding Gear YouTube channel.

Fantastic.

Thank you, guys.

Jesse, what's going on with you?

Hey, a whole bunch of nothing.

Uh-huh.

Truth be told, I'm just trying to wrap up stuff before I leave for Merry Old England on the 17th and vanish from the world for a little bit.

So, yeah, I'll be there till October 1st doing absolutely shenaniganry making a video game.

So, boy, oh boy.

Can't wait.

Yep.

Well, I'm just going to be continuing to truck along doing my thing.

Streaming almost every day.

I'll probably play some more Wukong.

I still haven't played Tactical Breach Wizards.

I got to do that.

So, yeah, there's stuff.

There's stuff going on over here.

Games, games and such, and things.

Yeah, Dodger and I played a game yesterday where it was a co-op escape room game.

Yeah, together in between.

Yes.

And

it was very fun, except for the part where we overthought everything, which happened frequently.

Frequently.

And

it was ended by baby aggro, which

is as established, which happened.

Good stuff.

But thank you all so much for watching or listening to GeekEnders.

If you want to see this in the future, if you want to watch the VOD, that's going to be on youtube.com/slash Jesse Cox.

We're also up on all the podcasty things if you want to do this audio only.

But take care of yourselves.

Have a fantastic weekend, and we'll see you next Friday.

Bye-bye, everybody.

Thanks for having us.

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 begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

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

Yo, it's the weekend.

yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

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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.

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