Fire Escape Cast #128

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #128 Summary

Date: March 16, 2026
Hosts: Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish, Mike Mahardy

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Episode Overview

The trio returns for episode #128 with their characteristic blend of irreverent banter and thoughtful conversation, this time focusing on movies, modern gaming trends, recent game releases, and some unexpectedly deep dives into attention spans and media consumption. They elaborate on their reactions to cozy games, extraction shooters, and deckbuilders while maintaining a playful, humorous, and occasionally chaotic tone throughout. (Skip all ads and outros; this summary only covers the core episode.)

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Opening Banter & Life Updates

[01:24 – 05:14]

• New Orleans Trip: Mike jokes about not being invited to Mary's upcoming birthday trip to New Orleans, leading to playful ribbing and comic speculation on how he might crash the party.

  • “If you pop out of a cake naked…” — Mary [04:18]

• Upcoming Events: Mary’s travel plans, Mike seeing the Warriors vs. the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, nods to New York nostalgia, and MSG memories.

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Discussion Segment 1: Movies, Soundtracks, & Overlong Films

[05:00 – 24:00]

Godzilla '98, Soundtracks, and the Mandela Effect

• Godzilla '98 Memories: The group reminisces about the 1998 Godzilla film and its “truly wild” soundtrack (Green Day, Puff Daddy, Led Zeppelin), and the nostalgia around it.
  • “That soundtrack, it’s a fun cast—Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria… it’s got some real bangers.” — Dan [05:52]
• Mandela Effect: Mike jokes about misremembering details about the soundtrack, sparking a wider conversation about the strange power of collective memory.

Gangs of New York & Anxiety

• Dan’s First Panic Attack: He recounts his first panic attack during the climax of Gangs of New York.
  • “My first panic attack was in the climax of Gangs of New York. I didn’t know what was happening—I turned to Bonk like, ‘I think I’m dying.’” — Dan [10:03]
• The movie “should be so much better,” with a stellar cast but “just tries to do too much.”
• Mary critiques Cameron Diaz’s performance and accent: “She just makes all the men look like shrew boys—there aren’t enough apple boxes in Hollywood.” [16:03]

Movie Runtimes: Justified and Not

• The group lists films that “earn” their long runtimes (Apocalypse Now, Godfather Part II, Seven Samurai) versus those that are “exhausting” or indulgent (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Irishman).
• Mary on movie length: “I think it’s really difficult to justify every minute over three hours… that’s a long time for humans to sit and focus.” [21:31]
• Hates overlong “director’s cut” edits, especially in classics.

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Discussion Segment 2: Media Consumption & Multitasking

[24:06 – 41:10]

Phones, Multiscreen Culture, and the Dangers for TV

• Dan’s “no phones during movies” house rule and his stance on respecting the medium.

  • “I want to carry that David Lynch energy: ‘You’re gonna watch a movie on your fucking phone?’” — Dan [37:29]

• Mary confesses to multi-device viewing due to “serotonin hits” from balancing screens but admires Dan’s focus.

  • “There’s… a serotonin you get from having three devices on at once that’s kind of, like, overwhelmingly relaxing.” [30:58]

Prestige TV: Sopranos

• Dan is deep into The Sopranos for the first time—loving it and appreciating the mini-movie structure of each episode.
  • “There’s a craft to the way every episode feels like a little mini movie… every episode kind of has that almost theme to it.” — Dan [38:51]
• The crew discusses missed moments when you’re not paying attention, and why binging or multi-tasking can diminish show quality.

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Discussion Segment 3: New & Recent Video Games

[43:02 – 119:55]

Pokéco(a)pia

[43:02 – 61:48]

• Mary and Dan gush about Pokéco(a)pia (Pokémon x Minecraft crossover) on Switch 2.
• Mary: “It solves a lot of the issues I had with Animal Crossing… there’s direction, clear puzzles, you’re making the Pokémon comfortable.”
• Ditto is the protagonist—an “unsettling mimic” impersonating extinct humans, wearing their skin and absorbing Pokémon abilities.
  • “This is the darkest Pokémon world I’ve ever heard. Humans are extinct, Ditto is taking the skin of a human…” — Mary [49:34]

Marathon (Bungie’s Extraction Shooter)

[64:09 – 81:19]

• Dan: “I keep wishing for a campaign—Bungie campaigns were always the best part for me.”
• Mike (extraction shooter veteran) notes the “risk/reward isn’t there until you’ve internalized the game’s convoluted systems,” critiquing onboarding and inventory bloat.
• Both praise the art and vibe but are less enthusiastic about opaque progression and perfunctory PvP.

A Big Walk (Untitled Goose Game Dev)

[82:39 – 92:19]

• Mary describes a “sweet, endearing, chill” multiplayer cooperative game: no hunger, stamina, or death—just physics-based puzzles and the joy of “existing together.”
• Emphasizes the ability to just hang out, do puzzles, and communicate creatively.
  • “A real ding dong can just hang out with you… and you’d still be able to get through it.” — Mary [89:34]

Slay the Spire 2 (Early Access, Deckbuilder)

[92:28 – 104:46]

• Mike: “It’s not a radical reinvention, but feels like a polish and refinement of everything that worked in the first one.” [92:28]
• Praises the balance between unlocking new cards, learning character nuances, and constant surprises. Claims defense/block builds are more viable than ever.
• Dan prefers to wait until full release, but is otherwise enthusiastic.

Mini Shoot Adventures

[104:57 – 106:26]

• Dan raves about its triumphant Switch port—calls it “Zelda meets Geometry Wars,” lauding its replayability and “pure video game elements.”

WWE 2K26

[106:28 – 109:03]

• “It’s just a full-blown fucking casino now… I have no time for this horseshit.” — Dan [108:07]
• Critiques the “insane” microtransactions, card packs, and paywalls for wrestlers.

Creature Kitchen

[109:50 – 115:56]

• Mary recommends a surreal, cozy, “slightly creepy but delightful” cooking/Pokémon snap hybrid where you feed creatures, take Polaroids, and unlock new recipes.
• “If you can successfully get a photo of them, your secret book will tell you the foods they like. Then you go into your kitchen and make foods…” [110:17]
• Strong “hidden gem” endorsement from all.

Resident Evil: Requiem (No Spoilers)

[115:58 – 119:55]

• Mary: “It might be my favorite Resident Evil… highly refined, a masterclass.”
  • Special mention of thoughtful details and player-safety features: “They are so kind to you, but it’s secret—the way you always progress…” — Mary [117:54]
• The group teases the weight of “bad endings” and replay value.

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Listener Questions & Email Segment

[121:03 – 147:55]

Relationship Dealbreakers – Scooby Doo Sex Talk

[121:31 – 126:29]

• Would you live with a perfect partner who insists on Scooby Doo voices/lines during sex?
  • “Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.” — Dan [123:29]
  • “There's a lot of real miserable people out there… saying ‘ruh roh’ when you come is like, I can work around.” — Mary [126:19]
• The segment is full of laughter, innuendo, and classic Fire Escape improv.

Fixing Pop Culture Properties

[127:25 – 134:46]

• Which floundering media franchises could the hosts improve if put in charge?
  • Dan: Twisted Metal and Star Fox (“I deeply loved… I think I have a good idea of what made the early games work.”)
  • Mary: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Doom movies (“They misunderstood the content; a hot woman with guns is not enough.”)
  • Mike: NBA’s Golden State Warriors (jokingly), Zelda, and critiques on franchise “downtime.”

Real-Life Fears That Weren’t So Bad

[135:26 – 147:16]

• Moving away from home: All say it’s daunting, but “never regretted a move.”
• Social anxiety about dancing, karaoke, public speaking: Once attempted, these prove freeing and fun.
• Scuba diving anxiety: Mary shares her story of first learning, dealing with regulator mishaps, and the lesson that “staying calm solves most issues.”
• Mike’s real-life story of an equipment failure during a certification test, which was handled fine thanks to training.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “I want to carry that David Lynch energy: ‘You’re going to watch a movie on your fucking phone?’” — Dan [37:29]
• “The darkest Pokémon world I’ve ever heard. Humans are extinct, Ditto is taking the skin of a human…” — Mary [49:34]
• “It's just a full-blown fucking casino now… I have no time for this horseshit.” — Dan on WWE 2K26 [108:07]
• “Here it comes.” — Mike retelling a college roommate’s unfortunate romantic catchphrase [127:03]
• “Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.” — Dan on Scooby Doo sex sounds [123:29]

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Episode Timestamps by Segment

• [01:24 – 05:14] Banter and life updates (New Orleans, birthdays, sports)
• [05:14 – 24:00] Movie discussion: Godzilla, Gangs of New York, long runtimes
• [24:06 – 41:10] Phones, multitasking, and Sopranos appreciation
• [43:02 – 61:48] Pokéco(a)pia (Switch 2), cozy game talk, Ditto as protagonist
• [64:09 – 81:19] Marathon (Bungie), extraction shooters, genre trends
• [82:39 – 92:19] A Big Walk, multiplayer chill games
• [92:28 – 104:46] Slay the Spire 2 (Early Access), deckbuilder discussion
• [104:57 – 106:26] Mini Shoot Adventures (Switch 2 re-release)
• [106:28 – 109:03] WWE 2K26 (“Casino” monetization criticism)
• [109:50 – 115:56] Creature Kitchen impressions (cozy, surreal, cooking)
• [115:58 – 119:55] Resident Evil: Requiem (spoiler-free impressions)
• [121:03 – 126:29] Email Q&A: Relationship dealbreakers (Scooby Doo edition)
• [127:25 – 134:46] Email Q&A: “Fixing” your favorite media property
• [135:26 – 147:16] Email Q&A: Real-life fears that turned out not to be so bad

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a quintessential Fire Escape: smart, funny, loving video games but never forgetting to interrogate what makes them tick (or flop). A big focus on cozy and “friend slop” gaming trends pairs with earnest confessions about media, multitasking, and facing fears. Stay for the movie hot takes, creative analogies, and disarmingly personal asides.

Transcript

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[Mike Maharti]

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[Mary Kish]

Help is always ready before, during, and after your stay.

[Mike Maharti]

We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great

[Mary Kish]

trip starts with peace of mind.

[Mike Maharti]

What do you know? Robert Lowe. We are back with the Fire Escape cast. It's episode 128. I'm Mike Maharti. Your host is always here with Dan Riker. Why are you laughing?

[Dan Riker]

Oh, just. I just think you're a funny guy, Mike.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, thanks, Mary. Kish.

[Mary Kish]

It gets me every time.

[Mike Maharti]

Hi, Mary.

[Mary Kish]

Hi. What did I do?

[Mike Maharti]

No, you just. You continued a different sentence. I thought you'd say hi to me, but it's fine.

[Mary Kish]

Gets me every time. And I. And. And how do you do, Michael?

[Mike Maharti]

That doesn't rhyme.

[Dan Riker]

What's going on? I was about to say Stanley Quan, and that's just a guy that worked at CBS Interactive, like 10 years ago. No, this is why I can't do improv. I'd be terrible at improv.

[Mary Kish]

How's the party, Michael?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, that one's good.

[Dan Riker]

There's got to be something with. Don't. Don't help me with this. What's going on? Michelle Kwan.

[Mike Maharti]

Nice. You're. It was the same last name, just different. First, what's going on?

[Dan Riker]

Stefan, Bill Haters character from snl.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, nice. This podcast has everything. Terrible intros.

[Dan Riker]

There's got to be other last names that rhyme with on.

[Mary Kish]

Awkward pauses.

[Mike Maharti]

Pierre Gonon is a winemaker in the Rhone Valley. I knew you were going to think of that one eventually.

[Dan Riker]

On Pierce Brosnan. Yeah, that works.

[Mike Maharti]

That's good. That's good. Judy Denchon.

[Dan Riker]

That's right. Everyone that's been in the Bond. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

You saw where I was going immediately.

[Dan Riker]

Daniel Craigon.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Sean Connery.

[Dan Riker]

Connery on. I think you can rhyme with the

[Mary Kish]

first syllable rap I've ever heard.

[Mike Maharti]

Timothy Dalton.

[Dan Riker]

That kind of works.

[Mike Maharti]

This is the stupidest thing. Let's restart. Jake, cut all this.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah, I got everything.

[Mike Maharti]

No, we're back. It's episode 128. You guys are. I'm not going to be here next episode, but you guys are. You're prepping for the New Orleans trip, which I didn't get invited to. Oh.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

No, no, no. We never. We should have brought that up, Mary. We should have asked him to come.

[Mary Kish]

It's an awkward topic for. To start the podcast, but yeah, it's a bunch of.

[Dan Riker]

A bunch of people that are coming know Mike and our friends with him, too. It's. Why do we blank on him?

[Mary Kish]

It's my. I am forgettable and I don't want him there.

[Mike Maharti]

Out of sight, out of mind.

[Mary Kish]

I'm doing a birthday trip. I invited a bunch of peeps. Mike, you are going on so many different work trips in the next few weeks, and I just think the scheduling was too much to bear.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I'm scared nonetheless. All of my true friends will be in NOLA for my birth, which is really lovely. And so I'll be partying it up. We'll be. We'll pour one out for our homie.

[Dan Riker]

I might drink an alcoholic drink.

[Mike Maharti]

And I might be there anyway. And just go to all the same restaurants as you and sit by myself at a nearby table.

[Mary Kish]

If you pop out of a cake naked.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Access to the Google sheet I made. He doesn't know where we're going to be.

[Mike Maharti]

What's holding that cake, Duck? My boner Guapo.

[Mary Kish]

Why did you name your boner Guapo?

[Mike Maharti]

Because it's handsome. What else would it mean?

[Dan Riker]

There's such thing as a handsome piece.

[Mike Maharti]

Guapo came to New Orleans. Can't escape him.

[Dan Riker]

I don't think that's gonna work for you.

[Mike Maharti]

As Angels 3, Guapo goes to New

[Dan Riker]

Orleans,

[Mike Maharti]

Played by Timothy Daltong.

[Mary Kish]

Timothy Dal Dong.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to a Warriors game on Sunday.

[Mary Kish]

It would be cool if you.

[Mike Maharti]

That's basketball at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Steph Curry's injured, though. I'm not going to see him. But still excited to see the Warriors. And it'll be fun to be at a Knicks game and Madison Square Garden. See Spike Lee on the sidelines. Say something insulting about do the right thing.

[Dan Riker]

What happened to MSG with you? Right?

[Mike Maharti]

Yes. We talked about last episode.

[Dan Riker]

The wrestling thing.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, we got locked out.

[Dan Riker]

That's right. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Mike Maharti]

Chad wouldn't let us back in.

[Dan Riker]

That's right. Yes, yes, yes. I don't think I've been to MSG for a non wrestling thing. No.

[Mike Maharti]

I've been in for concerts before. Jake and I went and saw Portugal the Man. Who else? I saw a few. But yeah, I've never been there for basketball or hockey, both of which are played there.

[Dan Riker]

It's where the Godzilla babies were born in that movie.

[Mike Maharti]

Which one?

[Mary Kish]

That's actually low key. I like that movie.

[Dan Riker]

I have fond memories of it. That soundtrack, it's a fun cast. Matthew Broderick and Hank is area. And yeah, it's. It's kind of fun.

[Mike Maharti]

Was this the. The one with the.

[Dan Riker]

It's the first God.

[Mike Maharti]

Green Day. With Green Day, the song.

[Dan Riker]

Dookie.

[Mike Maharti]

Dookie in the credits. I'm pretty sure.

[Dan Riker]

No, the credits were the. Like Cashmere by Zeppelin, but with Puff Daddy.

[Mary Kish]

How do you know specific details about this ridiculous film?

[Dan Riker]

Duke. They had Rage against the Machine on the soundtrack. They had Puff Daddy doing that Zeppelin cover with Jimmy Page, which is terrible. It's a hell of a soundtrack. It's a great.

[Mike Maharti]

I could have sworn Green Day was in there somewhere. Look this up because this might be like. This might be Nelson Mandela, Godzilla.

[Dan Riker]

It's. Oh, they. Yeah, they did Brains.

[Mike Maharti]

Do Brains.

[Dan Riker]

I don't like Green Days.

[Mike Maharti]

They probably was Brain Stewart.

[Dan Riker]

Dookie.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You're more of a diddy guy, aren't you, Dan?

[Mike Maharti]

No.

[Dan Riker]

Led Zeppelin and Rage against the Machine. I was, I was, I was.

[Mary Kish]

You loved that soundtrack.

[Dan Riker]

I did love the soundtrack. It was weird seeing Jimmy Page and Puff Daddy on SNL doing that song. But Led Zeppelin's very good.

[Mike Maharti]

Was Dookie. Was Brain Stew on Dookie, the album? Mary? Do you know remember?

[Mary Kish]

I. I think so. Because that was their banger album. Yeah, it has to be.

[Mike Maharti]

I believe that was on Dookie. Or was it its own thing?

[Mary Kish]

Look it up.

[Dan Riker]

It said it was from 95. There's no way Dookie was like early 90s.

[Mike Maharti]

It wasn't follow up Sophomore Slump.

[Dan Riker]

It was on Insomniac, their fourth studio album.

[Mary Kish]

I don't even think I bought that album.

[Mike Maharti]

I wait. I was waiting. I was born waiting for American Idiot.

[Dan Riker]

After September 11th.

[Mike Maharti]

Where's American Idiot?

[Dan Riker]

After September 11th, Brain Stew was one of the big list of songs that you couldn't play on the radio.

[Mike Maharti]

Really? Do they mention the Twin Towers in the song?

[Dan Riker]

I don't know.

[Mary Kish]

Jesus.

[Dan Riker]

They were really. They were really casting a wide net with the songs during that. That. That was a huge band list for a while.

[Mike Maharti]

What's it the. What is a biggie? Like? He talks about the first. The parking garage bombing.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, the World Trade. Blow up. Like the World Trade. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Trying to get paid. Blow up like the World Trade. People are like, how did he fucking know? There was a whole other thing before.

[Dan Riker]

It was also a very famous terrorist attack.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah. They kind of just got usurped a bit in the headlines.

[Dan Riker]

That was a quick turn from Godzilla to 9 11.

[Mike Maharti]

Well, I don't know. Big, giant dinosaur, big buildings.

[Dan Riker]

And that Godzilla movie was set in New York, so it's not the wildest thing, I guess.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I've seen. I saw that way back in the day. And then I saw the one with Bryan Cranston when they do the HALO jump. I liked that one.

[Dan Riker]

I saw that one.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, that was the Garrett Edwards, the one who was. He was slated to do Rise of Skywalker, but then JJ Abrams took back over.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

I might be fucking up his name.

[Dan Riker]

Those are the only two Godzilla movies I think I've seen in full were the Bryan Cranston one and the Matthew Broderick one. I went to go see Godzilla -1 after our live show in LA and I fell asleep because it was a very busy day.

[Mary Kish]

Minus one is so good, but I think the Matthew Broderick one, if you can just let go of reality, you have to really let it go. You have to accept that it is a silly movie for silly people. It's a good ride.

[Dan Riker]

It's made by the Independence Day guy. It's like, I don't really know what people were expecting, like it was going to be a big dumb summer blockbuster.

[Mary Kish]

I think they were expecting a better movie. Like, I think Independence Day is like a slam dunk. It is ridiculously good. And this Godzilla movie is not Independence Day.

[Dan Riker]

Let's be definitely better. It's much, much better. Speaking of 911 and movies with New York,

[Mike Maharti]

this is why I host Dan. Leave the transitions to me.

[Dan Riker]

Look, I only know how to transition if we're talk about terrorist attacks. I'm sorry.

[Mike Maharti]

So continue. I'm so. I am. My interest is peaked.

[Mary Kish]

I'm on the edge of my seat.

[Dan Riker]

It actually does involve 911. And New York, weirdly enough, Gangs of New York. Bon and I watched that. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Recently.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, we watched it like last week.

[Mike Maharti]

Do you mind me asking, is that the first time since your anxiety attack?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it actually is.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, okay.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. My first anxiety. That's a very specific thing you remember there. Yeah, that was my first.

[Mike Maharti]

I read your book.

[Dan Riker]

Thank you, thank you.

[Mike Maharti]

Published author on my podcast. I'm familiar with his.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, look at that. Yeah. My first panic attack was in the climax of Gangs of New York, so it was interesting. I turned to Bon.

[Mike Maharti]

All this stuff happening now attack was also during a climax. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. You and Bonk watched it? Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

So there was a part of the end. There's like a good five or 10 minutes. I was like, oh, this is when I was sitting on the toilet and I thought I was going to die. I didn't know it was happening. But have you guys seen this movie?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, a few times. I don't like it.

[Dan Riker]

It's. I don't. We walked away from that being like, it should be so much. But it's Scorsese. It's Daniel Day Lewis, who was like, definitely the best part of the movie. He's just having a lot of fun as Bill the Butcher. But it's like. It's the cap.

[Mike Maharti]

Brendan Gleason, John C. Reilly, Riley. It's a hell of a Cameron Diaz. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

The guy who made Adolescence that just won a Golden Globe for that. He's one of the gang guys. But it's like, it should be so much better than it is. It's overlong. It's trying to do too much shit. If it was just a revenge story, it'd be one thing. But it's like he tries to kill Bill the Butcher at the end, and then there's like 40 more minutes of stuff about, like, elections and stuff. And it's like, what are we doing here? And then it's got the 911 thing at the end, which is weird, but,

[Mike Maharti]

yeah, it shows the. Doesn't it show, like a modern day. The tombstone's still there in Brooklyn. Looking at the towers. Yeah. Overgrown.

[Mary Kish]

I actually think that that shot's pretty sick. Just like the super fast motion cameras of showing the building of cities.

[Dan Riker]

It's not time lapse. I kind of remember to do that too. It just kind of fades.

[Mike Maharti]

Crossfade. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

They didn't set up a GoPro.

[Mary Kish]

Didn't have cameras back then.

[Mike Maharti]

Time to get PA set up. Scorsese's crossfade.

[Mary Kish]

What? What a crazy, crazy director move. To have a GoPro in travel with go there.

[Mike Maharti]

The crazy thing about that shot and why it's so famous, they actually had to put a camera there back in the, like 1700s. And it had to record until 2002 or whatever.

[Dan Riker]

That's a joke.

[Mary Kish]

That's our joke.

[Dan Riker]

We were. The joke we were making about them putting the GoPro there and how ridiculous it would be to do that in the 1800s. Are you on this podcast?

[Mike Maharti]

No, I don't really pay attention to what you're saying. That'd be a funny bit, though, if I just repeat the joke every time right after you. I don't like that movie, though.

[Mary Kish]

No, but you know what's crazy is they actually went back in time to put a camera back.

[Mike Maharti]

That's my joke.

[Dan Riker]

That remind me, because I get this mixed up because I remember that was kind of controversial because that was. That came out in like, you know, late O2. So it was like one of the first movies, big movies, to kind of even reference the Twin Towers or anything.

[Mary Kish]

Such a risky movie.

[Dan Riker]

Take everything out. Yeah. But then I also remember, I was trying to remember, like, is this the movie that has, like a weird rat at the end and it's like. No, that's Departed. Departed, which is also Scorsese. And was that also the skyline of New York or was that just separate

[Mike Maharti]

Boston Courthouse in the background?

[Mary Kish]

Boston.

[Dan Riker]

And they just did a CG rat.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, is the rat not real? I didn't know that.

[Dan Riker]

I just remember people talking about hating a CG rad. So that's another one I want to go back to is the Departed. Because I do remember loving that Departed.

[Mike Maharti]

Still. Awesome.

[Dan Riker]

We.

[Mike Maharti]

We rewatched that movie pretty often.

[Dan Riker]

Okay. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

After you watch that, it would be a fun thing if you watched Infernal affairs, the movie at the Hong Kong Pat and that. I think so, yeah. That is based on. I remember watching that. I liked it.

[Dan Riker]

They made a few of those. Yeah. I've always been curious about that.

[Mike Maharti]

Gangs in New York, to your point, though, is always that movie, one of those movies by him that I really, really tried hard to like, but just couldn't. Like, stylistically, even during the fight scenes, it's got that blur effect that I'm

[Dan Riker]

like this fast motion. Very O2 kind of.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

It's weird.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, when I learned that was your first Panic Attack, I was like. I guess I wasn't that surprised. Cause that movie really is like a pleasant experience. I know it's not a one to one thing with Panic Attack, but, like, I Remember, like. Oh, that kind of makes sense.

[Mary Kish]

Hung on the. There's like some torture kind of stuff too. Like the guy gets like hung on the fence. Like it's kind of like I don't want to watch that for a long period of time.

[Dan Riker]

My. I mean it could be for other people. For me, my anxiety is never like triggered by something like that. It's always just like. It's more like being in a movie and like, like I remember being center row like opening night and I couldn't get out of the. I couldn't easily leave. And that's when I started feeling there's nothing in the movie. But it did happen the next week or two because Lord of the Rings Two Towers came out another long movie. I was in the middle on opening weekend and that I just had a panic attack because I didn't know movies could be that bad.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So I mean the idea of comparing Gangs of New York to any of the Lord of the Rings of New

[Dan Riker]

York is better than all of them.

[Mary Kish]

Jesus, I don't even think.

[Dan Riker]

I mean you're going to get murked

[Mary Kish]

on the street gangs in one of these days.

[Dan Riker]

On a good day, Gangs in New York is a 3 out of 5 star on Letterbox better than any Lord of the Rings by far.

[Mary Kish]

That's insane. The Lord of the Rings is the only movie that actually holds up to its runtime where it's actually like. It makes sense that everything is so long because there's such thick books for you to understand all of the fantastic detail of why these characters are the way they are. There's no reason to have a 20 minute scene where Cameron Diaz pickpockets people. That could have been done in 10 seconds. It could have just been showing her pickpocket once, but they had to show her on a fucking bus or whatever it is. And she had to go into a person's house and pretend to be a nurse or whatever. It's a part.

[Dan Riker]

Bonk fell asleep. That's where Bonk fell asleep.

[Mary Kish]

Stupid. And I'm even going like, I will even say, I just don't think she was very good in that role. I don't. I don't. I think there are times when like Cameron Diaz is a completely reasonable actress. Not in that.

[Mike Maharti]

The mask.

[Mary Kish]

She does not. She nails it in the mask. She doesn't nail this part. Like she just. I don't buy it.

[Dan Riker]

I was kind of telling Bonk that where it's like. It is a weird thing because like I feel like she got really big around that time for doing like kind of just fun, like, you know, Charlie's Angel. She was always like a very. Just like everyone likes her, but it's never in like super challenging role. She was never the like Oscar bait movie type thing, you know, and this was her kind of like out of her element in a way. And she's not like terror. It's not like Keanu Reeves in Dracula level's bad accent, but it's a bad accent. And she's also. It doesn't have to be surrounded by like Daniel day Lewis and DiCaprio, Liam Neeson the beginning.

[Mary Kish]

That's really hard to out act those masters. But I actually believe that the reason Cameron Diaz was not able to be in all of these really important films is because she's so damn tall. And I think she makes all of her co stars look like little shrew boys. And they don't like that. And there's only so many Apple boxes in Hollywood to shove all these men on, so I think they give them to tiny women.

[Dan Riker]

Five, nine. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Eyes Wide Shut with Nicole Kidman. Didn't they? And Tom Cruise. Didn't they have to, like, wasn't that like half the production efforts went into making him seem not that much shorter than her?

[Mary Kish]

Elongating his stunted legs and yeah, I believe it caused their divorce.

[Dan Riker]

Did you hear.

[Mike Maharti]

Did you hear the story, though, where apparently much of the production was dedicated to elongating his legs and it led to their divorce.

[Mary Kish]

I love my coming. When you guys were talking about the rat, I was like, can you believe that Scorsese became that rat for one day to get that shot? Then I was like, that's not very funny. And so I didn't say it.

[Mike Maharti]

I. I just go for it. I would eventually hit a home run when you swing wrong not to swing.

[Mary Kish]

You have like all these. I. I'm just like hindered by these concerns of not being funny or smart.

[Dan Riker]

Shame.

[Mary Kish]

And you're just not burdened by these weight.

[Dan Riker]

No, I want to challenge. Mary said something interesting about a movie that earns its runtime and talking about Lord of the Rings being three hours. So I'm like, I'm looking at lists. Like, I'm trying to think of good examples of ones that are like, yeah, that should have been three hours long. Like, I remember that second Avatar being very fun in the theaters, I think.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, are you saying it should have been longer or are you just saying

[Dan Riker]

it seems like it doesn't feel like gangs in New York felt unnecessarily long.

[Mary Kish]

It's unnecessary.

[Mike Maharti]

I remember I only saw it once in imax. I felt like Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's earn earned its. No, I like the movie Oppenheimer, but I remember, like, the pacing was very weird because the last 30 minutes were all that trial, which I realized that's what the movie was building toward. But it did feel like, oh, man, this is kind of a ComeDown.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Oppenheimer, three hours.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm like an Irishman apologist, but even I would say that Movie's too long.

[Dan Riker]

RR. 3 hours and 7 minutes. I remember that was a lot of fun pretty much the whole time. I don't know if you guys saw that Magnolia.

[Mary Kish]

It's really hard to justify it. Apocalypse now is apparently over three hours. That movie's fantastic.

[Mike Maharti]

The director's cut.

[Dan Riker]

No, the. The over, like, three hours ones are like these weird cuts that, like. I hate those cuts. They actually does up the pacing. The theatrical cut of Apocalypse now is not that long. And that's definitely the best one.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, Blade Runner has all the different ones. I don't think Blade Runner ever got close to three in any of them, though.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, there's not a ton like Braveheart. I remember. Anytime I remember, like, a movie coming in, two VHS's, like Titanic and Braveheart, like, I won know Braveheart holds up just because it's like, I just watched

[Mary Kish]

it because I bought the double VHS for my crt and it's shockingly long. And it's so funny that it's just like he, like, is like, you killed my wife. And then it just goes to black. And it's like the second half is

[Mike Maharti]

the alley G. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Is it.

[Mike Maharti]

Was it good, though?

[Dan Riker]

Or is it like, very, like, 90s? Like, I. I worry that it'd be like a Dances With Wolves or something, where back then it's like, oh, this is very important and good.

[Mary Kish]

You know, it's tropey because it did things. I think it was a joke to do things like that. Right. Like, I think I. I was kind of shocked to see all these. These moments that I believe inspired Game of Thrones. And I said that, like, out loud a couple times where I was like, ooh. I think that the Game of Thrones people watched this movie and were like, we gotta do a scene just like this with the action shots and the war shots.

[Dan Riker]

Sure.

[Mary Kish]

Very, very well done. But it is so early 90s. It doesn't. Not everything ages very well. I was surprised of all the times where. Yeah, they're just Showing, like, women getting abused or almost essayed. And they're just showing it for a real long period of time because they're like, that's Hollywood, baby.

[Dan Riker]

And I'm like Mel Gibson pointing and laughing while it's happening.

[Mary Kish]

He's like, that's my wife. It's weird.

[Dan Riker]

That's my wife.

[Mary Kish]

That's such a weird.

[Mike Maharti]

They would take a freedom. He says, just do the imprima nocta

[Mary Kish]

where he says, they'll never take my freedom. Freedom.

[Mike Maharti]

I remember Killers of the Flower Moon. I thought that was way too long.

[Dan Riker]

That's, I think, one of the only movies I've fallen asleep in the theater for outside of Godzilla. Minus one.

[Mike Maharti]

Granted, I saw a 10 o' clock showing and that went till 1:00am and I had like six drinks beforehand and dirty.

[Mary Kish]

I think that movie is too long. And I think that even though it is an important subject matter, I think it is just absolutely exhausting. And there's an entire additional scene that's like. And now it's a play. And it's just like, shut up. Like, you don't need to make all these additional scenes to hammer home your point.

[Dan Riker]

I'm seeing some good old, like the Deer Hunter, The Godfather Part 2. Like those. Those are good. Those are good. The bad and the ugly. That's fantastic. Like, a bunch of old ones could pull it up, pull it off.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, Good. Godfather Part two for sure.

[Dan Riker]

Seven Samurai. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah. Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai is good. Like the first, like half of that movie is them actually, like, training the village and setting up the defenses. And then the second half is like the actual defense and shit.

[Mary Kish]

Are we truly confident that that movie couldn't have been shaved down by like 12 minutes though?

[Mike Maharti]

Seven Samurai or Godfather part two? Or are you making a point that nothing should be three hours?

[Mary Kish]

I just think it's really difficult to justify every minute over three hours. That is a long time to make, like, humans sit and focus.

[Mike Maharti]

I think people's attention spans are probably better during Godfather Part 2.

[Mary Kish]

And they have to pee.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. The Avengers end game is over three hours. Jesus Christ.

[Mary Kish]

There's no way that that earns it. I. One that I. I do think is an interesting concept is Grindhouse, which is a double feature.

[Dan Riker]

That's different.

[Mary Kish]

That's an event.

[Dan Riker]

That's.

[Mary Kish]

That's because it's an event and it has an intermission and it's like, go pee. Reset, get a drink and come back for a second. Fun film.

[Dan Riker]

Totally. The trailers and everything. Trailers before the second movie.

[Mary Kish]

Like, I saw the Trailers.

[Dan Riker]

That was. That was a great time. That was awesome. Yeah, I love that.

[Mike Maharti]

Hatefully. The was is very long.

[Mary Kish]

It does not.

[Mike Maharti]

No, it can't.

[Mary Kish]

That should not have been as long as it was.

[Mike Maharti]

You know what movie has grown on me a lot is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I watched. I like that movie quite a bit now. I find it hilarious. Yeah, I didn't like it.

[Dan Riker]

I super love it the first time. I should see it again because I like everyone in that.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, Wall Street.

[Dan Riker]

I remember that. I only saw that once. It moves quickly. Good. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Cocaine addled energy.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it makes sense anyway.

[Mike Maharti]

But yeah, to Mary's point, like, you should not aim for that one.

[Mary Kish]

I. I don't think they should. And I think that this is an example of a director who's just so important and makes such wonderful things that no one has the guts to be like these. Do you need to keep that scene? I just feel like they have. No one wants to mess with Scorsese. And Scorsese is on this list a lot. This dude makes long ass films.

[Dan Riker]

The Irishman. What was that like, closer to four or something like that?

[Mary Kish]

Just like someone tell him to.

[Dan Riker]

You know who's going the same with like James Cameron. Like, who's gonna fucking. Oh, every one of the top grossing movies of all time is this one dude. You tell him how to cut his movie.

[Mary Kish]

I assume that's how he responds to the PA that says, hey, are you sure you need this scene? He's like, oh, you're gonna tell the person who makes the most top grossing movies of all time that they need to shave 10 minutes.

[Dan Riker]

And to be honest, fair. I mean, he's got a pretty good argument, you know, it's pretty bulletproof.

[Mary Kish]

I have htp, James Cameron.

[Mike Maharti]

The irony is Scorsese has a very famous editor that he's worked with for like years and years now. Thelma. Thelma Schoonmaker. Like, and she's known for thrashing stuff, but when she works with him. Yeah, I don't know what that relationship is like.

[Mary Kish]

Can I say something that is a bit ironic? I think that our podcast often goes into the three hour.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, no.

[Mary Kish]

Wonder if some of our listeners are like, you.

[Dan Riker]

You should hear the raw cuts. The raw cuts are seven hours.

[Mike Maharti]

Like we can.

[Dan Riker]

Jake cuts it down like crazy.

[Mike Maharti]

Jake is our Jake, Thelma. Yeah, he has to get in there

[Mary Kish]

and get his hands dirty editing, but nothing from me. God damn it.

[Mike Maharti]

You spit gold every.

[Mary Kish]

Not with my pedigree. I'm with the biggest run times of all podcast history. Don't touch a minute of what I say. Also, unlike a movie where it's like you're in a theater, you. You're actually meant to listen to this on the toilet, like, go nuts.

[Dan Riker]

You want to go on a run, take a shit, drive somewhere. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Scratch away.

[Dan Riker]

You're not doing that during the Irishman. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no. You park your. Your took us wherever it needs to be.

[Dan Riker]

I was surprised. I saw Marty Scorsese's cameo. And I'm working on the Sopranos now. And there's a part where, like, Christopher is waiting to get into a club and he's like, you know, the line or whatever. Then Marty, like, pulls up in a limo and they let him in. They call him, like, hey, Marty, or whatever. Okay. Wonder what someone like Marty would have thought. Like, season one before Sopranos was super established. Like, oh, yeah, bringing this esteemed, you know, mob movie director, like, that was interesting.

[Mike Maharti]

Wasn't. What did Chrissy say is like, hey, Mean streets. Loved it.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, yeah, It's a good cut. Yeah. Mean streets. By the way, I forget, Mary, have you seen Sopranos? I forget. I know I brought it up recently.

[Mary Kish]

This is the show that I have quit several times. I have started it, like, four times. I think it's great. But every time, somewhere around season two, I just fall off.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, okay, we're going to have a good excuse.

[Mary Kish]

I have a good excuse.

[Dan Riker]

I assume, Mike, I'm supposed to fucking hate Christopher, right? He's a fucking dumbass.

[Mike Maharti]

So the show. The show is incredible because, like, the running joke is that by your third rewatch, the show becomes a comedy.

[Dan Riker]

Okay. I'm laughing a lot. Watching. Yeah, yeah. I just watched the one where Christopher is trying to help Adriana, like, set up the, like, music producing career.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, that. Oh, that whole plot line. Yeah. With.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, his. What's the song?

[Mary Kish]

Meow.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah. Don't be so gay.

[Mike Maharti]

Don't be so gay.

[Dan Riker]

It's really stupid.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's really. What's their names? Because. Yeah, the guy's ranting about. Yeah, the guy's ranting about how the Beatles are. He's sick of hearing about the Beatles.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Used to be the filer was the band and they changed.

[Mike Maharti]

We're coming to defile. Defile you. I hate that.

[Mary Kish]

It sounds like you're making this up to. With me. It sounds like. It sounds like it's an always sunny episode.

[Dan Riker]

I see the comedy aspect of it. Like, I am laughing frequently. And this, like, why are they song. Because, like, Christopher, the Young mob guy's girlfriend. They come into a bunch of money basically, and she wants to become a music producer. And so he's trying to fund it and she's like, oh, this band of this guy I know is like so good. And they're playing these demos and everything, and it's just the worst shit you've ever heard. And my producer wants to hook up

[Mike Maharti]

with her, so he's flattering her, thinking she actually has good taste.

[Dan Riker]

All these idiots that are all have these stupid.

[Mike Maharti]

Enabling her terrible taste. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I just died when they take it to Hesh, you know, the old music producer guy, and he's listening to it and he just goes, yeah, it's. It's not good.

[Mike Maharti]

It's like. He's like. He's like, there's some. Some songs are hits.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

You know when you hear it, this. It's not a hit.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

And then at the end of the episode, they come back to it. I forget what. It's like a Third Eye Blind song is playing at the. At the bar and he's a hit. That's a hit. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I love this show so much. I can already tell it's one of my favorites ever.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, my God. Dude, it. I'm trying to think. So that's what. Season three.

[Dan Riker]

I have two episodes left in season one.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, my God, that's that early? Jesus Christ. Okay, yeah, so you haven't. There's some alz timers I'm sure you've heard of, like, reference, like the pine bar.

[Dan Riker]

I've heard enough references to, like, pine barons and stuff like that. I really don't have a lot of spoilers. I know a couple scenes that are famous. I know the ending and how that was the most controversial thing in the world back then. Then. But yeah, yeah, I'm just loving it.

[Mike Maharti]

The show gets so much, like, so much funnier. And also, yeah, Pine Barrens. I would love to watch that with you because it's the funniest 40 minutes of entertainment I've ever seen in my life.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that show. But, yeah, I remember we rewatched it last year and there's certain characters I fucking couldn't stand the first few times I watched it. Like Livia, Tony's mom, she's awful. Oh, yeah. But, like, the more I rewatch the show, the more I'm like, just. It's hilarious how awful she is and how, like, woe is me. Pity party she throws.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

But, yeah, no, Chrissy's the up. He's the Fredo for sure.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, sure. I love Junior. Junior cracks me up.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah. Junior's hilarious.

[Dan Riker]

The one where he's just so afraid that people are gonna find out that he goes down on his girlfriend. Yeah. That's incredible. He's, like, deadly serious about. He's, like, wanting to put hits out on people but don't tell anyone about that.

[Mike Maharti]

And then Tony and him are having the feud, and Tony's getting ready to tee off on the golf course. He's. He's like, south of the Border's like, what. What the did he say?

[Mary Kish]

I have no idea.

[Dan Riker]

Give another shot. Because I've started it a few times, too, and this is like. It's like a Better Call Saul thing with me where it's like, everyone's told me forever. It's good. I've started Better Call Saul like, two or three times before I finally just sat down. Like, I'm gonna watch this show.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. You know, you can't half watch it. Yeah. I think that's what's with me. Because we are in.

[Dan Riker]

In a.

[Mary Kish]

We're in a time where it's so easy for me to get my little switch or my steam deck and play a game. And when I do that with certain shows, they lose me. And that is unfortunate. And I think that is what happens each time I try and watch this. It's just sometimes it's a little slow, but it is.

[Dan Riker]

But I think it's important. I mean, it's. That is Bonk and I are treating it like when we watch movies, which is like, hard rule. Like, we've never look at our phones. No text. Which. Have I brought it up on here before? How I feel in. Like, I'm not insane about this. Right. Like, I brought this up on Giant Bomb, where it's like, oh, yeah. When we watch movies, it's like neither of us, like, phones are. They are away. And every. Like, I am on an island where everyone's like, that's crazy. You don't understand how life is. It's just like, oh, no. Every time we do that.

[Mike Maharti]

I appreciate. And not only do I support you, I appreciate you fighting the good fight. I do the same thing. I, like Amanda will occasionally, if we're getting, like, a text because we're still technically, like. Like, there's people working late or something, then that's different. But, like, generally speaking, no, I. I don't look at my phone while we're watching something. Like, I. I don't know. I. I. If I'm.

[Mary Kish]

I cheat.

[Ad Host]

I do.

[Mike Maharti]

If I'm unwinding at the end of the day. I don't want to keep paying attention to different things.

[Mary Kish]

I know exactly why you're doing what you're doing, and I think it's better for your brain and it's better for your ability to focus and watch what's going on. I. I don't know how to describe it, but there is. There is a serotonin that you can get from having, like, three devices on at the same time that's kind of, like, overwhelmingly relaxing.

[Dan Riker]

But that is a different thing, I think. And we do that too. And I get that because it's like, I'll put on, like, a comedy screen

[Mary Kish]

phone, and I have, like, three different things, and I can watch any of them at any time and see certain,

[Dan Riker]

like, games and show combos will do that. Where it's like, let's say, like, there's a new, like, Chris Fleming special in hbo. I've been curious to check him out for a long time. So I was thinking, like, that'd be a good time. Like, let's say Bonk and I are playing Pecopia or. Or something. Put on a comedy special in the background. Or we're, like, rewatching Arrested Development. Like, rewatching something's good for that. And then you're just kind of playing a game like Pocopia, where it's like, you don't really have to be worried about cutscenes or music or anything. Like, that is a really fun night. But that's a whole different feeling. That's a whole different type of entertainment to me than sitting down to watch a movie or a show like the Sopranos, you know, like, I see what you're saying, Mary. Like, that that is a very relaxing.

[Mary Kish]

It's an excuse for multi device. And I think that you kind of like drinking. It's, like, addictive to have lots of screens. And it's like all these people vying for my time. I'm so popular. I like to look at my phone, but I can also look at Netflix and I can also look at my game. And I have, like, so much to give all these different things, and I find that relaxing. But I will concede the amount of times that I've missed an important plot point in a movie that I was looking forward to because I wasn't fully paying attention is a bummer. And the movies that I remember liking the most is when I go to a movie theater and I sit down and it is all of my attention. And so I think you are you're like, respecting the media more by doing what you're doing. I will make a sad case for multi screen. I don't know, like, you're just gluttonous. Like, it's a, yeah, you know, you're just being really gross with lots of screens. But it feels good.

[Dan Riker]

But I also think it's obvious based on the media that you're taking in, like, look, if you go to watch the Sopranos for the first time or something, that's the thing to pay attention to. If you're just putting on. It's a random thing in the background, I, it's a slippery, it's kind of obvious. Typically, if it's a rewatch, I think that's always a decent excuse for like, oh, we're gonna have this on in the background. You know, if it's the first time and it's like a good, like, you know, good movies versus, like, you know, you can put on a Fast and Furious or whatever in the background, whatever. But like, if you're watching, you can

[Mary Kish]

be blackout drunk and watch Fast and Furious every time.

[Mike Maharti]

That's the only way you.

[Mary Kish]

I believe it's wrong. I, I, I, I agree with you. I think these are all truths. And I, yeah, I don't have like a good case for it. I just, there, there have been so many times where especially for whatever reason, it's kind of like a stressful movie. It's kind of like I'll just get out of this stress for a second by looking, looking at Reddit and then, and then you get to go back to the stressful film and you're less scared because I marinate. You get to get away.

[Dan Riker]

We talked about Marty supreme and like, how I like, like uncut gems and if I Had Legs, I'd KQ those like extremely stressful movies. That's when I most like, like all the lights off. I don't have any distractions. Just I'm marinating in this.

[Mike Maharti]

You gotta love. You need to watch what we do in the shadows. You're like Jack Proch. No, Jack Proach. Mark Prosch. Oh, you're like his energy vampire Colin Robinson. He just thrives on stress.

[Mary Kish]

When it's around him, he tries to cause it miserable. And I agree, like, I think you're, you're going to enjoy the experience more. I think that is the way to do it. And when I, the last movie I saw in theaters was Nirvana, the Band, the show, the Movie. And it was, I had never seen the show before and it truly was one of those immersive. I walked out of that movie theater and I was just like, I think that's the best movie I have seen in a long time. And I think part of it was just that I was focused. I was just so focused on every. I heard every joke, including seven little.

[Dan Riker]

Like, that's a great example because it's like there's so many little sight gags and stuff and subtle things in that you have to take glances at the camera or the background. The GTA 4ad in 2008, you know, stuff like that. Like that. Like, if you're half paying attention, be so easy to miss these incredibly good moments, you know.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, visual gags are fun. I so many people have recommended Smiling Friends to me, this, this animated show. And every time I watch it, I think I've been distracted. I've usually had my phone or something. And so every time I've watched it, I haven't thought it was very funny. And the. And this weekend I was like, no phone. Watch this fucking show and determine for yourself if you actually think it's stupid. Because I've tried three times and I don't think it's funny, you guys. It's funny. I just wasn't paying attention. It's pretty funny. You just have to. You have to focus. Here's what I would say. You know how like when you play a game on Steam it, it will say that you bought the game to like confirm and how many hours you played to like justify that. You're not a piece of shit. I think that before you review a movie on Rotten Tomatoes, you should find some kind of proof that you didn't have your phone near you. Because anytime someone's like, I didn't really get three body problem and it's like, well, you had six devices and it shows right here that a DoorDash came at 2pm like, you don't deserve to review this game.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, Dan, I think you're being like judicial in how you're take your. You're acknowledging both sides. But I do have to say I think it's a fucking plague the way people watch it with like three different screens. I also, I resent how it's actually affecting the way people write shows now. It's like the number of expos. The like repeated exposition in every episode of a show. I'm like, like, I fucking remember this. I just watched it. Like I also just speaking completely anecdotally and I'm definitely projecting because I used to my attention span during like a lot of Stuff I watched would be rough. It'd be short. I find it very, very meditative to just focus on the one thing and then I get. At the end of the day, I'm so much more mentally fried when I am between like eight screens at once. And I think that's why, like, something like Sopranos, which. Which the subtext, the subtle character quirks, the web of relationships that you're sort of keeping track of. That's why there is a meditative aspect to that because it does demand your attention in a way. I'm like, okay, that's why I love shows like that. The Wire, Sopranos, Mad Men, even. What did we watch last year that I like? We started. Oh, the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I remember we started it and I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna like this. And then the more I watched it, I'm like, oh, shit. This is actually like, legit.

[Mary Kish]

Very good visual gags in that show too. And you have to pay attention.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I feel like I've got that energy of like that David lynch thing where he's like, you're gonna watch a movie on your fucking phone. Like, I see that. And I'm like, yeah, I like, I want to carry that energy and respect removals.

[Mary Kish]

That's what's getting older and older.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, we had the email question a few episodes ago. It's like, what are some things you're, like, stubbornly old fashioned about? I think that's just like. Like, watch One Thing at a Time. Is mine a thousand percent?

[Dan Riker]

Yes. One more quick note on the Sopranos. I was thinking about was that I was watching it and it was like, there is a craft to the way every episode feels like a little mini movie almost, in a way where it's like an episode will have a theme where it's like, there's the one where it's like Tony is trying to break out of his normal routine and trying to hang out with the guys at the country club and not necessarily mobster guys and stuff like that. In the same episode, Carmela is kind of like trying to play the stock market. Like, oh, I've never really done this before. And, like, Christopher's trying to write a movie and get out of the mob. Adriana's trying to do them. Like, that is the episode where they're all trying to kind of like, challenge, you know, what they are and who they've. Their identity has been the whole time. Like, and every episode kind of has that almost theme to it. You Know, like the college episode feels like like a little kind of mini movie, a self contained thing, because that's the same one where Carmelo's with the priest at home, you know, talking about, you know, just the double life stuff and everything. And it made me think about like current. Like I watch prestige TV and stuff now, but it's like you watch. Watch the stuff that's big now, like, like a Game of Thrones or a house Dragons or any, you know, show like that. It feels like a long movie. It just feels like a really long movie with big story points. Just kind of like flag posted out. But with Sopranos, I feel like it's got the overarching story. I mean, it was one of the first serialized big budget shows. I think Oz might have been the first, you know, the popularized it. But like, it does feel like a bunch of little movies that have an overarching, like, umbrella story, which I think is. I don't know if I've seen one that does it as good as Sopranos.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah. I'll still throw on just the Pine Barrens every few months when I'm not even like really watching the show or I forget the name of the episode. They go to this lake house at one point and then Canada happens and stuff like that. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's something I want to watch right now. Yeah. No, it's also like, there's stuff going on in that show that's telling the story. I don't know, like subtext metatext. I don't know. I'll leave that to the. The Austin Walkers of the world to explain the, the subtle stuff that's going on beneath the surface in that show is so good. It's.

[Dan Riker]

You hear about the dudes that. That like watch cuts of it that remove all the therapy scenes.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Like, can you imagine these types? Like, I just want to see the cool mom. These are guys with like Scarface posters on there.

[Mike Maharti]

I think Bill Simmons does that. And like, that makes a lot of sense.

[Dan Riker]

That is such a critical part of, of what that show is.

[Mike Maharti]

That's the whole pitch that. When he gave the pitch to Warner Brothers. No, I forget. I don't think it was Warner Brothers. Whatever. Yeah, Warner Brothers. And he was like, it's going to be about a mobster who needs to go to therapy. That was the elevator pitch.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

[Mike Maharti]

No, it's. And Melfi's character. Yeah, yeah, well, Melfi's one of the most important characters. There's an episode. I know the employee of the month. I think that's season two, three. That's not an episode I go back to rewatch often, but one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. You'll know when you get to it.

[Dan Riker]

But I'm just glad I'm on. I'm talking to adults here who know when to turn off the goddamn phone.

[Mary Kish]

What?

[Dan Riker]

No, you. I. I am agreeing with you too, Mary. When you're doing it, that makes sense too.

[Mary Kish]

There are times I wasn't paying attention.

[Dan Riker]

She was on the Tick Tock.

[Mary Kish]

I was looking at Rotten Tomatoes scores

[Mike Maharti]

for different Sopranos episodes.

[Dan Riker]

Research for film.

[Mary Kish]

Listen, if you guys are going to get really deep into Sopranos specific episodes, I am going to look at review scores.

[Mike Maharti]

Dan, call me once you finish Pine Barrens. Like the moment.

[Dan Riker]

I will, I will. It's great.

[Mike Maharti]

All right. Do you want to talk about video games?

[Mary Kish]

Let's do it. Sure.

[Dan Riker]

Get that AMEX Gold Card ready. I'm too tired to cook.

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[Mary Kish]

My name is Mackenzie and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a non verbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about $10,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who are really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe.

[Dan Riker]

Get that AmEx Gold Card ready. I'm too tired to cook.

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We feeling Five Guys or the Cheesecake Factory? Both earn up to $120 a year in statement credits at participating Partners partners up to $10 each month when you pay with the AMEX Gold Card. Learn more@american express.com Explore-Gold enrollment required terms apply.

[Mike Maharti]

All right, I see both of you weirdos been playing Pocopia.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, everybody's talking.

[Mike Maharti]

Tell me about it. Because I actually. It seems like a game I'd like a lot. I just have not gotten around to playing it, so.

[Dan Riker]

Mary, are you a Pokemon person? Like, I feel like we've. This might be the first time we've said Pokemon on this podcast.

[Mary Kish]

It's very rare you and I actually have similar alignments on it. But I will go even riskier and say I'm not a. I'm not a dissenter, but I don't a lot of Pokemon games, but I also don't like a lot of those, like, Nintendo casual games. I was like, one of the few people that just didn't care for Animal Crossing, which is so odd. I know. I think it's boring, is my answer.

[Mike Maharti]

Because you're a Stardew fan, and the game can kind of limits you what you could do per day.

[Dan Riker]

Ah, I'm sensing something here. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I. I think it's just like, I don't like to be limited, and I like to have very clear. Stardew was always like, well, you need to. These things created by the end of the season, you know, like, people are waiting for your crops and there's like a big festival. And I was like, oh, I have all these things to do. Animal Crossing, it's like, whatever, you know, don't worry about it. And it's like, what do you want me to fucking do? I wasn't going to buy this. I was not going to buy Procopia because everyone's comparing it to Animal Crossing. And I was like, oh, that's not for me. And I saw some funny, like, clips, and I saw some screenshots that made me laugh. And I thought to myself, girl, you were just saying how you need a cozy game. You need a cozy game so bad. Here it is. Like, let's just give it a shot. And I will say, this is a big pill for me to swallow. This game is $70, and that's if you have a Switch 2. If you don't have a switch to. This is like, like six, $700 pill to swallow to play this game and hope you really like it. I already had a switch, too. I bought it for Mario Kart and because I'm a hardware junkie and I kind of just wanted the switch to anyway, so I already had it. So this was just 70 bucks. But 70 bucks is 70 bucks. I'm happy to report after about eight, maybe nine hours with it.

[Mike Maharti]

It.

[Mary Kish]

I actually do think it's. It's pretty entertaining, and it solves a lot of the issues I had with Animal Crossing. Not that anybody else had any issues with that game, but I. I was satisfied with the amount of things that they said. We have a. A plan for you. We want you to accomplish this. We need you to solve these puzzles, and we want you to figure out where these Pokemon are. And I have enjoyed exploring the world and creating environments and then discovering Pokemon in those environments. And you get to ask them their comfort level, and they'll be like, I could use a toy. And it's like, you got it, girl. And I'll go run and build them a toy and bring it to them, and they get so excited. Very wholesome. They literally will stop me and just say, hey, I just want to let you know, I just love hanging out with you, and it's been so awesome being your friend. Here's 10 rocks. And I'm like, girl, thank you.

[Dan Riker]

It's just everyone, but it's like, it's always just like, I got something. It means the world to me, and I hope it means the world to you. Here's a sturdy stick.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Oh, it's like Bulbasaur. Like, they're just like these little ding dongs in the grass. Like, I don't think they have really cool stuff to give me, but I think it's very endearing that they do give me what they have. And certain Pokemon give you different things. Like the Bee Pokemon will give you honey. This should shock no one. They. They each give you different things. The girder and the ones that are, like, good builders, they build all the houses. I mean, they're all helpful in their own ways. And so it is.

[Mike Maharti]

Is.

[Mary Kish]

It is nice to discern which Pokemon are better for which different benefits that I need them for. But I think you kind of don't use them to an end. You get to. To enjoy their company and make them happy. It's a kind of a feel good.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it's. It's cool because it's like, I think you touched on something with, like, you know, Animal Crossing is kind of aimless, you know, where Stardew gives you some direction, where it's like, hey, you need to do this for the season. We've got this festival coming up. You need this thing or whatever. Whatever. And this rides that line really well. Like, if you just want to zone the out or like we were talking about earlier, kind of background viewing. You know, you're kind of watching something you can just walk around. You can kind of just, you know, oh, I'm going to build a new path to my house. I'm going to talk some Pokemon, whatever. You can just kind of around and have a good time with it. Or it's like, there are pretty clear objectives where it's like, oh, we found this weird building on the beach here, and it's got this weird slot that's asking for, like, fruits. And then this thing, and then this thing. And there will be like a progression where it's like, oh, this guy. Guy. This onyx is stuck in this cave. How do we get him out of here? You know, like, objectives, like real objectives, you know, puzzle.

[Mary Kish]

And. And they give you good guidance. I got lost, like, a couple times. But generally speaking, there's a very clear guy with glasses, and it's like, I don't know what to do. And it's like, maybe I should ask this obvious professor creature that is seven times larger than all Pokemon, so you cannot lose him. And he will tell you what to do next. So the game gives you lots of guys.

[Mike Maharti]

Titans.

[Dan Riker]

Have you seen the search feature? This is the thing I heard a lot of people are missing where it's like, let's say, you know, you gotta find the. The caterpillar with the cutty arms, you know. Oh, yeah, you can go in your poker Scyther.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna piss off people because I don't know.

[Dan Riker]

No, no, no, no.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm here, I'm here.

[Dan Riker]

Honestly, I think the fact that we're not Pokemon people and we're liking this game, I think that's. That's.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm the most Pokemon of all this. I got Bulbasaur, Planter right up here.

[Mary Kish]

Obviously not because you didn't play the game.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, very true.

[Dan Riker]

Actually, let's say fourth thing. You have to find Bulbasaur. You can go find them on your Pokedex. So you can just pause, go to the. Poke him, and then you press the plus button and it activates a search function, which makes any time you talk to any other Pokemon, it'll give you an option where it's like, I'm looking for Bulbasaur. And it will literally turn the camera and be like, I think I saw him over there. And then you just. So it's an easy way to find any Pokemon.

[Mary Kish]

I didn't know that that helps. That does make the game a lot easier because I am constantly looking for the Pokemon that I want. But I. The. The world is very calm. It's Very serene. It's very Minecraft. I think people have said this a lot, but the game reminds me. It has a day cycle just like Minecraft. Everything is malleable. You can break every. Every block, every brick. You can kind of. You can rip apart and you kind of suck it up into your weird ditto form, which I do want to talk about. And I. It's a pleasant experience to be in the world, even if you're lost, even if you don't know what you're doing. I have been very happy building things in this space. But. But can we talk a little bit about what a little freak ditto is?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. It's fucked up.

[Mary Kish]

It's fucked up. We were just talking the other day about how some of these Nintendo games, they have like, kind of a stark past or history, and they're like, covering it up. This is the darkest Pokemon world I've ever heard. Humans are extinct. Ditto is taking the skin of a human. And then when they make a friend that's a Pokemon, they steal their skill by like, absorbing their body parts. And then they can now punch bricks and cut grass. But they have these soulless eyes of a doll.

[Dan Riker]

It's awesome.

[Mary Kish]

I just mimic humans.

[Dan Riker]

I can till. I can till the soil by turning my arms into this weird armadillo thing. I talked. I learned how to squirt from the squirtle. And so now I can squirt and that. That like all the dry plants and stuff. What?

[Mike Maharti]

Bonnie Rotten taught you how to square squirt?

[Dan Riker]

I'm sorry.

[Mike Maharti]

Never mind.

[Dan Riker]

Continue, Louise. I'm talking about Pokemon here, Mike. Yeah, yeah, sorry, you're headbutting trees. Weird like Kirby inhale. Where there's like 90.

[Mary Kish]

How you get the apples out of them.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, you headbutt them. And then it's like you'll get a bunch of like, you know, logs and stuff and dirt piles and stuff. And you just like hoover Kirby, like

[Mary Kish]

everything suck them up like kind of in a weird. And if you turn the camera around, it's weird looking.

[Mike Maharti]

Sounds like Kirby Barbie.

[Dan Riker]

I like how weird this game is.

[Mary Kish]

It's very weird all of the. So you'll find pieces of paper or notebooks and it'll be from humanity, which is gone. And the people will be like, I'm getting a little worried. The weather's getting kind of bad. And it's just like the last diary. Entering entry entries of dead people like

[Dan Riker]

Resident Evil, like, tasty, strange, straight.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Everyone said that we need to be careful about this trash, but I. You know, I'm not worried about it. Last entry. Entry. Hey, we should do something about all this trash because there's a typhoon coming and then there's no more entries. I'm telling you, Nintendo has crossed like a barrier. This is like they're getting to this point where they're like, actually, our children are not going to have water. We need to warn the kids in this Pokemon game that if they do not take better care of the environment and they do not give a shit about this planet and about like the world around them, it won't. They won't fucking be here. It's. To me, I. I find this game slightly political in a good way. Which is just like. Yeah. Teach them young that they have to give a. Or they will die and so will the Pokemon.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Maybe Pickopia will change people's minds, hearts and minds.

[Dan Riker]

It's going to fix everything.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I hope so.

[Mike Maharti]

Those people on the fence, it's.

[Mary Kish]

That's the only part that's not cozy. But I find it fascinating and interesting that they, they, they made such a strong choice to include the death of humanity. And that Dudo is this like mimic that just has taken over the skin of a person and makes people think that there's still humans in the world. And maybe that's for the comfort of the children that will play this game. But you are not playing a human child. You are playing a Pokemon that is disguised itself as a human to just make you relaxed as you recognize that humanity has dissolved beneath our feet. Feet. It's a strange situation.

[Dan Riker]

It's a mid summer situation. You're wearing the skin of a human as you go around absolutely like pretending

[Mary Kish]

and, and absolutely in every way pretending that you are the last person on earth. It's a very odd. I wonder what's going to happen in this game. I haven't. I'm not that far in it, but I have. Have you made it rain yet? That's kind of like the.

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, so there's like an onyx you. You were alluding. This is the first puzzle.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I.

[Mary Kish]

It's the first puzzle in the game. I don't think it's a huge deal.

[Dan Riker]

I. I need to. That is. My current objective is to make it right.

[Mary Kish]

Your current objective?

[Mike Maharti]

I thought you're like eight hours in. How did you not do the first puzzle?

[Mary Kish]

Because you, you breathe. You don't breed. You make spaces and get Pokemon for like at least the first several hours.

[Dan Riker]

It is a lot of learning how to till the soil and plant beans. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

It's like a game from the outset.

[Dan Riker]

No, it's like, right now, my thing is I need to put, like, beans and stuff into this building in an effort, I think, eventually. Make it rain. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I. Generally speaking. Yeah. And I don't. I don't think this is a huge spoiler and you can't skip ahead or anything like that. As far as I'm aware, the onyx is stuck in rocks, and the game is like, oh, if only we could, like, loosen the soil. And it's like, okay, we need to make it rain. And so. And it's not raining because the weather's fucked up because the goddamn dead humans have ruined the planet. And. And so you're, like, figuring out how you're gonna do that. I finally got that done. It's a really silly and funny sequence. I laughed out loud multiple times because you have to, like, figure out which Pokemon are the best. You have to solve their problems, get them to do the things you need to do to get them to rain. I was. It's a cheeky, funny game. I don't want. I don't want to ruin it for

[Dan Riker]

you, but the writing is funny. Like, the. They all have their own personalities. The writing and the localization is really good. I'm finding myself, like, I've always, like, looked at the Pokemon designs and stuff, and, like, that's. It seems like there's a really cool variety. I like the way they look and stuff, but, like, I feel like talking to them in this game. It's, like, endearing these Pokemon to me.

[Mary Kish]

It's like, oh, that's the first time Pokemon have talked, like, people like, Mike, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Pokemon say, like, Charmander. And this is like, the first time that Charmander has, like, a voice and says how he feels about the world and the things around him. And they have. Have personalities. Some of them are shy. Some of them are cheeky. Some of them are, like, funny. But they speak words. They are. They are talking.

[Mike Maharti]

It's usually. You're usually a human speaking to them, which is why I think they just don't make sense to you.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, maybe, like, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And they, like, try and use their. The tone. The time in there. They use the tone in their voice to, like, like, guide you into how they're feeling. But in this game, they just literally say, like, I love this house. And so I'll be like, do you want to live here? And they'll be like, me? And it's like, yes, I Saw you say I love this house like eight times. I know you want to move in. You can have this house if it means that much to you. But, like, to your point, with how they're giving them character, Charmander in my game threw up. And it had a little voice and it just. It said, I frew up. Like, F R E W. I threw up.

[Mike Maharti]

It's very cute because he's the first evolution. He's a baby. Maybe.

[Mary Kish]

I don't know. I mean, I just think it's sweet enough that in the translations they were like, he doesn't say throw up. He says, I threw up by the

[Mike Maharti]

time Yakt over there.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Butt a lot. Which is like, not a normal term that you would say. And I'm surprised again in the translations that they were like, it's. You want to call them bud? It's like. But it's short for buddy, which is kind of like a friend. And it's just like, they're using slang that works. Oh, one of them, if you ask them to join you, they go, just me and my bestie hanging out for an adventure. Like, they, like, they knew to use the word bestie. It's cute.

[Dan Riker]

And then, like, you'll see, like, Hitmonchan is, like, up against the heavy bag, like, just going nuts on it. And you'll talk to him and he'll teach you. And then you have boxing gloves that you can switch to, and that is how you kind of deform the environment. And. Mary, have you done the thing. Have you done mouse mode on this? Like, when you break the joy cons off and you use them as a mouse?

[Mary Kish]

No, I haven't done that.

[Dan Riker]

So it's cool because, like, when you're breaking down, like, let's say a big hill or something like that, you can. There's like a little dotted, you know, outline. And so you know which thing you're gonna break down or whatever.

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Dan Riker]

And you can look up and look down with the right sign. Like, that's good for basic stuff. But if you need to do, like, intensive stuff and that, that goes for decorating as well. Like your house and things like that. You can just so easily break off that right joy con and it goes into mouse mode and then you just are moving this cursor around and deciding, like, oh, that's what I'm punching. That's what I'm punching. That's where I'm placing this thing, like, just makes it a little more, you know, minute adjustments and stuff.

[Mary Kish]

Interesting. I do. I like that. Decorating is not. At least at this point, it's just not a heavy ask. It's more like build spaces and things that your Pokemon need.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

But you can tell that they're alluding that you're going to be able to build some really cool Minecraft agents decent because you keep stumbling across half broken like a quarter of a house and you'll find items and instinctively all players will be like, I'm taking these windows and this bed and this dresser because this is good stuff for my house. And so I'm like acquiring, I'm stealing and pilfering from every house that I find because I want all these items in my house which I haven't built yet. But like I'm preparing myself for like all of the cool items that I'm gonna put in my sick and gas space.

[Dan Riker]

I have like three security cameras now and I'm like what am I doing with the. What do I need a security camera for that? Like I, it says like in the menu you can go and like watch what's happening.

[Mary Kish]

Like you can watch your Pokemon, but it doesn't work yet. So I, I traveled. I'm not here yet in the game so I don't know what happens. But when I first learned to dig through tunnels, I decided to dig through a mountain because I, I cuz I can and I wanted to. And so I dug through an entire mountain to an entire different area. Have you tried to do this?

[Dan Riker]

No.

[Mary Kish]

And I got to a new area and I don't think I'm supposed to be there yet. And there's like lights and stuff. None of them are on. Electricity is totally common because I've just

[Dan Riker]

seen the like mushroom lights and stuff like that so far.

[Mary Kish]

I know. I think there's like a whole other world of this game that we don't know about yet.

[Mike Maharti]

That.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. And. And another thing we didn't touch on is I think it's really cool the way that like it'll give you the habitat info where it's like oh, a Pokemon might show up if there were four flower patches on a beach next to water or if there is a, a log seat here and then like a first aid kit next to it. It might attract a certain Pokemon.

[Mary Kish]

So like by tall grass on a mountain might attract this, this certain creature and it gives you the silhouette which is very funny because that's very that. Who's that Pokemon?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Like they just seem to really know what they're doing here. Like I can't imagine being someone who grew up with Pokemon and having such a. Because I don't have an attachment to these characters. And I still find it so endearing. Like, it's got to be so fun for Pokemon fans. Like, I think this is a really, really cool project.

[Mary Kish]

I recommend this as an easy wreck for Pokemon fans, but I would even go beyond that and say, even if that's not something that you grew up with. With, I'm finding this to be a very comforting, very enjoyable, very cheeky, funny game that I could easily spend. I'm gonna probably spend a lot of hours in this. It's a huge world and I don't even think I've scratched the surface of this game. Not. Not including the fact that, like, probably once you're done with the game, you can just build shit like you can in Minecraft. So I believe it's just gonna be endless.

[Mike Maharti]

Us.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I'm not in a rush. I think it's going to be an easy one to just like, pick up on a plane six months from now and. And come right back to it. You did mention it's $70 or it could be over $120 if you're. My sister Kayla, because she buys things physically. She went to GameStop. Lovely corporation. We salt of the earth, we all love games.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, they're doing so well.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, they're just the best. Oh, the best leadership and everything. Always been great. And she went there and they're like, oh, hey, you can't. Because she was on stream when I heard the story. I didn't know you had to buy, like, a little microchippy thing to play this. And me and everyone in her chat were like, what did they tell you? And she was like, oh, something about, like, the GameCube. And we're like, that doesn't sound right. Well, and then it turns out what she was saying was they pointed at the bottom of the case and it says game key card. And they said, oh, this means you need to buy this. And they sold her a $50 micro SD card and said she couldn't play the game without it. So her not knowing any better, better bought that, brought it home. Mentioned that on stream about like, oh, that's weird. You got to buy this microchip. We're like, you need to go in there tomorrow. And like, she went in there, get

[Mike Maharti]

the store number manager.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I mean, I. I was ready to go nuclear with it if I needed to, but, like, the. The manager was like, can't return it. It's opened. And then she explained what happened and they gave a refund, but then she left the store and she saw in the parking lot the guy who lied to her was sitting in his car eating ice cream dream. And she just drove up in front of him, flipped him off and then just like peeled out.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah. What kind of car? Like a Jeep or like.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

All that SD money, he's killing it.

[Dan Riker]

Microchip money.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. He probably bought some 50 ice cream with that.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That reminds me of like when parents are buying those like fiber cables that are like the fastest ethernet cables alive. And it's just a, it's just $100 ethernet cable that I spent $100 on

[Dan Riker]

an HDMI cable when I got my PS3 and I didn't really know HDMI stuff at all. They're like, you need to get this monster cable. Like there's no point in having a PS3 if you're going to have the like shitty built in cables that come with it. Shame you I bought it $100 thing. Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's easy, it's. I mean Kayla is someone who plays video games all the time, but she's not like a tech minded person. I grew up playing every fucking video game and I bought the PS3 and like I, I don't know, TV tech at the time and HD stuff was new to me, you know.

[Mary Kish]

Do you think this will change her mind about buying physical or do you think she's still adamant about buying? I, I will say, I will acknowledge like there is something nice about physical copy. Right. That makes you feel like I'll be able to play this even in an apocalyptic scenario.

[Dan Riker]

But I think for her it's more she does like owning the physical thing and also she tends to just kind of help afford, you know, future games and stuff to be able to trade it in. So she'll buy a game, beat it quickly, return it to GameStop and put it towards the next, which is how I always did it growing up, you know. Although I wonder if you can do it with that game key card with Switch. I don't know if she knows about that or if that even works.

[Mary Kish]

Like yeah, they're getting wise to that as well. They probably don't want you returning the game.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, they've never liked the used game market. I mean that was the Xbox One's whole thing about like not allowing used games originally. And you know, like that's, it's never been good for them because they never

[Mary Kish]

really well for them.

[Dan Riker]

Oh yeah. Xbox has only been on the up and up since the Xbox One.

[Mary Kish]

The up and up.

[Mike Maharti]

Pour one out for Phil. All right. I do want to play Pacopia, but let's also talk about Dan, you played Marathon.

[Dan Riker]

I did. Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

This is another big one.

[Dan Riker]

It's an interesting one. I. Yeah, probably I'm level like 8 or 9 or something in it right now. There are things.

[Mike Maharti]

Seasonal progress.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Mike, you're probably way more experienced in extraction shooters than me, right? Because I've only played.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I played Escape from Tarkov, Arc Raiders. This played the Hunt Showdown for Work. We.

[Dan Riker]

We.

[Mike Maharti]

I also, like, played a lot. I wouldn't have otherwise, but I would say.

[Dan Riker]

Do you like them in general?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I like the idea of many of them more than I like the actual games, but I do like Tarkov quite a bit. I think there's some quality of life stuff that Marathon could be learning from other games that. That it doesn't have at the moment. But I've played a lot of Marathon. At this point. We can get into my new show, but I'm curious, Dan, how you feel about the game in general?

[Dan Riker]

I think it looks incredible. I think the art design is one of the coolest I've seen in an FPS. I do think maybe it's just me being old or whatever, but, like, I would have. I would like this so much more. I'd be so much more excited if it was like, I want a campaign with this. Bungee. Campaigns can be very, very good historically, and. And it's just some more standard deathmatch modes. Like, I don't. I've played enough extraction now, and granted there's a star craters in I. I put a good amount of time into both that. Like, I. I don't know if this genre is for me. I like the idea, like you said, Mike, but I've never felt like I need. I've had a valuable thing that I need to extract with. It's always just been a collection of like, well, this thing of duct tape is rare, so I better bring it back, you know, where it's like, oh, I got to bring this seed to my rooster so it does something and unlocks a new menu or whatever. Like, I. I never like the part in between where it's just. I'm just like, looking at a giant grid of shit and I'm trying to parse out what matters, what I sell, what goes towards something. I do think Marathon does a good job of, like, the faction contract stuff. That is a pretty clear, readable, like, okay, this is like, these are skill trees. These are. I'm accepting a thing at a time and I know when I go in, this is going to be the thing I'm going for. It's almost like in Fortnite, like, you're not going to go in and win every time, but like you're going to go and like accomplish a couple quests. It's going to be like, oh, I'm going to do a couple of weeklies or whatever. So even you, if. If you don't win, you accomplish something where it's like Arc Raiders. And you know, I. I don't think that's always the case. So I like doing the faction stuff and leveling up the factions and getting the new rewards and, you know, the skill tree stuff. That's cool. But like, all this stuff just feels like junk to me. It's like, here's a bunch of ammo. I feel like I'm just doing inventory management as a huge part of these games. And that's the part that I don't have fun with. And it's why I don't see myself playing them for long. I just. I would love a campaign campaign and give me some deathmatch modes, some objective based modes, and then I can ignore the extraction stuff, you know, and that's just not what this is.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. One of the game's weaknesses, I'd say, is they throw a lot of junk. I would say Arc Raiders does this too, but marathon to even, even more egregious extent. They throw a lot of junk at you. You play like you play a lot of this game and you start to realize what items are valuable for what purpose and you realize like, oh, this is actually really good to have to upgrade Sekaguchi. Once you get to a certain point, it's in their progression tree. Completing contracts is not enough. You actually need the credits. Plus these rare items that are basically trade in items to get that skill you want from Sekaguchi. The game could do a much, much, much better job of conveying the value of those items early on. I also don't even think they should be dropping those items early on when those are like level 30 things you should be worrying about.

[Dan Riker]

About. I could have picked these things up and had no fucking idea what they.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Just sold them. I don't know.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I also think like, the UI could do some work in terms of when you really break down the inventory, it actually does fall neatly into categories of. Okay, these are just basically automatic cells for credits.

[Dan Riker]

That's nice. I like that.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. These are These are biomass stuff that you turn into this faction. These are more like robotic things. You turn into this faction action. I just don't think the game does a good enough job of conveying that in the ui because it can get pretty cluttered. I do think the game. I love the game's design. I love its art direction. It's such A weird, like 1990s DOS meets graphic designers, Fever Dream meets Primary Colors splashed in the most compelling ways.

[Dan Riker]

Corporate stuff like, you know, when I unlocked like the new caloric stuff and seeing like their sizzle reel of these weird artificial plants they're making. Making and food. And just the way they talk about it in this really kind of cold kind of way.

[Mike Maharti]

Traxxas is like a death stranding. Like she's connected to this digital lion via an umbilical cord. Did you get unlock them yet?

[Dan Riker]

No, but I mean I've just seen flashes of a lot of this stuff. I'm like, I'm curious about this. Like, it's all seems very cool, honestly.

[Mike Maharti]

Like I spent a decent amount of time with the. They call it Codex or whatever it is, like reading the lore. The lore of the game is really cool. It's like the art direction and the vibes of the game were so, so potent that they push me to actually read lore bits, which I never fucking do. But going back to the inventory, it's like you play that game long enough and I took it for granted that I played Tarkov enough that I just know what everything is. I forgot what it's like to jump into an Extraction shooter fresh and trying to figure that out. None of that is even acknowledging the fact that most of the time you're first seeing these items is in a chest. Often when there's AI lurking around or maybe you're in a PvP firefight so you just kind of grab shit. You don't have the time to read what it is, what it's, what its purpose is when you're in the open world. So going back to base all of a sudden. Yeah, to your point, you just have this quilt of different items that you have to like parse through. So they could definitely do a better job up front. And also you mentioned the contracts, how many times I've spawned into a map, whether it's perimeter or dire, marsh or outpost. And I'm like, okay, I've got this Sekuguchi contract and they want me to go gather this from relay A and then I need to bring that data to relay B and then kill the commander. That it summons. Oftentimes you're spawned across the map where. From where that objective A is, in which case I get it. To your point, you're not going to have a successful run every time. The point of this genre is to really impart that sense of risk reward. But to your point A, early on, you're not getting items that are just compelling in their surface value unless you know the rules of the game, which you don't because you've been playing for three hours. So you're not really getting that risk reward. Like, oh, fuck, should I stick around or should I go try to get one more biomass cell?

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

But also if you spawn on the wrong side of the map, which is. It's all rng, the game, you can't control where you're spawning. Spawning. It's holy. I have to track across all of perimeter. I just want a function to equip a second contract. That's all. Just if you could equip two contracts, that would solve the problem.

[Dan Riker]

Sure.

[Mike Maharti]

You would still get drops where. Okay, both objectives are on the other side of the map. I just want options because if that happens, if you're playing with a full fireteam of three or solo. And to be clear, I actually like this game better solo, weirdly enough.

[Dan Riker]

But.

[Mike Maharti]

But it's. It's still good in terms of a fire.

[Dan Riker]

You play with the rook or are you just going in like killing in the crew?

[Mike Maharti]

I use recon, I use assassin and solo. And then, yeah, I don't. I turn off crew fill. It makes it much more tense in its own way. Like Dire marsh becomes much more fun because as opposed to perimeter, which is very much like varying elevations and verticality and those canyons you're going between and the like, some really, really fun firefights can break out in those canyons. Dire Marsh to me is more about concealment, where when you're solo, it's much more tense to actually be crouching through high grass and moving between outposts. It's just a much more immersive experience. It feels almost like death stranding levels of kind of slower pacing. I just wish I could equip two contracts so that if I'm playing by myself, I don't have to trek across the map to get to objective A likely. And a lot of these objectives, like Tarkov has these infamous objectives missions early on where it's like they know that all the rookies playing the game are gonna go do this loot recovery at this one specific truck. So they'll camp that Truck for easy kills. This game at least gives you options for missions. So not everybody playing the game the first week is converging on that one. There's still a lot of people going to that same outpost that though. So if I'm playing solo, it's much more fun for me to get up to the outpost, kind of like do a little bit of recon, wait on the outside for the bul. The gunshots to subside, get in there. And then it becomes much more tense because I know what I'm trying to do and I know that I could easily be outnumbered. And then that lends a bit of tension to the otherwise stale experience of trekking across the map. If I had the second objective, I could go right to perimeter wall or whatever and do that and get out. It would still be successful outside of that, though, and I think this game is definitely leaning toward the people who do enjoy PvP because I do encounter other players. And unlike Arc Raiders, proximity chat is not super encouraged here.

[Dan Riker]

No, it's. It's. That's. The thing is like, that was the gimmick with Arc Raiders that I think a lot of people are like, wow, what a fun new feeling here is that prox chat and this and like this. It's just not like it's there. That feature is there, but like, it's not at all. They're like, are you cool? Are you cool? Like, we're gonna work together. Like, none of that happens.

[Mike Maharti]

The time.

[Mary Kish]

Why not?

[Mike Maharti]

The time to kill is too fast in Marathon. Also, it is built like a much faster paced game, so I think people feel compelled to kill everything they see on site. And thirdly, Arc Raider is a thing that people don't always talk about. It doesn't just encourage cooperation. And the. The fact that it has proximity to many of the enemies are too difficult for just one team to take down by themselves.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you need help.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marathon. It's like, it's. Occasionally you'll come into these commanders, they're called, or the cloaking enemies, but you could still take them out. Even in solo. I'm fine with them. There's no. There's nothing in the world really encouraging you to team up with other players. In fact, Sekiguchi, one of the factions, their entire. The first, like, mainline quest for them is telling you to kill other players. So there's a lot of impetus in this game in the very design that Bungie's put in place to kill other players on site. In fact, I don't. I don't Know what the proximity chat is for when the rest of the game is like strictly pushing you toward killing other players?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Shoot first, ask questions later.

[Dan Riker]

I have not had a single one of those Mary, where it's like the arc raiders things, where the prox chat. Like I've never had an encounter where we're talking back and forth, forth even talking. Not saying I haven't had a good one, a bad one. I'm just saying I have not had a single time where it's like, whoa, hey, what's your deal there? Like, we're arc raiders. I feel like pretty much every time there's a little.

[Mary Kish]

And it's so cheeky and funny. Like it's really. I think it's kind of one of the humorous parts of that game is that it's a serious situation and someone's running by being like, those guys are bad, those guys are bad, those guys are bad. And you like hear them saying things to each other. It. It adds. That's a, like a lightness, you know, a little bit of a joke to what's going on. Is this game like just straight up serious solo shoot?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, there's nothing funny about it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, there's nothing funny about it.

[Dan Riker]

You were telling me not a funny game.

[Mary Kish]

Bonk likes to play arc raiders solo. Do you think she would like to play Marathon because it could be played more solo?

[Dan Riker]

Hard to say. And she's kind of moved on from arc raiders right now. So. Yeah, I don't know. We haven't really.

[Mary Kish]

But that's mostly.

[Mike Maharti]

It's also the. The fact that like, like it's funny cuz Marathon, when it is like firing on all cylinders. I like the game quite a bit. Like there's missions later on in certain factions, main quest lines where the it. It starts to congeal. What you're chasing in each contract or in each faction's ecosystem, you start to learn what individual items are for. You start to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the 18 different weapons, what did. Whatever it is, something like that. But even before that, there's times when I'm on Dire Marsh and I'm like, okay, it's a three part mission. I need to go to this place and I need to download this satellite data. And then a drop ship's gonna come in. Then I gotta jump on top of it and plant some C4 on top of it, blow that up. That's gonna piss this commander off. He's gonna come out of hiding, I gotta kill him. And sometimes that's with the fire team and I'm playing with two people that I know well. And the co op the game does incur. It's difficult enough where it encourages cooperation. The fact that. Not even to mention the fact that another team could come ambush us, which makes it all the more tense in some situations. But like, there's times when everything in this game coalesces and it's extremely fun and there is tension, there is a risk reward factor. We'll be like, okay, how are your inventories looking? Oh, I just found a purple backpack. Holy shit. I have like 16 more slots I can fill now. Let's get out of here. I have awesome stuff. Stuff we didn't even complete the objective. But we have inventory that we understand and we know how valuable it is. So it makes the situation all that more intense because you really want to get out. And then you see that it's a guarded X fill, so we gotta fight AI but it's also the last one remaining with four minutes left in this match. So there might be a team or two that we're gonna run into. So then it becomes the rules of the game. Once the player understands them, they can then kind of understand how tense things really are. The problem is I don't think the game does the best job of onboarding you and teaching you what things are for and how the stakes can raise from that ecosystem. But just like Destiny, it feels great. It's a good feeling. Shooter Bungie doesn't make anything else really.

[Dan Riker]

And I think that's part of what I don't like is that, man, it's so good. It looks so good and it feels so good. The gunplay is that kind of clothes. Classic Bungie. Like, man, nobody's really doing it quite like them. And that, like, I. There's almost this wistfulness for like, oh, but what if they had a campaign that looked and felt like this, you know? And like, that's my overwhelming feeling with this game is like, there's so much good here. I wish they put it in a form factor that I like, you know?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, for sure. And I. And I also think it had the same. Has the same problem that the first Destiny had when it came out. It's like, there are cool ideas here, but there's also just not that much content, not a ton of longevity. There's four maps. Three, Four. The Perimeter, Dire Marsh, Outpost.

[Dan Riker]

And there's one coming, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Some stuff coming down the road. And it's just. I just wish. Yeah, I wish I. They're Working on the onboarding, I saw today they added today or yesterday I saw they added increasing the amount of ammo lying around the world and that enemies drop. And I think they're lowering the health of the AI enemies. The UEs. See, I think people are having problems with the ammo retention early on. And also ammo is expensive if you don't find in the world and you have to buy it. And that's another part of the loop that I wish I knew earlier on was that important. Was like you should be getting the upgrades in the factions that unlock items for free in the shop. So you sign on daily and you get a ton of free shit. I didn't know that when I was like my first few hours ago.

[Mary Kish]

That's like the trick with arc raiders as well, which is you always use the free key. But you might be tempted, especially as a young player to be like, well, I just got this sick new gun, I'll bring it with me. And then you die and you lose your precious gun.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And that's really defeating for an early player. So it's important to have that info if you're going to give it a try.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, for sure. But yeah, all which is to say it's like there's some really cool stuff here. Not without its flaws, for sure. I just, I think it would hook more people early on if they, they paved over some onboarding obstacles and then that's a lot.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, like I, I imagine like you know, first person shooters and online multiplayer. First person shooters have historically been one that like, you know, Halo was, you know, hardcore, you know, gamers and stuff would love it. But also people that buy two games a year loved Halo. And I can't imagine if you're one of those gamers that buys like GTA every 10 years and, and Madden every couple years and then you get this, this. It's just speaking a language that like I play video games for a living and I, my head is spinning when it's like this is starting up and I'm like, wait, what, what is this? What do I need? Like, I cannot imagine being like a more casual gamer and loading this up and being like, what even is this? This is by the Halo guys. I. What the is this?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, no, this game is a. Kind of needs to be a commitment and a lot of people hear that and they get excited. A lot of people hear that and they're like, ah, stop the out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, fair enough. I just, I, you know, I was, I've been playing with people and I know Extraction Shooters enough to sort of see through the matrix with some parts early on. I do think because it's Bungie, because they're making a very good looking game that's absolutely going to attract people that don't really know Extraction Shooters. I do think there's still more work to be done on the front end to ease their transition into this very, very punishing world.

[Dan Riker]

Get that MX Gold Card ready. I'm too tired to cook.

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[Dan Riker]

Get that AMEX Gold Card ready. I'm too tired to cook.

[Ad Host]

We feeling Five Guys or the Cheesecake Factory? Both earn up to $120 a year in statement credits of participating partners, up to $10 each month when you pay with the AMEX Gold Card. Learn more@american express.com Explore Gold enrollment required Terms apply sure, yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

But Mary, what is a big walk similar to a marathon?

[Dan Riker]

It could be a big walk. You could call it that.

[Mary Kish]

It is. This is a great trip. Now that's. That's a. That's a host.

[Mike Maharti]

God, I'm so good.

[Dan Riker]

That's a good trans Jan AOA caliber.

[Mary Kish]

We don't traditionally cover games in early access or like demos and things like that, so this is a different one for me. And I will preface it with like, this game isn't out yet. I haven't played this full thing, but this is from the people who made Untitled Goose game Which I. I adored that game and I. I like that game studio. And they just so happen to have a playable experience in Portland and invited me to go play this game for an hour with three of my friends. And I was like, oh, I should do this. It's a cool experience.

[Mike Maharti]

Once again, I didn't get an invite.

[Dan Riker]

That's fine.

[Mary Kish]

That's in Portland. I mean, it's very. It's not often that Portland gets a sick game demo. I was like, this is so cool. And this never happens here.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, they did it online too. We did it with Giant Bomb, but, you know, it's. Yeah, we got it too. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The in person experience is unbelievable.

[Mike Maharti]

This was in person, though.

[Mary Kish]

The in person experience was really cool. And you'll never be able to have the joy that I had with it.

[Mike Maharti]

I bring you. I'm drinking gin from Portland right now.

[Mary Kish]

They did a lot of cool stuff, but that's not what I'll talk about because I don't care about it. Oh, I do want to hear about this gin, though.

[Mike Maharti]

Freeland. Freeland spirits. It's shaped like a teardrop top. You can get a green bottle. The forest gin. It's really good.

[Dan Riker]

How are you gonna balance that on a shelf?

[Mike Maharti]

It's like the wide spots at the bottom.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, they got flat stuff.

[Mike Maharti]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Tech.

[Mary Kish]

Some kind of vessel. Anyway, A Big Walk is a multiplayer game that you would play online with other people. You kind of look like ants, but I don't think you're. You're a non descript.

[Dan Riker]

They look like the birds with the. What? The homer. The one. The big homer episode. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The ones that was like the bobble and they died.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

They kind of look like that. And it has. It has proximity chat. So your idea is to kind of find them. I find this game very sweet and endearing where at least the. The component that I played was about an hour. They don't really tell you what to do or how to do it. They just drop you off. And so when we eventually found each other and we played around in this world, we had to figure out what to do. You go out into the. Into this grassy world, and you. And you kind of naturally learn over time that you can do fun things like stand on each other's shoulders. You'll come across these structures where there's a very obvious button, but it's too tall for you to, you know, push the button on your own. And so you do eventually, you know, recognize. You need to pick each other up and help each other achieve these goals. These very loose puzzles in this type of game, unlike so many of these games like Peak, which I also love, like there's no hunger, there's no stamina, there's no death, there's no enemies. This is very light hearted, casual fun that you could play with a true gamer friend. I think you could also play this with a kid. Not too young but I think you could play this with like a 10 year old and they would figure it out.

[Dan Riker]

And it's like light puzzle solving, cooperative puzzle solving.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's really enjoyable and I thought it was a thoughtful little romp. What I also really liked about it was after we had solved some puzzles and we were just walking around, this game does have day night cycles. The path diverged left and right and we decided to go right and it was just a nice ocean view with the sun rising. And we sat there and we watched the sunrise together as the four of us and we talked about, about you know, our favorite moments in gaming and we just kind of bonded for a little bit and I was like, I don't know the last time I've ever had a moment like that with friends in games because I'm always so worried about dying in this type of game because it's so chill. You can take the time to just hey, oh, you saw painting and you noticed that you could paint each other's bodies. You could just do that for 20 minutes if you wanted to without ever worrying about time.

[Dan Riker]

I, I think that's really cool because like you are starting to see more like I don't want to say like all in the friend slop genre or whatever, such a specific thing, you know that makes me think of repo and peak and stuff. But like there are games like a sledding game. Have you heard of this?

[Mary Kish]

I haven't played that but yeah, but

[Dan Riker]

we played it recently and it is very much a like multiplayer hangout thing where it's like yeah, little dart games and stuff or you can go sledding, you can do a little race, you can go hang out here or you can just kind of sit by the fire and talk prox chat and stuff like that. So like I think it's really cool that games are doing that now. But I have mainly seen ones like sledding game and there was another one that I'm blanking on but like, like where it is just about hanging out with no objective. Whereas like Big Walk is one of the first ones I've seen where we, we. Jeff Bachelor did A preview event thing. And we talked over his, his footage of it and it looks awesome. And it looks like you can get that sense of like you sitting around with your friends talking about gaming memories by the fire or watching a sunset or something. But then you can see like a weird playground looking thing with a bunch of buttons and keys over here and you can go like, oh, there's something to do here.

[Mary Kish]

There's like a puzzle going on. Yeah, there's some kind of. It's all visual. There's no text on anything. It doesn't say like find the three heads to, you know, to get the mystery. None of it is explained. It's all visual.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. And speaking of visual, I love the look of it. I think like you talked about the things just looking like these, these kind of weird, almost cartoony figures. But then it's also set across like fairly realistic looking art style like hills and mountains and rivers and sunsets and things like that. So it's just got this really peaceful vibe to it. And it's got the proc jet thing where you got like a little beak basically that just kind of when you talk you can lost. Yeah, I saw some stuff where it's like there was like you had to stay on this one button and then you had to send someone like way across this chasm to the other and you're like looking through like binoculars and you can't talk to them because they're so far away. But like you see him like, yep, he's over there. He's about to get to the thing. Like it. It makes me very, very interested in that game. It seems like a great mix of just like fun, goofy, friend slop, esque procs, chat shenanigans and also like hey, there's some puzzles so solve here. And I think it's interesting that every puzzle I heard can go up to four players. So let's say like you're playing with four people. There will be four buttons or four keys that need to be manipulated and you can add more. I can't remember if it goes up to 8 or 12 or something like that.

[Mary Kish]

It's a certain amount. I think it might be 12, but the puzzle maxes. Yeah. So you. So what's neat about is you could have someone who's like, you could like have again. You could have like your 10 year old nephew join and maybe he's stupid, stupid like a real stupid kid, but he can sit with you and you can solve the puzzles without yelling at him to like pick up the thing

[Dan Riker]

you can do it to like, you

[Mary Kish]

can just hang out.

[Dan Riker]

It's not like, like a portal co op thing where it's like both parties need to be fucking.

[Mary Kish]

You have to be functional. It takes to. To play that with another person in this game. A real ding dong can just hang out with you. They can even probably kind of mess you up and, and mess with you a little bit and you'd still be able to get through it.

[Dan Riker]

That's a good point. That like, yeah, if it caps out at 4 puzzle 4, like adult friends that are gonna like do the puzzles and then like somebody could literally just be hanging out or like, hey buddy, why don't you go, you go watch us from over here and you, you tell us, you know, if you see this thing light up or whatever. But like, or tell me about your

[Mary Kish]

day because I don't see you enough and I like you. I'm actually playing this puzzle with my friends. But like jump, jump in and join us and just in, you know, not gonna hurt anything.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, I think this has the potential to be a very special one. Like, I really do. Like, I kind of don't like the friend slop term necessarily since it does seem to kind of like, it seems insulting almost in a way, just the word slop.

[Mike Maharti]

For what it's worth, I do think it's going the route of walking simulators which they themselves at first were derogatory, but then they embraced it. Much like punk rock was derogatory and they embraced it. So I do think friend slop is kind of becoming part of the vernacular.

[Dan Riker]

And for the record, like, friend slop stuff like Pure Ass, friend slop, Repo and Lethal Company and all that. I like that stuff. I think that's fun.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's a good genre.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I think this seems like a meaningful evolution of that where it has kind of the hallmarks of it with the prox chat and the silly stuff and everything, but like, it seems like it's going to have an interesting, like, larger kind of objective within it, you know, I'm very excited about this.

[Mary Kish]

You can see where it's going. So originally when we do it, you get nothing. You have nothing in your hand. You get a light that you can like turn on and off, which you need sometimes when it's really dark and you can't see see. But towards the end we were like stumbling across like a whiteboard where you could like write on the board and lift it above your head. And so I could be like, imagine a world where Prox chat Exists. Right. I can't yell at you, Dan. At the other end of the chasm where I should suck my dick. I would write that on a. I would write that on a whiteboard above my head. And you would be able to read it and then. And then react to it. So you. It's like different methods of communication from a whiteboard to maybe a walkie talkie, maybe a speaker that only goes one way. And so they're. They're toying with the ways you can talk to each other.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. And just like the hands going up and down, like doing like, you know, air traffic controller type stuff.

[Mary Kish]

I was doing all sorts of hand signals. I was, you know, anything I could do there.

[Dan Riker]

You're.

[Mary Kish]

You have like, little ball fists, so you can't, like, do obscene gestures. But I think you can make it out. I think you could expect. You could kind of put two and two together.

[Dan Riker]

This seems like one that we need to make sure to get us and Jake together and play some of this. This.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I think this would be a fun one for the group. Yeah, I agree.

[Dan Riker]

I'm excited. Definitely.

[Mary Kish]

Mike, I gotta ask you, because everybody's talking about this game. You playing Slay the Spire too.

[Mike Maharti]

Pretty hooked on it. I started it, got an early access on Sunday. Meant to play just a couple hours, check it out, talk about it tonight on the show. I think I'm on like 12 hours now. I like it quite a bit. It's funny. I don't think it's doing. It's not doing anything majorly new since the first game or since any other, you know, like, the first game wasn't the first deck builder rpg, but I do think it helped popularize it. Now that I'm playing the second game, like, people are saying, okay, what's like the main new thing with the first game? It's like. It's almost like Hades 2. It's just like every little thing feels like a refinement of the first game. I will also say I think this game is really good at giving you several paths you can go down. You get the. The epochs, you can unlock new characters or unlock new items by completing these specific objectives, like defeat the first two bosses with the Silenced, or defeat the first boss with Ironclad, or get this many kills in one run with the real Regent. I only have three characters right now, but yeah, it's. It's incredible. It's extremely sleek. I'm unlocking new cards at a pace that's on par with, like, Balatro. I feel like I'm. I'm starting to feel like I'm mastering a character. And then all of a sudden they throw three new cards at me or a new enemy that's doing something I've never seen an enemy do. Or a mechanic is introduced. I'm like, okay, I get what thorns do do. Then they're like, oh, what do. What are automatons? What's that effect? And then all of a sudden I have to account for that when I'm building a deck with a character because I know I'm going through an area with them. I just finally, I just did my second run through the deep well I think it's called, which is like all like the sewers of the spire. And it's a lot of weird up aquatic enemies. And the game's also incredible in the way that I will fall. I will start falling into comfortable habits. Rabbits with the silence. It's the dual dagger. It was in the first game, but it's a dual dagger deer mask poison based class. And I'm like, okay, cool. I can just keep building around these shivs which you play a card. Like I, I barely remember any of their names, but it's like you play a card that, okay, I apply eight block to my character and then I'm going to draw a shiv and then I'm going to play another card where it's like, okay, draw four shivs and all. Also, every shiv does double the damage. Shivs are amazing because they do not cost any action points or energy in this game. So all of a sudden I have nine shivs in my hand and I can play them all for free and they're doing double damage. So I'm like, okay, shivs are the way to go with this character. Then all of a sudden you're encountering enemies that put this effect called ringing on you. They basically like audio stun you so you can only play one card in a hand. And I'm like, well, shivs won't help me because I can't throw like eight of them at them. Similar to how you'll get a. What's it called? A boss. What are the bosses called in Balatro?

[Dan Riker]

Joker. No, jokers are the. I think they're just called bosses. Aren't they boss or like they were a blind.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, blind. I think, I don't know.

[Mary Kish]

I think they have blind.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, you'll think you're gonna have a successful run no matter what. You're like, I can't see anybody beating me. And then all of a Sudden you get to point the blind or the boss in this game, one of the first two boss. I've only ever beat two bosses so far. It's like, well, fuck. Their entire MO completely contradicts what I've built and I had no idea this was going to happen. And like it's. The game is still good about giving you enough experience and unlocks after those runs where it doesn't feel unfair, but it still is very good at keeping you on your toes. And it is a game in which you can easily fall into comfort comfortable habits with different characters. But again, introduces new cards that kind of unlock a new dimension to each of these characters and introduces enemies that counter all these dimensions that it. It does make you actively think as you're playing. It's really good. I also say, like, of any deck builder I've ever played that has combat involved. So Balatro. Not really, but sort of. I've thought about defense in this game and blocking more than anything else I played, including Monster Train. What was the one that the steamroll quest. Like, I'm usually always like on the offensive. Just kill like it's a numbers game. Take out one enemy this turn, so there's one less enemy that can hurt you. Take out second one, just whittle them down. This game. I've found that my favorite builds are ones that are focused almost entirely around playing defense. So building up my block to negate damage. Damage and then finding those little openings to counter attack, which has. It's very unusual for me. I'm very much an impatient player in these kind of games. I just want to kill people as quickly as possible. And the fact that it's actually getting me out of my comfort zone is really impressive.

[Mary Kish]

Like, yeah, when you lose around because it's like the first game, right. You lose it all and you have to start over. Is that. Is there still like enough rewards to get you to like, want to play that second round and not feel too defensive, Defeated?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh yeah. It's very much a one more turn game. But you'll get an experience meter that once it fills up, it'll go. You'll unlock a new epoch which is like their. It's shown like a timeline of lore, but you're actually unlocking. You'll unlock one, you'll click on it, it'll say it'll give you a little bit of lore bit and then that will actually lead to tangible unlocks, whether it's a new character. Right now in early access, there are only five. I have three of them. The ironclad, the silence. And I cannot remember if the Regent was in the first game. So the triangular head guy in the chair, he might have been. But you're also unlocking like new relics which are the items that are not, you know, they're character agnostic. They're just things you can equip that will have these wide ranging effects. Like one will say like okay, beat five elite enemies and this sword will evolve into something crazy. I still have not evolved it. Or, or hey, you could take this egg, it's not going to do shit until you get to a rest campfire and then hatch it. And then who knows what it's going to be. And then all of a sudden I did hatch it and I had a fucking really powerful bird minion at my side. So I don't think there was a single run. Even the runs where I really just got fucked up early on in like the fifth node and I only filled up the experience meter or I only leveled up like a fifth of the way there. Even then, then there are enough cards that it showed me that I didn't choose for my deck that I'm still so curious about the character I could build with those that I'm ready to jump into a new run ever I play, every time I play it's very, very sticky game. Like I like it quite a bit.

[Dan Riker]

Do you know when it's coming out? Because I, I don't do early access. So like do you know?

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know and I don't either. I read a lot of people saying thing if they didn't know it was early access.

[Dan Riker]

They, I, I, I hear that all the time. But it's like I have always been happy when I've waited and I have been burned when I've gone into early access and so I've just adopted a full on. Like I just don't do early access. Like I understand its value, I understand why it's enticing to go in early and stuff like that. But like just personally I like I, I, I'm very excited about this game, but I'm just not touching. Yeah, it's done.

[Mike Maharti]

I, I had like speaking anecdotally I heard from, I, I said the same thing. I was like people, the people, the same people that were telling me the same people that held out on Hades 2 with me are the people who recommended this game to me. Which is why I was like interesting.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

Which is why I was like all right, I'll go in. And I think the thing here is I could play for

[Dan Riker]

it.

[Mike Maharti]

Feels like I could play it for 30 hours and get my money's worth out of it and feel like I saw what this version has to see.

[Mary Kish]

Or.

[Mike Maharti]

No, sorry, let me rephrase that. I feel like I could play for 30 hours and see a lot of this game, but I still think there'll be so much left in this version that I haven't seen that it doesn't matter that, like, the full launch content is not here, because I don't know how I would still see all the content that's in there right now.

[Dan Riker]

I see. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

So, I mean, yeah, no, it's your prerogative. And like, I. I was pretty dead set on holding out for full launch, but I. I genuinely caved. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm kind of glad I did because I'm. I'm like, I'm stuck on this game. It's. It's great.

[Dan Riker]

It.

[Mike Maharti]

I. Like I said, I played eight hours. Monster Train 2. I talked to Bonk a lot about that game. That was one of my favorite games last year. Like, the. The different permutations of each character I've already built in just eight hours. And I. There's, you know, like, Balatro Monster Train 2. Slay the Spire 1. These games. Games. You see those cards that you never take and you're like, that's not gonna fit my play style. It never will. I'm not that kind of player in this game. Every card I don't take is just enticing enough that I'm like, oh, I'm kind of theory crafting. When I'm like, in the shower or leaving to go out to get lunch or something, I'm like, oh, if I combine that with this.

[Dan Riker]

Huh?

[Mike Maharti]

Or like Mugenics. I was like, oh, I could make my character unstoppable if I did the. If I got these cards. Obviously, Arc RNG is involved with the. The deck aspect makes it random. But, like, my favorite so far is I have one card. Or I. There's certain cards and upgrades you could do with these. Silence. That character. I really like where it's like, okay, you get. There's an A card trait called innate. It just means you start every single combat encounter with that card in your hand, no matter. Matter what. I also got a relic that makes all innate cards cost zero energy, so you literally play them for free. I also got another. I also got a card that I would allow innate cards to deal double damage. The problem with that card is it's not innate, so I won't automatically get it. However, I got to a random encounter where it's just like, oh, you could do this or this or this. And I was like, oh, shit. You could choose a card to grant innate. It's like, oh, my God, I'm killing most enemies in the first hand now, of course, then I get to the boss. It's like, oh, you can only play one card per turn. So it's not like I could throw all eight free cards at them and do 180 damage. So stuff like that. It's. It's just the game is so good already, even in early access of making it feel like there's this iceberg below the surface of this character that I really don't even understand yet. And yeah, I can't say yet whether I like it as much as like, Monster Train 2 is probably my favorite game of that outside of Balatro. I mean, we've said enough about Balatro on this show and everybody else has everywhere. That game's a masterpiece. But like, this game is. I'm already. I'm already digging this game game in. In. In that vein. I like it a lot. But yeah, if you. If you're gonna hold out, keep holding out, because I don't. They'll add more characters. They'll. I'm sure there'll be more cards and

[Dan Riker]

I'm sure I'm gonna be over the moon about it when I play it, but it's like, I do almost like that feeling of, like, when it's out, out, and I started being like, it's all here and it's all done. I also love that you are a

[Mike Maharti]

very different player type than me where, like, I like, feel. Feel like once, you know, you have everything, you like to get everything and try everything as much as possible. I think I burn out a bit before that point. So maybe that's also why I don't mind playing this right now.

[Dan Riker]

For sure.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I haven't even tried the third character I have unlocked, which is the Regent. Yeah, Just excellent game. Reminded me of Hades 2 in the way that there are no major innovations, at least that I'm aware of. I don't remember the first game that much. I remember losing. Loving it. But so many of these games have kind of come and gone since then that it's far in my memory. It just feels like a refinement on every level and in all the minutiae and the details. And it's really well made game. Good job to them.

[Dan Riker]

Good job.

[Mary Kish]

Speaking of, nobody, everybody says this game is supposed to be perfect.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's great. Speaking of good jobs, Dan, Mini Shoot Adventures.

[Dan Riker]

Just real short. I know I probably talked about this.

[Mike Maharti]

Familiar.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it's the one where it's Zelda Geometry Wars.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, we talked about this.

[Mike Maharti]

You like two years ago.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah, it was a while ago and it's on Switch 2 now. So I'm playing it again. Just a reminder. If you don't have a Steam deck or didn't play it back then, get it on Switch 2 or it's on Switch 1. Actually just. It's a breezy fun time. It is just a video game boiled down to the most video game elements. Immediately having fun with it. I. Yeah, it's rare that I. I am very excited to play through a game a second time. I was so ready to do this again as soon as it came.

[Mary Kish]

How much is it on the Switch 2? Because it's. It's like 15 bucks on Steam. Like this is a good price. I assume it's equal across the board.

[Dan Riker]

I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it's worth it.

[Mary Kish]

It'd be weird for them.

[Dan Riker]

$300. It's worth it.

[Mary Kish]

Your sister paid $45 to play this game.

[Dan Riker]

Got six mini chips to play mini ship Adventures. No, it's. It's tremendous. It's. I feel like I say Zelda plus Geometry Wars. Like top down Zelda. Like Link to the past. Original Zelda plus Geometry Wars. If you hear that and it activates your brain the way it does mine, you will not be disappointed. It is a tremendous game.

[Mary Kish]

So it's a very. It's a very fun game. And I remember playing it around the same time as you a couple years ago. And I really. I also really liked it much like a Metroid. You can get lost and be like, I don't know where I'm supposed to go. But you always end up figuring it out. And there's really good upgrades and stuff like that too. Yeah, I'm glad. It's cool that it's on Switch.

[Dan Riker]

Yep. Check it out.

[Mike Maharti]

And what about WWE 2K26?

[Dan Riker]

No bad. It's. Oh no. Like, it's the same serviceable at best wrestling engine that it's been since 22. It's just. It is just a full blown fucking casino now. It is insane. I said this on John Bomb, but it's like, as someone who doesn't play sports games or FIFA or NBA 2K, this whole idea of these billion microtransaction ultimate team card pack things is so alien and gross to me. That, like, I just go into a wrestling video game and I just want to pick my wrestlers and make them fight each other. I'll pick a match type, pick my wrestlers, and to be inundated with 5,000. Get your virtual currencies, get your AAA ringside pass, get this, and then get this super team, and then you can unlock the border for your player icon, and then you can do this. My faction and it is so shitty to me. And it's like, we got over 400 wrestlers. I'm like, oh, great. I can put together all these dream matches and stuff. Nope. Every wrestler you go through, I mean, it's got like a base amount of like the current superstars, but like, oh, I want to pick Kevin Ash or I want to pick this guy from, you know, the attitude era or whatever. He's like, well, you need to get this guy in my rise by getting the super duper pass. And you need. It's just. It is insane. The level of. Of just greedy casino card pack. It is awful. I. I really, really hate it. And even if the game was very, very good, this is so aggressive, it would turn me off. But the game itself is middling at best. And it's just, I. I have no time for this horseshit. I. I love wrestling. I love video games. This makes me hate both of them.

[Mary Kish]

Me and Cash Game Grab every time.

[Mike Maharti]

I like. I think I have a good understanding and grasp on the video game industry. I'll see that, like FIFA ultimate, before they dropped the name, made $7 billion in 2022. And I'm like, I don't understand people's habits at all. Who's playing this? And Obviously I know FIFA's big on a. It was big on a level that, like, we. We can't comprehend.

[Dan Riker]

NBA 2K. That's more like. People watch basketball in this country and like, I'm sure those people are all over this country and spending a bunch of money on this. And I don't know who these people are. It seems it's. Is it just a few whales that are keeping this thing up and making billions?

[Mary Kish]

The NFL, like, coach simulator games that are like exploding. People love sports.

[Dan Riker]

Really.

[Mary Kish]

My God, Coach Sims are huge.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I don't mean. I'm surprised that many people like playing sports games. I'm surprised there's that many people spending money in Ultimate Team on these cards that generates $7 billion in a year.

[Dan Riker]

It's nuts. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. It's crazy. I don't know.

[Dan Riker]

It doesn't seem like I like, I. Every ad I see. Now is for some gambling thing now. And it's just like this feels like gambling. It's like, shit. Apparently gambling's real popular these days.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. Oh, God, I hate it. It's ruining the viewing experience for my Golden State Warriors.

[Mary Kish]

Gambling's been in games for a really long time and it's just one of those like edge cases where I don't really have a problem with loot boxes and things like that. I just think that there is level of greed that we are rewarding game companies when they are making this amount of money where we're like, oh, I think we're learning the wrong lessons here.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah. Don't like it. No, I don't either. But. Mary, what's Creature Kitchen?

[Mary Kish]

Creature Kitchen?

[Mike Maharti]

Is it at all old timey? Like it was in my head, it

[Mary Kish]

kind of has a weird vibe. I'm really, I'm trying to describe it, but it's a strange, strange game. Surreal, I'm gonna say. It's like a sci fi otherworldly universe game where you go to a cabin in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods. It's dark, but it's not too creepy. But it has an eerie vibe to it.

[Dan Riker]

It's making me think of mouthwashing a little bit. Just like that weird kind of low poly vibe, you know, low, low vibes.

[Mike Maharti]

What was the, what was the game? Fred is watching or Fred. Oh yeah, like last year. No, no, no, no, sorry. He's looking in. He's. He's looking in the window. Was that it? No, he was looking at Mary, you

[Mary Kish]

talked about he look outside.

[Mike Maharti]

Yes, that's what it reminds me of.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. I, I think that this game is, is cozier than it looks. On the onset you might be like, oh, is this like a creepy game with ghosts and like there are like weird ethereal creatures out there. But check this. You need to take a photo of them on a Polaroid. If you can successfully get a photo of them, your secret book will tell you the foods that they like. And then you go into your kitchen, you make foods with the stuff that's in your pantry and you, you find more food as the game goes on. But you make these. Like, you'll make a dish like macaroni and cheese or a cheese sandwich. Simple ones at first. You give them to the creatures, they'll give you a key to unlock new pantry doors, to give you more ingredients. Ingredients so you can find more animals and make more food for Them. And that's the game. You guys eat it at night.

[Dan Riker]

It sounds like. What was it? Clover Pit. But instead of like playing a slot machine so you don't die, it sounds like you're just stuck in the kitchen with a bunch of raccoons.

[Mary Kish]

Keep bringing up really scary games. This game is so. It's not scary, but it has. I did get. I actually postal a couple times. Postal. It's a. I consider this a very wholesome game. You'll. You'll run across a ghost by the Rat Zone. The Rat Zone made this game. They're killing.

[Mike Maharti]

They self published. It does look. It's a compelling looking game and I

[Dan Riker]

want to play it overwhelmingly positive on steam.

[Mary Kish]

It's very cute, you guys. I was, I was surprised at what a delightful experience. I'm so glad you guys are doing this.

[Mike Maharti]

No, no, not because you're right. Someone else recommended me. I've been mean to get it for a while.

[Dan Riker]

Mike, was it you that told me about Creature Kitchen?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I think so.

[Dan Riker]

I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get it.

[Mike Maharti]

I was telling you, like how I say Creature Kitchen.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, I'm downloading it now.

[Mike Maharti]

You gotta try it out. Try it out. It's. I promise it's cozy. It's. It's cozy. Creepy.

[Dan Riker]

You love your cozy game.

[Mike Maharti]

There's a. There's a. There's a cute raccoon and you could just sit with your friends and take it all in.

[Dan Riker]

That's a good impression.

[Mary Kish]

That is what I was gonna say.

[Mike Maharti]

Sorry.

[Dan Riker]

This looks really good.

[Mike Maharti]

Thank you.

[Mary Kish]

For the record, both of you, I think it's. I think it's a delightful game. I was surprised. And you can beat it in about a night. So like, again, I, I think you could beat this in like five, six hours. I don't know, depending on how good. How good at games you are. And also the kitchen stuff, stuff has chopping, it has like blending. It's a funky kitchen. It's a magical kitchen. So if you're making like, I don't know, guacamole, for example, you'll put like an avocado and mix it with salt in a mixer and that makes guac. Obviously there's more to it, but that's enough for the game. And then if you put that in the oven with nachos, it makes nachos. So it's like, it bends the rules of cooking. You don't actually have to like be a good kitchen person to figure this out, but it's just enough that makes it exciting to Make a dish.

[Dan Riker]

It's good on Steam Deck.

[Mary Kish]

Yes, it is.

[Dan Riker]

Okay, I'm in.

[Mary Kish]

I liked it. I'm glad. I'm glad that you guys are interested in it. I felt like this was a hidden. To me. I felt like this was a hidden gem. I hadn't heard too many people talk about this, but I really like it.

[Mike Maharti]

Only fucking 26, 37 of them giving it positive reviews.

[Mary Kish]

I. I mean, I would say it's no marathon or whatever you guys are talking about.

[Mike Maharti]

No.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. I'm probably gonna like this more than marathon.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I want to play this. The. Okay. The. In the video on Steam, the. The way the. The crow was flying toward the front porch toward like the. The PL player. And to land, he just like crashed on his chest and then got up as if he was fine.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, there's like chopping carrots, mini games and sliding. This is some warioware I like.

[Mary Kish]

You have to flip the pan if you. So when you cook like an egg, you have to successfully flip the pan to cook the egg. And if you don't, you burn it, then you have to throw it out and. And get a new egg.

[Mike Maharti]

I saw you playing this on stream. I saw the egg thing and you completely it up.

[Mary Kish]

I. I'm actually not great at cooking eggs and flipping them in this game, and it was a bit frustrating, but I figured it out over time. But yeah, you make all sorts of fuse boxes, puzzles. You keep. Oh, there's little puzzles throughout. You'll be like, what's this plot of Grant Ground? And it looks like maybe I might need to, like, do some planting. Like, they keep giving you little. There's little puzzles throughout. I only got stuck once. There was one puzzle that I like, I. I got really stuck on. But everything else, I figured it out and I felt really smart when you. When you to it. And yeah, there's like little ghosts and stuff, but they're not too creepy, but they'll. They might surprise you.

[Mike Maharti]

There's like a little, like an underground network of pantries.

[Mary Kish]

It looks like there's. It's essentially an endless barbarian.

[Mike Maharti]

Basically, it's an endless pantry.

[Mary Kish]

And there is a. There is like a pantry being as well. So you like, hopefully you can find them. That's right.

[Mike Maharti]

Sounds like the back room's shit.

[Mary Kish]

There's secrets everywhere. It's. It's cute. You'll see, like, the book contains a lot of secrets for you to know.

[Dan Riker]

Know.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I've never seen this creature in person before. And yeah, I don't want to give it away because it's a very long game.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, I'm in. I'm playing this.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, good. I think you guys will like it.

[Mike Maharti]

Speaking of cozy games, Mary, you have. Don't spoil anything, because I have not played it yet. But you finished Resident Evil Requiem.

[Mary Kish]

I will not spoil it. I just wanted to let you both know because the last time we were here, Dan, you had beaten it and reviewed it and I had only played. Played, I want to say, like, nine hours of it. I have completed the game. I think it's phenomenal. It might be my favorite. Resident Evil. Yeah, I think it's just that damn good. I really don't have a lot of issues with it. I will say the front half is just by far my favorite part, but I think the second half is funny. And there's like a real fun, like, motorcycle, motorcycle sequence where you're, like, chasing people and there's a lot of action. It has a lot of nods to earlier Resident Evils, which I appreciate and respect. And I even think, like, the final boss fight was pretty fun. So I won't get into it, but I just want to let you guys know, I just. I think it's fantastic and I. I can't wait. I can't wait to experience it again, which I know I will. I'll play it again. But. Yeah. Very good. Very good.

[Dan Riker]

It is such a fun one when you play through, like, it's incredible. Play through your first time and then like to watch people knowing what's coming up. So, like, I've been watching Kayla stream it. I've been bonks playing it. So I've been like, you know, if I'm walking up and I see she's playing, I'm sitting on the couch, I'm like, oh, I know what's coming up here. And seeing her react to it. And we talk about it a ton, me and her, and it's so cool that, like, every time she feels like she's like, just barely scraping by, it's like, she has no health items. She has one bullet. There's three fucking zombies in that hallway. How the fuck am I going to get through there? The game is so good at writing that line of always keeping as grace, specifically of, like, keeping you like, how the fuck am I supposed to do this? I'm fucking dead. And, like, yet you always are progressing and it's doing some voodoo in the background where it's like, making it all work. And, like, whether it's like, give any more ammo if you've died a Few times or making that thing a little less.

[Mary Kish]

They're kind to you, but it's secret.

[Dan Riker]

Secret the way they're not in your face at all. And it's like you will always progress. There's not a lot of, like banging your head against the thing. And I've died here 10 times in a row. Like, it is pulling whatever strings it's been doing in the background in a very subtle way that, like, just the pacing, the difficulty it is. This is a masterful fucking game.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. The amount of detail as well, that they've done, even with little things if. I guess I was learning, if you stay in the save room long enough, you unload your weapon because you're not using it. And then if you leave the save room, you reload your weapon. And it's just a custom animation that they made for 0.5.01% of the player base that would sit in the waiting room for that long. But to me, that's a good example of, like, these devs put a lot of energy into the behind the scenes. The animation styles, the story. It's all very calculated. It's very plotted out. This, like you said, this is a masterclass. This is a highly refined experience. They thought about everything thing and there's some really good throwbacks that I can't wait for you to experience. Mike. It's a. It's a fantastic game. So, yeah, really, really happy with. When I rolled credits and there's a couple of different credit sequences and.

[Dan Riker]

Did you get the bad.

[Mary Kish]

I did.

[Dan Riker]

This isn't a spoiler, but, boy, the bad one. It's like, I think I got the bad ending.

[Mary Kish]

It's. It's. Yeah, I was.

[Mike Maharti]

You did.

[Dan Riker]

It's insane. Well, you can immediately. It tells you. It's like you can go back and try something else if you want to.

[Mary Kish]

Do you want to try again? It's up to you. And it's just like, I think I. I'm amazed they even let you roll credits. I'm surprised. It's not like you lose, but it. It like literally lets you roll credits.

[Dan Riker]

It's kind of nuts. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

But anyway, I can't wait to play it. I'm holding off. I'll play at some point soon. Ish. Maybe not.

[Mary Kish]

Yep. I think there's a lot on our plates, especially with all the travel, but definitely can't wait for. For you to experience it and for us to talk about it.

[Mike Maharti]

Same. You want to talk about emails?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

Get that Amex gold card ready. I'm too tired to cook.

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[Mike Maharti]

All right, as a reminder, you can run into firescapecastmail.com for questions to be read on the show. Got a bunch of good ones since the last episode. Thank you. In fact, this email section is quite the roller coaster, so let's dive right in. Mary, do you want to read this first one from Ollie?

[Mary Kish]

I also want me to read this first. Yeah, all right. How dare you. Hey, Day one listener. Big fan of y'.

[Dan Riker]

All.

[Mary Kish]

Deal breaker scenario. If you're with the perfect partner in every way imaginable, but they have to have sex with you every single day, and they have to constantly talk like Scooby Doo during it, and you have to go along with it.

[Mike Maharti]

It.

[Mary Kish]

Do you think you would survive asking for a friend? Ali from Toronto P S? When you finish, they yell, ruh Ro.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I'd survive surviving.

[Dan Riker]

Certainly request that. Trying to think we're all fantasy. We're all happily trothed. Is that the word? So I'm trying to picture before that, okay, let's say I'm. I'm 18. Mean, I'm looking to meet someone. I don't have a girlfriend or anything. And this is the situation. It's just like a marriage scenario thing. Way back to when I'm a young man looking to meet someone and things like that. You know, get a girlfriend and all that. I'm trying to think, is this like, are we looking for marriage material or are we just doing. Is this just a Xenia on a top situation?

[Mike Maharti]

What do you mean? Is it. What. What do you mean?

[Dan Riker]

Like, are we looking for Mary and stuff? Or is it just like sheer lust?

[Mary Kish]

Xenia Anatops, you're basically saying that you could do it for a certain period of time, but you probably wouldn't want to marry this individual. But if you were to date this person, you could bang them every day.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, but even if everything was perfect and it was a marriage and be with them every day thing, I don't think that's the worst fate.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know that everything would be perfect. If they're speaking like a cartoon mystery solving dog every time we have sex every day.

[Dan Riker]

I don't want it. But it's like, is that the most important thing in the world?

[Mike Maharti]

I kind of want it. No, you don't want no part of the Dan kind of.

[Dan Riker]

I think I kind of want it. I. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

If I'm. If I'm imparting this on my wife, it's pretty funny. But I.

[Dan Riker]

It.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it would be odd if she said rut row every time I.

[Dan Riker]

Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.

[Mary Kish]

I would say, what if, like when you like whip it out and she's like, re.

[Mike Maharti]

Like, come get your Scooby snacks that squawk.

[Dan Riker]

None of this is setting a mood I want in there. No, no.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you have to like, separate your mind into two different pieces. It reminds me of like that scene from Scary Movie where there's like a gross scary monster that comes out from the shadows, but she's got a banging body. And then like, it just shows him a scene later having sex with her and he just puts a bag on

[Dan Riker]

her head, like, oh, sure, sure.

[Mary Kish]

Don't you think you just put some headphones and.

[Mike Maharti]

So you're telling me I need to dissociate during sex or, like, cover up

[Mary Kish]

that one component ball gag?

[Dan Riker]

I think that's against the spirit. I think that's against the spirit. I think it needs.

[Mike Maharti]

I don't know.

[Mary Kish]

I don't have to embrace that freaky shit. I can add my own freaky shit and beat their freaky shit to the punch.

[Dan Riker]

Now you're getting Scooby Doo whispers in your ear. You know, like, these are the sweet nothings here.

[Mike Maharti]

Which movie was. It was a scary movie, you said?

[Mary Kish]

I think it's the first one. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's an iconic.

[Dan Riker]

I've seen that movie back when it came out and I. I don't remember this, but I completely believe that. That sounds like the most scary movie joke I can imagine.

[Mary Kish]

It's an iconic, like, sequence. He's. It's the. I think it's. Yeah, one of the Wayans. And he's like, it's a creepy, ghosty monster. And her face, she's got a tongue that's really long and up.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

But her body is incredible. And when he sees it, he's like, oh. And. And like. Yeah, I think a couple scenes later they're doing it and he just put a bag over her head. Like, I think you could. I could see myself wearing headphones and dealing with a really great partner in life and love and being like, I can handle all of this, but I am gonna put in my headphones.

[Dan Riker]

Don't you think that would hurt the feelings of your partner?

[Mary Kish]

It's just like, they have to compromise. That's marriage, I guess.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And they're weird. And like, I would. I would openly say, I love you very much. And like, let's get it on. Now it's time for the headphones and your ball gag.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. There's none of that Scooby Doo shit.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I mean, they can do it. They can try, but they have to get past the ball gag and my noise proof headphones and, you know, all the other stuff I have going on in my ears. Good luck.

[Dan Riker]

It's a weird situation going on in there.

[Mary Kish]

Well, I would embrace it in that sense. Like, I would accept them, but I would.

[Dan Riker]

So, yeah, none of us are in. Deal break breaker.

[Mary Kish]

No, I don't think it's a deal breaker. I think there's like, worse things that you could experience.

[Dan Riker]

Way worse way.

[Mary Kish]

There's a lot of real miserable people out there.

[Dan Riker]

Lack of common interests, you know, different values and. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Or just like a meanie. Like a person who's not nice or like a bad person, alcoholic or something like that saying, ruh row when you come. It's like, I can work around.

[Dan Riker]

It's a quirk. It's a quirk.

[Mary Kish]

It reminds me, I'll be fine. I love him. I love you, baby.

[Mike Maharti]

There's the fucking Jackie Gleason having sex with Scooby Doo. I remember in college, I'm not going to say which year because I would out them. One of my. Not out them, but one of my roommates, we overheard him with a woman and we discovered that when it's about to happen, what he says is, here it comes. That's his.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's it now that's a deal breaker.

[Dan Riker]

Is he trying to be funny or is that just what his, like, you know, lizard brain says?

[Mike Maharti]

At the time, he didn't know we had gotten home and we heard him in, in the room. It's no, I'm a shoot, but it's

[Dan Riker]

kind of in the same discussion there.

[Mary Kish]

Here it comes.

[Mike Maharti]

All right. Well, thank you, Ollie. Dan, do you want to read this one from Cold Stare?

[Dan Riker]

Yes. I'm sure we've all seen something not hit our expectations or fail. And you ask yourself how those in charge could fuck up that badly. Obviously you knew better. And if only those people in charge had access to the knowledge you hold in your head, it would be so simple. Are there any media properties, whether movies, music, or games, that you think could improve if you were put in charge? Cheers. K Holdstar. I think Twisted Metal and I think Star Fox are two series that I deeply loved at a certain time. Actually kind of around the same period of the, the mid to late 90s and maybe early 2000s that both lost their way going past the first couple entries. And I, I think I, I, I think I have a good idea of, like, what made those early games work and what made the later ones not work. And I think there are just some very basic things that, like, if I could be, like, a creative director, I could make those better.

[Mary Kish]

You know, I have a bit of a hubris to me and, and I feel, I love those. I think that I believe you. I actually, like, can we just all pretend that we have, like, an actual mind for this and could do it? Like, I'm not a designer, I'm not a director. I believe pretty strongly that I could fix the Silent Hill movies, the Resident Evil movies, and the Dune movies. They do need to be fixed.

[Mike Maharti]

See the Dune movies. You don't like the Dune movies?

[Mary Kish]

Doom.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, Doom.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh. I was like, okay, I didn't even know you read the Dune books.

[Mary Kish]

Dune. Doom with the rock. Dune with the rock. I believe I can fix that. I, I think that they just misunderstand the content. I think there was a really annoying producer or, like, owner in the space that was like, I think I know what Resident Evil needs, and it needs, like, a hot lady with a bunch of guns. And they weren't wrong, but I just think they, like, fucked up all of the other material and went the wrong direction with the Resident Evil franchise films. And I do think that we could make such a good movie with the original source material.

[Mike Maharti]

The barbarian director now and weapons director is doing the next Resident Evil.

[Mary Kish]

I'm hoping. I'm hoping. And they called me, and I think that the two of us together, I'm gonna really knock it out of the park.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I'm. I'm genuinely hoping. His interview he gave, where he was saying, like, the thing that all the other directors, like, forget is that, like, it's survival horror. So I really want to, like, convey the horror of, like, being low on supplies but knowing you need to go into a zombie infested basement and stuff like that. So I'm like, all right. Seems like he knows what he's doing.

[Dan Riker]

The, like, Keith feeling of Resident Evil.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

He's so smart. And he went back in time 4,000 years, put a GoPro in Raccoon City so that you can actually see the whole thing.

[Dan Riker]

Everything, time. That's smart.

[Mary Kish]

And he put the Twin Towers in it.

[Dan Riker]

Symbolism.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, symbolism. Symbolism.

[Mike Maharti]

I think I could do a better job of managing the Golden State Warriors. For sure.

[Dan Riker]

I. Mike, I don't know if I've ever heard you talk about the Golden State warriors. And this is the third separate time you brought.

[Mike Maharti]

Is this a no? I like the Warriors a lot. I just don't talk about them to you guys because I know it would fall on deaf ears.

[Dan Riker]

That's fair. Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

But I've also been thinking about we're going to see them on Sunday.

[Dan Riker]

Okay.

[Mike Maharti]

That's probably why I'm going to see them. Finally.

[Dan Riker]

I see.

[Mary Kish]

I can't believe you didn't say, like, you feel like you could have made, like, a Chablis better than they do.

[Mike Maharti]

Do it then.

[Mary Kish]

Who? I don't know, Ravino.

[Mike Maharti]

I'm not gonna make a better Chablis than Raveno. That's. That's like saying I'm gonna make a fucking better Strand Game than Hideo Kojima.

[Mary Kish]

No, I could give him a run for his money.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, there's some. There's some. There are some chateaus there that I could. Some producers. I could probably out Chablis for sure. I won't. I won't not say I could, but not, like, the top places.

[Mary Kish]

Not the top places.

[Mike Maharti]

No. I gotta make a Barolo better than Cano Mascarello.

[Dan Riker]

Are these Golden State Warriors? Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Those basketballs talk still.

[Dan Riker]

Okay. I'm so lost.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know you are.

[Mary Kish]

And here comes Mascarello.

[Mike Maharti]

Guapo passes to Mascarello, and Cantero with the three. Oh, my God. Louis Roderer with the slam dunk.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's exactly what they sound like.

[Mike Maharti]

Is that V. Clico at the free throw line. Nebiolo. Okay, I'm, yeah, no, I, I, I also think I could probably do a better job. What's like a video game franchise Franchise that has lost its way. Zelda has lost its way.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, sure.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

It's a real downtime.

[Mike Maharti]

Better than, yeah. Breath of the Wild, Tears of the

[Dan Riker]

Kingdom, tweak a couple of things.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, yeah, I could probably do a better job of what's. It was like a TV show.

[Dan Riker]

I feel like Terminator lost its way big time. But like, they're in a rough spot right now because it's like Terminator 1 and 2. Two very different vibes, but it nailed both of them. Every one of them passed the. Then just totally missed what made 1 and 2 great. But the thing.

[Mary Kish]

Do you think you could, do you think you could solve it?

[Dan Riker]

I think that's what makes Terminator especially hard is like you could go in there with the best of intentions and try to do just like kind of that horror of the first one of this thing that will not stop until you're dead or kind of the big budget, you know, crazy spectacle of two. But no matter how good of intentions you are and how much of a budget you have and how good of a writer you have, it's an Arnold problem. Problem because he is so iconic that like, that is why once he was post governor and everything, like, you know, Genesis and dark Fate and stuff, they kept bringing him back because it's like you talk about a actor who is tied to a role inextricably. I don't think even the best written and directed, remake or, or reimagining of Terminator would work if it's not Arnold,

[Mary Kish]

you know, you don't think so. You don't think there's any other actor that you could like, be like, this new Terminator has a different look.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, I guess it could be done. I don't, I still think it's like, Arnold's alive. I think maybe like 20 years from now with like a new generation that doesn't really know about Arnold or anything.

[Mary Kish]

You don't have to wait until he croaks. You just get a younger, hotter man.

[Dan Riker]

The Terminator.

[Mary Kish]

Now it happens to women.

[Dan Riker]

Timothy Chalamet, Marty Supreme Terminator style. I would totally watch that.

[Mike Maharti]

I can see Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Dick doing it.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, that'd be kind of cool, actually. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

So I still find it funny that I'd never seen Terminator 2 when I first met you and then flash forward a month and I had seen it six times. I still have not seen it.

[Dan Riker]

Was it all with me?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. I still have not seen the first movie.

[Dan Riker]

Really?

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, you spent all those times shoving two down my throat, which I enjoyed.

[Dan Riker]

I mean, I know the difference.

[Mike Maharti]

I know it's much grittier and scarier,

[Dan Riker]

but I think you would have appreciate it. It's like. And I've appreciated more as I've gotten older and watched it more. It is like it's doing some really cool shit.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I want to watch it. I just put it off for so long now. It's this looming specter now.

[Mary Kish]

I haven't weird.

[Dan Riker]

I'm watching Sopranos. You watch Terminator?

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, true. Okay, I will. Well, thank you. That's a good question.

[Mary Kish]

I feel like there's more answers to that. It's just like, those are the ones that we have. But I actually think we could answer this exact same question again with more thought and be like, I could fix this, but I could fix this song. I could fix this. You know what I mean? I think there's lots of media where it'd be like, with my hubris, I think I could be like, I think I could do it marathon.

[Dan Riker]

Let's get rid of this extraction shit and just give me a fucking campaign.

[Mary Kish]

We do it every week. Yeah, that's actually what the podcast is.

[Mike Maharti]

All right, thank you. Cold Sarah. Next one. Hi, I'm Morgan from the San Francisco Bay area. I almost bled to death recently and it was bonkers. But not nearly as scary or painful as I thought a near death experience would would be. Honestly, the worst of it was they didn't let me eat for three days post surgery. I was super pissed off. So what's the worst thing that's happened to you that was much less terrifying than your imagination made it out to be?

[Mary Kish]

That's terrifying. I'm glad they're okay.

[Dan Riker]

I'll say in a non horrifying version of this. I think a lot of people are afraid. A lot of people are afraid of. And I think all three of us can relate to this. The idea of moving away from your hometown. I think a lot of people get very intimidated by. By that. It's like, this is where I grew up, this is where my family is, this is where my friends are and things like that. And like, you know, it was 09, I moved up here to Minneapolis and I did this numerous times since then. And it is, it is a scary concept, but like, I don't know, move for a reason, you know, let there be like a job or something that brings you out, you'll meet people, you'll find a new life and things like that. You can always go back. It's. It is a terrifying thing to a lot of people. And then I have found it to be like, I haven't regretted a single move I've ever done. Like, it's. They've all had their mostly ups. Like, really. Even, like, I didn't love Connecticut, but it was an important part of my life. I don't like San Francisco as a city, but, like, that was a super critical part of my life and everything. So it's like, I've never regretted a move for a moment. So take the plunge. Make the move. Even if it sounds scary, you know? Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

Looking back, it's like, crazy that I was not more afraid moving to the opposite coast by myself when I was, like, 22. But sure, yeah, it worked out. I wouldn't be living here right now if I didn't go there first, I don't think.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. My alternative is way scarier where it's like, there's so many people that just like. Well, they've never lived outside of this county they grew up in, and that's just where they're always going to be. It's like, well, that just sounds boring as hell.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, I. Yeah, I'm a big proponent of if you can get out and travel or move or see more of the world, then I feel like. Like, it's almost a responsibility. If you can. Not everybody can. No, there's financial or, like, family ties keeping you or, like, health issues, etc. But if you can, I think it's. It's. It's well worth pursuing mine. Mine are lower stakes. When I was younger, I was, like, terrified of dancing publicly, like, at weddings and stuff. I was, oh, like, that's. That's mine. It's like, oh, once I started actually just. Just, like, giving up the idea that the whole room was watching me and, like, acknowledging that everybody was just. The whole point was to make a fool yourself and have fun and let go. Like, oh, man, I love it.

[Dan Riker]

Now, that's such a weird thing because it's like that is this thing that is left over in my brain from that, like, super, like, anxious, awkward, you know, high school kid that was afraid I'm gonna make a fool out of myself. And now, like, that made sense when you're an awkward, like, high schooler. Now I'm coming. I've done 22 years or whatever of making a fool out of myself publicly for a Living. Living. And I still have this leftover thing in my brain where it's like, I can't dance. I don't know what I'm doing.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Riker]

It's gonna be, you know, like, I don't know why I still have that thing. And I'm not just out there just having a blast and being a goofball, you know?

[Mike Maharti]

You guys were at my wedding. I was making a fool of myself more than anybody, but, like. Like, a lot of people were dancing and stuff. Like, it. That's. I. I have a lot of fun doing it now. I'm not a good dancer, but similar thing with, like, Cario. I was terrified of doing that at first, but then, of course, like, Amanda and I have done a few duets recently at, like, parties. The wine bar party we did. We did Talking Heads. Surprise. It's always terrifying on the way up. Then you're up there. It's like, oh, the whole room's singing with you, and nobody there is. Are good singers. Unless you work for Gamespot. And there's, like, six people who are professional singers making everybody else look bad at the post E3 party. But outside of that, it's. It's the public stuff. Public speaking, rather, in person. Like, I got over my fear of public speaking pretty early on, but it was definitely terrifying at first. But I feel like that's most people's biggest fear.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Yeah. That's extremely universal.

[Mike Maharti]

But, yeah, similarly, dancing into karaoke and just like performing in front of people was, once I did it, I was like, oh, it's actually really freeing and therapeutic.

[Mary Kish]

I think those are both really wholesome examples of things that are, like, scary to so many people.

[Dan Riker]

People.

[Mary Kish]

Mine is not death, but it is, like, something that truly scared me when I was learning how to scuba dive, which I was terrified that if something went wrong under the water, that I would literally die down there. And my biggest fear was that something would go wrong with my oxygen or my. What's it called? The regulator. The. The piece that goes in your mouth. What happens when your mouth is full of water? How do you get rid of it? That's so scary. And so we practice in a pool, and they teach you that there's, like, a button you can press, and it. It pushes a bunch of air in your mouth so that you can essentially open your mouth underwater. And it just puts so much air in your mouth that it's okay, and it'll push out all the water and you can keep going. But when you are being pushed underwater and what happened to Me, at least the very first time I ever scuba dove, scuba dived was I couldn't sink, and so he held my vest and started sinking and dragging me down to the depths of the.

[Dan Riker]

Was this Mike trying to kill you and you couldn't tell?

[Mary Kish]

In retrospect, I don't think I knew you scuba dove. I don't. I'm no longer certified, but I learned when I was, like, 24, you know, it was a long time ago, and I was so terrified of this experience. And I had, like, maybe even had, like, dreams or nightmares of, like, what happens if I can't breathe down there? Like, you can't just swim to the top, right?

[Dan Riker]

You.

[Mary Kish]

You will hurt yourself, and you will. You will pass out and probably die. You have to figure it out. So when I got down there, as it happens, it is bound to happen. This is why you practice in a pool. My mouth got a bunch of water in it. My mouth got water in it, and I need. Needed to. I needed to expunge with the. With the regulator. And I got. My heart was, like, pacing, and I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. If I don't do this right, I'll fucking die. You push the button, the air gets. Pushes all the water out of your mouth. And I was fine, and I had a really good experience. And the scuba instructor checked my oxygen and was like, wow, it's pretty low, so we're gonna slowly go back up. And I was like, okay, okay. That's also a nightmare situation. It was fine. We had more than 15 minutes of oxygen. We slowly made our way back up, and it was a great experience that I get to have for the rest of my life, and I'm really glad that I did it. I'd be down with doing scuba diving again. But I will say, like, for people who probably think about this, it is absolutely a nightmare scenario of what happens when your regulator doesn't work or if you get a bunch of water in your. Your mouth. But they are. As long as you keep your shit together. If you don't panic, they have. They have buttons and systems to get you to solve small problems like that. And they're prepared for you, but that's why. That's why they make you do so much training in the pool, because if you panic, that's how you die.

[Mike Maharti]

Have I told you my story about my test, my certification test? It was in March 2015 in Lake Skinny Atlas. It's a very, very deep. It's one of the Finger Lakes, so it's very deep. Still very cold in March. And we are in our dry suits. And you know the joke. It's like, what's the worst time to have a heart attack? Is during a game of charades.

[Dan Riker]

I was.

[Mike Maharti]

We were at the bottom, and we had to show that we knew how to do all the hand signals to show that your oxygen was out or you needed something. And these hand signals. Oh, it's thunder. Sorry. These hand signals are to tell your partner that your diving buddy that, yeah, you need their primary tube. Scuba diving, you got. Your primary tube comes directly from the tank over your shoulder. And the longer one, you got a secondary one that's strapped to your bc. The buoyancy. Buoyancy.

[Mary Kish]

That way you can help someone. In case your regulator goes down. Everybody has two. Like a parachute, you get two. Just in case.

[Mike Maharti]

So during the part where we had to do the hand signal to tell our buddy that we were out of air or our primary tube wasn't working, turns out my. Something in my primary tube actually did freeze. So it wasn't like I got a lot of water in my mouth. Like, the tube actually stopped working. And I was. I want to say, 50ft below the surface. And so I'm, like, doing the thing I was doing that you get their attention, then you do this. And then he. The instructor saw me. He's like, yeah, and good job. And by this point. But, okay, so by this point, like, I was like, oh, wait a minute, Right. I have the secondary right here, so pull it up. And that was working. It's not as comfortable because it's tight to the vest. So you're kind of like. So he saw me do that, and he's like, oh, shit. His. His is actually fucked. So I. My buddy swam over and actually gave me his primary, so that was much more comfortable. So, like, the idea is you get the primary, you get the breath there, and then you go back up slowly. We weren't down far enough where we were ever gonna get, like, the bends if we went up too quickly. But that was definitely, like, a bad time to have problems was during the test where you're trying to show that you can hypothetically convey that you're having problems. I love scuba diving.

[Dan Riker]

Scuba diving, to me, it's like, I. I'm big on, like, overcoming fears and stuff like that, and I am afraid of the idea of scuba diving, but I kind of also need to know that there's something I'm excited about on the other end. And, like, I don't have, like, a desire to scare scuba Like, I've had desires to skydive, and that's why I've done that like, seven times outside of, you know, despite my fears of it, scuba diving, I don't really.

[Mary Kish]

You want to hang out with the fishes, like, in there.

[Dan Riker]

There's other ways to see fish.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, it's. It's like a. Like a pretty ethereal experience. Like, being down exploring, especially, like a lake that deep. It was like, there's stuff that's been

[Mary Kish]

down the coral and into caves, waves and stuff.

[Dan Riker]

I bet it is awesome. I bet if I did it, I would love it. But it's like, I think there is a combination of, like, you're exploring the stuff you're talking about. And also, like, I think that definitely triggers the anxiety type thing. I talk about, like, not being able to get out a movie theater row.

[Mary Kish]

You cannot easily leave the bottom of a deep ocean. Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

I think that is really intimidating to me.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's really fair. I wouldn't recommend it for you. I really could. Could not.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah. Problem.

[Mike Maharti]

You're coming from the other end.

[Dan Riker]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Riker]

But you can't undo it either.

[Mary Kish]

Like, if you panic in the ocean, you can genuinely hurt yourself by being like, I'm going up. And like, swimming up without an instructor.

[Dan Riker]

No matter what they trained me to do, if I had a panic attack at the bottom of the ocean, I would be sprinting to the surface.

[Mike Maharti]

We're not at the bottom of the ocean to be clear.

[Mary Kish]

The bottom of the ocean.

[Dan Riker]

I'm going as fast as. As I can.

[Mary Kish]

You also can't sprint to the top. You would be swimming, and you can't swim if you swim that fast. Like, I think you. You can, like, get really sick. You can pass out. Like, all these bad things happen to you.

[Dan Riker]

Then I'm grabbing a. The closest turtle, Mario 64 style. And I'm just pointing it up and I'm going, like, as fast.

[Mary Kish]

And he goes. He goes. He goes back down because he's like, dude, let's go tubular. And then you're like, what brings you

[Mike Maharti]

you on this fine day to the eac? It's the

[Dan Riker]

slow.

[Mike Maharti]

He's like, guap master.

[Mary Kish]

Like, Turtle's like, you guys are like, testing out your gear and stuff and you. Your regulator isn't working.

[Dan Riker]

It's.

[Mary Kish]

That's exactly the hand signal you should use, dude.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah, you pointed them like poly walnuts. Like, hey, Toad, do you hear me? I just said his respirator's not working. Okay, well, thank you, Morgan. Forgot your name for a second because I Didn't have the email up. All right, well, that's our emails, all three of them. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you, Cole, Sarah. Thank you, Ollie. You can Write into firescapecast gmail.com. got a bunch since last episode but keep them coming. Keep that inbox. German Earthy. We are gonna be back in a rock roll. Here it comes.

[Mary Kish]

Why do you Here it comes.

[Mike Maharti]

We're gonna be back in a couple weeks. You can go to fire escapecast.com if you're not a patron. You want to get ad free episodes or the bonus version of these episodes. You can also just treat like a tip jar if you appreciate what we do. You can also get fire escape merch at fire escape merch.com I think. If not, you can just search fire escape on fourth wall. Get some shirts, get some water bottles, get some bikinis, get those keen. Get those keens ready for the summer. We're almost a kid season. I want to see you in your banana hams and your. Your sweet little keens. We'll be. We'll be keeping an eye out we'll be keeping an eye out on those nude beaches for those keens flying off into the. Into the salty multi surf. Mary, what do you have going on?

[Mary Kish]

A lot of travel, so we'll be really busy. It's exciting. It's a wonderful upcoming amount of stuff. I'm going to south by Southwest. I'm gonna miss a couple streams. I do love streaming on Mondays, but I'll be doing south by Southwest in Austin. I'll be doing New Orleans for my B day and I will be doing Boston for pax East. Both hacks and south by Southwest have Twitch parties. Consider looking them up on meetups. Twitch tv. I go to all those. They're really fun and I'll be there if you want to say hi.

[Mike Maharti]

Dan, what about you?

[Dan Riker]

I [e-mail] doing a lot of great stuff over there. Blake Club. I should be playing soon, so check that out. I'm doing a lot of the same travel Mary's doing actually, and then possibly a mysterious travel beyond on that. So keeping busy, having fun. So yeah, joinbomb.com is the main thing.

[Mike Maharti]

Sweet.

[Dan Riker]

The whole Sekiro playthrough is on my YouTube if you want to.

[Mike Maharti]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't ask about that during the game section.

[Dan Riker]

One of the greatest games I've ever played. One of my favorite gaming experiences I've ever had. I'm so glad I did it. I beat the demon of hatred. I beat Isshin I did the whole deal. And what a ride it was from beginning to end. I will play it again. I will to my dying day be talking about that as one of the great gaming experiences.

[Mike Maharti]

Good. Now just listen to us when we first tell you it's good.

[Dan Riker]

I don't listen to anyone, Mike.

[Mike Maharti]

I know, but like just do it in the future.

[Dan Riker]

That's probably smart. Yeah.

[Mike Maharti]

No, I've convinced you to play a few games you wouldn't have.

[Dan Riker]

That is actually true. You've actually a lot of ones that I wind up loving, loving, loving outer wilds. You were the one that.

[Mike Maharti]

Yeah. All right, well, we'll be back with episode 129 in two weeks. I won't be here, but Dan and Mary will. I'm going to be traveling. I've got. I'll be in. Sorry, what? Dan?

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I was going to say I. You will not be here, but I did get confirmation while we were recording that one. Michael Minati will be taking your place, trading one mic for another. So we got Mikey. He'll be coming in here. I'm a child. That's Mike. He'll be co hosting on the next Trading Out.

[Mike Maharti]

You're trading out the. The baby face of video games a

[Mary Kish]

la I'm not learning another name. It's gotta be another mic, I think

[Mike Maharti]

you know, for the bad boy of video games is coming in.

[Dan Riker]

Take my spot.

[Mike Maharti]

Make him. Make him host.

[Dan Riker]

We could do that.

[Mike Maharti]

Does he host? Yeah, make him host. Have him host as me the entire show.

[Dan Riker]

Oh, I don't think he can do that. No, no.

[Mike Maharti]

That's just the narcissist in me. I want to hear it. Sure, but we'll be back in a couple episodes. I will be back in or. No, I'll be back in a couple episodes. We'll be back in a couple weeks. I'm going to be in Paris and Florida and doing a few other things on the home front. Gonna miss you guys. Can't wait to hear about New Orleans.

[Dan Riker]

Wish I could come have some stories coming out of New Orleans. I think and company will probably have some drinks and have a good time.

[Mary Kish]

Nobody. I'm stone sober, Nola.

[Dan Riker]

Oh. I'm slightly intimidated by the group we have have in New Orleans. It's going to be fun.

[Mary Kish]

A sloppy jalopy group and there's going to be a lot of beignets and probably some. Some daytime street drinking.

[Dan Riker]

Start every day with a frozen Irish coffee from Molly's. Then we'll see where the day takes us.

[Mike Maharti]

Have fun and we'll see everybody else in a couple weeks. Bye. Bye.

[Dan Riker]

Sa.