Fire Escape Cast #114

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #114 – August 25, 2025

Hosts: Mike Mahardy, Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fire Escape Cast sees hosts Mike, Dan, and Mary engage in their quintessential blend of playful ribbing, nostalgic dives into animation and games, and insightful conversations about the latest games and pop culture phenomena. The trio covers everything from recent horror movies and found footage marketing, to game remakes, tower defense obsessions, cozy chill games, and even the quirks of Dan's dad. They also field some listener emails and share their favorite non-gaming podcasts.

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Table of Contents

1. Opening Banter & Animated Nostalgia — [00:40–27:00]
2. Movies, Theater Experiences & 'Alien Earth' — [04:49–44:45]
3. Game Chat – Metal Gear Solid Delta & Game Genres — [50:38–61:25]
4. Cozy Games Segment — [61:25–78:49]
5. Tower Defense Obsession: Tower Dominion — [67:22–79:55]
6. Recent Updates to Peak & Social Co-op Games — [80:19–88:09]
7. Other Games: Weird Switch Sports, Zelda Replays, Time Flies, Make Room — [88:15–108:49]
8. Email Bag: Podcasts, Game Mechanics Masterpieces — [110:22–132:07]
9. Sign-Offs & What’s Next — [132:16–End]

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Opening Banter & Animated Nostalgia

00:40–27:00

• The cast kicks off with signature banter, gentle jabs at the "bad boy" moniker, and making fun of fellow games media personalities' quirks, especially Mike Minotti ("He does strike me as like a serial narcissist." — Mike, 01:11).
• Dan confesses to never listening to colleagues' podcasts and Mary jokes about being scared of musical theater fans.
• Classic Animation Rabbit Hole: What starts as a bit about stealing podcast intros rapidly turns into a prolonged discussion on the moral alignments and nature of classic cartoon characters:
  • Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner: Dan roots for the Coyote, viewing him as a sympathetic survivor; Mary and Mike take Roadrunner's side ("If either of you tried to eat me, I'd absolutely embarrass you publicly..." — Mary, 20:57).
  • The gang reminisces about other Looney Tunes archetypes—Tom & Jerry, Sylvester & Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Speedy Gonzales, etc.—and critiques their recurring "hunting" tropes.
• Nostalgia Lane: They share which networks and shows shaped them: Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Invader Zim (Mary was a “Gir kid, had the backpack and everything”), Rocket Power, Hey Arnold, Johnny Bravo, and the cultural marker of being a "Nickelodeon kid."

Memorable Quote:

"I loved all those shows. Nickelodeon was channel 34 for me. Same number as Shaquille O'Neal." — Mike [27:10]

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Movies, Theater Experiences & 'Alien Earth'

04:49–44:45

Moviegoing in 2025

• Weapons (new horror movie): Mike and Mary recommend seeing it blind; Dan will see it soon.
• Value of shared theater experiences: Mary highlights why horror and comedy especially benefit from audience reactions.
• Bad Theater Memories: All share war stories from working at or attending theaters with messy audiences (children and Harry Potter fans cited as worst offenders).

Notable Segment:

• Dan reviews an absolutely terrible Amazon Prime movie starring Ice Cube (a pandemic-era "War of the Worlds" where “it’s an hour and a half of Ice Cube reacting to things on a Zoom call”). The trio joyfully eviscerates its product placement and technical absurdity. Ice Cube's laughably bad hacking: “Right-clicking on Google Maps and being like, hack camera, and it hacks the camera...” — Dan, [11:02]
• The group riff on found footage as a genre, effusively praising The Blair Witch Project era for its "could only happen then" marketing.

Discussion Point:

• Games and marketing that blur reality—mention of EA's “Majestic” (2001) and Hellblade’s fake "permadeath" scare. Dan appreciates when developers "lie well" for gameplay's sake, like RE4's difficulty or Coyote Time in platformers.

Alien Earth on Hulu [32:01–44:45]

Mary's Recap:

• Alien Earth's premise involves cyborgs, AI robots, and hybrids (human consciousness in robot bodies), all coexisting. The main plot revolves around hybrid kids in adult bodies entering an "alien universe" to save a sibling — creating an interesting tension between childlike behavior and adult robot bodies.
• Praises the show's unpredictability ("Each episode, I have found a new thing to be scared of because we don't know what it is"), but warns of a Hulu algorithm fail when she mindlessly watched a totally unrelated sci-fi film for 45 minutes believing it was the next episode.
  • "The algorithm got your ass." — Mike, [41:33]

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Game Chat – Metal Gear Solid Delta & Game Genres

50:38–61:25

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Hands-On

• Dan played through (nearly) the entire game at an event—calls it a true remake of Kojima’s classic, with one-to-one presentation, cutscenes, and improved controls.
• Quality of life upgrades: instant camo swaps, on-the-fly codecs, stealth improvements ("L1 is kind of the sneaky button").
• He hopes Konami sticks purely to remakes and doesn’t pursue new non-Kojima stories.
  • “The story’s done-done-done. Even by the end of Kojima’s time there, I was like, do we really need to fill in this gap?”
• Mary floats the idea of “Metal Gear in a new universe with new characters,” but Dan and Mike agree the Kojima-created cast is what makes Metal Gear special.

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Cozy Games Segment

61:25–78:49

1. Is This Seat Taken? [61:25–67:08]

   • Mary: "A quintessential cozy game" from Wholesome Games. Players solve logic puzzles by seating quirky characters with diverse wants (window seats, sitting near friends, avoiding “stinky people”).
   • Couch game—perfect for relaxing with another show on, no time pressure. Visual, happy feedback when puzzles are solved.
   • "Ideal Steam Deck game or Switch... a notch or two above Unpacking in complexity." — Dan, [65:57]

2. Make Room [102:19–108:49]

   • Similar to Unpacking, but more about interior decorating for specific requests (e.g., "I want a cat paradise"). Visual-based interface can be a little limiting. Free play mode lets you make your dream room ("mine would have a bed surrounded by solar floodlights...").
   • Mary: "I've been on a bit of a cozy game kick... I think Time Flies is my favorite of these."

3. Time Flies [99:22–102:13]

   • A minimalist, explorative "bucket list as a fly" puzzle game. Each death/life encourages optimizing your path; a bit like a Tony Hawk 2-minute run.
   • "It's one of those fun games, almost like a WarioWare type thing. You'll just die in a funny way or something pops up and it's unexpected…" — Dan, [101:02]

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Tower Defense Obsession: Tower Dominion

67:22–79:55

Mike introduces Tower Dominion — a new, deeply satisfying, roguelite tower defense game:

• Roguelite elements: Randomized terrain, tower "cards," upgrades, perks.
• Comparisons: “It’s like if Balatro and Plants vs Zombies had a baby.”
• Three factions, multiple unlockable "generals," map-building with Tetris-style tiles, per-tower strategic perks, and upgradable base defenses.
• Despite extremely ugly art (actual quote: “These characters look like shit” — Dan, [78:42]), the game plays incredibly well.
• Mouse/keyboard is best, but Steam Deck verified; Dan immediately downloads it for plane rides.

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Recent Updates to Peak & Social Co-op Games

80:19–88:09

• Mary spotlights a major Peak update: a new desert/sand level with tornadoes, monsters, and wacky items (like a cannon to launch friends). The devs’ cheeky attitude and willingness to hotfix bugs gets praised.
• Emergent chaos: Adds procedural variety, but sometimes creates impossible situations (e.g., fire on a non-reachable tree). Demand for private lobbies/building codes acknowledged.
• Mary recounts the "first time" seeing an enemy in Peak (“giant skeleton chasing you if you leave the group behind!”).

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Other Games: Weird Switch Sports, Zelda Replays, Time Flies, Make Room

88:15–108:49

• Drag X Drive (Switch, Nintendo): Nintendo’s strange wheelchair basketball sports game with frustrating controls (“you have to constantly be rubbing these things against your thighs”), poor multiplayer implementation, and lack of personality. Mike: “I don’t like knees.” Mary: “I love shins.”
• Breath of the Wild (Switch 2): Dan replays BOTW, confirms his preference for it over Tears of the Kingdom, appreciating its more focused, survivalist, exploration-driven approach. The group agrees not every game needs every mechanic.
  • “I do think I can say definitively, I think this is the best game ever made.” — Dan, [98:46]
• Chill Games: Mary devotes downtime to cozy, low-stress games, citing Time Flies and Is This Seat Taken? as soothing standouts.
• Pikmin 4: All agree Pikmin 4 is an underrated, nearly GOTY-level cozy game.

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Email Bag: Podcasts, Game Mechanics Masterpieces

[110:22–132:07]

What Non-Gaming Podcasts Do You Listen To? [111:04–119:12]

• Dan: Deadlock (wrestling, old matches with deep in-jokes)
• Mike: Welcome to Night Vale (fictional, surreal radio drama), wine podcasts for study (Into the Glass, GuildSomm), I'll Drink to That, and YouTube shorts dissecting movies.
• Mary: Mysteries like S Town, Serial, and the finance call-in Jill on Money
  • Wine podcast name improv:
    • “Watch Me Cabernet!” — Dan
    • "Pinot Gratio" — Mary
    • "Got Soms" — Mike
    • "The Merlot Down" — Dan

What Game Best Exemplifies Its Core Mechanics? [123:05–132:07]

• Dan: Soul Calibur is the perfect fighting game; Tony Hawk for skating; Gears of War for cover mechanics and horde mode.
• Mary: Left 4 Dead 2 for co-op mechanics, especially special infected; Super Meat Boy for time-based leaderboards.
• Mike: Resident Evil 4 for inventory management; They Are Billions for RTS turtling; Trials Evolution for leaderboards and ghost racing.
• Minecraft and Stardew Valley for crafting/terraforming.
• All agree Titanfall 2 arguably nails first-person movement and wall-running.

Memorable Quotes:

“These characters look like shit...” — Dan, on Tower Dominion [78:42]

“I so resent both of you for making me the adult in the room.” — Mike, [109:00]

"I had Gir T-shirts. I had a backpack. I had Ger stuff. Like, I was that little freak, and I think I was annoying. So, like, your theory is accurate." — Mary, [27:41]

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Sign-Offs & What’s Next

132:16–End

• Mike plugs upcoming co-op campaigns (Total War: Warhammer 3 with Nextlander, RE4 Remake on YouTube).
• Mary and Dan promote their channels and ongoing series (Mary: weekly streaming Peak, Dan: Giant Bomb's Blight Club).
• Usual sign-off chaos: the trio hurl inside jokes, roast each other, and riff on who really is in charge.
• Mary attempts to trademark the new exit phrase: "Check it!" [137:41]

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[Notable Timestamps]

• How to ruin a theater: [08:05–08:28]
• Dan’s dad’s Family Guy pelvic thrust routine: [46:11–47:03]
• Peak’s new sand/desert level and emergent chaos: [80:19–84:40]
• Metal Gear Solid: Delta analysis: [50:38–58:01]
• Tower Dominion review: [67:22–79:55]
• Debate over Animal vs Human morals in Looney Tunes: [19:25–31:45]

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Episode Takeaways

• This episode shines brightest in its conversational chemistry, veering from fondly-remembered ‘90s toons into deep dives on why specific game mechanics work, layering in personal anecdotes and comedic asides.
• Key recs: Weapons (movie, go blind), Alien Earth (give it a shot if you’re into sci-fi, but beware streaming platform shenans), Tower Dominion (ignore the looks, enjoy the obsession), Is This Seat Taken? (perfect cozy background game), Time Flies (uniquely funny micro-puzzle adventure).
• The hosts’ mixture of honest critical takes — and willingness to roast everything from Nintendo oddities to algorithm fails — cements Fire Escape as a haven for listeners who love both games and the culture (and chaos) that surrounds them.

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Subscribe, write in, and don’t forget – it’s never just a podcast: it’s a hangout.
"Check it!" – Mary Kish [137:41]

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Fire Escape Cast. I am your host, as always, Mike Mahardy here, as always, with the bad boy of games media, as he's come to be known, Dan Reichert.

[A]

You realize you're stealing a gimmick there, right?

[B]

Is it? Am I really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which one?

[A]

Dan introduces Mike Minati on the podcast.

[B]

Oh, does he really? To be clear, I don't listen to shit from Giant Bomb, so that's probably why. I don't know.

[A]

I don't listen to anything anywhere. But I'm honest. I'm aware of that.

[B]

Sorry, Jan. Sorry. Mike.

[A]

Bad boy Mike Minati is going to kick your ass. And he's already really happy that we mentioned his name before we've even introduced everyone on this.

[B]

I. He does strike me as like a serial narcissist.

[A]

Oh, he would be the first to admit that, yes.

[B]

Okay, cool.

[A]

Let me just walk around the house singing songs and inserting his name into songs all the time.

[B]

Yeah, okay. Okay, let's restart. What? Stanley Tucci, I'm your host, Mike Mahardi here as always, with the milquetoast, Dan Reichert, that's me. And everybody's favorite comedian, Marrakesh.

[C]

Milk Toast is your punishment for correcting him. I would much rather be the bad boy than Milk Toast.

[A]

I just can't steal someone's gimmick. Look, I can't do gimmick. You got a toe owner with me.

[B]

That's a valid point. I don't want to take away Mike's his aura.

[A]

I guess we're technically co owners also here. I guess we own Fire Escape.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Can we steal someone?

[B]

I actually own 75. I just didn't tell you guys.

[A]

No.

[B]

Sign the paperwork.

[A]

Yeah, you got the 33 going on.

[B]

That'd be funny if I was weaseling. Yeah.

[C]

You would be okay with stealing someone.

[A]

Else'S gimmick if you are, as someone who respects the business a lot, and that's a wrestling thing.

[C]

My name is Mary and I know the best game of the week.

[A]

What's that? Besties oh, yes.

[B]

I totally listen to all of these. I know.

[A]

Podcast. Yes.

[B]

Chris Plant, I think dabbles in fire escape, so apologies, Plant. I really do like the besties. I like their game of the year.

[C]

We literally apologies that I stole it. Or apologies that Dan had no idea what their gimmick was.

[A]

Listen, I love so many people in this industry. I've never listened to any of your fucking podcasts once.

[B]

Oh, I don't even listen to this back unless there's controversial stuff.

[A]

I've never heard an episode of this. No.

[B]

Oh, speaking of, a lot of people came out of the woodwork supporting your Hamilton opinion, Dan.

[A]

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Rational adults.

[B]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess I'm the minority.

[C]

I was afraid. I was afraid of them.

[A]

Mary. Mary, why would you be? You're afraid of musical theater fans. That seems like the least intimidating group ever.

[C]

No, they're very.

[B]

Me and Mike Minhotti will take me and the bad boy of Games media will take you out next time we see you.

[A]

You are afraid of Mike Manati. Yes.

[C]

Adults got mad at us.

[B]

You don't need to be.

[C]

You had to be careful.

[B]

I'm harmless.

[A]

Mike, I've known you long enough. If you wanted to kick my ass at some point, you would have done it by now.

[B]

I don't want to. Well, I want. Actually, no, that's not true.

[A]

I want.

[B]

I have wanted to, but I don't. I can respect.

[A]

Was it the turkey roll night?

[B]

No. That was funny.

[A]

Okay. When did you want to kick my ass the most?

[B]

I remember specifically because I remember, like, it was when last time you were here in my apartment. To clarify, I live on a fourth floor walk, right? So you have to go up one, two, three floor flights of stairs to get there. It's fourth floor because there's a garden level. Don't do math. Don't come at me with the math. And yeah, we've talked about this. Yeah, yeah, that show. You grab my ankle each time I took a step because you were right behind me and I told you on the first flight of stairs, dude, that's. That's really annoying me. I. It was so frustrating to me. And there's that element of, like, a bit of autism on my end where, like, if I'm trying to convey an emotion and I don't know how else to amplify, like, I can't get much farther than Daniel. That's really fucking annoying. I'm not kidding. I don't know how to go above that. So you forced me to, like, become A different person on the next floor who could somehow get.

[A]

Yeah, I was challenging you to basically evolve as a person. It was like, you know, like Liam Neeson and Batman Begins. I was trying to be that for you. I was trying to get you to confront who you are and evolve. You were my person.

[B]

My Ra's al Ghul on the way up my stairs.

[A]

Exactly. You're going to kill me on a train.

[B]

Your daughter's going to come back in the future posing as someone else.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

Amanda's daughter. Mm. This is all making great sense. Speaking of movies, we're not gonna talk about it, so no spoiler warning necessary. Mary and I have seen Weapons Dan, you're seeing it in, like, five hours.

[A]

Five hours from now. Yes. Yes. I'm very excited.

[B]

We talk. It's again, going blind. If you haven't seen a trailer. I. All I'll say is I heavily recommend you go see it if you're not.

[A]

Being a horror guy. Normally, it shows the power of. Mary's recommendation of Barbarian, because I love that so much.

[B]

Same director for context, for those who might not know.

[A]

Yeah, this probably wouldn't have been on my radar, but I love Barbarian a lot, so I'm doing the same thing this time, just going in totally blind. So thank you, Mary, once again, for that recommendation.

[B]

Yeah. If you have time after text or hit us up in the discord with thoughts, immediate take.

[C]

Talk about it in a future episode. Because I don't even. Similarly to Barbarian, I don't want to color your thoughts of what it is. I do think it's worth seeing, and I think there are similarities in the way that they are directing this that I think will be interesting to people. I also will say, I just think it's good to see in a theater because this type of film. Similar. I did not see Barbarian in theaters, which is a bummer. But, like, I think similarly, this is the type of film where people in the audience will go. And it's really fun to see a movie in an auditorium where everybody kind of goes or, like, maybe giggles and you know what I mean? And so, like, this has a good audience vibe. I had that with sinners as well. Like, the audience was like, they were hollering in my. In my live screen of this, and I was like, I was here for it. I was in the zone because they were in the zone. So I. I think this is a good movie to see in theaters because of that, because the audience will all collectively say the same thing.

[A]

I think horror and comedy are both they're really helped by that theater environment. Like, did I talk last time about Naked Gun? And just seeing it with just like, you know, it was just like seven of us in the theater cracking up. Like, there's just something about that environment that I just love for horror.

[C]

I'm gonna see Naked Gun tomorrow and.

[A]

I'm really thinking about it since I saw it. Oh, I heard it's funny me about it. I.

[B]

Maybe that's what I do. I'm in LA this coming week and I've got some like, obviously just like back to back in a studio, maybe that I go see Naked Gun on my own.

[A]

I would want to hear from both.

[B]

That'd be sad to see Naked Gun by myself.

[A]

No, really, theater, it's not that I would care.

[B]

I would still do it. Another movie that was like, okay, yeah. So these days, I think we've talked about it, you can get really shitty theater experiences for people who did not like. I don't. I'm not. I don't want to make Gen Z a boogeyman, but I'm just saying I think there are young people who didn't grow up with theaters as like, the only way to see a movie. So when they go, it's very social for them and they can be loud and talking over stuff and you can get a really bad theater audience. However, I like the Minecraft experience. I had a really good weapons audience. And the first movie, the movie that saved movies, if you didn't hear Top Gun, Maverick, that crowd was awesome too. It was like they were cheering when he did the time trial thing at all the right moments. Did you say you had a bad Minecraft experience?

[C]

No, I'm just saying the Minecraft experience with children is like, notoriously bad because they were. They scream and throw popcorn during that scene. And it was kind of like. It was kind of the bane of theater workers because they were like, we have to clean all that shit up.

[A]

As someone who used to have to clean theaters after, like, movies with a bunch of fucking kids, and I was working the theater when Toy Story 2 came out and. And it was in our four biggest theaters, and that was hell cleaning that shit up every time because it was short too. So the turnover is just constant. So there's one closing out every fucking 15 minutes, it seems. And they're all just nightmares to clean up.

[C]

Is that because children, like. Is children the common denominator, though?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I can say they've always been bad. Yeah, my worst one was bad. My worst one was Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1. I was still in the. Working in a theater when that came. Or was it Half Blood Prince? It was one of the Harry Potters. And it was like people are standing at the top of the theater stairs just, like, dumping popcorn from the top. Like a waterfall of popcorn. I couldn't. I could not fathom how they made it that messy. And I don't think that was a children thing. I think it was just one of the most popular movies ever had, like, drawn in huge audiences. What is going on really quick. I'm sorry, this is not good for audio listeners. Yeah. Why does that keep moving?

[A]

Oh, it's. My fans on. Mike is describing.

[B]

I thought maybe boss.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

Maybe Boss was hiding under there.

[A]

Sorry. Yeah, very exciting. Yeah.

[B]

Anyway.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Continue.

[A]

Speaking of exciting, I wish in movie theater experiences, I really wish the new War of the Worlds would have had a theatrical release because people would be hooting and hollering and screaming and gasping throughout. It's just a thrill a minute.

[B]

I didn't even know there was one.

[A]

Like, there's a reason. Mary, did you know?

[C]

Is there a reason no one knows about it?

[A]

No. There was a new War of the Worlds. No, it is an Amazon prime movie starring Ice Cube.

[C]

Oh, I do know what you're talking about. I didn't know that's what that was.

[A]

Bad, in a way. I have never seen a movie be bad. It was made by Amazon during the pandemic.

[C]

You watched it?

[A]

I watched it last night on stream and it's. It led to Mike Minati calling me at two in the morning to rant about it. It is completely insane. It is an hour and a half of Ice Cube reacting to things on a Zoom call. That's it. He's just in a room on a zoom call the entire time. Because it was made during the pandemic and never came out. And they've just sat on it. So it is the most, like. Remember there were, like, horror movies and stuff that came out during the pandemics. We're gonna play on the fact that it's all locked down and stuff. Imagine that. But it comes out, you know, many years after it's relevant, like, that format. And it is all like, Amazon product placement. It is nothing but product placement. So it's like Ice Cube being like, I need a thumb drive to hack into the Internet mainframe. And then he's on a zoom call with his, like, daughter's boyfriend or whatever.

[B]

Or.

[A]

Or I think it's his son. He's like, oh, no, it's Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime Air. It's the future of delivery. And it shows the Amazon screen and like add to cart and use this address and then a drone, like a first person drone sequence of like Amazon Drone having to go into the CIA headquarters or whatever to deliver a thumb drive to Ice Cube so we can hack the Internet. It is the most like, you know in movies where it's like they say things about computers or hacking and it's just the most like, it's like that's not how computers work or the Internet. That's all this movie is. It's just Ice Cube.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Right. Clicking on Google Maps and being like, hack camera. And it hacks the camera or hack, you know, this drone hack watch dogs too. You know, everyone in the chat just kept bringing up watchdog stuff last night. It is, it is unbelievably bad. And it's. I, I think I've watched a lot of bad movies like Love on a Leash and Noobs and all these shitty movies. I love, like that. This is a different type of bad. This is just the most soulless, like corporate, like AI made this. It seems like, you know, like it's unbelievably fucking bad. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

At least like the room was made with some sort of heart.

[A]

Right. And that's the thing is like, like stuff like you haven't seen Love on a Leash, but it's like it was made by this elderly woman about a dog that turns into a man and is looking for love and stuff like that. And it's like unbelievably bad as a film. But it's like, all right, this is a interesting thing that happened. There's an earnestness to it where it's like, this is just the coldest. Just like Amazon made a movie to advertise. Amazon and Microsoft Teams and Spotify and Facebook. Like there is a, a plot early on where it's like, oh, the girl is mad because her dad won't accept her boyfriend's Facebook friend request in 2025. And it's like a 20 something year old like, Dr. It's like, you need to accept my boyfriend's friend request. Yeah, it's. It's, it's just unbelievably terrible.

[B]

That sounds awful.

[C]

I did see people talk about it online, so I didn't know that was World of Worlds. I just know everybody's making fun of Ice Cube because he keeps doing this thing where he like makes giant leaps of faith because apparently he's like this genius and so he'll be like, oh, of course we need to add these in this and we'll need a drone. And it does this, like, very bad hacking visual that he's not in, where it shows the computer screen and he says, like, add drone. And then in the camera screen, a drone shows up because he said, add drone. It's almost like he was saying, for.

[B]

90 minutes, it's just super Troopers, the enhanced thing, like, a lot of it.

[A]

For 90 straight minutes.

[C]

It doesn't make sense. It just seems really poorly. Like, the special effects are really bad as well. And I think they thought maybe they could get away with it because it's all done screen in screen. So if he's watching a webcam, it can look really bad. But then they do show stuff.

[A]

They show the aliens, like, blowing stuff up and everything.

[C]

It's bad.

[A]

I don't know if it's trying to do, like, a Cloverfield type thing where it's like, oh, man on the street. Like, you know, from the perspective of the people, you know, shooting it from just, you know, consumer cameras. But what if it was modern day and it was zoom calls and stuff and it super. Doesn't work as Cloverfield held up.

[B]

We know.

[A]

You know, I only saw it once in the theaters. I remember, like, I like the marketing of Cloverfield more than I like the actual movie. I think I thought it was clever marketing. They didn't really show much at all. I remember thinking the movie was all right, but I really think, like, the gold standard for that type of thing with, like, the marketing and the movie is Blair Witch. Yeah. Because again, I was working at theater when that came out, and, like, half the people thought that was real, like, the marketing. It was the early days of the Internet and people were like, oh, yeah, I heard they found this tape. And then you're watching, like, I can't imagine how scary that would be if you thought it was real, you know? Yeah. And even, like, knowing that it's a work, like, you know, I watched it a couple years ago. It's good. It's like it holds up very, very well.

[B]

Yeah, the. That feeling of despair when they, like, lose the map and they're not just.

[A]

Flat out lost and the tooth stuff and all that. And the end is so weird. Yeah.

[B]

When you're in the tent and there's all the hands just hitting it. Yeah, it was good.

[C]

And they're lost.

[A]

It's awesome.

[C]

Yeah. I think I remember when that happened. And it's such a interesting reflection of, like, an era where the Internet was just getting started and because the Internet was still pretty new, it was still fairly believable that if there was a website dedicated to the. The Blair Witch being actual video files that they stole from police and they're actually, you know, they shouldn't have been released. But they.

[A]

Yeah, no one knows where these kids went and they. And the hired unknowns, they weren't like known actors which is. It's huge. Smart. You couldn't do it again.

[C]

You couldn't do it again. It was a moment in time. But I remember vividly my stepsister thought that it was real. So the scary part for her was that she believed the website that she went to that said we uncovered these police files and it was just a time where it was like yeah, maybe, maybe they did uncover these police files and get the movie rights to them and now they're releasing these dead kids. Footage for all of us.

[A]

Last known footage.

[C]

Enjoy.

[A]

Give us to the authorities.

[C]

Yeah, it's a snuff film. I, I think that it was just a moment that you could never do again. But I think it was incredible win for marketing to be able to. To do that found footage. But yeah, I've never really seen anybody do it like that ever. That actually didn't make me sick and it kind of did make me sick a little bit.

[A]

Just like in terms of just the movement of the camera and stuff.

[C]

Yeah. I don't want to always look up people's noses.

[A]

It's iconic shot.

[C]

It is an iconic shot. It's just a lot. But yeah, I, I get it.

[B]

What is the modern equivalent of that? Not like found footage but like something that was made where the marketing tied into the movie and it was could only have been made in its time and place. Is there a modern like one that kind of blew people's minds like that semi recently like a movie movie? Yeah, probably. Or maybe there's a TV show like.

[A]

Where you're trying to work the audience.

[B]

Is it like frog fractions or something like that?

[A]

Honestly this is really subverts expectations in that way. I mean it's like a.

[B]

What do you want to call it? A augmented reality kind of like the. The wider world is. Plays into it. I mean an obvious one. We're.

[A]

They used to try weird stuff like that a lot back in like kind of more that Blair Witch like like early 2000s stuff. Do you remember there was a EA game. I always forget the name of it where it was like you would give your like numbers. Yeah, it was. No, but it was like crazy ambitious where you give like your phone number and your fax number and your email and the game would like send you faxes and emails. It was like the Michael Douglas movie the game. Except for they're not trying to kill you and stuff. EA GAME PHONE FACTS I hate looking up stuff on a podcast. But you're. You guys. The Majestic. Majestic. One of the first alternate reality games. Yes. July 24, 2001 that's right, yes. Shadow Government Conspiracy theory. It was played by phone, email, AOL, instant messenger, BlackBerry messages, facts and by visiting special websites. So yeah, it would be this. Like it was an EA game. Yeah, that. Majestic 7-7-01 look it up. It's like I remember, like it sounded really fascinating. I don't think it really play like it was a huge failure, I think. But I thought it was so interesting sounding.

[C]

I think I have. I don't think it's as strong. But I will say that the very first time I ever encountered a game that threatened to delete my save data, I talked about and people would gossip about it. Hellblade is a good example of that. Where we all talked about it.

[B]

We've already talked about this.

[C]

That doesn't matter though, I think. But we're not talking about whether or not Hellblade is good. I'm saying, was it effective? Was it effective. Shut the fuck up. Was it effective marketing for it to do that and get us all to be like, it'll delete your save. And which we did. And everybody fucking talked about it because.

[B]

No, because Kojima has never lied about the protagonist of a game.

[A]

He did it in cool ways. He did. In fun, subversive ways. The thing is, the help, like, thing is sure great fun. But then after it comes out, people are like, oh, it's actually. And everyone's like, oh, it's so like. I would argue that it was not effective, you know, like, because I renew right away.

[B]

I. Well, I was. Yeah, I guess it wasn't as like long form as metal gear solid 2, but for people playing it for review, it definitely. We don't need to talk about this again. I think it added to the tension for me, but I didn't hear from other people that it was so it worked. Also, developers are always lying to us in like every single game. That's the whole. That's how you. When you make games, you're lying to the player. Like Coyote Time. When like the developers are like. That's the phrase for like how much space in a platformer do you leave from the edge to still allow someone to jump or doom. Doom 2016. When your back is to demons, they do not shoot nearly as much or move as quickly.

[A]

Oh, you know, Resident Evil 4. Shifting the difficulty on the fly without telling the players. Stuff like that.

[C]

It's so brilliant.

[A]

I love that. Yeah, it's really good when you can't notice. I think that's great.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Importantly, though, you time uncharted.

[B]

Your health actually amplifies by 10 when you're in the red on the screen because they want you to feel like you're barely surviving, but you're actually more.

[A]

Yeah, I got you mentioned Coyote time. That reminds me, this came up this week. There is a divide here. When I've asked people, are you team Wiley Coyote or team Roadrunner?

[B]

So Roadrunner is the one that's always with him and escaping, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's like Tom and Jerry, kind of.

[A]

Sure. And Wiley Coyote is always buying the ACME products, trying to, you know, he's painting stuff on tunnels to look like roads.

[C]

He's buying the Acme sense because who are you for? If Wiley Coyote won, then it would be over.

[A]

He's eating the Roadrunner.

[C]

He would eat it.

[A]

Yeah. He's always putting on bibs and holding up the. The fork and knife.

[B]

Why is he going to kill him? I think I'm Team Roadrunner. I didn't know there's an arm.

[A]

Where were you?

[B]

I'm assuming you're okay.

[C]

We all know what heel Dan is.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Should be.

[A]

I don't think he's a heel. I think Roadrunner is an asshole. And we. We pulled the audience during your podcast and most people was like, 5743 Wiley Coyote. And I am a Wiley guy. I always rooted for Wiley Coyote.

[C]

Being contrarian doesn't mean you've changed your mind. That's a flip flopper. We're saying you're just picking the one that's obviously eating the other one.

[A]

As a kid, I remember thinking, no, as a kid, I was like, I want fucking Wiley Coyote to catch him. And I remember there's that Itchy and Scratchy where they're supposed to be, the one where Itchy finally got Scratchy. And I totally empathize with, you know, Barton Lisa being like, oh, my God, that's finally going to happen. Because I wanted that to happen. I wanted the Wiley Coyote to eat the Roadrunner.

[C]

Yeah. But if either of.

[A]

But because he's trying so hard and the Roadrunner is just rubbing it in his face.

[C]

But the Roadrunner has every right to if either of you guys tried to eat me, I would absolutely embarrass you publicly and rub it in your face. And if everyone was like, man, Mary's kind of being a about this, that's you.

[A]

No, I see. Why are coyotes in the desert? We don't even know if he has a home. He is trying to survive. He is in the animal kingdom.

[B]

He's a coyote. They live in the desert.

[A]

Have you ever seen a nature documentary? He's doing what a lion would do, or he's trying to eat, and the roadrunner could go anywhere, and he decides to go, oh, I'm gonna go right on this road and I'm gonna. With this coyote. That's just a hungry animal. He is with a hungry animal.

[B]

I'm confused. Have you seen a coyote use a plunger to detonate dynamite in a nature documentary before?

[A]

The good ones? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

When they're fucking professionals about it. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

When they know what they're doing. Yeah.

[C]

No one can ever forget that famous David, David Attenborough scene when Wile E. Coyote hung in the air for about five to seven seconds. Now he won't actually fall until he looks down.

[A]

He's already applied bandages to his forehead.

[B]

It's are you sorry?

[A]

Sign that said, yikes.

[B]

So are you team?

[A]

I love Wiley Coyote.

[B]

Tom is the cat.

[A]

I watched Tom and Jerry. No, this came to because, like, Tom and Jerry was a cat and mouse situation. That's just a nature thing.

[B]

It wasn't so bad. Situation. It was just a cat. Yeah, it was a cat.

[A]

Well, no, syn. Tweety is different because Tweety was a pet, and the cat's just trying to get into a cage and eat a pet. So, like, Sylvester, clearly the heel. I can't get behind Sylvester. There. There's no justifying his actions.

[B]

Wow. Looney Tunes really recycled the things, didn't they?

[A]

Yeah, but it was awesome. I really love Looney Tunes. I mean, Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny, you know, like. Yeah, it's a lot of hunting.

[B]

There's the Detroiters. Have you seen that Detroiter sketch that, I don't know, pops up on my Instagram feed where Tim Robinson goes up to these people at, like, a business dinner, and they're like, oh, my God, are you, like, Tom Greenwood's son? He's like, yeah, it's my dad. And they're like, man, we. The stock market was exploding when he was still working. And he's like, yeah. They're like, how's he doing? He's like, ah, he's a vegetable. He really doesn't understand anything anymore. And then they get quiet and they're like. And then this woman's like, well, you tell him I said hi. And he's like, talking to him, like, is like talking to Bugs Bunny. It won't make sense. She's like, well, then you tell him I said, what's up, Doc? I think it was Detroiters. It might have been. I don't know what else.

[A]

I feel like you could talk to Bugs Bunny. He talked.

[B]

He just says, what's up, Doc? Doesn't he?

[A]

No, he. He says words and stuff. He doesn't. He like, ain't I stinka? Like, you know, that stuff.

[B]

Oh, yeah. He just says, like, slang stuff. God. Elmer Fudd. Same thing. Elmer Fudd's just hunting a rabbit the whole time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is that all? Looney Tunes.

[C]

Pepe Le Pew is hunting.

[A]

Horny. He was a pervert, but he.

[C]

Is he not hunting?

[A]

Yeah, I guess, in a way.

[B]

What was doing.

[A]

What was Speedy Gonzalez's thing? I know he was fast. Did he want cheese? I'm gonna Google. What was Speedy Gonzales Deal?

[B]

Speedy Gonzalez could not have aged well, but not. It's looney. I don't know. What, was there, like, a counterpart in that show?

[A]

Deal.

[B]

Did he have a villain or was he the villain?

[A]

He was just fast. That was.

[C]

What about the other guy with guns? The Texan?

[A]

Oh, Yosemite Sam. He was great. I love you, Sammy. Sam.

[C]

Didn't he try and kill Speedy Gonzalez? Weren't they Nemesis?

[A]

They. Oh, interesting.

[B]

What about. What about Marvin Martian? He was just trying to go.

[A]

He had the big red monster guy. Remember the big mark?

[C]

Yeah, he's like.

[A]

Yeah, he's like a refrigerator. Red fuzzy refrigerator. Yeah.

[C]

I actually remember only that because of the game. The Looney Tunes game.

[A]

Sure, sure.

[C]

It was impossible to beat that sequence in space with this fuzzy red foot. And it was so difficult. I think we ended up quitting. That game is. I wonder whatever happened to that game.

[B]

Oh, shit. I. Wow. I am remembering that now. I just got, like, a vision of it. I forgot about it.

[C]

I have to look at that.

[B]

I had Marvin Martian game on my. I had the Marvin Martian game on. My Game Gear.

[C]

Was it on? Yeah, this was an old platformer game. It must have either been on because I had a Sega growing up, so it was either like, Sega might have.

[B]

Been on Game Gear.

[C]

Game Gear could absolutely be it.

[B]

I'm just Genesis or Game Gear, because the Game Gear was just all Genesis games, wasn't it?

[C]

I mean, it's just been so long since I played this.

[B]

A lot of them.

[A]

Speedy has the reputation of being a hit with the female mice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Pepe Le Pew situation.

[B]

I think Speedy, because he's in and out.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Two Pump Chump.

[A]

My God.

[B]

That cartoon you're talking about there, it's for children. Looney Tunes. I used to wake up like, Ebony.

[C]

Ebony, Ebon, Ebony, Ebony. I'm gonna go shoot.

[A]

Gross.

[B]

Yeah. Kind of.

[A]

Kind of hot, but like a little, like, corkscrew pigtail penis, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah, for sure. That was the implication of the.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. We all know what's going on there.

[B]

Yeah. Have a trident penis. Yeah. Looney Tunes is great.

[A]

Yeah, A lot. Like, that's the thing. I think there were, like, you know, either, like, Nickelodeon kids and, like, Disney Channel kids and stuff. I never had Disney Channel, so it's like, as a kid, Nickelodeon was my whole deal. Like, I loved all those shows.

[B]

I was a Nickelodeon. I knew it was Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network.

[A]

See, that was. Cartoon Network was after my time, you know, by the time that was around. Well, actually, I think there was a while when I was a kid and I was like, oh, I wish I could watch this. And I didn't have it. And then, like, when Space Ghost and all that stuff, I would, you know, see commercials. This seems like my type of thing. And I just never had access to it, so. Yeah, never. All that Adult Swim stuff, All the Cartoon Network stuff, I just. I don't have that.

[B]

Yeah. Cartoon Network struck me as more for people who had slightly aged out of Nickelodeon. It was not as feel good. It was slightly weirder humor, fairly. Dexter's Laboratory.

[A]

John Dexter's type stuff. Yeah, I missed all that.

[C]

Yeah. I didn't have. I didn't have cable growing up, but my dad did. So whenever I visited my dad, I was able to, like, partake in cable, the life of what cable was for like two to three weeks a year. And that was very special time for me to, like, understand what Johnny Bravo was.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Nickelodeon was channel 34 for me. Same number as Shaquille O'. Neal.

[C]

Oh, wow. What a nice little memory.

[A]

Growing up, I have never seen Invader Zim, but not to generalize, but I do remember in college in the dorms, the most insufferable people in the dorms were the ones that were the most into Invaders in. Yeah, the most annoying people I've ever met.

[B]

I do think it had the element. Yeah, I think it had like a Rick and Morty. Like. Oh, it's actually More adult than you think it is kind of vibe. Right?

[C]

Well, it was evil. And Invader Zim was, like, genuinely trying to kill people. And it had, like, a real dark premises to it of, like, you know, are you on the side of this murderous villain that keeps making mistakes? And so, like, I got really. I definitely was the person who had the Invader. No, not Invader Zim. He had a dog called Gir, and it was like a little alien that had a zipper, and I had Gir T shirts. I had a backpack. I had Ger stuff. Like, I was that little freak, and I think I was annoying. So, like, your theory is accurate.

[B]

Yeah, I. I was Rocket Power. Hey, Arnold. Hey, Arnold still was one of my favorites.

[C]

Hey, Arnold was kids. And we all.

[B]

What did you say?

[A]

Wasn't Rocket Power like, a Pokemon thing?

[B]

Team Rocket was the. Were the villains.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Rocket Power was the, like, California skater.

[C]

Skater kids, which was also cool. And I still do Wiggity wiggity.

[B]

All the Twister. Reggie.

[A]

Sometimes the. It's not a crazy age difference between the three of us, but sometimes even a couple of years, you realize where the, like, you know, it's like with, like, me and Vinnie, you know, it's like, oh, he was in that kind of like, he. Man, Transformers GI Joe era. And I'm just like a couple years younger. So it's like I was Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters. And then you go a couple of years past me, and it's like the Cartoon Network stuff, the things you're talking about, you know?

[B]

Yeah, for sure. Like, that. That stuff moved quick. If you didn't get it on the ground floor with Cartoon Network, then, yeah, you were left behind. Yeah, but Invader Zim was like, the original antihero.

[C]

It was.

[A]

And Wiley Coyote.

[C]

No, I just don't think that he's.

[B]

Stop with the Wiley Coyote.

[C]

Yeah, I think it's hard. And also, I don't think it's that serious. I don't think, like, as children, we were ever supposed to ask ourselves what side we were on. The point was, he liked the fact that they always did the same thing, which is Wiley Coyote tried to kill Roadrunner and then embarrassed himself and got squished. Like, that's the joke.

[B]

Okay, hold on a second, Dan. So if I were to ask you, do you sympathize with Kevin or Harry and Marv in Home Alone?

[A]

Oh, no, I wanted Kevin because, like, I was like, that age.

[B]

It's the same dynamic. He's being an asshole and, like, booby trapping and kicking, like, basically Would kill them in real life. I mean, yeah, they're invading his house.

[A]

But they're just Kevin, the Wiley Coyote, in this situation.

[B]

He's the Roadrunner. Because he's setting up all these traps. And like.

[A]

Like Wiley Coyote was setting up traps. Acme Seed. He was setting up the tunnels that, you know, were the side of a mountain.

[B]

Oh, yeah, totally.

[A]

The Wiley Coyote.

[B]

I guess Home Alone would be. But. Right. But in this case, Wiley Coyote succeeds.

[A]

Well, that'd be great.

[C]

I disagree.

[B]

Okay. That's why you're a Kevin.

[C]

Because they're killing. The Wile E. Coyote is trying to kill Roadrunner and these guys are trying to kill Kevin. Like, they're trying to get him.

[A]

Wiley's on defense. Kevin's on defense.

[C]

You know, Wiley is not on defense.

[A]

I don't think he's trying to survive.

[B]

No, he's not. I think he's the one setting up all the traps.

[C]

He sets up the traps.

[A]

You think he's doing it out of malice? No, it's hunger and survival, so.

[C]

But Marv is also starving and he needs all of this to get a.

[A]

Fucking job and quit robbing people.

[C]

So does Wiley Coyote, and so do you.

[A]

He's a coyote. Mar is a man.

[B]

I think once someone starts hunting you with the intention of killing you, you can react however you want.

[A]

Elmer Fudd was hunting Bugs Bunny. Wile E. Coyote was just existing. And Roadrunner was coming into his world and fucking with him. Wiley was not hunting.

[B]

Where are you getting that? Like, is that. Definitely is that.

[A]

It was the premise Cliffs and desert and stuff like that. It was basically his home. Wiley is just in his natural environment. And roadrunners coming in.

[B]

It's Road Runners environment too. Isn't Roadrunner. What is Roadrunner supposed to be now.

[C]

That I think his environment is a road.

[B]

So isn't it his environment?

[C]

It's his natural, but he could get around easier.

[A]

He should go somewhere else and let the coyote live peacefully.

[C]

He's on the road to be.

[B]

And this guy's trying to blow him up with dynamite. So I would. And also, if I knew I was smarter than my opponent who was hunting me, I would also paint tunnels on walls so he run into them. I think it's his prerogative.

[C]

Yeah, that's evolution. Like, there might be some stuff I don't remember about. Yeah, nature is metal. If you're running into walls that have been painted, you aren't meant to survive.

[B]

This show is awesome. I gotta watch rewatch some Looney Tunes when I'm high.

[A]

Looney Tunes. Like a torrent or something.

[B]

Yeah, it's gotta be somewhere.

[C]

Yeah, I watched the new Alien show. A bit of a dramatic shift, but Alien Earth. Alien Earth is the new Alien Earth.

[B]

Is Alien or series.

[C]

I believe it's on Hulu. Yeah, that is canceled. Hulu shit in the Alien franchise, and it is.

[B]

Wait.

[A]

Oh, yeah, wait. You were on that. Sorry. Wait. But you stopped paying. No, the reason I didn't even tell you.

[C]

You guys share Hungry up.

[A]

We did. I told you.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

No, you said you talked to a man about it and you declined it. I don't think we're gonna do it this year. You did, and I kept you on because I'm nice.

[B]

No, wait, wait, wait, wait. When did I. I gotta look back through that because I don't remember.

[A]

No, no, no. Well, if I'm wrong, then I gotta re up because then you paid me. I don't think you paid me, though. I remember being like. I told my dad, because he's just kind of piggybacking. Okay.

[B]

March 23, 2025. Do you want to go in on another year of Hulu, Mike? Sure. Venmo request. Whatever you need.

[C]

He's got receipts.

[A]

He's got receipts. Oh, is it somebody on YouTube premium or something?

[B]

Sunday, March 23rd at 9. 22pm you asked me, and we were using Hulu. I'm pretty sure we were using Hulu when I said sure.

[A]

Venmo transactions. Okay, I don't see any Mike. My hardies here. I don't see any Mike.

[B]

My heart is July 3rd, so. But March 23rd. I sent Dan Riker 113.94.

[A]

Oh, was that for.

[B]

So can you send that back?

[A]

Wait a minute. 113.94. The thing you put down as the emoji was a wine glass. So that sounds like we went to a bar.

[B]

Wait, what would we have been doing in March?

[A]

I don't know. But a wine glass isn't Hulu.

[C]

This is a person.

[B]

Well, why didn't you Venmo request me? I definitely would have paid if you did.

[C]

You guys want to fight?

[A]

Well, let's. We're gonna track this down off the air because if you did pay me for Hulu, I needed to sign back up. Mary, I'm sorry.

[B]

You said thanks for the Venmo. You said. You said thanks for the Venmo on March 24th.

[A]

And when did we talk about the hulu?

[B]

The. The. March 23rd.

[A]

That could be a coincidence.

[B]

I don't know why I would.

[A]

I'm signing up for Hulu again.

[B]

You don't have to sign up for Hulu. Just send me back that money.

[A]

Oh, I'll send you the money. Okay.

[B]

Okay, I'm glad. No, we're keeping this because I want the world to know what it's like. That's fine. Don't worry about it. Either owe me money or sign back.

[C]

Up so you guys can watch Aliens and talk about it with me.

[B]

I'm very interested in this show, Mary.

[C]

Which is the new show on Hulu with the Alien franchise, and it is about. Oh, fuck both of you.

[B]

No, I want to hear. He interrupted.

[A]

We're curious.

[B]

He said. He said he canceled, and then I had to launch into it because there's money involved. Mary. I show. I almost started. No, he does. He does. I want to hear about Alien Earth. I almost started last night, but I held off. So there's four parts. They're each an hour. Ish. But they only have two live right now, and you have watched both of them. How is it I'm hosting the shit out of this thing? And I'd be remiss if I didn't point that out.

[C]

Are you.

[B]

How's Alien Earth?

[C]

I like is. It has some important context that they explain in the very beginning of the show, which is that there's three competing companies that are trying to essentially take over how the future of humanity exists. One is cyborgs, and that's when people, like, replace body parts with machines. And so there are people out there who are mostly machine now. There is AI Robots. Right. So there's robots that are, like, in our world that are just, like, supporting us as we need. And then there's a new thing called hybrids, and that's when you download a person's consciousness into a robot. So they have, like, transgender kind of stuff? Yeah, they feed. They. They have emotions like people do, but they are in robotic bodies, and they are, like, less prone to getting squished or die. And so these three different entities are in the current world, and you can get them confused or mix them up. There's, like, a cyborg that's in the very opening sequence that is able to, like, maneuver around Alien, whereas, like, people are, like, dying left and right. And then the crux of the plot of this is that there are hybrids, and one of the hybrids has a brother who is human, and she remembers him. She has memories of him before she was transferred to her robot body. And he is a first responder, and he's going to be a first responder in the ship that just Crash landed with Alien on it. And she's like, I have to go and help him because I am strong now. But she's like 8 years old. There's all these hybrids and they're all children. They're all 8 years old kids in the bodies of, like, strong adults.

[A]

Oh, weird.

[C]

It's very weird.

[B]

There's people that look like me going around be like, I want cinnamon toast. Quench.

[C]

They're not. They're not, like, too stupid, but they do. They do children's stuff where, like, they'll be sitting in the show like this, like, with their, like their knees into their chest or like, they'll be upside down and they'll be like, playing with their fingers or getting distracted. And it's like, yeah, these are fucking kids. These are young. I don't know if they're like, you know how. I don't know children's ages very well. They might be 10. But I'm just saying they are. They are children in adult bodies going into an alien universe with new bugs and new stuff. And that's the other thing I really like about this is, like, we've seen a lot of what alien can do. We understand the mouth coming out of the mouth and that it's a hunter and stuff like that. This new one on the ship, there are a bunch of different species that they're trying to protect. The. I don't know, the. The corporation is trying to protect and make sure all these species stay alive. Well, they're starting to get out. And so in the first episode, you will see the first new species that is not alien, that is starting to, like, kill people. And it's fun because each episode I have found a new thing to be scared of because we don't know what it is. We don't know how it works. We don't know how it operates. And it is. They're also killing people. And then there's also alien hunting. So.

[A]

And there's just the four episodes. Like, it's a limited run type thing, I believe so.

[C]

I believe it's.

[A]

I like that.

[C]

Built to. Built to sell, right? It's like this one entire entity feels.

[A]

Like a longer movie or a shorter run of a TV show. I like that.

[C]

I'm too in. I think it's quite good. And so what happened was I was like, you know, I had like my big bowl of popcorn and I had my drink. I didn't know. Had my. That was before we started callback.

[A]

Something that is not on the podcast.

[B]

Oh, was it really?

[C]

Mike said that we weren't live when you talked about.

[B]

We don't even provide.

[C]

No. I want everyone to know that you said you were going to watch Sinners tonight before we started recording. And then I was like, great, you should get some popcorn. You're going to love it. And you were like, no, actually, I'm going to make scallops. And I was like, that's weird on popcorn, but, like, do whatever the fuck you want.

[B]

It was a funny Mary joke that I didn't realize was thinking back. Yeah, I was off camera, but you're the comedian of the crew.

[C]

Thank you. And then you were like, I think I might make a cocktail. And I was like, scout, cocktail sounds pretty gross, too. But, like, live your life. It was a double whammy from Mary. Anyway, the point is, is I made that second joke. I don't think so. I think I made both of the jokes. Anyway, we're watching this. I didn't know it was piecemeal. I didn't know they were releasing them episodically. And so I'm watching these two episodes. I was like, this is great. Let's keep rolling. Let's go. And it ends with the. Episode two. Ends with a huge cliffhanger. And episode three starts. And I'm like, oh, wild. Like, it's a spaceship with characters I haven't seen yet. It must be, like, going backwards in time or forwards in time.

[B]

This feels like spoiler territory. As someone who wants to watch the show that's.

[C]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask you to trust me.

[B]

Okay? Okay.

[C]

And so there's like, this spaceship, and they're all in hypersleep to. All we know is, like, very familiar in the alien series. And then an asteroid hits the spaceship, and all of these people get, like, emergency ejected in their little cocoons in their little room. And this guy gets, like, ejected onto a ship, and there's aliens on the ship that are not alien. They're like spiders. And I was like, this is so crazy. How can you have a totally new character on a totally different planet fighting totally different aliens? Why is this. Are they gonna meet up later? This is so confusing. And I keep watching it because it is. It's not bad. It's not good, but it's not bad. And I was like, I just don't know if I, like, agree with this total shift in tone and direction. And who the fuck are these new characters? And finally, like, 45 minutes in, I was like, wait a second. And I hit pause. And it's a movie. It's a different movie from a different franchise. And I watched 45 minutes of it thinking it was an episode of Alien Movie.

[B]

Yeah, that sounds familiar.

[A]

That's insane. You're watching Happy Gilmore 2.

[B]

You got 45 minutes in.

[C]

Took 45 minutes. But you have to understand, he was in. He was in Hypersleep, and I was, you know, in a ship, and I was like, oh, totally hyper sleep. Alien. This is the same thing. But who is this guy? Who is this guy? I've never heard. I've never seen him before.

[B]

And that Elgo. Gotcha.

[C]

The algorithm got your ass. And I've never, like, if this was a machine or if there was a person that was like, I'm going to play this movie. After the second episode of Alien, they hook line. Sinkered me into watching most of a movie that has nothing to do with the Alien franchise because I thought. I thought that I was watching episode three and just. They just had. Sometimes shows do that where they're just like, this is an offshoot. But it'll come. It'll come into play, right? I promise you it'll sync up later.

[A]

I feel like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul would do that, where it's like an episode surge. You're like, wait, what's going on?

[B]

Where are we?

[A]

What time is this? Who are these characters?

[B]

Yeah, no, I. I could see that happening. Maybe not 45 minutes of it, but I could see it happening.

[C]

Oh, I was so. I know. The whole time I was, like, eating popcorn and drinking my drink, and I was like, I don't know. Scallops, you've kind of. You've got. That one's you. And I was kind of like. I was like, you're losing me. But, like, there are interesting aliens, like spiders, but, like, I have to look it up.

[B]

Yeah, you got to continue watching.

[C]

I will tell you.

[B]

I remember that David Arquette.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I bet you I can look it up if we Google it. So it's. I'm just going to. I'm going to say what the plot is, which is, a guy gets ejected from spaceship, and when he lands, it's a gravity planet with aliens and of the apes. And there's a lady on his comms that are like, hey, can you help me? I need you to come get me.

[A]

You were playing Halo.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's really. It's really far away. And he's like, I don't have a lot of oxygen. And she convinces him, and she talks with him through the audio the whole time.

[B]

That's literally you get it?

[A]

She's like a blue hologram.

[B]

You literally. Pillar of Autumn. You get. You get on an escape pod and you go to a planetary object covered with aliens.

[A]

All these plasma grenades. World was like an oval thing.

[B]

Yeah. The controller was initially really big.

[A]

I didn't know why Hulu told me to plug in my controller, but.

[B]

And turn on my Xbox. Original.

[C]

Okay. It's called Long Distance.

[A]

Huh.

[C]

Google. Google figured it out from me saying. Just going to say. My Google terms were, Hulu guy ejected space ship, planet, aliens, women, comms talking to him.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. 2024. So it would have, like, looked modern, like the show. And. Okay.

[B]

50 Zachary tomatoes. Oh, Anthony Ramos is from. Nope. And Hamilton.

[A]

Oh, that guy.

[B]

He was in Hamilton as well.

[A]

Good.

[B]

Christopher is in. His name's Dwayne in this. But he was in a Game of Thrones. He was the. The rough and tumble dude from the north.

[A]

Oh, sure.

[C]

Long distance is, like, fine. I found it a bit exhausting because there's a person on comms talking the whole fucking movie, being like, tell me more about your life, like, while you come and rescue me. And it's just like, I don't give a fudge about this woman that I've never heard of, but there is, like, aliens stalking him the whole time, and that's really exciting. So, like, I'm on the fence about it, but as soon as I found out it was an alien, I turned it off and went to bed.

[A]

My favorite alien movie is Long Distance.

[C]

I was. I was offended. I was. I was upset. I was just. I was disappointed in myself. I was disappointed in the algorithm. I was actually impressed by the algorithm. And I was disappointed that I, like, got tricked into watching the story film.

[A]

Well, I. I feel like Mike will not be disappointed in me, because, Mike, I just went to my Hulu account and it says it never actually canceled because it was a couple days ago, and I'd already paid for the month, So I canceled my cancellation. And not only that, I bought a full calendar year. Full 12 months of Hulu and Mike those last few months, that's a bonus. You got those for free. You got another. Another year. No problem, buddy.

[B]

Wait, so did I pay for the coming year? No. What did I pay?

[A]

You already paid me. You already paid me in March. You're good.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, thanks. I feel like you're acting like it's a reward.

[A]

I just did a great job here. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Hero, huh?

[B]

That's.

[A]

A lot of people are saying thank.

[B]

You for providing the product I paid for.

[A]

Yeah. My dad's gonna be thrilled. He was really sad because he doesn't get to do his little Family Guy pelvic thrust nighttime routine.

[B]

I'm sorry, what?

[A]

I've told you this, right?

[B]

Not Family Guy pelvic thrust. I think I remember.

[A]

Oh, the Hulu. You know, my dad's on there. You always with them.

[B]

Holy. Really quick, though. I will say, I think it was Blake Hester who I saw Weapons with. Oh, I mentioned that. Like, I sometimes change your dad's profile name to with him. And he's like, do you ever go in his profile, see what he watches? Like, no. He's like, it's probably like Family Guy and stuff, so.

[A]

Oh, it's own. It's 100. That's the only thing he watches on his Louis family. Anyway, when he goes to bed every single night, 365 days a year, he puts Family Guy on, and it's in the TV in his bedroom. And he lays in bed on his back, and you know the. The song, he goes. He's a family guy. And so during that last little flourish in bed, he kind of, like, pushes his hips up and he swivels them around, and he tries to time a pelvic thrust with the, like, bam. And then he gives himself a rating. That's the last thing he does every day is pelvic thrust to the end of the Family Guy theme song. And it's like, that was a nine. That was a four. That. That wasn't a great one. I didn't time that right. And he just falls asleep. And he says he falls asleep immediately. So every day ends with pelvic thrusting with a Family Guy theme song and immediately falling asleep.

[B]

Mary, you go first.

[A]

I don't know what to make of it. I mean, it's.

[C]

I mean, it's like such a lonely.

[B]

Experience as someone it doesn't sleep well, I guess whatever works.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Surrounded by a solar panel. Surrounded by a solar panel. Lights on the floor. Did I tell you about that?

[B]

No.

[A]

Jesus, this is a short one. So he moved into his trailer and he bought all these solar panel lights to, like, put on his trailer. So if somebody, like, comes to rob him, it'll, like, blast him with a big floodlight. And then he didn't know how to install it, so he called his friend over to be like, hey, can you nail these to my house? And he's like, paul, there's lights on the street. It's well illuminated even in the middle of the night. You don't need these. And so my dad's like, I know exactly what to do. So he puts them, these outdoor floodlights, solar powered, in his bedroom on the floor. So when he wakes up to go pee in the middle of the night several times, he wakes up, the motion sees him and just lights up the bedroom so he can walk to the bathroom. And then every day he takes these. He has to charge them. So he puts them on the deck. So he puts these floodlights on the deck to get the sun juice so he can put them on the bedroom floor, which is blasted with, like, nuclear light when he has to pee in the middle of the night. I told him, like, dad, why not just get, like, nightlights that plug in and just. That's what they're there for. And they're not as intense as outdoor floodlights. Like, no, this works great. I thought this was really a smart idea. I thought this was great. Like, and he loves it.

[B]

How did you. Did you just stumble on this when you visited? This.

[A]

I visited. It was. I was my first time in his trailer. And it was, I think, the first thing he said. Like, check this out. I'm a genius. Like, he was told me.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It was like, the first thing he told me. Yeah. And I was like, why don't you just get nightlights? And he's like, no, this is much better.

[B]

Okay, well, he's never gonna. I guess he'll see clearly at night.

[C]

I just think he doesn't move in.

[A]

His sleep because if he moves at all, he's gonna get blasted.

[C]

Does he have neighbors, though, that, like, in the middle of the night that, like.

[A]

No. So here's the thing. He moved because he didn't want neighbors because of the smoking thing. And he loves it because, like, like.

[C]

The trailer closest to him, he likes to smoke.

[A]

He likes to smoke. And there's no one in the trailer next to him because the previous tenants were a murder suicide situation, and the tenants before that, the owner threw himself in front of a train. So people think that trailer's haunted and no one moves into it. And so he's like, hell, yeah. No neighbors attacked me while I'm smoking. Thanks. Murder suicide.

[B]

Maybe it's the ghosts that are giving him these ideas.

[A]

No, this is pure Paul Riker thinking.

[B]

I love that he lives next to a haunted trailer.

[A]

He might. I don't know.

[B]

I also resent that he's making me say a word I can't pronounce correctly when we talk about him.

[A]

Yeah. So that's what's going on with dad.

[B]

That's good.

[C]

Trusting his.

[A]

He leads he's gonna be thrilled about the family guy.

[B]

I mean, I thrust myself to sleep, you know what I mean? But not like that. Thrust myself awake too, you know what I mean?

[A]

Not really, but it's okay.

[B]

Amanda, come here. I'm gonna tell him how I know. Anything else new?

[C]

You wanna talk about video games?

[A]

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[B]

Audio okay, Dan the Metal Gear Solid. Is it called Metal Gear Solid three Delta or Metal Gear Solid Delta?

[A]

Metal Gear Solid Delta, Snake Eater. Which I do think is smart because that gives them the room if they want to remake other ones. You know, you could just have like Metal Gear Solid Delta, the Twin Snakes, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Sons of Liberty Delta could be the remake series or you could do whatever Alpha, Omega, whatever the you want to do with. Would be weird to like put a three in front of it when you're trying to remake this for a new generation that hasn't played the old games because it's like, I don't want to jump in on the third one. They might not know. It's actually the first one chronologically and all that stuff. So honestly I think that the title is. Is a good call. But yeah, I. I was in New York recently and it was one of those. It was a one day all day thing where you sit down and just play the fucking game. And it was great. Like it was just. I almost beat the game. I only had like an hour and a half or so left to play when I got home and they gave us the code right after the event, so we were able to pick up immediately once I got home. So yeah, ran through it really quick and I think the reason I was able to run through so quick is because it is the same game that I've played through a million times before. It is one to one in most ways. Outside, if we're talking outside of Quality of Life stuff, which I'll get to that in a second, the presentation, the way the world is set up and segmented, like, you know, the different areas, the, the cutscene direction and all that stuff. It is one to One, like, literally, like to the second, like the cuts. It's like they did Psycho remake. Do you remember this? When they remade Psycho with Vince Vaughn and it was like it was shot for shot. And I was like, that's weird. This is like a good version of that where it's like they're not doing. This isn't their take on like we made. It's our Snake Eaters. Like, no. Hideo Kojima's name is all over this. Even though there was the messy divorce and all that stuff with Konami, this is them modernizing Hideo Kojima's game with quality of life with modernized controls, much better visuals. So it's kind of exactly what you would want as a Metal Gear, like, super fan. I don't know how I would do this differently. It does feel better. The new control stuff is great. Being able to swap camo and call people in the codec and everything, like on the fly and not always having to go into a deeper menu that's very handy. Especially the camo stuff. You can literally like, okay, I'm not in the jungle anymore. I'm against this red brick wall. I'm gonna hold in a button on the D pad and just switch right over. No problem. Don't need to pause and go through stuff. It still has the survival viewer stuff, which I was not a big fan of. I. I didn't like because I play the game. Like, I suck at stealth, so I'm just kind of blasting everyone in that game. So I'm getting shot a lot. And so for someone like me, I have to pause all the time, go into the survival viewer and like, okay, gotta bandage up my thing. Gotta take out the bullet. Gott Dipstick and disinfectant. And so like, I'm spending a lot of time that menu. There's kind of a part of me that's like, if they were going to change one bigger thing about it, I would love to not have the survival viewer. But I'm sure most people are playing it like a stealth game because it's a stealth game. Yeah.

[B]

So funny. I take so long in stealth. In most games that offer it, I don't go just blasting like desk training too. I was playing like a stealth game as well.

[A]

Oh yeah. I was just going in with an AK and blasting people. Yeah, Frank. I always go in with good intentions and it just shits the bed immediately. And I would kind of do that here where I'd go in with good intentions. I'm gonna sneak up and I'm gonna cqc And I'm gonna interrogate him and stuff, and I get caught immediately. So I just kind of ran through the.

[C]

I have a hard time with being stealthy as well. I usually think that I'm being sneaky. And then as soon as I get caught, I'm like, all right, like, whoever saw me, I'm shooting you right in the face. And then that makes noise and other people find me. And then I run around and no suppressor.

[A]

I'm just machine gunners. Brat. Like, there's a gun that's so loud that when you shoot it in Snake Eater, Snake goes like, it's a Rambo crazy minigun situation. And I used that for the last several hours of the game. So stealth was out the window for sure. But Mary, like, if you want to go in trying stealth, that is. One of the things that they have added is like, L1 is kind of like basically the sneaky button. So it just kind of like, you know, like it goes in kind of a crouch walk type thing. And it kind of like brings like a vignette effect to the. You know, it's the quiet button button, basically. So that can help with sneaking up on people, things like that. But a lot of little changes to just like the HUD and stuff, like the way. The way they move things around and just had kind of shortcuts and things like that. But ultimately it's the same game. It just feels and looks better. All the little. I won't spoil anything in particular, but like, Snake Eater and all Kojima games have a lot of interesting little Easter eggs and weird things that like, oh, you might have missed this. Or. Or, oh, did you know you can do this in this weird way? I'll just say that if you like those things in Snake Eater, I don't think there were any of them that were not reflected here. Like, all those crazy, like, did you know you can do this this way? Like, you can do it this way? And even stuff that you would think wouldn't make it to the remake, things that didn't make it into, you know, HD collections and things like that.

[B]

Like, this is.

[A]

They. They went above and beyond to. I mean, even like the snake versus the ape escape monkey stuff. I played it on PS5, you know, that's all in there. The secret theater stuff from the Subsistence RE release back in the day.

[B]

Maybe I'll take a long break from the game for a bit and come back and see how everybody's doing.

[A]

Maybe. I saw someone at the review event turn off the Internet connection on their PS5 and change the clock and just seeing what happens, you know. So, yeah, it's. It's interesting. Like, I, for the most part, really like the new visuals. I think all of the characters look awesome and they look true to like. Yep, that looks like what I would expect from Snake or EVA or Boss to look like in a modern game. There are occasional things where it's like, there are certain images that are just so iconic that I've seen a million times in gifs and memes and stuff. Like, I mean, Snake saluting at the grave. Everyone's seen that a million times, you know, like, it is just weird to see that thing where it's like I. I have that image burned into my brain of exactly what that looks like. And just to see like, you know, the coloring is different and the model is a little different and stuff, it's just like, oh, okay. I just kind of have to get used to it because I'm so used to the old one. But I think if I was playing it for the first time in 2025 with Delta, I don't think it'd be like, this is weird. I think it's just because I'm very familiar with that original one. So it's all to say it's. It's everything I would have wanted from a Snake remake. And I would want them to keep doing this approach with, you know, 1, 2, 4, 5.

[C]

Do you think that's what they're doing is like they're gonna go through the gamut and do them all?

[A]

I mean, they have definitely been asked about this event. Yeah, they were asking like, there's a team in place of Konami that is like, this seems to be like the new Metal Gear team.

[C]

It seems like such a cash cow too. I think if you redid these for modern audiences, especially with just the history of these games being so beloved, I think audiences would really gravitate towards that.

[A]

Yeah. And I, I think it's. I don't want to say it's like, you know, an easy cash in or anything, but like, look, the source material is there. Just remake it and like, you don't even have to do the full scale Resident Evil style thing. Just do what you did with Snake Eater here, just make it modernized. Because even as the Metal Year fan I am, I don't want them to do their own new one. That story is done, done, done. Even by the end of Kojima's time there, I was like, do we really need to fill in this gap of Big Boss's history in the 70s when, like, you know, we've already seen the character arc that leads to him becoming a villain. And Snake's story is fully complete and everyone involved is. Their story ended. Metal gear solid 4. I don't need anything before or after or in between that story. Metal, your Solid is a complete story for me already. Yes, Mary, your hand is up.

[C]

If the Metal Gear story is very focused, Resident Evil can have new characters and a new environment and keep going. Could Metal Gear do that with a different character and be like, no, it's the same concept and it's the same universe, but it will be a different character story.

[B]

Requiem is going to have Claire Ashcroft going back to Raccoon City. New character.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's. I don't want that. I mean, you could do that. I mean, it is a crazy world that they've created, you know, but it was the characters. Like, the world itself was just the world, you know, with the US and Russia and China and, you know, it's like. But the thing that made it special was Snake and all the different snakes and all those characters. So, like. And all those characters had arcs that finished. So like, you know, you had Raiden story continue with Revengeance. That wasn't a Kojima directed game, and that was a cool little bonus thing, but I don't need more of. I'd rather just them try their own thing and not solely, like, they did Metal Gear survive after the Kojima divorce. And that was a totally different story. And it just. It was.

[C]

It was bad. But could you. I mean, and I'm just gonna continue to compare it to Resident Evil, but like, Resident Evil had a bad game in another universe and then they tried again and then they made a good game in like the Resident Evil space with new characters. So like, maybe that was just a bad game for Metal Gear, but like, I did do a good game with new characters.

[A]

Yeah, but if it was new characters, at this point, like, I don't think there's anything specific about the Metal Gear universe that would. Like, why wouldn't you just make a new, you know, action series with sci fi elements at that?

[C]

Because Metal Gear's name is valuable.

[A]

Well. Right. So yeah, if you're just Konami, you just want to make money. Sure. But like, I.

[C]

Okay. In this world where Konami wants to make money.

[A]

Yeah. No, they're in it for the love of the game.

[C]

That's.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. We've always known Konami to do things just because it's the right thing to do.

[A]

Salt of the earth. They're the best. Yeah. No, it's. I. I don't doubt that they could do that. If it was just a purely, you know, capitalist cash grab situation. Sure. I could see them doing it. I. I would imagine most Metal Gear fans are probably in my camp on that, where it's like Kojima's doing his own thing. You know, Metal Year fans are very interested in what Kojima is doing over here with, you know, Death Stranding, obviously, and then OD and. And Physint and all that stuff. I mean, Metal Gear is such a. It is a Kojima. Like, obviously there's a whole team, and most of that team has moved over to Kojima Productions. But Metal Gear without Kojima, I don't. I don't think a lot of people are clamoring for that.

[C]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

[B]

You could write it.

[A]

I would. I'd write a new Metal Gear. Yeah.

[C]

Do you think.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

The audience would accept this? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's. I. I think the Kojima fans are getting enough Kojima as it is. Just in Metal Gear fans, just give us more remakes. That'd be great.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Give us a new master collection. Let us play four on. On modern consoles. Things like that. Like that series.

[C]

I won't belabor it. I don't need more. I don't give a. I was just curious of like, if we thought that there was still something to be squeezed out of that ip, which is so beloved and appreciated. But you know, I think.

[A]

I think Death Stranding scratches that itch, especially to, you know, feeling a little more. A little closer to like Metal Year style gameplay. I think destroying. Scratching that itch.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But yeah, it's very good you both have played. Is the seat taken?

[C]

This is a cute one I sent. I think this came from wholesome games, which is like a new. They're not that new, but I think they've been around in recent years. Is like a. A sweet little pub that like kind of highlights games that are very cozy, very wholesome, family friendly, etc. And we got a couple of games from that new announcement and release. And this seat. Is this seat taken? Is from that. Very simple. The concept is you are moving people around a bus or a movie theater or etc. Nightclub.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And people have different wants. Some people, for example, in the bus. Some people are like, I want to sit next to a window. I want to sit facing the direction of the bus. I want to talk to my best friend Libby.

[A]

I want to Sit next to my mom. And I don't like stinky people.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I didn't shower. And I like to play music that's.

[A]

Loud, and I like to sleep on the bus, and I want to be by someone that's playing loud music. Yeah.

[C]

And so you're just sorting little people. They look like little triangles and circles. This is very graphically quaint. It is simple.

[A]

But I think it works like that art style, because, like, you know when you place everyone and it doesn't give you the thumbs up, like, oh, you finished the level. You can tell at a glance, like, okay, who's not happy. And you'll just see somebody. And, like, they are such simple faces and just, like, eyes and mouth. You'll see one person that's like. And you hover over them. They're like, I can't sleep. And you're like, oh, the person next to them is playing loud music or something. Something. So it's, like, very easy to read at a glance.

[B]

There's like a wedding seating chart on the Steam screenshot where one of the people is looking at the other people at the table being like gold diggers making an angry way. Hats blocking their view. In the movie theater.

[C]

That's a funny one. In the movie theater example, coffee. Some of the seats have popcorn on them. And there'll be people who, like, I won't sit in a messy seat. And so you can't sit them there. And so you have to be logical. It's a puzzle game. You're just sitting people in places where they're happy, but the big hats are funny. There are some people who are like, I'm wearing my big hat. And she's like, well, yeah. And I want to sit in the front row. And it's like, you. And so you.

[A]

I want to steal popcorn. Yeah. I need to put you next to someone that has popcorn that I can steal. Yeah.

[B]

What are. What do their voices remind me of that language? It's not simlish. There's another game where they speak just. I was just watching a video on Steam. It's like they speak exactly like that. Yeah.

[A]

Animal crossing.

[B]

Is it animal crossing? Is that what I'm thinking of?

[C]

That does sound like animal crossing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Anyway, personality is great.

[A]

It's. It's totally those logic puzzle things. If you ever did those logic puzzles where it's like, okay, well, this person won't sit next. I mean, it's just straight up one of those, but with a cutesy kind of aesthetic and very easy to just play with the Mouse. I think it. It would work great on, like, an iPad or something. Just dragging them around with your finger, dropping them into place.

[C]

Ideal Steam deck game or Switch, for sure. You can also. This is what I call those, like, couch cozy games where you could watch something on TV and play this simultaneously. And you could. You could actually manage both. You could watch the show and you could casually move people around. I do think the audio is cute, but you don't need it to play this, so you could. You could watch TV with it. Um, I played this on my front porch after, like, long days of work where I was exhausted, not mentally interested in playing a big old game, you know, or I'd have to be thinking and doing a lot of stuff. This is just moving little duders around to the seats that make them happy.

[A]

No timers, no pressure. It's the thing where it's like, yeah, you talk about a background thing. Like, if you're watching someone on tv, it's just like, you don't have to pause and worry about timing or, like, you know, you can just take your time with it and just like, oh, they're not happy. All right, Let me take time to look around and see what they need. It's. It's really cool. I like it a lot.

[C]

I think it's a quintessential cozy game. Like, this is exactly what we talk about when we talk about, like, a game that is just comfort. It is a comfort food to play this video game. I do think it's well done. I think it. It accomplishes what it set out to do. It never gets too complex or. Or too intense or anything. So this is not a challenging game. But I will say I have gotten. I one time I got stuck on a level for, like, 10 minutes where I was like, I cannot make all these people freaking happy. And eventually I figured it out. But, like, this is. This is a simple game that I think can bring joy or, like, comfort if you are feeling it.

[A]

Yeah, I'd say it's like a notch or two above something like unpacking in terms of complexity, where it's like, you know, unpacking, you're just kind of placing stuff everywhere, and it's just purely, like, kind of visual and moving stuff around. Occasionally. There's a little bit of logic. This is that similar thing of, like, okay, I'm putting all these things into a space, but there is a little bit more complexity of, like, okay, I do need to figure out there are criteria for each one of these things instead of just, do I Have wall.

[C]

Space, you know, and there's like some story, but I found that I just kept skipping it because I don't give it. I don't give a. About like these people who like, want to be in a movie or something like that. There's like some kind of story arc between characters that is of no value to me.

[A]

I just want to put these little hexagons with eyes into a movie theater scene.

[C]

Put the circle in the seat. He's crying, he wants his mom, and I'm gonna put them there. And yeah, also nice endorphin rush. When you do get everybody where they wanna be, you hit like accept and little thumbs up. Appear near every person that got what they wanted. And I think it gives you like a really nice, like, great job. You're a genius, you know, makes you feel good each level and then you move on. So, yeah, I. I thought it was quite. Quite simple, but quite cute.

[A]

Yep. Yeah, great, Great game on the go. Bring it on a plane or something like that.

[B]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna play that on the flight. Sounds good. Do either of. Speaking of flight games, do either of you have much affection for the tower defense sub genre?

[A]

I have had times where it's like, yeah, an exceptional one of those I can really get into. But it's, you know, kind of few and far between. But yeah, I'm open to it. Sure.

[C]

I love a tower defense if it's not too complicated. Complicated most. Sometimes if it's like, you know, there's like four different alien species that are coming after you gotta have like something unique for each other. I'm like, come on, just like, what do you want me to do? But like, tell me about your tower defense, because I do like a tower defense.

[B]

So how would you feel if I told you this was had roguelike elements where you're not. It's not only randomizing the terrain tiles. You get so you can dictate the path to your base that it's going through. And those are randomized. You can re roll. There's currency to re roll. There's different towers that also get served to use different upgrades perks Tower Dominion. I found it on Steam. It's served up. I will say the SEO or whatever you want to say is not great because if you search tower defense, this does not pop up high on the list for me. So it just got served to me because Plants vs. Zombies has those games coming out in the fall. So I was like, oh, okay, maybe I'll check out some tower defense because I really like those games games Tower Dominion looks not great. It is not the best logo.

[A]

Is the most app store looking.

[B]

It looks like shovelware. And also when you get into the game, the characters look terrible. Yeah, actually a very, very hideous.

[C]

But probably a nightmare. Plays like dog.

[B]

No, plays extremely well. It's like Balatro and plants versus zombies. Had a baby because oh, you've got three different factions. And then each of those factions like Command and Conquer generals have their own generals within them that have different perks. You're getting tiles every three rounds. I think it is to place on the map. They will have different elevations, they will have different pathways. You're also getting served after each wave is dead the three possible tower and or perk combinations. So you're getting towers that are basically your cards to play. Some of them are like artillery towers. Some of them are sniper roosts. Some of them are just like bunkers with machine guns. You can also pick from a bunch of perks throughout that will amp up. Oh, this L shaped bunker. There's also like a Tetris thing where you're trying to fit them around certain bends in the path. You'll get an upgrade. Say like oh, the imperial bunkers will. Instead of one machine gun that faces this way, there'll be many small guns that do more spread out damage. And then you can combine that with a card that anytime you place two imperial bunkers next to each other, that'll amplify both their damages by 50%. For instance, certain generals would be like oh, with these Sniper Roost towers. If you any building from here on out next to a Sniper Roost tower will do plus 20 damage. So that general you're really prioritizing that if you find a Sniper Tower card you're playing those, you can upgrade the base itself to have turrets all over it. You can. There are certain towers that take out camouflaged enemies whereas other people cannot see technically see those camouflaged enemies. Your base is also sending out this swarm of soldiers to go fight on foot in the pathway. Certain generals, you buff those soldiers to have more health. Sniper rifles, swords, machetes, etc I'm like pretty hooked on this game. It reminds me. Sorry, go ahead, Dan.

[A]

Oh no, I was just gonna say I just downloaded it while you were talking about it because I am realizing that like boy, I do really like a good one of these and I think a lot of times they don't get surfaced me and like I'm just picturing myself on a plane just getting lost in one of these and Describing it sounds great.

[B]

It nails that balance between. There's enough complexity where if you really want to, like, dive into it, you can min max some towers and go balatro. And, like, really try to make your faction overpowered. But it's also simple enough where it's just satisfying to see the towers you play start melting these enemies.

[A]

Yes, it's very satisfying to this genre feeling where it's like you kind of hit the right. Sweet. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Okay. Wave seven. Yeah. Come on, fuckers. Let's see how you do with this. Yeah, that's a good feeling. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. There's. And again, you can. It's not afraid to let you break it. Where it's like, oh, okay. I have six mini bunkers in, like, a square formation. I also have a perk called tightly packed, where if I have a group of four buildings or any building with four other buildings adjacent to it gets plus 100 damage or something. So then you upgrade that tower to have four snipers in it, and they're also doing, like, railgun damage. And this is not all. A lot of these are like, I'm. I'm forgetting the details, but that's basically the flow of a game. I also say it's not overly difficult. On the easiest difficulty, there are five. You do 25 waves. Every few waves, there's like a boss wave where like, oh, this enemy could come up from underground anywhere on your path. Also, I will say the path. They are not allowed to let you. Or they are not afraid to let you, like, break it because you get Tetris tiles basically, with the pathway, and you can re roll those with recon, which is a separate currency from the regular supplies. But you can make the path so unfair to the end. The bugs. It's basically like bugs from Helldivers 2. You can make the path so unfair, the AI, like, cannot go. If there is a fork in the road, which you can easily create. If the RNG works in your favor, they will split up so you can make them kind of loop back on themselves, for all intents and purposes, back into where they came from, giving the rest of your towers all that much more time to destroy them. And to be clear, there are some crazy towers here. There are, like, giant howitzers that only shoot in a straight line when you're placing towers, I should say it shows you. It's like Vision Cone. The square tiles that it can shoot at, you can place them at higher elevation, which, again, roguelike, you get tiles with different hills on them. And if you put a sniper tower on the top of a hill, it'll show you yellow squares that it's getting extra ones from being higher elevation. You can also spend basically dirt cheap money on platforms to raise manually raise the terrain because some of these like will not fit on like hills. Like the Howitzer needs three level squares and it will only shoot in one straight line. But if you build your map correctly, you could put it next to your base and it will just shred anything on that straight line. I don't even. I tr. I didn't even look into. I believe it's a Spanish developer. I need to double check that because a lot of the towers have like a Spanish name. Like Mirador is the. Yes. Why Go.

[C]

You said that it was Roguelite. Like are you saying that you can die per me and like you're done? Like you're.

[B]

If you progress, it's a rogue light. So your boss, your base has like 2, 000 health to start. If the enough enemies basically just body slam your base, you start over from scratch. And then at that point you start over with just your base tile. The first tile, you're. You're building a new, completely new new pathway and getting new towers. And you could pick a new general with different perks. Like one will have anything adjacent to the base, amplifies the base's damage times 10, whatever. But it's a rogue light. So you're unlocking. I'm pretty consistently unlocking new generals to try out of the three factions. I want to say there's like 30 generals, if not more new. You're unlocking new upgrades for existing powerful towers. So it's like, oh, I just unlocked an upgrade for my sniper roost or whatever that can hit camouflage now. It can also do X or Y. You are also unlocking new perks. Like I just got like, similar to Balatro, you're kind of getting new jokers, quote unquote, where it's like, oh, I never really use that tower. But that says the explosion Radius will go up 5% each wave. Now I'm gonna use a lot of those now because that would be awesome. For the commander whose base buffs allow towers near the base. So with their range combined with the base buff, they're going to do a lot of damage. So I don't even remember. I don't. I. I'm so happy that Steam served this up to me when I just like clicked on the store page. Because yeah, not a good looking game at all, but really nuanced and in depth. Like, I, I, I think about this game when I'm not playing it. Perfect balance between. It's so satisfying in that round 25 or 50 or whatever it is to watch all these bosses come. And like you set up this one kill zone at an intersection with a bunch of overlapping turrets and they walk in and just their health bar is.

[A]

Like, boo, boo boo.

[B]

It's, it's really good. I like.

[A]

Have you quite played on Steam deck or. No, I just like mouse and keyboard would probably be.

[B]

I don't know. I could see it being, I actually don't even, I don't even see if it. Are you on the store page? Does it say like Steam deck recommended or anything?

[A]

It's verified.

[B]

Okay. I could see it being like a good touchscreen game, but it's not an overly complex UI in a good way. Like they, they simplify it just enough without simplifying the complexity of the gameplay. But I could see it being great on Steam deck and I hope it's good on Steam deck because I absolutely. This would be an amazing playing game.

[A]

Yeah, you're, you're getting me like I haven't. I'm trying to think of the last one I got really into and I forgot the name of it until now. It's Kingdom Rush was one that like. Yeah, yeah, like 2011 or so. And I remember like, oh, right. That was on like iOS. I remember playing that on. I like, I almost never play mobile games and I were thinking like that on like iPad was super, super good. And a lot of what you're describing is like, oh, fuck yeah. I really can get into these and it's been a while.

[C]

Defense. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, it's. I will also say I play a lot. I. Tower defense, one of my favorite, like sub, sub genres or I don't even know what you call it. It's, it's one of my favorites. Like if you're looking at the simple end, you've got bloons like six, which is on iOS, which to be clear, I still like those games too. Then you've got the really complex ones in like Oculus had that one. I forget what it was called, but that got really complex. This is somewhere it's leaning complex. But it really. Because of the roguelike elements, it's so easy to jump in and out of. And because you're getting served three cards you have to pick from, it never gets overwhelming. Like it feels. I mentioned Balatro because of the cards they're serving you. It's like part of you is Making a plan with the deck you're building. But another part of you is also reacting to what you. What the game is giving you. So it's a really nice middle ground. Yeah.

[A]

I. I think it's gonna play this.

[B]

Too on Steam right now, by the way.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[B]

Like. And it's well worth that 17 in my opinion. I've already. I've played like 12 hours and I already feel like I got that money's worth and I plan on playing at least another 12.

[A]

I'm in. That sounds awesome. I. You know what? This sounds like one that'd be really good for Switch with the mouse controls, you know, Like, I want more games that like, could actually utilize the mouse control stuff.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

This sounds like something like that. But I'll check it out on Steam for sure.

[B]

Like, I'm looking at. Let me Tower Dominion now. Like, it looks like. Almost like. So it's funny, the logo looks like. It reminds me of the advance wars remakes. Then you go into the game. Yeah. And each faction has. Again, there's three different factions with different generals and each of them have. I've beaten 25 rounds with six of them. But I believe. Looking at the achievements. I don't know, it's just. I like the game quite a bit. The. The reviews of people who played it doesn't have a ton but like very positive Reviews came out May 7. I believe it might have been an early access before that.

[A]

Boy, these characters look like shit.

[B]

Oh, so bad.

[C]

Do you know the difference between a girl commander and a boy commander? Because it's two big reasons.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yep. And everyone looks like a Funko pop.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Very bad looking game. I will say once you're in it and the action's happening, I. It's weirdly kind of nice because it never gets crazy disorienting. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I'm looking at the gameplay footage and that looks like I'm fine with that. Like that needs to be readable. That that's okay. But then every time a character comes in, it's like.

[B]

So if you're on the Steam page, there's a screenshot. If you're not, don't worry. But third from the right screenshot, it shows the codex that shows you the different heroes you can unlock the different doctrines which are just perks. You can. It's like Vampire Survivor where you're kind of like sort of unlocking everything thing. It's similar to Vampire Survivors. I always feel like I have an unlock to work toward.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that's that challenge screen has been awesome too. Biggest gulf between how a game looks and how it plays in a while. I can't remember the last time I'm like putting up with such bad art direction. Because the gameplay is so good, right? Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

If you're interested at all in those kind of games, check it out. Like I said 17. I think it was 17 or 18. Something like that. 1799.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well worth the money. I will report back on Steam Deck capability after la, because if I can play this on a. On a flight, this will absolutely melt the hours away.

[A]

Oh, hell yeah.

[B]

What else are you guys playing, Dan or. No, Sorry, Mary. Wait, is this Peak? There's another new update since the cannibalism update.

[C]

Yes, there has been new levels added to Peak. So I've already talked a lot about Peak and why I like it. But the new level is a. It's to help mix it up because the levels have always been. You're at the base camp, which is like a island, and then you're in the jungle and then you were in a winter tundra and you had to keep warm. And then it was the final level, which was like lava. The new one replaces the winter level. So the third area with sand, like. Yeah, a desert. And it has so much more weird stuff that you can interact with. It has. What are those things that. Tumbleweeds. It has tumbleweeds and tornadoes that are in the sand dunes and it even has these like dips in the sand dunes and there's monsters in there and they'll try and lure you with. With presents or items and then like monsters will come out. It's very good. They've added lots of new things to mix it up and have it be much more fun to just alter. Oh, they also gave new items and the new items are so wacky. One of them is a cannon. And so you could put people in a cannon and shoot them to the next area, which is so funny. It's really hard to like, aim, so you might just shoot them off the cliff. And I. I think they've really done it this time. Like, the new items are. Are hilarious. They add for so much more dynamic gameplay where you're just like, I don't know how to get to this next area. I guess we'll all just shoot each other out of this cannon. I. I think it's a. A brilliant update. And they. They continue to impress me with like the way that they. They bring me back.

[A]

I like how they are also playing into like the surprise Like God damn it. We made this another crabs treasure game that's like a full on like souls like type thing. And now this, they're, they are playing it up like oh, we made this stupid little joke thing on the side and it's like super outselling. Everything's like, well, because little joke thing was actually a really good game. It is like, you know, for that friend slop term and everything. It's one of the better ones out there and I, I love the idea of them continuing to add to it and everything because I would love any chance to, to go back in there. They, I want them to add a private IT friend code type stuff because like last night I did a stream and I was like, oh, I would love to let me hop into peak. I'll put on the mod that lets me, you know, uncap the player count.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

But it was like you have to be steam friends with everyone. So it's like I'm not. I love. Maybe that's a specific use case for, you know, people. Like, I think that's valid and stuff. But yeah, you just want to be able to bring in seven people from the chat and have them have prox chat on stuff like that and let's just see what happens, you know.

[C]

But yeah, I think that would be a good update. And I don't think it's like you can tell that they're developing this as they do it. I don't think it's perfect either. I think the algorithm, because they're, they're procedurally generated levels, they had one where like the easiest way to get to the new area was a rope and the rope ended at a lava fall. It's just like, okay, well I can't do that. And how does a, how does a vine get constructed into a lava rope anyway? Like, obviously they just haven't refined it and they even are cheeky about it. Their Twitter account one time, the fire, which is what you need to light to get to the next level, was on top of a tree that you could not get to. And so it was just broken, right? And they were like, haha, should I fix this or not? Like they're cheeky about it, but I have to say, like, because this game is so popular, there's also a lot of pressure. You know, they should be making it so that it's functional and you can actually get through this experience without too much pain. I really again, like chop this up to. There's a lot of potential right now in the industry for making co OP experiences where you're essentially, like, climbing Mordor with other people, and there's just not a lot out there. And so this scratches that itch for people. It needs work. It's. It's not there yet. But what. The bones of what they have here are so fun. And I'm even. I'm, like, gonna play this again tonight with people. Like, I'm. I'm doing it again where I'm, like, scheduling time to be like, who wants to play this crap with me? Because it's funny and it makes me laugh.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's been sticking around for a bit. It's. I wonder if this will have more legs than a lot of the. Because, you know, there are a lot of them that kind of blew up for a little bit, you know, your lethal companies and repo and stuff like that, which. I love these games, but I do feel like at a certain point, you just kind of stop hearing about them, like, pretty quickly. I wonder if, through updates and things like that, if they will have longer legs with us.

[C]

This. This update helps a lot because the tundra isn't very exciting. It's just, like, don't freeze to death and keep moving. Whereas this new one in the desert has two different distinct areas. One is getting across the desert, and there's all sorts of, you know, these tornadoes. Oh, also, you can get a sunburn, which is a funny little update. So, like, the sun will light you on fire, but they have a new item, which is sunscreen, and you spray it and walk into it to have sunscreen on your skin. And they give you parasols as well. So when I walk into the sun, I just put on my little umbrella and walk around through the sun and. And not burn. I think it's funny, like, they've added enough gameplay where it's like, oh, it feels fresh. It feels nice. But you would have to do that again in. In a couple months. Not even, like, in a month or two, I'm gonna want, like, some fresh items or some new ways to play this, or it just gets a little exhausting. The last thing I just want to say, because it's never happened to me before, is for the first time, I have never seen an enemy in this game. There's no, like, NPC that attacks you. That's. It's mostly like, lava or, like, falling to your death.

[A]

Like a plant that fucks you up. Yeah.

[C]

For the first time ever, when playing this game, one of the people I was playing with started screaming bloody murder and said they were being Chased by a giant like skeleton. I did get a screenshot of it, but I, I was alive so I couldn't see their. What they were seeing. And apparently if you, when you first land, it keeps telling you, don't leave people behind. Stay together. It's a punishment. If one of you goes off ahead and leaves other people behind, this guy can like come out and try and kill you, which is. I love that. And I, I haven't seen him yet, but I heard my friends scream bloody murder when they saw him. And it sounds freaky that that could even happen. So I'm hoping they'll add more stuff like that where it's like I'm being hunted.

[B]

Yeah, I still have yet to play this game. It sounds rad though.

[C]

It's very, it's very.

[A]

I would love to play with you guys. That'd be fun.

[C]

I think we should schedule it. I think it's, it's really worth it and I've really enjoyed it. But it is hard even getting through the first area because again, there's four areas of the first area. I die all the time just in the first area because it's gotten pretty deep into.

[A]

The third is the farthest I've gotten. I don't think I've gotten to the fourth yet.

[C]

The fourth is also misleading because once you get to the fourth, there's a fire. And I was like, did we do it? Did we beat the game? And then there was like another area that goes up, but it, it didn't feel like it was. It felt like it was the same area. So maybe there are five levels, but essentially like there's like a lava area and then you have to climb up in the same volcano. So it's like, it's two essentially. So.

[A]

Gotcha.

[C]

Anyway, I, I've gotten really far, but I have not beaten it. I've gotten so high in the final climbing the volcano area and I just. I usually run out of frickin items. You need to save your items because climbing is hard. Climbing. Climbing is hard. Anyway, that's Peak.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good one.

[B]

Dan. Let's drag X Drive.

[A]

You know, like Nintendo will put out like, oh, hey, we're going to make several of the best games of all time on a fairly, you know, frequent basis. Also, they are a weird fucking company that will occasionally put out a first party game that literally no one wants or likes. That might be hyperbolic because I, I think like Grub was kind of having some fun with it. So it's, it's not it's not an objectively terrible game. It is one. It's the wheelchair basketball game. Have you seen this?

[B]

No. No. Yeah.

[A]

So you're in like a wheel. You're like robot wheelchair people. And you take the joy cons out and you got to play with both in mouse mode and you're rubbing it against your thighs to like simulate doing an actual like wheelchair situation. Oh, you can also do it on like your desk if you're at a, you know, big mouse pad or something like that. So it is, yeah, to turn. It's, you know, one forward, one back. You know, it's. You've got brakes on it. And it's a three on three basketball game, ostensibly, but it was me, Grub and Minati did it on a stream. And it seems like we spent a long time trying to figure this out. It seems like there is no way to just like, hey, Mike and Mary, you want to play some 3 on 3 drag x drive with people? Like you can get in the same room with each other, but then it just kind of randomly like there's like a pool of 12 people and it's like, all right, Mike and Mary, you're on this guy's team and I'm here with two boxes. It's insane. Like they unacceptable stuff.

[C]

It's unacceptable splatoon.

[A]

They've shown they can do it with some stuff, but this one, it's baffling. And like, even when it works, if you're just playing the game, it's an instantly. For me, it was a instantly off putting control scheme of just like my arms are getting tired. My forms, like just to move, you just have to constantly be rubbing these things against your thighs and to shoot, you just kind of like just do that motion with your arm and it's. I love arcade sports games. I want more NBA jams and NBA Streets and all that stuff. And I like gimmicks, I like motion gimmicks. This is not it. This is. It's bland looking. Everyone is just kind of the same bland looking, like grayish robot. And you can do a little bit of customization, but you still look like.

[C]

A generic robot guy when you do, like sports games. I love Rocket League is the quintessential one of like you get hats and you get skins. You can have unique tires. Like in this game. Can you have a unique tire? Can I have a different tire than you do? Because tires are obviously important in this.

[A]

There's customization. Like, there are some like textures and stuff you can put on your little Hats and suits and you can put whatever number you want on the back. But like not in like, you know, Rocket League at this point. Obviously. Rocket League's been around for like over a decade. Sure.

[C]

But even when it first came out, you could have real fun little hats and stuff to make yourself feel and look special.

[A]

Yeah, it's insane too because this is a game you have to buy. And right now, you know, Rocket League is on everything. It is free.

[C]

It is a game you have to buy. You have to get the money to play. Negative.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's. I, I can't say I enjoyed any part of this. Like so many things should be like, oh, it's got mini games in between rounds and it's first party Nintendo and it's arcade basketball. All this stuff that sounds like it should be for me and the boy. It's, it's not fun to play.

[C]

This has no personality. It just feels. No like a missed opportunity too. Or maybe it just should never have been an opportunity.

[A]

Yeah, I think maybe they just wanted like a game that fully showed off, off the like, you know, look, look, you can use your joy cons like mice or weird, you know, wheelchair stuff or whatever and like, okay, then put it as a tech demo, put it in Nintendo Switch Tour or something as a minigame. Like don't put this as a retail release. And then if you do, hey, maybe make it so you can party up with your friends and just like play games against people. It's.

[C]

That's a non starter. Not being able to play with your friends is like what the, what have you made?

[A]

And maybe there is a way, maybe we'll get some email be. Oh, you actually have to do this. It's like, okay, well we had three people who have spent their entire lives playing video, most of that time professionally and we are on stream desperately trying to figure out how to play a game on the same team. And we were not able to figure it out and no one in the chat was like, this is how it. Like we asked the chat at one point, are there three people in the chat that want to play? No one had the game. No one's playing it. It's a game that is built around online.

[C]

I ain't buying this. Nice try. How much is it? I'm just curious.

[A]

I think it's like 20 bucks. It's not expensive, but it's like I think this is going to be a dead on the vine thing.

[C]

Like this is like tower defense was 17 and that's like actually good.

[A]

You know, there's much better stuff you could get for $20. Yeah, yeah. Like, at first I was like, oh, is this going to be the arms of the. The Switch 2? Like, I think Bonk mentioned that too. It's like, oh, is this the arms? Like, kind of the gimmicky motion Joy Con game of the Switch 2 launch window? And it's like, no, I. I'm not an arms defender. I don't like arms. There's more going on with arms than there is here, guys.

[C]

An arms defender.

[A]

Yeah, he doesn't like arms.

[B]

I don't like knees.

[A]

Arms suck.

[B]

Team up. Mary, do you dislike shins, by any chance?

[C]

I love them.

[A]

Oh, big shins, gal.

[B]

Yeah, sorry. You pervert.

[C]

My favorite part of the body.

[B]

Shins.

[C]

Yeah, Just.

[B]

Just. I see you stroking a shin here and there. What? Dan, why are you replaying Breath of the Wild? Aside from the fact that it's the best game ever made?

[A]

It is the best game ever made. And, you know, I was. They had the Switch to edition that came out, and it was like, well, I love time to kind of really play it. Like, you know, at Switch to Launch, I was like, yeah, that does run a lot better. But I wanted to actually, like, go back to it because I never went back to it past the first time. And then even after a few years, like, well, tears. The kingdom's coming up. I'm not going to play it so close to that. And now that we're on the other side of all that and there is this new update, and there was like, a little bit of a gap between, you know, I finished, like, expedition and death Stranding and Donkey Kong and stuff. It's like, all right, I think I got a couple weeks here. Let's go back in. And I'm not going to try to 100 it or anything. And so I've been playing it. I've got two of the divine beasts now. I'm, you know, a good chunk of the way. And I'd say I'm about halfway through the game now. And God damn if it isn't a lot better to go back to than I expected. Because in my mind, it's like, I didn't think it would be, like, obviously you can't replicate the first time of, like, not knowing. Like, oh, can they pull off the open world? Skyrim, Zelda, whatever. You know, what's that?

[C]

Dragon in the sky? Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like, those moments, you'll never be able to replicate those. And so I thought I was going to be like, all right, I'm Just going to go back and be like, yep, I remember this. Yep, I remember this. But it's a big high rule and there's a lot of little things and little vignettes and characters and moments and stuff that like, of course you remember. Yeah, the 120 shrines, the dragon moment, the, the four divine beasts, the, the Lost Wood stuff. Those big things I definitely remember. But there are a lot of like, just little elements of that game and just little joys to be found in every corner of it that I'm like, oh, this is actually, actually way better to return to than I expected. And it does look much, much better. Like, it's fantastic. Like the new frame rate, some new visual details and stuff. Like water looks a lot better. Things like that. And it, this playing of it is what cemented for me that I do think I prefer this over Tears of the Kingdom because I, I, there were times when I was playing Tears of the Kingdom where I was like, I don't know why, you know, like, you know, it's not going to have the surprise factor, Breath of the Wild, but if somebody was going in for the first time now, Tears the Kingdom is everything Breath of the Wild was and more. That's what I thought when I was playing Tears of the Kingdom. Now that I've gone back to Breath of the Wild, I am appreciating that, like, Tears of the Kingdom lets you do a lot of stuff and a lot of it's really cool, like being able to like, build all that stuff and, you know, people make crazy contraptions and like, and the breadth of like, you know, the whole caverns in the sky, it's bigger and more. And I do think the core abilities are more interesting in Tears of the Kingdom, but playing Breath of the Wild, it is just kind of a more focused experience.

[C]

Bigger isn't always better, isn't it? You know, like, I don't really like being underground in Tears of the Kingdom. I don't want to go down there. Yeah.

[A]

And the amount of times like, okay, I'm fusing this stuff together or I have to like, you know, adjust this rocket to be pointing this way for this thing. I gotta attach this wheel and like, there's just a lot of stopping and scrolling through a big list of items to attach the right thing to the right thing and like, it's cool. I think all that stuff is awesome. And Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games games of all time. But being able to play Breath of the Wild now and just be like, I'm Kind of just like, I see that tower in the distance. I'm gonna go climb it. And I get on top of that, I'm like, look at all these shrines. Oh, what's that? I'm gonna go over there. And it's. It's just more focused. I'm not spending a lot of time in menus. I'm not fiddling around with rotating, you know, the whatever zone, eye pieces and stuff like that. It's. It's. It's much better than I expected to be to return to. So very, very much enjoying the switch to it is edition of Breath of Water.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

Yeah. And I'm taking my own path, too. That's such an open game that it's like, I remember how I went the first time, and I just kind of started going off in random directions here, and I find myself just encountering things in a totally different order, a whole different path, and I don't have to force it. That game is just so good at just like, what's that? I'll go that way. What's that? Oh, I'll go there. Oh, I'm trying to get this thing or this upgrade. I'll go do this for a little bit. Like, it feels like a different path through the game than I did the first time.

[B]

Yeah. I was wondering if by the time I finally go back, I would just. Just actually prefer Breath of the Wild. It just always felt more focused, and I feel like it's more a focus on pure exploration, survival. Whereas Tears of the Kingdom definitely explodes that with two more layers to the world and the engineering aspect of it, which is super cool. I agree. But yeah, I want to replay it. Maybe that's like, the thing I'll do after Donkey Kong when I get the Switch 2.

[A]

It's really good. It's really, really fun. I would recommend it.

[C]

I think it's also like, a good reflection, you saying, like, listen, I don't need all the bells and whistles of. Of Tears of the Kingdom. And I liked the more focused. I like that word, focused.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I just don't think you always need everything in the kitchen sink in games. And that has been a conversation that we've had in gaming a lot of, like, recently, I think there was, like, this controversy that you couldn't swim in the new, like, mafia game. And it's like, why do you need it? It's not.

[A]

It's not gonna make it a better game.

[C]

Is that. Is that important to the story or it's like, what's going on? And I Think there's these natural reactions we have where it's like you're in water, but you can't even swim. And it's like. But focusing the player into knowing what their purpose is in this space and have intentionality in the gameplay is very important. And there's a reason that Breath of the Wild is the goat. And I think it's because it knew what it was trying to do. It didn't have everything, but it didn't need it. It had exactly what it wanted to be.

[B]

The weapons break way too easily, though.

[A]

It's, you know, I. I will say again, you know, you kind of bounce around, like, you know, forever. I said, link the past. My favorite game of all time. And then it was Breath of the Wild and, you know, like, playing this again, it's like, yeah, I do think I can say definitively, I think this is the best game I've ever made.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I want to replay it. Dan, you stop trying to host.

[C]

I'm gonna do it. Shut the fuck up.

[B]

No, no, no.

[C]

Dan, why did you play the game.

[B]

That I'm still here? You don't need to submit for me.

[C]

Because it's for me. Because I asked Dan to play this game and if you were such a fucking obnoxious twat, maybe you'd learn something.

[B]

You take it over for me sometimes when I'm right here ready to go, and I won't have it. This is my show.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we can boot him from the call.

[C]

Mary, anybody who.

[B]

You can't.

[C]

It's my king is no king. I am the eldest boy.

[B]

No, sorry, go ahead.

[C]

Last episode, I talked about a game that I really liked called Time Flies and I heard you played it. So I'm really curious what you thought about it.

[A]

I love it. I, you know, I. I don't know how many, like, areas there are because, like, you know, you start out and it's like, here's the checklist for this area of like the kitchen and the upstairs and stuff. And I got to the next area, so I'm not sure how many of those. Like, I hear it's not a super long game, so I can't imagine there's like 20 different of those. But, like, it is very fun where it's like, okay, you are in the new area and it's. I'm just gonna fly around. Obviously, you're not gonna beat it. You're not gonna, like, do all the things on the checklist, on your bucket list in one life. So it's just kind of that Exploratory few lives at the beginning where it's like, like, oh, I can play the guitar. Oh, I can fly inside this lamp. Oh, I can do this thing. I, I can hop on these ants back and, and get a thing for that. A record player, like. And then as you learn more and more, you start to piece together like, okay, so now I know the things I got to do. Now what is the path? How, what, what order do I do these things in? And it's just one of those fun games. It's almost like a warioware type thing of just like you'll just die in a funny way or something pops up and it's unexpected and you're just like, oh, okay, I didn't see that coming. And, and then, you know, for the next time. I love the look of it. It's just so simple. It's, you know, there are parts where it kind of zooms in. You can actually see the fly. And then there are the wider ones where you're literally just controlling this black dot buzzing around. It's funny. It's incredibly simple. It's a game that you just play with just an analog stick. The idea of just having to beat these levels in one run, basically, it reminds me of like a Tony Hawk level where it's like, I'm gonna try to do every one of these objectives in one 2 minute run. It's kind of like that, that. But yeah, it's got a lot of personality. It's, it's, it's got a fun gimmick that I haven't really seen other games use quite like this. I think it's really cool.

[C]

Yeah, I think there's like a couple moments where you kind of laugh out loud and you go, I see what you're doing here. It does have some weird stuff where like sometimes you'll be like, that was like oddly perverted or like strange. Have you ever eaten stuff?

[A]

Yeah, I'm just crawling on a foot to make him laugh.

[C]

And yeah, there's a couple weird ones where like, especially in the later levels there's like, I think one I'm not. I don't think this is a big spoiler where you like are essentially going into someone's butt and a flower grows out of the butt. And I was like, who made this puzzle? Because this is so weird and like strange. But I didn't like, I never, it never like bothered me too much, but I was always like, what the heck? Making these little butt flowers and farts and stuff like that. It's got some cheeky moments to it.

[B]

That's what I call hemorrhoids. But maybe you should host and then I'll come in with those really funny bits. Keep going, keep going.

[A]

No good stuff, though. I definitely enjoy it.

[C]

I'm glad.

[A]

Oh, yeah, Mike. Yeah, yeah. No, I see what you're doing. Yeah.

[B]

Mary, go. Yes, Mary. What's Make Room all about? It better be sick after this.

[C]

I just like telling you what to do. I know Make Room is a other cozy game du jour where it's like, it's. I think it's also very unpacking. It might be even more unpacking where you are constructing rooms based on what people want. So you'll go to a town and this person will be like, I would like a new gaming room. My desk is too small. I want two monitors on my setup and I want like a nicer gaming chair. And so you go through the repertoire of like, the items and you design a space for them. So it's a design. It's a space design game. Other room. I do like, there's different environments so you can make a tiny. What are those called? Like, like, like those, like camping tent trailer pop up. Yeah, like a tiny trailer. And so you had to make a space in this tiny trailer. And that's cat paradise. Fun for me. It's like very calming. I think it's a little limited. There's really not that many items. For example, in the gaming room, there was like three different types of monitors. And I. I understand, like, those are assets, but it's just like my gaming room is going to look extremely similar to your gaming room because there's just not enough variety. The other thing that bothered me about it is that it's visual based. There's no text. And this game can correct me if I'm wrong, but I. Sometimes it would be like, we need an easel. And I would be like, okay, I'm making an art room, right? Find the easel. And I'm going through all the categories and I'm like, where would the easel be? You know what I mean? Like, where. What category is easel in? So I'm like going through all these damn categories. And then once you go into the category, it's all visual again. So I don't. Unless you know exactly what their art style interpretation of an easel is. You might just be clicking on things randomly hoping that you're getting the easel. I accidentally clicked on like a TV screen dildo and. And it was not an easel and now I know dildos aren't easels. It's true. It's a learning game education. And I think it's cozy and cute, but I think it's very limited. And I don't think it's probably for someone who like, is looking for a more robust experience. I think there's other games that have, have like more dynamic experiences of building a house and fixing is. It is like limited in its capacity, but it has a nice space where you could be like, oh, I want it to be raining outside. And then you're making like a cozy gaming room while it's raining. I mean, that'll put me right to sleep. So, like, definitely has cozy vibes and I think it's cool with building, but it's just felt a little limited for me.

[B]

Try that out. Do I see correctly that you're making a cat paradise at some point? Like a cat house? Like a house for cats?

[C]

I haven't gotten there yet, but yes, it has ones where like some of the requests are like, I want a room for my dog. Yes. And I want it to have all the bells and whistles. I want it to have like this and there are cat posts. There are like lots of things for your pets and then there's also free play. So in addition to the request area, that's like the game, I would say, where it's like, do my requests. You can also build a room from scratch of your choosing and that's really fun. And you can basically just make the room of your dreams. And for me, I made a camper van that had a tiny bed and a fireplace in the camper van. I assume that wouldn't actually work, but it's my fucking room and you guys can't tell me what to do. And it had like a desk with my gaming setup. And so I was like, I could stream, I could sleep, I would cook my food on the fire. And I had like a whole section for Simon and like all of his little items to make sure that like my dog was happy in my camper van. This is just like, you know, an imaginary space that I got to invent that I thought was very sweet.

[B]

Dan, what would your dream room consist of?

[A]

Comprise look like you've been in it, I think.

[C]

Is it this room? Is it this screen?

[A]

The other one? Yeah, this is the office. I'm talking about the giant beanbag. The. The beanbag arcade retro museum. Like, yeah, that's, that's 100 inch TV.

[C]

Like you've built your perfect space and it's just a giant couch and a giant tv.

[A]

Yeah. With every game I've ever, ever played and ever will play, like, yeah, it's. I think I got that.

[C]

That's cute.

[B]

I think mine, I'd have a bed and then around the bed on the floor would be really powerful solar lights. So anytime I go to the bedroom.

[C]

Oh, they blind me as I achievable dream.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm going to try it out.

[C]

I want to clapper so that when I clap, it immediately plays the Family Guy intro music and then I can.

[A]

Same pelvic thrust all night.

[B]

Perfect. It all works out. Jesus, Mary. Anything else about make room? I want to try that out because that's like all these sound like. I feel like I have a good spate of playing games for the week.

[C]

I've been playing a lot of like, chill games recently and I think it's just because I'm in the throes of a very stressful time at work. And so like, when I get off of work, I don't always have the mental capacity to play a complicated game that will like, like, also stress me out. I've been stressed enough. So playing a game where I can like watch alien Earth on TV and like casually, you know, have people change spots on a bus or make a little cozy room is cathartic. It's just like, nice for me to have. And I still play more intense games on days that I can do it. But yeah, I've been on a bit of a cozy game kick. So that one, Time Flies, I think is my favorite though. Like, if you were asking me, like, of all these, like, I would be like, Time Flies is so, so cool. Like, it's such a neat little funky game, but I think is this seat taken? Is a delight. I've. I've enjoyed that experience this week.

[A]

I might play it right after we're done recording here.

[C]

Yeah, it's cute.

[B]

Kind of why I liked Pikmin 4.

[C]

Oh, Pikmin was so you don't have.

[B]

To really think that much. You could.

[A]

Geez, I love that.

[C]

You guys remember when I had too much of a dosage of THC and a gummy and I was like, like, I'm playing Pikmin 4 for six hours. No one talked to me and I. That game saved my life. I thought I was going to die. I like, I had no idea. I had like the wrong dosage. I was a Mess. And Pikmin 4 was the only thing that I could, I could do to keep my brain from melting.

[A]

I Feel like everyone who played Pikmin 4 adores it, but I still feel the need to anytime I think about it, like yell about how good it is. Because if you have not played Pikmin 4 good, it is. Is unbelievably good. I again, all Pikmins are good. Pikmin 4 is incredible.

[C]

Could it could have been game of the year.

[A]

Could have been.

[B]

Well, I got it over that Balatra.

[A]

Probably tears, I think. Tears.

[B]

Oh, tears of the kingdom.

[C]

Yeah, Mike was. Mike was like gunning against it.

[A]

I pushed for Pickman.

[B]

No, you did a late night push. Even though all the evidence up to it. That's why I'm. I like, I. I so resent both of you for making me the adult in the room in most.

[C]

I'm going to DM you right now.

[B]

Yeah, DM the no Mics channel, which has my Mike Bonatti in it.

[A]

Yeah, we're allowed to have one.

[C]

The no Mics club is gonna be popping after this.

[B]

I'm gonna make a Nobody else but me channel where I could just talk to myself.

[A]

You.

[C]

It's just called the Angry Dome.

[B]

What if I did that? What if I wrote in it for a year and then it's just you.

[A]

And a bunch of Chad gbts showed you. Yeah, they're all telling you how right and handsome you are. That's right, Mike. Yeah. Good job.

[B]

Well, I am right most of the time. Mary, take us into emails.

[C]

You guys want to read some emails?

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Take back your privacy with IPVanish VPN. Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history and more will be instantly protected. IPVanish makes you virtually invisible online. Use IPVanish on all your devices, anytime you go online at home, and especially on public wi fi. Get IP Vanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive [e-mail] audio.

[B]

Mary, do you want to lead us into emails?

[C]

No, you're the host and I trust you and love you. You do it. You're the best host with the most.

[B]

That's what I thought Dick said. Don't fuck with me. Hey, everybody. We're back as usual. You can write to firescapecastmail.com that's firescapecastmail.com for questions, comments. Comments. Well, listen to all of them. They'll be great. I'm such a bubbly guy.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I'm a bubbly guy. I'm a bubbly Guy, we've got two. I got a backup one in case these don't go super long, but we got two right now. Mary, do you want to read this first one from Nathan?

[C]

Sure. Hey, Fire Escape. Just listened through Dan's book after Mary mentioned it and thought it was great. Weird question. At the end of the book, you acknowledge Justin McElroy for helping you proofread the book before publishing. Is this Justin of my brother. My brother and me. I listened to that show as well, and it was just a weird world colliding moment. Dan, is it.

[A]

Is it him? Yeah. Yeah. Justin McElroy. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, perfect. Dan, I know you specifically said you don't listen to video game podcasts in your free time, so my question for all of you is what podcast asks, do you listen to outside of video games? Thanks, Nathan. That's so nice that he listened to that and that you. You did that. That's cool.

[A]

Yeah. Justin McElroy is awesome. I have not caught up with him in. In quite a while, but. Yeah, I mean, every time I talk to him, it's great. He used to be a joystick. Used to be in, like, games. Well, I guess you said he's on the. He's on the besties, right? Like with Chris and. Yeah. Okay, so he's still doing it, but he used to be at, like, joystick and everything. And he used to be in, like, early bomb casts and all that stuff. Stuff. What are you laughing at, Mike? It's.

[B]

Two of them are on it. It's like another macaroni.

[A]

Is it like Griffin?

[B]

Justin and Griffin and Russ Freshstick and Chris. Plant if memories.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

I listen to it all the time. I totally know.

[A]

No, all the macaroos have always been awesome to me and always a joy to see them.

[C]

They're very good at what they do too. And I think they just have a dynamic that can't be beat because of who they are and their connection to each other. So sometimes I think there's, like, similarities. It's like, like that podcast is more about their dynamic than whatever it is they talk about. That is just who they are. And I think that is what makes podcast so special. That's right. It's like the one that it can't be. You can't develop a formula for it. You can't mimic it.

[A]

What I've always thought with podcasts, you know, especially when I was, like, at companies like wwe, where it's like, oh, make a. You know, put these people together and they both. These people like anime, these Two wrestlers. And it's like, well, do they know each other? Are they friends? Do they have a rapport? Because, like, yeah, okay, these two guys can like anime or like video games. But, like, yeah, at one point they wanted me to host a video game podcast with Ronda Rousey. And I was like, look, just because we both like video games, which also, I. I don't know. It would be a very different history with video games. Like, okay, wow. She said in a couple interviews she likes Pokemon. Yeah, let's make a video game podcast. Anyway, yes, the rapport, that is the most important part. And that's why us three, why we work, that is why Giant Bomb works, is because there's friends and rapport and history and things like that. You can't just, like, shove disparate people and personalities together, despite them on paper, having things in common, and expect a good show. So to answer the question, what do you listen to outside video games? The one podcast I really listen to is called Deadlock, and it is a wrestling thing where they. They watch old wrestling shows and kind of talk about it very comedically. It's. It's three guys that go way back, and it's just. Just one of those things where if you listen to an episode now, it's just all. There's so many in jokes and things like that, and you have to listen to, like, a lot of it to really kind of get caught up. But then you really feel like you're kind of part of that club and everything. But, yeah, Deadlock is. Is the podcast I listen to.

[B]

I list. I. Back in the day, I was listening to, like, narrative podcasts, more fictional. Welcome to Night Vale was a really cool format. It was like a weird, not X Files, Twilight Zone town where the. Each episode will be about a new person from the town and weird shit would be going on. That was a great show. If you haven't checked it out, go back. I don't know if it's still running. It might be done by now, but I listened to like, two seasons worth of it, and I liked it quite a bit. Also, I will say most of my podcasts these days are wine related for studying or like, I think that's sweet.

[C]

Tell me your favorite wine podcast. That's so funny.

[A]

Mary, what are you doing?

[C]

I just think it's interesting. I find it fascinating. We always get into these, like, fucking wine, you know, parts of this podcast. But ultimately, like a podcast about wine.

[B]

Like, there's a few. Yeah.

[C]

So wild to me that you can talk about wine. That much.

[B]

Yeah, they talk like you could talk about a specific grape for a while now. Guild song specifically purple grapes.

[A]

What's your tell me about purple grapes?

[C]

No, you're going down the rabbit hole. I'm talking about podcasts. You're doing it now.

[B]

Guilt on is the I said you.

[A]

Can talk for a while about a grape. Tell me about purple grapes.

[B]

I will tell you about purple grapes in a second. But into the Glass by Guildson Guildson is the like study resource and meetup resource and just general really good resource to have. It's a subscription service where people who are studying to go through their sommelier certification can go to a like study hall kind of lecture on this specific region, but they can also go to meetups with other sommeliers in Texas or the Willamette Valley, etc. So so it's a really good thing to have in your back pocket for sure. And then Chris Tangy, he's a master sommelier, hosts the podcast. So sometimes it'll be about blind tasting specific wines. Other times it'll be about different winemakers. Come on. Or experts on like Mount Aetna in Sicily. Benjamin Spencer came on in the most recent one. So it was really cool to hear about how that region has evolved over the last several millennia. There's also I'll drink to that. It's basically that's the more deep dive. Like people in the wine industry will come out name and talk.

[C]

I'll drink to that.

[B]

To the host. And those are. But yeah, I listen to those fairly often. But also like in the world of video games, I don't listen to many.

[C]

Why the question is specifically not video games.

[B]

Oh, right, right.

[A]

Not.

[C]

Tell me video game ones.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

What's a good fake name podcast? It would be like, you know, like I'll drink to that. Seems like such a generic maybe like fake maid podcast about drinking wine.

[A]

Five o' clock somewhere.

[C]

Whine about it. That's a real.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Nice. Probably is one.

[C]

It is a real one.

[B]

I also I you know what? I really I I guess I don't listen to full episodes, but I have realized how much I've destroyed my YouTube algorithm with X actor on Y movie. Like, I'll get YouTube shorts. Like it's James Whale. Bake Sale is a YouTube channel that pulls clips from like what's his name? Eli Roth's podcast where he has people come on and talk about horror movies. But it'll be like Bill Hader on There Will Be Blood. And Bill Hader is like one of the biggest film buffs ever. So he'll be talking about what makes this movie, like, genuinely great. I listen to a lot of those. I like listening to people talk about movies in a way I don't enjoy it with video games just because I'm not inundated with movies all day at work. So I think that's kind of a nice break from it. And I enjoy hearing people talk about movies in a really intelligent but still magnetic, contagious way because I think that helps when we talk about. That helps inform how I talk about video games or wine or stuff I love. But yeah, I would say I think it's James. Well, bake sale. It's just clips like you can listen to. Like, you can hear random like, oh, Bill Burr talking about why Succession was great or something like that. I just pulled both of those out of my ass. I don't know if that's an actual one, but that's probably it. I don't listen to many podcasts.

[A]

Same.

[B]

What about you?

[C]

I was just thinking of other fake wine podcast names. Vine time.

[B]

That's probably one.

[C]

It's time to talk about vines.

[B]

Oh, God, I know way too much about vines.

[A]

Watch me about. Watch me. Cabernet. Oh, I love it.

[C]

That's gross. That makes me sick.

[A]

Yeah, watch me.

[C]

Cabernet is vile. Come on, Mike.

[A]

Yeah, beat that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Nebby yolo. But Nebby Y O L O Yebby yolo. Nebby Yolo. Nebiolo is a great famous grape from Piedmont, Italy.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's made some. Make some of the best wines in the world.

[C]

So specific.

[B]

But yeah, there's a. Expect grape expectation that I think actually might be one. I'm looking. I'm looking at him now. Guilds on podcast. Wine for normal people. Wine 101.

[A]

I've had to name a lot of shows.

[B]

I'll drink tonight. Levi Dalton Lovey Dalton Wine. Simple. No, that's a ebook. Wine enthusiast podcast. That's a. Get some. Oh, got some.

[C]

Is really good.

[A]

That's good. That's good.

[B]

Got some. Yeah.

[C]

There's a Pinot Gratio.

[B]

Nice. Nice.

[C]

Dan is upset.

[B]

A comedy wine show. Sarah.

[A]

Okay, how about this? How about the Merlot Down O. I like that.

[C]

That's good. That makes sense.

[B]

It's good. I like it quite a bit. I gotta send all these to my.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

To the colleagues.

[A]

Take those. Yeah.

[B]

Perfect. I have your permission. You sign them over. Okay. Thank you.

[A]

We can use them. Yeah.

[B]

Sweet.

[A]

I'm not gonna be using it.

[B]

I.

[A]

You never know.

[B]

One of these days I'm gonna. I'm gonna get you. Cool. Well, thank you. Or any other ones, Mary, that you listen to.

[C]

There's generic ones that everybody's heard, but I. The ones I really liked were S Town and Suck Town. I think it stands for town. But S Town is pretty good, and cereal is. Is pretty good. And they're both, like, mystery, like, who done it, like, stuff that's pretty good. Okay, here's one that might surprise you. Jill on money. I listen to Jill on money. She gives financial advice. Dan, you might like that. I know you, like, have. Sometimes you, like, talk about money. We've. We've actually chatted about money sometimes. And, like, Jill and money just does. She takes callers, and people be like, you know, this is how much money I have in my bank account. And someone told me it would be really great to invest in X. And she'll be like, that's a bad idea. Don't do it. This is where you want to put in. She'll just tell me, tell people where to put their money and, like, what their goals are. And I find her easy to listen to. And sometimes in the car, I'll listen to Jill on money. It sounds odd. I think my dad recommended her to me, but it's just nice if you're. You want, like, a casual way to think about what you might do with some of your stocks or bonds or whatever the hell you want to do with your money. But that's. That's what she does. Jill.

[B]

On the next day, Mary went bankrupt.

[C]

I. I worry about that. I'm not, like. I would not consider myself very savvy. So it's nice to, like, casually listen to someone who's like, this is what I would recommend, generally, is a good plan for retirement. And I'm like, okay, and I'll think about it and not do anything.

[A]

I. I have a financial guy now, and he reached out recently. He's like, hey, so I got some tickets. I would love to take you and Bianca out to the St. Paul Saints game. And it's like. It's like minor league baseball. And neither me or Bonk are even remotely interested in sports. And it's like, I just had to, like, be like, I'm gonna be honest. If I brought that up to Bon, she'd be like, why the fuck are you asking me if I want to go to a baseball game? So. Felt like kind of an asshole. But, yeah, I got a. I got a buddy now. He's a financial advisor. So that's my guy.

[C]

That's Nice.

[B]

Yeah, they do that. They get like tickets or like, hey, I'll pay for 18 holes, et cetera. That's a big part of like developing the relationship.

[A]

I'd never relate with him or something. Yeah, he's taking a 1% of my balance every year. So, yeah, you can give me a dinner.

[B]

He texts you, listen, there's this place where the ravioli is basically vertical and they're twinned up and each one has a different filling. And you're like, oh, I know this place. Well, I'm in. I think about that pasta still every night. Well, thank you, Nathan from Nathan Hampshire. Dan, you want to read this one from Darian?

[A]

Sure. Hey, Scaperinos.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

It is my belief that Quake is the perfect distillation of the first person shooter. Now, the game itself has issues. It's kind of short. Its maps are small vores and spawns are new, so nuisance to fight. It doesn't have a super shotgun. Of the two, Doom is better and more important. But when it comes to the fundamental act of moving and shooting, I would legitimately argue that the first Quake has yet to be surpassed. This isn't just a nostalgia talking. I only really played the game 5ish years ago, having grown up on more linear narrative shooters like Half Life and Our Return to Castle Wolfenstein. How about you guys? Can you think of a single title that you think best represents a set of mechanics better than any other, regardless of its objective quality? Those Darien from Toronto.

[B]

Yeah, so I. To clarify, I think three episodes ago or four, someone asked this what game best represents the genre? Like what is the Mount Rushmore? I had to reread this one because I wasn't going to use this. But yeah, it's set of mechanics. So it's not like he said, Doom is probably the indicative shooter, but Quake has like is better in this sure space.

[A]

Like the moment to moment. Like yeah, just very nuts and bolts, like moving around, shooting like.

[B]

Resident Evil 4 is the quintessential inventory management game in my opinion.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I. I think Soul Caliber, like I know obviously like Street Fighter and Tekken and stuff have seen bigger success and I'm sure like purists and stuff would point to those as better. But to me, I've never played a fighting game that felt more perfect than the first Soul Caliber. I just think it just has this flow to it. I think all the characters are very different and very fun to play as any character. Whereas, you know, I like Mortal Kombat for the characters. I respect Street Fighter for just the nuance and you know, the technical prowess you can, you can show in that. But like to me, Soul Calibur is just like the best feeling fighting game I've ever played.

[B]

You beat me one on one from your basement when you couldn't see the screen.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

I'm not even going to contextualize that.

[A]

Right, right. It's on tape somewhere.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I was going to say actually a lot of my like favorite recent games kind of do this. They drill down on one specific idea. Like they are Billions, which is still one of my favorite strategy games ever. That's specifically made for people who like Turtling in real time strategy games, like slowly building up your defenses like that. They made that game for people who play that strategy within this sub genre of strategy games. So I'd say they are Billions is the Turtling game for sure. In terms of like, I don't know what would. This is really broad. So maybe this is too broad. Not specific enough. What would be the quintessential crafting game?

[C]

Minecraft.

[A]

No, but like, I mean.

[B]

Yeah, so like that's what. I guess that's why I was saying it's. You're not wrong. But that's almost like terraforming though, kind of crafting like. Yeah, like crafting items specifically.

[A]

There's so many. And honestly I think feel good, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Stardew, like, you know you're getting a lot of like, you know, okay, I've got this wood and this ore and stuff like that. Yeah, I think that all works great.

[B]

Tears of the Kingdom, I guess pretty cool crafting game.

[C]

Always tears the kingdom.

[A]

I think Tears of the Kingdom is. I think Tears is not super elegant because like going through those giant lists like that's a complaint I have with it.

[B]

It almost be like it has to be something semi simple. Like when I think a really good crafting system that didn't get in the way, I think of the last of us like making those shiv weapons and.

[C]

Stuff and then deciding between health and a weapon I think is a brilliant system. Right. It was like you were making a definitive choice of whether or not you needed a bandage or whether or not you wanted a Molotov cocktail. And I think that's very smart. Whoever designed that for like co op Mechanics. I think Left 4 Dead has like some two specifically has like some really core mechanics that I just think are duplicated to this day.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Of like the idea of special infected or like uniques that are shinies. Right. That will like, be more difficult, but, like, there's enemies, but then there's like, enemies that you need to have unique or special designs to be able to take down together. It's very good. And I feel like there was a huge element of that that was like, about throwable items because you can't always be close in that game. And I feel like there's been so many games that have mimicked that in the future of, like, needing to be able to throw and get away. Like, the goal isn't to kill everything, the goal is to get out. And so, like, you're not actually trying to kill everything, you're just trying to, to get through it. I find that interesting.

[B]

I have a question. I'm, I'm pretty sure I know what both of you are gonna say, but what would be the game that embodies a cover mechanics?

[A]

Gears.

[C]

That is probably the first one that would come to mind because you are running from COVID to cover. That is like the whole point of that.

[B]

I think that's the quintessential cover. I thought you would say that immediately as well, Mary. That's why I.

[A]

That stuff existed before on the second Dreamcast.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Everything or nothing. The 007 game, like a year before Gears. Like, I mean.

[B]

Oh, that was, I thought that was after Gears.

[A]

No, it was like a year before it's like Open five. Yeah. But I mean, man, that is Gears thing. And nailed it. Just being able to do the blind fire stuff.

[C]

Blind fire, Going from one, throwing a grenade without having your head out. The fact that they didn't wear helmets, like, you know what I mean? Even visually they were like, please don't stick your head out because you are wearing huge gear and not one thing.

[B]

To cover your dome.

[A]

Yeah, I, I, I played all those games when they came out. Really liked them, didn't touch them for a while. And then I played through all of them with Kayla, like in the last couple years.

[B]

Great.

[A]

And now Reloaded's coming out on PlayStation and I'm loving an excuse to just like, I'll play the first Gears again on like, let's do Insane Difficulty. Let's just play like, they are just fun fucking video games too. Like, I think I liked them more over time instead of just like, oh, this nostalgia thing. They were good games back then. Now I look at it and it's like, I think I like these better than Halo. Halo, you know.

[B]

That'S a tough one. I think I like Halo's better, but Gears are awesome games.

[C]

Gears are really good on Gears. It's not unfair. Yeah. I grew up on Gears, so Gears is my favorite because that was the thing that got me in. But for many people, that's Halo.

[B]

Basically all the Halo games now with the Master Chief collection. Don't they all have like 4 player co op?

[A]

Do they?

[B]

I'm pretty sure they retroactively added. Nah, maybe not. Oh, Infinite never added co Op. That was like a whole thing.

[A]

Wait, no, I heard they did.

[B]

Did, did they finally Grub said recently or they didn't have it at launch. Which is.

[A]

Right, they didn't. Or for a while.

[B]

Great idea. Yeah. I would also say Gears has the definitive like wave defense horde mode 2. When they introduced that in horde mode or 2, that was amazing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Fives was so good. We played a lot of that together.

[C]

What do you think is the first game that had time that you could compare to your friends times? Because that is like something that everybody fucking does now. And it's very good. Was it Super Meat Boy or Am I insane?

[A]

I mean there were definitely like ways with like older. Like there was, you know, Speedrun communities and stuff long before that. But like in terms of like.

[C]

But it was a mechanic.

[A]

I feel like you started seeing leaderboards a lot with 360 and Xbox Live Arcade, like Geometry Wars. But that wasn't a time thing, you know. But like I do think it would have to be around that 360 era. I'm just trying to think specifically a time thing.

[C]

Did Mirror's Edge have time Time like compare.

[A]

I don't know if it had leaderboards.

[C]

I know the new one did, but.

[A]

Yeah, I liked Trials Evolution, I thought had really where you could see the ghost of the. Your friends list. Oh, I'm ahead of them.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I don't like trying to think of another mechanic that's like everywhere, but there's one that just does it.

[A]

This is a more niche genre, I guess, but Tony Hawk skating. Like I've played plenty of skating games that aren't Tony Hawk. Nothing feels like Tony Hawk. Like that's what I want them all to feel like. So I never liked skate. Really. It was just because like this does not feel like Tony Hawk. They nailed it.

[B]

I think what has like the best like wall running mechanics? Titanfall 2.

[A]

Probably some Prince of Persia or something like that. Oh, Prince of Persia. I remember had some pretty good wall running. Titanfall, Titan Falls Mobility. That's the best first person shooter mobility ever, I think.

[B]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

Titan Doom Eternal. Got pretty good with that.

[C]

Had brilliant design in the levels Though that were all about min maxing wall running in such an elegant way. And I. I do kind of look at that as in some ways the best, genuinely. Like Prince of Persia was first, but was it the best? Because the question is, is like, what do we think is like the best? And man, Titanfall 2 is so fucking good. It's so slept on.

[A]

There's a good argument for Titanfall 2. Definitely. Yeah. Like that, that training room where you could set the time.

[B]

Basically.

[C]

It also had.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Neon white basically. Just took that and made a game out of it, which I think neon white is. This is the time trial game now.

[A]

It's a great one. Yeah.

[B]

All right, well, thank you, Darian. All right, well, that's our emails. That's our show.

[C]

That's a good question. I feel like I could think of more because there's so many different mechanics.

[B]

But yeah, yeah, that's firescapecastmail.com you can write in for next episode, send in more. We've got a few more left to burn through. That sounds bad. We enjoy them. I didn't mean burn through them, but like we got some. We got something to that we're dive into.

[C]

We still got trash in the old heap, but if you guys want to throw some more shrimp on the barbie, you send them right on in. Fire [e-mail].

[B]

We got plenty of turds in the toilet, but we always picks like two.

[A]

Emails whenever Mike's gone. I pick like eight.

[B]

That's why. Yeah, because I'm preserving them. Conserving them both.

[C]

You really got to preserve those turds in the toilet.

[B]

Yeah, you got it.

[A]

I think they're shining like diamonds.

[C]

You're flushing too many, Dan.

[A]

I can't stop.

[B]

It's a weird addiction.

[A]

It's my thing.

[B]

All right, well, we'll be back in a couple weeks, but in the meantime you can go to deepdishpussy.com yeah. If you're not a subscriber, if you want to get ad free episodes or you want to be a video patron and get access to the show, for instance, that we're doing with Nextlander, me and Vinnie are saving the world in total Warhammer 3 co op campaign. And then for those who are not patrons of nextlander, you can go watch where we're destroying the world. That's two different factions, different part of the map. That's a episodic. I think we're on episodes like 11 of each. Something like that. 12, maybe 13. Something like that. We're in turn. We're in like the getting into the 40s turn wise in the game. And then also resident Knievel 4 Remake is back. We're finishing it off. We are pretty positive. Coming up on the last episode against Sadler. Yeah, that'll. That's also on our YouTube channel. You do not need to be a patron for that. You don't need to subscribe or anything. It's a. It's free for everybody. But just go follow Fire escape cast on YouTube just so you see when that goes up.

[C]

We had some really funny moments in the last episode too, and they're free. I posted on our Twitter the. I. I need to send it to you, Mike. I put them all on a playlist so you can watch the whole from beginning. You can watch the whole playlist from the beginning without skipping a beat and tweeted it.

[B]

Well, I mean if you want to go all the way back to the beginning at Gamespot, you can. There's. How many seasons are there? 4, 15, 16.

[C]

Crazy because we've played pretty much all of them, minimum, all the numbered series. And like, you know.

[B]

Well, we have not played the OG first game. We. We went right to remake. That was a quality. I know that's a quality call on my part. I was like, I want to get the game off to a strong note. The first one has not aged all that well. Sorry Tim Turi for listening, but we can.

[A]

We.

[B]

That's like a lost episode. So is resident evil revelations 2. So is code Veronica. No, you played Code Veronica. Remember Father. That was that one.

[C]

Father.

[B]

The fire extinguisher puzzle. That sucks. We have not. There's a couple, I think Jake and ada campaigns in Res Evil 6, which I'm champing at the bit to play as always, but. Yeah. Mary, what else do you have going on outside of Fire Escape?

[C]

I mean. Yeah, Kanini with you. And I stream every Monday usually. And I played Peak last Monday and had a great time. So I always look forward to it. So it's a good. It's a good time. Come on down, Danielle.

[B]

What about you, Danielle?

[A]

Giant bomb dot com. I am feeling great about it lately. We are kind of. Of getting past the like, oh, we own the company. Oh, God, we gotta get all this stuff moved over.

[B]

He just loves bringing that up.

[C]

Yeah, it's killing it being an owner of a company.

[A]

Am I complaining? I'm sorry. Am I complaining?

[B]

I didn't know how terrible it'd be to work with Mike Minati until I did it.

[C]

What am I gonna do with it?

[A]

What am I gonna do I complained about this.

[B]

What am I gonna do?

[C]

What?

[A]

The situation.

[B]

My own giant bomb.

[A]

It's very good. We're doing great work over there. Check out Jurassic Grub. Trespasser. Grub Passer, whatever we called it. It's the new Blank Club season. We're playing Jurassic Park Trespasser, a fascinating weird from the weird Instagram from, like, way before they were ready for it.

[B]

It.

[A]

Yes. Grub is playing that now, and it is a delight. So check out Blight Club and everything else we got going on at Giant Palm, because I think we're on fire right now.

[B]

Corey Barlog worked on that game. Did you know that?

[A]

I don't think that's true.

[B]

I know I made that up. That's funny, though. I'm going to start doing that from now.

[A]

Funny.

[B]

Did you know worked on Halo 4.

[A]

That's not a joke.

[B]

I know, but it's. It throws you off. Clearly, you're off your rhythm.

[C]

That's a classic Mike joke, because Mikey's always.

[B]

But I. I think think worked on Jurassic Grub. Evolution. Grow up. All right, that's our episode. We'll be back in a couple weeks with episode.

[A]

What?

[B]

114, I think.

[C]

Got him.

[B]

We've done this too much. We've done this for too long.

[A]

Is this 113?

[B]

I think so.

[A]

No, we are 113. I'm look. I'm looking at 113.

[B]

This is 114. And we didn't celebrate.

[C]

The host should know that.

[B]

I know. That's why Mary, take us out.

[C]

Thank you all baby boys and baby girls for listening to another awesome episode. We'll see you on the next one. Check it. That's my exit. That's, like the way I say goodbye. Check it. Yeah.

[A]

Nice.

[C]

You like it?

[B]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[C]

I said check it. Like, that's it. That's the end.

[B]

Oh, okay. Sorry.

[A]

Go again.

[B]

Go again.

[A]

Wait, wait. We'll give Shawna clean out. Ready? Here we go.

[B]

Here we go.

[A]

Go. And Mary, check it.