Fire Escape Cast #135

Summary

FIRE ESCAPE CAST #135 — DETAILED EPISODE SUMMARY
Date: June 22, 2026
Participants: Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish, Mike Mahardy

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fire Escape Cast is a lively, digressive, and nostalgia-packed conversation among three longtime friends and veterans of the games media scene. Dan, Mary, and Mike start off reminiscing about memorable movie moments (including an infamously misunderstood "pie orgasm" scene in The Matrix Reloaded), then wander through a variety of pop culture, gaming, and personal stories. The main gaming focus is an in-depth discussion of Valve’s new Steam Machine console and impressions on other recent releases, notably 007: First Light and Teratech Legion. As always, the hosts mix sharp insight, rapid banter, off-the-wall humor, and anecdotal asides.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Matrix Reloaded "Pie Orgasm" Scene Debacle (00:09–07:31)

• The episode opens with jokes about character names and a long, winding attempt by Mary to find the infamous "pie orgasm" scene from Matrix Reloaded.
• The hosts misremember aspects, conflating Monica Bellucci’s character with another, but eventually land on the right details: “the Merovingian sends a woman chocolate cake with code that makes her orgasm” (05:00–06:13).
• Notable Quotes:
  • Mike [06:47]: "My spank bank's been lying to me for like 30 years."
  • Dan [06:49]: "Yeah, you vividly pictured this scene so many times."
  • Mary [07:07]: "She's breathing heavily. She's flushing. Oh my God, it's gone into the Matrix. Oh my God. It went to her vagina."
• This opening cements the group's trademark mix of pop-culture nostalgia and irreverent humor.

2. Parental Eccentricities and Class Solidarity (08:11–16:51)

• Dan details absurd stories about his father: mocking trendy drinks, scavenging reward points from cigarette packs, drinking water found on the ground if it's sealed, and running a "Mobius strip" of free burger coupons at McDonalds.
• The group riffs on generational divides and middle-America mindsets.
• Memorable Exchange:
  • Dan [11:02]: "Let me bring him back down to reality here again on the same trip... he finds a bottle of water on the ground by the gas pump and... he's like, 'Yeah, but it's sealed. It's fine.'"
  • Mary: "Absolute psycho behavior." (14:17)
• Mary shares a story about Joe Camel mugs and the absurdities of reward-based consumerism.

3. VHS Nostalgia and Childhood Movie Mixups (27:53–46:39, 106:19–111:11)

• The hosts celebrate VHS collecting, discuss Mary’s hunt for tapes (including “Dumb and Dumber”, “GoldenEye”), and point out weird VHS cover art.
• They later mix up the plots and actors of ‘Blank Check’ and ‘Richie Rich’, then untangle their memories with IMDB open.
• This section is a showcase of 90s/00s kid culture and the Mandela Effect of pop memory.
• Quote:
  • Dan [44:26]: "Been what I've been trying to do my entire adult life is just like, I just want the blank check life."
  • Mike [107:02]: "For a long time I thought the NBA referee Tony Brothers... was an actual pair of brothers that were referees."

4. The New Steam Machine: Deep Dive & First Impressions (48:45–67:43)

• Dan gives an extensive rundown of his review of Valve’s Steam Machine:
  • Sleek cube-shaped PC console, intended for living room gaming.
  • Outperforms Steam Deck by ~6x, runs most modern games well at up to 4K/60fps, great for emulation, smooth Steam ecosystem/cloud saves between devices.
  • User-friendly, customizable, comes with swappable faceplates.
  • Expensive: $1049 (512GB), $1349 (2TB), various bundles.
• Demonstrates scale (visually), discusses ports, controllers, and ease of use.
• The hosts debate value—for whom is this worth it? Who can actually justify a luxury gaming PC for the living room?
• Quote:
  • Dan [60:28]: "For this to make sense, you have to, like, be very much, like, find the concept appealing and also have disposable income, because this is not cheap."

5. 007: First Light – Post-Launch Impressions & Review Headlines Tournament (67:56–79:20)

• Mary finishes 007: First Light (the new Bond game) and shares mixed feelings:
  • She enjoyed most of it but found the final segments clunky and some puzzles/mazes poorly signposted.
  • The others agree some design choices slowed pacing, but all are impressed by IO Interactive’s shift from sandbox stealth to blockbuster setpieces.
• The group then rates Mary’s jokey, pun-laden review subheadlines for the game:
  • “The new 007 left me shaken and stirred” (winning entry).
  • “Is the new James Bond worth the money(penny)?”
  • “Like air vents? Well, I have the game for you.”
• Quotes:
  • Mike: "There are parts in that game where there’s very much a clear solution to the action puzzle… that halts the momentum. I died like eight times..." (71:45)
  • Mary: “Did I like First Light? Let’s just say I’m fond. Very fond.” (75:06)

6. Teratech Legion—Indie “Bullet Heaven” Legos (79:38–89:29)

• Mary passionately recommends Teratech Legion, an indie bullet-hell game where you build and customize blocky vehicles a la Lego/Mindstorms, combine various weapons, and battle hordes of enemies.
• She praises its creative building, forgiving systems, and affordability ($9-10 on Steam), noting how fun the physicality of snapping on new vehicle parts is.
• Mike immediately buys it, and Dan plans to try it on Steam Machine.
• Quote:
  • Mary [83:14]: "This game is very lenient... you can make like long pieces that shoot out of the front of your vehicle... it feels really good to snap them into place."

7. Quick Hits: Plane Games, Deep Rock Survivors, Steam Deck Recommendations

• The gang discusses the ultimate “plane games” for Steam Deck—Vampire Survivors, Deep Rock Survivor, Teratech Legion.
• They trade stories about playing roguelikes and retro collections while traveling.

8. Extended Email & Listener Q&A Segment (89:51–113:11)

• Cereal Box Opening: Extended debate over the correct way to open cereal (top tab, side, the “prank” method of removing the bag, etc).
• Most Re-Purchased Game: Resident Evil 4 wins for most platforms owned; also mentions Metal Gear Solid 3, Hades, Mortal Kombat, Ocarina of Time.
  • Quote: Mike: “It’s got to be Resident Evil 4.” (101:50)
• Mandela Effect/Misconceptions: The "Tony Brothers" NBA referee confusion prompts more stories of pop culture mistakes, especially surrounding movie titles and characters.
• Cereal and Snack Nostalgia: Discussion spirals into favorite cereals, “hidden treasures,” American vs. Aussie cereal, and discontinued snacks.

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Notable Quotes

• Dan [60:28]: “For this to make sense, you have to… find the concept appealing and also have disposable income, because this is not cheap.”
• Mike [06:47]: "My spank bank's been lying to me for like 30 years."
• Mary [83:14]: "It feels really good to snap them into place."
• Dan [44:26]: "Been what I've been trying to do my entire adult life is just like, I just want the blank check life."
• Mary [75:06]: “Did I like First Light? Let’s just say I’m fond. Very fond.”
• Mike [101:50]: “It’s got to be Resident Evil 4.”

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Important Timestamps

• 00:09–07:31: Matrix Reloaded “pie orgasm” rabbit hole
• 08:11–16:51: Dan’s dad stories: class tastes, scavenging, coupon loops
• 27:53–46:39: VHS tape collecting, 90s movie mixups (“Blank Check” vs. “Richie Rich”)
• 48:45–67:43: Steam Machine deep dive—hardware, pricing, use case
• 67:56–79:20: 007: First Light—Mary’s review, headline contest
• 79:38–89:29: Teratech Legion indie game rave
• 89:51–113:11: Extended email section: cereal box methods, most re-purchased games, Mandela Effects, and cereal navel-gazing

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Tone & Language

• Casual, manic, whip-smart; tangents and meta-riffs abound.
• Direct language with lots of ribbing; plenty of underplayed self-mockery.
• Sincere, enthusiastic when discussing loved games and media.

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Conclusion

Fire Escape Cast #135 is an episode defined by loose, funny, and insightful longform discussions, blending contemporary PC/console gaming with personal and pop culture nostalgia. From meme’d movie moments and dads who drink found water, to a hands-on look at the next big PC console and deep dives into overlooked bullet-hell indies, the hosts deftly touch their core community while riffing through digressive, relatable asides.
A must-listen for fans of gaming podcasts who want both warmth and wit.

Transcript

[Dan Reichert]

Alopecia. What's your name?

[Mike]

Is that the character from the Matrix Reloaded?

[Dan Reichert]

Probably. I don't know.

[Mary]

Her name is Alopecia.

[Mike]

Yeah, he's the one that does the French guy.

[Mary]

Does the computer program name a person Alopecia.

[Dan Reichert]

I officiated their wedding. I think I would know her name.

[Mike]

Yeah, Alopecia.

[Dan Reichert]

Do you, Alopecia, take Michael with this

[Mike]

thick head of hair? And in the Matrix, he does the thing where he, like, makes the computer program make Persephone make her come. They show the code, like, rushing into her vage.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Crazy. It was a crazy thing for, you

[Dan Reichert]

know, that really happens.

[Mary]

It was the crazy real.

[Mike]

It's. What's her name? Monica Belushi.

[Dan Reichert]

No, it's a pie orgasm.

[Mary]

Yeah. You guys are just playing off the fact because I, you know, I can't refute it. I did not.

[Mike]

I will not Matrix.

[Dan Reichert]

I will not. Look up Mary Matrix Pie Oregon.

[Mike]

Look up Monica Belushi Sushi Pie Orgasm. I guarantee you're gonna get.

[Mary]

All right, I'm gonna do it.

[Mike]

Ready?

[Dan Reichert]

All right, here. Do the intro as she's looking at it.

[Mike]

This is the intro. I'll do a new one. Jake, Jake, we've been talking, but I'll do a new one. What's the deal? Shaquille Bellucci. We're back with Fire Escape cast. It's episode 130. I don't know.

[Mary]

High Orgasm.

[Mike]

What? Monica Belushi.

[Dan Reichert]

It's real.

[Mike]

Loaded.

[Dan Reichert]

It is real. This is a real thing that happened in movies.

[Mary]

She.

[Mike]

My Matrix Reloaded. She's in a white dress that. Like, a leather thing, or so I think. I don't remember it vividly.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, who could say.

[Mary]

Who could say pie orgasm into Google codegasm?

[Dan Reichert]

Or just Monica Bellucci pie?

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary]

Okay, I'll just.

[Mike]

Or maybe it's a pastry.

[Dan Reichert]

I think she eats a pie and then it shows, like, a wireframe of it. And then it shows, like, everything going down into her.

[Mike]

Yeah, like the Matrix code is going into her.

[Mary]

This can't be true.

[Dan Reichert]

I swear. Have you seen Matrix 2?

[Mary]

No, I haven't seen any Matrix. Except for the first one.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, it. This is true.

[Mike]

Both no and 3 are underrated.

[Dan Reichert]

No, we watched him not too long ago. There. There's. There's some ideas there at least. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

There's a. Dorks love those movies.

[Mary]

She's wearing a white dress, but she's just shooting one.

[Mike]

Yeah, she is. Or so I think. Who could say that was up there with, like, Elizabeth Hurley, cover of Bedazzled.

[Mary]

For me.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes, yes.

[Mike]

Different eras. I was fully. I fully knew my bod, though. And like, Matrix reloading came out.

[Dan Reichert]

You know, every impossibly gorgeous brunette from 1997 to 2003. What an era spanning eras.

[Mike]

Yeah, it was a Famka thing. It was Elizabeth thing and it was a Monica thing. I had a type.

[Dan Reichert]

What a weird coincidence that I kind

[Mike]

of have the same thing and now I'm with alopecia and it's all perfect. Have you not found it yet? Really?

[Mary]

Wait, I don't know where it is. You guys. You have to understand that, like, I

[Mike]

haven't seen this film.

[Mary]

She's wearing a white dress. She's walking into a door.

[Mike]

Oh, are you looking at images? No, you gotta.

[Dan Reichert]

You gotta find out the guy that does it to her. He's got a weird Matrix. His name is like the Knob Gobbler or something. Like in. In the Matrix world. If you knew his name.

[Mary]

Audio.

[Mike]

Yeah, listen with audio. I want to hear it for no reason. It's a good. It's a fine scene. Neo meets them in, like a cafe bistro kind of thing.

[Mary]

And there's a cafe. Yeah, I see the cafe.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

It teaches you a lot about the. If you click the Matrix, if you

[Mike]

click on an image that looks sort of like what we're talking about, it'll keep giving you similar ones.

[Mary]

I just don't understand. She's walking into a room now. It's like, fancy, and it's got, like two.

[Mike]

No, you went too far.

[Mary]

Cases. I went too far.

[Mike]

You went too far. She's got to be sitting, eating a thing.

[Dan Reichert]

He.

[Mike]

He, like, basically programs.

[Dan Reichert]

He.

[Mike]

He's like proving to Neo that he can program things and then he Program. He basically programs.

[Mary]

She's sitting at a table.

[Mike]

Yes. Yes.

[Mary]

Yeah, okay. She's sitting at a table.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Okay, I'm watching.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep. It's gonna happen.

[Mary]

Her. Her hands are like this. She's.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep. We need play by play. Yep, yep.

[Mary]

Her eyes are looking down.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Oh, okay. There's a guy, he's got, like, greased, slick back hair.

[Mike]

The French Knob Gobbler.

[Mary]

That.

[Mike]

What is his name?

[Dan Reichert]

I don't remember.

[Mike]

He's a friend. He's a French hobgoblin French guy.

[Dan Reichert]

Matrix. I'm going to search for.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, he's.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, the. The Merovingian. Yeah, he's the Merovingian.

[Mike]

So close to Knob Gobbler.

[Dan Reichert]

It was something weird.

[Mike]

Yeah, he's got a. He's one of the. It's before you meet the dude later and they're like, oh, he's the arch slap hammer.

[Dan Reichert]

Have we gotten to the pie?

[Mary]

No. Did they cut it because it's sexual?

[Dan Reichert]

It's too sexy probably.

[Mike]

It's too. We'll watch that in December.

[Mary]

And do you think it's too hot? Like I feel like it's not new to the.

[Dan Reichert]

I think you could PG13 that.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's just.

[Mary]

Talking about science sitting anymore.

[Mike]

Yeah, no, not after that.

[Mary]

Talking to Neo. I think they cut it.

[Mike]

That's probably it. Anyway, back with Fire Escape Cast. I'm here with Dan Reichert.

[Mary]

Does she actually have an orgasm?

[Dan Reichert]

Is it her or are you mixing this up?

[Mike]

What do you mean?

[Dan Reichert]

Is it another lady in it?

[Mike]

Oh, does he do it to someone else in the cafe nearby? And Monica, I think yes, yes, beautiful

[Dan Reichert]

woman at le in the Matrix

[Mary]

this film.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. She's a patron at Le Verai who the Merovingian described as bourgeois and boring. And he's illustrating his speech about causality and he sends her a piece of chocolate cake containing a code to make her orgasm. That was like the blood code for Mortal Kombat for me. Afterwards we met in the bathroom for a sexual encounter heavily implied by his wife. Okay. So yes, he gives the beautiful woman at le the pie orgasm.

[Mary]

We're sent me on a goose chase. I have been.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh no, you had to look at Monica Bellucci a bunch.

[Mike]

It was cake and a blonde woman and I just wanted it to be PI and Monica Belushi. Which explains it. Yeah, but yeah, no, because her name's Persephone, which I believe was what, what's his name? Hades wife's name. That's a parallel there.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, and then.

[Mike]

Yeah, then she talks to Neo. She brings me into the other room.

[Mary]

Okay, the cake is in her mouth.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, here we go. Yeah, yeah, there we go.

[Mary]

It's a close up of the guy's face.

[Dan Reichert]

We got Mandela affected with a pie orgasm.

[Mike]

Oh my God, this is so. My spank bank's been lying to me for like 30 years.

[Dan Reichert]

Ye, you vividly pictured this scene so many times.

[Mike]

She just like, she kind of, she

[Mary]

kind of looks like she's been drugged.

[Mike]

Oh yeah.

[Mary]

Oh, her mouth is open.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Mary]

Her eyes are flickering.

[Mike]

Huh.

[Mary]

She's breathing heavily. She's flushing. Oh my God, it's gone into the Matrix. Oh my God. It went to her vagina.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, there we go.

[Mary]

And it exploded.

[Dan Reichert]

There it is.

[Mike]

If I, if I could control the Matrix, that's probably what I'd be doing. Just sending Orgasms to random people in

[Dan Reichert]

public places via desserts watches.

[Mike]

Sending a gin and soda to other people and just watching them.

[Mary]

The director was like, okay, so it's like all the numbers, the directors. Yeah, but you're going into her crotch.

[Mike]

No. Have always been just fucking avant garde, I guess.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, let's get doing shit.

[Mike]

Let's give him a fucking cum gasm. No, that's redundant. Mary. Hey, Mary. That's Mary Keshe. She's here too. I'm trying to.

[Mary]

Sorry, I. That's like a wild way to start this. I had no idea.

[Mike]

So. But you've seen the thing. First Matrix.

[Mary]

I'm assuming everyone's seen the first Matrix. It's phenomenal. I also had on vhs.

[Dan Reichert]

Kayla refuses to watch because she thinks it's an old guy movie.

[Mike]

I mean, I've definitely met people who are way too into the Matrix back in the day, but it's a, you

[Mary]

know, that's a dog take. And it's not even close to the top 10 of her dog taste.

[Dan Reichert]

Whoa, Kayla, you're listening.

[Mike]

Whatever. What a top 10 of her dog takes.

[Mary]

Every Resident Evil order.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, hey, well, if we're talking about dog takes in my family, I did just get done with my dad, her

[Mary]

ability to do the worm.

[Dan Reichert]

Hey, she got better at that, so. Okay, Mike, you'll love this one. So, dad coming here, like, I've learned that if I make a cocktail, he will just mock me incessantly. And like, he was telling me, we're at our friend Dave's 40th birthday party this last weekend. He was like telling people, like, do you know for like, his drinks, he has like, little special measuring things. He has to measure his drinks out and make sure they get the right amount. So he was like mocking me for like, the idea of cocktails. So I was like, all right, no cocktails while he's. While he's here. And I know if it's like, I got free Ooda pills, the brewery, I got like a sponsorship with them, but can't have those out because he's going to mock me for me fancy craft beers. So I go and I just buy 24 pack of like Michelob Light. Like, it's just like, this is just the most whatever, basic cheap ass beer. That's all that matters to him, is that it's cheap and he's heard of it. And I pull it out and I start drinking. He's like, oh, you get your fancy trendy beer here. You got your fancy. And I said, dad, it's not fancy. It was like the cheapest beer at the liquor store. And he goes, okay, well, oh, it's trendy. You gotta, you gotta have the trendy beer. Do you got to make sure you have the trendiest beer? And I'm like, dad, it's a Michelob light. What are you. So I guess it's just Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light. Those are the only three acceptable things you can drink. And just like Jack Daniels, Miller, like

[Mike]

the best of those three, in my opinion.

[Dan Reichert]

They're all fine. It's. It's all fine.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Did he, did he not like Bud Light when Bud Light was like controversial?

[Dan Reichert]

No. Which is the fucking crazy thing is like, he is very liberal. This guy hates Trump more than anyone I fucking know. And that's saying something. It's just so you wouldn't expect him to have these.

[Mary]

Hates rich people even more.

[Dan Reichert]

I think he loves deals so much.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

To be honest with you, it's like the only take of his that I am like moderately aligned with, which is like the beer.

[Mike]

You sort of like Trump, right?

[Mary]

Yeah, I mean, only this Nixon eras. What I like is the classism war. And your dad hates rich stuff. And I think that there's part of

[Dan Reichert]

that that he hates pretension. I don't think he hates rich. I mean, I've never heard him talk about rich people specifically. He just hates anything that he perceives as artsy or trendy or pretentious.

[Mary]

And so I would like to interpret that as. It's a class war. It's us versus them. He hates billionaires. You know what? Good job.

[Dan Reichert]

That makes him sound a lot cooler than this is.

[Mary]

I'm trying.

[Mike]

It's more here.

[Dan Reichert]

Let me bring him back down to reality here again on the same trip. He was only here. He was here for two days.

[Mary]

Cigarette butts.

[Dan Reichert]

No. Okay. Oh, by the way, he. The cigarettes he smokes. I've shown him to several friends of mine that smoke. None of them have even ever heard of this brand.

[Mike]

Would it piss him off if I ever see him again? If I start making fun of what he smoke and be like, oh, you're fancy decades.

[Dan Reichert]

You should do this decade cigarettes that no one decade Menthols. Oh, this. We are getting gas at like a not great part of town. Like, we were like right across from like people were like openly doing drugs. Like sitting on the ground, like not too far from this part of town. He finds a bottle of water on the ground by the gas pump and he lights up like it's, it's the only time I see joy in his eyes, he picks up, oh, my God, look. And I was like, yeah, it's a bottle of water. He goes, it's full. It's sealed. And I was like, yeah, it's on the ground at the gas station and this shitty part of town, like. And he goes, yeah, but it's sealed. It's fine. I said, you're going to drink it? And he's like, yeah, be a fool not to. And I was like, dad, that's fucking weird. And he goes, dan, you'd be a fool not. I can't imagine a single person that would deal with that situation any differently than I just did.

[Mike]

That's crazy. I think, like, the amount of stuff that's on the outside of the bottle for being at any gas station, no matter what part of town, it's rolling

[Mary]

around in feces of all kinds.

[Dan Reichert]

If it was on the ground in a beautiful park that seemed well maintained, I would not drink water off the ground because it was free.

[Mike]

That's crazy.

[Dan Reichert]

No. Yeah. So it's just what it is that just times, like, it's like, literally, like every 90 seconds, there is something like, almost on that level or at that level. So it's just like, you will never exhale harder than. You know, like, I love him to death. Good to see him, but holy. When he leaves, it's just like, okay,

[Mike]

what do you do for meals when he's there? Like, you're not going to the places that we go to for games?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, absolutely. No, no.

[Mike]

He would not appreciate the. What's that ravioli that we love?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, at Dario. Yeah. No, you know, the one universal, though, is Lionstap. Everyone loves Lions Tap. That burger place that we go to.

[Mary]

Oh, that place is like a people's place institution that's for, like, the average

[Dan Reichert]

Joe, but it's also, like, really fucking good. So it's like. Yeah, yeah. So I can take everyone there and they're all pleased, but I don't think about taking him anywhere. Like, he just wants to get, like, McDonald's, like, every time. Like, he's got some weird loop where it's like he fills out surveys with fake email addresses every time he buys McDonald's. And so he gets, like, a free buy one, get one free sandwich thing. And so he has this, like, endless, like, Mobius strip of free burgers that happens. And he's very proud of it.

[Mike]

So they're not. They're not monitoring that someone's used that email before. He's constantly.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know if he's doing, like. I don't know if he's creating fake ones or he has some way where he's just filling out surveys repeatedly. And so every time he goes to McDonald's, he gets a free sandwich.

[Mike]

That's so much work for. I guess.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know.

[Mike]

It's a free sandwich, but that's still to make a new email address every time.

[Dan Reichert]

Dude, this is the fucking guy that goes around Kansas City and knows the best trash cans to find cigarettes with unredeemed reward points, like, in the trash. Digging through to get cigarette things and trying to put in rewards points. Like, he. He will, like, will drive by, like, an old mall or something. He'll be like, that trash can. I can always find, you know, three or four reward points in there.

[Mike]

Why?

[Mary]

Absolute psycho behavior.

[Mike]

If he put that to use in other areas, I feel like he'd be

[Mary]

like, save the world. He could save the whales.

[Dan Reichert]

He will not. He wants to get a free Frisbee

[Mary]

from Save One Whale. Yeah. And then sell it on eBay for $2 for cigarettes.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

I thought of him this weekend. I was going, yeah, I did.

[Mike]

No, I said I didn't.

[Mary]

Oh, okay. I thought you said, no, you didn't. I was like, you're not in here. No, I didn't know when I'm thinking about Paul Reichert. I was going to different sales to look for VHS tapes, and I found in this, like, old store that had all this old stuff, they had a Joe Camel cup. And it was in the original packaging that said, thank you for redeeming 12,000 points. Like, here's your Joe Camel cup. And it came and it had, like, a little slot for a pack of cigarettes. And the pack of cigarettes was gone, but the Joe Camel mug and the packaging was in the store. And I think that's funny because to me, I was like, somebody redeemed 12,000 Joe Camel points so they could get a custom Joe Camel mug and cigarette. They took the cigarettes out and then never took anything else. And then they probably threw the package away. And I thought to myself. And I thought to myself, like, that really feels like something Paul Reichert would do, which is, like, buy something with points and then only smoke the cigs.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I told you, he will sell, like, anytime somebody has cr. Like, if he goes to someone's house and they have Crown Royal, he will ask for the bag. Like, the velvet bag comes in and sell the bag on ebay. Like, shit like that. It's. I. I took a risk with him this weekend where it's like, I know better than to try to introduce him to anything because he's just not going to, like, if he doesn't come upon it himself. He's not. Like, he's watched the entirety of Breaking Bad. He told me seven times now. But he never, ever will watch a new movie or anything ever, ever, ever. So I was like, you know what? I think I finally have a movie I can recommend to him. I think if there's ever a movie he would like, it's Sinners, because he loves the blues. Like, old, like, Delta blues and stuff. And the movie's very heavy on that. And one of his favorite, like, the person he's seen at concert more than anyone is Buddy Guy, who he's involved in the movie. I won't.

[Mary]

Those are two solid reasons.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. And I was like. And also, like, when I was growing up, he, like, read a bunch of, like, Stephen King, and so he has, like, enjoyed, like, kind of spooky stuff.

[Mary]

Is he, like, from Dusk Till dawn,

[Dan Reichert]

he just talks about. He's watched the Salma Hayek scene a lot of times.

[Mary]

Mike, you actually do have something in common with Paul, right?

[Mike]

As we know exactly where the sex scenes are in most movies.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mary]

Oh, yeah. 49 minutes in. Amazing.

[Dan Reichert]

48.

[Mike]

47.

[Dan Reichert]

I could go without the part where Tarantino's Deep Throat in her foot, but, you know, whatever.

[Mike]

Yeah, maybe you could. But it changed me for my life. I can't get out. I can't get off without it now.

[Dan Reichert]

So I had him watch Sinners, and to his credit, like, he just. He will never, ever watch a new movie, really. And I was like, my dad, I give him the hard sell on it. Like, dad, if there's ever a movie you would like, it's this. And a couple friends heard me saying this, you know, friends that you know around here, Mike. And so we had a couple of friends come over and was like, okay, we're going to make a Night watch party. Yeah, we had like a watch party. And he just watched it all with really no emotion whatsoever. And then I turned to him afterwards and he goes, it wasn't for me.

[Mary]

Wow.

[Mike]

He's the only person I've ever heard being indifferent. Well, not indifferent, like, but semi.

[Dan Reichert]

You watch a movie and not have some thought on it.

[Mike]

Some people. I know. I know people who hated it, but I know a lot of people fucking loved. I. I love that movie. But, yeah, that's a. That's a. I love that he didn't. He waited until the end to say it.

[Dan Reichert]

Why? Because he did react. When buddy guy showed up on screen, he was like, hang on, what's going on now? And like, that wasn't because he wasn't

[Mary]

paying attention until then.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's hard to talk about that without spoiling the movie, but that's a very funny timing in the movie for him to finally perk. Oh, God, I love that movie. The first time I watched that, we were. I was deathly sick on my birthday. Was it last year? Yeah. Sinners was. Came out last year. I finally watched in September last year. And have I told you guys about megabed in our apartment?

[Dan Reichert]

No. We make the 3D vampire survivors, right?

[Mike]

We do. We have a double decker air mattress that we inflate, and we'll, like, push it up against our sectional couch. And then I put up a couple chairs next to it so it becomes a mega. Like, the living room becomes one big funny palace bed. Yeah, we do that when we have, like, nothing to do over the weekend. We want to watch a bunch of movies, and it's just like. It's like a cozy b. I call it.

[Mary]

And I call it mega bed.

[Dan Reichert]

Mary does that, but she calls it mega bed. And she just watches old rallies that she likes a lot.

[Mary]

You guys missed it. The birthday president event of the season.

[Mike]

Mary loves watching him do the.

[Dan Reichert]

Remember this one from 2016? He was on fire.

[Mike]

He's about to make fun of Elizabeth Warren. This is iconic.

[Mary]

Honey, get the mag thing.

[Dan Reichert]

Hang on. Rewind. I want to hear it again.

[Mary]

God damn it.

[Mike]

Oh, but I like how we've modernized

[Dan Reichert]

this joke with Mary.

[Mary]

Yeah, I liked it better when I liked Nixon.

[Mike]

Yeah, we all did.

[Mary]

I prefer to be a Nixon maxer. I don't.

[Dan Reichert]

I wish you were

[Mike]

you. Yeah, we did mega bed. And I was really sick last year for my birthday, so we ended up. I was like, all right, I'm gonna make a bunch of hot toddies. And we finally watched Sinners on megabed. So basically. Okay. We also put the coffee table at the base of the air mattress. Okay. If you're looking at it from a bird's eye view, like a floor plan of an apartment. You guys know where our sectional couch is?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary]

Why do we need this detail?

[Mike]

Because it's real cozy. It's.

[Dan Reichert]

It's not really sectional times width times depth. Come on.

[Mike]

Nine by four on one side and six on the other where the chaise lounges.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary]

And then the maga bed is way bigger.

[Mike]

I bet it is.

[Mary]

It's the biggest. I can't do it. I can't do it.

[Mike]

Megabed's so great.

[Dan Reichert]

Everyone agrees.

[Mike]

So great. Everyone agrees. Many people have been telling me they love my Mega bed.

[Mary]

My Hearty's no Good, their new sponsor.

[Dan Reichert]

This is our ad read

[Mike]

anyway.

[Mary]

Such a bad.

[Mike]

Fond memory watching sinners with that. It was fun,

[Dan Reichert]

Stan.

[Mike]

Actually, speaking of. Speaking of, like, did I hear through the grapevine that you've only recently discovered or started caring about credit card points?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, where did this come up?

[Mike]

I don't know. Someone mentioned it recently and I honestly forget who and I'm curious what the comments are.

[Dan Reichert]

No, it's not a new thing at all. I love getting credit card points. It's great. No, no, it's

[Mike]

specifically email. Like, that came in. I don't think we're using it tonight.

[Dan Reichert]

Maybe that's been. Well, no, bas. It stemmed from a thing where it's like, usually when Bon and I get. If we go out to a dinner, like Dario or something, and there's a bunch of friends rather than, you know, cause trouble for, like, you know, like, oh, can you split this five ways? And very specifically for the waiter.

[Mary]

Oh, yeah, you're such a team player.

[Dan Reichert]

Like, that's just an added bonus. That's not. I don't know.

[Mike]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go.

[Mary]

Every time I'm in a fucking business meeting or anything with friends and someone's like, let me be the bigger person, and we're all like, we know this is for the points. You come.

[Mike]

We know it. I. Let me say from personal experience, three nights a week, it's not that hard to split checks anymore. Toast. Point of sale system makes it really easy. But anyway, I appreciate where you're coming from. I.

[Mary]

It's not. You're not hurting anyone. No, you're not really doing any favors.

[Dan Reichert]

Remove the making it easier for anyone party. It's not an altruistic thing. Don't. Okay.

[Mary]

The idea that you wanted to start with it.

[Dan Reichert]

I just.

[Mike]

Let's lead with it and let you try to be.

[Dan Reichert]

No, strike it from the record. We're good people.

[Mike]

Struck.

[Dan Reichert]

Strike it from the record.

[Mike]

Struck.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, here's the. I like getting credit card points. Me and Bonk like getting credit card points. And so we will go out to these dinners sometimes with big groups of friends, and they will be, you know, larger bills and stuff like that. And we will always say, we will lead with this. We will say, does anyone want to pay and get the credit card points if nobody else wants to, we will put it on our Card.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

And you can Venmo us. We always lead with, like, please anyone else take this?

[Mike]

That's. That's good.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

It's an honest exchange change.

[Dan Reichert]

We do that, too. And if anyone ever, like, no one ever does it, but if anyone did, like, yeah, hell, yeah, get those points, but no one ever wants to. They just Venmo makes it easier or whatever. And then we get a bunch of points because it's an expensive dinner.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

So that is where that came from. It's become a running joke at Giant Bomb, because maybe during some business dinners, I was like, hey, if we're just gonna, like, put this on the company card anyway, how about I do it and I'll just put it in as a reimbursement and, you know, like, that type of thing. That's why it's kind of points.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. So, yeah, that's it.

[Mike]

Interesting.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. Trust me, there's plenty of weirdo, unreasonable things people can get me on. This is a relatively normal one.

[Mike]

No, yeah, I appreciate it. And we'll take. We'll take turns. Like, my. There's, like, two really good friends that we get dinner with all the time, and we'll kind of rotate through and take turns paying for the points. But, yeah, we set. We set the. No pun intended, table stakes. When we say, we're like, yeah, like, who wants to get these points?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. Offer it up. That's not weird.

[Mike]

No, it's not weird. I honestly wasn't, like, trying to say you were. I just. I saw an email come through about something that said, like, ask Dan about the points story. And I don't.

[Dan Reichert]

I think it's become one of those things where it's like, people heard, like, you know, 10% of something, and they've like, oh, my God, he just learned about credit card points or whatever. It's like, yeah, no, I've been doing this for years. Yeah, I paid.

[Mike]

We're. We're all booked in October for my first time to go to Italy. Both of our first time to go to Italy.

[Dan Reichert]

It seems impossible that it's your first time there.

[Mary]

It seems we.

[Mike]

Yeah, I can't wait. We're doing. We're doing a few cities and then stopping over down in Tuscany, in Kia, near Rada. So I can't wait for it. But, yeah, no, we. I, like, hadn't spent credit card points for a while, and I was like, oh, the points are going to cover the round trip and a hotel in one of the cities. It was perfect.

[Mary]

That's really cool that you could squeeze that much out of it. I feel like I'm not very good at this, but I travel a lot for work and I never can get a flight out of my points. And I'm really. I fly. I fly all the time. I. I'm going to France tomorrow.

[Dan Reichert]

Do you have. Well, now listen, if you have like a. Who's your credit card through?

[Mary]

Oh, it's just a basic Chase one.

[Dan Reichert]

I've got Chase, too. Book through Chase. You get Chase points and then you also get the sky miles. Like, you get both and then you can transfer in between there. You got to be smart with that stuff. I haven't paid for a flight and God knows how long.

[Mike]

I also say, yeah, if you don't book through Chase, you don't get the same, like, multiplication of the right.

[Dan Reichert]

You get like 1.5 times. I change it recently, but it's still better.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's so annoying because the UI is really fucking annoying, but I'm like, oh, it's worth more points. Like, compared silly not to. Yeah, yeah. But no throwing money away in terms of airline miles. I feel like you need way more airline miles to beat to Chase points. Credit card points are worth more than airline miles, if that makes sense.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Yes.

[Mike]

I feel like you need to accumulate more airline miles than credit card points in order.

[Mary]

Can I use my airline miles and Chase points or.

[Dan Reichert]

No, you can transfer Chase to most major airlines. So, like, if you needed. There have been times I've needed 15, 000 more miles and I just transferred from Chase. Yeah. Oh, man, this show is going to be awesome when we're even older. Mortgages and credit card points.

[Mike]

More points.

[Mary]

Yeah, I'm not good with stuff like that. I don't like to do it. And I also, like. I think I like to make really silly purchases on a whim and I can't be, like, bothered with, you know, with points. Oh, guess what I bought. I bought a dual slushie maker.

[Mike]

What, like from a 7 11?

[Mary]

Yeah, it's kind of like that, but you can put in it and you can make your own alcoholic slushies. And it has two and then the glass goes in the center and then you can spin it and push both at the same time and it makes a swirly slushy.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

Sounds rad.

[Mary]

So I made a pina colada and I made a strawberry daiquiri, froze both of them and then spun it and made a pina colada, like strawberry daiquiri drink.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that sounds real good.

[Mary]

It's one of the greatest purchases of my life.

[Mike]

Is it set up right next to your CRTV in the kitchen?

[Mary]

It's set up remotely close to my CRT in the kitchen. But it was a crazy heat spike this weekend in Portland. It was like 100 degrees, so I set the hot tub to 80 degrees and then I made daiquiris and drank them in the cool pool. That's what I call my hot tub when I turn it cold.

[Mike]

Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. So 80 degrees would cool you off in a heat wave.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Just trying to do the math. I haven't done it a pool in a bit.

[Dan Reichert]

Mary, I. I do thank you. Whenever I see VHS tapes now, and I have to ask you, are you still looking for the mask?

[Mary]

I got it.

[Dan Reichert]

You got it. Okay. Okay, then I'm cross that off the list because I do frequently look at like VHS slots and stuff like that, so let me know if there's anything you're looking for.

[Mary]

I appreciate your effort. I am looking for some things right now.

[Dan Reichert]

Write it down. What do you got?

[Mary]

Dumb and Dumber.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I might have that. Okay.

[Mary]

Yeah, but you probably don't want to relinquish it.

[Mike]

I.

[Dan Reichert]

You know what? I'll say this, that you. When you come here for Game of the Year, I'll show you what I've got. If there's anything you're looking for.

[Mary]

You gave me Dr. Dolittle.

[Dan Reichert]

I did, right?

[Mary]

I felt like it was like a pity. I feel like it was a pity.

[Dan Reichert]

I wasn't going to watch that one. But it was like, here, I can give that to Mary. Yeah, but to me, you get free. You. You pick. Pick one. You pick whatever.

[Mary]

He probably, like got it for free and was like, listen, I thought of you and I just wanted you to have this VHS.

[Mike]

Just send me like 5,000 chase points. It's fine. Monkey and Dr. Dolittle. He's like, what are you drinking?

[Dan Reichert]

Get.

[Mike]

All right. I was getting wine. The monkeys getting wasted on the rail of the cabin.

[Mary]

It's been a while, so it's. I watched it. The monkey drinks kind of while I was cooking.

[Mike]

As he starts to be able to hear animals, he discovers the monkey has a drinking problem and he goes out of the cabin and the monkey's like swaying on the railing with a. Like a. Like an unmarked jug. He's like, what are you drinking? He's like, gatorade.

[Dan Reichert]

So weird thing to specifically remember.

[Mike]

I know.

[Mary]

You know what? He knows that in the vagina scene from the Matrix.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, no, I get that, but yeah,

[Mike]

yeah, I know, plenty of vagina scenes, but there's only one Gatorade scene that I know. Sorry. What other VHS do you need?

[Mary]

That was really distracting. Matrix 2.

[Dan Reichert]

Now that was. That was peak DVD era right there.

[Mary]

I'm trying to get all of the 007. So I have gold finger, goldeneye.

[Mike]

Well, you're not going to get all this.

[Dan Reichert]

Is it. Is it Connery or is it Brosnan?

[Mike]

Gold. Goldfinger was. Connor.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I think she's. She's mixed up, though. Which one?

[Mary]

I am. I am mixed up. The. The logo doesn't have. It just says 007 on it. I'm gonna say it's. Which ones are they?

[Dan Reichert]

It's either Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan. If it's Goldfinger or goldeneye, I think it's Pierce Brosnan. Okay. It would be him, Natasha and Famka Janssen.

[Mary]

Oh, I haven't seen it yet. Oh, I gotta watch it.

[Mike]

He's got a silence ppk.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, do you know the weird thing about the COVID and the mouth?

[Mike]

No.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, look up. Yeah. Mike, you don't even know that. Okay, look up. Goldeneye cover.

[Mike]

Okay. Movie. The movie. Right. Not the game.

[Dan Reichert]

They both count.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

I just searched it and it's like a weird optical illusion thing.

[Mike]

Oh, it continues into his finger. Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, yeah, it looks like his mouth. Like, if you just kind of like, look at it.

[Mary]

Weird.

[Mike]

Oh, Jesus. I've never seen that before in my life.

[Dan Reichert]

Looks like he's got a bunch of shit in his mouth.

[Mike]

He looks like. Or like he has Bell's palsy at the moment. Like. Yeah, that's. Oh, yeah, yeah, choose. I get that. Yeah.

[Mary]

It looks like he has, like, a really long chin.

[Mike]

Yeah, no, I've never seen that before.

[Dan Reichert]

Good movie.

[Mike]

That makes more sense for vhs.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, we watched something that would have been very VHS era last night. Have you guys heard of Manhunter? So there's Michael Mann, and it is a Hannibal Lecter movie from like five years before Silence of the Lamps or maybe like four. Oh, so Brian Cox from Succession plays Hannibal Lecter.

[Mary]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

And it's Michael Mann, the Heat director. And it is. It's based on Red Dragon, the book about Hannibal Lecter. And so it's just like very Michael man, kind of just drenched in style and very 80s soundtrack and everything. Really solid. It's. It's, you know, Hannibal Lecter helping an FBI. The FBI guy who caught him helping.

[Mary]

Is it a psychological thriller?

[Dan Reichert]

I call it that. Yeah, it's a. It's a manhunt for. For a Murderer. That's like killing families and stuff. Yeah, it's. It was. It was cool. I enjoyed it.

[Mary]

I love a good. Like, sometimes I want to turn my brain off and I don't want to think too much and I just want, like, a fun evening ride. I don't want it to be, like, too intense. So I also watched something recently that I think maybe you guys would like if you haven't already seen it. It's called they will kill you.

[Dan Reichert]

Look this up. I have not heard of this.

[Mary]

I would be careful. I don't think it's spoilery, but I think the visual style of it is what makes it so interesting. I'm surprised that no one's. I don't know if this film did very well, but it's very. It's very fun. So the premise. And I'm going to be very careful with it because I think there's lots of, like, twists and turns in it, but just like, the simple premise of it is, like, there's a girl, like, staying at a place and then they all just start trying to kill her. And that is, like, the general premise. So I don't think that's a spoiler. But the action scenes are so sick and surreal. And she's good. Like, she's not going to go down without a fight. And I was blown away by the direction of this. Like, the director was on a tear doing this.

[Dan Reichert]

We got Patricia Arquette. She's great. And I have not seen Heather Graham in anything since I feel like, 20 years ago.

[Mary]

She's good at it. Yeah. You will not like her. It's great. I think. I don't always do these, like, big old recommends, but, Dan, I think this is one I'm going to toss your way as like, a. I'd like to see what you'd think of this, but I will preface. This is not a. Like, I think there's a plot hole, like 3, 4. So don't do that. This is a. This is a action slashy.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure.

[Mary]

Why? Is. Why they just keep fighting each other for like an hour and a half, and then it's over. And I loved it.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know if I've ever complained about a plot hole or notice one.

[Mary]

I don't think you would, but I think I'm just. I'm. I'm prefacing. I would. I wouldn't notice.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm pre.

[Mary]

You have to kind of lower the. The barrier of, like, this seems ridiculous. Why wouldn't the police have ever considered this?

[Mike]

And it's like, why I'm to Mordor, Dan.

[Mary]

Yeah. That's a classic Danism.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Lover of Face Off. It's just like, everything needs to make sense.

[Mike]

We. I recently watched Re. Watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[Dan Reichert]

I need to re. Watch that. I bet I would like it more.

[Mary]

Does it still hold up?

[Mike]

Well, so I didn't like it the first time I saw it, and then I thought I talked about this. It's become my plane movie. When I'm not playing a game or reading three hours just vanishes. Because it's like. It's very Scorsese. I know it's not Scorsese. It's Tarantino. But it's Scorsese pace. It's like. Like, really, someone's driving down, like, Topanga Canyon, and it's like the music playing, then they go into the Valley canyon. It switches song. It's like a very LA love story. So then it switches songs, and all of a sudden it's a new character. No, no, I'm saying, like. Yeah, it's like. Are you. Is that a Boy Meets World reference?

[Mary]

Yeah. I don't know any other form of Topanga.

[Mike]

No, it's like a. It's a neighborhood.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

I might be mispronouncing. Apologies to the Angelinos that listen to us. I don't know if there are, but. But it's funny seeing that movie. When you finally meet the Manson Family cult. There are so many actors who were about to get big.

[Dan Reichert]

Isn't, like, Margaret Qualley one of them?

[Mike]

Margaret Qualley. Sydney Sweeney, I think. Dakota Fanning. Mikey Madsen before she did Nora.

[Dan Reichert]

Would it be Elle?

[Mike]

Elle Fanning.

[Dan Reichert]

Dakota's been around for a while. Yeah.

[Mike]

Elle Fanning. Mikey Madsen before she did. Is it Mikey? Matt? Mikey Madison before she did Honora.

[Dan Reichert]

Mikey Madsen used him a while ago.

[Mike]

Not Mike Madsen. Right. Michael Madison died two years ago or something. Oh, God.

[Dan Reichert]

Right.

[Mike]

No, Mikey. I think it's Mikey Madison who did Anora.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, sure.

[Mike]

She was one of them, too. She is the one who gets up at the end by the dog and then gets lit on fire and falls into the pool. But that movie has problems for sure. But it has become like, there's something about the pacing. We've talked before. Like, no movie should be three hours.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure.

[Mike]

There's something about the pacing of that movie where it's just this collection of short stories that's tied together by this historical event. And it was the third of. Tarantino is like revenge movies after Django and Inglourious Basterds where he's like.

[Dan Reichert]

He's.

[Mike]

Well, sorry. He Specifically his alternative history revenge movies where he's rewriting it so they, like Machine Gun Hitler's Face got rewrites. So the slave rescues the love of his life and kills all the plantation owners. And then this one, they go into the wrong house and Cliff, Clint Booth, and Rick Dalton end up killing the people who, in real life murdered Sharon Tate and her friends and the baby. But, like, yeah, not a perfect movie, but I don't know what it is. It makes three hours melt away on a plane. So I downloaded. It's on Hulu. So I downloaded on Hulu before every flight. And, like, if I'm done with Mega Bonk or Tower Dominion or whatever or doing whatever, I'll be like, all right, I'm gonna. Oh, we got three hours left in the flight. I could probably finish the movie right now. And it kills it.

[Dan Reichert]

Can you guess what my father's problem with that movie is? Because he did go to see that.

[Mike]

It's too long.

[Dan Reichert]

No, he went to see it because he's fascinated with Charlie Manson and those stories.

[Mike]

Oh, he's only in it for, like, a second.

[Dan Reichert]

No, he's just like, none of that stuff happened at the end.

[Mary]

It's not real.

[Mike]

Of course.

[Dan Reichert]

That's what he hated about it.

[Mike]

Have you seen any other Tarantino? No.

[Dan Reichert]

No, because he hates. Hated them since Pulp Fiction because he thinks Tarantino is being artsy just to be weird by making. It's all. It was all out of order. He's just being artsy and weird.

[Mike]

I. I've rewatched a lot of Tarantino the last few years, and I've actually been, like, not loving it all.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, we did Reservoir Dogs not too long ago, and it's still fun.

[Mike]

Once upon a time.

[Mary]

Imagine watching, like, an actual art movie with your dad.

[Dan Reichert]

I made him watch Annette junk.

[Mary]

I would hate you, too.

[Dan Reichert]

He got 200 for it.

[Mike]

Oh, geez.

[Mary]

It's not enough.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no.

[Mike]

Twitch Chat, Okay? Because I haven't. I still have not watched that movie.

[Mary]

Does he like scary movies?

[Dan Reichert]

He doesn't like anything.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Just in general. Yeah.

[Mike]

What's his ideal day look like? Like, if you had to describe it,

[Dan Reichert]

not having to leave the house or do anything or put on pants or take a shower or anything.

[Mike]

And what's he doing at the house? Literally nothing.

[Dan Reichert]

He's sitting in his pajamas selling baseball cards, and he's got CNN on the tv.

[Mary]

He wakes up and he has something cool for breakfast, like a Cigarette.

[Dan Reichert]

And then he scores himself a 10 out of 10 on his family guy thrust. Right before he goes to bed for

[Mary]

lunch, he has something cool like a cigarette, maybe a bar of chocolate, one red wine.

[Mike]

We go on the terrace with our cigarettes. We do one red wine, two red wine, chocolate cigarette. I quote that all the time.

[Mary]

Well, that's my favorite thing.

[Mike]

Yeah, Paul is very European.

[Mary]

I did see Hokum, which Mike, you recommended. Me? No, Jake Decker recommended.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know.

[Mary]

You were gone.

[Dan Reichert]

They're different guys.

[Mary]

Sorry, I Actually.

[Mike]

They are different guys recently, so it's surprising that I.

[Mary]

Well, we swapped you for Jake. And it's funny because. Oh, God, Jake is gonna listen to this. When I saw Jake at Summer Games Fest, I said, I saw Hokum. Mike recommended it. And Jake looks at me, goes, I recommended it. And I said, oh, right, you were there.

[Mike]

Why is Dan getting abducted by aliens right now?

[Mary]

Sorry, A huge flash of light. Is it Dan?

[Mike]

I don't know what's happening. Oh, you got the cactus cat tree. Yes, I've seen that online a few times.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. My mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I just said, get this for my cat.

[Mike]

Yeah, we got the Mario mushroom one. Sorry, Hokum. Anyway, don't think Jake has recommended to me.

[Mary]

I will try not to recommended Hokum to me. And it's very good. And so I think you would like that, Mike. I thought it was really good.

[Mike]

Should I know anything about it?

[Mary]

It's got that guy from Parks and Rec in it.

[Mike]

Chris Pratt.

[Dan Reichert]

Rob Lowe.

[Mike]

Rob Lowe. Adam.

[Mary]

Adam.

[Mike]

Adam.

[Dan Reichert]

Adam Scott.

[Mike]

Thank you.

[Mary]

From the regular. The average Joe looking guy from Severance.

[Dan Reichert]

Azizan. Sorry.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Mary]

Adam Scott.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, Adam Scott. Adam Scott. Yeah.

[Mary]

And he. He plays like an unlikable guy who is a writer and he goes to a hotel. We. Jake explained it on the last episode, so I will go into it all over again.

[Mike]

I'll probably.

[Mary]

Anyway, it's witches.

[Mike]

Oh, cool.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know if I've seen, like, I've seen Blair Witch. I don't think I've seen a lot of, like, witch based.

[Mike]

You see the witch.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, the bitch.

[Mary]

It was a. No, it was a good recommendation, Mike. Thank you for. Thank you for the rec.

[Mike]

Yeah, you're welcome. I love Hobie.

[Mary]

I have to.

[Mike]

The witch is good.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, weapons is a witch. And that's awesome.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

That's a good one. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mary]

Witches are in right now, so, yeah, it's. Hokum is a witch too, but I think it's I think it's a little sneakier and a little bit more freaky about what's going on because he's in a hotel room and they're like, don't use the dumbwaiter. And he totally uses the dumbwaiter, which you should not do. And then the witch is there.

[Mike]

Dumb waiter. Reminds me. It reminds me of the scene when Lucas the kid in Haunting of Hill House goes into the basement, gets stuck.

[Mary]

Dumb waiters are scary.

[Mike]

Yeah. Matilda had one.

[Mary]

Matilda. Sorry. It's in my head. The girl spat Harriet Spy. Thank you. I was getting there. Did you see my brain turning?

[Dan Reichert]

Didn't she die?

[Mary]

She did. She was my age. Yeah. It's a total. It's a total heartbreak. I loved Harriet the Spy. I loved Harriet the Spy so much that my family called me Marriott the Spy. And I would wear a rain jacket with a mirror in it.

[Mike]

Oh, nice.

[Mary]

And run around my neighborhood taking notes,

[Mike]

solving crimes, peeking in windows.

[Mary]

Listen. Before the weight of the world crushed my soul, I was so creative. And I ran around like a little cutie pie trying to solve crimes.

[Mike]

I rode my bike around and I got a new bike and I ran, ran it. I was admiring it and I ran it into the back of a parked Camaro and catapulted over the Camaro onto the hood and fell off and had to act like nothing happened.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary]

Oh my God. Isn't that also from a movie?

[Dan Reichert]

Like the Wayne's World scene?

[Mary]

Seems like something that would happen in blank check.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, God, I love that. I've honestly my whole life I've just. I saw blank check.

[Mary]

It did happen in blank check.

[Dan Reichert]

I think it did. Well, no, he got his bike. Did get up. That was the whole reason he got.

[Mary]

That's why they gave him a blank check.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Man, that kid just had the life, didn't he?

[Mary]

I think it's funny, I saw somewhere. Not to bring it back to this, but the White House recent Travis craziness that happened.

[Dan Reichert]

The Big Boy.

[Mary]

Everyone was saying that. It kind of seems like what would happen if an 8 year old magically became president in a Disney movie.

[Dan Reichert]

Like the shittiest possible version of that. At least Richie Rich made a like Mount Rushmore of his own head. And that's fun.

[Mary]

You know, I think his parents did that.

[Mike]

That's the thing. Is Richie Rich's Christmas wish the same plot as Blank check?

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know what Richie Rich's Christmas wishes.

[Mary]

I just know I watched Richie Rich's

[Dan Reichert]

Quick Christmas Time by the Macaulay Culkin.

[Mike]

Movie, Right? What do you. Which one is that?

[Dan Reichert]

What is Christmas Wish? Is that like a sequel?

[Mike]

Is Richie Rich the character in Blank Check?

[Dan Reichert]

No. No.

[Mike]

Is Richie Rich a movie?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary]

Richie Rich is a movie with Macaulay Culkin where his family is like billionaires and they have Mount Richmore and this is their son. And for his birthday, they give him like a full roller coaster, but he has no one to ride it with because he doesn't have friends.

[Mike]

But then Blank Check's a whole different movie.

[Mary]

Blank Check is a nobody.

[Dan Reichert]

Completely different.

[Mary]

You can correct me if I'm wrong. Blank Check is a nobody.

[Mike]

Okay, but here's what's confusing, Dan, why were you also thinking of Richie Rich just now?

[Dan Reichert]

Because they were both movies from 1994 that were about kids that got a bunch of money. Well, because we were talking about the big boy birthday party at the White House and I was like an 8

[Mary]

year old who comes across way too

[Dan Reichert]

much money by comparison. The Richie Rich thing of like, oh, a kid making his head a mountain is like quaint and cute, you know?

[Mike]

Okay. That's probably what was happening in my head as well. Just not. I didn't realize it. Yeah, that was weird to me. I was like, why did Dan also just go to Richie Rich?

[Mary]

I didn't know they were saying they're like the same.

[Mike]

I have a. Yeah, I have a. An image in my head and Richie. Richie goes down this very long slide from like his bedroom window.

[Dan Reichert]

That's Blank Check.

[Mary]

Oh, you're mixing them up.

[Dan Reichert]

He's got a go kart. He's got the big boxing gloves in the boxing ring. He's got the big wall of TVs with all the games and stuff.

[Mike]

I've been deflating those two movies for a while. Whenever one of the cat. Whenever one of the girls is like laying on the ground and I go up and start, quote, unquote, scritching their chin. I say, scritchy scritches. Christmas wish. And I don't know where Christmas wish came from, though. Maybe because Macaulay Culkin's in it.

[Mary]

Where are you having a stroke? Your memory is blank checks.

[Dan Reichert]

The one where the child has a 32 year old girlfriend.

[Mike]

Oh, who's the 32 year old girlfriend?

[Mary]

Are you sure that's not big.

[Mike]

And who's the child? Kieran McCarrick.

[Dan Reichert]

No, Macaulay Culkin is Richie Rich, right? Yes.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

Blank Check is a different kid that is probably dead or something. I don't know.

[Mike]

Maybe it's just a, like Brian Bonsall.

[Dan Reichert]

Is. He's in a band now. Wow.

[Mary]

Okay. That guy. Okay. Dan, if you were. Go back to 13 year old Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes, I do. Every day.

[Mary]

If I gave you a million dollars, but you're 13, what would you do with it?

[Dan Reichert]

Blank check.

[Mary]

What would you do with it?

[Dan Reichert]

Blank check. Big house slide going down. Go. Kart thing. Boxing club thing. Big screen. Literally the same 32 year old girlfriend. Yeah. Just.

[Mary]

What would you do with it now?

[Dan Reichert]

Blank check. He's not kidding when he says, like, it's the dream. Right.

[Mary]

A wall of TVs. A slide that goes through my bedroom.

[Dan Reichert]

Been what I've been trying to do my entire adult life is just like, I just want the blank check life. Yeah. Play games for work.

[Mike]

Yeah, you're. You're three quarters of the way there. You need to go cards.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. He really beat me in terms of. He had it young. Yeah.

[Mike]

You want to talk about video games? Okay, we're back. Talk about video games. But Dan, you have an offer for Mary. You said Mary.

[Dan Reichert]

We took a little break between segments here and I went into the storage room and I do have an offer for you or a gift I can hold on to.

[Mary]

Oh, my God.

[Dan Reichert]

It's not Dumb and Dumber. It's your choice of equally well regarded comedies on vhs. You can have either Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo, or you could have nutty Professor 2. The clumps.

[Mike]

I know exactly which one she's gonna pick. Maga Head. Probably all Rob.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, she loved Current.

[Mary]

She became a Snyder.

[Dan Reichert]

Recently became a fan.

[Mike]

Schneider fan. Big fan of the. The bellhop from Home Alone 2 now. Also Trump's in that.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, actually, yeah. They're both. Wow. She loves Home Alone too.

[Mike]

You love that movie Cheeks, Bony Bob.

[Mary]

Cliff, I actually do love that movie. Sincerity.

[Mike]

I'll literally. I'll text Mariana Friday at like midnight Eastern and I'll be like, cheeks, Bony Bob. And she'll text back in all caps.

[Dan Reichert]

Cliff, I was dying. We watched that like years ago, me and Bonk did. There's that part where he's throwing so many full ass bricks off a rooftop at this human man's skull and he would be just crushed. Mortal Kombat fatality.

[Mike]

There's a YouTube compilation. I think that it's like they've done one for each movie. It's like the number of times they would have actually died.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, sure, yeah.

[Mike]

Like you probably could have died when they dropped a. An iron straight on your face down a garbage laundry chute.

[Dan Reichert]

Deeply concussed. When the paint bucket Comes down to your face. Yeah.

[Mike]

Yep. Yeah. No, it's when Marv is on the ground at the garden level of the brownstone. He's like Harry because he sees him about to throw another way, then he sees it last minute. The noise, the sound effects,

[Mary]

the brick. Sound effects are good. I love folly.

[Mike]

Speaking of bricks.

[Mary]

I'm learning.

[Mike]

Speaking of bricks. Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike]

You have a new brick in your living room.

[Dan Reichert]

What? What kind of lead in is that?

[Mike]

The Steam machine.

[Dan Reichert]

That's not a brick.

[Mike]

Well, tell me what it. Tell me what it is that is.

[Dan Reichert]

I love this thing. Are you kidding?

[Mike]

I met in a cool way. Like. That's sick brick.

[Dan Reichert]

No, that was that. You're talking about hardware which people do universally call a brick. A broken and no.

[Mike]

Oh, sure. Let me start over.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah. Give me a better one.

[Mike]

Okay. You know it's not a brick. Is that's also shitty you've had in your. Oh, wait, hold on. Dan, do you have an offer for me? Can you tell me about the Steam machine?

[Dan Reichert]

I'll let you play it when you come over here.

[Mike]

Oh, sick. Thank you. Yeah. But you have a Steam machine?

[Dan Reichert]

I do. I've had it for coming up on a couple weeks now. It is. That's been taking up all of my time. I. If you're listening to this, there is a video up on Giant Bombs YouTube. I spent the last couple weeks putting together and editing and shooting and testing things for. So I've been. That is the thing I have been doing for the last couple weeks is just around with the Steam machine and

[Mary]

what have you been playing on it?

[Dan Reichert]

I've been trying to test everything, you know, I did, you know, obviously I start with like a bunch of like modern graphically intensive games. The first thing I downloaded was 007 first light. And I tested it and I tested it, you know, versus the A 4090 laptop versus a steam deck. So I was just trying to get a sense versus PlayStations. In the video I do a rundown If I show five different devices playing Death Stranding 2 and you see the price associated with each one, which we'll get to and what you get for that basically. So that's a big question we'll get to. But in terms of running games, I found that it will run a lot of Modern Games at 4K60, not all it like Requiem ran fucking great. That RE engine is unbelievably good and looks great on the Steam machine. There are some like even like weird ones like Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered, which is you know, years old at this point, I could not get that to run at 60 unless I went down to like low, low settings and like 1440p. I have found that most games, almost without exception, if you run them at 1440p and do some tweaks to the settings, you know, like ray tracing will kind of hurt the frame rate. You know, certain things will hurt the frame rate. But you can get most things running in a way that look really good and they're running at 60 frames a second. So as of right now, yeah, pretty much everything I tried you could get to a good spot with. And anyone who gets it, I would say 1440p is like the magic bullet for me. I think they set it to be default 1080p for games just so everything runs looking great, running great. But you can like, you can crank most things up. So yeah, played a lot of like recent games like that that did the emulation stuff. I followed the exact same emulation guide I did for my Steam Deck. Works exactly the same on the Steam Machine. It's the same UI if you've ever played like docked with your Steam Deck or Steam Big Picture mode on a PC. Like it's just a super readable ui. It works great.

[Mary]

How big is it? Can you show me?

[Dan Reichert]

I can grab it if you want.

[Mary]

Yeah, I want to see.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, okay. Okay, I'll go get it. Vamp.

[Mike]

So yeah, actually funny. No, we have an email later. I'll save that. I noticed there's a head crab sticking out of the alien. The xenomorph. Now you notice that out of his mouth. That's new to me.

[Mary]

Oh, he probably got it as a gift or some shape probably found it.

[Mike]

I don't. It looks. Why is it gold?

[Mary]

Probably spray painted it.

[Mike]

Is he spray painting things gold? That's. That's the always sunny bit. When Frank has Charlie Max spray painting the chair gold, he's trying to make it look like it was dipped in gold. Oh, it's a cube, not a brick. He just hit himself in the face.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I just unplugged it while I was in sleep mode for the first time. So I'm blaming you if it breaks it. I've been afraid to try that.

[Mike]

So really quick. So you're about to show us?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Just to set the stage for people who might for whatever reason not be aware. The idea is that this is like Steam's console to accompany the handheld. That is a Steam Deck. And Your PC as the, like, triumvirate of places to play games via Steam.

[Dan Reichert]

I want. I want to say they said it was six times more powerful than the Steam Deck.

[Mary]

Oh, okay. And when you lift it, I'd like for our audio listeners for you to describe it.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, hang on. Which face plate do you want? Because I have three. I got the two terabyte one that comes with the three. So do you want the felt red, do you want the walnut or do you want the standard?

[Mike]

I like walnut.

[Dan Reichert]

You want one? That's the one.

[Mike]

But I like. That would go well in my fix.

[Dan Reichert]

This my room here? All right. You want to see it now?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Yes, I want to see it.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary]

Oh, it's like a perfect cube speaker.

[Dan Reichert]

It's a little bigger than a GameCube. It's heavier than a GameCube.

[Mike]

It. Yeah, it looks like if you took half of a size. It looks like if you took half of a Series X, it is exactly that.

[Dan Reichert]

In fact, in the video, I put. I put it right next to a Series X, it is almost like. Exactly.

[Mike]

Because the USB slots are on the bottom on that as well.

[Dan Reichert]

And so that is the thing.

[Mary]

How many ports does it have?

[Dan Reichert]

It has. You got Ethernet on the back, you got DisplayPort, so you can do a couple monitors out. You got two USBs, you got a USB C Power, and then up front you've got the two USB A's, and then you've got a Micro SD right there. So it is absolutely a console. And the reason it appealed so much to me when I first heard about this was like, I mainly play PC games. You know, it's usually in games, usually what you get the codes on, stuff like that. So I've got like a laptop or desktop hooked up to my TV at all times. I have forever now. And it can just be pain in the ass, like, Windows fucking sucks. And things that worked one day can be broken by an update the next day. Like, I always had that problem, like, oh, audio is not working again. Guess I'm not playing this game until I fiddle with this for 30 minutes or the screen is flickering or something weird is happening. So this is like the simplicity of the Steam deck put into a little box that you plug into your TV with an HDMI cable. And the controller works great with it. It is like, you can set it to like gyro mouse mode. It's got the trackpads for the mouse. The keyboard input is actually a lot better than expected on the Steam controller. So it is absolutely accomplishing the thing it is trying to do, which is like, don't worry about having a PC connected to your tv. If you want to play PC games in the living room, it is fucking great for that.

[Mike]

And like, I guess also another part of the appeal is that you could be playing your Steam deck on the commute home and then turn it off. It would sync with Steam Cloud and then you could get into your living room and keep playing where you picked up from the game.

[Dan Reichert]

That is a video I shot a few hours ago where I just started a new file on Sonic Mania on my Steam deck. I beat one level, I closed the game out, I immediately booted up my Steam machine and boom, sync with the cloud. There you go. So it is just like, it is just talking to each other. It is like Steam just works really, really well. And this ecosystem working together with a portable and a like home console, it's fantastic.

[Mike]

It's like the promise of the switch, but the power of the, like docking the switch, the power is not gonna jump up that drastically as turning your Steam deck off and then going to your living room to play the Steam machine.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. And like power wise, realistically, I think this probably sits somewhere around a base PS5.

[Mike]

Oh, okay.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, I think that's what I would say because base PS5 can do 4k60 certain games. Like I played Requiem on. I guess it was PS5 Pro, but maybe it's somewhere in between PS5 and PS5 Pro. But it's, you know, it's definitely not. I've got a 5080 desktop. It does not run things that well. So it lies somewhere in the kind of like current console space. In terms of power, I would say.

[Mike]

And I do want to ask, is it public how much it costs?

[Mary]

I. Wait, wait, I want to guess it is.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, if you were hearing this podcast, it is public.

[Mike]

It's public now. But I thought, I thought they did not. They have not announced before.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I think they acknowledged via some like, press releases and stuff. Just like acknowledging like conditions leading to.

[Mary]

When we talked about it on the podcast last, I said, well, it has to be like around 500 bucks because if it's too expensive, it'll be ridiculous. But that's before PCs went crazy.

[Mike]

Everything.

[Mary]

And now. And now everything. Dude.

[Mike]

Well, your boy signed the treaty yesterday. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Blame your guy.

[Mary]

Yeah. The Hormuz Straight is open again. He. Who am I saying? He.

[Mike]

You're always thinking about him.

[Mary]

This team deck is like 8.99 now, which is nuts.

[Dan Reichert]

Right? So take that. Okay, so if the Steam deck is. I think it's like 789. I think the base steam deck's like

[Mary]

780, which is also really expensive, but the old.

[Dan Reichert]

Fucking expensive.

[Mary]

Yes, it's expensive. So I'm gonna up it to.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, actually, before we do that, let me say. Because there are different models and bundles.

[Mary]

Tiers. Yeah.

[Mike]

Which one of you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, there are two consoles and each one has a bundle option. So let's just go with like. I'll just tell you. There's a 512 gigabyte version and there's a 2 terabyte version.

[Mike]

Which one are you. Have you been using?

[Dan Reichert]

I had the 2 terabyte bundle.

[Mike]

So let's guess the 512. The base.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah. No, take the bundle out of the equation. Just the console, your starter pack. No controller? No controller.

[Mike]

Oh, okay.

[Dan Reichert]

No controller, Just the bundles are adding a controller. Or with the two terabyte one, you get two face plates. The $1,000 for the base. 512.

[Mary]

Yes.

[Mike]

I was gonna say 1100.

[Dan Reichert]

Split the difference. 1049.

[Mary]

Hey, closest out, going over.

[Mike]

So the two terabyte is what, 13.

[Dan Reichert]

So I'll tell you so. Yes. Hang on. The 512 is 1049 US dollars. The bundle with the controller is 1128. So you're getting a little. Because the controller is usually 100. So you're saving like 2025 bucks or something on the controller.

[Mike]

And 2 terabyte is. What?

[Dan Reichert]

What do you think?

[Mike]

I just said 1300, but now I'm thinking it's more if the controller is 12 or 11. You said the controller. With the controller, it's 11. What?

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. The 512 is 1049. 512 with the controller is 1128.

[Mike]

1128 for two terabyte, what is that, four times the memory? Yeah, let's say. Okay, actually, I'm gonna raise that to 1350.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, Mary,

[Mary]

what is in it again?

[Dan Reichert]

Two terabytes. It's just the two terabyte console.

[Mike]

Four times the base memory, basically.

[Mary]

And what did you say, Mike?

[Mike]

1350. Is that what I said?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

There's so many.

[Mary]

13. 1351.

[Dan Reichert]

Bob, I'm sorry, you're both over. It's 1349.

[Mike]

All right. Okay, I. I understood.

[Dan Reichert]

Basically, you were exactly on the money. Yes.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

And so, yes, the bundle of the 2 TB and the bundle both come with the two faceplates, but then the controller comes with the Bundle, which is 1428.

[Mike]

Jesus Christ. The 1428 is if you got like The.

[Dan Reichert]

That's the top bundle, two terabyte. It's the controller. It is the three face plates. Yeah, so it is.

[Mike]

Let me. Let me ask you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

If you did not, we're not reviewing it, which one would you have bought? Would you have bought any of them? And if so, which one would you have gone for? Which one would you do you think would be worth it?

[Dan Reichert]

I probably would have bought one. This is a very appealing thing for me.

[Mike]

The concept itself is very appealing because I use my Steam deck and my piece. I use my Steam deck a lot and I use my PC more than anything. To have a middle thing there where I'm comfortable is like what I want. So the concept is very appealing.

[Dan Reichert]

And that's what I said in the Giant Bomb video. Is that, like, I think to. For this to make sense, you have to, like, be very much, like, find the concept appealing and also have disposable income, because this is like, this is not cheap. But again, that's not just a Valve thing. That's a Nintendo thing. That's a Sony thing. That's like everything.

[Mary]

What if a piece breaks? Do you think you could just replace it or are you in trouble?

[Dan Reichert]

I did talk to Steam, like, you know, designers at Valve about this today, and it is customizable. You can go in there, you can put in a M2 added storage and stuff like that. Like, they're very friendly to tweaking stuff. They were even talking about people doing, like, desoldering and stuff that people have done that with, like, Steam decks. Like, they are open to that. In fact, like the faceplate thing, I asked them if they were going to be creating a bunch of new faceplates and they're like, no, we just kind of made the two for the bundle. And they just know people, like, they're going to share the files for people to. To make their own, to print their own, to, you know, like, they're just fully like, yeah, people are going to do their custom ones. Like, it's just four magnets that hold

[Mike]

it on so I can match it to my controller that matches the paint in our apartment.

[Dan Reichert]

You absolutely could, yes. But, yeah, to answer your question, I would buy one. I'd probably do the 512 because I feel like I could do the juggling enough of like, all right, I'm done. I don't need Call of Duty on this thing. I'll, you know, download this hundred gigabyte game until I beat Bond, and then I'm going to uninstall Bond and free Up a bunch of space. But like, like it's also obviously this thing is going to be amazing for a lot of the stuff we play, like Amino the Hollower, like a lot of indie games and stuff. You could load this fucking thing up with a million retro games, indie games. You can also just put the Micro SD card in there. Like I put in a 512 gigabyte micro SD card and it just works so like you can get to. You can cross that bridge if you want to. So I probably would have bought the 512 gigabyte. Okay.

[Mike]

I was gonna say that sounds like the most appealing to me with the controller, I guess you don't know. Like actually wait, that's another thing I should ask. I'm assuming this is just compatible with whatever controller you want to use right

[Dan Reichert]

out of you can Bluetooth, anything you can use, like eight bit dudes, you can use. I mean I do love the Steam controller now and like you don't need the dongle. It's all like it has the receiver built into the box itself. So it's just, it's gonna be nice to like, you know, I do wanna buy more controllers and like that way a lot of times like Lego Party. I like playing Lego Party, but I run it off a fucking laptop and every time Windows has fucking forgotten all of my controller syncs and all this stuff. And I have to like spend 20 minutes setting it up every time. Now if I just, I wanna buy some more SIM controllers and just like, like these are the controllers. Turn it on, it plays great, it looks great. These controllers work with it perfect. It is a major like ease of use situation with this.

[Mike]

What's been your favorite game that you played?

[Dan Reichert]

To be honest, it's been so like with making this video and everything, I just was trying and recording so many different types of games. Like I have not gotten to the point where it's like I'm sitting down and playing through this entire game on here.

[Mike]

It's just joining me, is there, is there a game that while you are doing the review that you're like, oh fuck, I can't wait to actually, once I'm done with it, review, sit down with this game with a Steam machine.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean one thing I really like is just the idea of like, you know how much I like emulation and retro stuff. And you know you can do that on a computer. I've done it a million times. But like again, you're dealing with windows open up RetroArch, you know, full screen, it sync the controller See if anything funky happens now it's just like the UI makes it so much smoother. If you've ever done emulation stuff on a Steam Deck, it's just like my dad was here and he mentioned something about playing Ken Griffey for Super Nintendo and like now that's a two second thing instead of like okay, hang on, let me get this working and stuff. But yeah, as far as like, you know, modern games and stuff, I realized like oh shit, I'm right at the end of main of the hollower. Like that's going to be a perfect one to go back and forth between the Steam deck and the Steam Machine on like any indie stuff is going to run like a dream. Obviously.

[Mike]

I think us three appreciate a good plane game. I think the dream of the Steam machine is that you're on a flight home and you're getting toward the end of a game that you've been really enjoying on the flight and then you're like well fuck, now we're landing. And then you turn it off and you get home and you finish it from the comfort of your couch once you're settling at home. Yeah, yeah, sounds really nice. I mean you could do that with a PC to be clear. But like it is possible.

[Dan Reichert]

But like the amount of steps that you add just really, you know, like that takes the wind out of my sails a bit when it's like, okay, I know I can do this but like somebody gotta download extra stuff and

[Mike]

I don't want to sit in my computer chair after I've been in a, in a economy seat on a plane all for eight hours.

[Dan Reichert]

It sounds, I think both of you would love this. I think you know, Mary, I know you all the time.

[Mary]

This is in my wheelhouse. I think I would love this. I think it would work really well as well as my, my evening living room computer. I think that's what it's designed to be is like my casual computer. I need like my beefy game computer for streaming. But like to me this is like a really easy. And my. I have a computer downstairs in my living room, but it's going on seven years old and so like I know it's not going to live forever. It turns off randomly.

[Mike]

Yeah. Things.

[Dan Reichert]

It simplifies too. Like you know, we. I had the PC connected to the TV in the living room since like 09 or whatever. And it's just like you also gotta have the Bluetooth keyboard, you got the Bluetooth mouse, you got, you can get the little shitty, you know, handheld one. But like, like this controller kind of eliminates the need for a lot of that. Although it is also super fucking easy if you want to play things with keyboard and mouse to just plug in a dongle, do a Bluetooth thing and you can do that as well. But like I was playing Mike, I was playing Command and conquer. Red alert 2 from the couch. I am playing fucking red alert 2 from the couch with the controller. It's pretty fucking good.

[Mike]

Oh God. Imagine how many fucking Prism tanks you could you have the patience to build up if you're laying on a couch instead of at a computer chair. Or Mirage tanks, the forest you make of Mirage tanks between your base and the enemies.

[Dan Reichert]

It's a tricky one to talk about because I mean if we're just talking about it removed from price and everything, it is just like everything I say about this is going to be super glowing. And it's hard to even call it a criticism the price because again this is not a Valve thing. This is a state of the world and technology thing. But it's fucking expensive. So it is like so hard to like, like for instance, Kayla, my sister who like she would love to be able to play Peak with us on Giant Bomb. You know, she. She played it once when she was over here. She joined the stream and it was fucking hilarious. She has never played or downloaded or installed a PC game in her life. She's never just like owned a PC until she started streaming. Like this would be perfect for her and her needs. But like I'm not gonna tell Kayla to like, hey, go spend over a thousand dollars on this. You know, it's. They're.

[Mary]

There's.

[Dan Reichert]

You really got to have my supposed land coming and you really got to have the desire to play PC games on your tv.

[Mike]

Yeah, my brother has would. My brother would love this even more than I would. But he's got four kids. I don't know if I can recommend he gets this so he can play the games he likes. Like.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I mean I think it will definitely become my most played gaming machine, period.

[Mike]

Yeah, I could see that.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

No, that's cool.

[Mary]

Sounds good. I just gotta scrounge up. 13, 45, 49. God damn it.

[Dan Reichert]

I, I want you to. Because I want to hear you talk about it because I think, I think if you got one it'd be like that. That was worth it.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm sure it'd be. I'm sure I'd feel like it's worth it once I get it. But that like is a steep stairs to climb. To get to that point.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, I'm just spending 5,000 on a chimney repair right now, and it's not nearly as fun as the steam machines.

[Mike]

Weird. Weird. To replace a fucking boiler in our basement. It was the worst thing ever. I'd be rather. The boiler can't fucking.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, you can have, like, four steam machines.

[Mike]

Boiler can't play Total War Warhammer 3.

[Dan Reichert]

Have you tried.

[Mike]

No, there's some. There's some. What do you want to call it? Carbon monoxide down there. Mary, you. You finished Double seven First Light. We talked about last episode. What are your thoughts now that you've seen the whole thing?

[Mary]

Yeah, you guys had played it, and I hadn't played it at all because I didn't know that I had it. And now I have played it, and I played through the whole thing. I. I think I feel a little differently than you guys. I. I've really enjoyed it, but I think it was a little clunky towards the end, and I got stuck several times to the point where I was like, am I bad at games? And then Minati came into my stream and was like, oh, yeah, I got stuck here, too, for 10 minutes.

[Dan Reichert]

Which part?

[Mike]

Well, he's bad at games, too.

[Dan Reichert]

That is true.

[Mary]

He. Maybe we're both.

[Dan Reichert]

He's known as the worst gamer. Giant bomb. Yeah.

[Mary]

There was an area where we were shooting a place up at the very final. And there were two snipers behind two areas.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

And it's like an office, and you're going around, like, a curved thing with, like, three tiers.

[Mary]

And the guy keeps saying, I'm not gonna be able to get around this. I'm gonna have to be creative.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary]

And I was like, cool. So there's probably, like, a tube I have to shoot, or, like, there's something sneaky. And so I get one of the snipers, and I cannot figure out the other sniper, and I'm getting killed by it. And I'm trying to run past it, and I'm trying to figure it out. It turns out it's the light. But at no point before, I think, was I, like, really prepped and trained to shoot the light. And so I just didn't think about it, and I got stuck there. I also got stuck at a later part where it was like, hurry up and catch up to the main bad guy. Here's a maze. And I got stuck there, too.

[Dan Reichert]

I had several points near the end where I was like. I was. The story was clearly wrapping up, and I was ready to kind of get to the end. And then it was like, there's one part where it's just like. You're walking through another, like, kind of maze type thing. And it's just like holding your watch vision and trying to see what glows. I mean, like, all right, I'll press that. Okay, now I can walk through this door now. Okay, now I'll press that one. And it just wasn't exciting, you know?

[Mary]

Like, also, he's like, like. And he's also like, I better hurry up and save money. Penny. Or whatever. But it's like, is that. What's her name?

[Mike]

I thought you were gonna say Monty Python, but you, like, combined it with Moneypenny.

[Mary]

She says it. Sorry. He says it because he's British. He's like. Like, I don't know how you actually say the name. I also thought he was trying to say ma' am to that one lady, but I think her name is Mom.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, when he's calling, he's calling M. Like, like, that's how they say, basically.

[Mike]

But that's how they say ma'. Am. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, Mom.

[Mary]

But is he calling her ma', am, or is he ma'? Am?

[Dan Reichert]

It's ma', am, but British style. Mom. Yeah, Mom.

[Mary]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And it's.

[Mary]

Well, anyway, the lady.

[Dan Reichert]

Just two words. Yeah.

[Mary]

He's stuck, and I'm lost in a maze. And he's like, I better hurry up and save money. Penny. Or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know where I'm going. Stop laughing at me, Monty.

[Mike]

Penny.

[Dan Reichert]

It's money.

[Mike]

Like, what do you pay with? What's the currency?

[Mary]

He says it. He says English. I'm saying it like he says it.

[Mike]

Okay. I don't think that you dislike the game. I think you have a terrible British accent. Anyway, I, I, I absolutely know the. The part you're talking about. Like, I said this on the last episode. I'm like, I still think the game's at its best when IO is playing to its strengths, which is sandboxy stuff. Stuff.

[Mary]

If sandboxing stuff was fun, if not

[Mike]

even sandboxy stuff, but, like, things where there is the. A modicum of room for improv. There are parts in that game where there is very much a clear solution to the action puzzle they want you to solve that halts the momentum. I died, like, eight times in a row in certain spots when you're escaping the office. Like, midway through the game, I was like, oh, this. I first got the.

[Dan Reichert]

Right.

[Mike]

The laser pen. No, pen rockets.

[Dan Reichert]

The pen missile thing.

[Mary]

Yeah, the pen missile is this.

[Mike]

But that who section was, like, 300 dudes. And also, like, I can only throw so many guys into these electrical panels on the wall. Whatever. So, like, I still. I don't disagree with you at all. I. I think I.O. still is not to the point of, like, a naughty dog with their set piece momentum, but I also, like, I

[Dan Reichert]

still see it as a huge win in terms of, like, that was not their bread and butter. Their bread and butter was like, sandbox stealth. And then for them to, like, like, basically do, like, set piece, big action scene stuff. Like, it's a lot better than I expected to be the first time.

[Mary]

I'm impressed. And I think that's why we were so hyped on it, was because it was unexpected. I don't think people expected it to be as good as it was. I am happy with it. I think what I'm saying is, is I upped my expectations because you guys were so hyped on it. And when I played it, I was like, oh, it's pretty good. I think it's pretty good.

[Dan Reichert]

That's fair.

[Mary]

I think it's. It's like a. It's a good game. I would love. I'm really hoping. And I think when the game ended, they were like, bond will return. And so it's like, I'm really excited for what they do next with this series. I'm glad that it. I think it's done quite well for them with sales, and that's great. I want them to take another crack at this. I think it was good. Overall, my favorite part was the area where you're, like, going to a fancy, schmancy.

[Dan Reichert]

Vietnam. Is it Vietnam?

[Mary]

The resort Vietnam.

[Dan Reichert]

That part's all.

[Mary]

It's sick, the whole thing. Getting into areas that you're not supposed to get into because it's, like, private. Getting the guy alcohol because he's too drunk and they won't serve him. Having sex. It's great. Oh, getting a bunch of free hotel stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

That was my favorite, and I didn't

[Mary]

think they would do that.

[Mike]

Toilet paper.

[Mary]

Yeah. I wanted to ask Patrick.

[Mike]

Patrick. What's his name? The actor. Awesome. What?

[Mary]

I thought. I thought the performances were good. What is going on?

[Mike]

Yeah, he's. He's amazing. Like, I could see him being Bond now. Like a young Bond.

[Mary]

I don't know a lot about Bond, but I liked the Bond isms. I think someone gave him a, you know, like, a drink and, like, made it the way he makes it.

[Dan Reichert]

No, it's like the origin thing of, like. Like, the girl I Think Isola was like, oh, this is. I get a shake and not stir. And he's like, what the are you talking about?

[Mike]

Yeah, it's stupid.

[Dan Reichert]

It's like a Solo thing with Han Solo. Oh, your name's Solo? You're by yourself. Okay.

[Mike]

I still never saw that movie.

[Dan Reichert]

It's fucking stupid. Yeah.

[Mike]

And.

[Dan Reichert]

Or

[Mary]

actually sick. So I wrote down a bunch of. I was wondering, like, if I were a game reviewer and I needed to have a headline for my review. Yes, I wrote down a bunch, and I was hoping you guys would fuse them.

[Mike]

Oh, God. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, I'll be. I'll go into my old review, like, review editor mode here.

[Mike]

But yeah, make sure. Make sure you're reading off, like, verbatim. Like 007, first light.

[Dan Reichert]

Colon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

You don't have to say the colon.

[Mary]

It's the bottom part.

[Mike]

Oh, the.

[Dan Reichert]

The subhead. The subhead. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary]

Okay. And sometimes I'm not a. They're going to be, like, different than maybe you expect, but just.

[Mike]

We'll tell you if they Typos. Etc. We know.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary]

Okay. Subheader.

[Mike]

Here we go.

[Dan Reichert]

Go get the red pen out. Here we go.

[Mary]

Did I like First Light? Let's just say I'm fond. Very fond.

[Dan Reichert]

That sucks. That sucks.

[Mike]

No, that was good. I like it.

[Mary]

View sit four.

[Mike]

I. I love that. That's like an eight. That's in the spirit of so long for a subhead.

[Dan Reichert]

It's just. It's a long walk to get to the duo subheads.

[Mike]

You can be longer.

[Dan Reichert]

I know. Such a long walk for the gym.

[Mike]

Like, I liked it.

[Dan Reichert]

I like it.

[Mike]

8.

[Mary]

Okay. The new 007 left me shaken and stirred. Oo.

[Mike]

Okay, that one's really, really good.

[Dan Reichert]

That's not bad. That's. That's an eight.

[Mike]

That's a nine for me. I'm going up for that one.

[Mary]

Okay. Is the new James Bond worth the money penny?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. No. No, no. Why?

[Mike]

Why could you pronounce it just.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, you just said it totally normally.

[Mary]

Because I didn't want you guys to bring it up. I didn't want it to affect the score.

[Dan Reichert]

Say it again.

[Mary]

Is the new James Bond worth the money penny? Yeah.

[Mike]

Okay, you just it up again.

[Dan Reichert]

No. Also, there shouldn't be multiple sentences in the. No, this is a two.

[Mary]

Half of them are multiple senses. I told you to let that go, Dan.

[Mike]

Pithy, what's your favorite? Okay, I thought that was a nine as well. Those are all really good.

[Dan Reichert]

Thank you.

[Mike]

All right, I'm gonna hit you up next time. I'm writing a review.

[Mary]

Thank you.

[Mike]

Oh, you have more.

[Mary]

I have several more.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, my God. I want to hear them all.

[Mary]

The new Bond gives gamers a license to thrill.

[Mike]

Oh, I've. I've actually seen that one.

[Dan Reichert]

I think someone.

[Mike]

License.

[Dan Reichert]

That's a. That's a four.

[Mary]

I've never written before.

[Mike]

Three. Yeah, you. You actually. You have disappointed me with that last one, I have to say.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, not great.

[Mary]

All right.

[Mike]

I don't hate that I'm disappointed in you. You.

[Mary]

We'll try again.

[Dan Reichert]

I like this segment.

[Mary]

In the new 007. Your dreams become a reality. Drive the fastest cars, shoot the biggest guns and have sex.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, no. That's a one. That is a one.

[Mike]

Yeah, but like I.

[Dan Reichert]

That is so long. And like.

[Mike]

Wait, say I like, do it again. Do it again, have sex at the end. That redeemed it.

[Mary]

Okay, how about. I'll cut out the first part. Drive fast cars, shoot big guns, have sex with girl.

[Dan Reichert]

That's a 12 year old boy wrote that. That's not. That's a one. That's my market.

[Mike]

James Bond.

[Mary]

That's who I'm trying to get to. Click on this.

[Mike]

Mary's trying to make 12 year olds five. That's a five.

[Dan Reichert]

All right. Okay.

[Mary]

All right, I'm a couple more.

[Mike]

Oh, God. That's a good idea.

[Mary]

Like, do you like air vents? Well, I have the game for you.

[Dan Reichert]

I kind of like that.

[Mike]

That's good.

[Mary]

Thank you.

[Dan Reichert]

I think that's better. That's. That's an intro to a paragraph. I think that's a. That's. That's a great intro.

[Mary]

I can't. I don't think I can discern the two. All right, last one. The Spy who Lagged Me.

[Dan Reichert]

What does that mean? What are you saying? Like, that's not a bad, tough one. What does that mean, though?

[Mary]

Well, the game didn't really lag for me.

[Mike]

Well, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

This is not.

[Mike]

Why is it. It did.

[Mary]

I know, but the Spy who Shagged Me is a. The popular movie.

[Mike]

Understand the pun, but you're implying that the game that you played for the review that they are reading in the moment lagged.

[Dan Reichert]

You just picked a word because it rhymed.

[Mike]

Yeah, if I was, I. I'd be pissed at you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds bad. Yeah. I mean, that's good learning in a vacuum. That's not a bad subhead, but it doesn't apply to anything. I gotta say no on that one. Go back to the keyboard.

[Mary]

Which one did you like the most?

[Dan Reichert]

The one I said a. I Have

[Mike]

to commend this game. Left me shaken and stirred. That's the one.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The one before that I like too, but I forgot it. Oh, no, after that. This game is worth the money.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, that wasn't it. It was. It wasn't. This game is worth the money penny. It's like. Do you think that this would be worth buying or the money penny if you purchase it? Yes, I do believe it would be.

[Mike]

Mary really likes the call and return format.

[Mary]

Apparently I write them like a joke.

[Dan Reichert]

You know, we're making a magazine here, Mary. We gotta. We gotta be.

[Mary]

My first one was. Did I like First Light? Let's just say I'm fond. Very fond.

[Mike]

That's pretty good.

[Dan Reichert]

I. I'll bump that up a couple of points.

[Mary]

Thank you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Well, those are my subheaders that I wrote while I was playing it.

[Dan Reichert]

They're always happy to help you. Yeah. Thank you.

[Mary]

I feel like a better writer.

[Mike]

Yeah. Let's hope you also played a game called Tarek Teratech Legion.

[Mary]

I'm really excited to talk to you guys about this. This is Vampire Survivors, but you get to make your own Lego vehicle. Oh, imagine like a Lego Mindstorm vehicle. It's a brick and it's got all these little slots and you can attach guns to it. Some guns are really powerful, but maybe they have like a very cone vision of you and some do less damage, but they have a 360 damage of you and some they'll be like, hey, this is just to ram people. It's just. It's just to destroy things that you run into. And this is a. A windmill. And it'll saw things if you get into it. And then you just, just click them onto your car in different ways. You can put them on the front, the back, the side. You can make a monster vehicle that looks absolutely stupid as it may, there are like vehicles where you're like, that shouldn't exist. And then you just go into like swaths of enemies and you just mow them down and consume them with all of your blades. It's really sick.

[Mike]

Yeah. So you like when you level up, like using it in Vampire Survivors terms. When you level up in Vampire Survivors, you like, you either get an a new weapon or you get an upgrade to an existing weapon or you get like a modifier in this. It's like, okay, it looks like, okay, you leveled up, you get a new block to put on the vehicle.

[Mary]

You get three. So it gives you like usually an upgrade. And. And each of those three, it's like A slot machine. You get three options and you pick one and it does that three times.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm gonna buy this right now.

[Mary]

Oh man, I'm glad. I think this is like what they call a bullet heaven because you're the one like spitting bullets out at everybody by the end of this game. It's. It's unbelievable how hard it gets, but I think that's good. And there's mini bosses.

[Mike]

Sorry. I accidentally just bought a bundle that includes a game I already own. Deep Rock Survivor.

[Mary]

Ah, good for you. Sometimes, sometimes on Steam the bundle is cheaper than buying the game, so you might have actually bought the cheapest version.

[Dan Reichert]

Mike, I just put ten dollar game.

[Mary]

Oh, there you go.

[Dan Reichert]

I just put an image of this in our discord. Mike, look at it and let me know if it does. Same thing your brand did to mine because I immediately want to play this game.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

This would be a great. I'm going to put this on the Steam machine. This would be a great one to try to play.

[Mary]

I'm raving about it right now. Because of the customization, the different vehicle types that you can make are pretty vast and so like I, I made an absurd vehicle. I should take a screenshot of it to show you guys. But like Lego blocks you can say you can pick as one of your options. I just want like a bunch of extenders for my vehicle and so you can make like long pieces that shoot out of the front of your vehicle or the back or the sides. Then you can put like windmills on them or guns and just mow people down. I have one that drops mines and so as I'm shooting people and just running around as they're chasing me, they're just blowing up in the mines behind me. It's really fun. Oh, you can increase your boost, which is very important because you want to to boost through these enemies. If you get stuck in a round of enemies, that's usually how you get killed. And you want to upgrade your defenses as well and your health upgrades, you end up just compounding on top of your vehicle.

[Mike]

Yeah, I was going to say. Okay, so it's clear when you're building the vehicle out, you're adding blocks onto shows you. You basically have a working preview of what the vehicle will look like once you come out of that pause screen, however.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Is it clear? Do they make it clear how it's going to actually affect like drive sl. Affect your offensive skills, etc?

[Mary]

Yeah, I think this game is very lenient that if you make an absurd vehicle that probably sh. Like, might not be able to drive. Usually it lets you. It like just. It skirts reality enough that you can still have fun. One time I just gave myself one wheel and I fell over and I died. So like, like, you have to make a working vehicle. Does it need to make sense in the world? Not really.

[Dan Reichert]

Tears of camera, nuts and bolts bends

[Mary]

it a little bit. If you add a shit ton of stuff on your vehicle, you are slower, like, you're heavier. So you probably don't want to add absurd, unnecessary stuff. That being said, I have added a shit ton of stuff. Had a really heavy, slow vehicle and it didn't matter because I was shooting rockets out of my ass fast and I was just killing everything. It didn't matter. I didn't need to be fast. I've had other builds where I've been like, I want to keep my vehicle really sleek and be fast and zippy. And I put a lot of my upgrades into Boost, so I was super fast and just mowing things over. It's up to you how you want to build your vehicle, but what's so fun is you're not just like, this is the upgrade I want. Like, Vampire Survivors, like, you're just picking between three things in this game. You are clicking these things into place in your vehicle and it gives you the same serotonin that you'd probably get get from building a vehicle in Legos. It feels really good to snap them into place.

[Dan Reichert]

Now let me ask, so, like, I assume you're leveling up and it's giving you the opportunity to do this. Is it like, does it break up the gameplay? Because that is part of like, I guess that's a positive and negative. With Vampire Survivors, three things pop up. You just mindlessly kind of pick one like, okay, back to the races. Does it. Is it weird for pacing in terms of like, oh, I leveled up in the middle of this, like, crazy fight and now I gotta like lego this thing together.

[Mary]

I would say, like, towards the end of the game, when you don't get them very often, you know, because at the beginning you get upgrades really quickly because you're picking up all the little goobles. Towards the end, you don't get them very often. I can be like, surrounded by enemies and have a mega enemy. They usually give you like a super enemy to attack towards the end. And when I get an upgrade and nothing, it's like elevator music. And I'm. I'm like, oh, what rocket do I want? I need to prepare my brain to hit continue because I Am going back into the fray with 9,000 DPS coming at me the second I hit continue. So I do need to get back into the zone. I like it. I like the fact that I get to pause collect my. Think about it. You can even. And this game is so kind. You can completely dissolve your vehicle and rebuild it at any time. There's no punishment for re clicking all of your stuff around. It also is really smart where let's say you have something that has a 360 view but you block half of it. It lets you know. It tells you that you're only getting 50% of what that gun can do.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary]

So I've. I've put a giant gun on and then realized I needed to reconfigure my whole vehicle. Done it. I've taken like five minutes to do it and then I get back into the boss fight and I have to like get my together to. To attack everything. It also has upgrade tiers. There's per person that you're playing and there's different people that you can play that give you different types of vehicles with different goals. So it has a long play. Like you could play this game probably for like 80 hours and it doesn't feel like it's the same game.

[Dan Reichert]

This looks really cool.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's cool. Steam Steam page like GIFS videos are they. The vehicles look like a cross between stuff you make in Tears of the Kingdom with Ultra Hand and I don't know if you guys Remember Dead Rising 3. You make those like vehicles and motorcycles with blades all over them.

[Mary]

Yes.

[Mike]

Between those like. Yeah. This looks rad. It literally just finished downloading while we were talking. I'm gonna. I might play it after this.

[Mary]

I think it. It's. I really do recommend it. I don't think it's that expensive. I bought it in the Bullet Hell. Steam had a sale recently for Bullet Hell Games and so I bought it on sale. It's. It's $10. So I think even when it's not on sale I think it's a good price point for how much gameplay you can get out of this. My last sell is like there's this thing called a diamond grinder that you can put on the front of your vehicle and it basically just dissolves anything that touches it because it's just like mowing them. And I just kept getting diamond grinders and my last vehicle was like nothing but eight diamond grinders. There was no guns. It had not nothing. And I had to. It had to come at me from the Front in order to be dissolved. I died. I didn't make it. But what a fun game to be able to make such an absurd vehicle that's only Grinders. And it's like probably not long for this world. But it allowed me to live my fantasy of just this absolute disgusting grinder vehicle that I loved playing.

[Mike]

Yeah, I want to play this. The I got. Yeah. I didn't realize that it wouldn't just makes sense. It wouldn't give me another copy. But I already had Deep Rock Survivors, which I still love that game.

[Mary]

It doesn't give you another copy, but it's cheaper.

[Mike]

Makes sense. But I got it for $9 because I already had. If you don't have Deep Rock Survivors and you're into Bullet Heavens, you should get Deep Rock Survivors because that was my segue. I don't have any new games since 007. First like to talk about. But I flew to and back from Seattle couple weekends ago and Megabunk I still maintain might be the best playing game of all time.

[Dan Reichert]

Unbelievable.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think my entire flights there and back to Seattle, which are not that bad. They're like five hours was mega bunk and once upon a time in Hollywood. But Survivor is still really good on Steam.

[Dan Reichert]

Download of that on my Steam deck and like I keep waiting. It keeps happening when like oh Amina, the Hollower or something I'm working on for work is coming out. But like yeah, I'm going to Gamescom. I got a Germany flight coming up.

[Mary]

You know, I think Tara Turkey Tech is going to give this year. It's going to be a good plane game. It's great on a Steam deck. It. They have made it so that the controls are so comfortable with a Steam deck. I was very happy with click a clacking around my little vehicle and building it on my Steam deck. And I will be playing this a lot on a plane tomorrow.

[Mike]

Nice Red. Thank you for the rack. That game looks rad.

[Mary]

I'm glad. I'm glad. I want everybody to play that. This.

[Dan Reichert]

This is going to be a tested map with all the. Oh yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm actually done with like all the like, you know, coverage stuff with the Steam machine and I can just play a game on it. I think this would be a great first one to really kind of dive into.

[Mary]

Yeah, get in there.

[Mike]

All right. Do you guys want to talk about emails?

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Okay. As always, you can write into firescapecastmail.com if you want questions read on the show. We have a bunch tonight we're going to get into. That's firescapecastmail.com Mary, do you want to read this first one from regular emailer Wes from Baltimore.

[Mary]

What it do code Danny Zuko. What is the correct way to open a box of cereal and then dispense the cereal? Cheers. You can SW from Baltimore.

[Mike]

So I put this in specifically because I didn't know there was more than one way. So this is making me suspicious that there is more than one way.

[Mary]

There's sickos out there that rip open the cereal.

[Dan Reichert]

Wait, hang on. What? Because I think I've been fucking it up my entire life. So.

[Mike]

Okay, can I. Yeah, I feel like I open it the way it's designed to be.

[Dan Reichert]

Open the box part of the bag part.

[Mike]

This is. I think he's talking about both. Like, you get a brand new cereal and you want to make a bowl of cereal. How do you.

[Mary]

How do you get the cereal out?

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, you put your finger underneath the, like, nub part of the cardboard and then you pull back and then it rips and like a 2/3 line.

[Mike]

Okay. This is why you wrote in, because

[Dan Reichert]

then you gotta flop the other part up, but it doesn't stick together anymore. So.

[Mary]

Yep.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. So you.

[Mike]

You pull. Okay. The tab that folds over on top of the cardboard.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You rip that.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. And it always fucks up.

[Mike]

Oh, no, I. I like, I open it like an envelope. Like that tab.

[Dan Reichert]

That's how I open an envelope.

[Mike]

Okay, so how do you.

[Dan Reichert]

Wait, are you starting from the edge and.

[Mike]

No, I'm starting in the center. I'm getting my finger under the center. That's what I'm trying. And then carefully opening the top so, like, it still is a big one. Big flap.

[Dan Reichert]

I think the careful might be the division here.

[Mike]

The way you described it sound like you're pulling the specific middle.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I'm not like pinching the thing and pulling it back. I'm getting like a couple fingers in there and I'm like flopping it up and then it tears.

[Mike]

Gotcha. I don't know. Doesn't matter. And then I'm opening the bag. I'm. I'm back. I'm grabbing the middle of the. I'm grabbing the middle of the bag and I'm pulling it gently so. On one end. On one end. And then I'm opening the bag of cereal on one side.

[Mary]

Let's see. Two virgins decide how to get into their first vagina.

[Mike]

Like, if you're opening a bag of Doritos, you pinch.

[Dan Reichert]

That's how I do it too. I Pinch and you pull it style and the other. But then also sometimes it just. It just happens all at once and it plies.

[Mike]

Yeah, sure. But I do it on one end of the bag. So then you. I only ever open up, ideally one half of the top of the bag so it pours out evenly.

[Dan Reichert]

One half of the top of.

[Mike]

Yeah. So like, if you got a bag of Doritos, go to one edge. Yes, yes, yes.

[Dan Reichert]

That makes sense.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

You don't need the whole thing.

[Mike]

I think we're on the same page. I'm just more patient.

[Dan Reichert]

You're better at it than you.

[Mary]

Wait, so. So you only open one end of the bag and then you pour it. It.

[Mike]

If you're looking at it. Yeah, it's like if you're looking from a up top down view of the bag.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Like, we do thing is not going

[Mary]

to be like, we're talking about your big bed.

[Mike]

It's gonna be. It's. I got like. I have my. This thing. It's good. It's gonna be like that. It's not gonna be like that open.

[Mary]

What's up with you and aerial views today? Every time you're trying to describe something, you're like, so if I was like on the ceiling.

[Dan Reichert]

I think he's married to an architect.

[Mary]

Is what's going on on here at my giant bed.

[Mike]

We. Whenever we see apartments or like, when we're looking at hotels while we're traveling. Let me see the floor plan. I'm like, I don't. What is this going to. I mean, I enjoy a good map.

[Mary]

What's the skim map look like?

[Dan Reichert]

Classic alopecia.

[Mike]

That's so her. I'm going to send her a come pie soon.

[Dan Reichert]

What?

[Mike]

So is there more than one way to open a bag of cereal boxes?

[Mary]

Yeah, I think you can rip it.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I. Here's a great prank if you're fine being kind of an okay.

[Mary]

All right.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. So you're at a friend's place or whatever, or family member's place. You take the bag or take the box of cereal. You take the bag out all the way, open it. If it's not open, it's. This would be crazy to do with a full one. This is like one you do with like a quarter or something. You pour all the loose cereal into the box.

[Mary]

Oh, right.

[Dan Reichert]

Throw away the bag and you kind of hold it and you just kind of pop the bottom open. You know, you just have it open and then you slide it back on the shelf. So la de da. I'm Going to get my breakfast cereal in the morning. You pull it off the shelf, all the cereal comes out the bottom loose. That's annoying.

[Mike]

I'm gonna do that to you in December.

[Dan Reichert]

So funny.

[Mike]

Do you guys eat cereal regularly still?

[Dan Reichert]

I get this Catalina Crunch Protein.

[Mike]

Yeah. Every once in a while, I'll get, like, a Special K. This. The dried strawberry one. One. That one's really good.

[Dan Reichert]

No sugar.

[Mary]

I have a girlfriend who always eats the Special K cereal, but she takes the frozen. The dried strawberries and picks them out

[Mike]

to get rid of them.

[Dan Reichert]

I do that. I would do that. I can't do dried.

[Mary]

She doesn't like the taste of dried fruit, but she doesn't like Special K plain. It's got to be Special K with the berries, and then she.

[Mike]

With the flavor from the strawberries. We don't want the strawberries.

[Mary]

Likes the flavor of the berries, but she doesn't want the.

[Mike]

Can I tell you something funny? Dried fruit have way more sulfites than anything you're ever gonna drink or eat. So that's actually if. If, like, you're one of the people who tries to avoid sulfites. Dried fruit are one of the worst sulfite. It's a whole thing. It's. It's just a lot of people try to avoid them when they're drinking a certain beverage, and they have a lot of misconceptions about it. But I'm like, well, you eat dried fruit.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, this is one of your RFK things.

[Mary]

This is like a wine thing.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

Tan. What were you gonna say about cereal?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I can't do dried fruit, and I can't do Lucky Charms marshmallows. It's just like. There's something extra about biting them. It just makes me going crazy. I haven't had a Lucky charm marshmallow in 30 years.

[Mike]

I guess I get that. But I like them like. They're like. It's a cross between chalk and Styrofoam.

[Mary]

I love it. And I also like Oopsal berries. That's the best crunch.

[Mike]

Oh, we should do a tier ranking of cereal.

[Dan Reichert]

Captain Crunch. Peanut Butter Crunch. I haven't had that.

[Mike]

Peanut Butter Crunch.

[Mary]

I like that, too. Fruity Pebbles Waffle Crisp.

[Mike]

You guys waffles really good.

[Dan Reichert]

Cookie. Cookie Crisp.

[Mary]

Cookie Crisp. I think Cookie Crisp really was for me.

[Mike]

I was too thick. There's two junk food.

[Mary]

I didn't think it tasted like cookies.

[Mike]

Two junk foods, they have changed the flavor of. And I like in my life, and it decimated me. One was Cookie Crisp. I want to Say it must have. I must have been 12 years old. And they changed the flavor. It's still good. But I was like, this is a very different. This is it, actually. It used to taste like. And look like and feel like actual mini cookies where the chocolate chips stuck out at random angles. They felt like organic thing. Not organic, but, like, felt like they weren't made in a factory, even though they were. They changed them when I was, like, 12 into things that felt more like muffin tops with dots of chocolate in it. The other thing is the Snyder's cheddar pretzel bits. They changed the flavor, I want to say. Six years ago, I used to eat those all the time. From some. Something that tastes like actual cheddar to this thing that tasted like Cheese Whiz.

[Dan Reichert]

Now it's that, like. Well, they just cut up your mouth. Those are like. The taste is good, but holy crap.

[Mike]

Cookie Crisp or Snyder's.

[Dan Reichert]

No, the Snyders.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary]

They're the bits all American cereals do in Australia. When I live there, I could not find an American cereal to save my ass. They don't let them there because they're so bad for you. They're like, the whole. The whole country is like, no, they're not allowed in here. These are bad for you.

[Dan Reichert]

I. Mike is probably too young to remember this, Mary. I wonder if you do. Teddy Graham's had breakfast.

[Mike]

Teddy Grahams?

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, no. Do you remember Teddy Graham's Breakfast Bears?

[Mike]

No.

[Dan Reichert]

They were a cereal they'd like.

[Mary]

That's right.

[Dan Reichert]

Cinnamon. Chocolate Cinnamon and honey. And it was great. Yeah. I think they only had. I love it.

[Mary]

I loved Teddy Graham's and I loved the cereal, but I. My mom. This was like an era, right, where, like, the moms bought the stuff. I didn't get to choose my cereal. My mom chose the cereal that was in our household, and it was always Fruity Pebbles was, like, the best I could get most of the time. It was like Cheerios.

[Mike]

Oh, Cheerios are still a classic, though. They're like the vanilla of ice cream.

[Mary]

Honey. Honey nut Cheerios or regular Cheerios. Because regular Cheerios are for psychos.

[Mike]

I love regular Cheerio. Cheerios.

[Mary]

You have to have some. Some sweet in there.

[Mike]

No.

[Mary]

Or you're just drinking toast.

[Dan Reichert]

You've got to be me. Do you guys know the Sargento balance breaks that are, like, little. It's just like, cheese blocks and, like, nuts and, like, it's just a kind of like a little protein snack pack thing. Like some Wheat Thin. Some tiny Wheat Thins. I Have these every day. I love them. I'm just finding there is a fun Balance breaks subset.

[Mary]

And it is city.

[Dan Reichert]

It's Teddy Graham's honey. It is Colby, Jack blocks and mixed fruit snacks. These are three of my favorite things. I'm ordering, literally, like, 10 of these right now.

[Mike]

Mixed fruit snacks, like Brax right now.

[Dan Reichert]

It looks like a little, like, orange slice fruit snacks and stuff. I am. Oh, my God. This sounds great.

[Mike]

Sound good?

[Dan Reichert]

Yep.

[Mary]

You remember a cereal called Hidden Treasures?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that sounds familiar.

[Mary]

They look. They were, like. Some of them would be empty and some of them would hold a hidden treat.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. Oh, you didn't know when to be

[Mary]

a fan in our household.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

Oh.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah. I'm looking at Hidden Treasures and sprinkle spangles. Oh, man, I forgot about all these hidden treasures. That's right. Oh, my God.

[Mike]

I remember these. I was. I remember Hidden Treasures as well.

[Dan Reichert]

That's fun.

[Mike]

I like gimmicks.

[Dan Reichert]

I like gimmick cereals. Oops. All berries. There was a mistake at the factory.

[Mike]

Do you remember Bug City? The candy? Candy. Did you guys ever get that? They tasted like sweet tarts, but they came in a plastic container which was wrapped in cellophane. And then once. Look up Bug City, once you were done eating all the bugs, the idea was that you could use it to trap and have pet bugs because there was oxygen holes in the top lid.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, weird.

[Mary]

That's.

[Mike]

I can't find them.

[Mary]

They don't make this come out in, like, 2004 when you were, like, 8 years old.

[Mike]

I was in 2004. How old do you think I was in 2004? For real?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, my God.

[Mike]

10 Buck City was awesome. I was 13. I'm almost 35. I'm not a child. Stop making fun of me. But Bug City plan. They don't make it anymore.

[Mary]

Baby's upset.

[Mike]

All right, thank you, Wes. You cut. That's what he said to me.

[Mary]

He said it first.

[Mike]

All right, next one. Dan, you wonder, is there a way we could trim. I think this is all relevant. I did cut a couple things where they were flattering us, saying, we're the best podcast in the world. We appreciate what we do for them. What would their life be without us in their ears? But if you want to read this one from Mike, go for it.

[Dan Reichert]

Hi, escapees. I had an interesting question to pose after buying Resident Evil 4 remake again recently on Steam, after owning it since launch on PS5. The original Resident Evil 4 is arguably my favorite game of all time, and my new purchase got Me thinking about the total number of times I bought the original throughout the game's history. I purchased and played RE4 on GameCube, Xbox360, Wii, PS4, Switch, PC, DVD ROM, Steam, and even had the awful iPhone version from 2009 for a total of eight distinct separate purchases. The Wii version tops the list as the most fun gameplay in my opinion, as it is the only one that actually alters the way you play based on inherent controller difference differences. Curious to know, what game, if any, have you all bought multiple times? And do you have a definitive version you prefer over others? That's a great question, Mike. Honestly, I think RE4, especially for this group, it'd be hard to top that because of the sheer number of RE releases. And I've definitely had all the ones you just mentioned. Reviewed most of them, probably. The Wii one is good. The Wii one's solid, like, better than you'd expect.

[Mike]

Yeah, the other games, a few come to mind. I have. I have played Hades on several different platforms because, like, I played the shit out of it on Switch to begin with, and then that was the first time I came across it. And then I was like, well, it's on PlayStation and Xbox now, so I might as well play it on both platforms and then also on PC. So I have that. That's a more modern one. Same thing with Rogue Legacy. I played the first rogue legacy on PS4.

[Dan Reichert]

I did that the first time, and

[Mike]

then it came to Xbox One and then I was like, oh, I could play on a Vita and I could play on a PC. So I think it's like roguelikes is the general answer for me. I don't. There's something about replaying them on a different platform as opposed to just starting a new save file. But yeah, it's got to be Resident Evil 4.

[Dan Reichert]

Metal Gear Solid 3 has got to be up there for me. Like, they've done that a few times. They did the HD Collection. Well, they did the first release, they did the HD Collection, they did Subsistence, they did the Master Collection, I feel like. And they did Delta, like a full remake. So that's got to be up there.

[Mary]

Which one's your favorite?

[Dan Reichert]

Any of them that are based on the Subsistence one, because that's the one that changed the camera, although not. Oh. So subsistence on PS2 had the 30 frames per second. So I would say the one on HD Collection or Master Collection, because that's the good camera plus the good frame rate. Delta is very good too.

[Mike]

I like Delta, but I. Yeah, I still think I Like Subsistence the most.

[Mary]

I think I haven't even played the Original Resident Evil 1. But I know that everyone says that remake is like the definitive way to play that game.

[Dan Reichert]

I. If I play the original PS1 release of that, it is purely for nostalgia. If you were to play it now, I would say just do remake.

[Mike]

Yeah. I think Resident Evil, the franchise is probably the one I own the most games of across, like, including repeats across platforms. Because I have Resident Evil remake on. I have the original GameCube version still. I have it downloaded on PS4. I think I have an IP. I have it on PC as well. And that's just the remake. I also have the original on two different platforms. PS3, backwards compatibility, if memory serves. Yeah. And then get to the Gamecube games. You get to Resident Evil 4. I have a bunch of different units of.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, Ocarina Time's gonna get up there now because you had the original. You had the GameCube one on that.

[Mike]

Weird.

[Dan Reichert]

The silver disc, there were two different ones. There was the silver one that you could get with that had the four games on it, and then there was the Master Quest. Those were two different GameCube ones. So that's three. There's the three DS, one upcoming remake. That's at least five ocarinas.

[Mike]

And Nintendo Switch Online, if that's basically just 64. But like, it, like, to his question, like, I have it on that platform technically.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure, sure. Yeah.

[Mike]

Also, I don't know about that remake. I'm sure it'll be good, but, like, actually, I'm not sure it'll be good.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm very curious about it. Star Fox 64 is another one which we'll probably be talking about next episode. But that one's had a bunch of remakes.

[Mike]

I don't. I've only ever played the original

[Dan Reichert]

Zero. If you ever played. That was also kind of a remake.

[Mike]

They need to remake Star Fox Adventures.

[Dan Reichert]

No, they don't.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Mary]

I feel like I've bought different versions of Lion King, Disney's Lion King, the game, multiple times, but nothing beats that original SEGA version. And that's probably just pure nostalgia. But even though I'll play it it and I'll buy it for emulators or buying remakes so I can play it on Steam. The. The Sega version is just the best.

[Mike]

I was looking through the games in my Steam library. Yeah, I think I got all the big ones.

[Dan Reichert]

The first couple Mortal Kombats, because, like, you know, that was on every console. So that'd be like Genesis Super Nintendo game gear. I had a bunch of those. There was like the Midway Arcade Treasures, the Legacy Collection stuff. Like I bet I've played Mortal Kombat 1 on like eight to ten different consoles.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think those are my big ones. And then you have Game Pass where it's like I probably. I have access to a bunch of games there that I didn't realize in Series X. All right, Mary, pay for those.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary]

God damn it.

[Mike]

Without it out. Thank you, Mike from Florida. All right, last one tonight. Hi, escapees. I am a longtime listener of the show and a recent fan of Giant Bomb. Because of that, I have delved into older clips and videos of Giant Bomb and have heard the name Kate o' Brien's referenced several times. This entire time I have thought Kate o' Brien was some sort of cool games media person whose apartment you guys would just hang out at to get drunk and have a good time. It wasn't until very recently I tried Google googling this person to realize you guys were talking about a bar. This is not the first time something like this has happened to me. For a long time I thought the NBA referee Tony Brothers, when referred to, was an actual pair of brothers that were referees. Has there ever been something you convinced yourself was simply true because you made a one time conclusion about it only to be shocked later on? Thank you. The Tony Brothers thing is funny because he reft a couple of finals semi Eastern Western Conference finals this year is before the final. But yeah, like I was just talking about earlier, Dan, when you were still away for the break, Mary and I came back, I think I figured out where I was getting Richie Rich's Christmas wish. So I. So, so Blank Check is a movie from 1998.

[Dan Reichert]

4.

[Mike]

Okay, 1994. In which so is Richie Rich. But Blank Check is not Macaulay Culkin.

[Dan Reichert]

Correct.

[Mike]

But it's about a kid who comes

[Dan Reichert]

across a rich guy, runs over kid's bike and he was like, hey, whatever hero, here's a blank check. Whatever, just don't fucking sue me. Yeah.

[Mike]

And then Richie Rich is Macaulay Culkin who just has rich parents and gets to build like the house of his roller coaster.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, no, no. I think you're fucking like he lives in a Mount Rushmore of his head.

[Mike]

Okay. However, I remember I go up to my cats and scratch their chin and I say, Richie Rich Scritchy scritches Christmas Wish. There's a movie in 1998 starring Neil Patrick Harris that was direct to DVD called Christmas Wish. And I can only assume I'M conflating all three of these movies in some weird amalgam of not even Macaulay Culkin. I know.

[Dan Reichert]

David Gallagher. This is the Oasis guy.

[Mike]

Liam. No, that's Liam and Noel. That's.

[Mary]

What?

[Mike]

No, don't make this more confusing than it already is. No, I think I conflating, like, three different movies because I just had it in my head. There was a movie called Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.

[Dan Reichert]

There is? Apparently.

[Mike]

There is. Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm looking at. Wait, that's what you just said. I'm looking at the IMDb page for Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.

[Mike]

So you guys made me feel like I. I didn't know earlier when I.

[Dan Reichert]

This wasn't either of the movies we were discussing.

[Mary]

We were talking about, like, a mental tangent about a movie that we weren't discussing.

[Mike]

But is that a sequel to Richie Rich?

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, maybe, but Macaulay Culkin's not even in it.

[Mary]

Okay, so that's B movie with, like,

[Mike]

some random people did a sequel to Richie rich in the 90s.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. No, Gallagher is Richie Rich in 1998.

[Mike]

And I reference every time I scratch my cat's chin.

[Mary]

Yes. It's also got the girl from Harriet the Spy.

[Mike]

Is the girl who died. The one we talked about.

[Mary]

Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.

[Dan Reichert]

She is. Yeah.

[Mike]

90s is one big knot of memories.

[Mary]

I remember her face. As soon as I saw her, I was like, that's her.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, Martin Mole. Like, yeah, we got. We got some stars in Christmas wish.

[Mike]

I clearly my 90s me. I. I was so many careers.

[Mary]

Years.

[Mike]

I was saying earlier, I'm not

[Dan Reichert]

this guy. Hang on. Richie Rich from Christmas Wish, The Oasis guy also is in all the Kingdom Hearts games. Plays Riku and Young Ziha Nort. Okay. Been in every Kingdom Hearts. Wow. The what range? Richie Rich, Oasis King, all the Stars.

[Mike]

He played Macaulay Culkin. He was Xehanort. He was in Oasis. What the. This guy's the most talented person ever.

[Dan Reichert]

Wonder.

[Mike]

Clearly, I was just saying earlier that, like, being born in 91 does not. I don't think it makes me a 90s kid. I don't remember it well enough.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't consider myself an 80s kid.

[Mike]

No, I, I. Clearly, I don't remember the 90s well enough. Where all of these things are just one big nostalgia slash confusing memory. Very not where they're all blending together.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, your brain's up.

[Mike]

Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's weird.

[Mary]

You don't know where you are.

[Dan Reichert]

I gotta watch this now.

[Mike]

Which one?

[Dan Reichert]

All of them.

[Mike]

Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.

[Mary]

Here's Nobody knows that movie except for you.

[Mike]

I know.

[Mary]

Apparently, I would say, like, for me, it's probably like finding out the things that I've been pronouncing for years are pronounced wrong. Wrong. Like Foley and Folly and Reese PCs and Reese's pieces. Sure, there's others, but sometimes I'll just say something and someone will say, why would you say it like that? And I will say, that's the way we say it. That's just. That's just how we do it down here in Ohio.

[Dan Reichert]

Some of that is like Reese pieces is something that I know others besides you do. But some stuff is just like a Mary ism, you know, that's a colonial.

[Mike]

Than like it. Yeah.

[Mary]

I cannot say colloquialism, Lil.

[Mike]

Yeah, clearly

[Mary]

colloquial.

[Mike]

Now, there's a. There's a few. I. I said this a few years ago, and this is a weird one. I never really registered or never really thought about. I think Kenny Rogers and Kenny Loggins were the same person in my memory for, like, growing up. And when I found out that they were very different, like, Kenny Loggins did Top Gun sound.

[Dan Reichert]

It's Yacht Rock versus country. Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah. And Kenny Rogers, very much the gambler. I was like, oh, wait. I always kind of in my head assumed they were the same one because the name has the same cadence.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, Kenny Rogers also did weird stuff like that. What condition my condition was in from Big Lebowski. Like, that does not sound Roger stuff. Yeah.

[Mike]

I think that was one of my big ones, too, when I found out they're are different people. But I do. I do still feel like people have epiphanies where it's like, I did not know that was like, an actual different thing or same thing or whatever. But, like, I didn't realize Ed Harris is the son of Richard Harris, the act. The actor is the son of the actor.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't think I knew that either.

[Mike]

Richard Harris played Dumbledore, the priest in Count of Monte Cristo. He was in Patriot Games as the IRA leader. And then Ed Harris. Harris. His portfolio speaks for itself, but I believe he's his son.

[Dan Reichert]

I had no idea.

[Mike]

There's a lot of celebrity Nepo stuff I did not. Ed Harris's wife is from weapons.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Yep. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. Well, thank you, Joshua from Vancouver, Washington. That's our show. That's firescapecastgmail.com if you want your question read on the next episode or two or three we've also got firescapemerch.com is up and running. Let me double check that like I always do. But I think I figured out the hover stuff. Firescapemerch.com you can get your banana hammocks for your dingoes this summer. Yeah, it works. Fire Escape merch.com There's Banana Hammocks. There's a Merry Christmas, you sicko candle. There's a tie. Dye shirt. There's some shorts. There's a hat. There's water bottles, whatever you want. Some coasters. Don't get the one with the about the author. I actually don't that. I. I don't know what that's about. Dorky Christmas hats. Firescapecast.com if you want to become a patron, you can get ad free episodes if you're not already member. You can also get the video versions of episodes and bonus episodes and backlogs of video stuff we've done. I did a whole series with Vinny Caravella from Next Lander. We played Total War Warhammer 3 a co op campaign. It was super fun. That's all there on Patreon, our YouTube channel. Outside of that. Dan, what do you have going on before the next episode?

[Dan Reichert]

Giantbomb.com hopefully I'm done with my Blight club by the time this goes up. We'll see.

[Mike]

Is that Space Ace still?

[Dan Reichert]

Yep, it's Space Ace. It's coming up on the longest one we've ever done. It's hell every day. Other than that, definitely. Check out the Steam Machine video I put up on Giant Bomb. That was a fun one for me. Just kind of one man set up shooting editing. Kind of did the old editing chops and stuff. Again it was very fun for me to just go super heads down on a big project like that. So check that out on giant bombs at YouTube.

[Mike]

Nice. Mary, what about you?

[Mary]

I will be out of town for a little bit but usually I'm streaming on Twitch tv. But you can follow my adventures on my travels on my Instagram while I am out and about for work.

[Mike]

Awesome. Well, we'll be back in a couple weeks with episode 136. Getting farther into the summer. We'll have more games to talk about, I'm sure. I'm gonna play Techno Terra.

[Dan Reichert]

I am also going to play that. Yeah, I don't know what setting Mary Dad.

[Mike]

Paratech Legion. So sorry.

[Dan Reichert]

I can always tell what game Mary's playing because like no matter what time of day I look at like a friends list, you are just playing it. I don't know if you're just leaving your Steam deck on.

[Mary]

I'm leaving it on all the time.

[Mike]

All day. It's funny. It's actively playing games all day.

[Dan Reichert]

Let me check when you go to Friends.

[Mike]

No, it's funny. It'll say all the entire workday that Mary's playing games. It's fun. Which is funny. I'm like, oh, I thought Mary had a job she'd be doing.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, weird.

[Mike]

But she's just like, it's playing tech. Playing Teratech Legion. Yeah.

[Mary]

What does it say now, Dan?

[Mike]

Playing?

[Dan Reichert]

It says you. You are not online right now.

[Mary]

That's not true. I'm playing Teratech Legion. This entire stream, this entire podcast, I've been playing it.

[Mike]

Have you really? Is that why you zoned out the last during the emails?

[Mary]

You guys. You guys gotta see this car I'm building.

[Mike]

Requesting. What are you requesting? In Zoom is requesting allow your request passing Zoom to share.

[Mary]

Yeah, I would like to share my screen.

[Mike]

No, don't make Jake have to edit more. Send the. Send a pic of the the car to the Discord. That's our episode. Thank you everybody for joining. We'll be back in a couple weeks. Appreciate you coming. See you later.

[Dan Reichert]

Bye.

[Mary]

Sa.