Fire Escape Cast #134

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #134 Summary - June 8, 2026

Main Theme & Purpose

In Episode 134, hosts Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish, and Mike Mahardy reunite after a brief stretch apart to dive into a blend of gaming discussion and personal catch-up, including new releases (notably 007: First Light and Mina the Hollower), their continuing love for TV/movies, and their personal adventures and misadventures. From gushing about standout games and TV recommendations to sharing stories about travel mishaps and claw machine triumphs, the episode balances detailed critique with typical Fire Escape banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Catching Up: Highbrow & Lowbrow

• Mike returns from "wine camp," but his supposed sophistication is quickly undercut by fart jokes.

  • (01:11, Mary): “No you’re not. You fart all the time.”
  • (01:16, Mike): “Like 20 minutes ago.”

• The group discusses "Detroiters" and the evolutionary roots of "I Think You Should Leave."

• Mary explains the previous episode guest Jake’s "grounded" energy compared to the regular cast.

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2. Gaming-Induced Injuries & Physical Woes

• Mary, in an attempt to beat "Mina the Hollower" before TwitchCon Europe, plays on her porch bench for six straight hours—resulting in a severe neck and back injury.

  • (06:18, Mike): “That’s how they torture people in the Middle Ages.”
  • Mary details her pain management adventure, including doctor visits and strong medication. The pain is described as "fire.”
  • (11:14, Mary): “It feels like fire is going through my body...”

• Discussion shifts to Dan’s history of videogame-related injuries, including hurting his neck during a Mario Party minigame.

  • (12:12, Dan): “Jacking off a Wiimote in the Mario Party minigame where you gotta shake up the soda can.”

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3. TV & Movie Recommendations

"Widow's Bay" (13:07–17:28)

• Mary enthusiastically recommends "Widow's Bay," describing it as a live-action, horror-comedy reminiscent of "Courage the Cowardly Dog" and classic monster-of-the-week shows.
• Mike notes Hiro Murai (of "Barry" and music video fame) directed several episodes. The show draws comparisons to "Jaws," "Stephen King," and features Matthew Rhys as a beleaguered mayor.
  • (15:41, Dan): “I love Stephen Root. Okay. I will watch this for sure.”

"Andor" (17:53–24:01)

• Mike and Mary praise "Andor" as the best Star Wars project in years, focusing on its mature depiction of fascism, nuanced writing, and complex character arcs.
  • (21:02, Mary): "I've never seen a show that helps portray...what fascism looks and feels like and how it's built.”
• They both agree that "Andor" transcends being 'just' a Star Wars show and recommend it even to non-Star Wars fans.

Other TV/Movie Chitchat

• Euphoria's series finale is widely derided by Mary:
  • (25:16, Mary): “Move over Game of Thrones. The worst last episode of a season has a new owner.”
• They discuss "Zone of Interest" (27:49–28:39), with mixed feelings about its impact, and return to praising "The Sopranos" for its deeply comedic side.
• Classic film/TV references abound, including "Ace Ventura," "Mrs. Doubtfire," and "The Other Guys."

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4. New Release Highlight: 007: First Light (46:42–67:52)

Game Overview

• Dan praises IO Interactive’s debut Bond title as possibly the best Bond game to date, highlighting its dynamic hand-to-hand combat, set piece action, and creative use of gadgets.
  • (47:32, Dan): “I think it's fantastic. I think they super over delivered...I think it's better than people could have expected.”
• The game’s mix of sandbox (à la Hitman) with cinematic, linear Bond sequences is executed with impressive polish.
• Both hosts note the tutorial section as a standout—highly effective at onboarding players without sacrificing narrative pace.
  • (51:06, Dan): “The way they do the training in this is the coolest tutorial shit I’ve ever seen.”
• Gadgets include a Q-watch (Bond Vision, laser, hacking), AirPod flash mine, poison darts, missile pen, and a shockwave camera.
  • (57:33, Mike): “Chekhov’s watch laser.”

Criticisms & Favorite Moments

• The game “drags” a bit during the mid-game Mauritania section (repetitive, less elegant stealth), but regains steam quickly.
• Both Mike and Dan agree the villains are strong and the story well-constructed, with some fun celebrity cameos.
• Scores: Dan gives it a 9.5/10 (second only to Requiem for Game of the Year); Mike lands around 8–8.5, noting pacing issues.
  • (64:13, Mike): “Still… the best Bond game ever made, but...the momentum in the middle of the game...”

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5. Indie/Portable Game Segment

Mina the Hollower (68:38–78:47)

• Mary and Dan compare their experiences. Both agree it’s a very hard game, sometimes frustratingly so due to obscure progression and navigation.
  • (70:23, Dan): “It is hard and like not in the fun way necessarily.”
• They advocate using guides when fun tips into frustration, and Mary recommends enabling accessibility tweaks, notably to healing times.
  • (74:34, Mary): “When I altered it ever so slightly, I enjoyed the game so much more.”
• The game is best played on Steam Deck or handheld; both praise its pixel art and tight action.

Dungeon Clawer & Rune Dice (79:42–89:50)

• Mary outlines "Dungeon Clawer" as a roguelike/deckbuilder with a physical claw machine twist, praising its creative mechanics.
  • (84:05, Mary): “If I hit an arcade irl, I am going to the claw machine.”
• "Rune Dice" is described as a more rudimentary roguelike dice battler with simple fun, but less depth than Dungeon Clawer.
• The trend of “classic game + modern roguelike twist” (à la Balatro) is noted as prevalent and "cathartic" for travel or relaxing, low-stakes play.

Other Games

• Brief discussion of Forza Horizon on Steam Deck: runs surprisingly well, but not recommended due to graphical limitations and draw distance.
• Dan describes "Pictonico"—a Nintendo game that uses your phone’s photos for WarioWare-style mini-games.

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6. Listener Emails (96:44–121:48)

When Do You Look Up Solutions? (97:02)

• The hosts widely agree: as soon as a challenge or puzzle ceases being fun and starts feeling like a waste of time, it’s OK—if not wise—to look up a guide.
  • (97:39, Mary): “When I say to myself out loud, I’m not having fun anymore.”

Obscure References

• The hosts share their favorite underappreciated movie line references, from "Mrs. Doubtfire" ("the whole time!") to "Cool Runnings" ("so’s a toilet"), "The Other Guys" Michael Keaton TLC quotes, and deep-cut "Home Alone" bits.
  • (108:31, Mike): “Yeah, so’s a toilet.”

Movies/Games That Pull a Tonal Shift

• Several recommendations for movies and shows with memorable tonal shifts:
  • "Full Metal Jacket," "From Dusk Till Dawn," "Barbarian," "Audition," "Cabin in the Woods," "Search Party," "Get Out," "Mandy," "The Substance," and "Sorry to Bother You."
• Video games: "Metal Gear Solid 2," "Until Dawn," "Portal 2," and "Uncharted" are highlighted.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being a “Hinged” show (04:46, Mary):

  • “It felt hinged, which is a thing that we don’t get to say very often that it was a hinged show.”

• On physical gaming injury (11:14, Mary):

  • “It feels like fire is going through my body and especially....”

• On Andor (21:02, Mary):

  • “I've never seen a show that helps portray...what fascism looks and feels like and how it's built.”

• On the 007 Tutorial (51:06, Dan):

  • “The way they do the training in this is the coolest tutorial shit I’ve ever seen...it was effective. It wasn’t just style.”

• On using guides in modern games (97:39, Mary):

  • “It is my...answer to this...when I say to myself out loud, ‘I’m not having fun anymore.’”

• On obscure references (108:31, Mike):

  • “Yeah, so’s a toilet.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:31] — Detroiters Recommendation
• [05:31 – 13:05] — Mary’s Mina-induced neck injury & TwitchCon trip
• [13:07 – 17:28] — “Widow’s Bay” TV recommendation
• [17:53 – 24:01] — “Andor” in-depth discussion
• [24:55 – 27:41] — Euphoria’s disastrous ending
• [27:49 – 29:29] — “Zone of Interest” and Sopranos rewatch
• [46:42 – 67:52] — 007: First Light review
• [68:38 – 78:47] — Mina the Hollower
• [79:42 – 89:50] — Dungeon Clawer / Rune Dice
• [90:24 – 92:41] — Forza Horizon on Steam Deck
• [94:02 – 96:00] — Pictonico
• [97:02 – 105:44] — Listener Emails: When Do You Look Up Hints?
• [105:52 – 112:51] — Obscure Movie References & In-Jokes
• [113:08 – 121:48] — Drastic Tonal Shifts in Film/TV/Games

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Episode Tone & Style

• Relaxed, riff-heavy, irreverently honest—typical Fire Escape. Fluctuates between detailed critique, tangents, and absurd personal anecdotes.
• Open about using accessibility options, guides, and playing games in ways that maximize fun—even when that means breaking the supposed rules.

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Conclusion / Closing

• Hosts swap personal updates and note upcoming travel, streaming, and Summer Games Fest plans.
• Merch reminders and encouragement to sign up for ad-free/video episodes.
• See you in two weeks—with a nudge to look forward to episode 150.

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For New Listeners

Fire Escape #134 showcases everything great about the podcast: in-depth and honest assessment of new games, recommendations from every corner of pop culture, and a camaraderie built on trust, lowbrow jokes, and the willingness to share medical misadventures. Even if you skip the games, you’ll walk away with a dozen films and shows to check out.

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Contact

• Email: [e-mail]
• Merch: fireescapecast.com

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Mike]

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[Dan]

I'm too tired to cook.

[Mary]

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[Mike]

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Fire Escape cast. I don't have any fun. Brilliant rhymes tonight. Just getting right back in.

[Dan]

Lost it.

[Mike]

I was gone last episode. I've lost it. I'm really out of practice.

[Dan]

What did wine camp do to you?

[Mike]

I'm not funny anymore. I'm sophisticated. I go to wine camps.

[Mary]

No you're not. You fart all the time.

[Dan]

When was the last time you farted, fancy guy?

[Mike]

Like 20 minutes ago. Well, that was audibly to in front of someone else. It's like a tree falls in stinky. No, I don't really get smelly ones.

[Dan]

No, even your farts don't stink anymore.

[Mary]

Okay, If Mike farts in the forest and no one's around to smell it, I left.

[Mike]

I was over coffee this morning. I laughed harder at a show that I was watching by myself. That I've laughed in a long time. I've been telling you guys, checking if you have watched Detroiters. I know I'm very late to it. Obviously it blew up more once it went to Netflix and people obviously are liking I think you should leave. But I watched through the entirety of detroiter. It's like two seasons. I want to say 25 minute episodes and oh my God, there's an episode that Mary, you might know where and I don't want to spoil it because Dan, I can see you just losing your mind laughing at some of these things. They get the car account. They're ad men in Detroit, like small time doing local business.

[Dan]

I've seen like a few episodes.

[Mike]

Yeah. Later in season two they get an account from a guy who like has supposedly invented this. The. The car of the future. And there's a reveal bit that involves fart. Fart related material. And I, like, had to pause it and belly laugh at eight in the morning by myself. It's the funniest. And then also there's a wine bit right before that where they're going to this guy's fancy house. And so Sam Richardson brings. Brings wine and he hands it to this billionaire. And it zooms in. He looks and he's like, zug island dog, Dick, Cabernet. It sounds like it was the funniest one they had on the shelf. And the guy's like, that is funny. Thank you.

[Mary]

It's a funny show. And you can see the inklings of I think you should leave in it. When you watch it, you'll say to yourself, this is I think you should leave sketch. But they've prefaced it with, like, plot. It has a purpose and it has implications afterwards. Which is why I think it's funny that what they recognized, or at least maybe what Tim recognized, was the best bits, were when he just, like, went unhinged over something crazy in that show. And they. I think they basically focused on sketch comedy. But the show is hilariously done because you care about these characters surviving in the advertising world. It's. It's very brilliantly done. It's a little rough on the edges. I think they're still. They still kind of, like, are figuring out their characters and maybe some acting chops, but it's still very good.

[Mike]

Yeah. Tim Robertson. I don't need to sell you guys on him, but. Oh, my God, like Sam Richardson's.

[Mary]

Have you heard of him? Tim Robinson.

[Dan]

Robinson.

[Mary]

Whatever.

[Dan]

No, I'm not making fun of Mike. It's his favorite guy and Mike said his name wrong.

[Mike]

I said Tim Robinson.

[Dan]

You said Robertson.

[Mike]

Robertson. Tim Robinson. Sam Richardson. Sorry. It was a dyslexic thing. Sam was in some really funny. I think you should leave sketches like the baby show. But seeing him over the course of two seasons, he's so fucking funny. I wish I, like, could see him in more. He's not unknown, but I just. I want to see him in everything now. He's the funniest fucking person ever. But, yeah, that show is really good. But no, I. I farted not too

[Dan]

long ago into a decanter.

[Mike]

Yeah, I aerated a fart.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Burn off some va. Open up a bit. How was last episode? How'd it go?

[Dan]

What was last episode? What did we do?

[Mike]

You two and Jake.

[Dan]

Jake. Yeah. It was Like, I remember at the end, Mary said it. It felt hinged, which is a thing that we don't get to say very

[Mary]

often that it was a hinged show. We kept it together. No one, like, yelled at anyone else. There wasn't any.

[Dan]

It's nice to see, like, he's like an adult, you know, Jake is. And it's like. I think I told Bonk afterwards. I was like, yeah. I think normally the show is like, you know, it's three Kramers, you know, like. Yeah, we brought in, like, an adult kind of grounding character in there. And I thought that was really good records.

[Mary]

None of those characters are grounded. They're all insane. Elaine is insane. They're all nutso.

[Dan]

Right, Right. Yeah, I guess they are.

[Mike]

Jake is a huge Jerry Seinfeld fan. Like, politics and everything.

[Dan]

So personality, dating history. Yeah. Just everything about the man. Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah. Well, glad you had Jake to be the dad. That's nice.

[Mary]

Good. We had a good time.

[Dan]

Mina was the big one. We talked about.

[Mary]

Mina was the big one. We'll talk about that a little bit later as well, because. But, like, to. To allude to it for a second, Jake had beat Mina on the last episode and had rolled credits on it. And I. I like it. I like it very much. And so I was like, well, I'm going to play it and I'm going to beat it as well and make sure that I roll credits so I can talk about it. And so I have a. Like, a wooden bench on my front porch, and I laid down on that.

[Dan]

No padding, no pillow situation at all there.

[Mary]

Like a light, thin pillow. Not my best pillow. It was a little. Little thin. I could feel the. The wood armrest, like, against my neck. Right. And I was like, so your head's up against that?

[Dan]

Against the corner?

[Mary]

My neck is against the armrest.

[Mike]

That's how they torture people in the Middle Ages.

[Mary]

I think I'm leaning down. I'm playing. Playing Mina. I get totally into it as you do. This game is still hard. We'll discuss. Six hours later, it's time to go to bed. And I get up, and my neck is, like, all kinked up. Like, it doesn't feel good. And I go, oh, that's. That was not good for it. And I go to bed thinking it'll be fine. And I wake up, and my. My neck is genuinely so painful. I can't look left or right. I have to, like, continue to look slightly at a downward angle. That's the only place where it's comfortable. And I think to myself, ooh, that's not good. But I leave, you know, for TwitchCon Europe in three days. I'll just take it easy. I'll rest, and it will go away as it always does.

[Dan]

Need some heat. Doing heat.

[Mary]

I did Tiger Bomb. Have you heard of that?

[Dan]

Is that a shot?

[Mike]

Sounds like a. Yeah, it's like a

[Mary]

cream that feels like Icy hot.

[Mike]

Bomb.

[Dan]

Bomb. Okay, that makes sense.

[Mike]

I got a lot of messages last episode that you were all pronouncing things oddly, and I'm like, I did hold my tongue.

[Dan]

Mary, I gotta tell you.

[Mike]

Telling me. I say weird.

[Mary]

I say, all right, here's the situation.

[Dan]

No, no, Mary, you were saying something repeatedly, and I was. I was thinking, like, well, I was thinking, this doesn't sound right at all, but maybe this. Maybe it's a niche, Niche thing where you can do it. Either way, technically, I looked it up afterwards and know you were just super wrong. So we were talking about the Dirties, this movie, and we're talking about f. I kept talking about Foley work. They were talking about doing Foley work and, like, getting like, yeah, that's the one.

[Mary]

I've been calling it folly for years.

[Dan]

You kept saying. You were like, I love folly. Can't get enough folly. And I'm like, can you?

[Mike]

Folly.

[Dan]

Foley work is like, you know, like, if you're in a game studio and you got to get the crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Yeah, like shoes on leaves.

[Mike]

You know, like, that sounds like rattling trash can stuff. Yeah.

[Dan]

Recording wheels of, like, a car or something like that. You know, like. Yeah, sound effect stuff.

[Mary]

So, yeah, Foley. It's Foley like a baby.

[Dan]

It's F, O, L, E, Y.

[Mary]

And you keep saying Foley don't mean anything.

[Dan]

And I saw comments being like, is this driving anyone else nuts? I was like, I knew it. I knew that was wrong.

[Mary]

I've been. I've probably been calling it folly since I was, like, a child and learned what email. What it was.

[Mike]

I mean, I'm sure someone emailed us about something.

[Mary]

Keep it in the inbox.

[Mike]

I'm gonna look, though. But, yeah, sorry. Anyway, Mary, so really quick question before we proceed. You were on a wooden bench for six hours. Were you wearing a diaper? Why did you not need to get up and do some human stuff?

[Mary]

So I intentionally don't drink a lot of water when I'm in the gaming mode so I don't have to go to the bathroom. It's like a strategic thing.

[Mike]

So you have foresight for that, but not to not lay on a wooden bench. With your neck.

[Mary]

I've never fucked up my neck before. I mean, I've obviously like shrimped in bad positions for hours and been like, ooh, my back. But then I just go to bed and it's fine in the morning. This is the first time it wasn't fine. And it wasn't fine three days later.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

When I flew to Europe, my. My neck injury had made its way down to the left side of my body.

[Dan]

This is your levator scapula. Is it like start kind of the base of your skull and go down

[Mary]

across your traps and body names.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mary]

But it went into my shoulder blade, into my armpit, into my arm and into my elbow.

[Mike]

Yeah, it traveled.

[Mary]

That's like poison.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Plane. That's the last place I want to be with that. Planes are the last place I want to be when I'm feeling good.

[Mary]

I don't love that. But I would say the worst part was dragging my 55 pound suitcase against 200 year old cobblestone steps to my Airbnb and I thought to myself, I am not okay. And it got worse and worse and worse. And I like functioned through TwitchCon. I got back on a plane to go home a week later. This is now 10 days that my back has not been good. And I went from the airport to a doctor and I said, give me drugs immediately. And this never happened before. I've never had this issue before. So they were like, what happened? And I said, I don't know, I think I just. I think I just kinked it while playing games. And they gave me like muscle relaxers and steroids and like the good, the good painkillers and stuff like that. And I'm a little loopy guy.

[Dan]

Is it helping the drugs?

[Mary]

I am numb.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mary]

I am numb. It's crazy though. When the drugs wear off, it comes back. So I know it's still in there.

[Mike]

The camera's over here. No, I'm just kidding.

[Mary]

Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. Guys, I've never, I've never experienced the need for pain, like medical grade painkillers, because I was so, so, so, so pain. It's extremely painful. The only way I can describe it is it's like fire. It feels like fire is going through my body and especially.

[Dan]

Okay, so try it. Which shoulder is it?

[Mary]

My left one.

[Dan]

So put your other hand like this, your right hand over kind of like, and hold down your, your whatever, your tendons, whatever. And then tilt your head this way and then look up. Is that you feeling that pole? That's one my physical therapist has taught me because I. I have thrown this out many times. It's Levator Scapula. I've gotten real fucked up. One time I was doing the Whack off minigame in Mario Party, and this is. This is on. On tape at Giant Bomb. I'm doing the Wiimote thing. We're going, ah. And it's. You can see my neck tweaking. Yep. That's two weeks of this hurting like shit.

[Mary]

You pulled your neck jacking off.

[Dan]

Jacking off a Wiimote in the Mario Party minigame where you gotta shake up the soda can.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's what I said. When Amanda hears stuff like, I'm just Folly Foley.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. Like the solo Mario Party Wii people

[Mike]

are bummer biopic as well.

[Dan]

Oh, I stand by that one. Yeah.

[Mary]

Well, yeah. I have now also been severely injured playing Mina the Hollower for six hours. I did roll credits and I am proud of it, but it has come at great cost to my body.

[Dan]

Yes. In the game section. That is when I want to catch up with you on as well, because I have continued to play it.

[Mary]

So I have evolving thoughts when I am. When I am drugged up. I am also watching a show that I'm really excited to talk to you guys about. And I asked. I didn't know if. Yeah, I. Mike, you were able to watch an episode. It was already recommendations.

[Mike]

Yeah, I watched it this morning as well.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Yeah, we were talking about recommendations.

[Dan]

Widows Bay.

[Mary]

Yes. Remember how you said that you. You like when I recommend you stuff because you trust me?

[Mike]

Yes.

[Dan]

Who was telling me about this?

[Mary]

I got one for you, bud. It's called Widow's Bay. This one. This is a banger.

[Dan]

I think maybe it was Baccalaureate or something. This came up on another show I was on because I remember Googling it and seeing these same pictures, and it's like, it's funny.

[Mary]

Too much. Well, don't look up too much.

[Mike]

Can I tell you who directed it?

[Dan]

Yes.

[Mike]

Do you know who Hiro Mirai is?

[Dan]

No.

[Mike]

He got famous doing, like, really incredible music videos for Earl Sweatshirt, Childish Gambino, Chet Faker. Do you know what episode of TV he directed? He directed several episodes of the show, but he directed Ronnie Lilly from Barry.

[Dan]

Oh.

[Mike]

He at least directed the pilot of Widow's Bay.

[Dan]

Okay, I'm gonna. I'll load up the iPad with this.

[Mary]

Because similarly, I've been calling it, like, the Life Real TV version of Courage the Cowardly Dog. It's scary, but it's funny. And the characters are really good. And you kind of root for these, like, wiener people who are so scared of things that are happening to them. It's surreal. And there's lots of different versions of. It's almost like a monster of the week type situation. Every episode there's something different that's happening that's kind of scary. And there's absolutely not one episode that's gone by where I haven't been a little scared, but then laughed because they made it funny, dude. And that's really hard to do. A horror comedy is a tough genre. I'm very impressed by the show.

[Dan]

Sorry.

[Mike]

He did. He did not do Ronnie Lilly. He did four episodes of the show, but he helped produce most of Barry and Station 11. But yeah, the.

[Mary]

Very cool.

[Mike]

I watched the first episode. I've been meaning to watch it. I love Matthew Reese because the Americans is one of my favorite shows. I love Stephen King esque stuff. This also has a lot of Jaws to it.

[Dan]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

Like it's the. The Matthew Reese's. Well, no, Mary, you said you don't want him to know much. I mean, the premise wise, though, like, Matthew Reese is the mayor of a New England island. That's.

[Mary]

Yeah. Something weird is going on on this island.

[Mike]

Yeah. And a New York Times writer is visiting to potentially write like a travelogue feature for the Times about it. So he's similar to the mayor. And Jaws is like, this could be our tourism moment. We can't let them know that there's other going on. So. Yeah.

[Mary]

That this island is.

[Mike]

Stephen absolutely cursed Steven roots in it too. He's amazing.

[Dan]

I love Stephen Root. Okay. I will watch this for sure.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Well casted. But again, like, that's just the first episode's plot. Every episode changes a little bit of, like, what's going on. It has a common theme, which is he's trying to be mayor of this up town. But every. Every episode something bad happens. But again, yeah, it borrows from a lot of stuff. It borrows from it. It borrows from, like a lot of scary movies that you might have, like, grown up with and thought about, like, ooh, that's. I love the way they're doing this. They. They found a way to kind of put them into each of these episodes and really scare you and yet make you laugh all the time. Because these characters are ridiculous. These characters are very funny and silly. And the main mayor guy, he's constantly trying to convince everybody that this town is normal, even though there's something very clearly wrong going on. I think it's Brilliantly written.

[Mike]

Yeah. The humor. There's like existential humor, but there's also just some really stupid slapstick funny, like Monty Python wordplay humor or like Rodney Dangerfield kind of humor that fits weirdly within the whole thing. Yeah, I like it quite a bit. They made a. I don't know. Amanda being from New England and like, spending a lot of time at Cape Cod growing up, they made. They have that joke in the first episode about a specific restaurant that we love in Provincetown. So, like. All right, I gotta wait for Amanda to continue watching this because she'll probably love it as well.

[Mary]

Yeah, I think you guys are going to like it. Dan, I'm excited to see what you think about it because I don't usually recommend too much too often because it's a, you know, it's a weird. It's a. It's a show that, like, I want to make sure I'm like, feel really confident before I recommend.

[Dan]

I have to do my check and see if I. Yeah, I. It's. Several people now have told me about this show and it's. I've forgotten everything that people have told me. So I guess that's good. I'll go in pretty blind, but I'll have to find out if I have Apple TV still. And we got it for, like, severance and.

[Mary]

Yeah, totally. I do the same thing. I usually, like, get them specifically for a show and then get rid of them. This one is worth it, I think.

[Dan]

Cool.

[Mike]

I also, I think. I don't think I've talked about this since last time I was on Fire Escape. I am the biggest. Like, I really, really don't like Star wars anymore because I hate the whole, like, you got to worship at the altar. Star Wars. The mcu. Ification of Star Wars. I haven't seen Solo. Like, I kind of like, out of protest.

[Dan]

It's not great.

[Mike]

I love Rogue One, but that after that, I think they got the wrong Solo. They got the wrong message from Rogue One. I feel like that's where I fell

[Dan]

off, was around that Rogue One Solo. Like those side movie things. Yeah.

[Mike]

So I. All these people whose opinions I trust and adore and align with were like, you would probably love andor.

[Dan]

And that's what people have told me too.

[Mike]

Oh, my God. Like, I. I saw like New York magazine giving it best show of the year last year. Like, I saw. Not that there are the arbiters of taste, but like, it was getting like, high level awards. I'm like, really? So I had watched the pilot when it first came out like, okay, I get it. They're just trying to do down to earth Star Wars. I finally went back to it. I forget why. I think just because Amanda and I had been wanting to rewatch the main line entries in Rogue One. So we're like, okay, Apparently Andor does set up Rogue One again. I hate feeling like I need to do homework to set up a movie. There's episodes in that that are genuinely some of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. You like it? Really? I don't want to take away from it because I like, I grew up loving Star Wars. I'm not inherently saying I hate Star Wars. I just don't love what they've done with it in recent years. Disney, what they've done. There's episodes where I'm like, this could be set in any universe. This would still be fucking kick ass tv. There's incredible. The structure is really cool too because they'll do three episode arcs and then there will be a time jump and then they'll do another three episodes. But they're still. They're just seeing these characters. They're kind of expediting getting from one to the next. Apparently they were supposed to do five seasons or something like that. They ended up having to truncate it. It does not feel truncated. Some of these characters are incredible. I. I thought Andor was the most boring character in Rogue One. This shows seasons or.

[Mary]

Oh, I watched the whole thing.

[Mike]

I finished it. We.

[Dan]

We blew.

[Mike]

Amanda and I both blew through it in like a week and a half.

[Dan]

Oh, I didn't realize there's a character from there from Rogue One.

[Mike]

Oh, Rogue One. There's several characters that's. It's like, it leads up right up until you know how like the Rogue One is about them stealing the plans. This is how Andor kind of became this roguish Han Solo type and his background, several other characters leading up to the discovery that the Death Star was even a thing.

[Dan]

Got it. Okay.

[Mike]

Andy Serkis is in it. He has an amazing, like, little stretch a ton of people make. They don't feel like cameos. But then Stellan Skarsgard, I love everything he does. And this is one of my favorite roles he's played. Like the show is so good at setting up these what you think are minor characters. And then all of a sudden you're incredibly invested in them. It's. It's really, really fucking good. It's a slow burn. It's got like Deadwood pacing where you don't really realize they're setting up something huge until all of a sudden it's happening. You're like, oh, my God. That's what's been going on this whole time. Incredible.

[Mary]

I've never seen a show that, that helps portray subtly, but then obviously more literally what fascism looks and feels like and how it's built. This is for entertainment sake. Right. But over time, you're like, oh, I see why they're making the decisions they're making. Paint themselves publicly as good or vulnerable or, you know, in danger so that they're allowed to do atrocities. And everyone will be like, well, they were doing self defense.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, they're in trouble.

[Mary]

And they did, they did. They do such a good job of playing the. Kind of reminds me of the Wire where they're like, they're playing the press, they're playing the public.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Very specifically. And they do it very well.

[Mike]

Yeah. There's. There's episodes of the show that were like, they were so on the nose that I was like, oh, are they really gonna try this right now? And then it's so well written and directed that I was like, they pull it off. The commentary. It's, it's. There's also. There's several, like, sequences in the show that are orchestrated in the sense that like, they reminded me of that long shot in True Detective Season 1 When They Go into the drug hideout. Yes. Stuff along those lines. Like, we, like, we had to like, pause afterwards. We're like, holy shit. I didn't realize. I haven't been breathing for two minutes. Like, awesome. It's incredible. I cannot recommend that show enough. And also, I don't like origin stories anymore, but they do it really well here and I don't like. They also don't give a fuck about there if you're paying attention. I'm sure there are many Easter eggs, but they do not go out of their way to like, say, oh, wink. Winking at the fans. Like, I was like, it feels like they're just first and foremost, want to tell like a killer story within this universe. It happens to be a Star wars story. And it just like is the set dressing around it. It's really good show. I love Andor so much.

[Dan]

Okay, that's short list for me for sure. It's like, yeah, I've heard enough people say that, but I've worried it was going to be a thing where it's like, even though you don't like Marvel movies, this is the Marvel movie you're gonna like. And I watch it and it sucks just like the rest of them.

[Mary]

So I was kind of worried that was Marvel. I consider this like a. Yeah, like, they did a good job separating this from the animals. It's very different than all of those megas, you know, AAA action movies from Disney and all that crap. They've. They found a way. I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they pulled it off, but they made magic on this one.

[Mike]

They get. They dig into, like, the office drama and politics of the Empire. So, like, you forget that this is the Empire, like, like stormtrooper office, or not stormtrooper officers, but like, you know, like the Nazis of Star Wars. You're just kidding.

[Dan]

Steve Carell playing Stormtrooper, right?

[Mike]

Yeah, exactly. But it's like, it's got severance vibes in the office politics. It's got Americans vibes in, like, these characters need to lead double lives because they're spies. It's really cool. I. I'm very glad we watched that because I almost did not give it a second chance.

[Mary]

I. I'm the same. Usually when people say, like, you're gonna really like this Star wars thing. I'm like, I don't know about that. This was the first time that I, I gave it a try because I did have a couple friends say, like, no, no, no. This one's genuinely different. And it. And it truly is. I think it's. I think it absolutely is worth watching all the way through. And it also sticks the landing, which I think is very important for me. Not everybody feels that way. I still get people who are like, you gotta watch Lost. Don't worry about any of that stuff. Just enjoy the ride. I don't. I kind of want to have that nice ending and. Andor does that. But speaking of, like, the worst endings, euphoria just officially ended and I think it got like one of the worst reviewed endings of all time of, like, in the series. Yeah, Everybody universally dislikes that show.

[Dan]

I. I don't know. I've heard some stuff where it's like, it seemed really rough at the beginning of the season, but I've heard people talk about, like, coming around on it a bit and what it was doing in season three. I have not. I saw the first season so critically,

[Mary]

I think it was panned as Move over Game of Thrones. The worst last episode of a season is. Has a new owner.

[Dan]

Oh, geez. Okay. Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

God, these headlines.

[Mary]

Critics have really gone for it, I would say. Like, I think it panders to the audience a lot. Also, people really like some of those actors. So, like, they're probably like, listen, it's still amazing acting. And I think that is true. But the writing of these characters have never been more degrading and more abysmal. Like, if there is a girl on screen, she's either doing drugs, having sex, she's naked, or she's being, like, physically assaulted. It's just the worst writing of a season I've ever seen.

[Dan]

Oh, wow.

[Mary]

Is bad. It's a shame. They had really cool. I liked the first season. I think the first season is brilliant. It's. It's stunningly shot and the audio is incredible. They lost the guy who did all the music.

[Mike]

Wasn't that like a huge. Like, did he just watch the contract

[Dan]

and went after cigarettes and, like, nobody

[Mary]

truly knows, but he wrote. He wrote a very aggressive message saying HBO and Euphoria. So.

[Dan]

Jeez.

[Mary]

I don't think it ended in a positive way.

[Mike]

Sorry, I. That's just. I. I think maybe three days a week, I wake up in the morning and I watch the I found your son Norm bit with Bob Saget. It's one of my favorite bits I've ever seen in my life. And Mary. Are you saying he went up to get cigarettes? Reminded me of that. If you haven't seen it, just. Just look up. It's like. It's like a 15 second clip. Just look up Bob Saget, Norm MacDonald. I found your son. That's. I don't need to explain the joke. It won't be funny if I do it now.

[Dan]

What was the. Because it was the. The icon. Was that the show he did between seasons two and three?

[Mary]

Oh, yeah, I heard that was terrible. That was also critically, absolutely, abysmally panned and kind of just did not. That one was poor casting as well. For the record, I don't think that. Yeah, the Weeknd is not built for acting a role of a tough guy. I just don't think that that was meant to be. But I think we're starting to also just recognize there's some weird writing going on that isn't selling these characters. Not even, like, the best acting of this cast could save season three of Euphoria. Like, some of these scenes were just, like, embarrassing. I actually gave up on it because it just started getting so bad.

[Mike]

Last entertainment thing on my end. Have you guys. Did you ever watch the Zone of Interest?

[Dan]

Yeah, the movie.

[Mike]

What? Two years ago, I finally watched it.

[Dan]

I saw that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike]

Oh, my God.

[Dan]

It's a tough one.

[Mike]

What a tough. That was a tough watch. And I still. And I watched it, I think, a week and a half ago. I still am not sure whether I loved it or hated it. Like, it was an incredibly made movie and it took some big swings, but

[Dan]

I don't think anyone's gonna watch it and be like, that movie kicks ass.

[Mike]

Like, I. I don't. I don't mean loved it in that sense. I mean, like, part of me afterward was like, that was one of the most incredible things I've seen in a while. And then I sat on it for longer. I was like, maybe I kind of hated what they did here in that point, but I don't know. It absolutely hit me hard. Regardless, there's some points in that movie where, again, I was, like, very taken aback.

[Dan]

Yeah, it's. It's a lot. It's not a movie you buy on Blu Ray and watch a bunch of times.

[Mike]

No, I'm gonna go there. I'm just gonna keep watching Schindler's List every week. That's my. That's my comfort movie. Movie.

[Dan]

Right, right. You've always said that. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary]

Nice.

[Dan]

I continue. I continue with Sopranos, and I won't go into a bunch of stuff, but I'll just say Uncle Paulie. Bert Young, I think is the actor's name. One of my favorite guys to just show up and things always. Because he's so hilarious. And Rocky, just this drunk uncle. And, like, I just realized I've seen him. I can name three things he's been in now, the Rocky series, including Creed, or I guess he's not in. Great. No, Rocky Balboa. He was in Russian Doll with Natasha, Leone, and now this episode of Sopranos. And he is always from, like, 1977 to, like, the Pandemic, basically. He always just seems old and sickly and. Or drunk. He's always just coughing into a rag or, like, half dead or just being like, mike, do you know the episode I'm talking about with him?

[Mike]

Do I know the episode with Bobby Bacala's dad who has to go see Cowboy Sally? Yeah, I know the episode.

[Dan]

Yes. I just watched that. I'm just laughing and happy the second he shows up on screen. I don't remember if you did not

[Mike]

texted you back when you said Uncle Paulie. At first I was confused because that's. That's like. Nickname is Uncle Paulie.

[Dan]

Oh, I see. As you know.

[Mike]

So then now that you're talking, I was like, oh, Bobby Bakala's dad, Uncle Paulie from Rocky. Yes, yes.

[Dan]

The second he showed up. I'm like, hell, yeah, Uncle Paulie's in the show. And then everything that happens with him in that episode is so funny to me. It was perfect.

[Mike]

That is people, you're very ahead of schedule because people say, like, you're not a true Sopranos fan until you realize it's a comedy.

[Dan]

And, like, I've been laughing this entire fucking time. It's so goddamn funny. Like, even just the way Tony responds or says certain lines that aren't jokes or meant to be funny, I'm just laughing this whole fucking show. I love it.

[Mike]

Yep. Yeah. The. The. I can't wait for you to get to Pine Barrens. I can't wait for you to get to the lake episode with Bobby and Janice and people. It's. It's. We're rewatching Mad Men again. We always do. But I just want to watch the Sopranos soon.

[Dan]

Were you aware that Bobby Bakala showed up in TNA Wrestling in the mid-2000s to imply that he was one of the Dudley Boys, and he teamed up with the Dudley Boys and, like, got in the ring and helped them do a couple moves and stuff like that, and he was, like, in character as Bobby Bakala. No, it's really weird and stupid.

[Mike]

There's a lot of weird promotional stuff for the Sopranos between the video game they did and because you guys did, like, a Game Informer replay I wrote

[Dan]

to respect, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I reviewed that back in the day. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

There's. If you look up, like, Sopranos promotional material, there's a lot of stuff that they got James Gandolfini to do that was very surprising.

[Dan]

My dad owns something incredibly gross. Stop. I know that. Probably be very shocking to hear. It's. He used to work for Time Warner. Oh, my God. I have a picture of this fucking thing. He used to work for Time Warner, and they would get, like, weird promotional stuff every once in a while. And him being him, he always just held on to stuff forever, thinking, it's gonna be worth something, and I'm gonna sell it on ebay. And one of them is this bottle of Sopranos balsamic vinaigrette from, like, fucking, like, ancient. Ancient. And now, like, this picture is probably from 10 years ago, where it actually looks kind of normal, but it is, like, super fucked up and got shit growing in it and stuff now. And. And he's convinced that this is going to wind up, like, you know, selling for thousands of dollars or something.

[Mike]

Oh, my God.

[Dan]

I just posted.

[Mary]

What does the back say? Does it Say anything like, you know, does it have any other connections to the Sopranos?

[Dan]

No, it just says Sopranos and hbo. Yeah. Creamy balsamic vinaigrette from, like.

[Mary]

Does it. It must have, like, dairy in it. Does it? Probably.

[Mike]

That's why, like, balsamic vinaigrette technically should be good for a long, long, long time. It's just. It's basic. It's. It's like vinic to something vinegar. Like, vinegarized. It's abs. It's like acidified. And it's not going to get worse at a certain point, but

[Mary]

I don't

[Dan]

know if they're like, going to mobile HBO brand balsamic.

[Mary]

Yeah, that seems concerning.

[Mike]

I don't know if it's gonna pass Italian smell test coming from Bologna.

[Dan]

So, Mike, next time you see my dad, if you want him to bring it, just let me know.

[Mike]

I'll get. I'll eat it for $10.

[Dan]

But that show continues to be incredible,

[Mike]

so I'm glad you're watching it. Brings me joy.

[Dan]

Yes.

[Mike]

Yeah. When you text me, like, what?

[Dan]

What do you mean? What?

[Mike]

Paul. Uncle Paulie episode. He's in like a quarter of them. Sure, sure.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mike]

No, but yeah. Happy birthday, Paulie. That one.

[Dan]

Yes. Yes.

[Mike]

Mm. Anything else new? Feel like it's been longer than a few weeks since I saw you guys. I think we did the last episode early as well.

[Dan]

Yeah, I think we did spend a while. Yeah. God, probably a ton. It just seems like it's. It's always a whirlwind.

[Mike]

I'm not going to Summer Games Fest. You guys are getting ready to go out to. You two and Jake are getting ready to go out tomorrow. As of this recording, I'm not gonna make it. I have a wedding in Seattle this weekend.

[Dan]

Yeah. When this episode goes up, I will probably be at Disneyland with Mike Minati, which I guess that's the way you do that. So. Yeah, I did it once before. And we all talk shit on Disney here, but I have to give it credit. Last time we went with a bunch of friends from Giant Bomb and he had Mike Minati being like the ultimate tour guide and Ginny Nicholson, who also, like, really knows a ton of Disney stuff.

[Mary]

Going with a Disney person makes it a little bit more palatable because they're like, we know which rides to ride. We know which one's experiences are the best. They're like, really into it. I feed off of other people's enthusiasm. So when I go with a Disney adult, I'm like, I can get excited because you're Excited. It's like going. It's like taking a child to the park. Like, I don't want to ride the slide, but it makes me happy that the kid is laughing while it goes down. I don't think, like, I will enjoy Disney, but watching Mike, like, skip around and, you know, get excited about the way the rocks are formed very specifically to look like cars would make me happy.

[Dan]

Yeah, it was insane because it wasn't just Mike leading us. It was Mike and Jenny Nicholson, who. They were both, like, obsessive Disney fans and they were. I think they were meeting the first time there. So hearing them kind of compare notes and them kind of. It's like they're hosting their own little podcast about Disney while they're, like, leading us very specifically through the park. They know exactly when to get in the line or when the app tells you to be where. Where we're going to eat and everything. So it's like, okay, that's. This is probably an optimal way for me to kind of like, understand what the deal. Like, I'm not understanding it on the level obviously, that they are, but it's like, okay, this was a very pleasant day and I would do it again. So, yeah, I'll probably be there when this episode goes up on Monday and all the SGF stuff will be over at that point. So, yeah, that'll be nice to not travel for a few weeks. I think.

[Mary]

So, yeah. I'm taking three. I took three days off of work actually, like, while we're recording this. I'm off of work because it was just such a long slog to go to Europe for work. And I also. I also brought my mom.

[Mike]

Nice. To Rotterdam.

[Mary]

She went to Rotterdam. She went to Amsterdam. She went to Delft, which is a very small, small town. Basically, like in between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. And then we went to Rotterdam for TwitchCon. She had a good time. She's a small town lady. She did not love Amsterdam because she thought it was too crowded. There were too many people who are in her, you know, way or in her space.

[Mike]

It runs in the family. You were probably. She was probably crossing the street when she shouldn't have been. People were like, really?

[Mary]

She's yelling. She, like, wouldn't yell at it. We have very different personalities. She's very quiet, very sweet, very forgiving. I hold a grudge for years. I am angry all the time. I'm getting people out of the way. And she's just like, they gave me the wrong drink. But you know what? This one's really tasty. Too. I don't mind at all.

[Dan]

You'd be burning down the bar.

[Mary]

She won't complain. She won't complain about anything.

[Dan]

Did you take her to TwitchCon? Like.

[Mary]

Like, proper, like, she went to TwitchCon.

[Dan]

How does she. I mean, I. She must have some sense of, like, what you do and what that world is. But was this kind of, like, immersing her in a way?

[Mary]

I think to this day she fully gets it. Because sometimes she'll be like, why don't. You know, we were in the Minecraft area and she was like, why don't you, you know, work on the Minecraft? And I said, well, we don't work there. These guys. These guys are, you know, they bought a booth and she's like, so they pay you to make Minecraft? And I said, no, you know what? Just enjoy the show. Like, she doesn't. It's going to be too hard to explain things to her. I don't. I think she thinks I make games.

[Dan]

Yeah. I think that's a lot of people when they are not from games and they hear someone working in that orbit and just like, oh, they make games. Like, we're going up the elevator to Game Informer. The people on the other floors would, like, have their kids in the elevator and be like, oh, he's getting off on the fourth floor. That's where they make the toys. And. Yep. That's what we're doing here. Yep. Yep.

[Mike]

I interned at a toy factory.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

It mentally makes more sense than thinking that people have a living playing something.

[Dan]

Yeah. Because you always hear the same thing. People watch that. People watch that. Like, I've heard that a billion times.

[Mary]

I think it's. It's still surreal and confusing for her. And also it's a very big con. Right. Like, there was over 10,000 people there. And so she's kind of at this. This space with over 10,000 people being like, so all these people make the games? And I'm like, sure. If that's the point where I just say yes, I don't. I don't know. Like, it's too confusing. I'm just glad that, you know, she doesn't. She doesn't process information. I think at this age where she's going to, like, correct herself, she. She's completely cooked. She's done. She's setting her ways. I'm just glad that she's calling Simone Simone and not Seamon anymore.

[Dan]

That's a start. That's good.

[Mike]

I thought you were gonna say Simon.

[Mary]

She still used to, like, she'd Call me. And she'd be like, so now how is. How is Seon? I would say.

[Mike]

Oh, and how's your dog?

[Mary]

Seamon is good. She could not, could not wrap her head around this pronunciation.

[Dan]

My wife is banaka to my grandma. So. Yeah, she spelled it on a gift a few years ago and it was B. A. Oh, God. It was like knock. Like knock on a door. A. It's like banaka.

[Mike]

And oh boy, I just heard that in Jim Carrey's voice from Ace Ventura.

[Dan]

Was that.

[Mike]

Was that when he's like. Can I interest you in a minute? Perhaps some banaka? Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

He's frozen away. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Dan]

That's funny. When he talked out of his ass. I like that.

[Mike]

It's really. It's a classic.

[Dan]

It's really funny. Yeah.

[Mike]

That's that second movie. The last time I watched it was with you in the sunset. It has not. It was not as. Remember?

[Dan]

Oh, man. Right.

[Mike]

You, Tim and I. And I was. I was. I was really high. So I thought that might have had something to do with it. Like maybe I'm not finding this thing funny because I'm not on the planet at the moment. But. Yeah. I forgot how many cringy things there were in that movie. Aside from the rhino, which is classic.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I mean, I think the whole conceit of the second movie is like. It's like, oh, that's probably not going to be great now. No.

[Mary]

I forget what it holds up, but I feel like the joke where he is putting shadows over the guy's face into. That's gotta. That's gotta do well as.

[Dan]

And he does the little shadow blowjob thing. That's funny. The Monopoly man, the monster truck. Like a lot of that stuff is fine.

[Mary]

I think like that's gotta live.

[Dan]

Most of the Africa stuff. Not great.

[Mike]

No.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Except. Except for how he parks the SUV at the mansion, rolls over.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

He's just driving down the road and he rips the wheel to barrel roll into the spot.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Which is very good.

[Dan]

Well, good thing. Nothing aged poorly about the first Ace Ventura.

[Mike]

No, not at all. Especially the whole twist. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan]

Entire ending of the movie.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Most poorly aged thing ever.

[Mary]

We don't talk about the ending.

[Dan]

Yeah. The cable cuts out near the end every time. Yeah.

[Mike]

Unlike HBO Sopranos, Creamy bals vinegar. Ace Ventura one has not aged well.

[Dan]

That's our sponsor this week. Mike, tell them about it.

[Mike]

It was made in mod. The HBO execs had to travel all the way To Bologna. Take a quick train up the northwest to the little town where they make some of the most heavenly nectar on this planet. It's been waiting in barrels for you up in these families attics. And they pulled it out. They said, hey, we got this show. It's called the Sopranos. No, it's not about the opera. It's about a guy just like you from the south though. I know they frowned upon people in the South. This is a weird script. Who wrote this? So they said, we're going to take some of your creamy balsamic. We're going to. We're going to take your cream. We're going to bring it home. We're going to bring it, we're going to market it.

[Mary]

That's a massive Warner Brothers.

[Mike]

Warner Brothers is going to. We're going to re up it. We're going to sell it to people just like Paul Reichert here. And it's going to be delicious. 25 years out. Try it. Put it on some. Put it on some salad, maybe drizzle it over some garlic bread. It should be great in 25 years.

[Dan]

That does sound good. Some bread and vinegar, like that's man. I just went to an Italian place like a week ago and yeah, I used to just eat the bread because I wouldn't do the butter on it. And then I never even looked at the vinegar. Or is it olive oil, balsamic vinegar?

[Mary]

Is it Depends on where you went.

[Dan]

There's the olive looking one, then there's the darker one.

[Mike]

Yeah, Olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

[Dan]

Oh, then yeah, you do that and then you dip the thing in there and like that is a super good. Like when I go to Italian place now, that's one of my favorite parts. And I just totally didn't even look at it for 40 years.

[Mike]

It's crazy. Vinegar, like really like good balsamic vinegar. There's nothing like it.

[Mary]

I went to Olive Garden for the first time in like years and hot damn, those breadsticks still hit.

[Dan]

Holds up nice.

[Mary]

Yeah. And I got the. I got the breadstick dip trio. It's all you can eat, but they say you have to order one at a time. And I said to the waitress, I says, can I just have all three at the same time? And she looked left and right and she said, absolutely. And she brought me three bowls of the three different sauces.

[Dan]

Alfredo.

[Mary]

Try them all. And then like I'm gonna call it just a mix. It felt, it was like a lighter marinara and it had cheese. They called it cheesy marinara.

[Mike]

Like a vodka sauce almost.

[Mary]

It looked like a vodka sauce. Like a light. Like an. Like an orange, but not in a gross way.

[Mike]

Pink. Pinkish.

[Mary]

It wasn't pink. It was like orange.

[Mike]

Okay. Because pink sauce ready. Orange cheese involved, which is also good.

[Mary]

They called it a cheesy. Cheesy marinara, I think is what they called it.

[Dan]

Do you guys ever hear the thing about Ben Hanson and his wife going to the Italian restaurant a couple years ago? I think he talked about this on his podcast about wanting the bread. Does it sound familiar?

[Mike]

Yeah, it rings a bell.

[Dan]

He wanted ice cream. He wanted ice cream. And so they went to an Italian restaurant, and they walked in, they just sat down just to get ice cream. And he was upset that they didn't get bread and vinegar and olive oil when they were just trying to get some ice cream. It's an Italian place. You're supposed to get this stuff.

[Mike]

You're expecting them to roll out the red carpet when you're ordering. The weirdest fucking thing. You can go to an ice cream

[Dan]

sitting down at an Italian restaurant.

[Mike]

Weirdo.

[Mary]

Olive Garden would have done it. Olive Garden would have given him soup, salad, breadsticks, and one dessert. I think they would have done it. I was blown away by the portion sizes at this place. We had to take it to go.

[Dan]

I would go there and just get the breadstick thing. I feel like I could probably eat, like, 30 breadsticks and Alfredo sauce.

[Mary]

Dan, I thought of you. I really think that if you get the breadstick dip trio. But then you got to ask and you got to say. Because this is what they say. They say when you finish the dip, you just ask for another one. They said, you can have as many as you want. They'll just keep bringing you bowls. But I said, I want all three at the same time. I don't want to finish my dip. I want to have all three dips, and then I want to taste them and, like, discuss them.

[Mike]

You know, like, slip them a few Washingtons. When you mention it, like, oh, look, I dropped my. I dropped my. My Magnum condom and my Washington's on the floor.

[Mary]

She did not question it.

[Mike]

I might. I might go to wine camps, but oh, my God, if I wouldn't fuck up Olive Garden, like, any chance I get.

[Dan]

Sorry Mike brought up Franklin's. I'd do one more quick Sopranos reference. That killed me. It's when big pussy is talking to his informant, and he was talking about, like, he's trying to, like, get some money or whatever, and he's just like, yeah, my, my favorite president is Franklin. Like, it's like 100 and they don't make a deal out of it. No one talks about it. It's like, oh, he was not a president.

[Mike]

Oh, big pussies to the FBI contact.

[Dan]

Yeah. He's trying to reference $100 bills. He's like, I love President Franklin.

[Mike]

There's so many good one off lines that my friends and I use. Like, there's an email question today that kind of references this. But like, I didn't realize how often I'm quoting Sopranos on accident these days because it's become such a part of my vernacular with the people I grew up with. It's the most quotable show in the world. I absolutely love it.

[Dan]

Oh, I want to get some breadsticks soon. I've not had Olive garden in over 10 years. I would say, Mary, you've inspired me. I'm going to be thinking about this. I wonder if I'm going to be in la. That'd be a weird place to go to Olive Garden, wouldn't it be?

[Mike]

No, no, downtown.

[Mary]

That's like, I actually went to Olive Garden last time I was in la. You're going to. Yeah. You can absolutely go. I bet you Minati would love to go with you. I bet you could get a good crew. Go to. To go to Olive.

[Dan]

You know what? You're right. Manatti Superwood.

[Mary]

Yeah, I think so. That place is great. Well, yeah, last time I was there, it's funny, I. Yeah, I was in LA and I had just wrapped something and we were like, let's. It's family. Let's go. This will be a good evening. That's great.

[Mike]

All right, you want to talk about

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[Mike]

All right. I think two of the three of us have played 007 First Light from IO Interactive of Hitman fame.

[Dan]

I beat it.

[Mike]

Yes. Insane already.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

How many hours? Ish.

[Dan]

I would say 14 to 16 or so.

[Mary]

I like that time.

[Dan]

It is a beefy ish game. Yeah, but not too much, not unwieldy.

[Mike]

There's a few areas that are more sandboxy that you can take a lot of time exploring but there's also more linear areas. There's car chases, there's plane chases, there's Naughty Dog esque set pieces. There's little kind of mini game sort of interrogation scenes that they play around with how you're kind of manipulating a character in them. IO does a lot here that I've never seen them do before. But Dan, what are your. I understand you like it. I'm curious what your overall take on the game is.

[Dan]

Oh, I love it. I. I think it's fantastic. I, I think they super over delivered and that's even after everyone saw the license and saw the developer and was like, wow, that makes all the sense in the world. That's probably going to be great. I think it's better than people could have expected especially when it comes to like the action parts because you know, it's Bond. It's like there's a big difference between 47 and bond. Like there's the similarities where yeah, they both would probably be sneaking around in a fancy party, you know, following a bad guy and stuff like that. But at a certain point Bond's always going to get in a car chase and a shootout and things like that where it's like 47, that's not exactly his thing. So in the Hitman games when it came down to hand to hand combat or gunplay, it was not like the engine wasn't built for that to be a focus. So I was kind of worried like, okay, is that gonna be, is that gonna be a weak point to the 007 game? And no, they clearly understood what they needed to do with Bond and the, the hand to hand stuff is fantastic. Like it kept reminding me of like the, the modern like kind of like Fallout era Mission Impossibles where like specifically like that bathroom fight with Henry Cavill where they're just like throwing each other through stuff and into walls and through toilets and all that stuff. It's just like the super kinetic, you know, fighting system that like there's, there's wine cabinets and displays and windows and railings and every time you would hope them to like oh, throw the bad guy over the railing if I do this or throw them into this electric box and they electrocute the guy. It does that and then we'll also surprise you at times and then there's just like here's a bottle, here's an iron on there. You can just hit RT and just chuck it in their face and fucking throwing them over thing it is the hand to hand stuff's great. And then when it goes into action mode, it's very clear. It says like, license to kill. And so it's like, all right, this is going to be a shootout. This is not a. We're done with the pretense of sneaking around or anything like that. We are on a Runway. We have to catch this plane that's taking off. There's exploding barrels everywhere and we're getting in a car chase to get to this area. So, like, when it goes action, it goes super Bond, like major action. And it. They pull it off incredibly well. For a developer that hasn't done that nearly as much with like the Hitman games, so. And even just as a Bond story, I think it's fantastic. I. I like Bond. Like, I know, Mike, you, you've watched all the Bonds before. I have seen the Brosnan ones. I've seen like half the Craig ones. That's pretty much it. Bond for me is goldeneye. It's everything or nothing. It's like these games. I was, I think the Bond license works so well for games. The gadgets, the cars, the action, all those things. And I think, yeah, goldeneye, Everything or Nothing and this now are like the holy trinity of like incredible Bond video games. And it's hard to argue that this one doesn't do it the best. You know, GoldenEye was based on the movie. They did a good job of that. It was 1997. Feels ancient at this point. Everything or Nothing was a really cool, ambitious thing from that PS2 era where it's like, we're going to hire, we're going to get the actors, we're going to write a new story, we're going to bring in Willem Dafoe and Heidi Klum and, you know, actual actors and like, very ambitious for time and I think it knocked it out of the park. But this one, I mean, my God, just the direction of this game and the way it. If this was a Bond movie, it would be one of my favorite Bond movies. I think the, the actor that plays him is fantastic.

[Mike]

Like, I honestly, having played this game, I'm like, I kind of. I want Patrick Gibson to be the next Bond in the movies now. He's that good.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

He grows on you throughout the game. And I was like, oh, man, I like this guy a lot.

[Dan]

And I thought I was gonna hate it because it's Doing the thing. I don't like prequels that much. I don't like having to see the same, like, okay, this iconic character I gotta watch. They did a prequel and we gotta watch the guy become Batman and wait until, okay, when does he get the fucking bat?

[Mary]

When did the parents die?

[Dan]

Exactly. And like the way they do it, like Mike, the fucking training montage. Way they do the training in. This is the coolest tutorial shit I've ever seen. It was. And it was effective. It wasn't just style. It was like, okay, we're not going to waste time. We're not going to just put you through the same tutorial of. Here's the hand to hand part. Here's where you go down to the shooting gallery and do it with this and then do that. Here's how you throw grenades. It is just quick cuts. And by the time you're done with this montage, you know how to kind of parkour over stuff. You know how to sneak around, you know how to shoot. You know like when the guns out

[Mike]

of drive, you can whip it at someone's face when they're close to you. Yeah, it's. It reminds me of like the last of us. I thought the last of us. Combat was really good with that too. It's like improvisation in like a very small space. Like what is. Oh, there's a brick. I'm going to throw that quick just to get him off balance. Now I've got a two by four. I'm gonna smash him over the head. He's stunned. Now I can get the kick to his face like first lights. Great. To your point. Like I do. I. I felt as if they almost. They introduced so much early on that I wish they did a bit better of a job of resurfacing some stuff later on. But it's not stuff that's essential. It's just like fun stuff that I forgot you could do. Like, you could still. You. You're still totally fine to beat the game and beat like certain sections without it. But like specifically there's actually. I know, I wanna, I, I wanna get to more like locale specific stuff because IO is so good at that. But like, I, I do wish they could resurface stuff later on in the

[Dan]

game in a way.

[Mike]

But like, I don't know how they do that without being super artificial about it. Maybe it's just a matter of like load screen stuff. Like Tal is old as time. Like saying like, hey, remember you can, you can throw people into this kind of thing. But like to your point, it's so good at the improv aspect that you don't need that stuff to get through fights. It's more just, like, flavor to the whole thing.

[Dan]

Yeah. Like, you're walking through this, like, laundry room and if you want to just sneak up on everyone and do the occasional distraction and turn on a vacuum cleaner, you can. But then you can realize, like, oh, this guy's leaning against this giant, like, shelving thing and it highlights it. And what can I do there? Oh, fuck, I can push this whole thing over. Or all the ways your gadgets can interact with things. And it's not just, oh, I turned the radio on, I turned the printer on, or whatever. There's so many, like, scaffolds and exploding things and sabotage a laptop so it electrocutes someone. Like, really clever ways. You can kind of, like, even though it's not as open as a Hitman, it's not this giant open sandbox like Hitman is. It does, in these moments give you, like, like the chess meet early on in the game. There's a lot of stuff you can do. There's a lot of rooms filled with guards. And I had times where it just came down to hand to hand fight and had to knock them all out. Then I had times where I had to really improvise and find funny ways of distracting everyone. And it pulls everything off so, so well.

[Mike]

It's super impressive that IO, who is so known for sandboxes and replayability, like, there's certain points where you can kind of feel them restraining themselves because they know it's the Bond license. And they do a very, very admirable job of straddling the line between mainstream Bond fans who are going to come play this and, like, find an awesome action adventure, and IO fans who do want more of the emergent gameplay. And they're going to go to that chess match area. They're going to be in the Mauritania area, and I think they're going to find a bit more to like there. I personally, I do feel like there's a stretch in the middle of this game where it gets comparatively weak to the rest. I don't. I don't love the ship graveyard. The Africa section.

[Dan]

Yes. The back half of Mauritania when you're just kind of doing the uncharted stuff. That is maybe the weakest part of the game, to me.

[Mike]

Yeah, they try. Agreed. They try to get like. They try to do actual traditional third person stealth in a way they're not good with. And the guard Patterns and the patrol routes just. It doesn't feel like a developer that knows what they're doing yet in that regard. Like they're good, they're better when it's like social clockwork. This feels more like it's actually militaristic guards patrolling and it does not feel super organic and it feels like old metal gear.

[Dan]

Like you know, late 90s, early 2000s guard AI sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

But like, but then, you know, you get to. I love the resort in Vietnam. That's. That section's fun. You're just. That's very Hitman. The humor too. It's like there's that douchebag where you're just trying to get in the fridge key for the bar so him and his tech bar bros can party. It's like this is IO doing their thing, just mocking everybody they can. But yeah, Patrick Gibson's amazing and the game does like pacing wise. It jumps back and forth between so many cool little. Like, I mean, I, I don't mean gimmick in a bad way, but there are some gimmicks in this game. Like the plane sequence, I was like, oh, it just reminds me of Uncharted 3. But then I don't even. I don't, I don't want to spoil it if you played it, you know. And Dan, you probably know what I'm talking about when you're interact a little bit when you're hand to hand fighting on the plane. There's an added wrinkle with that they. The controller allows you to do that is really cool. I've not seen a game do that before and it's again playing into the Bond gadget aspect and it's like, oh, you can also. That's very like Daniel Craig era Bond where it's like he just kind of brute forces people combined with the outsmarting of the Pierce Brosnan era Bond, which is like he uses the gadgets and kind of plans things ahead a bit more than Daniel Craig does. Which I, I think they do a good job of like paying homage to all the chapters of Bond's history. Like the humor of Roger Moore, the like borderline like rage of Timothy Dalton. The like they even get like some of the campiness of George Lazenby in here. Like it feels like no matter who your favorite Bond is, there's something going on here that you'll like. So it does feel like IO really did do their homework with Bond rather than just getting really into the recent ones. I think it's a great Bond adventure. Period.

[Dan]

Yeah, that part on the plane you're talking about where you realize there's extra wrinkle you can do. I was watching Minati did a stream for Giant Bomb the day it came out, and he got to that point, and I love the moment he realizes what you can do on the plane there. He just, like, kind of laughed and he's like, oh, this game just lets you have fun, doesn't it? Yeah, it's like, that's. That's a great way of putting it. Like, oh, that's fun. What a. It's a gimmick, but it's a fun one that totally works for this. Yeah.

[Mary]

Tell me more about the gadgets. What's, like, some of the gadgets that you get to. When I think of a, you know, a Bond game, I think I'm gonna get to play with some fun stuff. Yes.

[Dan]

So that's a thing that does really well where, you know, in most Bond movies, I feel like there's a scene where it's like, oh, you go into Q's lab and Q is like, Bond. So this has got a thing. You can do this. And be careful with Bond while Bond's, like, pressing buttons and causing fires and stuff like that.

[Mary]

You know, shooting gum is a bomb.

[Dan]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

Chekhov's watch laser.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. So like, they have that here where it's like you can walk around several times throughout the game in Q's lab and, like, you can interact with stuff and it's just causing trouble and setting fires and shit like that. But the main thing is based around your watch. So if you get a Q watch and that's how you hack things. So if you hold an lb, that's kind of the Bond vision thing, you know, it's kind of like the Batman vision and the Arkham game, stuff like that. But it's explained as, like, you've got lenses in your eyes, and you can kind of see what's hackable. You can see how things can interact with other parts of your gadgets, which is like a watch laser. So you can use that to, like, blind a guard temporarily. So if a guy's guarding a safe, you can, like, peep and he'll be like, oh, shit. You can, like, run behind him or whatever.

[Mary]

Like a laser?

[Dan]

Yeah, it's like a little, like, laser that shoots out of his watch and that can also knock down scaffolding above a guard and knock them out. You can get, like, AirPods, like, a little AirPod case that doubles as a flash mine. And so that'll like, stick on walls and act as a proximity mine. So if guards walk by, it knocks out one or two of them. You've got a pen, like a pen that shoots tiny little missiles out. And that's something you get later on, but that's super fun.

[Mike]

God, Mike, darts.

[Dan]

Oh, the poison darts are right there.

[Mike]

Hitman. Yeah, yeah. You just shoot someone and he gets nauseous and he has to go find a bathroom or a trash can so you can kind of maneuver around.

[Mary]

Straight from the movie. That's a good one. The nauseous. Yeah, the one that makes you have to go to the bathroom. That's good. Or. Yeah, those are good.

[Dan]

They all feel very. Oh, there's the camera.

[Mike]

There's like a camera. The shockwave camera, which is funny as well.

[Dan]

That's so funny. It's a camera. Yeah. That when you press the button, it shoots out a shockwave. So, like, if there's a guard, like, standing next to a railing or whatever, just, like, force pushes them off the railing to their death.

[Mary]

Are you pretending to use it? Like, you're like, cheese.

[Dan]

I mean, he doesn't, like, say anything, but it does, like, you know, like, that's how it works.

[Mike]

Yeah, Because I also love that the little, like, particle effect they use to show the shockwave is the most ratchet and clank ass, like, wavy cylinder that goes at them. But yeah, I started using that too when I just wanted to, like, again, there's a cool section too, with an art gallery down in a basement, like an art storage gallery under a museum, where I was like, fuck this. I've been stealthy all day. I just want to go use this shockwave camera. And you can knock shit over left and right.

[Mary]

Right.

[Mike]

And, like, pull stuff off the ceiling with it and just crash onto people. Yeah, the. There's. I still. The game sometimes feels disjointed, especially in the Mauritania area. It starts to feel a bit formulaic, where they're like, okay, you gotta go make this amount of money in order to bribe this dude. And it feels a bit too much like early 2000s role playing games where it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna go talk to this guy. And, oh, conveniently, the money I just made from these three side quests amounted to exactly what I needed to pay this guy. You start to see through the artifice of it. But still, the pacing of the rest of the game is so good. It's hard to care during those slogs, even though those do kind of halt the momentum. It just hurts that they're right in the middle of the game. So I think the center can. The Mauritania area can get a bit sluggish for me.

[Dan]

And it comes directly after maybe the most like, holy shit. Like, as far as, like the. The chess meat is this great big stealth sandbox. Then it goes into the car chase, into the Runway thing, into the plane stuff we were talking about. So it's like bang, bang, bang, like some of the best in the entire game. And then Mauritania is like, yeah, you're kind of walking. Like, it's kind of clever, like the making the money thing. Because I like how there's like, oh, here's like maybe six different activities you can do. And that's where it's like, oh, I did it one way. And I asked Bonk. Like, how do you make the money for this? Oh, you didn't do the fight pit, but you did this. It's like there's not a lot of replayability in this the way there is a Hitman. But like, there are things like this where my experience might be slightly different than yours. But it's all to say that part's a little slow paced. And then it goes into that kind of long ship graveyard stuff that is again, probably the biggest lull in the game. And there's a couple more that are not the most exciting. There's things that could have trimmed up at the end where it's like, okay, I'm just kind of walking around, just kind of hacking stuff with my watch, trying to move forward for half hour or so.

[Mike]

What did you think about the. I forget the name of the corporation. The office building. Web. What did you think of Web hq? The office building.

[Dan]

There's some clever stuff there, like trying to figure out how to get into rooms and get around alarms and stuff like that. But ultimately there is just a lot of like, all right, what window can I see through? What thing can I jump across? Okay, there's a blue tarp. I can go that way. You know, it's not the most. I think it's a cool location. This, like super, you know, like high end, like tech HQ and that you're breaking into kind of at night. Like, I think. I think that's a cool idea. I just don't think what you're doing moment to moment. There is like among the stronger parts of the game.

[Mike]

Yeah, there was like, there was a puzzle sequence there as well, when you're trying to figure out like a code to a safe. And I was like, this is the most like Elder Scrolls ass. Like who the fuck would write this in a journal? It's like I remember this memory and this number that came up. It's like, all right, I think this, this ultra tech genius CEO might be better than that. But maybe not. I don't know. Maybe that's what they're trying to say.

[Dan]

Yeah, maybe there's a huge security gap with their fucking vacuum cleane.

[Mike]

That reminded me of Perfect Dark because you do it. There's a. In the campaign for Perfect Dark you have a very similar solution to a puzzle. But yeah, it's super fun to see IO like a developer. I know all three of us respect the hell out of just knocking out of the park with such a. One of the biggest licenses. Especially a license with so many questions surrounding it now that Amazon bought it and who's going to be the next Bond and what's like the future of the movies. Them doing such a good job here is super heartening for them and for the franchise because I don't know what's coming next for it. But yeah, they very, very glad they, they got handed the reins to this. It makes a lot of sense and they proved it.

[Dan]

They're. They're going to kill it with more of these, I'm sure. Mary, do you think you're gonna play it?

[Mary]

I'm absolutely gonna play it. I was traveling, so every game I've played is on Steam Deck. This sure. Because I was, I was traveling, but I got it. Can you play it on Steam Deck? Probably not.

[Dan]

I would be able to.

[Mike]

This is like such a. Like a classic three third person action adventure. Sit on your couch. Just busted out over a weekend game. I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even try the Steam Deck. Yeah, like head.

[Mary]

Did you guys play it on PC or did you play it on console PC? Okay, cool.

[Mike]

It performed well.

[Dan]

Great. I ran off my laptop. It was perfect. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

No, this is just like a sit. This is like pour a drink, sit with it for like four or five hours at a time kind of old school game.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Mary]

Sounds great. I mean you guys are talking super positively of it. Besides like some minor details. Do you guys mind fusing it on

[Dan]

a 10 point scale? I would give this a 9.5. I guess it's a 20 point scale.

[Mary]

Yeah, yeah, we know.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. I like the point.

[Mary]

We know that that's not the scale or how it works, but that's very high.

[Dan]

Yeah. 9.5. My number two of the year, I would say behind Requiem and it's not even. It's kind of close.

[Mike]

I'm probably closer to an eight.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Still, like, I still think it's the best Bond game ever made. But like, just that's just because I, I, that's just because they haven't all aged well, but obviously this one's brand new, so it hasn't aged yet. Yeah, maybe a little bit higher than 8, but 8.8.5 range for sure. The, the, the momentum in the middle of the game. And like, there's certain parts in the game where I really, I, I could have done without all the, the MI6 headquarters interstitial chapters where you're just kind of like, I appreciate that they're lulls. But like, honest, honestly, looking at like, how Black Ops 6 handled that at the Rook that headquarters, like, I found that to be much more.

[Dan]

Oh, sure, yeah.

[Mike]

Like, compelling than going back to MI6 every time. Those also, I was like, I just want to get to the next mission because so much of this is so well paced.

[Dan]

Yeah. Maybe it's a 9, but I do like doing the 0.5. So just in spirit, think that there's a 0.5 there. Maybe it's a 9, but really like, great game overall.

[Mike]

Also some characters early on that I'm like, I fucking hate these people. And then all of a sudden, like, the villain Monroe.

[Dan]

Oh, wait, a villain Monroe.

[Mike]

Yes. One of your MI6 classmates. I was like, I don't like this guy at all. He sucks. But like, they, they knew what they were doing because all then later on that story stuff I won't get into.

[Dan]

They do a great job with all those characters.

[Mike]

Yeah. But like, only the other thing I'll say about the villains, similar thing. I'm like, I don't know if I know. Like, I don't know if IO is writing Chops is up to snuff for a Bond villain. Like, Bond villains are the cheesiest characters ever. But, like, again, similar to what they do with Bond here, they bridge the gap between the cheesy side of Bond villains and the believable side and the like, fuck this guy. He's so good at being a douchebag. He's like, they picked the perfect actor to mo cap and voice him. Like, I actually came away really liking what they did with the villain here.

[Dan]

Yeah. And there's a few villains of variant. Well, you've got the acting tour de force of Lenny Kravitz, of course.

[Mike]

Oh, I forgot about Lenny Kravitz is in 007. Yep. And he's Just playing Lenny Kravitz really well.

[Mary]

I know that he's like, a warlord, but he's like youtuber and Streamer. Twitch. Streamer cameos in the game as well.

[Mike]

I didn't know that.

[Dan]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Mary]

I think so. Did I make that up? Hold on.

[Mike]

The Queen of Twitch.

[Dan]

You're probably right. Yeah. I just wouldn't have recognized him.

[Mike]

No. Lenny Kravitz was a sore spot for sure. Is like, what, he's just playing himself now? Like, why are they.

[Mary]

That's so odd.

[Dan]

He's not believable at all. It's funny, though.

[Mike]

You don't need more star power than, like.

[Dan]

But, like, look, they've done that like Madonna and Die Another Day. Like, they've done gimmick stuff like that. And even, like, IO they do the elusive target stuff with, like, Gary Busey and celebrity cameo. So, like, it didn't feel. Yeah, it didn't feel that. You know, I just.

[Mary]

He is in it. And Jacksepticey, like, there's. There's like.

[Mike]

I wouldn't know if I saw them. Jacksepticeye I would recognize, but I didn't see him if he was in it. Jack, you did not leave a lasting impression. I'm just joking. I don't.

[Mary]

That's. I mean, I think it's interesting because, like, when you see stuff like that, my ins. My instinct is to be like, oh, like, that's probably not great.

[Mike]

Yeah, no, that's.

[Mary]

It sounds like they found a way to do it naturally.

[Dan]

I think it's great because they wrote in me and Jeff Bachler as McGrew feud into Hitman 3. So I think they do a great job with this stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah. Dan's. Dan's been blinded.

[Mary]

The final cut.

[Dan]

Yes.

[Mike]

It's in the game in Hitman 3, right?

[Dan]

Yeah. It's two guards talking, like, hey, won't give me back my Blu Ray. Like, what the hell?

[Mike]

It's the Chong King mission, right? The China. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure it's Chong King. I remember that.

[Dan]

Yeah. I was happy about that.

[Mike]

But yeah. 07007. First light. Good for IO.

[Mary]

That's so cool.

[Mike]

Yeah. Amazon just needs to keep that momentum going with the next movie.

[Dan]

Amazon would never screw something up.

[Mike]

I know.

[Mary]

No, save a perfect track record.

[Mike]

That spaceship was fine the other day, wasn't it? That's what I heard.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah.

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[Mike]

and ways to save what's Mina the Hollower? No, I know what it is. I haven't played it but you guys were talked about it last episode.

[Mary]

We finished Mina. I finished Mina Roll credits.

[Dan]

I have finished four. I'm on the fifth of six towers now and I unlike you, I think I'm going directly in the path that the newspapers have told me to do. And you did crazy Mary stuff the whole time.

[Mike]

I do have one suggestion Dan. I've not played the game. If you're gonna finish it.

[Dan]

Yes.

[Mike]

Try not to be lying on a wooden bench when you do it because I have heard that that could the

[Dan]

guide I was reading said that actually kind of helps. It helps.

[Mike]

Don't listen to IGN or Polygon. Guide's wrong. Don't listen to to him Mary Got angle for that.

[Dan]

Be good angle for Steam deck.

[Mike]

Yeah I know it sounds super comfortable but don't fall. It does sound comfortable to the siren wooden bench.

[Mary]

I'm on enough painkillers take down a horse. I feel completely numb.

[Dan]

It's cuz your spine has changed shape to fit that. Yeah.

[Mary]

Yeah. Like I'm a 90 degree angle.

[Dan]

It is like it is a game that is not just great for Steam Deck. It is like I don't like playing it on a larger screen. Steam Deck just something about the pixels and the way the art style is. It's like I tried playing on this monitor once. I was like no, this, this, this is a game that is meant to be played on a handheld platform for sure.

[Mike]

Oracle of seasons and ages. I had that same thing when I

[Dan]

played on a bigger screen.

[Mike]

Like nope, I want the Game Boy color. Go back.

[Mary]

I think it should be on a smaller screen. I think it looks good and they're they're explaining everything that you need to see on that tiny screen very well. So yeah I've I, I feel better now that I've finished it. Saying that they really did put the mean in Mina. It is a mean game to me. It was really difficult for me to get through it.

[Dan]

It is hard and like not in the fun way necessarily. Like, here's the thing, like there's games that are hard, like an Elden Ring or a Sekiro or something. But it's like, okay, this is like extra crafted. This is the way it's supposed to be. Hard for a reason. This is just we talked about a little bit last time. But like just the amount of times I was walking around in a circle forever trying to figure out the next place to go, it's like, this is not fun hard. This is like, oh, how is I. There's a fucking bush there on the edge of the screen that if I cut that, that's the one way I

[Mary]

can get to this other area.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

It feels just kind of random. Yeah.

[Mary]

Some brutal parts to it. Yeah. I think, I think it expects you to be smart. There was a part where I was getting stuck. I could not figure out how to get to the Bone Beach.

[Dan]

Right. Yeah, I struggle with that too.

[Mike]

Showing you how to get there.

[Mary]

I could not figure out how to get to Bone Beach. And even when they had explained to me that there's a thing that you need to jump on in order to get more height, I still couldn't figure it out. And when I found it, when I saw it and I realized you just needed to do it on a very specific ledge that could get you through, I was mad at myself that I couldn't figure that out.

[Dan]

Well, yeah, it's, I, I think the thing is like I mentioned last week that like I have several times put this down and been. I think I'm too frustrated with this game. I, I, I get what it's doing, I respect it, but I'm not enjoying it enough. I have come around on it in that it's out now. So when I do get frustrated, like I don't want to walk around for another half hour to figure out how to get to Bone Beach. I can pull up a long play and I can just kind of like, oh fuck. Okay. So I was supposed to cut that stupid thing or I can jump over that. Didn't realize that. So I have no, I, I will absolutely go to a guide or something if I'm just hitting one of those walls. But when we were playing it pre release, he didn't have that option at all. So I am liking now. I've crossed the threshold now to where I do think I admire the game and enjoy the game more than I'm frustrated by it. But all of the things that I complained about last week still hold true. Like I think there's I don't love a lot of the decisions they made about the design of this game, but I am liking it quite a bit still. Like, as you get more trinket slots and things like that, you can kind

[Mary]

of easier when you get the trinkets.

[Dan]

Yeah, you go to boss fight.

[Mary]

It's a game changer.

[Dan]

Totally. You go to a boss fight, it's like, all right, I'm going to get the one that's attack. I'm going to get the one that's defense. I'm going to get the one that makes the explosion when I come out of the ground. Like, you'll. You'll spec for that. And then when it's just like, okay, I'm just going to be in between dungeons exploring the overworld, I'll get a bunch of stuff that makes it easier to traverse and kind of float down and walk faster. And like, it's. I have like 6 trinket slots or something now, and it's just like, so much better than it was before.

[Mary]

So, yeah, that makes a hell of a big difference. To get your trink.

[Mike]

Oh.

[Mary]

Every time you finish a boss, you get your health maxed out a little bit more. That's been a game changer for me. I did have to look up a guide, I think three times because I was so stuck. And then I thought to myself, why am I so miserable? You can just look it up and continue on. I'm glad I did that. The other thing that I did, I don't know if I talked about this in the last one, but I do think it's worth. I think it's. I think it's the honest thing to do, which is I went into the settings. There's a lot of different mods that you can do in the settings to make the game just slightly more convenient for the player. I think that the heal is really long and you can get killed while you're healing really easily because it's five seconds long. And if you're doing a boss, you're not going to make it. I found a mod in the settings that makes your heal take half as much time, and I put that on and that was a game changer for me.

[Dan]

Yeah, I have not. I'm kind of a stickler with, like. I like that all those are in there. I think those accessibility things are really cool and they're pretty like, crazy. Like, you don't typically see games let you mod it that much, basically on the fly.

[Mary]

It's very intricate. There's so many different ones that you can do.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. And I haven't done that yet. I haven't pulled the trigger on that. And I think I'm far enough now to where it's like, all right, I have a trinket that makes me drink those. Those things twice as fast. So it's like, okay, I'll try to do it within the tools it's given me without. But like I don't know if someone needs to use that or whatever. I totally get it.

[Mary]

This is what I will say to you. I respect you very much for choosing to play the game Natchee and not altering it in any capacity. I have found that when I altered it ever so slightly, I enjoyed the game so much more and more. They put them in there for me to be able to alter it so that it could be more functional and more enjoyable. And like you, now that I've rolled credits on it, I can look back on it and be like, that was a great game. That was a fantastic game. I did enjoy it. I was just getting so God damn frustrated at a couple bosses and there's, there's areas Dan, where they just, they just keep throwing enemies at you in these really aggressive situations spaces. There's like this area with glass where you have to touch the glass to turn it into dirt and then you have to go under to like be able to go under that area would have been so hard without my, without my heal mod. I needed to heal in these. Some of these spaces like f. Even faster. Even with, even with the trinket I was like, I'm dying. So I will just say, although I like wrestled with it and I also was like, oh, I have all these. I'm not going to turn them on because I'm going to play this game all the way. I think three fourths the way through this game. Somewhere in the mirror section and fuck that. That mirror section is also really brutal. I was like, I need the help. I'm okay asking for directions. I need this. And I'm really glad that I did.

[Dan]

Yeah, I think that's just a personal preference thing. Like I'm trying to do it without tweaking it but like it sounds like it made it a more enjoyable experience for you. And like I've never understood better.

[Mary]

I'm happier.

[Dan]

I've never understood people that like get mad about like they added an easy mode for idiots. It's like off. Don't use it if you don't want to use it. Doesn't affect the way you have to play the game. You know, so. But then again, it's like, it's. That's always an interesting conversation to me because like something like a Sekiro, I think about that and it's like so much of what I loved about that was. Was like being forced to learn and get better and like. So with that one, if they did have a Mina style accessibility thing with like 50 different toggles to make it easier, I could kind of see myself with that one. Being like that is kind of like changing the whole thing of this game, you know, where it's like Mina though, it feels to me like, okay, no, this just seems like it's just gonna help you enjoy it, you know?

[Mary]

Well, maybe. I mean, I would say there's mods that make like you do 10 times the damage or make, you know, enemies do one tenth the damage to you. I, I would agree with you. At some point, if you're adding all those mods, then you're probably not going through the experience of these fights. I tried a lot of different methods and this was the one where I was like, I want a challenging game. I do want to suffer a little bit. I want. I want to have to go to the bosses like a bunch of times. I think for me, the heel was the one deal breaker for me where I was like, if I can't heal, I'm going to be angry. I'm angry that I can't heal. And so that was like the one that I gave myself. But I, I am with you in the sense that, like, this game is meant to be hard. This game is not meant to be easy. I don't want this game to be easy. I wanted it to be manageable. And for me, that was the mod that made it manageable, but still difficult.

[Dan]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Mary]

Yeah. But, yeah, I think it's to each their own. And I also, I, I fully agree with your. Your stance of in general, which is like, if you really want hard games, then leave it alone and play it exactly as it is. This game you absolutely could get through without altering it. I just think it's a real. It's a real brutal game. To the bitter end, to the, to the last boss fight, I was like, you son of a. This is a game that pushes you to your absolute limits. I think it's fantastic. I enjoyed it so, so much. But I, I am grateful that I, I made a couple. I made that. I made that alteration to make myself be able to get through it. God damn it. Yeah, there's a real fun area at the end Too. If you continue to play it, Dan, I'll be curious what you think. The game has a really interesting ending that reflects upon the way you played the game.

[Dan]

Interesting. Okay. I like stuff like that.

[Mary]

I like it too. I like when games get a bit cheeky and reminisce about your experience.

[Dan]

Like the Undertale type stuff.

[Mary]

It did, it did remind me of Undertale. It's funny that you mentioned that. Very specific game. I think it, I think it did. Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay. Yeah, I like that stuff.

[Mike]

There's an email question that will pertain to this game and it made me look up. The Witness reminds me of this as well. Like reviewing that game, not being able to look up guides was.

[Dan]

God, oh my God.

[Mike]

I was just looking at my review and oh my God, I can't stand my writing from back then.

[Dan]

Don't make me look it up.

[Mary]

So mean to yourself.

[Mike]

Oh no, it's not. It's not like pretentious. It's just bad, badly written. You can look it up if you want. Go for it. It's not, it's not. It's no masterpiece like my. Oh my bio.

[Dan]

About the author. Yeah, yeah, about the author.

[Mike]

Mary, what is Dungeon Clawer?

[Mary]

Dungeon Clawer is a new game that I was playing. Well, I think, I think I played the demo back in the day, but now the full game has come out. I love a claw game, but this also is a deck builder rogue like so every time you play it's kind of. It has a brutal first spot which is like you're a rabbit and they cut off your paw to make a lucky's rabbit's paw. And then so you, you attach a claw to it so that you can go through this dungeon and get your, I don't know, get your paw back. It's kind of. It's kind of mean. But anyway, so you're clawing. You're using the claw to grab knives or hammers. If you do that, you attack the enemy that's with you. Or you could get shields that gives you defense. And then there's lots of interactives that I think are really fun. I'll give you an example of one that I think is particularly interesting. They have a water gun that you can put in the machine. If you fill the machine with water, certain items will float and certain items will sink. So the swords, because they're made of metal, will sink to the bottom, making it really difficult for you to pick them up. And so enemies will fill the machine with water just to fuck with you. And then things that are made of wood, like a wooden shield will float because wood floats, and so then you can heal. But the water gun, if you change what's in the water, if you add a lava bomb to the water, all of a sudden now the water's lava. And so if you have a water gun, it'll shoot lava at your enemies and turn them, you know, get them on fire. You can do the same thing with poison. So you can make the water poison. You can make the water freeze the characters with the water gun. So I think it's really neat how much you can play with the different elements that's in this tank and build your character. You build your deck based on how you want to attack. Is it. You want to go with a poison build? Do you want to have like a crit build where you're just like getting lots of crits? One of the things that I really got addicted to doing was I got a shrink ray. Every time you pull a shrink ray, it shrinks three items in the thing. So I was able to grab like 10 fucking swords because they're. They're so small and they fit inside your claw. It's quite delightful and playful and especially if you like claw games. I really. I truly did like this. It starts easy, but it gets difficult towards the end.

[Dan]

It reminds me of like raccoon doing a thing where it's like in this post Balatro world where it's like, okay, what are things that we can like Balatro ify here? And it's like, okay, so coin pushers, claw machines, like, everything is ripe for it.

[Mary]

I like, literally have another one that's going to come up later in this episode that's exactly the same. I think this one is better. I think there's a lot that are trying to do the Roguelite deck builder style like you said, and not all of them are doing it for me. But the claw game is cheeky and silly and interesting enough that I am enjoying playing it. I find that the poison build is. Is the best for me right now. You can also upgrade your items, delete items in your deck. Lots of different types of boss fights that challenge you in different ways. Poison bosses or bosses that have little miniature versions of themselves that. That come after you at the end. It's. It's a. It's a cute little game that I've really enjoyed. I think I've put a decent amount of time on this when I was on my trip, because I could play this every night. And what I found myself doing was before I went to sleep at night. I would play one round of Dungeon Clawer every night before I went to bed. They take like 45 minutes to burn through unless you die. And just to see if I could get lucky and get through it.

[Dan]

Nice. Do you like it more than something like recoin?

[Mary]

I think that reckoin might be polished more when it comes to what game I would play more. I'd probably play Dungeon clawer more Because I would rather play a claw machine game than a coin pusher.

[Dan]

Sure. Same.

[Mary]

I don't go to coin put. If I hit an arcade irl, I am going to the claw machine.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Mary]

I just got this in a claw machine. That's big. Yeah.

[Mike]

Huge claw machine.

[Dan]

Big as hell.

[Mary]

It was huge. It was two. It was like $3 to play once. And I got. I got them very close. And then I put another three bucks in and. And got them. Like. I love claw machines. So I don't think everybody feels probably that connected to claw machines. But there's so much fun and you can get over in this game. So like, you'll. Maybe you'll see like a bunch of really good stuff in your machine. And so you'll be like, I'm gonna grab six swords. But if you get too greedy, sometimes the claw will try and pick up too much and pick up nothing.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

You have to be particular with the claw machine to get what you want. There's also chance games that I thought were pretty fun. So like, there's money. You need money to upgrade your items or delete items. Things like that. And so they'll have a machine that has a bunch of items in it, like a bunch of coins, but then also spike traps. And so when you're digging with your claw to get all the money, if you get a bunch of spikes, you can take like 50 damage. You could like lose half your health if you do it incorrectly. Which I think is kind of cheeky and funny. There's different. They alter the machine in different ways to kind of mess with you sometimes. Like I said, like they'll fill it with water or they'll add a bunch of fluff which doesn't help you. And it can fill your claw in ways you didn't want. So you can get nothing and get absolutely obliterated in an. You know, in a turn if you're not paying attention. So like I said, it. It starts easy and it gets quite difficult towards the end. If you have a bad claw, you're. You're done. So you gotta pay attention.

[Mike]

Was rude. Dice the game the other game you mentioned, because this all also reminds me of Balatro. They're taking it this classic format of a game and then just adding like roguelike and kind of game breaking elements to it.

[Mary]

Yep. Rune dice is the same vibe. Yeah, I called it. I said rude dice and it was

[Mike]

supposed to be rude dice.

[Dan]

Rude dice sounds cooler to me.

[Mike]

Rude dice.

[Mary]

Rude dice was a typo. Yeah, we were joking on the break that it's like dice that when you roll it, it's like, eat loser. It's like, all right,

[Dan]

your wife.

[Mary]

Okay, okay. Game. Take it down a notch. Also deck builder, but you have dice. You throw a dice, if it meets another dice with the same number, then that's an attack. But also your dice keeps rolling to hit other dice of the, of the new number. So I'll give you an example. You have dice in there that are 1, 2, 3, 4. Your dice says 1. If you throw it and it hits a 1, your dice is now 2. And if it finds a 2 dice as it's bopping around, it becomes a 3 dice and then it becomes a 4 dice and then you're doing an. You're doing a 1 attack, a 2 attack, a 3 attack, and a 4 attack. If you can get that far as you build your deck, the numbers will now have fancy things on it like fire. So if you hit a three dice that has fire on it, now you're doing three damage with a fire attack. Same thing with ice or any elemental. There's heal dice that you'll need as you get sick. There's poison dice, of course, and there's ways for you to heal or like protect yourself from poison, etc. I think that this game is also a little rough on the edges. Some of these feel not as. Not as fine tuned as Raccoon, but they're still enjoyable as a simple mechanic. And I do love seeing dice explode. When you hurl a dice into like a giant thing of dice and then you get to, you get to watch like a bunch of action happen. So I think it's fine for like a nice simple game, little action, action romp. I've won. I find it a little easy. I've. I've burned through two areas now. Whereas Dungeon Clawer took a long time for me to be able to win that game, it was, it was harder. But nevertheless, I think if you're really looking for deck building roguelites and you like dice, I think that's kind of a nice caveat there. It's an easy game to enjoy and learn and kind of burn through over time.

[Mike]

You seem to have a trend going lately with classic, classic simple games with rogue leg elements.

[Mary]

I find these cathartic. These are again, these are. I'm going to play around because the plane is starting to land and I have about maybe 40 minutes on the, you know, on this plane left before we get off the tarmac. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do one round and see where it takes me. I. I don't think they're gonna be for everybody, but I, I do like the random chance and odds based games. I still play Raccoon and I, I will play, I will gladly play dungeon crawler and rune dice like when I'm bored and I just want to do something for about 40 minutes.

[Dan]

I mean it's great just to have like an option on the Steam Deck that's, you know, relatively mindless. Not to be reductive or anything but just like, I can just kind of turn my brain off. It's not a story, it's not a thing where it's like, oh God, am I going to get wrapped into a 15 minute cut scene or dialogue sequence as the plane is landing? Like, I totally know what you're talking about. Like, I love having those.

[Mike]

I'm still playing Megabonk on planes.

[Mary]

Yeah, I play megabonk too. I recommend Megabonk for like friends who are like, I want to play something but I don't want to think too much and I think I'm going to smoke weed tonight. And I'm like, perfect amount. I have a game for you.

[Dan]

Yeah, it's so good for that.

[Mike]

Y.

[Mary]

If you're going to like get hopped up on a couple of drugs, I recommend megabonk. You don't have to do shit in that game. And when you, if you again like so like going back to dungeon caller, like, it's just. You're not going to be upset, you're not going to be stressed out. Like if the enemy is really tough and you die, it's just like, oh, well now I guess I'll just start again. There's just nothing stressful about these games. I've been playing them a lot and I've been enjoying them. I think they are plentiful. But good news, I like them.

[Mike]

Well, speaking of planes, Mary, you also said you wanted to talk briefly because you played a smidgen of Forza on Steam Deck. What is that like? Because that is also a game. I'm like, I'm playing that on a big screen. If I'M playing Forza. I'm curious how fast I've got a

[Dan]

fucking steering wheel and pedals and stuff. Yeah.

[Mike]

Dan has a wall that's like a wall tv, which. I would also love to play Forza.

[Mary]

Can you believe that they even have the ability to play Forza on a Steam deck? I. I was shocked when I installed it. I was like, this game is gonna play like butt. And it is functional on a Steam deck. You absolutely can play it. I think the graphics, as you might expect, will not be very good. The people look ridiculous. But you can play it on a Steam deck. My biggest problem that I've had is that what's it called when like a graphic is really far away? The draw. The distance. The draw.

[Dan]

Draw distance. Yeah.

[Mary]

Is not very far. So every once in a while I'll be like going 120 miles an hour and then a car will appear right in front of me and I'll hit it because it wasn't in my purview until I got too close to to it. But you're going 120 miles an hour. That's fucking annoying. But the game still plays as it should. Outside of that, I was able to play three hours of Forza so far. And I. I think it's a fantastic car game, especially for people who are into car enthusiasts in a Steam deck. I. I probably wouldn't recommend it. I think you should probably play that on a TV and enjoy how beautiful it looks and how it feels on a Steam deck. I felt like I was playing an iPhone version of this game. I. I will just say, though, I think it's a marvel that they could get it to run on a Steam deck.

[Dan]

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I mean, if you just want to. Like, I could see like on a plane, just like, I'm gonna drive around and just get some, you know, bonus collectibles and stuff like that. It's not one where you're gonna do like the biggest, you know, most climactic race on the Steam deck, probably.

[Mary]

Please do not play this on a Steam deck unless you are. You are going out of your way to try and complete it or something like that. However, isn't it amazing that they were able to shove all those cars in a fucking Steam deck and it runs.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Have you been playing Technology's crazy Forza?

[Dan]

I mean, I'm several hours into it, I'd say, but like, you know, a bunch of other stuff, like Forza is one that's always going to be there for me if I'm in Between games I will pick it up. I don't need to remember like where was I at in the story or what was my objective here. I will pick it up.

[Mary]

Three months, that does not matter.

[Dan]

Nope. I'll pick it up and be like, I'm just going to drive, hit some signs, go to the nearest thing and have fun. You know, like that, that's a year round when I'm in the mood type of game.

[Mike]

You know, I do want to see Japan in this game. Like what they do with it because what, five was Mexico, four was uk.

[Dan]

The uk There was Australia was one of them.

[Mike]

Australia. Yeah.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But I want to see the deal with Japan.

[Mary]

It's beautiful. And they do like, you know, you'll, you'll drive past Tokyo Tower on one of your first road trips and they kind of call out the visual spectacles of, of what makes Tokyo and these different areas so beautiful to drive around in. And you're in like gorgeous cars as usual, running around like a little menace. So I think it captures the, the joy of all these games. It's probably earned the positive reviews that it's gotten. So I, I'd like to play it on a bigger screen and give it a better go and not play it on my Steam deck anymore.

[Mike]

Dan, am I pronouncing it correctly? Pictonico. Pictonico.

[Dan]

Nico. It is another Nintendo foray. Yeah, it's Nintendo making a phone game again. And it's just straight up WarIowaWare using your photo album. And it's hilarious in the way that warioware is, but it's got the extra wrinkle of like, well, when it boots up it's like, okay, looking at 26,000 of your photos and you have to be like, whoa, whoa, slow down, buddy. And like you point it towards maybe an album and it's like, how about you just use these here? So I don't. You're not scanning every boarding pass screenshot. I have receipts, you know, whatever. But it's very good at finding ones with like faces. And so, okay, that warioware thing pops up and it's Mike's face and it says eat and it'll be like a kebab and I have to like grab your jaw and make it go and you eat all this stuff. Or a picture of Mary pops up and your eyebrows are pinball flippers and I tap them to like, try to like hit pinball stuff. So it's just all the like ludicrous, you know, very fast action of a Wario where with the funny X factor of like, oh, what goofy picture.

[Mary]

From my real pictures?

[Dan]

Yeah, from your phone's photo album. So that's why, like, this needs to

[Mary]

be a phone capturing your phone data.

[Dan]

It is. I mean, they do a bunch of stuff of like, hey, just heads up, we're not doing evil stuff. We're Nintendo. Don't worry about it. You know, so hopefully they're not. But I would recommend making like a photo album basically and saying, hey, like, I just loaded it up here.

[Mary]

Like, you can have access to one album, not everything.

[Dan]

Yeah, I just loaded it up and it's like, photo access is restricted. You should go, you know, allow access to everything. It's like, no, that's okay. We'll just do this.

[Mary]

Thank you.

[Dan]

Yeah, it's. It's very funny though. It's got a lot of charm. If you like Warioware or like those old, like Game Boy camera mini games and stuff where you can take pictures and play around with them. It's. It's fantastic for that.

[Mike]

Cool. Yeah, this looks pretty fun. I could see this being a good party game when people are just hanging out at the house.

[Dan]

Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

[Mary]

But only on the phone can. You can't put it on the tv.

[Dan]

No, no. I mean, you can cast it or whatever, you know.

[Mike]

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I guess it's not a party game then.

[Dan]

I kind of pass it around. Like, I mean, one round of it takes, you know, a couple minutes. So you like, hand it to someone. Be like, hey, check this out.

[Mike]

Yeah, fair enough. All right. You guys want to talk about emails?

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Yeah.

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[Mike]

Okay, as always, you can Write into firescapecast gmail.com, get questions, read on the show. We got some regulars tonight. I think we have a new emailer, but that is firescapecastmail.com third and final section of every episode. We read through these. Dan, Mary, do you want to read this first one from Ryan?

[Mary]

Sure. At what point? Oh, wait, is there no okay. That's how it starts. There was no, like, hello, no fire escapees. It just gets right to it. I kind of respect that. No. 2 just starts with, at what point do you throw in the towel and look up the solution to a puzzle or challenge in a video game? I have very little tolerance for wasting my time anymore. And I'm always amazed to hear how much time you all spend trying to solve things on your own. Thanks, Ryan from Chicago.

[Mike]

I did put. I did select this email before we talked about Mina for what it said.

[Mary]

It's so funny. It's a perfect example. It is my. My answer to this. It's not a specific game, but Mina is a good example, is when I say to myself out loud, I'm not having fun anymore.

[Dan]

Yep, yep. I feel like I've seen all these areas. I don't know where I'm fucking going.

[Mary]

I'm doing my best. I wish to move on. I want to. I want to move. I want to have progress in a game.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

And with that game, like, once you learn what it is, it's not like, you know, I think in a game that does this better, if you do look up the solution, sometimes you'll feel like, oh, man, I robbed myself. That. That would have been fun to figure out on my own. I have not felt that with Mina. I have felt every time, like, I'm glad I looked that up. This would have pissed me off, you know, Barometer.

[Mike]

Like. Like, there's times in, like, fromsoft games where I. Especially in Elden Ring. And what was it? I think it was Dark Souls 3. There was a couple bosses where Dark Souls 3 I reviewed, so I didn't have the luxury, but I remember thinking, okay, I'm doing my best, and I'm pretty good at these games. I feel like there's something I'm missing. And I finally looked it up. I'm like, okay, well, I would not have ever known that unless I talked to this one NPC across the world. But, like, other times I've looked it up and be like, oh, I just wasn't, like, listening to the game in the right way during this boss fight. And that's disappointing. The first one, though, I'm like, no, I don't. I wish I had the time to do that, but there are too many games coming out these days. Like, I. I want to have fun and I want to see the entirety of the game. But, like, there's also times, like, again, I would mention earlier during the game segment, I was like, I was reviewing The Witness. If I was to play the Witness today, I would absolutely look up solutions to some of those mazes, having reviewed that game and gotten through all of it, But I think 12 of the panels just brute forcing it. I'm glad I did that because I also had that big eureka moment that that game has that some people have finished it and not even know.

[Dan]

I never saw it. Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah. I'm Drew Scanlon. I remember was walking by my desk. He's like, what the fuck are you doing? I was like, oh, yeah. This is like a whole thing the game doesn't really tell you about. But, like, I'm glad I did that. But I also. That was a time when I was just literally being paid to focus on one game for a while and make sure I could review it adequately. But I also. I stopped feeling shame when I had to look things up. But, like, I also am the. Like, there are still puzzle games or, like, challenges where I'm like, I get through it. I'm like, oh, that was really, really satisfying to get through. Like, Dan, I was watching a couple of your clips from Sekiro, and that's not the same thing, but like, you. You were like, wow, that was incredible.

[Dan]

Well, second row was like two different things where it's like, I would never want to know how to beat a boss necessarily, unless I don't know. Most of the time it's like, I'm gonna do this and I'll learn the patterns and I'll have that moment of satisfaction when you put it all together. But then it's like there are parts where it's like, I don't know how to progress the quote unquote story of Sekiro. And I told the chat when I was streaming that, like, you can just tell me because, like, I'm just. That's always just so annoying to me where the chat will just be like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah, you just gotta talk to that dog and put some rice in your ass and then you go to the next area. It's like the. From stuff where it's like, okay, I don't get any satisfaction out of this.

[Mike]

Like, it was. It was fun to do. Like, again, like, my favorite game of all time, I frequently say, is Majora's Mask. If I was to play that game. Well, obviously if I was gonna play that game today wouldn't be my favorite game because it's not aged extremely well. But, like, back when I first played that, that was one of like three games that whole year that not we all played a lot of games, but like, there are just too many games these days, and I want to get to the next thing. And I don't mean to like be fleeting with the current one, but Majora's mask, like, was something I could just ensconce myself in. And I didn't mind that this Zora on the other side of the map gave me a hint as to what to do in the Deku swamp. Like, that made sense to me because I. All my focus was on this one game world in the universe. But like, nowadays it's like, well, I'd love to dive into Forza Horizon, which I. I would hope I don't need a strategy guide for. Unless it's one of the barn finds. If they still have those. Like, it's. It's so saturated these days, which is a great thing. Like there's an embarrassment of riches for us to play. But it's also. I always feel like, oh, I could be. I could be seeing more of this game and getting on to mina. Like in 007, if there's a thing where I didn't know what to do, which didn't happen. Just using that as hypothetical. It's like I have a harder time now just really beating my head against the wall until I get that aha moment. They can be powerful.

[Mary]

Like Dan was saying, sometimes there's like the aha feels really valuable. And sometimes you're like, I'm a fan idiot. And I just wish that the game. Like, I wish that I could just look up a guide and know so I can stop being mad at myself. I have like, I. I thought of like another one when I played Wind Waker the first time ever. I got pretty lost during a boss fight and I couldn't figure out why I was going in the wrong door. And I had to redo the boss fight and I was dying from the boss. And I finally looked it up and it's. I guess the way the sword falls is the door you're supposed to go through.

[Dan]

Oh, right.

[Mary]

I didn't know that phantom game. It did not click for me. I did not understand. And as soon as I looked it up and they were like, go through the door the. The sword points at. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm glad I looked it up. I'm not dealing with this shit. Tell me what to do. Same thing with the water temple in Link's Awakening. Is that the one?

[Dan]

Ocarina. Ocarina.

[Mary]

Whatever. Tell me where to go. I'm not dealing with all this shit. You got to put on the heavy boots, you got to find a hidden door. It's like upside down and under something. I would never have thought of that I. I need. I bet it felt really cool for the nine year old that discovered that on their own. I bet that felt like a million dollars.

[Dan]

No, nothing about that felt like a million dollars.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dan]

And that.

[Mike]

It was that. That's.

[Mary]

I was upset.

[Mike]

That's such an interesting thing. It's like, I don't even know how to phrase this. I do. Like again, I say Majora's Mask and Ocarina are my number one and two favorite games of all time. But like, there's some things that have aged so poorly that by today's standards, I'm like, God, games have gotten so much better at being intuitive in a way that older games were not. You literally just had to be lost and kind of sometimes accidentally hit a certain patch of wall with your sword in order to get through. And then it becomes like a word of mouth thing, like urban legend. Like that's how you get through and it spreads. And that was really cool and of its time, but now I'm just like, I. Unfortunately, my patience for that has worn thin. And to your point. Yeah, it's like I play games 95% of the time to have fun. They can convey other emotions, you know, to like them. Yeah, they can convey other emotions. But generally speaking, I'm playing video games to have fun. If I'm not having fun, I'm like, well, why am I doing this? I'm gonna Google this. Oh, that was stupid. But yeah, every once in a while, to your point, it like it does. I do kind of have a pang of guilt. I'm like, oh, I really didn't meet the developers halfway with that one. I really got impatient when I could have probably paid more attention to what was happening.

[Mary]

I thought of one more. Do you guys remember pt? Yeah, the playable teaser from Kojima?

[Mike]

They did that. But yeah, that's the worst. Like, oh, I had to answer the phone three times and then look at that window four times and then answer the phone three more times. Times.

[Mary]

I was playing that demo live on Gamespot when it came out and I think I played it for like seven hours because we couldn't figure out how to get the goddamn phone to ring. And I think you had to whisper something into the mic of your.

[Dan]

Like Jareth or something.

[Mary]

Yeah, fuck that. I. We just ended up looking it up. But it. I actually think it was kind of more interesting. And maybe it was his intention for us to look it up.

[Mike]

Yeah, he was. He wanted the word to spread on the Internet, which is like, it was a good guerrilla marketing kind of thing. It. Yeah, No. I don't know how anybody figured that shit out.

[Mary]

I was angry.

[Mike]

There's only one person in the world.

[Mary]

Yeah. I was angry that I couldn't figure it out. But it ended up becoming a funny moment because we had to look it up.

[Mike]

Well, thank you, Ryan from Chicago. Dan, do you want to read this one from our old friend Wes from Baltimore?

[Dan]

Sure. What's up, Bill Crudup? What's a reference you make that nobody gets? I find myself occasionally quoting Michael Keaton from the film the Other Guys, where he says, I don't even understand the reference. It is an ironic quote given this question, but nobody has seen that movie and it never gets picked up on. Thanks, Chuds west from Baltimore. No, that movie's great. I just watched it again fairly recently. And that recurring bit with Michael Keaton unintentionally referencing TLC songs is fucking hilarious.

[Mike]

I just watched it like a week ago too.

[Dan]

Hey, guys, don't go chasing waterfalls, guys. Come on. You have to be doing this on purpose.

[Mike]

That's really good.

[Dan]

That is the ongoing. Will Ferrell being married to Eva Mendez and just keeps talking about his ugly, ugly wife.

[Mike]

Yeah. And she's just super subservient. He's a dick to her. Was like, what the is this?

[Dan]

Yeah, this movie's good. It's really funny.

[Mike]

I watched it. Yeah. Like late night a week ago and it still holds up really well.

[Dan]

It does, yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I tend to whenever there's like a super gory thing. I did it today on the State of Play. Watch along on Giant Bomb. Like Wolverine is just eviscerating kill like gore and blood everywhere. And like someone call 91 1.

[Mary]

Tug Tug, you guys.

[Mike]

Michael Keaton reminded me that I, I, I quote the his first Batman movie fairly often. He when he like his version of Bruce Wayne is so weird, he would just be. He had to get in a fight at like a bar or restaurant or something. And I would routinely say, like, you want to get nuts, let's get nuts. Or like, you ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight? He just says the weirdest shit. Like his Bruce Wayne is weirder than his Batman.

[Dan]

They throw some of that into Lego Batman. Like that dance the devil thing I think is in there.

[Mike]

Oh, really?

[Dan]

Yeah, that's a really good line.

[Mike]

But I also, like I said this before when Someone is talking about. It's ironic that I do this, but, like, if I. If I'm talking to someone who's just getting way too waxing poetic about, like, wine or video games or something, and they'll be like, yeah, so this game's kind of like a examination of the American sublime. And I'll be like, yeah, I saw that toilet from Cool Runnings. There's a. There's a scene in Cool Runnings. I've talked about this in the show before, where he's, like, giving a presentation. Presentation to this crowd. And he's like, the bobsled gentleman is a sophisticated machine. And there's this. The random extra in the back is like, yeah, so's a toilet. And then they just move on with the scene. So anybody, anytime anybody's making way too big of a deal out of something that shouldn't be, I was like, yeah, it's also a toilet.

[Mary]

That's a good one. I like when they're, like, so obscure. Most people are like, what are you talking about? I think. I think this one's. Maybe a lot of people know it, but I know that, like, my family doesn't know it, but anytime you find out about something that it doesn't really matter, I can use it in a million different ways. But the line is, the whole time. The whole time, the whole time, the whole time. And you just say that four different ways. That's from Mrs. Doubtfire.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

I was gonna say that sounds familiar.

[Mary]

Sally Fields finds out that her ex is the kids. Yeah. Babysitter in drag. And every. The way she says it. She's such a good actress. God, I love Sally Fields, but her being, like, the whole time. The whole time, the whole time, the whole time. I do that a lot. Nobody really. I think it's rarely do people, like, connect that. That is Mrs. Doubtfire. But that's good that in almost every line from the Simpsons that I probably have reused a billion times, I feel

[Dan]

like all the stars are here. I say that so much because it applies to so many things. But, like. Like, most people know, like, I think the most people that know me know what that's from. Right?

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

[Dan]

The norm thing.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally just quoted the most obscure norm bit earlier.

[Dan]

Oh, dude, Mike. I remember when we were doing Burgle My Bananas and I kept trying to make you crack when there's the part in McGruber when he's, like, pretending to hold Kristen Wiig hostage at the Vegas Club, and he's like, My name is McGruber. Who am I, you ask? And so I would be doing the Funky Shop, and I'm like, what does this do? And I would just look directly. You ask.

[Mike]

Yeah, just waiting for. Like, waiting for you to tee it up. Oh, it's so funny. You just blew our cover. That was a huge advantage. He gets on stage and just immediately ruins the entire mission.

[Dan]

Oh, it's okay. He thinks you're dead.

[Mike]

Yes, I still, like, I. I knew I loved my wife more than, like, anything in the world, but, like, I showed her maguber for the first time. And this was like, six months ago or something, and I have not heard her laugh as hard as she has laughed.

[Dan]

Hell, yeah.

[Mike]

When they cut to the first sex scene and I somehow. She laughed even harder when they did the same exact bit three minutes later with the ghost of his death,

[Dan]

that's when he proposed.

[Mike]

Mary, you and I, we. We have really obscure, or rather, what's the word I'm looking for?

[Mary]

Like, really super inside jokes.

[Mike]

B side. Like, it's B side quotes from Home Alone that somehow became part of Knievel vernacular. Like, my favorite line in Home Alone is when they're chasing Kevin, like, the gloves are off. They're chasing Kevin through the house. He's clearly got this plan. He had rappelled across from the attic to the treehouse. And Marv and Harry were giving chase after the whole tarantula scene, and Harry beat the shit out of him with a crowbar. And Marv's like. Marv's like, we gotta get after him. He's gonna call the cops. And then Harry's like, what? From a tree house? And then on their way, they're like. Like, pulling themselves along the rope, and they see him with the garden shears, like, what's up your horse's ass? And they see him about to cut it. And Mark Harry turns around to go back toward the house.

[Mary]

Go back.

[Mike]

Go back. We use that a lot in Resident Evil.

[Mary]

Oh, we do say go back a lot. I love that.

[Mike]

That's what it's from. It's because he knows he's about to cut the rope they're on, and they slam into the house.

[Mary]

So good.

[Mike]

Those are mine.

[Mary]

Those are classics. They're really good. And I like that we invented some to this day. Sometimes, like, I'll upload a video, and some will be like, shotgun shells in the morgue and Shotgun shells in the morgue. Yeah, we invented. Because it was like, don't forget shotgun shells in the morgue. Which we did. I think we did end up forgetting.

[Mike]

Yeah, it started because, like, we, we had gotten to a point. Tough part of. I think it was Resident Evil 0 and. No, no, it was Resident Evil remake, the first one we played and we had hit a checkpoint where we just could not get past it, but it was several episodes worth. And I kept reminding you that there were shotgun shells in the morgue that you go back to, but you just kept forgetting to go back so it became a thing.

[Mary]

Yeah, shotgun shells in the morgue.

[Mike]

Well, thank you, Wes. Thank you, Chud. I will read this one. Also, Darian from Toronto, who is email Wes.

[Mary]

He calls you a chud.

[Mike]

I know. I'm just calling him one back.

[Mary]

Oh, okay. Thanks a lot, Chud.

[Mike]

Darian also emails often. Hey, homies. Because you said you liked unsolicited recommendations so much, you should watch the Kid Detective, a mid budget genre parody that takes a really memorable turn at the end. Do you guys have any movies you like that drastically shift tone as they go? And do you think something like that could work for a video game? Cheers. Darian from Toronto. Dan and I both. Yeah, yeah. You, you, you go.

[Dan]

I, I got four that came to mind immediately. Full Metal. Full Metal Jacket.

[Mary]

That's a good one. That's a good example.

[Dan]

That's. That's a one and two. There's two movies in there, basically from Desk till Dawn.

[Mike]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Dan]

That's a similar situation.

[Mary]

It's like halfway through. Right. Maybe even before that.

[Dan]

Yeah, both of those movies are, I feel like, are like two different movies once things change, you know?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Barbarian, which Mary told me about. Yeah, Barbarians. Got some shifts and audition. I don't know if anyone's heard of this. It's a Japanese.

[Mary]

Jesus, what's your problem recommending that?

[Dan]

The Bonk loves that movie. She was the one who recommended it to me and I was like, oh, that's unbelievably up.

[Mary]

Yeah, sickos.

[Dan]

It's a lot.

[Mary]

There's a tonal shift warning about auditions.

[Dan]

That one's a lot. Yeah, I, she, she told me just like, hey, we're gonna go in blind on this. And I watched and I was like, oh, I, I see why we went in blind.

[Mary]

You have all been warned. That is a tough watch. I do. I think it, I think it fits what you have been asked for, so I will allow it. But please, please don't watch that. If you guys are squeamish.

[Dan]

It goes. It gets pretty extreme by the end. Yes.

[Mary]

God, yes.

[Dan]

Yes.

[Mike]

I would say Cabin in the woods definitely does that as well.

[Mary]

Oh, that's a good example.

[Mike]

Every single sketch from I think you should leave does that, like halfway through. But Dan, you and I both thought of Search Party and I've talked about this show several times the last few episodes, but I haven't checked in the last week. There's still no way to watch it without getting that annoying. Like specifically the HBO plus Hulu subscription, that show. The less I say about it, the better. But like each time you finish a season, get ready for quite a different show. And then I would also probably put just thinking horror movies. Now, get out has a similar tonal shift.

[Mary]

Like, oh, horror movies are good for this.

[Mike]

Yeah, this is not what I thought this movie was about at all. And Amanda and I watched that again recently. Get out. Still so fucking good. Yeah, I nope as well. But like, nope kind of builds to it more. Whereas get out is like, oh, that's what this. That's the horror of the movie. Okay, I get it. Well, I don't get it, but you know what I mean? But yeah, those are mine.

[Mary]

There's a couple horror movies that fit this pretty good. Mandy is, yeah, a good tone shift. I think it starts kind of sad and it feels like it might be like an action movie and it just goes out all out. Wacky music based horror. It's hard to describe that one, but it's like, it's very music oriented for the second half and I think that's a crazy tone shift. And I also think the substance has a crazy tone shift.

[Dan]

Yes, it does.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

For its last act, the majority of that, it's surreal, but you can. You're. The train is on the tracks most of this film. And then at the end they were like, get rid of that. We're just gonna go crazy. And I think that's really cool. And it really kind of flipped the script on what anyone was expecting. I think that's a great tone shift towards the end.

[Mike]

You mentioning Mandy also reminded me it's not a horror movie, but terms of movies where a ton of people were recommending it to me and I had no idea what it would be about. I was like, oh, okay, I'll watch Pig. Which I think is about a guy whose pig gets kidnapped, which it is.

[Dan]

You think it's gonna be John Wayne?

[Mary]

Exactly, I think it's gonna be John Wayne.

[Mike]

It's like. And then like, Dan, you're like, mike, there's one specific scene I think you're gonna love. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll check It out was like, oh, I didn't. I didn't even know they would ever try to do this weird underground service industry chef Battle bunker thing. Color out of Space did something similar, but I kind of knew what that was going for just because it was Lovecraft story. Basically. Anything with Nicholas Cage, now that I say it out loud.

[Dan]

Well, Face off as the tonal change once they take their faces off.

[Mike]

Yeah, I guess Face off has a tonal change, if you consider it Movie

[Mary]

ever changes the tone? No, I think the tone is the same.

[Dan]

Mary. That's a new VHS I just got at a toy fair over the weekend. I got a Face off right there.

[Mary]

You did. I have Face off too.

[Dan]

Nice, Nice.

[Mary]

We can both watch Face off on our selective VHS players and then maybe play them at the same time.

[Dan]

That sounds great. Let's do it.

[Mary]

Yeah, I love collecting vhs. It's.

[Dan]

I bought a bunch this weekend. I got like a bunch of bondage.

[Mary]

If you can find the mask, send it to me.

[Dan]

I have the mask. I can take a look.

[Mary]

I want the mask. I found an old Ren and Stimpy that's been pretty fun to play. Yeah. And it's. It's the vhs bright orange. Just like Nickelodeon back in the day. You know what I'm talking about?

[Dan]

Oh, yeah, I had some of those. Yeah, totally.

[Mary]

Yeah, it's cool.

[Mike]

What was the movie with Lakeith Stanfield? Sorry to bother you.

[Dan]

Oh, that definitely has a shift.

[Mike]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then, weirdly enough, one of my favorite songs of all time. Do you guys listen? Dan, I would assume you might be more into Roxy Music. Mary, maybe you are classic rock. Not classic rock, but like, like almost like Talking Heads era.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

They have a song called Mother of Pearl which literally completely shifts halfway through. It starts off as this more fast driving, classic rock, AC DC esque song, but then it literally hits a piano note and then it shifts into a different key and then it becomes more of like this, like, Tom Bowie ballad. One of my favorite songs of all time. If you get like five minutes, listen to Mother of Pearl by Roxy Music. It's incredible. I heard it at a bar that I now live basically above, so it's got a full circle moment. But yeah, Search party. I really want to rewatch that show, but they're not making it easy because I don't have the specific subscription. Plus this one other subscription service, which is annoying as hell because that show deserves better.

[Dan]

It's one of the biggest chasms in how good the show is and how few people I've ever heard mention it.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.

[Dan]

Yeah. Bonk and I were talking about it today. It's so good.

[Mike]

Not to be a broken record, but. Andor like I mentioned, there's. It'll be three episodes and you're like, okay, I get the tone they're going for, I get what they're doing. And then all of a sudden they'll do a time jump and it's three episode chunk and it's like, holy. It feels like a mini movie in three episode form. All of a sudden they go into a very, very specific genre in the second or first season, midway through the first season where I'm like, are they really going to do this kind of show for three episodes? And they do it and it's. It's absolutely fucking kick ass. And there's certain conceits to it that feel like a video game. Almost like in the space they're using, it's like maybe people know what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm being too vague, but like if I name the planet, people might know what I'm talking about. The water planet with the, the labor. I don't know. That's enough for people. Hopefully that's enough for people who've seen the show. But like, I can't say enough about how that show just like shifts gears so well. And each of them is just incredible. Most of them I will say.

[Mary]

Yeah, I love things that. That shift tone. And I think maybe it's just like the unexpectedness of it that I think makes it so enjoyable to watch. But we've seen, you know, there's, there's a lot of movies out there, right. So it's like when you can flip the script and make people second guess why something's happening. It makes the movie so memorable. And I feel that way about television shows as well when it's just like you probably thought this was a comedy, but we're about to get real serious real quick. And I like when, when any media does that.

[Mike]

Yeah. I was gonna say to answer Darian's second part to the question, do you think a video game could do this? I do think there are that some that have, I guess metal gear solid 2 sort of did this, but that was more like how the marketing interacted with it.

[Dan]

Does it a couple times. There's the big one at the beginning and then there's a big one before the end.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And like until dawn is a good

[Mary]

tonal shift as a video game.

[Mike]

Yeah. Until dawn near Portal 2. Once you figure out what's going on with both Portal games, you're like, oh fuck. This is very different.

[Dan]

Like, I mean, the Uncharted games regularly did a thing where it's like it would take a turn for the supernatural kind of near the end.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, same with. What was the game? I was just thinking. No, I thought I was gonna say Alan Wake, but that's pretty horror centric the whole time. Yeah, yeah. No, I think like I actually, now that we talk about it, that's a very specific format that I really enjoy. Whether it's in movies or TV or games, I like it a lot.

[Mary]

Yeah. Anytime you can actually pull it off, it's so memorable.

[Mike]

All right, well, thank you, Darian. You chud. Well, thank you everybody for writing in. That's fire escapecastmail.com get your questions on the next episode. This is episode 134. Around 135. Next episode, we should start talking about episode 150. Maybe we want to do something special that'll be in like a few months out. We're going to be busy. Mary, think about it. You're traveling coming up. I'm traveling as well, but we might have some subs coming up. But we'll. It was nice to get all three of us together again or things get slightly summer.

[Mary]

Yeah, it's a it. The summer is always a. A crazy travel time, but it's worth it and we'll hopefully have some opportunities to see each other as well.

[Mike]

I have my next Test 2 of 6 next week. As of this recording.

[Mary]

Do you have the results from your test one?

[Mike]

Nope, I'm sitting. I'm not. I'm not only sitting. Test 2 Before I get the results of Test 1, I'm writing my dissertation before I get the results of I think either. I'm pretty sure I passed the first one, but you know, we'll see. So that's going well. Be done in like 2028. Well, thank you everybody for joining Dan. What do you have going on in the meantime until next episode.

[Dan]

Boy, if you're listening to this episode, there's probably a whole bunch of summer games fest watch alongs and couch seg. I believe I will be on a couch with Mary and some guests. I don't want to. In case anything gets funky with scheduling, I'll just say me and Mary for sure. And then some other friends will be on a couch. So watch those archives. Those night shows are always fun when I'm not getting killed with confetti cannons.

[Mike]

Mary, what about you?

[Mary]

Same. I am excited to do some summer games fest couch stuff and then I will be continuing to stream. I'm going to go back to streaming. I had to take two weeks off because of work. I was just so busy. But I'll be going back to streaming soon, so please join me for some streams on Monday. I usually play those, like, little indie games there. Oh, I finished Forbidden Solitaire too.

[Dan]

Oh, nice.

[Mary]

You just play more solitaire.

[Dan]

It's solitaire. Yeah.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I really, really have been on a streak of like, classic games with this modern twist on them.

[Mary]

The twist on modern or forbidden solitaire is that you're playing against someone. So it's like you're playing solitaire to attack somebody. It's the same. They're all the same. But I think that one's pretty good. Mike, what are you up to?

[Mike]

Just do my consulting thing during the day. Working on a lot of cool stuff. Some that has come out since I've joined, some that still hasn't. So that's fun. And then I'm studying a lot for D2, and then I. We're getting ready to. I just. I fully booked our first trip to Italy in October, so that'll be right nice. Can't wait for that. It's gonna be. It's gonna be fun. We're going from Venice to Florence to Rada to Rome with some winery visits in between and some little countryside stuff in between those. So that'll be good. I'm sure I'll have a lot of to say come November when I'm back. Looking forward to that. Other than that, not much. Gonna. I still have not played Resident Evil Requiem.

[Dan]

Oh, geez.

[Mike]

I've successfully held off until.

[Mary]

We gotta remedy that.

[Mike]

Yeah, I know. We gotta requiem it for sure. Because I. I really want to play it. It's funny hearing you guys talk about and damn it, you said it's a.

[Mary]

It's a goatee contender, so you have to play it.

[Mike]

I'm going to play it regardless. And like, I hope you understand how much it pains me to not play it anytime. I think, oh, I should play Residential Requiem this weekend because I've had a few weekends recently where I'm like, oh, I can actually play games recently because I have a little bit of a lull in studying and I've held off on Requiem. That is a sacrifice for you, Mary, so you should be grateful. No.

[Mary]

And the audience. We know why.

[Mike]

Well, yeah, we'll figure that out, what we want to do there. But. But yeah, outside of that fire Escape merch is officially back up. Fire escapecast.com is also. I mean double check those, but they should be good if you want to get some merch for the summer. We got banana hammocks, we got trunks, we got T shirts, we got tank tops, we got crop tops. I think we got a lot of stuff that could suit you for the warm weather months if you're in the northern hemisphere here. If you're down in Australia or New Zealand, then, I don't know, get some of the warmer weather, sweaters, etc. Fire Escape Cast. If you want to get ad free episodes, if you want to get video versions, we are done with the show. Technically. Vinnie and I for the Mike and Vinny save the world. But you can get all the episodes if you are a video subscriber and if you're not a subscriber to Nexlander. They are awesome, incredible guys over there. Go subscribe there and we'll be back in two weeks with episode 135. Thank you everybody for joining. See you then.

[Mary]

Bye. Sam.