Fire Escape Cast #123

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #123 – January 5, 2026

Hosts: Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish, Mike Mahardy
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

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Episode Overview

This New Year’s episode kicks off 2026 as Dan, Mary, and Mike reunite (virtually) to discuss holiday traditions, tales of family and gaming during the break, and to catch up on what they've been playing and watching. From CRT TV shenanigans and cocktail experiments to musings on classic games, the cast blends cozy nostalgia, irreverent humor, and genuine gaming insight. Long-time Fire Escape listeners will enjoy the familiar tone—a blend of affectionate ribbing, deep-dive gaming talk, and tangents about bodily functions and odd life choices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Holiday Recaps: CRTs, Cabins, and Parties

• Mary’s CRT Road Trip (02:04)

  • Mary shares her annual tradition: "I get an old game and play through it ... got a new CRT. I got another new CRT. I have three now." (01:24)
  • Story of buckling three CRT TVs into a car for a cabin-in-the-woods holiday.

• Dan’s NYE Party & Wrestling Tapes (04:19)

  • Dan recalls the MVP party guest John Carson, who "brings this giant platter of cheese curds and awesome Wisconsin cheese ... and like fifteen VHS tapes of old wrestling." (04:19)
  • General Hospital tapes accidentally played at the party.

• Mike’s Holiday: Sickness, Couch, and True Detective

  • Mike's wife Amanda was laid out with the flu, leading to a marathon of True Detective Season 1: “We watched the entirety of it today. That’s how we spent New Year’s Day.” (28:15)

Cocktail Science & Alton Brown

• Mike’s Tiki Cocktail Advice (05:45)
  • Dan sought out Mike’s expertise for batching tiki drinks: “You text Mike Mahardy ... [expect] an easy answer, and it’s a book of the most detailed, knowledgeable information ...” (05:45)
• Mary’s Milk Punch Adventure (07:14)
  • Mary details making Alton Brown’s clarified milk punch: "It curdles and gets all goopy and nasty ... the liquid that drips from the goo is your finished product." (08:08)
  • Discussion about food-science personalities, including Alton Brown (bow ties!) and the Thirsty Whale Instagram account.

Gaming Over the Holidays

• Dan’s Family Gaming: Boomer Mode Breath of the Wild (10:12)

  • Dan played Gears of War with his sister Kayla—remarked on her beating Sekiro and other games on TVs with massive input lag, not even knowing what "game mode" is.
    • “She is the Jimi Hendrix of video games.” (11:43)
  • Discussion of Dan’s dad’s Breath of the Wild habits: walking everywhere, never warping, refusing to talk to NPCs, or learn to use the mini-map.
    • “Objectively, he’s playing it wrong in a lot of ways, but he fucking loves it.” (14:53)

• Navigating Parental Gaming Styles

  • Mary relates trying to explain dual-stick controls to her mother, who can manage only the basic Gears gameplay.

• Boomer Mode Gaming

  • The term is coined for Dan’s family gaming style (15:04).

TV & Movies: True Detective, Pluribus, and More

• True Detective Seasons Ranked (28:32)

  • Consensus: Season 1 still perfect, Season 2 boring and messy, Season 3 “fine,” Season 4 divisive.

• Pluribus (31:00):

  • The hosts discuss the new TV show Pluribus, its “slow burn” style, and philosophical implications. They ponder what they’d do if everyone else in the world became part of a collective consciousness except for themselves.
    • “I want a movie that I get to direct, and I’m gonna write it, and you guys have to make it good.” (34:58) —Mary

• Knives Out/Wake Up Dead Man & Other Watches

  • Praise for Knives Out 1, mixed on 2, positive on 3.
  • Mary: “I think it’s the first time that a Vampire Survivors clone is better than Vampire Survivors.” (100:10)
  • General discussion about “stressful” Safdie brothers movies, Marty Supreme, Uncut Gems.
    • “I don’t think any scene in fiction ever made me anxious ... if it’s a movie, you’re always safe.” (44:20) —Dan

• Lighthearted Tales: Restaurant and Bathroom Stories

  • Extended riffs on pooping in public, toilet rituals, and a friend peeing himself after slipping on ice (25:53).

Main Video Game Discussions

Mary’s Ocarina of Time First Full Playthrough! (61:03)

• Mary played Ocarina for the first time start to finish, live on a CRT in a cabin.
  • Favorite temple music: Gerudo.
  • Least favorite: Shadow Temple (those hands, ugh), Water Temple “annoying but not the worst.”
• Mike and Dan celebrate Mary’s “fresh” takes and pepper her with questions about her favorite/least favorite dungeons, puzzles, “aha” moments, and compare to their nostalgia.

Dan’s Challenge Runs: Mario Galaxy 2 & Link Between Worlds (76:39)

• Dan grinds out the final, notoriously difficult "The Perfect Run" star in Galaxy 2 on Switch: “I died like 40 plus times... it was super satisfying.” (77:26)
• Celebration of the 3DS’s Link Between Worlds: “It’s the only 10 I ever gave reviewing for Game Informer.” (78:25)

Mike: Octopath Traveler 0 Deep Dive (81:59)

• Impressions after 35+ hours:
  • “It’s crazy how crunchy they made the combat even though it’s turn-based.” (82:46)
  • Praise for the larger cast, though a slight loss in narrative focus compared to the first two.
  • Strongly recommends for those who enjoy big party, Suikoden-style JRPGs.

Other Games and Recommendations

• Sector (92:58)

  • Dan, Mary, and Bonk all addicted to this arcade shooter—competing for leaderboard scores.
  • Mary on the deck/card system: “Chaos ... lets you switch the order of your upgrades ... it’s random. Every time you play it, it’s like shaking a snow globe.” (95:34)

• Mega Bonk

  • Mary: “First time a Vampire Survivors clone is better than Vampire Survivors ... it’s stress-free gaming.” (100:10–101:53)

• Skate Story (102:00)

  • Mary: “It's part existential, part sick skating game ... it took me at least two hours. The first two hours I was on the fence ... and then it clicked.” (103:12)

• Death Howl:

  • Mary highlights this turn-based grid deck builder with a dark story and strange animal enemies.

• Terminator Game

  • Dan reviews a new action/shooter Terminator game that’s faithful to T2, but at $30 and ~45 mins long, he can’t recommend it unless on deep sale.

Gaming Habits, Social Media, and Predictability

• On Being Predictable (54:00)
  • Discussion about which host is most/least predictable in life, food, and gaming choices.
• Social Media Detox (113:58–116:37)
  • Dan and Mary reflect on the peace of unplugging from Twitter/BlueSky, surviving just fine on Instagram and away from gaming drama.
    • “God damn it feels great ... stepping back has just been a universal positive.” (115:48) —Dan

Classic Fire Escape Tangents: Bodily Function Humor

• The Asparagus Pee Bit Returns (132:05)
  • Signature Fire Escape bathroom humor, including a bet on whether Mike will express his “love” for asparagus pee smell.
• Listener Emails (up to 137:36)
  • Music and games: Mary has driven her siblings to forever associate "Dragula" by Rob Zombie with Sledstorm. Mike still treasures tricking out his NFL Street 2 experience with custom soundtracks.
  • Fun question: What “game asset” would you want to claim you designed? Mary wants to make a goofy Rocket League topper; Dan is responsible for the "fart in a jar" grenade in Saints Row 3.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dan’s Dad’s Gaming:
  • “Objectively, he’s playing it wrong in a lot of ways, but he fucking loves it.” —Dan (14:53)
• Kayla as a Gamer:
  • “She is the Jimi Hendrix of video games.” —Mike (11:43)
• On Gift Giving:
  • “Beer, cheese, and old wrestling tapes. Carson knows me well.” —Dan (05:27)
• On Sector:
  • “It’s one of those games ... you can’t play it too close to bed ... I’m gonna do the one more run thing forever.” —Dan (93:13)
• Ocarina “Aha!” Moments:
  • “I jumped across this bridge with my horse. ... I feel like I was the first person to figure that out. I felt awesome.” —Mary (66:20)
• On Social Media Detox:
  • “It’s not some revelation, like the clouds are more vivid. ... I just don’t miss it.” —Dan (115:00)
• Classic Fire Escape Bathroom Story:
  • “That was the guy before me. I just went back to the table.” —Mike, after leaving a restaurant bathroom (23:54)
• Bodily Humor Peak:
  • “I don't even like asparagus. I eat it specifically so my pee will smell." —Mike (135:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:54 – Episode kicks off, holiday recaps
• 05:45 – Detailed tiki cocktail and milk punch science
• 10:12 – Dan’s family and weird gaming stories
• 28:15 – True Detective, TV & movie talk
• 31:00 – Pluribus discussion & “what would you do with total power”
• 61:03 – Mary’s first full Ocarina playthrough
• 76:39 – Dan’s Mario Galaxy 2 “Perfect Run” quest
• 81:59 – Mike’s thoughts on Octopath Traveler 0
• 92:58 – Sector, Mega Bonk, and more
• 113:58 – Social media detox/mental health
• 132:05 – Asparagus pee/jokey predictions
• 137:36 – Emails: music-game connections, asset design, and more

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Conclusion

This episode effortlessly weaves together classic gaming nostalgia, grounded and humorous stories from the hosts’ personal lives, current TV/movie debate (True Detective, Pluribus, Knives Out 3), in-depth recaps of games (with spotlight moments for Ocarina of Time, Mario Galaxy 2, Octopath Traveler 0, Sector, and Mega Bonk), and signature Fire Escape off-the-rails banter about bathrooms, bodily functions, and life philosophies. If you haven’t listened: expect warm friendship, candid honesty about holiday burnout, pure gaming enthusiasm, and irreverent comedy—the epitome of a Fire Escape New Year.

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For more, visit fireescapecast.com and send in your emails to [e-mail]!

Transcript

[Mike Maharti]

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[Dan Riker]

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[Mary Kish]

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[Mike Maharti]

What's happening, Billy Crappening? It is officially 2026. It is a warm 68 degrees Fahrenheit here in Baton Rouge. I am Mike Maharti. I am Mike Maharti here as always with Mary Kish. Mary, you get the intro first because Dan fucking interrupted me again.

[Mary Kish]

He doesn't like it when you bring up the weather, but I think that the people want to know what the weather was.

[Dan Riker]

He's lying.

[Mike Maharti]

It's probably 68. Let me look up Ben. No. Wasn't I right last time I looked it up? How are you doing, Mary?

[Mary Kish]

I'm doing great. I'm well rested and relaxed after a nice couple of weeks where I just got to chill. I've been playing a lot of games. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But Ocarina, every Christmas I get an old game and I play through it as a part of my Christmas break. That is a part of what I do. And I've been doing Zeldas for the last few years because they take like five days to get through. So yeah, I got a new crt. I got another new crt. I have three now. I wish I took a photo of it. You guys should have seen my car.

[Mike Maharti]

I went to the cabin CRTVs.

[Mary Kish]

I went to a cabin in the woods and there was. We almost didn't have room for the food because I had three CRTs buckled into each seat. One of them is a nine inch. It's so cute. It's just the cutest little baby tv. I put Jurassic park on it. You could barely see the T. Rex. I mean they are tiny but awesome, awesome TVs for the, for the holiday and for, you know, playing Star Fox. I had a great time.

[Dan Riker]

Ah, next time I go to Portland, I'm going to go to your place and it's just going to be like the Dark Knight, like monitor wall, where like all crts stacked up.

[Mike Maharti]

You type your name in and it just starts exploding. Yeah, Dan. Yeah, hi.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, Dan.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, Mary, you've spoken enough. Dan, that's the Riker.

[Dan Riker]

Yes, yes, hi. Yes, I slept till 4pm today.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, we should. We should clarify if there's any fogginess on our part. It's literally New Year's Day. It's the night of New Year's Day, but it's January.

[Mary Kish]

You guys have a bit of the hair of the dog. Everybody does.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. I was going to do fairly dry, you know, January or certain rules and stuff starting today, but there was an open bottle of white wine from my party last night and it would just be irresponsible not to do it. So this is my last day for a bit here.

[Mary Kish]

You got to pour it down the drain like an animal.

[Dan Riker]

Can't do that. That's insane. No.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, you'd be wasting some hard work. What kind of. Let me. Can I guess from the. What it. Tell me looks like. Do you know what it is?

[Dan Riker]

Not really so yellow. I think it was a Chardonnay.

[Mike Maharti]

I was going to say it's probably a gold Chardonnay with like full malactic fermentation.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe some new water. Yeah, she was like.

[Dan Riker]

We said on the party invite thing that like, oh, bring if you want to. You can bring, you know, food or drink or whatever. We're like, we ordered a ton of pizza. I got a ton of beer and liquor and stuff like that, but everyone just brings a bottle of wine. So it's like I have like, like 12 new bottles of wine that people brought and it's like, oh, shit. I'm trying not to drink as much in January, but I'll get to it.

[Mary Kish]

I understand why people do that though, because a bottle of wine is something I'm willing to give up. It's like, especially if it's like a 12, $15 bottle. It's like, you can have this. It's a decent gift. Whereas, like if you drink beer and you bring a 12 pack. Cause I can take down six beers in a night, so I'm gonna bring six. I'll. I'll drink more than that. Then I have to leave beers at your house.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I got a lot of beer too, which is nice. You know who the MVP of bringing stuff to a party is? Tim Terry is fantastic. But he was in California this year. John Carson Formerly Game Informer, he is from Wisconsin. And so he always brings this giant platter of, like, cheese curds and awesome Wisconsin cheese and crackers and this new Galeras beer from Wisconsin, which is amazing. The man, he just pulls up and he bought me, like, this, like, 15 VHS tapes he found at Goodwill of all old, like, wrestling from the late 90s. And on every one of these, the guy, like, lovingly, like, wrote down every single match, and the date is like, this is when Goldberg beat Togen for the title. And it's just, like, original recordings from back then. So I put it in at the party. So I had the CRT going, and it's just incredible old. Like, one of them I thought was a Monday nitro, but it was just General Hospital. So for a while, we were just watching episodes of General Hospital from 2000 on a CRT.

[Mary Kish]

But that's beautiful.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. But, yeah, Carson, just above and beyond this here, a bunch of cheese.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, that's not a normal gift because you've been invited to a party. That was your Christmas present. That was a. Yeah. Handmade gift.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Beer, cheese, and old wrestling tapes. Carson knows me well. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That's way right into your heart.

[Dan Riker]

Yes. Awesome.

[Mike Maharti]

That's rad, that. Did you end up making the. That drink, the batching that you drink?

[Dan Riker]

I did exactly how you told me, Mike.

[Mike Maharti]

It's just.

[Dan Riker]

Here's the thing. You text Mike Mahardi about, like, it's like, hey, how do I do this? And you just assume it's going to be, like, an easy answer. And it's like, me and Bonk were in the car, and. Because we were going to the liquor store, and it's just like. Like, all these messages, and it's a book of the most detailed, knowledgeable information about how the lime chemicals bond with the liquor.

[Mike Maharti]

Hold on, hold on. I. I wasn't trying to be, like, pompous about it.

[Dan Riker]

I'm actually complimenting you.

[Mike Maharti]

I was trying to, like, because basically, Dan was trying to.

[Mary Kish]

When we're describing you and you assume it's pompous.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That was not our intention.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, no, it wasn't Wine. We were talking about tiki drinks. Cool.

[Mike Maharti]

You were asking out a batch of tiki drink, and I basically was like, well, the reason you shake with ice is because the water actually binds the citrus and the booze. But then I was like, well, if you make it too far in advance, and it might water it down too much. So then I. I was like. My point being, I should have thought it through more before I Texted you back, but.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, no. But it was. It was awesome. It went great. It actually, like, if you worry too, you're gonna. Like. I've never made a big batch cocktail, and I'm like, oh, God, we're gonna do all this shit and no one's gonna drink it. And it went quick. It was delicious.

[Mary Kish]

That's great.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, well, the Top Notch Volcano was the name of it. And yeah, it's just a big batch, you know, Marcino, cherry and pineapple and lime juice and rum and stuff. You know, tiki stuff. It was great.

[Mike Maharti]

You guys do anything else besides what you do for. For the holidays? Do you guys stay home?

[Mary Kish]

Cabin.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, he did the cabin. Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I always do the cabin for.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, Christmas and New Year's.

[Mary Kish]

Rented a cabin for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and that's where I started. Zelda. I also made a batch cocktail. I made Alton Brown's milk punch. Have you guys heard of this?

[Dan Riker]

I don't think so.

[Mike Maharti]

I've heard of milk punch. Not Alton Brown's, though.

[Mary Kish]

You gotta get on Alton Brown's TikTok. This guy's crazy. I love Alton Brown. Everybody loves Alton Brown. Just this, like, genius molecule man who, like, talks about the molecular science of, like, what you're making and makes great, you know, anything, honestly. But this milk punch, you. You make tea. So I. I had to make Earl Grey tea, mix in a bunch of port, and I'm gonna forget but other important ingredients. And then you pour all of the liquor in milk, in whole milk, and.

[Dan Riker]

Sounds gross, but I'm sure it's great.

[Mary Kish]

It curdles and gets all goopy and nasty. And then you pour the goop into a coffee filter, and the shit at the bottom is clarified milk punch. It's shells.

[Dan Riker]

You don't drink the goop?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, good.

[Mary Kish]

The liquid that drips from the goo is your finished product. And the milk. I don't know. I don't know the science of it. Let's ask Alton Brown. But the science of it. The milk helps make the liquor extremely smooth and has this, like, really nice, refined taste to it. Feels like velvet in your mouth. And it's shelf stable. Even though you dumped it in a bunch of milk. You can keep it in your liquor cabinet for years and it'll be totally fine.

[Dan Riker]

I swear to God. Just now I thought in my head, I'm gonna Google this Alton Brown guy. And I was about to say out loud, I was gonna be like, I bet this guy wears a bow tie. I've never heard of this man. In my life, and I Googled him, and the first thing that popped up is a guy with a bow tie. It's like, yep. All right.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, he's great. He reminds me of, like, the mythbusters guys. Like, he. He'll be like, we're gonna bake bread, but I'm gonna show you the eight wrong ways to do it, and then I'll show you the science of why it's wrong, and then I'll show you the perfect bread. And everyone's like, this guy's a genius, but he's also entertaining.

[Dan Riker]

Nice.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you follow a thirsty whale on Instagram, by any chance?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I follow him.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, he's awesome. He's. He's just, like, really entertaining. I don't know. Seems like a good dude, but he has a lot of cool cocktail videos. I think he's up in Portland, Maine, or something. But he's probably my favorite cocktail follow on Instagram.

[Mary Kish]

No bow tie.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Dan Riker]

This guy wears, like, carties.

[Mary Kish]

This. This guy looks like he's in the army.

[Dan Riker]

What?

[Mike Maharti]

Really?

[Mary Kish]

No, I can see it.

[Dan Riker]

I can see it. Yeah. Huh.

[Mike Maharti]

Interesting.

[Mary Kish]

Retired.

[Mike Maharti]

A retired army cocktail mixologist. I know those guys.

[Dan Riker]

I. I spent a lot of time with Kayla, my sister, over the break when. And she continues to be fascinating in ways that I could not predict. Like, I sit down to play Gears of War with her, and we have played again. Yeah, we was. Well, we went through all the basic games, and now Reloaded came out last year, and we. We did a couple streams of that, and we're going through on insane difficulty. And so we're like, you know, act four, act five. Like, we're near the end. It's like, oh, okay, that'd be fun. We can do split screen at her house, and we can do a stream or whatever. I loaded up, and immediately I'm like, I can't hit any active reloads here. Like, this feels like something is deeply wrong. And keep in mind, she is the one that, like, beat most of not Sector Sekiro on a PlayStation portal with whatever lag comes with that. And so I realized that, again, she doesn't. She'd be the first to admit she doesn't know anything about, like, TV technology or anything like that. And I'm like, whoa, You. I was like, kayla, do you have, like, game mode turned on or anything? She's like, what's that? And I was like, oh, God. And so I check, and she has, like, an older tv, and I turned game mode on, and she was like, oh, this feels way better. And it's like it was like a second long delay on active reloads and stuff and her whole thing is like from games and neat Leo and. And you know, not sector again. Was it Sekiro? Like the most frame perfect needed things and she was beating all these games like on like the worst input lag I've ever seen in my life.

[Mike Maharti]

She just assumed all games take like a second to register what you're trying to do.

[Dan Riker]

I guarantee she just didn't think about it. And in her head it's Jimi Hendrix.

[Mike Maharti]

With the right hand guitar.

[Dan Riker]

She is the Jimi Hendrix of video games. I agree.

[Mike Maharti]

You can put, you can coin that Kayla. It's yours. Public domain now.

[Dan Riker]

Just wild. Yeah. And I switched it on. I was like, can you tell the difference? She's like, oh yeah, this feels way better now. She was doing like crazy Speedrun shit and like the hardest games ever on the hardest difficulties and it's just unreal. So yeah, that, that kind of blew me away.

[Mary Kish]

She's probably getting adjusted to the time difference. Ultimately if you're playing the same game again and again and again, you're getting adjusted to how long it takes for you to do your strike. So maybe she was just like, yeah, everything I do takes a half second for it to impact and just got really adjusted to it.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. But like from games already have a bit of that delay because like it's supposed to like you're committing to the attack. Which is. Makes it even funnier that she was beating Sekiro. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

And then I go to my dad's place and he's put like 400 hours into breath of the Wild. He plays it like daily since I got it for him years and years ago pre pandemic. Well, he loves it and like the way he talks about it is really awesome too because it said it reminds him of like when he was a kid and he would just go out in the woods and explore and things and it's like, wow, that's the coolest thing you could say about a game is like that it gave you that feeling and nothing else has made you feel that way since you were a kid. But it's, it's so interesting because he is just a stubborn older man who doesn't play a lot of video games. So he's like, refuses to learn lock on like locking on to an enemy. So like he does, he's unlocked the entire map. He's literally spent like 400 plus hours playing this game. But like whenever he goes to a shrine. That's one of the, like, major test of skill or strength or minor test of strength where you just had to fight one of those guardian things. He just won't do it because, like, he won't lock onto anything. So, like, combat stuff, he can't really do in that game. He hasn't done a single divine beast. So, you know, every year I go back, I'm like, dad, just go. Here. You'll get this thing that lets you jump over the. Like, this Ravali's gale thing. It'll help you a ton. And he refuses to because he has to talk to NPCs, and he's like, I don't want to talk to people. So he just explores. I think he barely touches the camera. And he's got every tower. He's done a million trends. I actually did get him to get the master sword. He was being kind of stubborn about. I don't need that. I'm fine. I'm fine. I was like that. It's a sword that never breaks. You're going to win. So I did actually, like, he had enough hearts and everything, so I got him the master sword. But he gets so pissed off every time he sees a korok. He thinks they're idiots.

[Mary Kish]

They are.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I'll climb up a whole mountain, and I have to do a thing and fight a thing.

[Mary Kish]

Don't make me defend Paul Riker.

[Dan Riker]

And then he just gets so mad every time he sees a Korok.

[Mike Maharti]

What does he think about weapon degradation?

[Dan Riker]

I mean, I don't think it bothers him.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, what does he think about difficulty in video games?

[Dan Riker]

I don't think he thinks about it. He's.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. What's he thinking about? Israel. No, I'm joking. While we're on the subject, that's more than. I played Breath of the Wild.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, me, too. I mean, it's my maybe favorite game of all time, but it's like, it is kind of cool. Like, it's frustrating that it's like, dad, you could be making this so much easier for yourself. Like, he probably.

[Mary Kish]

What's he doing, though? If you've already unlocked all the towers, if you're not gonna lock on anything, he does shrines.

[Dan Riker]

But, like, he's also, like, he doesn't listen when anyone tells him anything ever. So it's like, literally every time I go back home, I'm like, all right, dad, you can warp to any of these shrines, even if you haven't finished it. If it's yellow in the middle, you can warp there.

[Mary Kish]

So he's walking everywhere.

[Dan Riker]

He walks everywhere. He doesn't use the camera. He wouldn't learn about the fairy stuff.

[Mike Maharti]

Use the camera. Wouldn't you only be able to walk in one direction? At least he started to.

[Dan Riker]

But the thing is, he won't do it at the same time. He's running, so he'll, like, stop. He'll rotate and then kind of like run another one. So, like, objectively, he's playing it wrong in a lot of ways, but, like, he fucking loves it.

[Mary Kish]

So it's like your entire family is just playing on Boomer mode.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah. It's weird that I'm the one that understands the tech stuff more in games. Well, I guess that makes sense.

[Mary Kish]

It's your job. If you did it, your whole bloodline should end.

[Dan Riker]

Jesus Christ.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. You said something like that a few weeks ago, and I was like. I felt like. Like a. Like a lot.

[Dan Riker]

It's all.

[Mary Kish]

But you have to, like, someone has to pay attention to these things, and it's you. I don't expect your dad to. I don't. I, like, completely understand that. Your dad would not do that. I have. My. My mom would play Gears with me sometimes, and I would try to explain the idea that you have to look with one toggle and move with the other. Could not. Could not process that.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Can she throw a grenade? Yes. Can she shoot? Yes. Not very well. But, like, she. She understands the basics. And I think ultimately, if you have a good time, like, if he's having a good time getting diamonds or whatever it is that he wants to do in that game, spending all of his time running, voluntarily running. Maybe he's doing the building thing with that guy who's like, help me lift this sign. Maybe he's helping that guy out.

[Mike Maharti]

He would have hate the ultra hand stuff, wouldn't he?

[Dan Riker]

Oh, he would. That's why I didn't even get him. That is because it's like, it'd be too finicky for him. He didn't know there was a mini. He's played 400 hours in this game. He just saw the mini map for the first time a few days ago because I told him, like, hey, dad, go here on the mini map. What are you talking about, mini map? He's like, down there. He's like, what's that? And it's like. That's like he's never set a stamp. I keep trying to show him how to do the stamps. And, like, he refuses to go to the adventure log. So it's like he'll be like, I don't know what to do now. I feel like I've seen the whole map and everything's like, dad, look at this adventure log thing. These are all quests that if you hit a on it, it will put a blinking yellow dot on your map. And he just refuses to engage with that system. Any kind of map stuff.

[Mike Maharti]

Imagine. Okay, so that would be funny then, because, correct me if I'm wrong, in Breath of Wild, you would see the yellow quest marker on the edge of the mini map.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Assuming you're not close to it. So that'd be funny for him because he would just see the yellow dot and walk toward it, not knowing how long it's going to take him. So it might be on the other side of the map. No, but he won't even do that.

[Dan Riker]

He doesn't. He ignores the mini map and the yellow dot.

[Mike Maharti]

It would just be funny to see, like. Yeah, he just sets off toward the yellow dot, which is on the edge of the mini map, not knowing whether it's on the other side of the map or near him.

[Dan Riker]

I've. I've tried. I've tried for many, many years now, and it's just like. Well, it's just not going to stick. He's going to play it the way he wants to, but he enjoys it. So whatever.

[Mike Maharti]

We talked about that with. That was an email question, I don't know, five, six episodes ago, and someone's like, what's, like, a game you didn't realize you were playing incorrectly? I think Kayla, it was her not having game mode on. Your dad is just willfully ignoring super helpful and interesting things in Breath of the Wild.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. It's like, I don't like going to a place and talking to a bunch of fish people, but, like, it's gonna get me to a thing that's, like, it's gonna give me a helpful thing and progress the game. And so he does not give a fuck. Some of that. Talk to a fish man. He's out.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Some of that stuff like Morphs Hyrule. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I'm not going to talk to any fish man.

[Dan Riker]

When I started, like, getting frustrated with him and telling him, like, dad, I tell you this every year. It would make you so much. He's like, dan, how many people my age, how many of your friends, dad, do you think are you have ever, like, played Breath of the Wild at all or would even, like, give it a shot or whatever?

[Mary Kish]

A lot of parents play Breath of the Wild.

[Dan Riker]

Sure. But, I mean, you know, he's like, there's not a ton of guys. Is it like, in their 60s playing it or whatever? Like, I can't think. Most of my friends, parents are playing, you know? And I was like, all right, I guess I got to give you a little credit there. And you are enjoying it and playing it. But it's like, man, you could make it so much easier for yourself.

[Mary Kish]

He's, like, adventurous and yet ridiculously stubborn. Yeah, he's somewhere in between where he's like, look at me branching out into youth stuff. I'm not opening up the fucking map. I'm walking four hours to pick up this apple.

[Mike Maharti]

Miyamoto made the first game about was, like, exploring the woods around his house near Kyoto. And the spelunking and whatnot.

[Mary Kish]

Getting the first one that.

[Dan Riker]

Speaking of the stubborn stuff, the new dumb argument he has that he has dug his heels in all the way on is that he's like, I just don't get why there's all these voice actors. And people will talk about them like they're actors, like they're acting. What are you talking about? And he's like, yeah, they're not. They're talking. It's not acting. Well, no, you've probably heard the one where you were saying that Broadway performers aren't actors, they're performers. And so in his head, it's like, he says, you have to have a camera on you, and you have to be pretending to be someone else to be acting. Otherwise, you're performing. Broadway people, they're. They're very talented. They're very different. They're not actors, voice actors, they're just talking. That's not. They're just reading words off a script. And I was like, what about, like, inflection and emotion? And he just dug his heels in all the way. Like, at family Christmas, I brought it up, and everybody in the family was like, paul, you're being completely insane. He's like, it's just talking. It's just talking.

[Mike Maharti]

I feel like, like, in many ways, voice acting would be harder because you don't have visual aid. You have to convey everything through your voice.

[Mary Kish]

You're right. You can't use your eyes. All you have is.

[Mike Maharti]

Or your tears.

[Mary Kish]

You can't use any of the face.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Name another one. You can't use your smile.

[Mike Maharti]

Actually, today was kind of appropriate.

[Dan Riker]

It was another one of those trips home. You know, everything that comes with it.

[Mike Maharti]

We stayed. We told both our sides of the family earlier this year that we were just gonna stay for Thanksgiving, and Christmas and enjoy. Ever since we got married or since we moved in here, we've been busy on the holidays. We're like, oh, we're gonna enjoy it. And then Amanda got sick on the 23rd, so, I mean, we were already gonna be home, but then we were home way more than we planned. But I mean, she felt better recently before New Year's, but like, all right, well, good thing we didn't travel anywhere because she was like violently sick. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Was it food poisoning?

[Mike Maharti]

No, sorry, not. I shouldn't say violently. She was just like laid out on the couch for like, like two. Like flu wise. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That just sounds like, really. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Bad.

[Mary Kish]

Anytime it's violent, I'm like, you're pukin.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, no, sorry. Not violent like that. Like, I just mean like it knocked her on her ass for a couple days.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, she was donezo. That sucks. It sucks for that to happen over your break too. Cause you work so hard for it, right? Like, Christmas break is so coveted. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, but it's just a lot of people are on the edge of burnout as they get into Christmas break. You really deserve that time. But for so many people, because you're working so hard, as soon as you're on your break, it's almost like your body's like, am I allowed to finally be sick?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Or when you're traveling and then you get sick right when you get home. That happens to me pretty often. Like, it's just like, oh, you're in a safe spot and you can be sick. Now, I don't know what the actual physiology is behind it, but it's always.

[Mary Kish]

Bodies are crazy. My body knows when I can't poop. My body if like I'm on a hike.

[Mike Maharti]

On a. Yeah. Never on stage. And I'd be get after.

[Mary Kish]

Well, you know, sometimes people. People like we'll be at brunch or something, you'll be like, I got to go. And it's just like that happens to so many people. Not me. I. My body won't allow me until I'm home safe and sound. Then it'll be like, it's time.

[Dan Riker]

You don't poop when you're out of the house.

[Mary Kish]

I. Well, I mean, at some point I have. But what I'm saying is, is like, if I ever. Let's say I'm trying to think if like I do, like an all day excursion somewhere, my body will just be like, nope, you don't need to go. And then when I get home to the hotel and I'm alone. My body will be like, it's time. But like, it just knows not to do it in an unsafe out, you know, outdoor experience. It knows.

[Dan Riker]

Not on a plane.

[Mary Kish]

No, no.

[Dan Riker]

Pooped on a plane. Really?

[Mike Maharti]

I probably.

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mike Maharti]

Three times maybe.

[Dan Riker]

I've definitely on planes.

[Mike Maharti]

It was on the same flight three times to Minneapolis. Only a two hour flight. No, I'm joking.

[Dan Riker]

You're in the cockpit.

[Mary Kish]

Someone's been in the Mile.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm the captain of that club, baby. I. I don't know if I told you this.

[Mary Kish]

Got my wings.

[Mike Maharti]

There's a. There's a restaurant here you guys might have been to. It's called Anthony David's in my. In Hoboken. But there's two bathrooms. One's really cool because the door looks like part of the wall. So we call it the secret bathroom. There's another one in the back which is bigger. However, that bathroom kind of opens up. If you were to leave that bathroom, you're right amongst the tables, basically. So I always try not to go there because if I have to poop there, then it's going to be pretty obvious that I pooped when I leave and there's people eating right near it.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's awful. My body would be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you.

[Mike Maharti]

Terrible things. Where I was like. I went into the bathroom and it already smelled, so the previous person like wrecked it. So I was hoping that no one was waiting when I came out because then they would think it was me.

[Dan Riker]

Blame it on you.

[Mike Maharti]

So I opened the door and this was like New Year's Eve several years ago, and I, and I had had a few drinks, so that definitely kind of added to this. And I, I opened the door and there was a woman standing there and I just like said to her, I was like, that was the guy before me. I just went back to the table. That was a weird thing to say. I should have just acknowled. I should have just let it. Let it go.

[Mary Kish]

You should have let. That's funny though, because, like, either, you know, depending on how truthful you look, she's either like, wow, well, you know, that was awkward. Or she was like, that son of a bitch just shit and lied to my face.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, no, it was. I realized after I was like, it was kind of a lose lose to say anything, but I still did not want her to think that I pooped in the bathroom because I didn't that time. That's because I, that's what annoyed me. I Mean, I didn't. Yeah, there's been other times I was like, be careful in there. And then. But yeah, and then I just got back to the table, and I didn't see her the rest of the night. So that worked out.

[Mary Kish]

One time at a party, I was in a group of, like, five people. Work party. There's, like, work people and someone farts, and no, you could smell it.

[Dan Riker]

Okay?

[Mary Kish]

And without hesitation, one of my co workers was like, mary, was that you? And I was like, first of all, I'm a victim. I am a victim like everybody else in this group. How dare you accuse me? And the more I defended myself, the more guilty I look.

[Mike Maharti]

We gotta find a girl who did this. Shit all over your pants.

[Dan Riker]

There's green stink lines coming off, trying.

[Mary Kish]

To tell them, listen, you guys, I can't even poop in public places. My body won't allow it. There's no way. It was. And I just, like. I look guiltier the more I'm defending this. I can't believe I got, like, accused. It was a mess. And I think to this day, everyone's like, she did it. He's still out there, is all we know. You got to find goddamn bird.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, he's. He's on in the Wind. One other story that reminds me of that. You were talking about how, like, your body knows when you can't poop. It's like, you know how when you have to pee, the closer you get to the toilet, like, the more you have to. Because again, your body is, like, knows you're about to really sell. Like, also with poop.

[Dan Riker]

I feel that more with poop. Oh, really?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, big time. Okay. I died.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. I can feel like if I'm in, if my eyes detect a toilet, it could be like a. You could print out a picture of a toilet and show it to my brain, and it would just start percolating like crazy.

[Mary Kish]

My eyes detect a toilet to say.

[Mike Maharti]

If I see a toilet den. Yeah, it's a weird way to such.

[Dan Riker]

You could draw a toilet or text me an image of a toilet. I just shit my pants. All right.

[Mike Maharti]

Anyway, one time, my buddy and I were driving back from a friend's house to his house, and he had to pee the whole drive, like, half an hour back home. And the closer we got to the house, he had to pee more and more. And it was the middle of winter in Syracuse, New York. So he, like, fucking careens into his driveway, hit, slams the brakes, puts the car in park, gets out of the car, immediately slips on some black ice and himself on the drive.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Maharti]

He's completely fine now. That's why I can laugh about it. He's also. You guys have met him. I'm not gonna say his name, but it was the. I. I have never.

[Mary Kish]

He pissed himself.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah. Like.

[Dan Riker]

Like Alex Navarro?

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, no. It's hometown friend. I felt so bad. But then when I saw that he was fine, like, later that day, I, like, just started laughing uncontrollably because he was completely fine. But, yeah, he pissed himself in the middle of winter. It was.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, your body must be so confused. If badly. And you have, like, a violent act occur to you, I would also just be like, whatever. You know, I got bigger fish to fry. I might have a concussion. You're. I'm pissing. I can understand my body wanting or, like, essentially letting one go.

[Mike Maharti]

And also, once you start pissing yourself, it's. I feel like it's tough. Like, it would hurt.

[Mary Kish]

Stop.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, you're gonna do.

[Dan Riker]

How much more damage can be done? You already got to change your plans.

[Mary Kish]

I only peed myself a little.

[Mike Maharti]

Gone afterward. No, I don't know that for a fact.

[Mary Kish]

He salted the driveway with his urine.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't have any transition for this, but we watched the entire True Detective season one today. We were talking about last night. We went out for dinner last night, like, a long dinner, and we were talking about True Detective Night country. We had not watched it, so we're like, oh, we should watch season one. And we watched the entirety of it today. That's how we spend New Year's Day.

[Dan Riker]

So good. Hold up.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, it's amazing still.

[Dan Riker]

I remember thinking it was like, a perfect season of television and then a lot of very not perfect seasons of television.

[Mike Maharti]

But, yeah, I've tried really hard with season two several times. And, like, the cardinal sin that one commits is just. It's boring as, like, it's also messy and inconsistent and the characters don't make sense, but, like, it's also just boring.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. It's the worst one by far. Three is serviceable for three is.

[Mike Maharti]

Right.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah. And if you're just about to start four, I won't say my thoughts on it, but. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, no, we're gonna watch it regardless. But did you like it?

[Dan Riker]

Very strong setup and super. Does not stick the landing at all.

[Mike Maharti]

Gotcha. Okay. Interesting.

[Mary Kish]

Is that the last one?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah. Like, great performances.

[Mary Kish]

We've discussed this before. I liked it, Mike.

[Dan Riker]

Some people do.

[Mary Kish]

Dan and I disagree on it.

[Mike Maharti]

We have Talked about it. Yes, we're gonna watch it. I don't even. I've still never seen 3. The Mahershal Ali one.

[Dan Riker]

It's fine. It's fine.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. But. But yeah, we watched that. I think we have one more episode of Pluribus or. No. Are they all out yet?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, we think they're all out. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

I didn't realize how divisive that show was.

[Dan Riker]

It was very.

[Mike Maharti]

It is. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You should check out the Rotten Tomatoes, dude, because the critic is like, 98, and the. And the people, the regular people is like 40 something. It's nuts.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I feel like everybody I've talked to either thinks it is a masterpiece of. Of, like, TV writing. Other people are like, it's so slow and dumb. I like it.

[Dan Riker]

That's the argument. And I will not say any spoilers here at all. It reminds me of the first season of Better Call Saul where it's like. It is slow. It is a slow burn, for sure, but it is setting stuff up. And, like, I am very, very invested in seeing a season two of this. So.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, no, just, like, philosophically, it's hilarious once. Or, like, really interesting once you see, like, the implications of that premise, how you see how different survivors are dealing with it. It's really good. Also, fuck. Rhea Seehorn's amazing. There's parts in that show where I'm like, I hate her character. And, like, they could do a good job of making her. Like, you kind of loathe her at certain points, but Rhea Seehorn's amazing. Like, she's very good actress. I'm so glad she got, like, the starring role because she was amazing in Better Call Saul, and that's the only thing I've seen her in, I think. Yeah, no, that show's good. I think we're. Are they all out now, the episodes?

[Dan Riker]

I think we're like, a couple weeks ago.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I think we're like, two behind something like that. Okay.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I'm. I really like that whole season a lot.

[Mary Kish]

I liked it too, and I think it's really reflective of the creator. One of the most coveted episodes of Breaking Bad, critically was the Fly episode.

[Dan Riker]

I hated that one.

[Mary Kish]

Some people are comparing this to that, which is, like, these are long, drawn out situations that help you to really understand a character so that when shit really does start moving, you'll really fundamentally understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. She is very unlikable in the final episode, and I will not. I will not spoil it, but I. I completely Understand why some of the season is unliked, because I think she's very unlikable, but she does a tremendous job, and I do empathize with her. I spent, like, the whole next two days talking about what I would do if I got pluribist. And I actually really would like to ask you guys what you would do if you got pluribused, if you had. Everybody else in the world is warped, right? They're all one of them. But you have agency and you have all this power. You know, if you want money, if you want art, if you want to see the bottom of the ocean, they're going to help you do that. Like, what would you.

[Dan Riker]

Are we removing this from all the. The grief and awful stuff? If, like, our friends and family and loved ones all got joined? You know, if it was just purely.

[Mary Kish]

You know, I can't separate the two. I will have to say that your family is all them. I will remove. No one died of you. How about that?

[Dan Riker]

Okay. I mean, I still think, like, that's the thing. If. If, like, my friends and family and loved ones were all joined, I think I would be fixating very much on, like, somehow getting them back to humanity.

[Mary Kish]

You know, the whole time. At no point would you be like, I'm also gonna become a wrestling star and I get to fight.

[Dan Riker]

Have you seen Blank Check? Have you seen Blank Check?

[Mary Kish]

Yes, I've seen Blake.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

How dare you shake your head Mike.

[Dan Riker]

I haven't seen Mike. He's too young.

[Mary Kish]

That is crazy. Everyone has to see.

[Mike Maharti]

Is that the. When the kid. The kid? Yes.

[Mary Kish]

No, thanks. I'm not thirsty.

[Mike Maharti]

Christmas wish. I've seen Blank Check. Is that Kelly Culkin?

[Dan Riker]

No, it's just some other random kid.

[Mary Kish]

Unknown.

[Dan Riker]

When I saw Blank Check as a child, it was like, well, that's the template of, like. That's the dream. That's the best thing, that you'd have a big party.

[Mary Kish]

You'd buy a mansion and fill it with shit.

[Dan Riker]

You have a slide that comes out of your window. You got a go kart thing. You got a boxing ring with the big inflatable boxing gloves.

[Mary Kish]

Are you saying that none of your ambitions have changed since you were 7?

[Dan Riker]

I think that's fair.

[Mike Maharti]

Realizing in real time as he says.

[Mary Kish]

Well, I've been clarifus. I'm really upset about my family and friends, but check out this 6 slide from my top.

[Dan Riker]

I would be like. Like, I have, like, two goals my entire life. It's like, I gotta figure out how to get paid to play video games. And I need to blank check myself. And I think if I got Pluribus, I could. That. That's two for two. Yeah, it'd be very easy to blank check. Like, that's better than blank check. Money doesn't even matter anymore.

[Mary Kish]

Things that you could check off your list, like, think. Like, for me, I'd be like, listen, if I'm stuck in this situation, take me to all the craziest locations that are very difficult to travel to.

[Dan Riker]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Cater to my every whim so that I'm safe. But I want to see, like, the depths of the jungle. I want to see, like, the craziest areas of. Yeah, I want to see the Taj Mahal. I want to see all these, like, show them all me quickly and efficiently and safely so that I can, like, experience the entire world. It's so cool, like, that you could do that. I want a movie that I get to direct, and I'm gonna write it, and you guys have to make it good. And I want all the best writers working on it so that it's really awesome. And then I want you guys to, like, make it, and then I'm gonna watch it.

[Dan Riker]

Everyone around you would be like, Denny Villeneuve and, like, the best cinematographers and the best writer. Like, you would always have access to the greatest minds and everything.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, but what. And I make cars for if they're not. If they're that happy, Like, I feel like they lose their edge.

[Mary Kish]

They are soft because they're all merged. Right. So it's like, who's arguing with each other? There's something to be said about that also. You're basically the law of the land, so no one's arguing with you. So you're wrong. Right. Like, let's say you're. You write it and you write a piece of. No one's gonna be like, this is bad. They're all gonna make your piece of garbage, and they're gonna do the best they can.

[Dan Riker]

That's all that really matters.

[Mike Maharti]

Discussions would be boring.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, that would suck.

[Mike Maharti]

One of the people. If everybody was joined except one person. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Like, I don't want this to happen to be fair, but I would make the most.

[Mike Maharti]

You guys do want this to happen.

[Dan Riker]

Sounds like you do.

[Mike Maharti]

I think I kind of want to get Pluribus.

[Mary Kish]

I love the idea of, like, us doing Game of the Year. We really like Sector.

[Dan Riker]

Arguing's fun. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

No, but the. Oh, fuck. I'm just gonna say the name of the episode. I'm not gonna say what it's about. The Gap episode. Holy fuck. It's. It's the.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I think I know what that one is.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's called the Gap. It's. Mary, you just mentioned the jungle. That's what I know.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah, that one's really stressful.

[Mike Maharti]

That reminded me of. Did you guys ever watch the Leftovers?

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, there's an episode that's similar. It's kind of like a bottle episode where one character, Pastor Matt, Father Matt, Pastor Matt, is trying to get back into this, like, post apocalyptic town and he just cannot get in. And it sounds like a very boring premise, but it's an incredible episode of tv. And then two other things. Quick. I finally watched One Battle after another. That movie's awesome.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I haven't seen it.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, okay.

[Mike Maharti]

You should.

[Mary Kish]

I want to.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's good. It's streaming now. Hbo, I think. Secondly, we watched Wake Up Deadman, the Knives out, the New Night.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I'm curious to watch. I.

[Mike Maharti]

We watched it. We've watched it twice since. It went really well. That much? Well, okay. We watched it once. We're like, holy, that was amazing. And then. Was it Christmas?

[Mary Kish]

What's your favorites?

[Mike Maharti]

Order?

[Mary Kish]

There's three now.

[Mike Maharti]

We watched all three. We watched one and two again. And I don't like the third one.

[Dan Riker]

Glass on the United.

[Mary Kish]

Nobody likes two.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Anytime there's involved them out.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, I'm one.

[Mary Kish]

Three in real life and in movies, Jake, I don't want to know about them.

[Mike Maharti]

You might want to beep that, Jake. That spoils the movie.

[Mary Kish]

What?

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I forgot about it.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, that's what.

[Mary Kish]

It's such a stupid twist.

[Mike Maharti]

I know. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I don't like stupid twists.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay, here's my theory about. Right. Here's my. Here's. Okay, I think Rian Johnson clearly is capable of making good movies. I also think if you look at his entire film catalog, it's just him trying to not get canceled. Every movie he makes is just very, very, like, it seems very aware. This is. I mean, I'm joking mainly, but, like, it's just funny because, like, the Last Jedi, Glass Onion is very on the nose with some of its. Like, it feels like someone was cruising, like, subreddit and saw the things that could get someone, like, canceled.

[Dan Riker]

And just say you think he's too woke.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, he's too woke. Last Jedi sucked. No, I'm joking. I like Last Jedi a lot.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. So I like one the most. I think three is good.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And I did not like two at all. I think three is good. I had a couple issues in my opinion, I don't think it's as good as one. I think one is goddamn perfect. Yeah, I think it's phenomenal. But three, Dan, I think he would like three. It's got like a really cool premise.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I don't know anything about it. I don't even think I really know the cast. I think I watched the trailer when.

[Mike Maharti]

It was Josh Colin, Josh o'. Connor. Did you see Challengers Lugo Guadagnino's tennis movie.

[Dan Riker]

I will see it probably in the next like month or two. I think.

[Mike Maharti]

I like it a lot. It's small town central New York. It's shot in Essex in the uk.

[Mary Kish]

But it's got like a good murder plot too, of like, how did they do it? It seems impossible.

[Mike Maharti]

The characters are also talking about, like religion and belief and faith in a way that is not like up its own ass. Like, it's actually like Benoit Blanc and obviously he's back, but Josh Brolin. Oh, my God. Josh Brolin's character was making me laugh so hard. I texted Dan just to see if he had seen it because I feel like there's a scene where when Josh Brolin does Confession Mary, this first one, little bit like as he keeps talking, it just gets funnier and funnier.

[Mary Kish]

It's a. Those are good scenes. Yeah, it's a. I think you'd like it, Dan. I recommend the third one. I think two was so off putting. A lot of people are like, that series is dead to me. But the third one is. Is, I think worth watching and is. Is quite entertaining.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

One is still the best.

[Dan Riker]

That. That'll be short list for us. We. We just did a twofer of the Sandler drama movies that we watched. Uncut Gems and Punch Drunk Love.

[Mike Maharti]

Nice.

[Dan Riker]

And I had seen both of them before, but it's interesting. It's like Punch Drunk Love I still think is really, really good. There's not as much there as something like an Uncut Gems. It's like. And also Sandler's character gems are just act.

[Mary Kish]

It's so dewy. It's the most dewy film.

[Dan Riker]

Why? I don't understand, like, I hear people all the time say uncut gems. Like, oh, it gives me anxiety to watch it. It's like I'm like Mr. Anxiety in every second of Uncut Gems. I'm just like, yes, yes. More of this. Like, don't stop. Keep going, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Well, have you heard of Marty Supreme? Because that's the same guy.

[Dan Riker]

It's the Sati Brothers or Just one of them.

[Mike Maharti]

Just one of them, Josh.

[Dan Riker]

The other one did the Smash Machine and this one did Marty different because.

[Mary Kish]

I saw Marty supreme over the week and. Oh, it's the same, baby. It's like the whole. Yeah, it's like the whole time I'm like, there's. I think, like halfway through the film, I was like, my heart was like starting to explode out of my chest because it has. It has something. Uncut Gems doesn't. So Uncut Gems. You're watching basketball and you're stressed because there's heavy betting going on and you know that if he doesn't, you know, if the basketball doesn't do good, he's probably going to get like, his kneecaps broken or something.

[Dan Riker]

He'll be fine.

[Mary Kish]

In Marty supreme, he's ping ponging. And so the whole time there's also stressful stuff going on in his life, which is like, also very exciting and exhilarating, but just the sports alone. He's fucking putting everything on these games. He's putting his whole, like, life on the line for these games that he's. He's like a bit of a schmoozer and a gambler and he's like doing all these terrible things and every time he ping pongs, you're like, God, I hope he can hit the ball right. It's going so fast. It's a really stressful film, and I mean that in the best way. I think it's fantastic. I really do. So stressful. I. I don't think I blinked. I was so. When the movie was over, I felt like I could finally breathe.

[Dan Riker]

Okay. I. I had no idea it had that same. In fact, I think I just recently learned it was one of the safdies that made it. So, like, I didn't really know anything about it. Maybe I'll.

[Mary Kish]

Uncut gems walk so Marty supreme could run.

[Dan Riker]

Wow.

[Mary Kish]

It is. It is very intense. And you can almost feel the lessons that they learn from uncut gems in it. Like, it's interesting how it, I think, is better. I think it has a really, really strong. The acting is fantastic, but I think it's got really good characters in it. Except for, unfortunately, all of the women. That's just.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, really, dude?

[Mary Kish]

Those directors, every time there's a woman in any of those movies, they're like, I want to sleep with you, or I'm a terrible, terrible person.

[Dan Riker]

I'm pretty bad about that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, none of them pass the bashtal test.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm like, while I'm opining about directors I don't think either of the Safdie brothers has had sex before. They make incredible movies.

[Dan Riker]

But they will after Mario Galaxy movie comes out because he's Bowser Jr.

[Mike Maharti]

Is Benny Safdie Bowser Jr. Yeah. Really?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. It was a whole thing because, like, the trailer. We did a watch over the trailer, and Minati had never heard of the Safdie brothers. And how do you know? Yeah, I don't know. I was surprised, too.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you guys see Good Time?

[Dan Riker]

Yes.

[Mike Maharti]

That was their. I think. I don't know if it was their first movie, but it was earlier.

[Dan Riker]

The Robert Pattinson one. Yeah, that one's amazing.

[Mike Maharti]

Also the same thing. They're just making movies about someone who's in a crazy situation that can only be crazy stressful.

[Dan Riker]

It's like. Yeah, I kind of feel like, you know, like, with horror, I wonder if this analogy is going to work. You know, like, horror movies don't like. You know, some people, like, if you're playing a horror game, it's way scarier to you than a horror movie. It's horror movie. You can be passive. You can cover your eyes, but in a resident evil game, Mr. X burst through the door. You got to deal with it. You got to get out of there, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I think it's like these movies, like Uncut Gyms, don't make me anxious because it's like, this isn't something that's happening to me. I am watching this happen on the screen. And, like, I know there's no threat here. It's just like, you're a sociopath.

[Mike Maharti]

You don't have any empathy.

[Dan Riker]

Is that it?

[Mike Maharti]

No, I'm joking. I'm just saying, like, that's. When you said that out loud, it's like, no, it's. You're fine because you don't have empathy. I'm joking.

[Mary Kish]

I wonder. There's a. There's a scene. I would like to ask you this question next time after you've seen Marty Supreme. There is a scene, and I will not. I will not discuss it at all.

[Mike Maharti]

I bet you will.

[Mary Kish]

But when you see the movie, I will say, was there a scene in which you got severely anxious? And I'd like to know. I don't feel it.

[Dan Riker]

I don't think any scene in it.

[Mary Kish]

There's an iconic scene in it.

[Dan Riker]

I don't think any scene in any piece of fiction ever has made me anxious.

[Mike Maharti]

Were you comfortable during the Firecracker drug scene in Boogie Nights?

[Dan Riker]

I thought it was awesome. I'm making a Boogie Night. I'M like, that is so fucking sweet.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's amazing because it's like, you.

[Dan Riker]

Know, it's not real, so it's like, this is cool.

[Mary Kish]

Neither is Mr. X. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Nothing about Mr. X.

[Dan Riker]

Like, I do feel it with, like, a Resident Evil or something. It's like, I have to. I have not much ammo. I need to get the out of here. I don't have any.

[Mary Kish]

Because you have agency. Is it because, like, you are deciding what happens to you?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Whereas, like, if it's a movie or something, you're always safe.

[Mike Maharti]

I guess this doesn't. I guess. I, I. You said you've never, like, cried at a movie before, right?

[Dan Riker]

There was that one time in Creed 3, but I think it was because I rubbed buffalo sauce in my eyes and I was high.

[Mike Maharti]

Probably the latter.

[Dan Riker]

Wait, there was. I thought there was one thing where I almost cried or teared up in a movie that we recently cry movies all the time. I cry easily with not fiction movies. And, like. Yeah, not fiction because it's not a soundstage. It didn't happen.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, God, save it, Private Ryan. You didn't cry.

[Dan Riker]

No. That movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. I've seen it numerous times. I haven't cried. I mean, that didn't happen. The war happened because it did. But, like, shooting at the tank at the end didn't happen. And morphing into an old man didn't happen.

[Mike Maharti]

Old Holocaust denier Dan. Speaking of anxiety attacks in movies, Saving Private Ryan, actually, I. I get pretty anxious when the scene where he. The dude could save the guy from being stabbed, but he just. He's. He seized all on the stairs.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Too scared.

[Mike Maharti]

That scene is rough when the, when the dude finally realizes he actually lost and is about to get.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, it's really bad. Yeah, it's a very, very anxiety. It's like the feeling I feel like in that scene. Oh, this would suck. This would suck.

[Mike Maharti]

This one sucks. Yeah. Oh, it's rough.

[Mary Kish]

Dan's just sitting there eating popcorn, going, socks for them.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it was an actor.

[Mary Kish]

Not. They're performers.

[Dan Riker]

No, I respect actors. I was a film major.

[Mary Kish]

I won an award.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

But, yeah, one battle after another. Oh, last thing that fucking pissed me off last night, while we were waiting for friends to arrive, we were sitting at the bar, and I asked Amanda. I was like, hey, I've never asked. Have you seen the show Search Party? Ooh. She's like, no, what's it about? I told her, it's Michael Showalter. It was David Wayne involved as well. So the Wet Hot. The Wet Hot guys made a show four seasons. And here's the premise of the first one, I think five seasons. And I told her, I was like, if you watch the. If you were to watch the first episode and then the finale, you would be like, how the fuck is this the same show? So I was like, we should watch that soon. It was an HBO show. It was fun. Like it was made for hbo.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

So I went to hbo. It's not there. I was like, interesting. So Amanda looked it up on Decider. It's like, oh, it's on Hulu. So I get to Hulu and it's locked because it's. It's only available on HBO via Hulu. The add on, but it's not on hbo even though it's available on HBO via Hulu. It's the stupidest fucking thing. I hate this streaming culture that we like. I don't want to sound like an old man. I fucking hate it. It's so stupid.

[Dan Riker]

It's rough. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

It's the dumbest shit ever.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, cable wasn't perfect, but at least it was.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, no, no. I'm not saying I want to go back to that. I just like, it was so annoying to me. Like that was the most dystopic thing, dystopian thing ever. But anyway, I want to watch. If you have not watched Search Party, it's well worth watching.

[Dan Riker]

It's fant one ever talks about.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

If you have the HBO add on. I watched all the Austin Powers. Actually, I didn't. I didn't watch the third. I watched the first and the second one. I was hoping that they would, you know, they would, they would make it in this new era. And I think they survived. I think they're still funny.

[Mike Maharti]

Is Elizabeth Hurley still way too hot?

[Dan Riker]

Jesus Christ.

[Mary Kish]

Smoking hot. It's both of them. It's just incredible. Incredible the caliber of women they have on these movies. Looking at Austin Powers teeth, it's really, it's a. And it's very. The naked jokes are great. I mean they really work.

[Dan Riker]

I still think about the joke when he gets unfrozen and they're taking all of his out and giving him his personal effects back. And he's like, oh, one Swedish made penis enlarger pump. And he's like, this sort of thing isn't my bag baby. Like one book Swedish made penis and larger pumps and me. This sort of thing is my bag Baby by Austin Powers. That is such a fucking funny joke.

[Mary Kish]

That's a good joke. And then. And he's like, I'm being set up. Let's go. And then he comes back with the box and he's like, put it in. Put it in. And he uses it to kill a guy later in the movie.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

A guy, like, is choking him, and she throws him the penis pump. And he pumps his penis to get out of the chokehold. It comes back.

[Dan Riker]

I was 13 when that came out. I think it was 97. And I remember seeing in the theaters. I think I saw it by myself. And I was so excited about it. I don't know if I've ever laughed harder than that. Peeing scene. When he gets unfrozen. Evacuation. Evacuation. His foot starts, like, shaking. It was just the funniest. Oh, yeah. He's been frozen for 30 years. I bet he has to pee real bad.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's really good. I gotta watch that again. Wait, was that. Was that the first one? Yeah, second first one. Okay.

[Dan Riker]

The seventh one, the Spy who Shagged Me.

[Mike Maharti]

I thought that was the first. The first didn't have a sub.

[Dan Riker]

First was Austin Powers International Mystery Powers, then Spy who Shagged Me, and then Austin Powers in Gold Member.

[Mike Maharti]

What's the. What's. What's your favorite?

[Dan Riker]

I feel like the first one is. I mean, I think. I think it's. What's the word for diminishing returns? Bonk. And I watched the randomly watched Gold Member years ago.

[Mary Kish]

I think it's the weakest.

[Dan Riker]

It was pretty.

[Mary Kish]

Because they. They have to rehash a lot of the jokes.

[Dan Riker]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

The second one has a great shadow scene, which I think is really similar to the police movie ones.

[Dan Riker]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

Where you're like. It's. It's all like a joke of whether or not they're having sex or not.

[Dan Riker]

She's, like, hammering something into his asshole racket.

[Mary Kish]

And. And it looks like she's putting a racket in his butt. It's so funny.

[Dan Riker]

And then there's the thing with the rocket taken off. It looks like it's Up Johnson. And like, you know all that.

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Mike Maharti]

You know, like one of my favorite bits in that whole trilogy. It's so fucking stupid. I think it's Goldmember. What's. The character is like, I'm from Holland. Isn't that weird? Think about that a lot. It's the stupidest bit.

[Mary Kish]

Isn't that weird?

[Mike Maharti]

But. But yeah. Dan, you should check out Wake Up Dead man and Mary Supreme. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Next couple.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, we all. We all have a couple things on our docket.

[Mike Maharti]

All right. Do you want to talk about video games? Sure. Mary, did you like my response to your Instagram story with Ocarina in it? Do you remember what it was? I just said this game. I just said, this game sucks.

[Mary Kish]

Honestly.

[Mike Maharti]

Second favorite.

[Mary Kish]

I. I brush off when you do stuff like that because you do it so often to me, I don't even like, I gotta like doesn't pick my battles more than, you know, you no longer get a rise out of me because most of the time, like, if I take a selfie and I know it looks good, you usually will be in the comments being like, you look.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, like, no, I. I've never once done that.

[Mary Kish]

You do. You will say like, who cares? Whatever. I say whatever.

[Dan Riker]

Yes.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't say you look like I'll say whatever, which is funny.

[Mary Kish]

You're in there being like, you know Kys.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Kys.

[Mary Kish]

Kill yourself.

[Mike Maharti]

I do not say that. I say whatever. Stop with this, Harrison.

[Mary Kish]

No, you neg me. And so like, I. I get really adjusted when you're in the comments saying something opposite from how you feel. I don't get upset because I'll be like, that must be the opposite of how you feel.

[Mike Maharti]

It really pains me to hear that. It does not have an effect on you anymore.

[Dan Riker]

Do you think who's the least and most predictable person here?

[Mary Kish]

That's hard. It depends. On what? Like if it's food related. Well, actually you're both. You're both really predictable. I'd be like, this guy reheats taco Bel and I'd be like, this guy is having some kind of Cornish hen with some kind of like 40 year old Beaujolais.

[Mike Maharti]

It sounds great.

[Mary Kish]

I know. Shit's on. On cue.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Oh, would a producer would a predictable person.

[Dan Riker]

Three times?

[Mary Kish]

I. I think it really does depend. It's based on the scenario. I could tell you what I think each of you would do and I think I'd be fairly. But we know each other. We've been doing this for so long. I think there's like an element of it where I just like, I've come to learn things that I think are habitual about both of you. Maybe based on like just how consistent Dan's life is. You might be the more predictable person because you very rarely do.

[Mike Maharti]

I think Dan's pretty predictable.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah. You.

[Mary Kish]

You have a predictable life. Like you, you're going to be. Yes. You're gonna be on the giant bomb.

[Dan Riker]

You're gonna predict.

[Mary Kish]

You're gonna. Dan, you're gonna Eat your factor. You're gonna watch TV and do every litter box.

[Dan Riker]

Wait, what?

[Mike Maharti]

Pretty predictable, Mike, saying you have carefully crafted a life for yourself, and this is as much a compliment as an insult, so prepare yourself for both.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I'm ready.

[Mike Maharti]

I think you have carefully crafted a life in which everything is as caters to your interest as possible every moment of the day. I feel like you're not uncomfortable often. No, Yeah, I know. I just don't think you put yourself in uncomfortable situations that much anymore.

[Dan Riker]

But as far as predictability and stuff, like, I'm willing to, like, on a whim, I'll go, you know, fly to a country I've never been to or jump out of a plane or something. It's like, I'll.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, that's fair. You do some. You're not always.

[Dan Riker]

I think I'm adventurous. Sure.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. I can see part of that.

[Dan Riker]

That I think so. Right.

[Mary Kish]

I. I don't think you turn things down, you know.

[Dan Riker]

No, I don't. I don't.

[Mary Kish]

The traveling.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And stuff like that. I think you.

[Mike Maharti]

You're still worldly. I'm not saying you're like. You're a hermit. I'm saying I do think you put. Have put a lot of effort into crafting a life that I. I mean, everybody does this.

[Mary Kish]

Isn't that the goal, though? Like, I think my life is extremely comfortable for me as well, and that is. Is fully intentional that all the things that I do are because I want to do them. That's probably one of the reasons, like, none of us had children. We're all like, we.

[Dan Riker]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

We are prioritizing our own extreme comforts.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, but is that the same as predictability, though? I mean, like.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, my point, like, I think we know what you like to do, and thus I can probably predict what you would want to do tomorrow, and thus you would do it. It's like. It was my roundabout way of saying that I think Dan's the most predictable, but I also think I'm pretty predictable.

[Dan Riker]

I think we all might be kind of around the same, like, because it's very clear what all of our interests are and how we like to spend our time. I think all three of us, it's very clear, for sure. Like, it's like, every time I see you on my stories, Mike, you know, I'm like, okay, dinner. It's going to be a wine thing. And it's always a wine thing.

[Mary Kish]

Dinner. Some delicious dinner that him cooked. It's my dog.

[Dan Riker]

Dog. Or you're playing a switch. On top of a mountain or something. I think all of us.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

And then there's some caption like, that's life.

[Mary Kish]

That's so true.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And it has some like really not humble caption.

[Mike Maharti]

Every time I see a Mary story recently, I'm like, oh, Great, here's another 80 minute Meta Glasses video of nothing happening. Can't wait. As long as we're just insulting each other. There was, you know, I think it was a few weeks ago. I saw it and I said out loud to a man, I'm like, what the am I. Why did I watch that whole thing? It's just like Autumn Core vibes.

[Mary Kish]

It is Autumn core. Yes. But the Meta Glasses get you because you take these like 60 second long videos of nothing and then you're like, well, I better stitch these together and post them. And then schlups watch the whole thing.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Just hoping for some dog butt. I. I don't think I post much, except unless it's wine or something I cook these days. Or like, or, or cats. Cat stuff.

[Mary Kish]

I. Yeah, I see boss on your stories a lot, Dan. That's pretty consistent.

[Dan Riker]

Very photogenic.

[Mary Kish]

I feel like interesting animal in your house.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Most unpredictable boss is definitely the most cats.

[Mike Maharti]

Just cats in general.

[Dan Riker]

I think Gizmo is extremely predictable. And Razor's a psychopath. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

I think dogs. People like dogs in large part because they're predictable.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Governance, 5:00pm it's time for my.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, God. What did Razor. Razor Gizmo do?

[Dan Riker]

No, do you. Did he predict I was Gonna buy an 8 foot tall Xenomorph?

[Mike Maharti]

No. See, like stuff like that. I would not. I would not.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, but then you guys are the xenomorph.

[Mike Maharti]

That is true.

[Mary Kish]

I guess money on that. And it's got like a hand that's falling off and you're like, I know how to fix it with more ugly.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I guess that predictable person also would not have a gremlin in the. On the floor.

[Mary Kish]

I think that's extremely predictable. I. Here's the thing. Did I know it would be a xenomorph? No. Did I know you would spend money on some stupid. Yes.

[Mike Maharti]

Woman who had three CRTVs buckled into her car on the way up?

[Mary Kish]

Valuable resale. They have.

[Dan Riker]

They have valuable. No, they made 100 of these in 1991.

[Mary Kish]

It's falling apart. Wait, you got swindled, bro?

[Dan Riker]

No, it's in tremendous shape for when it was made. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

That's nine. That's 34.

[Dan Riker]

1991. They made 100 of these.

[Mary Kish]

It looks like a man in a suit. The shoulders are off.

[Dan Riker]

He has good posture.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's been constructed weird. You got the, you got the ringer. You got the black sheep of the xenomorph.

[Dan Riker]

No, you show me another one of these in.

[Mary Kish]

This one was made by Uncle Gary in a garage. There's something weird with him.

[Dan Riker]

No, you don't know. This is great. Shoulders are weird.

[Mike Maharti]

That's the first one they made. And then Ridley Scott's like, they learned from this one. It's supposed to look dangerous.

[Mary Kish]

Were you trying to when you made James Trial?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, they turned aliens, specifically.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Aliens was made by his cousin Jackie Geiger. She didn't know a lot about it. Hot gluing it.

[Mike Maharti]

That's even weirder that it was made five years after the movie.

[Dan Riker]

But I mean, they make stuff for movies like it doesn't have to be right when it comes out, you know?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I guess. I'm just.

[Dan Riker]

You could buy a Terminator skeleton that was made this year. I'm sure know. Sure.

[Mike Maharti]

But Mary, did you finish Ocarina? Just a backdrop.

[Mary Kish]

I, I, I am on the final.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm so sorry. I want to say people wonder why we don't. Well, I mean, there's numerous reasons we don't have chapter markers. Mainly because I'm lazy. But B, people are like, how the would we chapter mark anything we talk about?

[Dan Riker]

Right.

[Mike Maharti]

It's like ocarina for 10 seconds and then it's gremlins and weird garage predictability.

[Dan Riker]

Mary did beat Ocarina of time. Like next to a waterfall. Okay, did you.

[Mike Maharti]

Mary, can you post.

[Dan Riker]

You're on a boat. Were you on a boat?

[Mike Maharti]

Mary, did you.

[Mary Kish]

Where are we?

[Mike Maharti]

Did you record your entire playthrough with the meta glasses and post it to a story?

[Mary Kish]

If I did, you would have watched it and then complained about it.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you finish Ocarina though?

[Mary Kish]

I have not finished it. I'm very close. I've done all the six medallions. Is that what they're called? I've gotten all of the the medallions and I'm in the castle.

[Mike Maharti]

Nice.

[Dan Riker]

So you're right at the end you're.

[Mary Kish]

At Gannondorf, which is so interesting. It's not Gannon's Castle, it's Gannon Dorf.

[Dan Riker]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

I'm learning a lot.

[Dan Riker]

So, spoilers.

[Mike Maharti]

No, but isn't the location called Gannon's Castle, though? I thought the splash.

[Dan Riker]

I think it might be.

[Mary Kish]

You know better than I do. His name is Ganondorf.

[Mike Maharti]

Yes. Yes, it's like the demon Ganon.

[Mary Kish]

He looks ridiculous.

[Mike Maharti]

He does look stupid.

[Mary Kish]

This is my first time fully completing this, which is important and something I didn't realize I should have done ages ago.

[Mike Maharti]

No one told you that Ocarina time was good?

[Mary Kish]

Everybody tells me it's good. And it's like the number one game that everybody plays on Austin Games. Done quick. I've seen people play this game. I know this game very well. Have I beat this game from beginning to end?

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mary Kish]

And I was like, oh, I should have. I should have done this. And so I just kind of sat down and really got to appreciate all of the intricacies of why this game is so phenomenal and everybody is obsessed with it.

[Mike Maharti]

That's awesome.

[Mary Kish]

It is very good.

[Mike Maharti]

Wait, so. Oh, shit. This is really fun because now I can ask you questions, like, fresh.

[Mary Kish]

Sure.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know. The last time I talked to someone who had not played it.

[Dan Riker]

Wait, where are you? You're playing this on a legitimate 64, right?

[Mary Kish]

Yes, I'm playing it on a Nintendo 64 on a 13 inch. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, so the iron boots are on the equipment screen, not the item screen. Did the water Temple annoy you, Mary?

[Dan Riker]

That's what I was gonna ask.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, the Water Temple is annoying. And I was really trying to not do this with a guide. What ended up happening is I had friends with me in the cabin and anytime I got stuck, they would very politely be like, hey, wasn't it cool when you filled the water that one of the floaters floated up? That's really cool, right? Mrs. And I, they were hinting to me without telling me what to do, which I really appreciate. I do want to give it. Yeah. Like, that was a really nice to have. Instead of a guide that literally said, you gotta go back down one of those holes. Now, I had friends that would. Would casually say, hey, didn't you just get like fire on a. And then arrow? That's crazy. And I'd be like, oh, my God. I use the fire, you know, to get all the enemies at the same time. Like, I was constantly being given little delicate hints to continue on. I found the water Temple to be frustrating. I. I'm trying to think. I don't think it was my most frustrated. I did not like the Halloween town dungeon the most. The Shadow Temple. Oh, I didn't like it.

[Dan Riker]

The one where you go down to the well.

[Mike Maharti]

Bottom of the well or shadow Temple.

[Dan Riker]

Both.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, I think they're both annoying, but the Shadow Temple is annoying because you have to use These eyes the whole time. And you need these lens of truth.

[Dan Riker]

To be able to link meta glasses.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's a magnifying or it's like a magnifying glass.

[Mary Kish]

I found that one to be the least inspiring, I guess is what I will say.

[Dan Riker]

That has the hands, right, that are like the grab you.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I fucking hate those hands. And they're creepy. And then the mummies that they scream.

[Dan Riker]

At these weird redeads.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, those are weird.

[Mike Maharti]

I used to like the Shadow Temple. I used to say it's my favorite. Like that. That dungeon is really just a cool aesthetic to me. But it's not the most interesting dungeon. Like, a lot of the puzzles are like, oh, the hover boots will get you an extra few feet over that ledge, so you barely reach it.

[Mary Kish]

So it's such a bare. And you're slipp sliding all over the place. You got to take them off anytime you're fighting someone. So that's been kind of irritating. The thing that pissed me off about the Shadow Temple, and I'll remember this forever, and maybe you guys will be like, I remember when this happened to me. But the very beginning of the Shadow Temple, you're in this. You. You go downstairs and you're in this cage and you can't. You can see maybe like a very end of the temple, but you can't get out. You're in a cage, so you got to go back up. You go through like a hundred different rooms to finally get to the outside of this cage, which is so cool. And you're looking at it and it's so neat. I climb up the stairs to get into this like, original cage that I was in at the beginning of the Temple. And I keep going up, can't get back down. I had to do the whole temple and go through all the doors all over again. It's like a bit of a. I don't know, it's just like a ketcha, you know? Gotcha you. Now you have to go through all the rooms again, kids, that kind of has. There's been a couple times I've been irritated. I found the hand boss really irritating. I didn't like those. Didn't like that guy.

[Dan Riker]

Do you like the witches? The. The twin rover?

[Mary Kish]

I liked the witches because I. I think that they gave me enough hints. Multiple times I attacked someone and they were like, just so you know, you gotta get the sisters to attack each other. And I was like, I'll log that away. Like, I. I don't need a lie. I just need someone to give me a tiny little hint in the game. And if you talk to the characters, they'll tell you how to beat everything. As long as you're talking to the townspeople, a game's not that hard.

[Dan Riker]

Or just Navi just locking on to something and hitting the navy button.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, she's helpful as well.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you have a favorite dungeon, child or adult?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. That's interesting. I think the music in Gerudo is phenomenal.

[Mike Maharti]

Like the. Like the acoustic Spanish guitar.

[Dan Riker]

But it's not all the stealth stuff. That's why I don't. I don't love that.

[Mary Kish]

I don't. Yeah, it's so funny you say that. I don't like that either, but I think atmospherically that is my favorite. It's really neat. There was this time where I had my horse and there's a bridge, but it's not complete. And I thought to myself, like, I could probably use my boots. Like, I could probably, like, maybe jump across or something. But then I was like, they wouldn't make it so that I could jump this with my horse, would they? And I jumped across this bridge with my horse. And I don't know why I've never seen this in a. In an. Awesome games done quick playthrough or whatever, but I feel like I was the first person to figure that out. I felt awesome.

[Dan Riker]

Camera cut and stuff.

[Mary Kish]

It's like a cinematic as well.

[Mike Maharti]

That's what's funny. If you only ever watch that game through good games done quick. They do the clip from the Deku tree to Ganon's castle, so you're not. They're breaking the whole game, which is funny.

[Dan Riker]

Funny. It's like the Queen Goma fight and you can like, backflip through a wall or something. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

They're all cheating that game.

[Mike Maharti]

You go right to the stairs, which is going up to Ganondorf, if memory serves. The spirals. That's awesome too. When you hear him upstairs playing the.

[Dan Riker]

Organ and it gets louder and louder as you're going.

[Mike Maharti]

The fact that came 90, 97 or 98. The fact that, like, just to get like. Like geeky about, like, the fact that in the Shadow Temple, which I agree, I don't think it's the best design temple. I just like it because, like, at a certain point you're literally crossing, like the river, the equivalent of the river Styx on the boat. And then you get to the end. Yeah, the. The symbolism and all that's amazing. But yeah, replaying that game, I go back and forth in the Water Temple. I'm not one of the people who says it's actually the best one. There's people who do that. And I don't have insane.

[Dan Riker]

I also think the myth of the water temple being like the. It's like, oh, it's just. It's the worst thing ever. It's like, no, it's kind of annoying. It's like the core Mechanics annoy the 3Ds.

[Mary Kish]

Taking your boots on and off a lot is like a little irritating.

[Dan Riker]

Mary, I don't know if you ever played the 3DS remake. It is tremendous. And it also does stuff where it's like, on the bottom screen of the 3DS, you can just tap to, like, equip and unequip the boots. And also the.

[Mike Maharti]

In the original, the boots were on your equipment screen, which was. It's separate from the item equip screen. So in the 3DS version, Mary, you can assign the boots to a C button.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Instead of. Instead of pressing pause to like. Like, I don't know, jumping in midair. And then I would always jump. And then in midair, pause, put the boots on. So I sank. Now you can.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Water Temple.

[Mary Kish]

I spent a lot of time in menus.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Water Temple does stuff where it's like, okay, there's the crystal or whatever you hit to raise and lower the water. It'll have like a colored line. Like, okay, here's a pink line that goes from the switch to where the water level will go to. So it's just so much clearer where it's like, okay, if I need the water to be there, I hit that thing. You know, it's. The 3Ds thing is a upgrade in, like, every way.

[Mary Kish]

I did suffer with the way that they do it. I just never really understood what water level I was supposed to have at any given time.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So I'd be like, well, I guess I'll put it in middle. Okay, it's not here. I'll put it. One of the reasons I have not beaten this game yet, and I've been playing this since the 23rd of December. So I've had well over a week where I've been playing this every evening. I put a lot of hours in this game is because I think certain temples don't respect my time. They make me go through the temple, like six times. Am I irritated about it? No. It's my Christmas break. I'm having a great time. I'm having a great time. Is it time consuming? Yes. Like, I'm spending hours raising and lowering water.

[Mike Maharti]

You know, I wish I could go back. I wish I could, like, erase that game from my memory and play it again for the first time. Because I. I've played it so many times. It's like, I can't put myself in a position where I don't know, like, how to defeat the Po sisters in the forest temple, or I don't know exactly where the crack in the wall is in the water temple where it's going to get me that next key I need. Like, that's really cool. You played it for the first time. I'm, like, kind of. I'm jealous, and that's crazy. But did you, like. Last question. Each of the temples, when you're an adult, has, like, a mini dungeon leading up to it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you have a favorite one there?

[Mary Kish]

Trying to think of all of the different mini ones they had.

[Mike Maharti]

I think because the forest temple, it's basically just like. I guess it's the lost woods labyrinth. I'm trying to remember because you.

[Mary Kish]

For the forest, I loved the labyrinth, but it was fun figuring out that it was audio based. I liked that. It was like, oh, there's music coming from these holes. So you go to the music.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Is that what you're talking about?

[Mike Maharti]

I like the. The sacred forest grotto. I think it's the.

[Mary Kish]

Gotcha was good.

[Mike Maharti]

The big Moblins. I think they're actually just called the moblins, but the.

[Dan Riker]

They slam the ground and the big shock wave comes. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

And then there's the ice cavern, which is before the water temple. Fire temple.

[Dan Riker]

Fun.

[Mike Maharti]

What are you doing in the fire temple?

[Mary Kish]

I like that. I liked the ice a lot.

[Mike Maharti]

Music there's awesome. Like, it sounds like. They were like. It's. It sounds icy. Like, they're playing, like, xylophone on, like, diamonds or something.

[Mary Kish]

It had a cool puzzle. There was a cool puzzle in the ice area with this cube, and you had to push it against certain things to get it to land where you needed it to be. It's like a slight puzzle.

[Dan Riker]

And it's got the silver rupees right? Like, don't you need to get, like, five silver rupees to. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I liked all the little bonus areas as well, of, like, hey, do this archery test to get a quarter of a heart. There was one that was.

[Dan Riker]

Was.

[Mary Kish]

They said it kind of looked like bowling, but you. You have to use bomb chews to get.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And I. I got. I got all those. I've enjoyed the mini games and things like that. There's been a lot of aha moments. I think the first time I came, I was a kid and I became an adult. I just went, oh, this is why everyone loves this game. Oh, no, he's hot.

[Dan Riker]

Square fucking sucks now.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The village square is crazy ugly, filled with those undeads.

[Mike Maharti]

They do such a good job making the world feel so much, like, horrific. More horrific. I like the Gerudo fortress quite a bit. Even with the stealth stuff, once you get past that and you're fighting everybody.

[Mary Kish]

But I was fighting all these hot ladies. It was good.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. The spirit temple is so fucking rad because you actually have to do part of the temple as a child early on, then part as an adult, which is awesome.

[Mary Kish]

That is neat. I will say, I think sometimes you have these wonderful rose colored glasses because you have like all these good memories with it.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I was actually pretty irritated getting to that temple the first time and being like, where's the door? And there's just a tiny little hole. And I'm like, I have to do this as a kid.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I kind of don't love that either.

[Mary Kish]

But that's the thing. I think there was like a paul in me where I was like, I gotta walk all the way back. And then half the time I would be there and I'd be like, oh, right, I could warp. I would forget. I would forget that I. I have these speed things. So I was. Sometimes I was like, wasting my own time.

[Mike Maharti]

Was that the first instance of fast travel?

[Dan Riker]

It can't be the first.

[Mary Kish]

This game invented like a hundred different.

[Mike Maharti]

What would have been.

[Mary Kish]

I think it was the first. It had fishing, you guys, the fishing.

[Dan Riker]

That was awesome. I love that.

[Mary Kish]

It's like the first game with fishing. I swear.

[Dan Riker]

I remember they call it like, Z targeting is what they call Z targeting.

[Mike Maharti]

That was a whole game for them when they were making.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. First time I.

[Mary Kish]

But good for them. Feel like I can't ever lock in the way I want to, but whatever.

[Dan Riker]

Did you think it looks like the windmill guy was whacking off into that box.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah. The guy was like, I like it when it goes around really fast. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Only get off to that song.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

That was cool too. Okay. That was also really cool when he's like, years ago, this kid came in, played this goddamn song. And then you're like, I wonder who that kid was. And you see him again as a kid, like, it was me. It was the most, like, prisoner of Azkaban interstellar moment. It was awesome.

[Mary Kish]

There's so many, like, Aha. Moments. I, as an adult, I ran into a. What are those called? Scarecrow. And he was like, I never forget a song. And I was like, oh, my God. If I go here as a kid, he'll. He'll know a song. And it was really neat to see that come full circle. There was a lot of things I did as an adult that when I came back, I was like, oh, my God, as a kid, that'll be so cool.

[Dan Riker]

Cool.

[Mary Kish]

I planted a seed as a kid. And then as an adult, I was like, what the. It's like a whole plant that, like, takes me places. How cool is that? None of this stuff is in Ag agdq. These guys are missing half the game. I don't even know why they're playing it the way they're playing it.

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

It's like they're trying to get through it as fast as they can.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. What the. Awesome, awesome games done. I don't know what the end of that joke is. Let's move on. Dan, what have you been playing?

[Dan Riker]

Well, it's interesting what Mary was saying about, like, you know, over the holidays, like, you have your holiday break game and things like that. And I think that that is a great time to go back to an old classic because it's. Most of the big releases are out at that point. You've probably played through the stuff that you want to play through from that year for Game of the Year discussions. And so I did the exact same thing. I. So Mario Galaxy 2 has the only star in a Mario game I've never gotten. And because I always 100 Mario games over and over and over again. But when it first came out, I played through it. And if you remember, you get all 120 stars, and then they populate all the levels with, like, you know, green stars, usually two or three of them. And so you can get up to 240. And then there's a final level called the Perfect Run, and you can beat it for one star. And then it's like, all right, well, for the comet to show up, for you to get the bonus star are you have to get like 9,999 star bits. And the first time I was playing through it, I just thought star bits were like this thing that you just like, could shoot willy nilly to kind of like, you know, distract enemies and stuff like that, or stun them. So I was not like, saving up star bits really. And I was like, God damn, I don't want to fucking grind 10,000 star bits to get one last star. I already beat the game. And then I did the super beat the game thing, and then it's just like, okay, this one last thing is fine. I can live without doing it. And I. And I never played it again past that. I love the game, but just never played it again. And so since they put it out on Switch 2, I was like, all right, well, now's the time I should finally go through it. So, yeah, it took me, like, maybe 25 or a little more hours, but I did everything. And now it's like, there's just obvious ways to grind star bits. There's like, I did a stream where I was just grinding star bits, and then I unlocked that final level. And I didn't realize it was like these. With 3D Mario games post Galaxy 2 have kind of always had like a. A super bullshit hard final thing. Like Odyssey 3D World had, like, you know, Champions Road, like, these really tough levels. And this is insane. It's just this huge gauntlet of platforming and combat. You have one health, so anything touches you, you die. There's also a million places you can fall and die immediately. There are zero checkpoints. So it is just.

[Mary Kish]

Why is this so mean?

[Dan Riker]

Because I think it's like. I think Mario games, 3D Mario games have always been amazing at like. Like, look, if you want to just beat the game, you can beat Mario 64 with a handful of the stars or whatever. And then. But, like, if you want to be a sicko about it, you get all these, and then as they progress, it's like, okay, so, like, you can beat the game, and then you can really beat the game. And then if you're a fucking psycho about this, here's the crazy last thing you could do. And I always love doing the crazy last thing. So I had never done this before, and I was on stream and I did the grinding and everything. I got all the star bits. And so, okay, now just get the last star. The last star I've never gotten before for. And Holy, it was hard. It was like, I'm very good at Mario games, but I died.

[Mike Maharti]

I think.

[Dan Riker]

I know I died like 40 plus times. Something like that. Might have been like 45 or something like that, but super satisfying. I mean, it's. It's well designed. It's just incredibly brutal as far as difficulty.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you beat it?

[Dan Riker]

I did, I did. And what's it called?

[Mike Maharti]

I just want to look it up on YouTube. I'm not gonna.

[Dan Riker]

The Perfect Run, but it's not the initial one, because the initial one has checkpoints and not as many enemies stuff so it's the first. I, I think I beat it the first time without the, the comet difficulty one or whatever. So super love that. And, and yeah, Galaxy 2, it's, it's awesome on the switch. You know the, with the pro controller. All the, the motion stuff is great. I played a lot on planes and you know, just detach the joy cons and using it like a Wiimote and pointing the star bits and all that stuff. So all that shit's great. It, it's a tremendous game. So yeah, I, I still have a few days left of winter break so I finished Galaxy 2 and then as Mary did, I went back to a Zelda game game and Link Between Worlds is one that so good.

[Mary Kish]

Such a good game.

[Dan Riker]

It's incredible. It's the only 10 I ever gave reviewed for Game Informer and I played through it four times when it first came out like I beat it. Then I did it on whatever master mode. Then I did it with a hundred percent like getting every heart and everything and then I just did them again like back to back to back to back. I've never done a game like that and then I haven't played it really since then. And so now I've got the Ayn Thor, which is that like you know, emulation device that has two screens and it's like well this is, is the perfect way. Like there are ways to emulate Link Between Worlds, you know, on a computer. And it's like oh, I click R3 and it switches to the bottom screen. But it's not the same, you know, like you want to be able to like touch the bottom screen and play it like you remember it. And the AY in Thor is fantastic for that. And that screen is beautiful. You're playing like four times the internal resolution. So it might as well be a remake of Link Between Worlds on like much better looking hardware. So it's, it's really been the best way to use that device and to replay this game game. And yeah, I'm like a few dungeons in. I'll probably right after the show tonight, you know go play a bunch more. But yeah, I forget how good it looks. It's kind of before they did that very Chibi Link's Awakening remake. That art style, it's kind of in between like a classic Zelda style and the like super cute.

[Mary Kish]

You're squishy but you're not too cute. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

You're not like a little, you know, Santa's Elf or whatever. It looks like they basically made a sequel to Link to the Past, which is like my first favorite game I ever had. Had. And it's. I remember when they announced it, I was like, it's gonna be the same map. It's gonna be just like, this is basically a remake. It's like, no, it is the same map. But they do so many interesting things with that. Like, even the stuff you see with, like, the energy meter and, like, renting items and being able to do dungeons in whatever order you want. Like, it introduced a lot of stuff that they didn't go all the way on until stuff like, you know, Breath of Wild. So very interesting seeing the stuff they were trying there. I think.

[Mary Kish]

When did this game come out? Link Between Worlds?

[Dan Riker]

I'm gonna think that old 2013 or so, because. Yeah, okay, yeah, I was at GI and I left there in 2014, so it couldn't have been much past that.

[Mary Kish]

I think I was at Gamespot when this came out. This is a crazy. This is a really good game when this came out. It's cool to see that you reviewed this as well and you, like, get to come back to it. Because when you're reviewing a game, maybe you can, like, educate me on this. But I feel like you're playing game just maybe slightly differently than you're playing it in a casual Christmas setting. There's just a bit of more of an era of you, like, making sure you're ticking all the boxes, that you're really, I don't know, you're just like. You have to do it in a professional sense, just slightly off.

[Dan Riker]

There are a couple big things that change it. Where it's like, one of them is if it's an embargoed game, you are definitely rushing through it. Like I've talked about with the Stranding and Red Dead 2. And that very much changes the way you're taking the game in. But I kind of think the bigger thing almost for me is like, you know, my memory sucks. So I have always, always, when I reviewed games, taken a billion notes. And so when I'm playing a game for View, whether it was Link Between Worlds back then or Metroid Prime 4, you know, a couple months ago or a month ago, I'm just pausing every three seconds to write down thoughts on it because it's like, okay, I. I'm assembling my review as I'm playing the game. And that is so much different than, like, I'm just going to sit down and sip on some scotch, put Something on in the background and you can.

[Mary Kish]

Forget it the second that it's happened.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah. But it's like I'm just still deeply enjoying it, you know. Like I. I'm very much enjoying playing at this time. Not that I didn't the first time obviously, but yeah, it is. It is much more relaxed doing it this way.

[Mike Maharti]

Nice. I. I want to replay Ocarina as well. I want to replay Majora's Mask. That's my favorite game of all time.

[Dan Riker]

Do the 3ds one. I assume you've done that.

[Mike Maharti]

Yes.

[Dan Riker]

It's even more of a step up than the.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I should specify.

[Dan Riker]

I want to.

[Mike Maharti]

I mean I want to replay these games. Like my yearly replay. I just haven't gotten to them yet. I usually play Metroid Prime 1 over the holidays. This year my plan was to play Metroid Prime 4 instead. I did. Not yet because I started Octopath Traveler 0 a few weeks ago. Wish I had gotten around to playing it before Game of the Year because I like that game a whole lot. 3540 hours in now. Nice game is way bigger than I thought it would be. But I'm liking it quite a bit. Did you guys play the first? Either of the first two or both?

[Dan Riker]

Played the first one. Liked it? Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. Mary, did you play either of them or which ones? Octopath Traveler.

[Mary Kish]

I played the first one and I loved it. I don't know why I didn't play the second one. I think it's just because I usually don't play turn base. You have to really convince me. In the first one everyone was like if you don't play this, you're an idiot. And so I played the first one and I liked it.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it does stuff with the battle system that makes it like it's. I've said this before. It's like crazy how crunchy they made the combat. Even though it's turn based, like the. The. The response, the feedback loop in that game is great. Both of those. I think two is really good. Ironed out some storytelling problems the first had. However, zero is different because you don't have eight characters. I think you can recruit a total of like 35ish. So it's more like the Suikoden games almost. And you have a town building aspect which I think is kind of weak, but it's still fun. Like you have this home, big village you're going back to and rebuilding. And if you played ni no kuni 2, that had a pretty in depth depth town building aspect as well. This is not on that level, but I like that you have this many characters to choose from. I'm very much like an XCOM or State of Decay or Wildermyth, obviously, fan of more procedural. These are not procedurally generated characters, but I know the larger cast. It absolutely loses focus where you used to have just the eight, and you're kind of going through each chapter of their individual stories. That's not the case anymore. Now you're recruiting a bunch of people who kind of don't have that much of an arc. Once you recruit them, I think the storytelling becomes more about, like, how you use them and how you see them in your head, canon, etc. But also the combat. You're using eight characters. Your party is eight characters. You could swap people in and out. Of course, in combat, you're using all eight. You have a front and back line, basically. There are certain abilities you could do from the backline, but you just swap them when it gets like you make. You make one character, and then they're always in the party. So I just like was. I named mine Amanda. Like, Amanda was watching, and I was just kind of. I'll name her that. So when it gets to Amanda's turn, you could swap her with someone behind her. Once you get into the back line at the end of the turn, they'll heal, they'll recover some health, and they also can't take damage, generally speaking. So I think the downside there is it almost makes the game a bit too easy. There are definitely bosses I've gotten to where I'm like, oh, I need to grind a bit more, and there's plenty to do. It's a big world, so it's not. It doesn't even usually feel like I'm kind of grinding needlessly. It's like, oh, there's other stuff to do. I'll come back to this guy. But once you have eight, you can kind of beat many, many battles by just strength of numbers. Having so many characters and once a character gets low enough, I almost found, like, healing abilities kind of lose their luster because you could just swap them to the back line. And these healing abilities that the support characters have, or the apothecaries or the clerics, what have you, those will heal more of their health than just being on the back line will. But again, you're more. You're better off. I found just like moving that character to the back line to heal and then using an offensive.

[Mary Kish]

Right. You can be constantly attacking as opposed to using one of your precious abilities.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that could have been to attack.

[Dan Riker]

So.

[Mike Maharti]

So I'm liking it quite. I mean, I'm 35 hours in. I plan on beating it. It's long. I like there's. There's a Zelda esque moment where you, you think you know the scope of the world and then I'm like, oh, holy. That was just kind of like a prologue.

[Mary Kish]

I love when games do that.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it was nice. I was like, oh, okay, cool. I want more of this game. It's the first game I've played in a while and I'm like, I just kind of want to finish it now that I've seen most of the. The expanse of it. But yeah, I'm liking it quite a bit. Like I said, the storytelling is not on par with the first two games just by virtue of having way less focus because you have so many characters. But. And yeah, the city building is annoying because you can't. Unless I'm completely missing it, you can't rotate buildings, so you're building it all on that eight. What do they call it? HD2D?

[Dan Riker]

HD2D? Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Plane. So if you put a house in front of another one, they also don't make it transparent when you're behind it. So you have to like, I can't find the door to the one behind it sometimes until I see the prompt come up. That the, the town building just feels like more kind of a side distraction to me more than anything. But yeah, no, the combat's amazing, the world's great. The, you know, again, the combat can be kind of easy, but a lot of the boss design is great. They've got. There's one they find really clever wrinkles like one boss. Will you get battle points. I think that's what BP stands for. If you played the first two, those are the things you can save up and then charge up. So you attack like four times. There's one boss where he will cast this orb on everybody and you. You'll. He'll steal whatever BP you have and you don't get them back until you stun him and then all of a sudden you get it back. So that was a cool wrinkle, but there's a lot of stuff like that. Yeah, I generally, I like this game quite a bit. It's definitely like now one of my top 10 games from last year. Year. Maybe we'll talk about it next year. Game of the year. Similar to Indiana Jones, but I like it a lot. If you're, if you're kind of put off by the idea of that many characters, more like Suikoden style than the first two games. I totally get that, and I think that's valid. But I'm still enjoying it. Even though a lot of the characters are kind of just like mannequins that happen to be really good at this thing or another in combat.

[Mary Kish]

Are there any standout characters? Like, usually when I play games like this, there'll be like a character where I'm like, I would die for her.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Stia. I've done a 180 on she's a Carpenter at the beginning. And then she becomes like. She's one of my go to characters in combat. She's a carpenter. So she has an axe and a knife, I believe. But she has a lot of support ability. She's got a bunch of. She's one of those characters. If you really deck her out, you can make her really powerful. I'm trying to remember what character from Expedition 33 that reminds me of. I guess all of them, if you build them right. But yeah, no, there are definitely standout characters in that game. I also quite like Celsus. He's like. He's like. He's got throwing knives and he wears a trench coat and he's like the gambler. Or like the.

[Dan Riker]

The.

[Mike Maharti]

The rambling, gambling. Kind of like bandit from X Men. He's not Cajun, but yeah, he's cool. They're definitely standout characters, but a lot of them are kind of faceless. But yeah, Octopath Traveler 0 is probably my focus for the foreseeable future before Metroid Prime 4 and then Silent Hill F, which I'm sure I'll play and I'll actually like more than Donkey Kong Bonanza, now that we've argued about it.

[Mary Kish]

But don't tell me that now.

[Dan Riker]

Until then, I'm just excited about, you know, Metroid Prime 4. You've got to be excited. After it swept all the game awards.

[Mary Kish]

Did it? Oh, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Game of the Year from, like, everyone. One.

[Mary Kish]

I don't.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I don't remember this happening.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Us. We gave it. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you.

[Mary Kish]

Who did?

[Mike Maharti]

Giant Bomb.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Giant Bomb. Fire Escape Game Awards. Anyone talked about this game kind of funny. Yeah, Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I think it's still listed as controversial. Like it still has. Like it's the best game of all.

[Dan Riker]

Time or just the best game of 2025. That's the cont.

[Mary Kish]

No, I don't think that's what's happening.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't get this bit.

[Dan Riker]

I'm just telling you.

[Mike Maharti]

Are you Joking that the game's not that good.

[Mary Kish]

Everybody knows that's your opinion.

[Mike Maharti]

I listen six.

[Mary Kish]

I listen to the. I can. This is entrapment. I've watched. I listen to the Giant Bomb podcast and nobody in Giant Bomb agrees with you.

[Mike Maharti]

Look, Wait, do they really?

[Dan Riker]

We all agree. Metroid Prime 4 is the best. At least Metroid prime doesn't like it. Thank you. You.

[Mary Kish]

Jesus Christ. That is such a 25 bit. Get your bit. Get a new bit for the new year.

[Dan Riker]

I fixed. I fixed my mixer.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, great.

[Mary Kish]

Can a new mixer rub in there to say that wasn't that good? He didn't think it was that smart. Dan is right. Who's the other nobody in the podcast agreed with you?

[Mike Maharti]

What was that last one? What was.

[Dan Riker]

Was.

[Mike Maharti]

Wait, was that me?

[Dan Riker]

Dan's right.

[Mike Maharti]

You're right, Dan.

[Dan Riker]

Thanks, everyone.

[Mike Maharti]

What was that?

[Dan Riker]

Did you use.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you get me right? Yeah, you're correct. Oh, that's a good one.

[Mary Kish]

It doesn't even say Dan. He's just saying you're right. Say it.

[Mike Maharti]

You're right. Yeah, you're correct.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, it doesn't say Dan.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, see, nobody say something.

[Mike Maharti]

Insult Dan and then Dan.

[Mary Kish]

Nobody. Dan was wrong and nobody on Giant Bomb agrees with him.

[Dan Riker]

What is. What does Mike Manatti think?

[Mike Maharti]

I'll talk about the clitoris all day. Not that he's ever found one.

[Dan Riker]

One?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Dan Riker]

Jacked up in a rainforest cafe.

[Mary Kish]

Two bits. When I came to your house for this podcast, I should have broken that goddamn audio device.

[Mike Maharti]

Goddamn. Disagree, disagree, disagree, disagree.

[Mary Kish]

That's what the.

[Mike Maharti]

Mary's getting. They're making clips about Mary's clips.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's Minati being me.

[Dan Riker]

Thanks for being on the call, Mike. I'm gonna disconnect the discord call. See ya.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you have Mary's Disagree still ready?

[Dan Riker]

I've got the wav file somewhere. I don't have it on there.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, but he's replaced me with Minati doing my.

[Mike Maharti]

Now yours is. Yours is Im. What is the word I'm looking for? Yours is inimitable. The way your panic in your voice is you're saying it. Trying to talk. Trying to dark over yourself is so good. Dan, what do you want to rifle through some. Some other things you dipped into?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Never mind.

[Dan Riker]

Which is hilarious.

[Mike Maharti]

Dweed Main reporting for duty. Why is the alfoxis on switch too?

[Dan Riker]

Is my question 17, which seems weird. That seems like too much.

[Mike Maharti]

That's way too much. Also, why not 18 or 16 or 20?

[Dan Riker]

I don't know, maybe it's on sale, but Yeah, I. I continue to love, like temporary was over here. A few weeks ago we played on the arcade. He liked it a lot. I got some codes and I gave one to Grub and I was like, I implore you, please play the out foxies. And he got back to me like, oh, this is incredible. So remains to be one of my favorite games to just show people with no setup or anything. So yeah, if you got 17, 18 bucks, you want to blow and you got a switch. Check out the app.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's the game that Sakurai ripped off to make Smash Brothers.

[Dan Riker]

Invented Smash Brothers in 1994. It's a Namco game. It's basically a Smash Brothers like. And you can be Dweeb. Dweeb is our, you know, character of the year the last five years.

[Mike Maharti]

So yeah, I'm Rhyme, Fire escapes resident Dweeb Main.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. And then I have another one. Oh Sector. I'm still playing the out of it. Like that's my go to. Like I can't play it too close to bed because it's just like I'm gonna do the one more run thing until forever and then. And like, like Bonk's doing it too. And like Bonks told me about like. Oh yeah. When I was going to bed, I was thinking of like the shapes and everything. And then I had dreams about Sector. It is so one of those games. And like Bonks are not even into that.

[Mary Kish]

What's your score? How's. How's your score been going?

[Dan Riker]

Slightly bumped it up. I beat it again on the experience difficulty and I got like 6 million 300 something thousand. So I'm bumping it up but like I have to move on to the next difficulty if I want to bump the score up. So like I'm. All my runs now are on that challenging difficulty.

[Mary Kish]

Multi and every hard.

[Dan Riker]

It's real hard, but it's so fun. Like I'm dying all the time, but God damn it, it's so fun every second playing that game. So that is. That is still a go to for me.

[Mary Kish]

I think the loop is really amazing. It's so nice anytime you die being like, I'm just gonna start over again. Because it has a very simple premise and concept. Shoot everything. Get your dash. I've really enjoyed Chaos. I don't know if you have. Have mixed up your cards a lot.

[Dan Riker]

That is. I. You know what? I don't use that a lot. What does that do? Sell me on it.

[Mary Kish]

So the deck system. Because you're. You're upgrading several things, right? You're getting the points so that you can upgrade your ship, but you're also getting these yellow sparkly bits. And then those give you a string of three cards.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And those are huge upgrades for you. Right. Sometimes you can get really lucky ones where the stuff floats to you. That's my favorite.

[Dan Riker]

It where glimmer collection stuff where it's like, oh, 100% the glimmer.

[Mary Kish]

Not just the glimmer, but the objects will float to you fast. Like your upgrades. Crazy.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The tokens. Oh, my God, I love when that happens. Because then you gotta go. You don't gotta go find them anyway, those cards, they're in a deck. You can only have, I think, eight active at any time. There's like 20 cards in the game, dude. So you should be switching out your cards to see like different types of play styles, skills. One of them is called Chaos, and it truly is chaotic. But one of my favorite things that Chaos does is it lets you switch the order of your upgrades and it's. It's random. So you could have Blaster first.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, what?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And so you just have this like crazy Mega Blaster that you're upgrading like 400 times. But again, it's random, so it might take your favorite strike and put it last past. You don't know.

[Dan Riker]

That's interesting.

[Mary Kish]

That's why it's called Chaos. Because you. You basically like, every time you play it, it's like shaking a snow globe and throwing you into it. You don't actually know if it's going to be good for you or not.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I love that. Okay, I'm gonna try Chaos.

[Mary Kish]

What other cards do I like? There's just like, I like to kind of with the card systems because again, it like completely changes the way you'll play if you are mixing up your different systems. I like, removed defense because I don't want to buy shields with points. That's stupid. The whole point is for me to have lots of points.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I see. We're saying like we exchange a million points for two shields.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I want my points. So. So I got rid of that deck. I got rid of that card pack and added a different card pack. So it's like, you know, if you ever find yourself being like, I don't like this set of cards, then remove it and add something else and. And see if you like a different card set better.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, I. I gotta mix that up because I have just been kind of like coasting on the same one forever. But you mentioned like the shield one, like early On I would do the like. Like the first time I beat the game, I did the thing where it's like, I'm gonna use a million points to get shield. But like, totally. Now I'm going for score and stuff. And I'm not gonna get it if I'm buying stuff with it. So I'll take that off.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, go to your card system. There's also. I've been kind of messing around with the different play styles. Obviously there's the main playstyle, which is what we're all doing, the leaderboard one. But there's this one where the only way you can attack is using strike. Have you tried that?

[Dan Riker]

No, I've tried any other one.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. So there's different gameplay modes. These are not score based. These won't impact your global leaderboard status. It's probably not appealing to you, but I learned a lot playing strike mode because again, there's no blaster. The only way you can attack is strike. And all these enemies are coming at you. You'd be very wise about how you're utilizing your strike so you can constantly stay alive in strike mode.

[Dan Riker]

It's.

[Mary Kish]

And I found that fun. So like, if you're. Is what I'll say is like, if you're like, I want to play it, but I can't play it before bed because I'll get like too addicted to it. It's like, play one of these stupid little modes, okay. Because you can have fun with it for 5, 10 minutes, but you won't get addicted to it because it's not the game at its core. It's not the game at its best. But you'll learn. You'll learn something when you play these different modes. About. It's always teaching you something about your ship or the way an enemy moves. So I found them fun.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, nice. Yeah. It continues to be just one of the best games of the year.

[Mary Kish]

It's incredible. It made it in my top 10 at the very end of 2025. And I was like, this game is so addictive.

[Dan Riker]

Whichever one you can read Mary's top games of the year on giantbomb.com yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Thanks for inviting me. I love doing that every year. I always really debate the 10th game. It's very difficult because there's a lot of games I'd love to give a nod of the hat to. There's a lot of games that I really liked that just barely didn't make it. The reason I picked a game about digging a hole is because I really like to pay tribute to games that I don't think will be on other people's lists. Lists just because maybe they were fleeting. It was a fun time, but like, is that top 10 material? And my response is, is I want more people to know about some of these games. And so I put them on my top 10, hoping that someone would be like, I wouldn't have bought it. But yeah, yeah, it was on someone's top 10. So like, I guess I should play a game about digging a hole.

[Dan Riker]

A hole.

[Mary Kish]

And you should buy a game about digging a hole. Game's 4.99. I think it's like so freaking cheap and it's awesome.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Really look at your list right now.

[Mary Kish]

Out there's a. There's like a couple randoms on there that I think people would be like, why would you put that on there? And it's like, because I. I guarantee you no one else is talking about it. But I think it'll be nice that other people, like played some of those. But then there's some obvious ones on there too. You guys will never believe what number one is.

[Mike Maharti]

Mega Bonk. I remember. Did you play. Had you played megabunk before our game of the year? I'm trying to remember if you we.

[Mary Kish]

I had, but I hadn't gotten really into it until the last few. But I. In the last before Christmas break.

[Mike Maharti]

I love that game.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe two weeks before the end of the year, I got really into megabunk because you can watch TV or like be immersed in something else and be dedicated to Mega Bonk. It allows you to have divided attention and still be quite entertaining. I also. I think it's the first time that a Vampire Survivors clone I think is better than Vampire Survivors. And I think that's insane to say, but I think this is the first time that's happened for me.

[Dan Riker]

It's the closest. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

I like Deep. Mary, did you play Deep Rock Galactic? No, don't worry about playing that. I was just asking, curious. Because Deep Rock Survivor, they did a Vampire Survivors alike. Check it out. The main thing there is you are also digging through material with your pickaxe. That's like their big wrinkle. But you're also upgrading each class individually. I like that game quite a bit. I still like megabunk way more. But Deep Rock Survivor for whatever. I think it's like $10 or something on sale at certain points.

[Mary Kish]

It's like cheap, cheap games that are so entertaining. I went over to a girlfriend's house before Christmas and it was like pouring rain. So we didn't want to go to a bar. We were just like, whatever, we'll just sit at home. And she's a gamer, but I think she can get intimidated by games really quickly. And so I have to be thoughtful when I advise her to play something. It should be something where I'm like, don't worry about it. If it's too intimidating, she'll quit. Mega Bonk was the perfect recommendation. She was like, oh, I don't know, like all this stuff is coming at me. And I was like, it's an auto shooter, girl. Walk forward and pray to all these little devices and do your best and pick. Even if you pick them randomly, you can do quite well. And so it was like really nice to watch her shine and enjoy a game without stressing about it too much. I think it. It's stress free gaming.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Like easy drinking. Yeah. It's just an easy experience.

[Mike Maharti]

You're also playing Skate Story.

[Mary Kish]

This one surprised me. I did not expect that I would like this game as much as I did, I think. I don't know who to recommend this to. It's part existential, part sick skating game. The existential part, Mike, I think would appeal to you surprisingly. Very smart, very witty. It is about like the world and the mind and why we do the choices that we make. It feels so strangely written. This person was on acid. It's stunning. And the audio, it's one of the best audio tracks of a game I've heard in a long time. And I was shocked with the quality and the caliber of this game when ultimately you're just kick flipping, dude. Like you're just playing a skate game. And so Dan, I know you like Tony Hawk and you really like the original skating games. This is on drugs. I have to really stress that. What a strange fucking game this is. It took me at least two hours. The first two hours I was on the fence and I was like, I don't know if I like it. It's just too weird.

[Dan Riker]

Okay?

[Mary Kish]

And then it clicked for me. It did end up clicking for me. You have to get different upgrades. You could get stickers for your board. They put you on these pathways where there's spikes and things you have to jump over. But every time you do a sick flip or like a trick, you get extra bonus points that you get to spend in these stores. But then all of a sudden it'll put you in this strange location and there'll be like a train going by and it'll be like, hey, collect all the pieces to this area before you can move on. And every person you talk to, it feels like you're in a dream and you're on drugs. It has moments where I'm just not sure that I'm on the same plane as everybody else when I'm playing this game. And then there's other times where I'm just playing some sick skating. And I love it. I love both of it. But I would say if you. You buy this game or if you're interested, give it three hours. Because the first couple, I was like, it's too weird for me. And then it. And then it clicked and I actually. I love it.

[Mike Maharti]

Cool.

[Mary Kish]

I'm planning on beating it. Yeah, I. I'm trying to think of, like, how. It's really hard to describe you guys. It's. It's very ethereal and otherworldly. It's beautiful. The visual style of your skater is awesome.

[Dan Riker]

Them, yeah, it definitely, like, I don't know. Anytime I see a new skating game is coming out, I get excited because it's like, well, Tony Hawk is just, you know, a part of my, like, gaming history. Like, one of the biggest ones ever. And I, as I learned more about this and heard people talk about it more, it seemed like this is not trying to be a Tony Hawk game.

[Mary Kish]

This is definitely not trying to be a Tony Hawk art project.

[Dan Riker]

Different, like, totally different type of control scheme and structure and everything. So I did lose a little bit of my interest in playing it. But, like, I don't know, I like the look of. Of it, and I'm sure visual audio like it. It looks like a fantastic project. I just don't know if it's the skateboarding game I want, but maybe I just need to, like, shut that part out of my head, you know?

[Mary Kish]

It's probably not the skateboarding game that you would imagine. I'll describe something I liked about it. The boss fights are usually. You have to acre a certain amount of points, which you would do by doing sick flips. And only when you've accrued the right amount of points, may you attack the boss. And so there'll be like, maybe this snake, this, like, bone snake that's like going up and down, maybe like a serpent that's going, like, in and out of the sand or something. And so you're, like, doing all these kick flips while chasing it so that when you get to it, you've accrued enough points that you can attack it. So it's making you combine, skating fast, doing cool tricks, chasing an enemy and attacking the enemy. In this smooth, seamless motion all to a sick beat. Again, the music is incredible. And so I do think it's important to listen to this game fully. There was this other sequence with moons. I had to chase these red glowing moons while dodging spikes, while doing sick flips so that I could attack the moons. It was neat. It's a really neat experience. I do think it's worth playing, but yeah, it ain't no Tony Hawk. It's very different.

[Mike Maharti]

What is Death Howl?

[Mary Kish]

Okay, Death Howl might be one for you, Mike. Death Howl is a. What do you call those turn based, where you have a grid and your mom, your kid has died and you are going into the woods to bring your child back from death. You're essentially fighting death itself, which I think is cool. It's a deck builder. So you use the cards to choose your moves to attack the different animals. In this four, I'm the animal. I'm in the forest right now and so I'm like attacking different animals with my cards. Every time you kill an animal, it does drop an item and then you use the items to build more cards and grow your deck. Gorgeous art style, very beautiful, different characters. Weird fucked up animals that you fight. I like the premise of it as well. You're like, oh, they made Mind Scanners.

[Mike Maharti]

I liked that game 2021.

[Mary Kish]

I thought it. I think it's very well done. I usually don't go for grid style games like this. It takes one in a million for me to be like, this one's for me. But I have enjoyed the deck building aspect of it. I think I will keep going. I've only put three or four hours into it so far, but I'll probably keep playing it. I think it's a beautiful aesthetic and I like the story of trying to get my child back from death. So yeah, it's good.

[Dan Riker]

Cool.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I want to check that out. Dan, anything else you've been playing? Terminator?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it seems like a game that's made for me. It's very throwback, 16 bit shooting, shooter arcade style gameplay. Terminator 2, very, very faithful to the movie and very much trying to just replicate the pretty much all the iconic scenes of the movie. So it's like all these things I love. I appreciate what they were trying to do here, but it's one of the only times I actually wrote a review of this because we were all in an Airbnb and Mike Minati was making everyone watch the Cats movie and I wanted an excuse to not watch the Cats movie.

[Mary Kish]

So are you talking about the musical hole?

[Dan Riker]

That's correct.

[Mary Kish]

With the buttholes?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. He watched the Butthole Cats movie and made everyone watch it. And I was like, oh, I will write a review instead of ironically, it's Mike, so probably not.

[Mary Kish]

You know what's so funny? I don't actually even know why I asked that question. Either way, it's weird.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So if you think that that movie's cool, seriously, that's weird. And if you think that it's a good joke to make people watch Cats so that you can see their little CGI buttholes, that's also weird.

[Dan Riker]

But yeah, so as the consummate professional, I decided, like, no, you know, sure, this is a 10pm and we're all doing recreation time, but no, I will write a review for giantbomb.com to escape that. It's. I gave it a 2.5 out of 5 and I. I don't know if I've ever factored in length of a game and price of a game into a score of a game, but I kind of felt like I had to here because it was a $30 game at launch. I'm not sure if that's where it is right now. Now. And I beat it for the first time in 46 minutes. And there are a couple little decisions you can make when you go through it. And it's like very, you know, simplistic arcade style gameplay. I beat it the second time in like 30 something minutes. And, you know, there's not really variety or progression or anything. It's. It's definitely a love letter to Terminator 2 in that era of action games. But like, I just can't believe it was. Was $30 for. For that length. I mean, you blow through it immediately. Yeah, it's. Look, if you ever see it on sale for, you know, $15 or less or something like that, maybe check it out if you're a big Terminator fan. But yeah, not. Not exactly. I don't know what I was looking for, but this. This didn't quite do it for me.

[Mike Maharti]

All right, well, I Want to play 5 minutes death howl and maybe. Sorry.

[Mary Kish]

All right. There's a couple winners in there.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm still catching up on last year's games.

[Mary Kish]

I know it's hard. Like there was a backlog that I was planning on, but this is just the gamer's fallacy in general is that like when you have two weeks and you're like, I could do whatever I want. Yeah, I'm gonna play a game from my childhood. It's just like, don't.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I'm playing warhammer again. Oh.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, how did this happen?

[Dan Riker]

Oh, Mario and Zelda.

[Mary Kish]

Oops.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay, do you want to talk about emails? Okay. Yeah. Or did you. Did I get everything? Dan, I think you. You got him. Am I missing something? Oh, cool. Your face. You look like I forgot something.

[Mary Kish]

That's just his face.

[Dan Riker]

That's my face.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, that's your just face. You just look concerned.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Concerned man. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

All right, let's talk about emails. Okay. All right. As usual, you can write into firescapecastmail.com in fact, get those coffers full for this year. Write in some questions, give us some ammunition. For the next several episodes, it's firescapecastmail.com get your questions read on the air or ignored. Or you can be really critical of us and submit a complaint and then be really rude about it. And then several days later, Colin saying, you were under duress. I hope you're okay. That one person who did that knows what I'm talking about. I hope you're fine.

[Dan Riker]

It seems specific.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it was just a funny 12 email I saw in the inbox. Someone was very rude and then was like, hey, sorry, I was. I was actually. They said they were under medical duress, and I hope they are okay, but I think they might have been drunk. Emailing us is also.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, that's medical. I would say the ability to come back via email and say, like, take these backseats takes a big person.

[Dan Riker]

I always thought it was interesting where it's like, this happened mostly Game Informer, where, like, I would do a review or something that people very much didn't agree with, and I'd get an email being like, you, I'm gonna like. Sometimes it was death threat. Sometimes it was just like, oh, you so you don't deserve your job. All this stuff. And I would respond and I would just be like, oh, hey, yeah, okay. No, I. I like this game. Or I didn't like this game. Sorry you didn't feel the same way. Blah, blah, blah, you know, thanks for reading or whatever. And every time they would come back, be like, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole. Like, just talk to him like a person and just totally like.

[Mary Kish]

I think sometimes it's like a gamer. I wonder if it's. I wonder if it's gamers. I wonder if it's like, that happens in my industry a lot where someone will say something pretty intense and I will say, I hear you. Here's like, here's the boundaries that I have within, like, what I do and what I'm allowed to do. And that person will completely. You normally will 100 change their tune and be like, oh, my God. Like, I. That would be so difficult to be in your position. I'm like, I know, but you didn't think that.

[Dan Riker]

They don't see you as a person.

[Mary Kish]

I think you wanted to kill me two tweets ago. But now it's like, I think you have to remember the human you to, like, remind people. Even the idea that humans can make mistakes, it seems, like, impossible. The idea of like, like, you can actually. I don't know if this is like, the same with, like, writing a review, but like, for, like, larger websites, like, we've done things where we, like, you know, we've been like, oh, maybe we should change that rule. Doesn't seem like that rule makes sense. And everyone will be like, well, it was wrong. And it'll be like, yes, but we're people, so we're allowed to, we're allowed to make a rule and then, and then figure out that it actually doesn't work globally. There's, like, some kind of issue with it, so we'll change it. Isn't that crazy that people can make mistakes?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I, yeah, I, I, I'm always thinking about it, the tenor of online conversation. And so, like, a few weeks ago, I deactivated my blue sky and. Cause it's like, you know, because I, I've always, We've talked about plenty on this. It's like, I'm always trying to kind of back off of, you know, social media and stuff, just because I did increasingly terrible and everything and, you know, get off Twitter and stuff because, you know, the Nazis. And then it went to blue sky, built that up for a bit. And, you know, it's like, all right, it's cool. It's a good way to keep in touch with people. But also there it was very much that, like, extremely school marm type of just, like, super taking everything seriously. Everything's just the biggest, most important controversy in the world. Yeah. And it was just fucking exhausting. So it's like, I'll probably go back at some point. It's funny, I deactivated it and I saw people were saying like, oh, it must be like, people are really mad about his Metroid prime review or that he introduced, you know, half stars for the.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I thought everybody loved Metroid prime and there was no controversy about Metro.

[Dan Riker]

The controversy was that they thought I didn't love it enough, how good it was.

[Mary Kish]

Old echo chamber, Dan.

[Dan Riker]

So, yeah, I don't know. It's like, I went out, it's been like, three weeks or so, and I haven't done it. And it's like, yeah, this just feels like. It's not some, like, revelation, like, oh, life is better and the clouds are more vivid. Or it's not that. It's just like, oh, I don't miss it. So, like, I'm not, like, itching to go back anytime soon. And, like, Instagram is just, like, easy. And. And so I got pictures of my friends. I don't have any algorithm. I don't have any feed. I don't have. Yeah, the point. Well, you know, you can snooze the suggested feed stuff. So, like, you literally don't have an algorithm. Like, I don't see anything that isn't just a picture from a friend of mine. So, like, there's no. Just random accounts or anything that show up in my feed. So. God damn it, it feels great. Especially talking to people now where it's like, everyone's feeds are getting filled up with, like, obvious AI videos and stuff like that.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, what a brutal time to, like, always question when you see a video, video or photo, if it's real.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. And it's like, I don't want any part of that. I, like, hate all that. And, like, stepping back has just been, like, a universal positive. So I don't know, might stay off longer than maybe I intended to, but I. Yeah, not a fan.

[Mary Kish]

It's been a nice break for me as well. I also took a social media break over. It's hard for me to get out of everything. I usually stay on Instagram stories, which is the safest for me because it's human most of the time. But, yeah, I got rid of Twitter, Blue sky, anything possibly work adjacent. Because even if I'm on vacation, if I'm on, like, Reddit live stream fail, I'm working. So, like, I really have to avoid anything that will show me things that will make me think about work.

[Mike Maharti]

So.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's hard.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

All right.

[Dan Riker]

That's all we have. Jack in the woods.

[Mike Maharti]

I would love to. I'm gonna go work in a vineyard and you'll never see me again.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, that's all. Sounds great.

[Mike Maharti]

You two won't see me either. That's what's great. Yeah, you heard your nerds. Mary, do you want to read this first one from Mac Kyle?

[Mary Kish]

Yes. Howdy. Fire, folks. I like that.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you have so much stuff?

[Dan Riker]

Stuff.

[Mary Kish]

We can't all hate Everything. Do you heavily associate a band or album with a video game? I recall listening to Lamb of God's album sacrament when Halo 3 came out. And now two are inseparable in my mind. Kyle Macklemore from Florida. P.S. dan, please become governor of Florida. You would be so much better than what we have now.

[Dan Riker]

Do it.

[Mary Kish]

I know you could. That's terrifying.

[Dan Riker]

I generally don't like to listen to music when I play games just because I like to listen to like what the game designers wanted me to hear. But there are exceptions. Like the one that I always think about is NFL Blitz. I was obsessed with that during you know, the 64 one that came out or that came out with a couple but there. I don't even know if there is music in that. But like I always. I had my first like CD player boombox and I bought a Jimi Hendrix Greatest Hits that I would listen to while I played Blitz. But then the main one was the soundtrack to the rock, the movie the rock. So it's like all these like Hans Zimmer tracks and stuff like Humble Gets the Rockets, like these super duper dramatic tracks and everything while I'm like returning a kickoff and like. So most of my Blitz time was.

[Mike Maharti]

With the rock soundtrack, the one that comes to mind. This is not, not technically answering the question, but he mentioned Halo 3 and also this reminded me. Do you remember Halo 2 on the mission, the Heretic? When all of a sudden Breaking Benjamin just starts playing as part of the soundtrack?

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, it's like in the game.

[Mike Maharti]

I cannot convey to you how cool I thought it was when I was first playing Halo 2. And now looking back I'm like, hey, Breaking Benjamin I don't like at all. I don't know what they're doing these days, but I don't like the. Their pre existing music. B. It's just all of a sudden like a full on like with lyrics comes on while you're chasing. While you're the arbiter and you're chasing the Heretic, other elite. That's like betraying the covenant. It's crazy. Look it up. Blow me away by breaking Benjamin. Halo 2. It's just in the game like it's a cool idea like in, in any game just having an actual soundtrack like licensed music laid over. It's not the first time that's happened.

[Dan Riker]

But they were trying that like around that era with like Prince of Persia, warrior within God, smack coming in in certain points.

[Mike Maharti]

That was the exact. And I can't. I. I'm so glad that did not become a. More of a thing.

[Dan Riker]

It's more thoughtful, I think, like, you know, Red Dead and stuff like that would do the thing where it's like, okay, this is very thoughtful and bespoke and everything, but, like, back then, it was like we got trapped to do a thing for. Yeah, yeah, whatever.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, you mentioned NFL Blitz also. I think I've talked about this on the episode before, but when I discovered that NFL Street 2 on Xbox allowed you to swap the soundtrack out for your Xbox MP3.

[Dan Riker]

The hard drive stuff.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, the hard drive music you plug into your iPhone. So there I am playing NFL Street 2, listening to the Blood of Kukulan from Boondock Saints playing, like, the bagpipes.

[Dan Riker]

Dork. So weird.

[Mike Maharti]

I was the coolest kid ever. God, I was, like, 16, and I'm just like. It's like the intro song to Boondock Saints, like, is playing while I'm just, like, trying to recruit Ladanian Tomlinson to my. Yeah. To my team. Oh, it was such a cool. I got laid.

[Mary Kish]

So much symbolism. Symbolism, Symbolism.

[Dan Riker]

Yep. Those were the right games for, like, NFL Street Burnout 3 on Xbox, you could do the hard drive stuff. So I like. I hated all the, like, pop punk they put on the initial soundtrack. So it's like, all right, I'll just make, like, a fun, like, metal and rock soundtrack or whatever. That was an interesting time. What the. The original Xbox and the 360. Like, the 360, I would just plug in an ipod and you can play whatever. And then the original one, you had, like, rip it to a hard drive. Like, I mean, I guess you could do that now by opening up, like, a Spotify app or something like that. But it was definitely, like, a more important thing in those early Xboxes.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, both of mine, the songs are in the game, so I don't know if this is. Yeah, like Mike was saying, like, this might not be exactly what this is asking for, because these are, like, albums that are connected to games that you've concocted. But for me, playing Sledstorm as a kid and hearing Rob Zombie's Dragula in it, hell, yeah. Is embedded in my mind. And any time me and my sisters, we all. Because we all played this game, we all love it. Every time that song comes on, we'll be like Rubber Sledstorm. We'd be like, ew. In the best in the herd, in the Best of the time and the best of your Dragoon. We don't know any of the fucking lyrics. We don't know what we're talking about.

[Dan Riker]

About.

[Mary Kish]

But we know. We know Sledstorm. We know that song and it's so good.

[Mike Maharti]

Snowmobiling.

[Dan Riker]

Mike. Mike. It's another EA big. Like NFL street is an EA Sports. They need to bring that back. NFL Street, NBA Street, Sledstorm freak style.

[Mike Maharti]

You know, Fuck do we not.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, God.

[Mike Maharti]

I played NBA street one so much.

[Dan Riker]

They're perfect games.

[Mike Maharti]

And I would just. I would use all my. All my points from. I would defer recruiting new characters so I'd get more creative player points for my player. And he was like seven. He was basically Victor Wembanyama. He's like seven, 11, 11. Best three shooter in the game, best dunker, did all the tricks and his nickname was Red Alert.

[Dan Riker]

No, I think I did like NBA Street Volume 2, where I swear I had a team that was like a yeti that you could unlock. And the Beastie Boys. They were really good video games.

[Mike Maharti]

Yep. They're awesome. And they.

[Dan Riker]

Fuck.

[Mike Maharti]

They don't do that anymore. Nope.

[Mary Kish]

The other one that I think is worth mentioning because I did end up becoming a huge fan of this band. Post this game is. Portal 2 had a song, Exile by the National.

[Mike Maharti]

Exile Vilify.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah. And I went to. I like, started getting their albums. I've been to multiple national concerts since this time. I have seen the national live. I love them. And when I watch them live, I have one very specific concert memory where the lead singer said, my younger brother played Portal and told me how cool it was. And it's really neat that this song is now a part of this game series because my brother likes it. And I thought that was, like, so cool that I, like, saw the connection and how they got there. But I can't listen to that song without thinking of Portal, without thinking of the national. It is like those are interconnected forever. Forever.

[Mike Maharti]

Jake hates the national, so don't let.

[Mary Kish]

Anyone talk about that. He gave me his sad dad's T shirt.

[Mike Maharti]

I was just gonna go get the hat. He gave me the sad dad's hat, but it's dark and Amanda's sleeping.

[Mary Kish]

Why does he keep giving away his sad dad's material?

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know, but they're a good band.

[Mary Kish]

I walked down the street with it the other day and someone stopped me and said, what is a sad dad? And I said, this is a really weird answer, but it's a band. And he was went, oh, disappointed that it wasn't like the unso Antisocial Social Club. It wasn't like some.

[Dan Riker]

I've never understood what the.

[Mary Kish]

That was anti social. Social club.

[Dan Riker]

Like I've seen that on shirts and hoodies and stuff for like years.

[Mary Kish]

Marketing.

[Dan Riker]

Is it just a clothing company? Yeah. Oh, okay.

[Mary Kish]

It's just a cool, like it's an a funny like com concept. Right. Of like it's a club for people who can't be social.

[Dan Riker]

I see.

[Mary Kish]

But it's. It's marketing, right? It's a brand and. Yeah. And then sad dads. I think the. The concept, right, Is like people who list the national are a bunch of sad dads. Like, they're just people who are sad.

[Mike Maharti]

It's jokingly called. Not jokingly. It's called like sad dad music.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Okay. It's like Last of Us music. No, that's like a sad dad game, right?

[Mike Maharti]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

It's the game version of the. Or the music version of the Last of Us. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. Gotcha.

[Mary Kish]

That's dead dad Dads.

[Mike Maharti]

But being sad about stuff, that's not really that important. Like just we're sad. Like the world as an. It's like we're sad and we're gonna. It's part of our aesthetic.

[Dan Riker]

Doesn't seem fun.

[Mary Kish]

We're sad. We're dads. We're listening to the national.

[Mike Maharti]

I had a kid and I'm sad about it.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, I get that, but yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay.

[Dan Riker]

Thank you.

[Mike Maharti]

Kyle from Florida. Danielle, can you read this one?

[Dan Riker]

One, that's me. Hello, escapees. Lately, whenever I start a new game, I like to look for one cool asset that I would like to say I created. It's kind of like being an extra in a movie so you can tell your friends that you were zombie number 12 when you come on screen for half a second. Recent examples include Blue Prince's cute hamster in the kids bedroom. And Gale, the polecat from Hades 2. What is the thing in a game that you would like to cameo design. Thanks for being a great time every other week. Also, Dan is right about Missouri. Love John Paul from Missouri.

[Mary Kish]

You know which Missouri opinion all it's just a garbage.

[Dan Riker]

It's the worst state by far.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, right.

[Dan Riker]

It's like not even close. It's not irredeemable.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I don't like irredeemable.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it's awful in every way. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

I have one for this. The sushi in Resident Evil 6. You know what I'm talking about in the Leon and Helena campaign. When you're going through the university. If you look at just Google. Google Red Alert 6 Food or sushi. The assets they Use for the food is were like the. And I know. I realize how. What I'm saying when I say it's one of the worst aspects of that game. The food on the tables just does not like the sushi. Rolls are the size of cakes. It's the worst food asset I've ever seen.

[Dan Riker]

I am not seeing any images of this. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. That looks crazy. Okay, I am singing now.

[Mary Kish]

Share it in the discord.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, that is nuts looking. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Dan Riker]

That game sucks ass.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I've. Mary and I tried liking it pretty hard, but.

[Mary Kish]

So are you saying you would want to do it to fix it or you want to be responsible?

[Mike Maharti]

I want to be responsible for that. I want to say I made that.

[Mary Kish]

I want to say that I made this trash.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I. I really do. But then on the cool. Like, on the cool sides, I don't know. The thing I wish I created is probably what's like, a cool Zelda item.

[Dan Riker]

The box that windmill guy waxed off into.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I would love to make. I would love to be responsible for making the windmill guy's dick.

[Mary Kish]

I actually designed his penis. You can't see it because it's in the box, but I designed it.

[Dan Riker]

Like, if you no clip through the box, you can see his dick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You no clip. It's actually Mike's face.

[Dan Riker]

We're like, on the. And.

[Mike Maharti]

More like ggd. Good Games done. Dick.

[Mary Kish]

Stupid.

[Mike Maharti]

It's New Year's Day. I'm tired. Yeah. No, the music box.

[Dan Riker]

Great.

[Mike Maharti]

Not his dick.

[Dan Riker]

I. I like in metal gear solid 2, there's a part where you're going around a corner, and it looks like Vulcan Raven, a boss from the first game. Him. Looks like a shadow is on the wall, and it's like, oh, what the hell? He's dead. But then he turned the corner, and it's just a tiny little Vulcan Raven action figure with a flashlight next to it. So it makes a huge silhouette. And then if you shoot it, it starts like. Like a little motor starts up and it shoots little pellets out. And if you just watch it for a while, like, all the pellets kind of pile up. And I always thought that was such a fun little thing in that game. So. That one.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I'm looking. I have another idea. Oh, sorry.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Let me look.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Rocket League has toppers to cars. I feel like you could easily. They have custom ones. I think you can make your. I think at this point, you can upload your own. This is probably like A no. But I think it'd be cool to make my own custom car skin that everybody. And I could be like, those are mine. Like, those are my custom car skins of really something really stupid. You know, it would have to be. I mean, they're already kind of dumb. So, like, what would I make that I would say is mine? I interpreted this as something I would make and be like, this is so cool.

[Dan Riker]

When Rocket League first came out before, like, was like. Like, blowing up and stuff. They had the different skins and stuff. They. They had a couple. Like, I don't know if it's licensed or just, like, other IP from other games or whatever. And I think I reached out to the Rocket League team because I'd just written Air Force Gator. And I told him, like, hey, look, if you want Air Force Gator, I'll give it to you for free.

[Mary Kish]

You always shoot your shot, Dan.

[Dan Riker]

I didn't get an Air Force Gator flag in that. No. Damn.

[Mary Kish]

Damn. GameSpot had a flag. And I remember we thought that was really cool. Yeah, that was like a flex for us back in the day.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, gamespot would get that. Destructoid used to be pretty good about getting. They had their, like, little robot guy, and they were in this game Rascals, and it's like, oh, man, what a cool idea. Like, getting your in a game. I've always liked that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it would be neat. Like, I know they had. They just had hats that I think were funny. Like, they had cone toppers and toppers that was like a mariachi hat. And I'd love to be like, I gave them the idea for all these toppers, you know?

[Dan Riker]

You know what I actually am responsible for? I hadn't thought of this in a while. In Saints Row 3, there is a weapon called a fart in a jar, and it's a grenade. So it's basically. It's a equippable thing that you can equip with the other grenades. So there's like, stun grenades, normal grenades, and there's a fart in a jar, and that's in there. Because that was my first Game Informer cover story I wrote. It was like, 2010 or something. And I was at the studio, and I asked them when I was interviewing the team. I was like, all right, what's an idea? Like, obviously, Saints Row is all about super, over the top, super stupid here. What is something that you all deemed that was too stupid for Saints Row? And they were like, oh, we had this idea once where it's gonna be Like a fart in a jar. And you'd throw it and it's like. Would get all stinky and everybody would start vomiting if you threw it and we took it out, it was too stupid. And I was like, whoa, hold the phone. No, you have to, like, this is like, well before the game came out, and it's like, you have to put the fart in a jar in that game. That is fantastic.

[Mary Kish]

You motivated them to do it.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I was like the first person outside of the studio to play the game. And also, I was telling them, like, you are mad if you don't put the fart in the jar in the game. And they wound up putting it back in.

[Mary Kish]

That's pretty cool. That's a good story. It's a good lore Dan's. I thought when you were. I thought when you. Yeah, he is the fart in the jar. Yeah, it's his fart.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I mo captain.

[Mary Kish]

There's like, all these ping pong balls on your butt.

[Mike Maharti]

I smell cap it.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I farted into a jar and they captured the jar.

[Mary Kish]

I smell captain. That's fucking vile.

[Mike Maharti]

You still would not convince your dad that you're a performer if you smell capping.

[Dan Riker]

No, that's not acting.

[Mike Maharti]

No, actually, he might respect that more than voice acting.

[Mary Kish]

Smell. Yeah, I'm an actor too. I farted in a jar for Saints Row 3.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I ate so many beans that day.

[Mike Maharti]

All right, well, thank you is the name here.

[Mary Kish]

Speaking of small casting, I had asparagus for dinner tonight.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, nice.

[Mary Kish]

And I.

[Dan Riker]

It.

[Mary Kish]

I don't understand it. How does it happen? My pee smells weird and it's like a phenomenon. I don't. I don't know. Like, it's a joke. It's a running gag. But it's true, and it happens, and I can't stop thinking about it.

[Dan Riker]

I'm gonna look up. It's a gene. It's a thing where it's like, some people have it, some people don't. I definitely. What do you mean?

[Mary Kish]

To smell it or to pee it?

[Dan Riker]

That's a great question. Like, if I didn't have the smell gene. Wait, okay, what am I. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

It says not everyone produces or detects the smell due to genetic differences in metabolism or smell perception.

[Dan Riker]

So could you have the. The. The detection gene so I can smell asparagus piss, but not producing. So I can eat a gallon. That's not a gallon. Whatever. A bushel of asparagus, but I can't smell it. You would SM or. Wait, no, I can't you would.

[Mike Maharti]

You wouldn't produce it. You would. You would be. You would be, like, bent over the toilet bowl smelling it, but you wouldn't smell anything.

[Dan Riker]

Could I smell it but not produce it? Yeah, yeah. Could. Could I pee out a bunch of.

[Mary Kish]

Could I smell your pee and be like, this guy had asparagus, right?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah. It's.

[Mary Kish]

I don't know, distinct smell. I feel like I would know.

[Dan Riker]

We all have.

[Mike Maharti]

I have it. Yeah. I love it. No, I've said this before. This is a weird. I shouldn't have said that in that way. Out of context. Should know, but I.

[Mary Kish]

This guy loves to sniff his own piss.

[Mike Maharti]

There's something very. There's something very reassuring. Oh, God, I'm just digging myself.

[Dan Riker]

Keep going.

[Mike Maharti]

There's something very reassuring about putting some. Ingesting something and seeing that it actually affected your body in a certain way. We can move on.

[Mary Kish]

I've changed my answer. Mike is the most predictable of the two of you.

[Dan Riker]

In fact, speaking of predictable, J, can you now edit in the discussion Mary and I had during the break when Mike was gone about the asparagus pee, and let's see how predictable he was.

[Mary Kish]

I just went to the bathroom, and I had asparagus for dinner, and my pee smells. It's crazy.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Such a. Why?

[Dan Riker]

Okay, I'm. Let's test something here. When we come back and we start recording, say that, and I bet Mike is going to talk about how much he loves that smell, and he's going to do something like, oh, man, I'll pee in the toilet and I'll put my head in there, because, like, I feel like it's come up several times since I've known him, and he always, always says that. So let's just test it.

[Mary Kish]

Why does he say that he likes it?

[Dan Riker]

Let's test it.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, what's the gasoline thing?

[Dan Riker]

All right. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

My God, what did I say?

[Mary Kish]

What did you think told?

[Dan Riker]

And I was like, bring it up on the podcast. I guarantee he's gonna be like, oh, I love it.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I. I love it. I'm a dirty little asparagus boy.

[Dan Riker]

I.

[Mike Maharti]

It's my favorite. I. I don't even like asparagus. I eat it specifically so my PE Will smell. It's a curse. I'm just gobbling down those stalks every morning. So then by lunchtime, I get those sweet, sweet odors wafting up out of the bowl right at me.

[Mary Kish]

Saints row. Free tip. Asparagus pee in a jar. It boosts the morale of your team.

[Mike Maharti]

Smell cap. That I'll buy.

[Mary Kish]

They run faster.

[Mike Maharti]

So much of your smell cap my Pete.

[Dan Riker]

Your goblin up those stocks in the morning is what you said. I love the idea of the alarm going off and just like Rocky with the eggs, but just you just eat the ships out of asparagus.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, this. I fall asleep with the entire thing in my mouth. So then my alarm goes off and I just bite down. I chew it the next morning.

[Dan Riker]

Picture of homer with like 100 cigarettes in his mouth. But it's just m.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh God, now I wish. I'm gonna eat some after this. It's gonna be sick. Wake up. A little coffee in the morning. Nice little whiz.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's funny.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. Actually really quick. Did you know that in all SAs France every April they have pop up restaurants that literally just only open in April dedicated to asparagus?

[Dan Riker]

How much can you do with that?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, well, you could do quite a bit.

[Mary Kish]

Doesn't asparagus take three years to grow or some weird shit?

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know. It might. Oh, I will say no. I truly do like asparagus a lot.

[Dan Riker]

White.

[Mike Maharti]

Have you had white asparagus? We had it, it was in season when we were in France in June a few years ago when we had it everywhere, someone had a different take on it. It was fucking awesome. Do you guys like asparagus?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I just had it.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh yeah you did. It's, it has more flavor than green asparagus. And also it's got a better texture. It's like not as stringy as green asparagus. And it's got like a nice crunch, like a zippy crunch to it. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah, it's. And that sounds great. I don't know if we have it.

[Mary Kish]

Here, but yeah, asparagus takes two to three years to grow.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I better.

[Mary Kish]

So that's why I was saying, cuz it's like you can't grow it and harvest it. If these places are open annually, they have to have like plans of this year's asparagus, next year's asparagus. Asparagus.

[Mike Maharti]

Apparently it's a huge part of their like culinary scene. So I, I, they're prepared somehow. I don't know how, but they are.

[Mary Kish]

Do you think the town smells like asparagus pee?

[Mike Maharti]

I didn't before, but now it's all I'm gonna think about. I really do want to go to Alsace even more now. But there's also a wine and Alsace that's like a spare asparagus like historically can fuck with Wine doesn't pair well. It like has a chemical compound that does not interact with wine. Well, unless you're drinking Muscat from Alsace, it supposedly pairs really well. I'm not the biggest fan of it. All right, well, thank you Jean Paul and Kyle for your emails again. Everybody send in. Get our inbox full again for 2026. Firescapcastmail.com that's our episode. First episode of 2026. What is it? What is this? This goes up on the fifth.

[Dan Riker]

Fourth. Yeah, something like that.

[Mike Maharti]

Fourth, I think. Either way, fifth. Who cares? That's not interesting.

[Mary Kish]

Stop saying numbers.

[Mike Maharti]

16Th, 78. We will be back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Vinnie Caravel and I are still playing through both campaigns for Total Warhammer 3. Mike and Vinny save the world. Mike and Vinny destroy the world. The latter is over on Next Lander. If you're not a patron of theirs, what are you fucking doing with your money and life? Go be one right now and then you'll get access to that campaign. And if you're a patron for us or if you're not a video patron, you can sign up and you'll get access to that show. We're doing the good campaign over here. Mary, what do you have going on in the meantime?

[Mary Kish]

Time streaming most Mondays when I can and posting really long meta glass videos on Instagram. Check them out.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I love them. Dan, what about you?

[Dan Riker]

Giantbomb.com Very excited after our game of the year stuff to get back in the swing of things and do a bunch of fun shit in 2026. So check us out there. Cool.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm basically here forward facing stuff. We don't really have any other news, Any other housekeeping things? I don't think. Yeah, if you're. I guess, I don't know. Beginning of a new year.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Send us emails. Firescapecast gmail.com I guess it's the beginning of a new year if you're not a patron. If you want to get the ad free episodes or if you become a video patron, we do bonus videos. We do the show with Nextlander.

[Dan Riker]

You.

[Mike Maharti]

You don't need to be a patron to watch Knievel. But I will also plug Resident Knievel because when is Resident Evil Requiem come out? It's not that far away.

[Dan Riker]

February or something. I'm very excited.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I can't wait. The last two. The first person era has been good so far. Can't wait for this, Mary. We'll need to jump on that for Knievel.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I'm excited about any Resident Evil, and the last two games have been such bangers. I have high expectations now.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, can't wait. All right, well, we'll be back in two weeks with more Fire Escape. Until then, see ya.

[Dan Riker]

Bye.

[Mary Kish]

Happy New Year.

[Dan Riker]

Happy New Year.

[Mike Maharti]

Happy New Year.

[Mary Kish]

You didn't say it. Excited.

[Mike Maharti]

Happy New Year, you. How's that, Mary? It's pretty okay, Mrs. Critical Pants. Mrs. Mrs. Mrs. Smelly P. You love it. Can I come over?

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mike Maharti]

That's weird.

[Mary Kish]

Cut the podcast.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you have a jar? An empty jar. I'll pay for posting.

[Mary Kish]

Drink out of a jar.

[Mike Maharti]

Imagine a pocket jar of your asparagus pea shows up. Amanda's like Amanda would be.

[Mary Kish]

That would be the end of our friendship.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Sam.