A Podcast about Nothing | Triforce #317

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Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to the Triforce podcast.

Hello, welcome back.

Sips?

Yeah?

Pyrrion?

Hello.

How you feeling?

Okay.

Can I just check it on the shorts?

Are you wearing shorts, Sips?

Yeah.

Are you wearing shorts, Pyrrion?

I am.

Apparently.

Whoa, you are.

One day of sunshine is all it takes to make summer happen.

Yep.

Wait, was it like 21 degrees for you guys yesterday?

Oh, it was lovely.

Yeah, it was a lovely day.

It wasn't like that here.

It was still a little bit cold, but better than it has been.

And definitely warranted getting the shorts out.

Did you make the most of it, Sips?

Did you go outside?

Did you smell a flower?

Yeah, I went outside for a couple of minutes.

Terry was outside for most of the day, which is which was really good for him.

And

yeah,

you know, I made the most of it.

Did you see a daffodil?

Did you like, you know, I saw a couple.

Yeah.

Stopped and had a little sniff, as you do.

Just appreciating the

final things.

Can we do a little Trump force bookkeeping before we go any further?

Okay, no, sure.

Yes.

We have seen the meme, the news article about dildos and that Jersey and Twickenham are in the top five.

We've seen it.

Oh, I haven't seen that.

Oh, my God.

I haven't seen that.

Okay.

So

dildos

size by

Metro.

Basically, it was Love Honey or someone said

it's basically an advert for buying dildos online.

Right.

But basically, it turned out that two of the places they listed as places that buy the biggest dildos in the country

are Twickenham and Jersey.

Nice places.

So number one is Hereford, which

is

for my board game, which is Lewis was in the dildo capital of the country there recently.

Jersey is number two.

Number three is in Vanessa, and number four is Twickenham.

So, I mean, you know, we're basically, we've got the triangle of the top four right there.

Yeah.

Hereford's real close to Bristol.

Jersey's there.

Twickenham's there.

That's crazy.

That is crazy.

Yeah.

What a crazy thing.

We average 7.09 inches.

I mean, we should have known.

You know, we are the ones buying them them, of course.

I mean, I must have contributed to that figure to some extent.

You know, when I visited the US, I've had some big ones delivered as well.

You know, when I'm on holiday, I like to order in large dildos.

He likes to have a big suitcase full of dildos to take away on his holly bobs.

Or to take back with me, yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

So he buys exotic ones in all the exotic places he goes.

And he brings them.

Did your wife see that?

I mean, how did the residents of Twitter get together?

No, wait, was it in the Metro?

Because I don't know.

I don't read the Metro.

I'm not a Metro reader.

Good.

It's a piece of shit.

But you are P Flex.

No, I don't.

I am a piece of shit.

I got sent that article on Instagram by like 20 people.

So I was like, all right, well.

Oh, right.

I've seen it now.

Is that the bookkeeping done?

Bookkeeping is done.

Other bookkeeping period is here in Bristol this week.

We recorded a game site video yesterday, a very heated one, actually.

Were people getting really shirty?

Me and Pew Flex were getting really struck with each other, yeah.

Really?

Not seriously,

kind of half

almost like half.

I mean, it almost came to blows.

We'll put it that way.

What kind of blows are we talking about here?

Hey,

well, I left my dildo back in Twickenham, so like you guys were like sucking each other off.

Like,

kind of weird.

Nice.

Ben was rolling dice to make sure that it kept

it was all okay.

You have to blow him big deep this time.

I rolled a seven.

You You've been a critical successor on your blow roll.

Oh, man.

Oh, man.

Oh, good.

And you did a mystery quest, didn't you, as well?

Did a mystery quest.

We need to get you down here, Sips, to just do one of everything.

Yeah, I know.

I need to.

The flight timetable is not great.

I'd have to come for like too, too long than I can afford to be away.

You know what I mean?

Otherwise, I have to like take a train and stuff.

And it's like a bit of a faff, but we'll figure something.

We'll figure it out.

Did you hear also local news?

P-Flax, I don't know if you heard, Heathrow had shut down for 24 hours.

What happened?

Yeah.

There's a substation caught fire.

Oh, it happens.

Yeah, so there's no planes going over on this podcast today.

Wow.

No, well, he's not even home anyway.

Yeah, because I'm not there.

More than a thousand flights affected.

Good God.

I think this is

certainly relevant Triforce podcast news, seeing as those planes are normally a big part of this podcast.

Well, they've become an increasingly large part of the podcast.

Yeah, as we run out of things to say, it's kind of nice to just concentrate on the planes.

Yeah, yeah,

I'm so glad that there's something in the background moving that I can comment on because I'm out of stuff to complain about.

I don't think we've ever had anything to talk about.

No, it's true, actually.

It's kind of a miracle that we've done this many episodes of a podcast.

You know, the joke was in the 90s, like the Seinfeld was the show about nothing.

Yeah.

I think our podcast is a podcast about nothing.

Exactly.

It's staggering how much we don't talk about anything.

How little we, yeah, how we just meander around nothing.

But I mean, hey, look, the most common thing in the universe is nothing.

So there's plenty to talk about.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not a very popular podcast either.

So there's.

It's a little bit more.

It all balances out, I guess.

That's not true.

We do pretty well, I think, for a podcast.

What are you saying?

Most of the universe is nothing.

What What do you mean?

What's that mean?

There's a lot of nothing out there.

Have you seen the universe?

Well, but

you might say nothing, but in fact, you know, the vacuum has its own, a whole quality all of its own.

Nothing implies a lack of something.

But in fact, you know, vacuum energy and all this stuff, they cook their stuff there.

Well, it's not much.

No,

nothing out there.

It's definitely something.

And even inside an atom, it's mostly space, right?

Like, there's not much going on.

Everything is

pretty empty.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, but that has an underlying quality all of its own.

Yeah, it was nothing.

There is a plane taking off from Bristol right now.

Do you want to guess where it's going?

Oh, Bristol.

Birmingham.

Nope, but it begins with B.

It's going to

Bahamas.

Nope, B is closer.

Closer.

Barbados.

Closer.

Budapest.

It's in France.

Brest.

B.

Nope.

Oh, nice guess, though.

A B from France.

City.

No.

Barles de Gaulle airport back.

Barles de Gaulle.

They love wine.

Oh, Bordeaux.

They love wine.

Bordeaux.

Bordeaux.

Oh, God.

I could not think for a minute.

My brain just ceased to function there, you know.

I want to be on that plane.

I've never been to Bordeaux.

I went on Airbnb last night because we didn't go out.

I watched a movie.

And I'm going to, you guys can guess what movie this is.

It's a 1980s movie directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, so

what was the year again?

1980s.

87.

No, 1987.

87.

I didn't say 87.

1987.

1980s.

Running Man.

What's the one?

Running Man.

It was Running Man.

Wow.

It was not Time for Equal.

It was Running Man.

What a guess.

Wait, wait, wait.

I don't know if that was Paul Verhoven, actually.

I might have misspoken.

Let me look.

The Running Man.

Guess what?

That's a great movie.

How did I say 1987 when it was there?

I don't know.

You're You're cheating.

It's almost like we cheated or something.

We didn't cheat.

I did not cheat, by the way.

I would admit it if I cheated.

Let's do another one.

Paul Michael Glazer.

It was Paul Michael Glazer.

Let's do another one.

What?

You want to guess the year of the movie?

Guess it.

Think of a movie.

All right.

And just to prove that we didn't fix it.

Predator was like 1989.

1986.

1987.

Well, you can't just say all the days of the 80s.

It was between 86 and 89.

Congrats.

It was 1987.

All right.

What about about nice what about twins twins i want to say it was like 1989 1990 88.

oh wow total recall and kindergarten cop total recall was 80s the one i was gonna guess you'd have seen kindergarten cop was 90 and total recall is 89.

no they were both 1990.

oh he made his his run in the 80s was insane like he actually schwarzenegger's run in the in the 80s going into the 90s was nuts i think the last good schwarzenegger movie that i I personally saw was probably True Lies.

Oh, really?

After that, I think Last Action Hero, which was not very good.

Oh, it was bad.

And then I think he.

Oh, wait, when was Terminator 2?

91?

Oh, no, I think that was 1991.

Yeah, 91.

Yeah, yeah.

1991.

So, I mean, Terminator 2.

True Lies is 94.

Yeah, True Lies.

I think True Lies was coming to the end of

Schwarzenegger's kind of epic run of movies.

Yeah.

I think think Terminator 2 peaked and then kind of

petered off a little bit.

Yeah.

I think that was his

career highlight, really.

For sure.

In the 80s, he had Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, The Terminator, and Red Sonia.

Up to that point, he was kind of like, wow, this guy's really big.

Those movies then went kind of cult status after he got really big.

Yes.

But then you've got

Commando,

which was great.

It's

a spin-off of Conan.

Commander was

Commando was good, yeah.

Never heard of it.

Raw Deal is not good.

No, never heard of that.

Raw Deal.

Predator, Running Man, Red Heat, Twins.

And then Total Recall.

Those are the Kingdom Garden Cop, yeah.

Kinengart Cop.

Yeah.

And then I remember.

I remember like in.

I think I was a kid, so I didn't mind Last Action Hero.

Was it Commando or Predator that was get to the choppa?

I think Predator.

Was it?

Predator.

There was nobody left alive in Predator for him to tell to get to the camera.

Yes, there was.

Yes, there was.

There was the lad

who had the grenade launcher.

that guy he got injured that was such a cool movie wasn't it

at the time i can't remember her name she also it was it was a great movie yeah it was fantastic predators predator is the perfect action movie oh it was awesome absolutely i i loved how each i loved how each soldier had like his own sort of like unique thing as well yeah and then they slowly got culled off like as the movie they were very so good almost memey though yeah but i mean but back then you didn't have you know it it's become like a big sort of trope since.

But I hadn't seen anything like that before seeing Predator, you know?

I think Predator kind of was the start of that.

I love it.

That memeage.

So Paul Michael Glazer directed Running Man.

Paul Michael Glazer was in the original Starsky and Hutch.

Oh.

So he was

Dave Michael Starsky in Starsky and Hutch.

And then he sort of directed some movies and stuff like that.

But watching The Running Man, a few things occurred to me.

First of all, it's not really good.

No, it's not.

You remember it being better than it was.

But you have to also take into account at the time, you know, movies being as they were at the time or whatever, it was pretty good.

And we were a lot younger when it came out.

So it was kind of awesome then, too.

Choo, Choo.

So

some pointers.

I made notes while I was watching it last night.

Number one, the depiction of gambling in a lot of films to me is written or directed by someone who's never gambled.

Yeah.

Sorry, I'm back.

I'm just back.

Sorry, I had to, my son had a phone call.

That's okay.

God is hectic.

Your son had a phone call?

What movie are we talking about?

Running man.

So there's a scene in there.

The people on the street bet on who's going to win the running man or who's going to get the next kill.

Sure.

So in those movies, someone will always be like, all right, who's got, you know, bets on so-and-so?

And they all just wave money and the guy just takes money off them.

Yeah.

And you're like, what are you doing?

It's like a cock fight.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's like you can't just remember who bet on what and what the odds were at the point they bet.

You have to write it down.

No, I know, but

they're trying to portray this like kind of like uh like crazy manic you know uh betting thing you know because it's like because running man's like a like a dystopian future as well right this is like a game show so i think it's not like you know it's it's not like uh fully fully legalized gambling or whatever he's just some guy yelling in the road he doesn't really need to keep track or anything i think he's just gonna think he does If he fucks up, he's going to get shot.

So he didn't even have like a ledger or anything?

Nothing.

It was just like, they were just like he's grabbing money and they're writing chalk on the boards.

And after Ben Richards, it's his uh swatch leggings character, has killed like three of these stalkers, they give him a hundred to one odds to get the next kill.

I mean,

what are you thinking?

No,

he's your favorite at this point.

He's killed three stalkers, and they've never lost a sword.

What are the odds?

What are the odds that he's going to kill another one, though?

That's why the odds were very, very high.

No, you can't say slim at that point because it could have just been luck, dude let me tell you something no

no stalker had ever died to that point because there's a

body he's gonna die eventually though that's the thing like you know you've got to take into account what if he just died of old age in there the stalker you know he's about to retire

the killian is like ladies and gentlemen this is the first time this has ever happened what a dark day for the running man and then they go to commercial break and i'm like like they've never had a stalker die so he's killed like two or three at this point and the guys are like 100 to one.

I'm like, what kind of bookmaker would offer those odds?

Like, that's insane.

That is, if it was his first going in, if they took odds on him being the first to get a kill at the start, the show 100 to one is probably not even generous enough.

It's 100 to 1.

Underdog movie, though.

So, like, I think that just kind of cements the whole underdog thing as well, you know, that he's got these insane odds against him and stuff.

I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to rapid dinosaur and break your goddamn spine.

It is funny how these movies get made.

It's kind of this big Hollywood,

like this, like that movie that came out yesterday on Netflix or whatever, the one with

Electric State.

Is it that one?

Electric State.

There's one on Netflix that's just come out that's meant to be, it's got Stephen Graham in it.

I think it's called Adolescence.

That's a little television show.

It's good.

It's good.

It's meant to be really good because it's kind of like boiling point.

It's all shot in one.

It's

shot in one shot.

You should definitely watch that.

It's good.

But the electric steak cost.

Guess how much it costs?

It's Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.

So I know.

So I'm not

against

10 million.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Just realistically.

Hold on, I don't know.

I don't know what it's about.

I don't know anything.

It's a movie.

How much does a movie cost?

It's like 10 million.

2022.

I don't know.

I don't fucking know.

Like, what's the movie about?

Does it have special effects in it?

All right.

Yes.

Hold on, hold on.

10 million.

I mean, mean,

come on, it's like a sci-fi movie, it's like a sci-fi movie with Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, two quite popular names at the box office.

All right, two popular names, they're like the two of the most famous 50 million world.

100,

it was 320 million

for a Netflix movie.

For a Netflix movie,

come on.

Well, man, I don't know.

Fucking Netflix commercial for $10 million these days.

I don't know, man.

Jesus.

Apparently, this is most of that cost is Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, right?

Miss Trian

to touch.

Why?

Who is Millie Bobby Brown?

Why is she getting paid 320 million?

She was in Stranger Things.

She's hugely famous.

She was the bold one in Stranger Things.

She was the bold one in

Stranger Things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess she's probably an adult now, right?

It's been

a while.

But so Ben was explaining to me the reason that they had to pay the actors so much is because with these Netflix streaming shows, it doesn't have, they don't do a residuals deal.

So you don't get like a cut of the gross or anything like that.

So they pay you up front to make up for that.

So they get paid an absolute fucking fortune.

But this is the sort of money that they would have earned over a long tail.

You know, like if you released a book or a game or something, you're going to get.

money coming in gradually.

It's going to be a big spike up front when the box office receipts come in.

And then over time, gradually, as it gets put put on TV or anytime, you get a check.

But instead, for the way the streaming services do it, they just go, we don't do that or we can't do that.

So here is just a buttload of money.

And it's equivalent to what you would have made had this been a movie is the way they do it.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

320 million.

So is it good?

No, it's been very badly reviewed.

It's terrible.

They say, oh, you know, where are the days of Hollywood taking risks and stuff?

Well, it's back, I guess.

320 million for a flop?

Or has it

even

matter if it flops because Netflix don't judge things based on that?

Like you can, Netflix has this,

they throw it out immediately.

You know, there's no trailers, there's no advertising.

People just load up the Netflix, they press it, and they, they, they just don't care like how as long as like sometimes stuff is review terrible and is terrible, but it's still people watch it.

And if enough people watch it and are glued to it, that they keep their Netflix.

So it's kind of weird, though, because there's no advertising or anything.

You're more likely to click on it to try it out think oh maybe this is good uh yeah but then i guess past a certain point that doesn't work because if it's shit and everybody's talking about how shit it is then i i would assume that views just drop off a cliff if that's i don't know because i'll be honest with you i think a lot of people don't read reviews at all really and i think they yeah i think they just turn on the the the netflix or whatever streaming service they're on and click on the stuff that's on the front page i really do yeah and if it's right there they just go front page with algorithms that they fill it with stuff that you'll click on.

You know, you've watched Stranger Things.

You've watched, I don't know, whatever.

I've watched 750 hours of Ben and Holly's Magical Kingdom on Netflix.

What do you think they're recommending to me?

Wait, so here's my question.

How do you know how many hours of it you've watched?

Is there a way to find out?

I wish I could find out.

Because Steam has like those played

on games.

I want it for Netflix.

I use Netflix through an Apple TV.

I don't know if the Netflix apps are different across different devices or whatever but in the settings for the netflix app on apple tv there's like nothing it's like there's just absolutely no no information in there nothing it's just all it has is like uh the app version or whatever and uh and a sign out button that's it so i don't know like

the way that these things are done you have to all assume it's on purpose right like they don't want to have reviews on netflix well there is a rating system built into netflix right Like,

I don't know if anybody's kind of hidden behind the scenes.

I don't know if anybody really uses it.

And it's more of like people who liked this also liked this.

Yeah.

You know,

I watched the first episode of White Lotus this week.

Oh, great.

Of the first series.

Yeah.

So good, man.

It's good.

Did you watch it with your wife?

Yes.

We liked it, but we were...

It's a bit of a trip, that show, isn't it?

Like, you don't know if it's.

I feel like some of the writing is like,

is like

not mocking people, but

it's like really trying to tell you something about a certain class of people kind of thing.

Oh, of course.

It's weird, though, because...

It's not gentle with all the, all of the people in it are assholes.

Yeah.

Every single person in that show is a dick.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's good, though.

I mean, the first episode is really good.

So

we'll keep on with it for sure yeah they're just doing a new i think the new one's going at the moment in so the first season each season is set in these fancy hotels right yeah but so like there's nothing to do the first season the second season don't connect in any way like it's completely separate stories people everything right i think there is a character in both right one character goes to this because they they like go to these this chain of hotels right but finding that out would be a spoiler i guess because you know um

i mean it's good so far like i think it's I think it's something that we would want pacing.

We all have an idea of what a fancy hotel is like, right?

Yeah, and the kind of people who go to it.

And I think it's just, it's just, yeah, it's, it's nice to see rich assholes have a horrible holiday.

I think, I think a lot, I think a lot of this stuff kind of

exists out there too.

I think like people's expectations of what should be like a very luxurious

experience or whatever, I feel like in the the White Lotus and maybe other places, it's almost like

the best gift you can have is putting, you know, putting people off something.

You know, like it's, it's like not saying no, but saying no.

You know what I mean?

Like

you're not outright just saying, no, you can't do that, but there's like a million reasons why you can't do all of these things.

Like, you know, like when the guy's asking if him and his son could do anything, and it's just like, no, you can't really do that.

No, it's not the right time of year.

No, you'd have to wake up early and stuff.

And he's just like,

oh, can we go snorkeling?

You know what I mean?

It's just like, he's like, he's got like five or six things that he really wants to do.

And like, none of them are even possible.

Like, I don't know.

It just seems crazy that you would spend that much money to go to a place and just not really be able to do any of the things that you want to do.

But I feel like that's kind of true to real life as well.

There's always some excuse for why something hasn't been done or something hasn't been done to like the standard that you expected or whatever.

Like it's, it's interesting for sure.

This is it, right?

You go, I've been to some fancy hotels, and you can tell that

they have to skimp, right, in places.

And it's either in

there's some elements that, like, you want it to be like this perfect

situation, right?

Where everything's perfect, but you can, there's always cracks, right?

With because it's run by people who are being paid the bare minimum, or,

you know, it's somehow exploiting the place that it's in, or it's in, I don't know, you know, do you know what I mean?

There's always, there's always something shit going on, right?

Yeah.

Um, and I don't know, it's it's a great show, though, white lights.

You're gonna enjoy it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm uh, I'm looking forward to uh to watching more of it for sure.

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On with the show.

On with the show.

I feel like this is the same thing with games, though, right?

Like, I was, for so, I was, for some reason, I saw, um, I was talking to Pyrrhon about Stalker 2 yesterday, and I played into it.

Well, I've been playing a few games from the best games of 2024, right?

Like, there's this, there's this like, it was like a, it was either Eurogamer or Guardian's top 100 games.

I like to go through them the next year.

And I feel like, because I worry, like, oh, I haven't played any of these amazing games.

And so I download them, I play them, and I'm always so slightly disappointed.

Right.

Because I feel like some people who make these lists, they don't play, they don't play enough games.

I actually think they play too many.

Well, if I may, I think a lot of these, if you're a reviewer of games, you can't spend hours and hours and hours and hours playing your favorite game.

You have to play fucking everything.

So I don't think you get the depth.

And I just think also that they always have to include like, here are all the best games.

And therefore, therefore that means like every platform so these are all these great games on playstation and if you're playing tons and tons and tons of games quite often i think you're not really seeing the best of that game and maybe you're just like oh wow yeah that there's i put three or four hours into it done i'm not saying that's all reviews do a lot of reviewers will actually finish a game or play loads of it before they do the review But if you're writing a daily fucking column on the website about games, you've got to play a lot of fucking games.

You do have to play a lot of games.

yeah.

I think you're kind of um,

it's weird, like, uh, you know, we're talking about like nobody reads movie reviews, but I think gaming reviews are read a lot, you know, like uh it's a it's a it's a completely different thing, right?

Like a lot of people will judge a game based on like the reviews that it gets or bad reviews that it gets and it and it matters to like the sales of the game, how many people are playing the game.

Like it's a big ecosystem, right?

But I think when you play a lot of games, I think it's good for people because I think the thing is, like, we assume that most gamers are just playing as much as we do, but I don't know if that's strictly the case.

It's not even close.

There's loads of people that play a game like a couple hours a week, you know, in between working and having a hundred kids and all this stuff.

Like, we're, we're, we like playing games, but we're fortunate enough where we can just play loads of games all the time.

We are total outliers.

Yeah.

The only people that compete would be people who are unemployed or very young.

Because if you have a job, you're getting up and getting ready for work.

You'd come back, you'd have dinner, maybe 8, 8:30, 9 o'clock, you're ready to start playing games.

You play for a few hours, two, three hours, and then you're like, fuck, I gotta go to Beggar Ray for work.

Yeah, I mean, it's yeah, yeah.

So, most people, you know, that's why games like you know, Football Manager and Civ and stuff like that

appeal to people who don't really have time to play a lot of games.

The single player, you can play a few turns, job done.

Then on the weekend, you can maybe play something else.

And too many games don't even fit most people's lifestyle look at fucking tarkov i mean you might just put fucking hours into look at something like dota like i

don't you can't play dota for like an hour or two a week you'd struggle right that's like two games like you'd just never

i don't know like you watch a really good tv show or really good movie and you know it stays with you you you you really feel like oh my god i should watch more movies i should watch more tv shows right and then you watch some mediocre you end up watching so much mediocre crap there's a lot of games that are mediocre crap is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, like I feel like Stalker 2, it's just so mediocre.

Like, I played this game Kunitsu Gami.

It's like a Capcom tower defensive thing.

I thought I'd like it.

I didn't really like it.

It just didn't grab me.

And I played a few other games lately as well that I just didn't quite

scratch the edge.

They weren't quite there.

And it's not like they're early access or they're not quite done.

But I think I'm still reading off the disappointment of Civ 7.

And I think it's like knocked me a bit in gaming.

I found that I'm like been disappointed a couple of times by things I've made an effort.

And it's like when you spend

40 quid on a game or whatever, even in Sivana.

Is Civ 7 not good?

CAC.

No.

Absolutely.

Is it?

The first age of it is good.

And I think it will be good given another year or two.

I always say this when a Civ game comes out, it takes a couple of DLC, like a couple, a couple of years, a couple of big patches to get it fixed.

And they're scrabbling to fix it for Axis.

Don't worry.

I mean, they know that this is their big ticket item.

But currently on Steam, more people are playing Civ 5 right now than Civ 7.

Really?

And that says something.

I mean, that really says something.

Lewis, you guys already found that Civ 7 multiplayer is just as dog shit as it's ever been, right?

Well, of course.

But I mean, no one plays Civ Games multiplayer anyway.

We were talking about this the other day.

It's like nobody.

You can't find these games, right?

I think like, I don't know,

I'm just, I've been playing a few games and I've just never, I haven't gotten into any of them lately.

And I don't know whether that's because my taste has changed or what I want out for games changed, but I know a lot of people play games with TV on in the background.

They play a mediocre game and watch mediocre TV, and that somehow gives them quite a nice experience.

And, you know, when both of them get boring, you go on your phone and you open some Pokemon packs or something.

Jimmy, it's like

I'm becoming like a 13-year-old over-stimulated boy.

I've got a question for both.

I've always been like that, though.

Yeah, that's true.

I've got a question about Civ 7.

So I've played as far as the end of the second age, and then I quit.

The first age, you just explore like your little square island.

Apparently they're all square islands.

And then you get your boats and you start to explore the world and you find like the new world and there's already civilizations there.

Like the Spanish Empire was there.

So it doesn't have that technically sort of essentially undiscovered land that is the new world.

What does they just get there faster than you?

No, it's like they're already there.

Oh, they're just so so you like even if you went like day one, they would already be there established.

You couldn't get there day one.

Your ships cannot cross the ocean.

So then you get to the second age and you can cross the ocean, you get there, and there's already the entire place has already been colonized by some other.

Here is the design philosophy of Civ.

Okay, it's a forex that is expand, explore, exterminate, and exploit, right?

Or whatever.

And as a result, Civ has always had this great starting game where you reveal the map, you explore the map, you find a couple of guys, maybe you attack them, maybe you go peaceful, you exploit the land, you build your thing, and and then it's this long slow mid-game where you either say oh i'm gonna have to slog across the entire world and annihilate absolutely everyone which would be really tedious and slow or i just press and turn a bunch and i win a science victory right or a culture victory or religious victory or whatever victory you've pressed and it's it's pretty that's it that's the game okay and what a lot of games have tried to do old world humankind is add this kind of mid-game interesting twist and so this is what civ 7 is now that they've not provided an alternative to this.

You have to do it.

After antiquity, so like, you know, not too far into the game,

certainly before gunpowder,

the game ends, okay?

And you sort of, everything gets reset back to a point where your cities get sort of turned, everything kind of gets the playing field gets leveled a little bit.

Like maybe in Civ, you're massively ahead.

You're still going to be ahead, but not,

you get brought back to sort of a level of where you're kind of starting again.

Okay.

And then the second age is the same.

So it's explore.

And the idea of exploring is you explore the new world.

And the idea of exterminate is you can exterminate these new AIs that you found instead of the existing ones.

Maybe you were friendly with the first ones

and you're going to explore and kill these ones, or maybe you killed the first ones and you're going to be friendly with these ones, whatever, right?

And the idea is to explore the new world, a little bit like colonialism.

Yeah.

A little bit like, and then that is a good idea on paper.

Okay.

It's a fun idea.

And

you think it will be fun, but it's kind of a little bit tedious in its implementation.

And it's a little bit a little bit half-assed.

And then the third age,

they've just just sort of thought, oh no, we haven't got a plan for this.

And then they actually had originally planned a fourth age.

And they realized, oh, crap, we don't even have a plan for this at all.

So they merged the fourth age into the third age.

And now it's all cack-handed.

And the third age, I don't even want to talk about because it's just, it has none of the X's.

It doesn't make any sense.

And it's just bad.

Um, and I don't know how they're going to fix it, and I'm not, it's not my job, thank God.

But I think that their design philosophy was to try and counter this slow mid-game, which you always get in these grand strategies where you've unlocked everything, everything starts to become a bit complicated, and overwhelming, and boring, and you've lost that initial excitement of the oh, let's explore and make some cool decisions and see stuff going from one to two.

When stuff is going from 25 pop to 26 pop, who cares, right?

You know, when you're, it's not as, it doesn't feel like a game anymore.

It feels like some sort of simulator, yeah, right?

At least when you're doing like the small numbers, it feels like it's a board game and you can finish it and go again.

And that's why I've been enjoying this antiquity era because it does feel like a complete game in its own.

But Civ have have had this legacy of telling the whole tale.

And they can't release Civ 7 without making some improvements, right?

Or at least including things from previous years.

And so, you know, they added like volcanoes are in the game.

The way Civ does it is like people will complain because volcanoes were in civ 6 people will complain if they're not in civ seven and so they put volcanoes in right and they kind of half-assedly put some things in from the previous game just to kind of keep everyone happy um but but it just results in a disappointing experience in general you know that the when you borrow something fun from a previous game and and but only include one percent of what made it fun it's not fun anymore

um so i don't know

I'll be honest with you.

I think quite a few things have disappointed me lately.

I don't know why.

Loads of things come out, and I'm just like, oh, that wasn't good.

But some things have really impressed me.

What?

And I have had a real good time with them.

What?

What?

What?

What?

I played Recycling Center Simulator.

That is amazing, by the way.

Really good one.

I'm with you on that.

I played a couple of good ones recently.

I played

Fast Food Simulator.

If you can find a bunch of people to play it with, is actually really good.

Played this.

Only out, it's early access, but it's pretty good.

It's pretty fun.

What else have we played?

We played that.

Oh, Contractville is really fun with the group.

So you just go around and demolish old houses and build new houses and you build up like a contract.

You can do like cleaning, haulage.

There's like all sorts of things.

Let me ask you guys a question.

Do you think that you guys are going to put thousands of hours into those games the way that you have into like Civ or something.

No, but so where is the next game like that?

Is what I'm saying.

Is I want a game that I'm like, I love this so much that I'm just going to keep playing it and playing it, and it's got endless replayability and depth.

Oh, that would be like, you know, it'll be like Deadlock or like Valorant or something, you know, something like that.

Do you still have Thunderstrike?

I've never played Valorant.

Right.

Something will come along.

I was playing Marvel Rivals for a bit.

That could have been like a play for a very long time.

It's a 6v6 like hero Overwatch-like, but it's all Marvel superheroes.

It's pretty fun.

Like, if you get a, like, again, if you can get like a group of people and play it, it's pretty fun.

But, um, I feel like I feel like we need to knock up some sort of evening gamer group to do co-op shit with.

I've been doing that.

I've got a group that I've been doing co-op stuff with recently.

We just moved on to Farming Simulator 25 yesterday.

Yes, it's fun.

Did you get keys for it?

Did I what?

Did you get keys for it?

I said some keys to rest.

I got the keys.

We all got the keys and I rented a server for us so that it's like on all the time.

And it's a bit frustrating because it's one of those games, you know, it's quite, quite complicated to get into, but I think everybody's sort of gelling with it now and figuring out things.

And we're just going to try to build up a big farming empire and buy the whole map.

But the whole thing with our group is we're called the 100% boys.

So we 100% a game and then move on, but we've never 100%ed a game.

We always give up like halfway through.

But then we always, but then the joke is we always turn around and say, yeah, we 100%ed it offline.

Like we got sick of streaming it.

It's so dumb.

But I hate this, though.

I struggle with this all the time, right?

Like even like recording games for the Civ channel or like playing games in my spare time, you know, someone or some will play something and it'll people start getting bored and then you know, people stop turning up or something will go on.

Like someone will be on holiday for a week and it just, it dies.

Yeah.

It needs constant.

Yeah.

I'm really admire people who've kept their DD groups going for yeah.

I feel like

what we're doing is a bit like a D and D group, but we just so happen to all like crappy games, you know, like these mundane task games like power washing or lawn mowing or whatever.

And if there's some sort of like overarching, you know, company thing with it, you know, where you can build up a company and make money and stuff, everybody seems to be quite happy with that.

That's fun.

I mean, there's like Roadcraft coming out.

There's a bunch of stuff coming out that we can play and it's great.

It's good fun.

It is.

It is.

I wish I had like a more well, you can

join us if you want.

If you want to play some dad games, you know, we're not exclusive.

I got something I want to talk to you guys about.

These are the huge, biggest box offer office bombs of the last few years.

Okay.

Some of these films I had never heard of.

I don't remember any kind of promotional marketing or even who was in them.

And they've lost fucking tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Really?

Okay.

So Joke of Folliader lost between $125 and $200 million.

I haven't seen it.

The Marvels, did you know this movie?

No, never heard of it.

It's a Marvel movie.

Lost about $245 million,

which is insane.

The Flash.

That's a DC movie about The Flash.

$160 million lost.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

That was the new, the latest Indiana Jones.

Oh, I didn't even realize there was another one.

I thought Crystal Skull was the last one.

No, dude.

This one lost $150 million.

A film called Wish, a Disney animated movie.

Yeah, I I know of

$45 million.

We've tried to watch it a couple of times, and it's just not,

it doesn't grip you, you know?

Right.

It's not the Lion King.

I'll say that.

Right.

Haunted Mansion.

Oh, Haunted Mansion.

That's the.

Don Wilson, Danny DeVito.

Yeah, it's based on the Disney ride, right?

Haunted Disney.

The ride.

Lost $130 million.

Strange World.

No.

Did you hear about this?

It's a Disney animated movie.

Never heard of it.

Lost nearly $200 million.

Turning Red?

no which was actually pretty good that was not a bad film somehow still lost them 180 million moonfall roland emerich film where the moon falls into the earth lost 150 million sounds awesome is it good no it's terrible the buzz lightyear movie light year no it's no i saw that i saw lightyear we went to see it in the cinema it was lost 130 million that wasn't great i mean it was okay like My kids wanted to see it.

So yeah, the only movies I've seen are just movies that my kids have wanted to see.

And some of them have been great.

And some of them have just been, you know, I just judge movies now by if they can keep me awake or not.

Lightyear, I fell asleep a couple of times during for sure.

And so that's okay, is it that one?

Yeah.

Sometimes you want to move.

Honestly, I'd love a movie too.

I mean, like, I'm at the point in my life now where I'm like, well, I got a little bit of sleep.

So it can't, you know, I can't knock it too hard.

I managed to have a little rest at the movie theater.

So

nice.

Pay 20 quid for a nap.

I paid 20 quid for a nap, yeah.

For a sleep.

There's a film called Amsterdam came out three years ago.

Christian Bale, a bunch of other people in it.

Lost 116 million quid.

Devotion was about some, it was a World War II fighter thing.

Right.

I want to watch, I want to go through and watch all of these bad movies.

Yeah, lost $100 million.

Black Adam, which was heavily money.

I would say

a streaming service that only had flops on it.

It was called Netflix.

Flop TV.

What was the sequel to The Quiet Place?

Like, I haven't seen that.

There's been three sequels, I think.

Has there?

At least two, yeah.

The original.

Remember when we went to see the original when we were in Seattle, Lewis?

I really liked it.

Yeah, it was good.

I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it.

That was a good, it was a perfectly good action movie.

It was, yeah, it was fine.

But

it looks good, though.

I think the quiet place was, they didn't call it an even quieter place, which I wish they had.

No, they had like the,

didn't they have like one of them was kind of like the days leading up to like all the attacks on the general population.

So

that's the most recent one.

Quiet Place Day One.

Oh, right.

Is that Angular?

Which is extremely mid.

Exceptionally mid.

Right, okay.

The most mid-mid thing you could imagine.

That's it.

Whereas Jungle Cruise, starring The Rock is an absolute piece of shit.

Oh,

what?

Dude, I don't understand why The Rock is in so many things.

He is box office fucking poison, this guy.

He has so many things.

They cost so much money, and they're all dog shit.

I do not understand it.

Did Karatov actually make money, though, when he was when he was?

I think as a stand-up, he did.

When he was active, I don't know.

He probably made it.

I mean, as a stand-up comedian in 80s, 90s America, I think he was certainly very popular, but all his movies were.

I see a lot of memes where it's like,

you know, how I know not to go see a movie, and there's like a grid, and it's got like Chris Pratt,

Jack Black, The Rock, and a a couple of other people who just seem to be like in every movie, like you're like you're saying.

But like some of them are okay, and then some of them are not, I guess, right?

I don't know.

I mean, I will tell you that.

The new Minecraft movie looks pretty good.

No, it does not.

Come on, it's gonna be great.

I'm gonna get so much sleep to see that one.

I can't wait.

Like, this guy, I do not understand how he made this much money.

It's like Skyscraper is terrible, but apparently made money.

Jungle Cruise is terrible and lost a lot of money.

Black Adam is terrible and lost a lot of money.

Red One, which is this film that came out and has been awful, like really, really badly panned, that lost a lot of money.

If you take out his appearances in things like Moana, which he was in, right?

He wasn't like

Starship Moana.

No, he was a big character in it, though.

Yeah, but it's not, it's just his voice.

Right?

Yeah.

What I'm saying is a lot of the films he's in, San Andreas, there's another film, fucking awful.

I don't understand why Dwayne The Rock Johnson is seen as this superstar.

He makes a lot of movies that lose a lot of money.

Yeah.

An awful lot of money.

And of course, they're remaking Moana as a live-action fucking movie, I believe.

So a lot of these Disney remake movies have feature all of the original music, like, you know, from the animated ones.

So, like, the Little Mermaid, the live action one would have had, like, Under the Sea.

I haven't seen it, but it would have had, like, you know, all the classic songs from the original animated movie from like 1991 or whatever came out.

I think it's kind of bold to do that.

I think it's, I don't, I, I think some of, I think it's hit and miss all that.

Some of the live action ones, I think, have been okay

from what I can tell.

I think the only one I've seen is Beauty and the Beast because it was on at Christmas.

But

I don't know.

It seems mad.

It seems like a trip.

But it's weird because, you know, like my kids,

I've got a three-year-old and a nine-year-old.

And they should, you know, technically be into this, into this stuff, the old animated movies and whatever.

But there's something aesthetically about them that just, they don't like them.

They'll opt for like new, like, you know, like, you know, CGI stuff over the old hand-drawn cartoon animation stuff, like every single time.

They detect that it's old or something and they just are like, nah, I'm not interested.

Like, they just won't watch them.

It's crazy.

But kids do traditionally like animation more

than anything else.

I think

this popular fucking stuff will always see.

Yeah, it's because it's easy to make kids' shows that are animated.

Yeah.

Or easier.

A lot of the stuff that they watch now, it looks okay, you know, like it's colorful.

It's like, yeah, you know, like they imagine if Peppa Pig was just an actual pig.

Yeah, but it's like live-action Peppa Pig.

It was just a family of pigs and they filmed them and like CGI'd little mouths talking and shit, it would never have been as popular as it is.

But animation is the way to go.

Peppa Pig is a good example that goes against what I just said, though, because it looks like it's drawn with a crayon.

But it's for very little kids.

It is, but like

it's still more watchable than

the older Disney animated movies.

Right.

They switch off.

But if I may, Peppa Pig episodes are about 10 minutes long.

True, yeah.

Getting the kids to watch

it.

I suppose there is that about it, yeah.

When it's very simple, it allows kids to fill in the gaps with their imagination, right?

If you provide kids don't have an imagination, it's a myth.

It's an absolute fucking myth.

They do not have an imagination.

I think we all do.

I think we all fill in the gaps.

Even with something as simple as South Park Animation Style, right?

It lets you, it has your I think it, I think it is the secret to Minecraft too and Lego.

And like people can see these simple shapes and understand that that is a house, you know, without it being have to have you know apps like real world level detail.

It's escapism and it doesn't feel it enhances the idea that you're in a different world, right?

That you're in a disconnect.

You know, you know, that's the same world, but safer.

And I want to go back to children not having an imagination.

People might think that's unfair.

Let me state my case, if I may.

When was the last blockbuster movie written by a four-year-old?

If their imaginations are so good,

where is the production?

Their imaginations are they do have imaginations but their imaginations only work when they're sitting in the living room playing with like dolls or whatever you know what i mean like they they're unable to formulate a full the same way they can't watch a two-hour movie i don't think they could produce one either i don't think they could and where would they get the backing who's going to give them money true you know what i mean the meeting's going to be a disaster good point yeah yeah i i just think like this idea that the the children have the imagination that we lose it when we're adults is absolute bollocks.

Because most of the time, when kids have to imagine things, it's because they're bored out of their minds.

And they still just basically, if you watch the way kids play, they replicate things that they've seen in the real world with their toys.

So they'll have like tea parties or they'll have like mummy and daddy, the dolls, and they're very nice to the kids, and they give them presents, and the kids are always very well-behaved, and all that.

Like they immediately recreate stuff they've seen, or they take real-world scenarios and just act them out.

And it's all very important form of play for solidifying ideas in their head and working things through.

I'm not saying

the idea that they have this mystical imagination, the imagination of a child.

Fuck off.

Yeah, I know.

My imagination now as a 44-year-old man is insane.

Oh, gotcha.

I'm physically limited.

I can picture anyone.

Naked.

Yeah, that's his superpower.

We've already covered this.

Well, listen, we have to cut the podcast

slightly short today.

Apologies.

We all have places to go and people to see.

So thanks so much for listening.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

Thank you, everyone.

Goodbye.