Fire Escape Cast #90

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #90 – September 23, 2024

In episode #90 of Fire Escape Cast, hosts Dan Ryckert, Mary Kish, and Mike Mahardy welcome special guest Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb. This milestone episode seamlessly blends insightful video game discussions with the hosts' trademark humor and camaraderie. Below is a detailed breakdown of the key topics, discussions, and memorable moments from the episode.

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1. McDonald's App Deals: Saving Big on Favorite Meals

Timestamp: 00:00 – 01:06

The episode kicks off with a segment highlighting the McDonald's app and its daily deals. Mike Minotti introduces listeners to the app's ability to offer significant savings, exemplified by a "$1 for a 10-piece chicken nugget" deal valid once a week through December 2, 2024.

Notable Quote:

Jeff Grubb [00:14]: "Gaming the system to a whole new level."

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2. Making History with a Four-Person Podcast Lineup

Timestamp: 01:20 – 04:47

For the first time, Fire Escape Cast features a four-person lineup with the addition of Jeff Grubb. The hosts humorously navigate this new dynamic, engaging in light-hearted banter about missed recordings and scheduling hiccups. The camaraderie shines as they joke about impressions and the challenges of coordinating a larger group.

Notable Quote:

Mary Kish [01:27]: "No, neither. No."

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3. The Tacky Allure of Funko Pops and Collectibles

Timestamp: 04:47 – 16:14

A significant portion of the episode delves into the hosts' collective disdain for Funko Pops. Mike Minotti candidly describes them as "definitely tacky," sharing personal anecdotes about owning a few but ultimately feeling disconnected from the collecting trend. The discussion extends to the challenges of preserving these collectibles, especially ones featuring controversial figures.

Notable Quote:

Mike Minotti [16:14]: "They're definitely tacky. And I know how. I get how that happened."

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4. Astrobot: A Contender for Game of the Year

Timestamp: 16:14 – 87:13

The heart of the episode centers on an in-depth review of Astrobot: Galactic Storm. The hosts, alongside Jeff Grubb, explore the game's mechanics, comparing it favorably to Hades. They discuss its imaginative level design, seamless integration of shoot 'em up elements within a board game framework, and its potential to be a strong candidate for Game of the Year.

Key Points:

• Gameplay Mechanics: Quick-paced firefights complemented by strategic board game elements.
• Design and Aesthetics: Vibrant, imaginative levels that offer a continuous sense of discovery.
• Replayability: High score challenges and unlockable content enhance longevity.

Notable Quote:

Jeff Grubb [74:14]: "It was like, oh, I think it's gonna make you want to go through the whole game because of the design."

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5. Expanding the Conversation: Void Bastards, Warhammer 40K, and More

Timestamp: 87:13 – 114:32

The discussion broadens to include a variety of games such as Void Bastards, Warhammer 40K, and OmniFace. The hosts analyze different genres, from roguelikes to immersive simulations, highlighting their unique storytelling and gameplay experiences. This segment underscores the podcast's commitment to covering a diverse array of games, catering to various listener interests.

Notable Quote:

Dan Rykert [115:00]: "Dawn of War 2 is better. Dawn of War 3 definitely took a few steps back."

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6. Personal Anecdotes and Humorous Banter: Farts and Family Stories

Timestamp: 114:32 – 210:07

Interwoven with game discussions are the hosts' personal stories and humorous exchanges. From tales of embarrassing moments involving farts to recounting drunken escapades and family interactions, this segment adds a layer of relatability and entertainment. The playful nature of the conversation highlights the strong chemistry among the hosts and their ability to balance serious game talk with levity.

Notable Quote:

Dan Rykert [194:08]: "Every time you hear a car honk and you live in New York City, that'll trigger a sneeze and a fart."

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7. Listener Engagement: Katie’s Kingdom Hearts Inquiry

Timestamp: 210:07 – 213:54

Towards the end of the episode, Dan reads an email from Katie from Knoxville who expresses fascination with the Kingdom Hearts story and seeks recommendations for lore-heavy reading material. The hosts respond with insights into various resources, including manga adaptations and YouTube lore explanations, catering to Katie's quest for a deeper understanding of the series.

Notable Quote:

Mike Minotti [210:18]: "The lore's not that confusing in Kingdom Hearts too. You know when Sora stabbed himself with Riku's Keyblade..."

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8. Closing Remarks and Promotions

Timestamp: 213:54 – End

The episode wraps up with the hosts promoting their other podcasts and social channels. Mike Mahardy mentions his Disney podcast, while Jeff Grubb encourages listeners to check out Game Best Decides. Dan Ryckert invites fans to support the show via Patreon and visit fireescapecast.com for merchandise. The hosts continue their signature humor, teasing future episodes and expressing gratitude to their audience.

Notable Quote:

Mary Kish: "We have not gotten any emails about this or tweets or anything in port. If you listen to last episode we talked..."

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Conclusion

Episode #90 of Fire Escape Cast masterfully blends insightful video game analysis with the hosts' engaging personalities. From dissecting potential Game of the Year contenders like Astrobot to sharing humorous personal anecdotes, the episode offers a comprehensive and entertaining experience for both seasoned listeners and newcomers. Special guest Jeff Grubb enhances the conversation, bringing in fresh perspectives from the Giant Bomb community. Whether you're a gaming enthusiast or simply enjoy lively banter, this episode is a testament to why Fire Escape Cast continues to captivate its audience.

Transcript

[Mike Minotti]

Did you know you can save money with the McDonald's app every single day?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I was surprised too. Deals every day right at your fingertips. I love a good deal, but the.

[Mike Minotti]

McDonald's app takes gaming the system to.

[Jeff Grubb]

A whole new level. Just the other day, I treated myself.

[Mike Minotti]

To a 10 piece chicken nugget for only a dollar.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, you heard that right. Just $1. All you have to do is order in the app.

[Mike Minotti]

And get this, you can grab that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Deal once a week through December 2nd.

[Mike Minotti]

The first time I discovered the deals.

[Jeff Grubb]

In the app, I was honestly shook. I had to tell my whole group chat about it. And now we're always comparing who got the best app deal of the week plus ordering ahead.

[Mike Minotti]

Total game changer. Especially when I need a quick lunch.

[Jeff Grubb]

Or a treat after a long day. So why wait? Save money every day with the McDonald's app. Download it, get those deals, and treat yourself. You deserve it.

[Mike Minotti]

Valid through December 2, 2024 at participating McDonald's. Offer valid 1 time per week. Excludes delivery. You must opt into rewards.

[Jeff Grubb]

So go check out McDonald's deals.

[Dan Rykert]

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Fire Escape cast. I am Mike Bahardi. It is episode 90 here as always with Dan Rykert.

[Mary Kish]

Hello.

[Dan Rykert]

And Mary Kish. No, I was waiting to see which one of them was going to do a merry impression.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, neither. No. Which one of them? Wait, Mike, are we making history tonight on this fire escape?

[Dan Rykert]

Is this the first time we've done four people?

[Mary Kish]

It is. We're making history here. Who could it be? People are asking, who is that you ask?

[Dan Rykert]

That's Mike Minotti.

[Mike Minotti]

I would never try to do an impression of Mary. She was very scary last time I was here.

[Dan Rykert]

Mary's a baby. And Jeff Grubbs is also joining us.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this. Welcome to the Game Best decides podcast. I'm Jeff Grub. Me is couple pros here.

[Mary Kish]

You know, I noticed that Jeff Grubb came in on time and wasn't muted for a while.

[Jeff Grubb]

And listen, I would never do that. Oh my gosh, I am big time. So you guys treat me right. So I'm going to treat you right.

[Mary Kish]

To be clear, you've done this for a while. Grub, you're a pro.

[Mike Minotti]

To be clear, I was ready to go. And then you're like, oh, we have to record some ads. I'll let you guys know we're ready. I was like, okay, you got to.

[Jeff Grubb]

Roll with the punches.

[Mary Kish]

And I still sent it before the time I told even with the ads considered, so that doesn't count.

[Jeff Grubb]

I could. I could check the 8:57pm yes, there it is.

[Mike Minotti]

Notification on my phone. It was my bad. I'm sorry.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. I just want people to get a window into the nightmare it is. Working with Mike Bonatti.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, half of it's really unpleasant.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, Mike. Mike and Jeff are both previous guests separately on the podcast. Both times when I was not here. Mike, you and I did Hell Divers together, the bonus episode. But did we. We haven't done an episode, I don't think.

[Mike Minotti]

No, no. Yeah, we did Hell Divers. We bonded over Lord of the Rings and.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, I thought we bonded well.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, we built up. We built up some goodwill. We really like getting to know each other. And then I accidentally called you Matt and just, you know, completely reverse direction there.

[Jeff Grubb]

Unfortunately, there could be only one mic.

[Dan Rykert]

You said it in person to Dan at. In Seattle as well.

[Mike Minotti]

I begged him not to tell you. I did.

[Jeff Grubb]

What was the context?

[Mary Kish]

Why were we recording you talking about him?

[Mike Minotti]

No, we didn't record it at all.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I just said we were just talking about him.

[Mike Minotti]

We were at the jw.

[Mary Kish]

I just narrow drinks in.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like you were more slightly tapped at him.

[Mary Kish]

I just narcked right away. Okay, got it.

[Mike Minotti]

Just a mean jerk.

[Mary Kish]

That's it.

[Mike Minotti]

Wow.

[Dan Rykert]

Those who don't remember Mike and Jeff are from Game Mess podcasts.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, whatever. You guys, it's kind of messed up that you invited us both because this will be. Mike, is this four podcasts we're doing together this week?

[Mary Kish]

Jesus.

[Jeff Grubb]

Christian wanted us to do columbro, so that would have been five. Definitely not happening now. No way.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

God, you guys have met.

[Mike Minotti]

This is four. This is the fourth one right now. We're doing a fifth one tomorrow.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, is that true?

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, we did two yesterday. We did two today. We're doing a fifth one tomorrow.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, my God.

[Mary Kish]

You got the fun dog one. I like the dog gimmick.

[Mike Minotti]

Thank you. Thank you. I like our dog gimmick too. Although we did our Nintendo podcast yesterday. And then there's fun Nintendo stuff happened today when we're recording with this pal World lawsuit and like the Switch two leaks and all this stuff. But that's okay. They hate us. We know.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm sure we'll get into later in the news section.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, we'll break it all down.

[Dan Rykert]

I think section is going to go a bit long, so it's going to.

[Mary Kish]

Get really the Roman history narrative dissonance of the week.

[Mike Minotti]

Sure.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

The on we.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, Wine time.

[Mike Minotti]

All the Stars are here.

[Dan Rykert]

But yeah, I'm outnumbered by giant bombers tonight.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, sorry about that.

[Mary Kish]

Games mess. Cross. Giant bomb. Cross fire escape here. Look at that.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's right.

[Dan Rykert]

Games mess. Game mess.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's game.

[Mike Minotti]

It's a play on summer game Fest. Because it was originally summer game Mess.

[Jeff Grubb]

It was. Right. And it was Jeff Grubb's summer game mess. When I was like poking at Jeff Keeley, which what I never, I would never do today. Very respectful of him. Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

You're not like hard drive.

[Jeff Grubb]

Not like, oh yeah, let's just let hard drive do all the work.

[Mike Minotti]

It's fine.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. So we were poking at it and now that was like. Oh, I was telling people like when stuff would happen before like it was announced and things like that. And that's just now the patreon. Patreon.com game mess.

[Dan Rykert]

And you two live near each other as well, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

Pretty close.

[Mike Minotti]

North northeast Ohio.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like a 85 min.

[Mike Minotti]

85 minute drive. We're actually hang out this weekend because.

[Jeff Grubb]

We'Re going to go buy some classic games.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. There's a big video video game convention, like a retro gaming convention at the big Springfield door. Not Springfield. It's in Cleveland, but there's a lot of vendors.

[Jeff Grubb]

We can't do go to Springfield anymore. They ate all the consoles there.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

They're just going nuts there.

[Jeff Grubb]

I've heard about that.

[Mary Kish]

I saw it on the television.

[Jeff Grubb]

They ate the Sega Saturns.

[Mary Kish]

It's terrible. Oh my God.

[Mike Minotti]

I was really confused because I live right by a Springfield, Ohio and I was like, I was like first I ever heard about this. What, like what's going on?

[Jeff Grubb]

And then I had to look.

[Mike Minotti]

Turns out that the Springfield I'm by has been named New Springfield this entire time. Probably because it was the second Springfield Springfield.

[Mary Kish]

And no, I can't just do Shelbyville at that point.

[Mike Minotti]

You should just be Shelby. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Mike Mahardi doesn't get that reference.

[Dan Rykert]

I watched enough Simpsons.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're more of a Futurama guy. I get it. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I think Ohio is a front runner for like the possible location of Springfield from the Simpsons. Right.

[Mary Kish]

Well, that's. It's never had a real thing. The whole point was there's the most named thing in the in the country.

[Mike Minotti]

I like to believe Springfield.

[Mary Kish]

Mike hasn't seen Simpsons. He's more of a. He used to until I blocked him on Instagram. Just send me wine memes put over the office us clips. And lately I think he. I unblocked him in the last one to me. I send those to you.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, no, I'm saying you go ahead and send those to me.

[Dan Rykert]

I sent you the undertaker one recently.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. You've moved on to wrestling wine memes. What was it? Undertaker sitting up out of the coffin. Wouldn't you smell a good Chardonnay or something?

[Dan Rykert]

You're butchering a very good meme.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, Mike makes a good point. I. I think these two mics are way more alike than people might first realize, because I think they are both into their various alcoholic beverages to a similar degree. Like, Mike cares about whiskey that much. I mean, obviously you do too, I think.

[Mike Minotti]

I think Mike the First. May I call you Mike the First?

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, my God. Enjoy.

[Mike Minotti]

I enjoy whiskey even.

[Dan Rykert]

He's been very differential ever since he got my name wrong and said that. I thought we were best friend now. How did you phrase it? He thinks we're best friends.

[Jeff Grubb]

A lot of people are his best friends.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. It's not a good play, it turns out.

[Mary Kish]

No, the wine.

[Dan Rykert]

The meme was. It was like when you open a bottle of. When you open a bottle of, like, DRC you thought was dead, and there's the undertaker coming up out of his coffin and choking. Was that Triple H?

[Jeff Grubb]

It's called the Goozling.

[Mary Kish]

Triple H. I remember your wine meme exactly. Undertaker.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, so Triple H is this guy who works. I think he's still at wwe. He's related to the rest of the family that owns.

[Jeff Grubb]

Married in.

[Dan Rykert]

Married to the Mc McMahons.

[Mary Kish]

McPoyle McMahons. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Liam and Ryan and Doyle.

[Mary Kish]

We did. We did a black club recently, me and our two guests here. And I asked. I was talking to Bonk about Just God, man, black club's so good, and just, you know, the chemistry is so easy. And I asked her, I was like, who am I more similar to between Grubb and Minardi? And she started saying Minati, and then she stopped and she goes, no, minati's pretty extreme. You're more like Grub extreme.

[Dan Rykert]

In what way?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, elaborate skateboarding, you know, like, style.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Every time he goes to Disney, that's what he's, like, known for. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

You guys know about an extremely goofy movie?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, because you literally told me all about it two days ago.

[Mike Minotti]

So there's a Goofy movie from the 90s, and it's, you know, a beloved millennial classic. But in the early 2000s, straight to DVD, an extremely goofy movie where goofy son goes to college, but goofy also goes to college, and they both get involved with the X Games. It's fantastic.

[Mary Kish]

His son is Pluto, right?

[Mike Minotti]

No, absolutely. Not his son is Max.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, they're all dogs, I guess.

[Jeff Grubb]

Come on. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Pluto is like not anthropomorphic though, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

No, that's right.

[Dan Rykert]

So he's dog. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

You're like 10 year, 10 years behind on like Disney fan memes. We've all had.

[Mary Kish]

God, I feel like a. I feel like a dork now you.

[Dan Rykert]

That's actually what really kicked off Mike and my relationship was when I made fun of Disney adults and like you, you reached out very cordially. It was like a polite middle finger. Yeah. Via email time.

[Jeff Grubb]

Get to know him a little bit better. It won't be cordial the next time.

[Mike Minotti]

I always get it. What actually turns everybody around is going to Disneyland with me. It turns out everybody a good time.

[Mary Kish]

Yep. It was good. It was good.

[Jeff Grubb]

It would be like going to Gail Perry with. With Mike Mahardi. Like this is Disneyland of wine. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Mahari would be so easy with. With Disney World even. Because there's so many.

[Jeff Grubb]

Because you could just get them drunk. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Well, because Disney World is so big, it's so many things, like I could, I couldn't make a good at least three day vacation for anybody in the world unless they're gonna just be a complete like fuddy duddy and just like not wanna give in a little bit.

[Mary Kish]

You.

[Mike Minotti]

This. Yeah, that might be rough. Like, that might be rough. But like with Mike, there's so many like, like there's like the one restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort that has like, like the largest selection of I think South African wines in the country or something like that.

[Dan Rykert]

So it's like you mentioned that in the email. I was intrigued for sure.

[Mike Minotti]

Right, so you like that. And there's a bunch of other like, great wine. There's a place called Wine Bar George with a sommelier who opened that there. And there's a lot of amazing wines there and good food and stuff like that. Just some great restaurants in general. Especially, like, honestly, at my age, that's the thing I look forward to the most in Disney World now is the restaurants almost more than anything else.

[Dan Rykert]

Is it.

[Mary Kish]

Your track record is good. You've taken me, you've taken grub, you've gone with Ben Hansen. Although Hansen's probably not a hard sell, but, you know, it is hard to have a bad time.

[Jeff Grubb]

I shoot at one of the best times of my life that day. That was so much fun.

[Mary Kish]

It was. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Is Disney World or Land or both? The ones with the like the food stalls from around the world in my.

[Mike Minotti]

Best Epcot was the first one to do that. And now they kind of. They kind of copy it in Disneyland in the California Adventure park now because it was so successful in Epcot. It's like quite as hot over there. But yeah, Epcot's the one with that, with the drinking around the world thing because they have all the different areas themed to different countries. And so you can get like a margarita at Mexico and then get a beer at Germany and some wine at Italy. And you know, you can get.

[Jeff Grubb]

Beer Garden is the one. I'm kind of annoyed that we're not going to be going to because we're on a Disney World for the first time with the family in November and we just made our reservations because you got to make them 60 days out. And the beer garden was, when I was looking at. It was like, that looks like a very good time.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, Beer garden. It's a German themed. And they like have like a band. Right. And even have like a guy with one of the Ricola horns, you know, so that's fun. And it's a buffet style thing. But yeah.

[Mary Kish]

One thing I'll say, Mike and I was very honest about my trip to Disney World or Disneyland. You talk about the restaurants. I don't know how car circle is generally considered. I thought it was fine.

[Mike Minotti]

I think, I think some people are maybe there with that. I didn't even eat a full meal there. I had a very.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm sorry, what is this car thing?

[Mary Kish]

It's where we had dinner at Disneyland and I was told like, oh, this is. And it was very expensive and. But it's gimmicked. Like it's.

[Mike Minotti]

That's.

[Mary Kish]

It's the gimmick. And we know Minati loves gimmicks. If you love Margaritaville, you love Rainforest Cafe. Bubblegum shrimp.

[Dan Rykert]

You enjoy going to Margaritaville?

[Mike Minotti]

Hell yeah. Absolutely.

[Dan Rykert]

Next time you're in New York, let's go the rooftop in midtown.

[Jeff Grubb]

You come to Cleveland, Come to our Margaritaville America.

[Dan Rykert]

You don't have a rooftop bar there. We found the glue between all four of us.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Mike Minotti]

When I went to the Mall of America with Dan, there was like this courtyard where it was like a. It was like a Mexican standoff with the Margaritaville, the Rainforest Cafe and the bubble gum shrimp just like all staring at each other. And I was like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did you stand equidistant between all three? Did you do that?

[Mary Kish]

It's like a four corners thing with the States. Yeah. One hand in every restaurant. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Have you ever been to the four corners. That's fun.

[Mike Minotti]

Next time, give me a blindfold and spin me around.

[Mary Kish]

We could do that next time.

[Jeff Grubb]

We could absolutely love that.

[Mary Kish]

Let's do that. Let's go spin Mike Bonatti in the Mall of America.

[Dan Rykert]

I remember during COVID or. No, like, after Covid, things had started opening up again. I was trying to go to the Olive Garden in Midtown just because it wouldn't be flooded with tourists and it would actually be still the Olive Garden.

[Mary Kish]

That was the one where I dared you to go by yourself and demand they sing Happy Birthday to you, right?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I did not do that.

[Mary Kish]

Mike would do that. Minati.

[Mike Minotti]

Last time I was at Olive Gardens because my nephew made us go because it was. It's mentioned in one of the Sonic movies. So he was like, he's really into it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Doesn't he get a pasta pass like in the second Sonic movie or something like that?

[Mike Minotti]

That's how he was, like, really excited.

[Jeff Grubb]

Incredible that that in movie advertising worked on a child.

[Mike Minotti]

Man, he was so happy to be there.

[Mary Kish]

Grub, was it. You posted a thing today of the Funko Fusion game with, like, a KFC minigame. Yep.

[Jeff Grubb]

Not a mini game. It's like the KFC things are like, all. Like a bucket of chicken is littered all over the game and you got to shoot it, like, so many to unlock stuff or something.

[Mike Minotti]

Now, look, I want to be cynical, but I loved Yo Noid for the NES music.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, hey, listen, my. My post was my eyes dilating because I'm like, I got to play this now.

[Mary Kish]

Like, I hate Funko. Like, I think that shit's really stupid. And we're gonna play the game, but if they're going all the way, like, branding nutso, like, beyond crazy Taxi. We've got a KFC and a Pizza Hut I would like to play.

[Jeff Grubb]

We're gonna play it. Although the other part of that story. Is it hard locked 21 times on them so they couldn't even review it when they tried to review it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

So sounds like a good time.

[Mike Minotti]

Well, it's weird. It looks like it runs so well in all the trailer.

[Mary Kish]

I feel like we should stream that.

[Jeff Grubb]

On giant bomb.com and we're going to do it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, okay, I'll do that with you.

[Jeff Grubb]

It was. I got. The only thing I remember that game is in the direct being like, Funko was fusion popped up. Mike was talking. I made a joke like, shut up. Shut the up. We're going to respect this. And then immediately it started playing and I couldn't I'm like, this looks like. And it's like, just unbelievable, unmitigated shit.

[Dan Rykert]

Do any of you own any Funko Pops?

[Mike Minotti]

I. I used to have a few, I think, back when the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie came out. I got, like, all of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I was like, this is neat. That's fun. A slightly hot take. Look, I don't love Funko Pops. I don't care if I bought one in maybe a decade. They don't upset me. Like, they seem to upset people.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, the thing I kind of. I'll. I don't know. Sometimes you'll see, like, an image of somebody screaming on the Internet about something, and there's like, a literal wall, like a supporting wall of their home made of Funko Pops behind them. And it's like, all right, that's kind.

[Mike Minotti]

Of like, they're definitely tacky. And I know how. I get how that happened. And, like, yeah, that tackiness transfers to people. We'll own a lot of them. Sure.

[Dan Rykert]

So here's. Here's one time they actually have really annoyed me. I've usually been indifferent to them.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that's where I'm at.

[Dan Rykert]

There is a wine bar, like, across the street from me, let's say two blocks up. And, like, our five listeners in Hoboken will probably know where I'm talking about. Really nice Italian bar, great food. They have, like, 12 different kinds of bruschetta. It's like they're going for the. Like, very much going for the nice Italian stuff.

[Jeff Grubb]

I have no idea where the story is going, but I'm very excited to.

[Dan Rykert]

Be here behind the bar, like, half of. Behind the bar, next to, like, some really expensive Barolos and Brunello's, are, like, a hundred Funko Pops on the show.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, of, like, Tony Soprano and Mussolini.

[Mary Kish]

Bourdain.

[Dan Rykert]

There's no theme to any of them. There's Deadpool, there's Sonic, there's. I don't know whose idea it was, but it aggravates.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's the owner's son who we can't say no to, clearly.

[Mike Minotti]

I wonder how many Funko Pops are there of people or characters that have now been canceled? Like, what's right? Like, it's gotta be a fan.

[Mary Kish]

Is there a master list?

[Dan Rykert]

Mary has the Bill Cosby one.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

She predicts that with all her might, though.

[Mary Kish]

Who's the old guy that died recently that did a bunch of war stuff like Crimes?

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, God damn it.

[Mary Kish]

Henry Kissinger.

[Jeff Grubb]

Henry Kissinger, I think, was he ever.

[Dan Rykert]

Was he ever canceled or was it just always acknowledged people were unfond of him?

[Mike Minotti]

It's weird that there's a fucko pop of him either way.

[Dan Rykert]

There really is.

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't. I think we might be working. I think we might be working on this one, guys.

[Mary Kish]

That's the only reason I know him.

[Dan Rykert]

So Mike and I are both into Margaritaville, and we're also both super gullible.

[Mike Minotti]

Insanely gullible.

[Mary Kish]

All right, I'm looking at the whole. Okay, so no fictional characters, obviously. Disney, Marvel, dcu. This doesn't matter. TV series line burned. Gus Fring.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay, is there a Roseanne Funko Pop?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, there can't be. She's been. She's been for a while.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, she got.

[Mike Minotti]

No, she came back. She had that show.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, she was on the Connors.

[Mike Minotti]

Which.

[Mary Kish]

Still going, by the way, for Funko Pop.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, no, there's no Roseanne.

[Mike Minotti]

Ah, damn. I thought that was. I thought that was a. I thought that was our best bet.

[Mary Kish]

Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones. A lot of video game stuff. No doctor Disrespect. No, none of that. I just got to wwe.

[Jeff Grubb]

There we go. That'll do it.

[Mary Kish]

Hang on. Hulk Hogan, which, shockingly, not as canceled as he should be.

[Jeff Grubb]

Maybe he should be more canceled at any given time.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you know, out of all of these wrestlers, Hogan's the closest, and he's got one. Okay, so Hogan is the most. He's the closest to being canceled I've seen so far.

[Jeff Grubb]

There is no Bill Cosby Funko. So.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm looking at Vince. I'm looking at Vince. I found one on eBay for 20 bucks. Mr. McMahon. There it is.

[Jeff Grubb]

Is that a custom job?

[Mike Minotti]

It doesn't look like it even has a number. Number 53. So that seems important.

[Jeff Grubb]

They have Myron from Jingle all the Way holding a mailbomb.

[Mike Minotti]

And you guys, this link to ebay. But I think. Yeah, I think this is a legitimate. Mr. McMahon. That's definitely a canceled funk. Wow.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, that was not listed on this. What website am I on here? Point.com. okay.

[Dan Rykert]

The slick deck.

[Mike Minotti]

You can also get a Mr. America Dan with Hulk Hogan.

[Mary Kish]

Well, there's no way to prove that, brother.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, so, yeah, I guess Vince.

[Dan Rykert]

On my desk at Gamespot for a bit when I inherited the desk from. I think it was Mary, but I don't think it was her Funko pop either. It was a Lara Croft funko pop.

[Mary Kish]

My mom once, she knows I like big trouble in little China, and she. She Likes that movie a lot too. And you know, obviously she doesn't know, like, nerd culture or anything like that, so she would have nowhere. She just saw like, oh, this Jack Burton thing at a store or whatever and sent it to me in San Francisco and I live there. And like, part of me like, oh, thanks, Mom. Part of it's like, I don't want to put a Funko Pop on my desk. So it's like I just kind of kept it out of sight for a.

[Dan Rykert]

Little bit, but just bust it out when she visits.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Hey, I have a couple friends. His grandma, for a wedding gift, sent them this, like, huge ass painting that they hate and they actually put it up, like, planning on putting it up in the hallway when she visits, even.

[Jeff Grubb]

Though they keep it in a classic sitcom move.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, sitcom stuff right there. I like that.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, we still have your face Maharity on our ceiling in Bonk's office.

[Dan Rykert]

It's still there.

[Mary Kish]

Like professional still there. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Awesome.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And the top bunk's not there anymore, so it's like way more visible now. So.

[Dan Rykert]

So I'm lording over the person sleeping even more.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Mike Minotti]

From on high me in November.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't remember where that photo was from. Was that when I looked like I peed my pants at Game Informer?

[Mary Kish]

No, I use that one a lot. This one was. You just made a stupid face while we were having fun in Danbury, Connecticut.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, okay.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before I locked you in my basement and we streamed it Hardy.

[Mike Minotti]

Can I ask you a question?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Did you watch and enjoy homestar runner.com?

[Dan Rykert]

Yes. I never missed a strong bad email. I was into the Come on for Hoga. God is always stuck in my head.

[Mike Minotti]

Came up with me and Jeff. Jeff was like. Like, I don't know him. Jeff was not into.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm aware he exists. I just never watch it. But Mike was like, it was huge in my high school. No one in my high school ever mentioned it once, ever.

[Mary Kish]

It was huge in my dorm. Like, people love that. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

That came as like a cultural keystone.

[Jeff Grubb]

I graduated in 2001, so I do think it might have been a bit early.

[Mary Kish]

I was. Oh, two.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay, then you said in the dorms. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Supposed I was thinking 203. It was big.

[Jeff Grubb]

Bigger scumbags who barely used the Internet from like 2002 to like 2006. So, yeah, I think that might have helped.

[Dan Rykert]

That was one of my after, like, Harry Potter dot com. I think Homestar Runner was one of my first like go to websites. I was in middle school.

[Mike Minotti]

Were you into those Potter puppet pals too?

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, yeah. The Ticking Clock.

[Jeff Grubb]

Is that the one like Snape Snip?

[Mike Minotti]

I think that video at one point was the most watched YouTube video ever. Close to it. Once upon a time.

[Jeff Grubb]

You ever watch those tiktoks where it's like a chart that, like, attracts the popularity of something over time?

[Mike Minotti]

Talks. You're talking about it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

I would like to see that. That. You're right. That probably is up there for a while.

[Dan Rykert]

What were the, like, Touchstone. What was. Would like be the single Touchstone comedy movie for your high school years, Labowski?

[Mary Kish]

Well, no. You know what? Junior high would be Austin Powers junior High. Austin Powers high school.

[Jeff Grubb]

Austin Powers. Ace Ventura.

[Mary Kish]

Ace Ventura was earlier.

[Mike Minotti]

Sure. Pretty early.

[Mary Kish]

That was like elementary school.

[Jeff Grubb]

Austin Powers.

[Mike Minotti]

Probably mine would be Anchorman. I think maybe also. God. What's the one with Will Pharaoh in Call? I love you're my boy Blue.

[Mary Kish]

Old School is huge.

[Mike Minotti]

Popped off.

[Dan Rykert]

My sophomore year was super bad. Like, swept. Swept.

[Jeff Grubb]

The school is actually like, right there. Half Baked. Probably would have been us.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

When I was graduating, I liked Half Baked.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. It's a great comedy, especially when you're a teenager or whatever. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

As much as I even. Especially when these movies came out. As much as I was a drunken, you know, dumbass. I never found Old School or the Hangover to be particularly funny. It all just.

[Jeff Grubb]

I liked Old School more than Hangover.

[Mary Kish]

But I didn't love either. You know, I'm the opposite.

[Mike Minotti]

But I like. I like movies set in Vegas just because it kind of feels like I'm on vacation. I just like the part like, oh, hey, now they're in the Caesar's Palace. Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And that is.

[Jeff Grubb]

That is why I like Ocean's Eleven a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Big Vegas vacation crew here.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Changing 500 every time it goes into the. Like the casino where they play War and like, Guess the Number and stuff. Like.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

That plays on my head in a loop.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, yeah. It's incredible.

[Dan Rykert]

Still have never done Vegas.

[Mary Kish]

You've never been to Vegas? That shocks me. I would feel isn't like, is Dice.

[Dan Rykert]

There Sometimes I started moving. Dice is in Lake Como, Italy this year.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's it. So you're going?

[Dan Rykert]

No, I'm not going. I wish I was. I couldn't. I couldn't get a maggot to expense two of us going.

[Mary Kish]

What would be the dream City for all of us for like, okay, E3 is moving or Summer Games Fest is moving out of la and from now on, for one week every summer, you're you and the entire games industry goes to.

[Jeff Grubb]

Chicago.

[Mary Kish]

Chicago.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh my God. Look, you asked.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, you're right.

[Mary Kish]

It's a New Orleans. Probably for me.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know that I would. And I. I love so many people I've worked with and III and Summer Games Fest. There's been great memories. I don't know that I want to be anywhere with like that many with. I like that many people are there for a convention. I feel like it's going to make any place like, like LA for Summer Game Fest. I'm always like keyed up and like anxious about it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, but what if you were in a better city? Wouldn't that be.

[Mike Minotti]

I'd rather be anywhere than la. Kind of near Skid Row.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

No, I guess I enjoy like gamescom Dream City for that. Yeah. I don't know. I think it would be. It wouldn't be like Paris or. I think Chicago would be good.

[Mike Minotti]

I was just about to say maybe Chicago. I like Chicago centralized.

[Mary Kish]

I'd be fine with that. An hour flight, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

I did say Chicago. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, you did.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I listened to you.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I noticed.

[Dan Rykert]

And I have reason to Chicago. I just feel like I would enjoy it.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's such a. It's an awesome city, actually. It's. We were like. When we consider moving, it was like Chicago, probably too expensive. So we're thinking Minneapolis or Cleveland. And we ended up going to Cleveland because it was the most affordable. But then right after that, we took a family vacation to Chicago and I really fell in love because it's. It is a big city, but it's still very Midwest. But it has everything. It has all the cultures. Every 10ft there's another awesome restaurant. There's so much to do. There's a Medieval Times. Yeah, it's fun stuff. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Margaritaville on the West. West. What's that called? West Point here or whatever.

[Mary Kish]

Ferris wheel.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Amazing. I love going to see just a.

[Jeff Grubb]

Real city in a lot of ways.

[Dan Rykert]

My wife's convinced once I see it, I'll never want to leave. She thinks that it'll resonate with me.

[Jeff Grubb]

And I think you would love it.

[Dan Rykert]

Like two siblings, a few uncles have told me, and they meant this in the like, in the highest form of a compliment, that it's like the most American city they've been to. Like, it feels like it can be salt of the earth. It feels like a lot of their favorite restaurants and bars are like divey, but Like, a lot of character.

[Mary Kish]

Yep.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's got. It's got, like. It is very American, and then it's also extremely multicultural, and it's awesome at both. It's really cool.

[Dan Rykert]

A lot of Irish people that I.

[Mary Kish]

Know, I was impressed by. I just saw Mahardi and Mary and some friends in Portland recently, and I had never been there before, and, like, we weren't like, downtown or anything like that. We were just kind of, like, hanging out and, like. I don't know if you'd call it a suburban area, but lots of, like. No, that was taverns and breakfast places, and it was great.

[Dan Rykert]

That was like. That was Portland. But yeah, correct. Not downtown, but it was still the city. But, yeah, Portland's awesome. We were only there for a few hours before we went farther up into the Columbia Gorge. But extremely nice, natural environments right outside the city. I mean, a lot of cities have that, but this kind of. It, like, dissolves into it as opposed to, like, city and then outskirts. Gorgeous, like, gardens, all the houses. It's the rose city, after all.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

It's awesome there.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Beautiful.

[Mike Minotti]

Definitely want to check it out sometime. I like Seattle a lot, which is another northwestern city, I assume. It's similar.

[Mary Kish]

Feels a lot bigger. And it's.

[Dan Rykert]

Seattle is more. Seattle is definitely more like cocktail bars, like artisanal coffee shops.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's like the most college.

[Dan Rykert]

Portland definitely feels more. I. And people from Portland can correct me if this is way off, but if this means anything to you guys, it feels like a big Astoria, like Queens.

[Mary Kish]

It feels like a college town. Post college. Like, if the vibe of your, like, college, like, hippie college town continued into adulthood, basically.

[Dan Rykert]

It's a slower pace than Seattle in my experience.

[Mike Minotti]

Interesting.

[Mary Kish]

Do you guys have hippie college towns? I had it, like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Dave Chappelle lives, is a famous, like, hippie college town that people around here hang out, too. And I bet Portland's very similar to that. And anyone from Ohio. Most people from Ohio will know what I'm talking about.

[Dan Rykert]

One really quick, cool, fun fact about Portland, back in the day, when it was still stump town, it started as a logging town. Two people who had, like, the rights to the plot. One was from Portland, Maine. One was from Boston, Massachusetts. And they were trying. They were arguing about what they wanted to call it when it was being incorporated, and both of them wanted to name it after their home hometown. So they decided on Portland after flipping a coin.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, wow.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Interesting.

[Mary Kish]

Jebediah, Springfield and Shelby.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, that's interesting because it's A boring name, right? It's just like, well, what do we got in this land?

[Jeff Grubb]

Ports.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

All right. There you go.

[Dan Rykert]

And it's not. It's not even on the ocean. It's a river port town.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right.

[Mike Minotti]

It's named after a land that had port. So it doesn't even make sense here anymore.

[Jeff Grubb]

You guys ever see basketball?

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, sure.

[Jeff Grubb]

And one of the best bits in that is when they talk about all the teams moving around where, like, LA moved to Lakers where there are no lakes, and the Jazz moved to Utah where they don't allow music. Yeah, that's pretty good.

[Dan Rykert]

But yeah, I. New Orleans also be great. I still have not been in New Orleans.

[Mike Minotti]

I haven't been either.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I'd love to go to New Orleans with all you. I've been there like five or six times now.

[Jeff Grubb]

You say this. I've never been to New Orleans. Why do you like it so much? I'm not doubting you, but I'm just curious.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. Like, you know, people like to go to like Vegas and it's just like, okay, it's, you know, party, you know, it's just like kind of, you know, glitz and glamour and drinking and everything, casinos and all that. Like New Orleans. Like, I've never understood why somebody would prefer going to like a Vegas over New Orleans if you just want to have like a fun, drinky time with friends, you know, because like, New Orleans has, you know, Bourbon street and Frenchman street and all these incredible places to drink with like, history. And like, this is. This is Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. It's the oldest running bar in the country. And pirate, literal shoot, pirates used to fucking drink there. And it's still lit by candlelight and it's just fucking awesome. This old stone ass building. It's one of my favorite places on Bourbon Street. And it's just such a great place to walk around and drink. There's just live music everywhere, which I'm not even a big live music guy, but when you're just walking down a street and everyone's having a good time and you just hear just like jazz coming out of different, you know, windows and stuff like that. That sounds awesome. It's such a fun, like kind of partyish atmosphere, which you can do the Bourbon street thing. I think if you go, you should do one night on Bourbon street and just see that as like the tourist crazy. Like everyone's there and way too drunk and things like that. But then when you go off the beaten path and there's so many fun Little things like Frenchman street is like Bourbon street for locals, they say, where it's, like, much more low key, but a ton of cool little places to eat and drink and live music. There's just got, like, real, like, culture, and the food is fucking incredible there. And everyone just seems kind of like just real people. Or it's like, I don't know, Vegas has a certain, like, slime over it, you know, it's just a little.

[Mike Minotti]

Vegas. No way.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's just like.

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't know, you go to New.

[Mary Kish]

Orleans and it's just like. I mean, this is just a lot of real people that are celebrating this cool city that's got a lot of history and doesn't feel like any other city in the country.

[Jeff Grubb]

So it does sound like similar to Nashville. But Nashville would be obviously more country music than jazz. And I think I would prefer the jazz.

[Mary Kish]

It's a different vibe. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

I went to Nashville for the first time last year and I enjoyed it. We did the. We did the one day on Broadway with, like, all the big garage door country bars, but then we found a few, like, hole in the wall cocktail spots that were great.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did you code switch? Did you put on cowboy boots and cowboy hat?

[Dan Rykert]

No, unfortunately, I was dressed for a wedding most of the time.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

At which there were no cowboy boots.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sure.

[Dan Rykert]

I was one of the most opulent weddings I've ever been to. They rented out, like, the entire Nashville Symphony Hall.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's crazy.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. It was nuts. And then, of course, two hours later, I was just destroying a fried chicken sandwich.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Good food there.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Both poles.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Replacing. To spend, like three or four days or more, go to New Orleans. It's incredible. Great zoo, Dan.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did you ever watch Wild on E?

[Mary Kish]

Yes. Okay, look, we talked about 2002. 2003. Brooke Burke was a thing in 2022. I've asked a question to so many people, Dan.

[Jeff Grubb]

Most people. Most people didn't watch it, but I think it was like, you would see, you. You would see the commercials for what was the. The ones where the girls would take their shirts off.

[Mary Kish]

That was Girls Gone Wild.

[Jeff Grubb]

Girls Gone Wild. And it's like, well, I'm not gonna be able to get that. I'm a teenager.

[Mary Kish]

Classy girls. This is like on basic cable documentary. It's a documentary about where people happen to be drinking by an ocean.

[Jeff Grubb]

And they would do like, every other episode would be in New Orleans. It looked like a lot of food.

[Mary Kish]

But hosted by someone who's the opposite of David.

[Jeff Grubb]

Exactly. Yes. Which doesn't make any sense?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's funny. I'll see, like, Brooke Burks and those, like, Skechers slip on ads now. And every time I see it, I'm just like, I. She was on every Dude's Wall in 2002. And McCull, she was the voice of.

[Mike Minotti]

Need for Speed Underground 2. She won a Spike Video game award for her performance in.

[Jeff Grubb]

That sounds about right.

[Mary Kish]

That era. Yep, Yep.

[Jeff Grubb]

The. The. Steven Soderberg's wife actually was one of the host of that. Eventually. I can't remember her name, but she wrote, like, secretly wrote Logan Lucky, which is one of my favorite movies.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's what the D. Craig. Right?

[Mike Minotti]

Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

That movie rules.

[Dan Rykert]

She secretly wrote it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. Like, she. She did it under a pen name. And I think it's like Rebecca Blunt or something, but that's not her real name. But she's married to Steven Soderbergh. And although everyone's like, no, she totally helped him write this movie. So, yeah, pretty neat.

[Dan Rykert]

Interesting. Every time I hear Steven Soderbergh, I weirdly get him mixed up with Paul W.S. anderson. Because both of them have names that I confuse with a better director.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, they're. Wait, no. Who's the better Director?

[Mary Kish]

Wait, Paul W.S. is the mortal Kombat in Event Horizon.

[Dan Rykert]

Him With Paul Thomas Anderson. Who's a better director? I'm. That's a better director with Spielberg.

[Mary Kish]

I like both of them for different reasons.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, they're very different. Soderbergh is kind of amazing.

[Mike Minotti]

Soderbergh movie.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean, have you seen Ocean's Eleven?

[Mike Minotti]

No.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, Soderbergh, what else did he do? He did that unsane movie.

[Dan Rykert]

You're trying to argue that Soderbergh's better than Spielberg. You can't even remember more than Ocean's Eleven.

[Jeff Grubb]

And, well, I have a terrible memory.

[Mary Kish]

All the oceans. Aaron Brockovich, he's done some killer Magic Mike out of Sight with Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney.

[Jeff Grubb]

Definitely watched the contagion 10 times during the pandemic. Just like me.

[Dan Rykert]

A way of processing.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah. Contagion.

[Mike Minotti]

Is that. Is there a monkey in Contagion?

[Jeff Grubb]

You're thinking of Outbreak in high school.

[Dan Rykert]

Contagion is fantastic.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, he did Pleasantville. I've seen Pleasantville.

[Mike Minotti]

I see Pleasantville. Okay. There we go. That's movies. Okay, listen.

[Jeff Grubb]

Steven Spielberg's obviously, like, incredible, like, all time.

[Dan Rykert]

It's unfair to compare anybody.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's a little unfair. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Last night, Bonk and I watched True Lies and neither of us remembered anything about it. We Were like kids when we last saw it. And God damn if James Cameron, like, we looked at James Cameron's IMDb afterwards.

[Jeff Grubb]

I think he's just the best at making movies.

[Mary Kish]

He only makes the biggest movies ever. Like, his whole track record since, like the abyss in 87 or whatever, he's like, oh, okay, it's. Or Terminator was before that. Terminator. Terminator 2, the Abyss, the Avatars, whatever you think. Titanic.

[Dan Rykert]

Aliens. Aliens, I should say.

[Mike Minotti]

Sorry.

[Jeff Grubb]

Aliens. Yeah, he was. He would be like an assistant director and he would do things on sets where it was like, okay, we have to make this blob of flesh look like it's moving. I'm gonna go get some wire and. And rip it apart, plug it into the wall and electrocute it. We'll film that. And everyone's like, what the is this guy doing? Like, no one understood it and they saw it. It was an incredible shot. And it's like he's just that guy where he can think up anything. He did, like, all of the concept art for a lot of his early movies. Like, he's just the most talented person. And then he makes popcorn flicks, which I just couldn't respect more.

[Mary Kish]

Well, that's the thing is, like, I remember I was looking up True Lies production, and it was the first movie to go over a hundred million dollars on budget, and it wound up making like over 400 million. And I remember as a kid, I was subscribing to Entertainment Weekly and reading about budgets and box office and everything about Titanic was, it's wildly over budget.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's a year late stunting on them. They're like dunking on it constantly. This is going to be a. Travis.

[Mary Kish]

It'S gonna be the real life Titanic. This is gonna be the movie version of the actual Titanic.

[Jeff Grubb]

Do it to him every time. They did with Avatar and Avatar 2, and they always make the most money.

[Mike Minotti]

Avatar 1 had no cultural significance. No one's gonna see the sequel. Yeah, the sequel is amazing.

[Mary Kish]

But I think Titanic was the one worst. Like, everyone thought it was gonna be the worst, and then it was the number one movie ever. And it's just like, I think from that point on, it's like, take as long as you need, take as much money as you need. It's gonna be fine.

[Jeff Grubb]

And then they. But they still doubted him for Avatar and Avatar 2. It's incredible.

[Mary Kish]

You can't anymore, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, the guy builds.

[Dan Rykert]

The guy builds his own submarines that can go explore the Titanic now. I think he's just got one of those like genius engineer minds and like to make. I think, like he comes up, obviously I don't know the guy, but he comes up and like has to make a huge movie. He's like, okay, this is no different than making this very complex submarine. It's a problem to solve and he's good at.

[Jeff Grubb]

But then he's really good at characterization at the same time. Because he like worked blue collar jobs growing up and things like that. He was a truck driver when he saw Star wars and he's like, I gotta quit and go make movies or I'm gonna die. Like, that's how he felt. I'm like, okay, this is just my guy making the kinds of movies I like.

[Mary Kish]

Well, and when he was with Katherine Bigelow, he was like executive producer and writing like Point Break and Strange Days and Katherine Bigelow's awesome. She was making over there like, God damn.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, when's the last time you seen Strange Days? Because it was not anywhere you couldn't stream it for a while. Did you like buy the Blu Ray or something?

[Mary Kish]

I think it was streaming when we watched it like a year ago. And it was. Couple years ago.

[Jeff Grubb]

I was looking for it and I couldn't find it.

[Mary Kish]

It was, it was very good. I had not heard much about it and I remember it was around the time Phantom Liberty was coming out. The cyberpunk thing. Because like the brain dance stuff in cyberpunk is so just what Strange Days is, you know, has a lot of that stuff in it. So we watched it around that point and we were both like, holy shit, she's awesome.

[Dan Rykert]

Wait a minute. Holy shit. I did not know that. She did K19, the Widowmaker.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And 00:30.

[Jeff Grubb]

One of the better submarine movies. Yep.

[Dan Rykert]

Wait, is that.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, man. Is that the one with the nuclear core? What are you thinking of the core team? No, the nuclear core in the submarines and nuclear submarine.

[Mary Kish]

I never saw that one.

[Jeff Grubb]

That I think, well, K19 probably wouldn't be because that sounds like a Russian one. And I don't know if they'd ever had a nuclear submarine reactor.

[Dan Rykert]

Coolant pipe, burst, control rods. Yep.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, maybe.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

This movie fucked with me. I don't know.

[Jeff Grubb]

Is that Harrison Ford one?

[Dan Rykert]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay. That's a very good one.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. The reactor corps, like is like melting down and they have to go in in like pairs with protection. That's really not right.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's harrowing.

[Dan Rykert]

The end. They're all just like dying of the worst poisoning you can get in the. In like the barracks and Then at the. Like, I forget how many people were in the crew. And, you know, there's three people alive at the end that go to the cemetery. That movie messed with me. I saw that way too young. But I was going to say it's funny that Kathryn Bigelow has done stuff like Point Break, but then she kind of took up the mantle as the chronicler of Bush's war. Like. Yeah, that's.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Or I don't know if.

[Mary Kish]

Bush dark 30 and hurt locker.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

She's made some awesome movies.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. We mentioned submarine movies, and that set me off. Do you guys have favorite submarine movies?

[Dan Rykert]

I don't think I. Periscope down is down periscope.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's my. My favorite one, actually.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's a great one. It's also great. The thing about submarines, especially nuclear submarines, is they could stay down for, at this point, years, except for they need food. That is the only thing that causes them to have to come back to the surface now. They scrub the oxygen. The nuclear reactor can last for years. Everything else is taken care of. So they could stay down.

[Mike Minotti]

Hydroponics farm or something on the submarine now or what?

[Mary Kish]

Like popcorn, because that's tiny. And then it gets bigger.

[Jeff Grubb]

They probably are coming up with a lot of solutions, but.

[Dan Rykert]

Dan, I'm call up the Secretary of State. I got.

[Mary Kish]

Just fill the submarines with popcorn.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's little and it gets bigger.

[Mary Kish]

Have you never had a billion tubs?

[Mike Minotti]

Have you ever eaten a tub of popcorn at movies here? That's where for like, wow, I feel full in nutrients.

[Mary Kish]

I worked at a theater for four years. I lit up energized popcorn.

[Jeff Grubb]

Let's go drive a nuclear sub right now.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, let's go. Missile Moscow. I'm ready to go.

[Jeff Grubb]

I think it probably goes. It probably goes Dos Boot. And then I. I really like Hunt for the Red October, but I think it's probably Crimson Tide is number two. Have you guys ever seen Crimson?

[Mary Kish]

Recently? And I didn't really get it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Really? That movie.

[Mike Minotti]

So good. Atlantis, the Lost empire or Disney's 20,000 leagues under the Sea.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, Atlantis, I really, really liked.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that's actually a good movie.

[Mary Kish]

Spear account. I love Sphere.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sure. I'll give you Sphere.

[Mary Kish]

All right. Spear is my favorite sphere.

[Jeff Grubb]

Is this like the sphere where all.

[Mike Minotti]

The body organs are going?

[Mary Kish]

You guys talked about no Spear. No Spear. Is Michael Crichton about the alien sphere underwater? It's really fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

I think the abyss also counts while it's, you know.

[Mary Kish]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

And because that's like, all that underwater stuff, there are obviously submarines in there, but it's about a submersible drilling rig and stuff like that.

[Mary Kish]

That's the thing I need like a wacky alien thing going on or a weird goo monster like Abyss or sphere. Like, I need something beyond just like, oh, it's underwater.

[Jeff Grubb]

What if they were spaceships instead and they were kind of like dealing with the same things?

[Mary Kish]

Would that work for you, trying to kill them?

[Jeff Grubb]

What if it's just other humans in spaceships?

[Mary Kish]

Why are there spaceships in the ocean?

[Jeff Grubb]

No, no. What if they're in space instead? Like, because, like a spaceship in the.

[Mary Kish]

Ocean, like, that's really.

[Dan Rykert]

Spaceships. Hostile environment. Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay, so I think it may have just Horizon.

[Mary Kish]

Alien. I love these movies.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, but those spaceships are basically just the same things as a submarine.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, but that's like fun fiction. It's not just like politics and military.

[Jeff Grubb]

You know, I promise you, most things in submarine movies are fiction.

[Dan Rykert]

I think a real accurate submarine movie would be very boring.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, they're based on like Cold War intrigue. And I don't really know anything about that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, okay, fair. No way.

[Mary Kish]

Look, I've got Metal Gear. I'm fine.

[Dan Rykert]

Was the Cold War when they opened that portal to hell and then they started just like.

[Jeff Grubb]

No.

[Mary Kish]

I could tell you about the quack. Tell me about Joseph McCarthy and HUAC and fucking all that shit. I could go into the Cold War. I know you just said you did Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara.

[Jeff Grubb]

Which is this stuff you're pulling from, like the clips in Metal Gear. Like, where's this coming from?

[Mary Kish]

I listened to Rage against the Machine a lot in high school and read some like, Che Guevara books. And yeah, I listen to a lot of Rage against the Machine.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sure, that'll do it.

[Mary Kish]

I need to start reading the Communist Manifesto. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna spend my Saturday nights in high school at Borders.

[Jeff Grubb]

You got. You got to read Das Capital instead. That's going to get you a lot further.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I remember there was that. I forget who it was. That political megaphone of a human. I forget it was saying, like, Tom Morello had tweeted something and then he said, like, go back to writing music. You don't need to be political.

[Jeff Grubb]

God, did you see this?

[Mary Kish]

Was it.

[Dan Rykert]

It was like Tucker Carlson or something.

[Jeff Grubb]

It was probably Tucker Carlson.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Half of their songs are about how. How fucked up Vietnam was. Agent of Orange. Yeah, yeah. Priest of Hiroshima.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. They. Who is the Romney's running mate? Was it Paul Ryan. That, like, the guy with the goofy, like, weightlifting pictures.

[Jeff Grubb]

Paul Ryan, Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

He was like, a huge rage. He's like, what's your lifting music? And he's like, I love Rage against the Machine. Like, you.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

This guy.

[Mary Kish]

Sorry, man, I'm getting political again.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, that's like Reagan using Born in the USA for this campaign.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sure.

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

I just saw a video of Rage against the Machine, like, in. Like, in somewhere, like, 2009. They made one of their songs number one in the UK because fans didn't want the X Factor guy to, like, win the number one it was killing the name of. Yes. And it's. They. Whoever has number one gets to perform on the BBC for, like, a Christmas special. And they're like, please just don't swear. And then he's like, oh, I won't do what you tell him. And he's not. And he's like, I won't do what you tell me. And then he just turns the camera and flicks it off and just goes, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me, like, 20 times. Times.

[Mary Kish]

It rules.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's so great.

[Mary Kish]

They also got kicked off SNL, like, back in the early 90s.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. The guy climbed on the VMA, like, statues and stuff. And now they celebrate that.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, but, like, say, SNL movie gonna be good. I saw the trailer for that before.

[Jeff Grubb]

Probably not.

[Mary Kish]

It's got a. Like, a focus at least on, like. Oh, it's just like, the minutes leading up to the first broadcast. I. I normally don't like that, like, kind of biopic or, like, dramatization type stuff. But, like, if it's just like. Like, hey, here's, like, the 90 minutes before the first show went on the air. That's a little more interesting. It's a good question. What's it called? Is it Saturday night, seven minutes to air.

[Dan Rykert]

Seven minutes to air or something? Or 20 minutes, 20 hours.

[Mary Kish]

What's called Saturday Night?

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, I'm thinking of that South Park.

[Mary Kish]

South park documentary, Six Days to Air.

[Mike Minotti]

Yep. My mistake.

[Mary Kish]

It's written by Jason Reitman. Okay, Keenan, what else did Jason Reitman.

[Dan Rykert]

Do besides he did up in the Air? Right. With Clinton.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I liked up in the Air.

[Jeff Grubb]

He did the Ghostbusters afterlife. So he's not. Not the good, like, Nepo Son. There's the one that did. What's the Jungle Book? Not Jungle Book, Jumanji. Those new Jumanji movies is done by Nepo Baby. And those are really good. Jason Raymond did Ghostbusters afterlife. And I don't think he's very good.

[Mary Kish]

Jason Raymond did. Thank you for smoking, which I remember being pretty good. Juno, which looked bad. Up in the Air. I liked Juno's.

[Jeff Grubb]

Up in the Air is okay.

[Mike Minotti]

I like up in the Air. Up in the Air is good.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Looks like he works with Diablo Cody a lot.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. I think George Clooney does a lot of the heavy lifting on up in the Air.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay. Wow. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

George Clooney's counterpart in that movie is the psychiatrist from the Departed from the party from Art.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. She's Italian. Am I figuring it out? Grab my.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're getting it, dude. I'm proud. Well done.

[Mike Minotti]

Are you?

[Jeff Grubb]

Let's call Vinny.

[Dan Rykert]

Has Dan been learning to, like.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, Mike doesn't know this saga. This exists on the other timeline.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Dan was like. Like surprised to find out that I, Mike Minotti, am Italian and his friend.

[Jeff Grubb]

Vinnie Caravella was a Japanese Italian.

[Mary Kish]

It's nice. I'll say it again.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

It's not that I didn't know. It's that I never thought about it.

[Dan Rykert]

Dan doesn't see color, guys. He tells us all the time. And that includes. That includes last names, but, like, my last name's pretty obvious. Where.

[Mary Kish]

I would not agree. Only because I know your family and I've heard you talk about being Irish a bunch. Like, I know you're Irish.

[Jeff Grubb]

I gotta admit, even as someone who definitely has, like, a lot of Scottish heritage, I conflate Scottish and Irish, quite frankly.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I just gotta remember that Scrooge McDuck is Scottish.

[Mary Kish]

Seamus is Irish.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, Seamus is Irish. McIntyre is. We're.

[Mary Kish]

We're. Normally. I can finally. We're over the 50. Wrestling. I can talk wrestling on fire escape. Oh, people are probably.

[Jeff Grubb]

Congratulations.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, Finley was. I like, Finley was my favorite Irish wrestler.

[Mary Kish]

Finley, look, if you're holding a chile, you're Irish.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I should get a shillelagh.

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't know if I could pick a shillelagh out of a police lineup. I don't know what a shillelagh is.

[Dan Rykert]

Like, they look like a. The handle is curved, but they look like a cricket club.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, you don't have to tell me. I've seen them determine the ending of many matches. I just didn't know if you knew.

[Mike Minotti]

It's just the top part of a cade. Basically.

[Dan Rykert]

My grandpa had like four of them mounted on his wall between a bunch of other.

[Mary Kish]

Did he hit you with them?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. This is. This is the venue where I would admit that my grandpa abused me.

[Jeff Grubb]

Holding A chilele.

[Mike Minotti]

Or is it like he is a cane?

[Dan Rykert]

No, that's a cane.

[Jeff Grubb]

Is it just a cane? It's just a cane. Okay.

[Mike Minotti]

I think chile. These are Irish.

[Jeff Grubb]

They're definitely Irish. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

S H I L L. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, no. Damn, Dan, you wouldn't get this in.

[Mary Kish]

A spelling be because that sounds like a proper noun. There's no way. Shot.

[Dan Rykert]

It's not a proper noun.

[Mary Kish]

Or Irish Gaelic, thinking I'm going to get it wrong. And I never think that was Gaelic.

[Dan Rykert]

Gaelic is very hard, but it is very difficult.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's why I'm learning.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, I knew I was going to be on that one. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

S H I L L E L.

[Mary Kish]

A G H. Oh, there's no fucking way. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

I only learned this because I tried to Google it and I spelled it very wrong.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Look at this picture of chelies on.

[Dan Rykert]

Wikipedia though, there's Dan, have you been to Swift here in the East Village, the Irish pub?

[Mary Kish]

I'm sure you've taken me there. Probably. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

You got a bunch of.

[Mary Kish]

Of.

[Dan Rykert]

It's. They've got a bunch of street signs from Ireland behind the bar and my, like, my middle name, half of my family's middle names are like. Are Gaelic. It makes no sense to me. But I try reading street signs.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's like Irish, the Irish language, basically.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, okay, gotcha.

[Dan Rykert]

They're Scottish Gaelic as well. They're sort of similar, but also very different. But yeah, it's. It's so hard for me to read, I think for most people. But the street signs, I. I asked the bartender, I'm like, am I close? He's like, no, not at all.

[Jeff Grubb]

Dan, why do you think people in Ireland and Scotland speak English?

[Mary Kish]

Because they're close to England.

[Mike Minotti]

That's part of it.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean, that's not directly related.

[Mike Minotti]

But why would being close to England maybe be a problem?

[Mary Kish]

Did England own them and force them to learn English?

[Jeff Grubb]

Owned.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, pretty much run them the way that didn't.

[Mike Minotti]

They won them.

[Mary Kish]

England own Canada.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I mean it did at one point. Like it's now part of the.

[Mary Kish]

But they have the Queen on their money.

[Dan Rykert]

Commonwealth.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, right. It's part of the Commonwealth. Thank you. Yes. They treated Ireland Scotland very poorly.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, look up, look.

[Jeff Grubb]

Have you seen the Mel Gibson movies?

[Dan Rykert]

Like you were alive for months.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, are they affiliated now?

[Dan Rykert]

No, Ireland's not part of the UK anymore. Sorry. Northern Ireland's part of the UK.

[Jeff Grubb]

Northern Ireland is because Ireland, the troubles.

[Dan Rykert]

In the 90s, like not just the 90s came to a Head. It's called the Troubles. It's a very eerie name. But Catholics and Protestants in Ireland were divided because many of the Protestants, largely from Northern Ireland, were loyal to the Crown. And then the Republic of Ireland was largely Catholic and wanted to not be under their thumb, and it caused a whole lot of shit. And terrorism. Both sides.

[Jeff Grubb]

Terrorism, yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Both sides were like, to be clear, it wasn't good and bad, but both sides were being.

[Mike Minotti]

Please don't ask us who the heels are.

[Mary Kish]

No, I know. Enough of this because I know there was a drink that was very popular.

[Dan Rykert]

In this context. You can say the Irish Car Bomb came from. Then it's. You wouldn't order an Irish Car Bomb.

[Mary Kish]

Right, right.

[Jeff Grubb]

We should say, if you're from Ireland and you want to make fun of 9 11, we give you permission because we're going to talk about Irish car bombs for a second. So just go have your fun.

[Mary Kish]

No, that relates to some historical thing I don't know about, but I'm just not going to say it.

[Dan Rykert]

No, no, no. Yeah, it's.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, definitely don't say it in Ireland. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. No, it's. It's not. I'm just saying, like. But you can, like, in the context we're talking about. Yes. The. The name, however, very distasteful it is. It came from.

[Jeff Grubb]

Came from little terrorist acts. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

You shouldn't name drinks after terrorism. Is nice thing.

[Jeff Grubb]

If I went into a bar and there's something called the Oklahoma City Bomb, I would order it.

[Mary Kish]

It's kind of mouth. You just call it like the McVeigh, I think.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's pretty good, too. Yeah. Drink?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. No, I. I'm glad you're catching on to people's last names. Well, maybe it's not really.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe it's better.

[Dan Rykert]

You're not just assuming people like reading their last names.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

You still have to be careful.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. It's just. It's not that I have a strategy for this. It's just. It doesn't ever, like, I don't ever think about it. It's just like, I don't know, we were all Belgian growing up and no one never made assumption, but like, oh, Riker must be this or that. And like, I don't know if it.

[Mike Minotti]

Was just some of them are just easier than those, I think. Think generally picking out Italian names is considered probably easy mode of identifying people's heritage.

[Mary Kish]

Based on my head, I think if you had told me months ago, like, what do you think Minati is? I would probably say I'd get There. But I never thought of it before.

[Dan Rykert]

I grew up. Syracuse was largely Italian and Irish and some Ukrainian. So we grew up with very. All my friends mainly growing up were of Italian descent. So it was easy to pick that out.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Same for me in 24 mile north of Detroit. It was huge. Italian culture and Albanian. Yep.

[Mike Minotti]

I think tons of Italians in Northeast Ohio, including me.

[Mary Kish]

I think where I grew up just had no identity whatsoever. Like the suburbs of Kansas City was like, I don't know, I'm half German, half Belgian and like I didn't know what any of my friends were. I never heard any of my friends talk about their heritage or anything. We were all Catholic. Everyone was just Catholic Catholic. That's all I know.

[Mike Minotti]

We had to do like, we had like Heritage Week in like middle school. We all had to do like a book report on like one of our parents, like where they came from, things like that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Everyone was Catholic, though. They were probably quite a few Irish and Italian.

[Mary Kish]

If that was the case, it just would never come up.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sure. Yeah. That's actually probably the most default scenario. Yeah. Or Polish. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Most. It probably just wouldn't come up in the suburbs of America.

[Mary Kish]

Really. Sure.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. But that was our. That's the politics section I mentioned. I think we're.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, we did it.

[Dan Rykert]

Think we're through history. We'll see in the emails next week how many people we pissed off.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, most of them.

[Mike Minotti]

We won't be here.

[Dan Rykert]

That's your problem. Irish passport. So then I could be like, oh, I can. I can talk about this stuff. I'm Irish now.

[Jeff Grubb]

There you go.

[Mike Minotti]

I heard I could do that with Italy also.

[Dan Rykert]

They just opened. Italy just opened it up to great grandchildren, I believe now.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, I've just. Grandchildren.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm that Ireland and Italy are now at least grandchildren.

[Mike Minotti]

I don't know if I like that. I like how I immediately am gatekeeping.

[Dan Rykert]

Come on, people.

[Jeff Grubb]

Where was Grandpa from?

[Mike Minotti]

Rome.

[Mary Kish]

Really? Wow.

[Mike Minotti]

Adopted.

[Mary Kish]

Adopted in Rome.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Fought in World War II for the Italians. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Big Mussolini guy.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Shortly after that, came to America. Yep.

[Dan Rykert]

How would that transition go, I wonder?

[Mike Minotti]

Pretty. I mean, I think you liked it much better here, you know, like I said, you know, there were. There was a ton of Italians. He had some family that was already here, so it was pretty easy. And steel mills were very plentiful in this area. So it was very easy to just get a well paying job in the steel mills almost immediately. And then from there he started, like.

[Jeff Grubb]

You said, huge Italian culture in that area. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Did he go through new York?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

He went in through New York and.

[Dan Rykert]

Then straight to Ohio because he had family and friends there.

[Mike Minotti]

Straight to Ohio because he already had some people here that he knew. Right? Exactly, Exactly. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

My grandpa did transition, my grandpa. Ellis island was closed for, like, one of the few times it had closed for whatever reason. So he went through Brooklyn pra. And he hung out here for a bit and worked on. He worked construction and then he eventually went up to Syracuse with my grandma after they had. They had met and then went to this, like, Irish heritage dance in Brooklyn. And then like, she told him at the dance that she was moving up to a place called Syracuse. And then like a week later they decided to go together. And then they got married and had 11 kids.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, man.

[Jeff Grubb]

Very sweet.

[Dan Rykert]

Now we're all getting Irish citizenship. Ireland doesn't know what's coming. Yeah, it's very bad move.

[Jeff Grubb]

That upstate New York vibe, is that upstate New York? I guess I never really know.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

More of an Albany expression.

[Dan Rykert]

Central New York. But if you're like in New York City and you say upstate, most people think you mean like Westchester or Yonkers, but I'm way upstate. Not quite Messina or Plattsburgh, but I'm central. It's like literally in the center. However center you can be in a weird shape state.

[Jeff Grubb]

How far are you from Binghamton? Binghamton?

[Dan Rykert]

An hour.

[Mike Minotti]

How far are you?

[Dan Rykert]

Two hours north.

[Mike Minotti]

How about Utica?

[Dan Rykert]

An hour west of Utica. Holiday Valley, I don't know.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's a ski resort in the state of New York that I really, like, never went. I don't have no idea. I just got put on a bus and we went there. I had no idea. And probably must have been.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, wait. Wait a second. What did. It would be pretty good content for something if Dan and I went skiing for the first time.

[Mary Kish]

I've always wanted to.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, my God.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

You could just come here. They're skiing all around me.

[Dan Rykert]

Here's. Have you guys noticed this? Or maybe you all do this? I love any time any kind of trip comes up, Dan immediately just tries to make it happen in Minneapolis. I've been in every other fucking city.

[Mary Kish]

And country this whole summer. I just want to stay in Minnesota for a little bit. I'm going to be a different continent by myself. Myself. When this episode goes up that doesn't speak.

[Dan Rykert]

I have to travel and go by myself. How's it going to wide the subway?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. I have panic attacks on every fucking flight. It's. It's stressful. No, I don't have it on every flight. It's actually gotten a lot better, but it's still. It's. I want to have a weekend at home just sitting on a couch.

[Dan Rykert]

I know. I do, too. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Skiing in Minneapolis and see if it's actually any good.

[Dan Rykert]

I see. I see, like, neighborhoods in Minnesota that just have ski jumps on the side of the road.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that.

[Dan Rykert]

It's very, very.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's kind of. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

It's just our first time. We're not gonna be double bl.

[Jeff Grubb]

I. No. I promise you. It's much easier to learn off the bunny hill. You don't. You don't. You want. You want to go on the blue. Easiest one, but you actually want it because the bunny hill, it's so hard to, like, get momentum. You have to actually just get going a little bit.

[Mary Kish]

Here's the french fries we need. Yeah, I've seen that. South Park. We would need Jan to film it, and I cannot even picture Jan. Achoa in a snowy skiing situation.

[Jeff Grubb]

I. I would film it because I'm pretty confident on the. On the snowboard and, like that.

[Mary Kish]

360 cams. I got the GoPros. I got all that. So. Okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

I did break a girl's arm once, though.

[Mike Minotti]

So I was very excited to go just like, you know, like, skating and like a skate break recently. And I immediately broke my wrist.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Skating.

[Jeff Grubb]

She stopped in front of me and she fell, and we were, like, flirting, and then she fell right in front of me, and I stopped as hard as I could, but my snowboard went right over her arm and basically snapped her forearm in half. It was terrible.

[Mary Kish]

Is that how you wife her?

[Jeff Grubb]

That's right.

[Mary Kish]

Wow.

[Jeff Grubb]

Has St. Heale. What you need that for?

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know if you broke her arm. I think it was kind of.

[Jeff Grubb]

I just take responsibility. I was skiing too close. I should not have been doing that. But, you know, what about. What is the alternative here, Mike? I say she was asking for it. No.

[Mike Minotti]

Wow.

[Dan Rykert]

I grew up snowboarding, but I've been wanting to try skiing for a while.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I've never really skied. I've only snowboarded. But I. I like snowboarding a lot.

[Mike Minotti]

So I. I don't think I'm going to mess with snowboarding. I think I'm.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that's fine. I think ski's probably the way to go.

[Mary Kish]

Mike. We can do that. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

You guys could go get the skis. That'd be fun.

[Mike Minotti]

You could do. You can recreate the Flanders homer. Things like, I'M wearing nothing at all.

[Dan Rykert]

Let's do. Let's do a ski video, everybody. You can all come here, and we'll. We'll ski around here.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Hoboken lifts. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Yep.

[Mike Minotti]

I would have. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Okay.

[Mike Minotti]

I like it. Elect.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oville. Ellicottville. Ellicottville, New York, is where Holiday Valley is.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, it's probably assuming it's somewhere like Southern Catskills.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, Southern Catskills.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

What are these names, guys?

[Mary Kish]

They're cool.

[Jeff Grubb]

Actually, it's looks like it's due south of Buffalo. Is that Catskills?

[Mary Kish]

Buffalo?

[Mike Minotti]

I know that.

[Dan Rykert]

That's not really. That's semi close to Syracuse. Buffalo's two hours west of Cuse.

[Jeff Grubb]

It looks like 45 minutes north of the 86. Yeah, 86. Yeah. Just south of Buffalo. Not just south, but. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know.

[Jeff Grubb]

That place was great, though. It had a really long trail that you could ski down for, like, 20 minutes, and that's what I really like.

[Mary Kish]

Let's do that. Or just. I'll get drunk in New Orleans.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, let's do both.

[Mary Kish]

One or two. Chicago. They both sound fun.

[Mike Minotti]

Yes, sure.

[Dan Rykert]

Do the classic Holiday Valley, Chicago, New Orleans trip that everybody.

[Mary Kish]

Man, that sounds like a good time.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Bang, bang, bang.

[Mary Kish]

All right.

[Dan Rykert]

You guys want to talk about video games?

[Mary Kish]

Sure.

[Dan Rykert]

Did you ever play Rugrats in Paris on N64?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Mike Minotti]

I played the first Rugrats game.

[Dan Rykert]

So I don't recall this in the movie, but the whole game. You're in a theme park in Paris.

[Mike Minotti]

That is the movie. That is. You're in Euro Reptar Land. It's like a spin on Euro Disneyland.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

The game is a mini open world Reptar Land. And then you're going around to the different, like, minigames.

[Mike Minotti]

Are we back?

[Mary Kish]

Is this the podcast?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, and I still have it. It's the black cartridge. There was. But after a while, we realized there were only, like, two good minigames. One of which was like putt putt are Mike that.

[Mary Kish]

Or Armorines on the N64.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, God. Armorines over anything modern.

[Jeff Grubb]

You really shoot like armorings. Because I was considering it for Blight Club.

[Dan Rykert]

It's. It's a nostalgia thing. It's not a game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay. I. Okay.

[Mary Kish]

I totally get feelings for it.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's fine. I get that.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, no.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes. I still love that game. I have feelings for it, but it's like looking back. Dan, you were playing it recently, I think, when I visited. Just.

[Mary Kish]

No, I had you over and I had the everdrive on the CRT. And I was like, hey, Neymar 64 Game of Love. And you're like armor submarines, like, right away.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yep.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. It had, like, the worst draw distance of any game on the N64. Yeah. And you can see the aliens coming from.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, it was that every shooter ranked on N64. It was like the second worst one on that list, Mike. Of that weird, weird guy that did YouTube videos.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah, it was also, I remember the controls. I mean, it was an N64 controller. They were trying to do a shooter, first person shooter. And it wasn't goldeneye.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, tur. Goldeneye never worked.

[Dan Rykert]

It was like you had to move left and right with. With the joystick, but then go forward and backwards with the C buttons. I. I don't remember.

[Mary Kish]

It was gold strafe with C left and right. You look up and down with C up, C down. And then like, the center stick was kind of just like, look around. It was all.

[Dan Rykert]

You could also hold R and do the joysticks to look up and down.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you did that. Maybe the reticle.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, yes. To your point. Just like lift it and it. I still to this day, I'm inverted on my left hand, but not my.

[Jeff Grubb]

Race of N64 games.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, because it made sense. Because it was like a stick halfway through the screen that I was tilting. But then Halo came along and even Halo's original controls, Combat Evolved, were weird until they made the. What we now know as first person look and walk. They had, like, some weird left and right stuff as well.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Anyway, speaking of speak, there's no real segue. I played astronauts.

[Jeff Grubb]

There's nothing you can do here.

[Mary Kish]

You play.

[Mike Minotti]

We are on the podcast.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, we've been on the pod. Yeah, we've been there.

[Mary Kish]

Come in with the game stuff. The old rugrats and all that stuff. That's what we came in.

[Mike Minotti]

I like it, I like it, I like it.

[Mary Kish]

Before you say anything, Mike, I am curious here, because this is not really a genre I hear you liking a ton. You're on a podcast with three guys that are in love with this game. I don't think I've heard anyone. Wouldn't be anything less than just raving glowing here. And to be fair, I have not heard you say anything about this game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, well, Michael Hardy's a huge Xbox fanboy, so I expect him to come in here and be very skeptical.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

What they're saying is that we're all going to beat the shit out of you.

[Jeff Grubb]

If you don't like it, it's got to be violent.

[Dan Rykert]

I hate that Master Chief's not in it.

[Jeff Grubb]

I really wish you had no Space Marines. Excuse me.

[Dan Rykert]

I love 3D platformers. They definitely do not loom as large in my life as you or like Tim Turry. I've played every 3D. Mario Odyssey, I think is one of like the best games. I love Odyssey, I think my. The only Mario 3D platformer that beats it is Galaxy 1 or 2 I like more.

[Mike Minotti]

You can flip a coin.

[Dan Rykert]

Doesn't matter.

[Jeff Grubb]

I like two better.

[Dan Rykert]

So it's like. It's like Galaxy. And I also have a soft spot like Banjo Kazooie and Tui I talk about a lot, but those I don't talk about for the platforming. I talk about those just more like Collectathon. Weird, crazy stuff.

[Mike Minotti]

Vibes.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, I think Astrobot's very good. I think it's an extremely well crafted game. It feels more to me like a theme park. And I mean that as a compliment. It's kind of, you know, I think it does gimmicks in a good way. Like, Dan, to your point, you were mentioning that it's doing some. I don't even know what you want to call them, pickups that I haven't seen. Like power ups. Power ups. The like items and whatnot.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. The frog gauntlets and grappling hook stuff. Stuff.

[Dan Rykert]

I have some annoyances with it, however, and maybe it's just because I. I'm like, I don't know this. So toward the end of some of the. Some of the stages, you can find those secret galaxy flags, the portals, teleports.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Is there a way to unlock those without then going back to the screen?

[Jeff Grubb]

It's a secret exit like Super Mario World or something like that.

[Dan Rykert]

So I. Maybe I'm. I'm trying to. I guess I'm asking if I'm getting frustrated for no reason. So I'll find those and then be like, well, I want to finish the stage. So then I'm going to go back to the normal exit and then I have to go back. Not that I'm not enjoying replaying these stages, but sometimes I'm like, I want to go see what the next stage is. But I was like, I got to replay it so then I can go take the normal exit.

[Jeff Grubb]

Are you. As you're playing the level, you're collecting everything. So you just want to.

[Mary Kish]

100%.

[Dan Rykert]

The first time I go back, I'm 100% so far.

[Mary Kish]

Then it's easy because you go back into a level and if you are not scouring every area for the bot, those levels, you go pretty quick through.

[Jeff Grubb]

Them and it's fun to like see how fast you could do it actually like that. Just you got to like make your own fun at that point.

[Dan Rykert]

And Jeff, you're faster at this game than anybody.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes, yes. And I'm glad you're historically accurate on that.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

I'm Jeff Grubb on psn.

[Dan Rykert]

It's one of those. It's one of those games that I like, respect it more than I really enjoy it because it's extremely well crafted. I'm impressed by it, but it's. I'm not like, I'm not jumping out of my seat while I play it. And that could be due to the fact that 3D platformers. Yeah. Are not the thing that like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Governs most of my taste. But no, it's a very joyful game. It feels like they had a lot of fun designing it, which is the mark of a good game to me. I think you can kind of just feel the passion. Yeah. Really well crafted. It does feel like a very fine tuned theme park though.

[Mike Minotti]

Do you like collecting all the bots and being like, oh, wow, this person from that game and oh, wow, I didn't think this person would be here.

[Dan Rykert]

Have some fondness for PlayStation characters for sure. Dan, who was the character? Is it a spoiler if you tell me. You said there was one, that you were very surprised.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe I'll just everyone mute right now for like 15 seconds if you don't want to know.

[Dan Rykert]

Wait, what stage are they in?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I don't remember that.

[Dan Rykert]

No, it was kind of.

[Mike Minotti]

It was like maybe I said 15 seconds.

[Mary Kish]

They're gonna mute soon. Incredible crisis to Mr. Mosquito.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, okay. I don't, I don't.

[Mike Minotti]

Incredible crisis one was so insane.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. But what's the messed up Businessman or something?

[Mike Minotti]

And it's like proto WarioWare game. Game that's maybe even crazier in some ways because it's just about a Japanese family. Like we have to have. We have to have you play it too, Jeff, because I know I'm going to.

[Jeff Grubb]

But this is a very long fiction.

[Mary Kish]

Never heard anyone bring up outside of me of their own accord. It's always like me being like, play this, check this weird thing out, you know?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. This is way past the time Dan told them to mute for 15 seconds.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

The boss fights are incredibly well done. Done.

[Mike Minotti]

I. Yeah, they're fun.

[Dan Rykert]

They're. And I love it's I. I don't know. It's. Their use of space on those is incredible.

[Jeff Grubb]

They never do more than two phases. But the. And it's like, still always three hits. And that third hit is sometimes like. All right, now you're gonna do an awesome platforming stage in the middle of this boss fight, and you'll get to the end and then we'll give you the funnest third hit you've ever had.

[Dan Rykert]

I've only seen two of them.

[Mary Kish]

Okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Pulling off Octopus's eyeballs and launching myself into them. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, the first one, it's like. It's like to finally finish off the gorilla, you're just launching into his throat, basically. Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

He's got a big symbol in his throat that is the symbol of the power up you have. And he never asked why anyone installed that there. It's great.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Also just. I mean, it rivals Nintendo for its, like, nonverbal, how it teaches you those things. Like you just mentioned, it's got the same symbol and throw. It's incredible game design. Again, like, I really don't have many qualms with it, but it's definitely not like, one of the best games I've ever played.

[Mary Kish]

That's fair. Like, I don't expect everyone to feel the same as I do with every game. Or Max, I'm thinking less of you, but. No, but it's like, I mean, you.

[Dan Rykert]

Years ago, I wouldn't try to impress you and pretend that I loved it.

[Mary Kish]

No, you know enough about games to acknowledge. I think if you came out here and said, like, this is a shitty game, which I'm sure there are people saying it, then I think, like, okay, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but it's just like, it's not really your thing as much as it is mine. So, like, everything you said is correct.

[Dan Rykert]

When Amanda walks by and, like, sees some of the stages, she's like, can't help but stop and, like, watch. Like, the dessert world is awesome. What was the one after that that.

[Mary Kish]

I really like the sponge one. I don't know if you got the sponge.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, Shrinking world's great. I also really appreciate how often it is switching up. Like, I thought the ape escape thing would be annoying, chasing them down, but I like how they. I like. I like how they change up the structure. It wasn't just a linear A to B to C thing.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's an ape escape level. And they'll continue.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Here they all are in. There's Been a few of those, but it's like, oh, this is great because they're actually toying with the like objective.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I literally like when I got the net, I went into Ape Escape mode and was using the right analog stick to like play it like Ape Escape. And it's like, oh wait, this isn't actually Shoot Ape Escape here, you know. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Really good game. One of my favorites of the year for sure. I don't think it's like changing my life though.

[Mary Kish]

That's. I do think this is going to be. I think it's going to be a pretty safe game of the year at a lot of outlets come Game of the year time. I think I'm going to fight to get it as high as I can here. But like, I don't really hear Mary or Jake, you know, Like, I don't know. I don't know if it makes fire escapes game of the year, you know, because I think I'm the one big soapbox guy for it.

[Dan Rykert]

Do you think this is a shoe in for a lot of outlets, Astrobot?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's got a 95 on open critic or something like that.

[Mary Kish]

I will eat the biggest hat you've ever found if it's not giant bombs and min maxes and a bunch of other places.

[Mike Minotti]

I wonder how it's going to do at the game awards because it'll be nominated for sure.

[Mary Kish]

Hard to say.

[Mike Minotti]

I think it has a good shot. It's not a gimme.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah. I have other games I've enjoyed more than it for sure.

[Jeff Grubb]

I was gonna ask, what are your favorite games this year so far?

[Dan Rykert]

Another one we're talking about tonight. Wild Bastards. I've.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, you love it that much?

[Mary Kish]

Wow.

[Dan Rykert]

Fell in love with it. What else this year was Balatro, Prince.

[Mary Kish]

Of Persia, Lost Crown was really good.

[Jeff Grubb]

Have you guys heard that DLC for that? It came out this week.

[Mike Minotti]

No, no, not yet.

[Dan Rykert]

Another dlc.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

The story DLC is out this week. The review should be hitting. I think soon.

[Mike Minotti]

None of you fire escapers are Final Fantasy people.

[Dan Rykert]

I get very upset of us three are. I'm the most. I'd say I still have yet to play Rebirth. But every time I like I told. I tell Jake this, like I still have to play Rebirth. He's like, you're not going to play it. You don't need to. Like he's. He's not saying that out of disrespect to Final Fantasy. I think he just knows that my tolerance for like open world stuff for Open world stuff's sake is low these days, but I do want to. I love, loved remake, so I wanted.

[Mike Minotti]

It hit with me real hard. Like, it probably was my game of the year until Astro. But I might, you know, who knows how I feel at the end of it?

[Dan Rykert]

But.

[Mike Minotti]

And I'll tell you what, that's the one, you know, the PlayStation 5 Pro and all that stuff. It's mostly unappealing, but when they show that game, it looks really good in.

[Jeff Grubb]

Those Digital Foundry videos.

[Mike Minotti]

That's the one that's like, oh, that game does look just a lot better on the PlayStation 5 Pro.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't want to put words in Jake or Mary's mouth, Dan. I think right now as a group, I could be way off. And we'll see. I hope I'm off because I don't want to actually active, like, correctly predict it right now. I think Balatro is probably the front runner.

[Mary Kish]

That's. Yeah. If it's not an Astrobot, I would.

[Dan Rykert]

For the record, every season, always pick roguelikes.

[Mary Kish]

We do.

[Jeff Grubb]

Mike just hates when indie games win anything.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, last year, Zelda.

[Dan Rykert]

Last year was Zelda. Yeah. It was almost at the end. You and Mary tried pulling the rug out from under us and making it pulled Pikmin.

[Mike Minotti]

I was rooting for Pikmin.

[Jeff Grubb]

I was too.

[Dan Rykert]

The execution of the switch left a lot to be desired.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Grob had a good babyface turn on Pikmin during ours. He went up to the mic, it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Was Zelda up until the last minute. And then I went Pikmin 4. And I think right now, when I think about the best game I played last year, Pikmin 4, I think, is.

[Mary Kish]

It, you know, what Resident Evil 4. But sure, tears of the Kingdom comes up. And I think I have. I was talking to a lot of people in Portland about Zelda and stuff that was coming up a lot. And we were talking about Tears of the Kingdom. And I think I have finally enough time has passed where it's like, there's that question that came up a lot of like, oh, is Breath of the Wild better? Tears of the Kingdom. I do think I can confidently say now that I think I like Breath of the Wild more.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

It changed everything basically for open worlds.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And even though there's things that tears the kingdom, like it does all of that and more, there is just something to be said about that first time. Like that first time I played Breath of the Wild. There's no way you could replicate that by just, like adding more to it the next Time. As cool as that stuff is.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, because I also think Breath of the Wild is a much more focused experience, which is crazy to say when it's that big. But yeah. Tears of the Kingdom.

[Jeff Grubb]

I love my time with Tears of the Kingdom going, I. I did everything I could underground. Most of the stuff you could do in all the other biomes I. And like the they put in there is my kind of like, here's some just chain physics puzzles. Do you like that? I'm like, yes, give me more of that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

But Breath of the Wild is a singular experience. It was just made me cross cry. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

You guys talk about how big three platformers are in your general taste map. I don't know what you want to call it. Emergent. Their immersive sims are huge. For them to put immersive sim elements into Breath of the Wild.

[Jeff Grubb]

Good news about Echoes of Wisdom, by the way. That's an immersive sim.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. That's awesome.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I can't wait for that. Who knows where that jumps up if I like it. Maybe I don't.

[Mary Kish]

We'll talk about that next episode probably.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I've got it soon. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's crazy.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. No, overall, I like Astrobot a lot. It's also. I think it's an easy game to argue for. Like, it's. There's so many things it does really well.

[Jeff Grubb]

It does everything right.

[Mary Kish]

Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean, even if it's not every. Everyone's cup of tea necessarily, the way that they set up the levels, the way that they have all the extras, the fact that everything between all the connective tissue is like, here is a fun little thing to mess with. It's not part of the objectives, it's not part of the X extras. It's just a bunch of sprinkles, a bunch of. It's the zero G level and you're running through and now you hit the stars. And now this time, instead of them just falling to the ground, they're going to start floating up into space. And just being so playful in every single second, like every five steps is the sign of a really confident development group that really knew what they were doing. It's hard not to respect that.

[Dan Rykert]

It's one of the most imaginative games I've played in a long time.

[Jeff Grubb]

That is what makes it like most, like the Galaxy games. It's like, oh, they just wrote down every idea they had had and they took the top 10% of the best of those ideas and made a game using those ideas. And it's incredible in Some cases, literally.

[Mike Minotti]

The cloud. Mario, power up.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yep.

[Dan Rykert]

I would love to see, like, the deleted levels. The cutting room floor of this game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, for sure.

[Mary Kish]

For the record, earlier, Mike, you said that, oh, you've played games better than Astrobot, and I agreed, but I didn't realize you were talking about this year. So for the record, it is. I have not played a game this year that I find better than Astrobot.

[Mike Minotti]

And for the record, I'm team Tears of the Kingdom. Just wanted to say thank you.

[Dan Rykert]

Appreciate.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's completely reasonable. An incredible cost.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm glad you guys are okay with it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, we give you our permission.

[Mary Kish]

We're all fine here.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah, we're cool.

[Dan Rykert]

My favorite thing about fire Escape game of the year is I think it's just a known thing that at a certain point, the argument. It matters. Like, the argument becomes the key thing. And at a certain point, I think one of us always need. There's always someone in the group that calms down, is like, oh, okay, wait a minute.

[Mary Kish]

Acquiesce a little bit.

[Dan Rykert]

Actually, I actually think, yeah, like, well.

[Mary Kish]

Because we've been drinking for eight straight hours and we're exhausted by that point and maybe have broken limbs, as in last year.

[Mike Minotti]

You know, how's. How's Mary gonna hurt you this year?

[Mary Kish]

Well, this is still pretty broken.

[Dan Rykert]

She's sending me some. She's brainstorming.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's going to be a much more emotional damage this year. I'm looking forward.

[Mary Kish]

She's an assassin. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Every bathtub will be filled with Mac and cheese.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, good.

[Dan Rykert]

Do you have any. Any additional thoughts on Astrobot that you didn't say Last episode?

[Mary Kish]

I think me and grub. Super 100 Platinum. Did we think Minati didn't like it enough, I guess, to actually.

[Jeff Grubb]

Get the four platinum, the diet platinum.

[Mike Minotti]

Those four extra bots you're talking about aren't even in this game. You have to play.

[Mary Kish]

The number goes up to 305 in the game. Oh, I'm Jeff.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm late. Stage capitalism. I only care about the number going up.

[Mary Kish]

Political Mikey. Here we go. No, in your crash site. They are in the game. Like, they are absolutely part of that game.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, the five that aren't accounted for or whatever it is. Are you talking about the bots?

[Jeff Grubb]

There's four. Yeah. We won't spoil it.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, gotcha.

[Mike Minotti]

I'll work on it.

[Mary Kish]

They're all master Chief.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Sir Bot's great. Okay, I'm curious. Have we all played Wild Bastards or. Mike, did you.

[Jeff Grubb]

I played, I played. I started it tonight and I played about an hour and a half and Can I start?

[Dan Rykert]

Because, seriously, because I. I've heard divisive things on this game. And I was talking to Matt Bert, who I work with, and he was telling me, I didn't realize the game was this and that. It's like, oh, this is really weird. So I'm curious where you at? Because you're 90 minutes in. I'm on my third playthrough.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. So I did my first two to a game over, basically, so that's where I'm at. So I'm kind of just beginning to piece together how the loop feels to me. Like Dan did a good job describing it, so I knew what to expect going in, but I'm like, what do I care about when I'm playing this? And, and I think I. I was. The initial sort of Pepsi challenge reaction was there's not much to these combat scenarios. So I'm going in there and, and I'm. They're kind of arenas and I'm going, I'm shooting some dudes. So what's, what, what's happening here? And it's like, well, let me just keep playing and push through that. And then once I realized, like, a lot of the game here is caring about what happens in between those sections and improving the characters and figuring out like your way through the maps and the nodes on the map, like a roguelite and, and sort of like beginning to piece together the upgrades you get and then getting the permanent upgrade of the aces and the infamy. And once I started, like really caring about that stuff, it made those combat scenarios even better and more fun because they don't, they don't take up a lot of time. You're going to go in there and you get to play around with all the new stuff you got and you get to like, you get, for example, a. A permanent upgrade that causes your jump to be like way higher. And it's like, oh, I really feel the difference there. So my character build feels very different. I think for me, my. The gold touchstone here for this genre is going to always is now always going to be Hades. And Hades. Thing is, every run can feel so different. Your character builds can get so bespoke that every run feels special. Even if it's not the best, like most overpowered build. You begin to like, learn to love it because you're, you're beginning to learn it's. It's its variabilities. And I was like, okay, I could see that beginning to happen here. A little bit. And I'm glad that it's not like oh 5% improvement to your shot. It's like no know you're going to get a permanent 10 hit point upgrade to your shot and then you're going to get these add ons you can get that can make you feel very different.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

And it started to click for me.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. So before I forget two things. Some of, some of the aces, especially later in the playthrough, they don't just like make something a current mechanic noticeably different. That'll be like oh, now your dynamites blow up into a bunch of other smaller dynamites and like secondary. So there's like actual mechanical like yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Changes now have brimstone fire effect on them.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. So again like Hades where it's like you have the dodge and now your dodge is an attack and stuff like that. Where it's like it builds on those.

[Mike Minotti]

Batman coded damage on your weapon or.

[Dan Rykert]

The RNG is great in these kind of games because often you're selecting things, bait, building on what you got before and you're consciously trying to make a certain build. Other times you have no choice but to adapt to what the game's giving you. So it's a really nice give and take. You said you played till a game over.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, my first like just like I played until my crew all got wiped.

[Dan Rykert]

So did you stop and put it down there?

[Jeff Grubb]

I had to stop because I like had to make the kids dinner.

[Dan Rykert]

So here's the thing about the game and I'll be the first to say this game could do a much better job of teaching as many of its systems.

[Mary Kish]

This is what I was going to say because I saw Mary was streaming this and I popped into her stream and she had just started it. And I think everyone's first like hour plus in this game is like what is. Okay, there's the sector level but then also the stuff on the planet. But then what is persistent?

[Dan Rykert]

Three layers. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And I could tell Mary was kind of still in that period of like who do I kill here? What do I do? What's you know, Like I don't really get this. You know I can beam down two guys here. Like it takes I'd say at least an hour, an hour and a half to kind of start clicking and grab it sounds like you're kind of. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

So it's right where I'm like I did realize. So I did play like just a touch further where it's like okay, I have the one character that I picked to survive. And then I saw the golden coffin and I'm like, oh, I. They taught me that that brings back one of these characters already. So I bet I'm able to bring back these other characters and then I take them back down to a planet. Like, I haven't done that part yet, so.

[Dan Rykert]

So I'm curious what happens when you load back up. Dan, did you finish the first playthrough?

[Mary Kish]

I beat the. Yeah, I saw credits a couple nights ago.

[Dan Rykert]

Did you do it in one run?

[Mary Kish]

No, because, like, that's the thing is, like, it's the Roguelite part of it, is it. It seems. I thought at first, for hours, I thought that if I died, I'm going back to the very beginning. And then. But it's like, oh, no, that sector. You're going back to the beginning of that sector. And it's an Iron man mode.

[Jeff Grubb]

There's an Iron man mode that will be like a true roguelite that takes.

[Dan Rykert]

You all the way back to the first playthrough. And Dan, correct me if I'm wrong in some way, it's. The first playthrough is not a roguelite. Things are randomized.

[Mary Kish]

You will go back on the sector map. You will go back to the start of that, but it's not sending you to the beginning of the game.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's a rogue light checkpoint.

[Mary Kish]

It's basically a checkpoint.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. So, like, if you. If you get. If you pick up an ace or two, like a Core Ace or a Charge Days. Charge Days are the ones that you have to rest your characters to. To actually utilize. You might lose those by going back to the beginning of the sector and then the sector will rearrange. But you're not actually resetting in a rogue. Like. However. Yes, the. But that's the narrative mode. And you're unlocking the characters in the same order the first time anybody plays the game.

[Mary Kish]

And once you unlock them, you're never losing the characters. If you have five bastards and you die, you're going to have those five.

[Dan Rykert]

Bastards and they all have to get injured. And then you go back to the beginning of the sector and also.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right, they're injured. That's why extra.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's in the new game and I still think the narrative. The first playthrough is super fun. I think the character design's great. I love finding different synergies because for anybody who hasn't played it, you could just press R1 or RB and you immediately become your. You go down in duos.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

They can only go Down. They can only be on the field one at a time. But you can have multiple there and you can switch between them by hitting the bumper buttons.

[Dan Rykert]

And if you played Void Bastards, that was two layers like the FTL layer where you're unlocking certain doors or no, sorry, yeah. You're traveling across space. And then there's the shooter section. This has three there's traveling across space. There's when you beam down to the planet, you're on this board game map. And then there's the shooter arenas. And the arenas are bite sized. Quick fire like Quake, almost Doom esque with Halo enemy variety. And I've seen reviews saying that the enemy variety is very low. However, when you get into late game there's a lot messaging Dan I was like I counted 20 different kinds of enemies.

[Jeff Grubb]

You get the data pads that show you how many slots there are. There's at least. There's at least 20. Yeah. And.

[Dan Rykert]

And many of them are like just upped stats of the vanilla version. However, there are others that act very differently that actually once and again I think. I don't think the game is great at teaching you several things. I think they want you to learn through trial and error. However, some of your decisions. You could be making a bad decision and have no idea you're about to fuck things up again. You're only going back to the beginning of sector. But when you start to play the game enough and you when you're hovering over a node on the map it shows you the enemy types that will there. So the you get characters later on. So for instance there's a character named Rawhide who's one of my favorites. They have the burst sonic rifle and then there which can penetrate shields on yellow bellies. Which are these guys who are just like. They will run from you and they will force you to flank because they put down these green force fields in front of you and they can shoot through them but you can't unless you have Rawhide. So you'll have to flank them. And then there's sometimes when it's like, oh, I'm about to fight 12 yellow bellies. This is. And I don't have Rahai. This is gonna fucking suck.

[Mary Kish]

Or let's say there's yellow bellies and then there's a bunch of like animals those coyotes. His stunt will fucking take the call of the wild stunt or whatever will take over those. So like it subverts them. So like you can shoot through the guys with shields and also see these coyotes and be like, you're mine. Now you're fighting for me. And then you see, like, enemy and ally. And, like, it's so fun when, like, you do a bunch of stunts and shit. Or there's the girl with the bow and arrow that can kind of, like, subvert things. It's like, oh, now I've totally turned the tide of battle, and there's more of mine on the field than theirs.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah. And. And you can build. So stunts are their ultimates. They. They have unique stats and movement, some of them, and they have unique weapons. And then they have the stunt, their ultimate. And you can.

[Mary Kish]

I.

[Dan Rykert]

It took me, like, three hours to realize I could stack those and not even.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

So at one point, I was Rawhide, and there were four grizzlies left. They're one of the more difficult animals. And I had four stunts, so I just went, R1, R1, R1,R1. And I won. And I didn't even see them. I had subverted them from across the map.

[Mary Kish]

And some of them just, like, break things in a way that you don't see with FPS where it's like you get smokey and it'll just, like, three unseen enemies will catch on fire. So you just get a few of those. Like, you. You might not even see an enemy, and you kill them all. And for anyone who, like, is like, oh, man, these combat arenas are pretty simple. It's a pretty basic FPS. Like, yes. But also, it is just one part of the game. Like, I actually.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, this is. This is the key for me is that that's when I started enjoying. Is like, oh, this is a board game first, maybe. And these combat arenas are. Are a. Not a mini game, but they are an event that happens in the board Mario Party.

[Mary Kish]

You've got the stuff where you're rolling the dice and going around the board, and you do mini games every once in a while.

[Jeff Grubb]

And when I started viewing it that way, I'm like, well, I am enjoying the board game a lot. And then I get to take some of this fun stuff into these arenas. And the fact that it's kind of simple is maybe now a feature instead of a bug.

[Mary Kish]

It's like a fun break between, like, strategizing and, like, okay, there's, like, expressing.

[Jeff Grubb]

All this stuff that you're getting on the board, which is cool. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And the board game part is cool because, like, you'll go down to the planet level, the board game part, and there will be, like, you know, three to five things where it's like, okay, here's some money. Here's. Here's an ace that I want to get. Here's a mod for my guns. You want to get it all, but you don't have to. You can go right to the thing and beam back up.

[Dan Rykert]

But beam back up immediately if you wanted to.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

As long as you have a portable.

[Mary Kish]

One on the board. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to pick anything up, but you want to get everything to help your run. And so. But if you take too much time, then they'll start warping down, like this guy Neil and like his buddies and stuff. So there's like these higher powered guys that will move around the board and be a little tougher to kill if you take too much time. So.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And then there's a day night cycle on the board and you'll have certain aces that are like, oh, if it's nighttime, this character moves three extra spaces, runs faster.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So like, there is like, I really, really like the board game element of this. And Grub like, really clicked for me.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The action at that point is just like, okay, this is like the fun, like, you know, shooter part of this, you know. Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's like, cool that I get to actually shoot stuff with this board game character now. It's like, oh, board games would be better if they had a shooting segment.

[Mary Kish]

Command and Conquer Renegade.

[Mike Minotti]

They waluigi in it.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, it's on PC, so we can mod it in for you, Mike.

[Mike Minotti]

Jeez, I don't like mods.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's right. You're anti mod.

[Dan Rykert]

This game also avoids this design trope that many games do. I think in a lesser game, these characters have these. I think every character, in their own way, is overpowered. And like you said, these princes, they're called these three characters that warp down. They're basically narratively, they're hunting you across a galaxy. You're trying to escape. Escape them. They beam down. And Judge is a really powerful character. He's. Which also the. Like the creativity in the weapons in the art direction. If you get. You have to get three critical hits with his rifle and then you get. The fourth hit is always an insta kill, no matter where you hit them in their body to show it the a. The laser or the. Yeah, laser. The sights. It's. Each critical hit is building one part of a gallon to like the noose. And then once you get it, it goes to the front and it's a skull with.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

And I was thinking. I was like, there's no way they're Gonna let me get that insta kill on the boss. And sure enough, he warped down. I shot him once and he was dead.

[Jeff Grubb]

So, like, that's what you want from a Roguelite, right? You want to feel overpowered occasionally.

[Dan Rykert]

I think many games would be like, no, we want the boss to be difficult artificially, so we're not gonna let these powers work on them. It's like, no. If the boss is. Is the last one and you have the bow and arrow and it's a character, you get. It's narratively, it's one of the later characters, and there's a 25% chance to subvert them to your team. One in four is crazy when you're shooting that often. So if you shoot the boss often enough, the boss is going to join your team and kill all of his minions.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

So I actually. I don't think the game truly, truly struck me as being excellent until the new game. Plus, there are two other ways you could play. There is Iron man mode, which is you go back to the beginning of the game if you shuffle it. And also it's shuffling the character. So that's what's fun. It's like you get the characters in a random order, which is very fun. Because team comp. I actually got, like, bad roles on this playthrough. I got Spike, who by himself, him and Kaboom, the dynamite character were two. I was like, they feel kind of not. They don't. However, I modded Kaboom in a way where basically it would be one of those fort maps and I would just lob a bunch of dynamite, and they were splitting into so many more that they were killing one or two people every time. He's also great for. For Yellow Bellies. Just throw them behind them.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, sure.

[Dan Rykert]

I got Spike, who's like this stealth character who can be really good when you get the right mods, but there's.

[Mary Kish]

A bunch of defenses because his stunt is you can just subvert turrets and stuff like that.

[Dan Rykert]

So new game plus, then Iron man with shuffle characters. I also did the Super Iron man, which is. Is if. In the base game, if your characters are injured, which means they basically are dead until you get a tonic to revive them. Or each time you warp between sectors, they get revived. In Super Ironman, they do not. You need tonics to revive them so you can warp to a new sector and it does not revive them.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, wow.

[Dan Rykert]

So the game really got good. And the board game stuff got much more interesting when I was playing on a harder difficulty. And these are separate from the difficulties. So you can keep playing on normal difficulty but have these modified fires so there's a lot of room to tweak things. I'm playing on hard Super Iron man and now I'm like. I'm a. Beans are more important because they're stopping certain characters from. That's a. That's out of context.

[Mary Kish]

It's a weird thing.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, we'll get that.

[Mike Minotti]

I wasn't going to say anything, but.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, that on my soundboard, but I can't. I really cannot afford with only three characters in this playthrough for anybody to get injured because I'm now it's going to make me need to go get a time Sonic instead of an ace. That could really, you know, bump up their stats or give them a whole new ability. But also it's way more terrifying when a prince comes. You know, I'm like. I'm more. In the base game. I was cleaning out the maps. And to be clear, once you're there long enough, the actual main enemy comes down. You can't kill him. If he catches you on the board, you're.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I never got to that.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. It got to the point where I was farming the princes for infamy. So I was waiting there. I was like, okay, this is getting. I think the game can get a bit easy later in the first playthrough through. But the difficulty is such now that I'm actually. It's a much more of a risk reward weighing. And I'm like, I. I could leave the map now. Even though there's a tonic up there which could come in handy later if, let's say, Preach. She's my only character that I could take alone on missions. I have like Spike and Kaboom and I have Rawhide and all of them are better as like backup characters. Maybe not Rawhide, but it gets more difficult and there's more. The stakes are higher and it makes the decision making like that more fraught. I'm really, really enjoying the new game. Plus, and also it's. I really, really like just the pace of this game. Like those. The firefights are quick, but I think if they were too long, it would get cloying.

[Mary Kish]

It is a tremendous Steam deck game because it's just like so easy to just play a couple or like, you know, I played entire flights playing this game or pick it up for 15 minutes and then get a full session in.

[Dan Rykert]

It's.

[Mary Kish]

Oh man. So fucking good.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, I like the game a lot.

[Mary Kish]

Yep.

[Dan Rykert]

Anyway, what. What Else are you, Mike? What have you been playing?

[Mike Minotti]

Well, asides from Alone in the Dark for the Wii, which I wouldn't recommend.

[Mary Kish]

Why are you playing that?

[Mike Minotti]

Anyone? Because my friends are jerks.

[Jeff Grubb]

That sounds like. That sucks, man.

[Mary Kish]

Sorry, man. Why would they? There's so many good games out there.

[Mike Minotti]

I know it's strange. I've been playing through a lot of the from software library after beating Shadow of the Earth entry, having fun with that and realizing that somehow I never played the Dark Souls games. Decided to finally go and do that because I was still kind of hungry for more of that formula. Played through all Dark Souls one and really, really liked it. Totally got the hype. And you know, Dark Souls 2 has kind of a weird reputation you have. Some people really defend the game, but a lot of people are like, no, it's definitely the black sheep. And I'm like 40 hours into it now. I'm playing through the DLC content before I do the final boss. I've been playing a lot of it and I both like it and also completely understand that reputation. It does just feel a little weird and a little off compared to Dark Souls one or even an Elden ring. And some of it is just kind of the. Some of it's the way the game's designed. Like there's a lot of areas where the souls combat is really designed for one on one encounters and sometimes they'll switch that up and you'll fight two people, maybe you'll fight four weaker people and you have to do one big stream, whatever. There's like a lot of instances here where it's like, here's three or four kind of strong people. Good luck with that. And it's kind of just miserable trying to kind of basically run over there, run over their own to kind of hope you sort of luck into it eventually or eventually kind of figure it out. Hit boxes are also weird. I had one instance where there's a big troll boss or something and he has this big grab move and it's very telegraphed like, oh, I'm gonna grab you. So you back roll. And he grabs me and I back roll and he misses. And then his hand is here and my character model just warps to his hands. It's like, nope, you belong here. Then he bites my head off, right? I'm like, oh, that's. That's a lot of fun. You know, having said that, it's still ultimately one of those made by them. It's got some really, you know, interesting looking areas. The hub world is really nice Nice majular. It's got this very pretty, pleasant song that I think is a favorite among the fans. There's still a lot of good boss fights and everything like that, but it's definitely not as good as Dark Souls 1. I'm not gonna be some Dark Souls 2 hater like some people are, but I get it.

[Mary Kish]

How far do you think you are in it?

[Mike Minotti]

Like I said, like, so I'm like, I think I'm pretty close. So there's to the end, three DLCs they release. Yeah, they released three DLCs for this one and I finished one of them and I'm like, a couple hours in the other one.

[Mary Kish]

Did you beat the card game after that?

[Mike Minotti]

I, I, I'm like right before the final boss. That's what they, that's what people are telling me to do. Like, because the DLC is usually the hardest content, so it's like do that right before beating the game.

[Dan Rykert]

Generally the idea 2 also has scholar of the first sin, which is the.

[Mike Minotti]

So I'm playing that version.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, okay. Yeah. I was going to say. Honestly, I don't even. Anytime anybody tells me they haven't played that game, I'm like, don't bother going back to the like actual O. OG Scholar. The First Sin is much more balanced and well paced.

[Mike Minotti]

Right. And I've been playing these on stream. So, like in, you know, if you play Souls games, you're going to attract a lot of the Soul sickos, which is mostly a nice thing because you can ask them a lot of questions.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Sometimes you have to tell them to not offer it up involuntarily.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

It is nice to have them there, especially because, you know, Dark Souls 2 like getting to the DLCs and that was even a problem. Dark Souls 1, you would never know how to access the DLC. It's actually Bloodborne as well game. It's, it's, it's like, go to this area, fight this boss, roll over here, fight this thing, talk to this lady two times. Go to a completely separate area. You already were before. Kill that golem, pick up that item, go back. It's insane here. It's a little better, but it's still like you have to get a ring from this place and then open the door over here. Like, how would you know that? You wouldn't.

[Mary Kish]

I was watching like your first stream with that and you accidentally joined a cult. That made the game way harder right away.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I immediately in the hometown, there's a, you know, there's covenants in the first game and I like barely understood what they did. I think it was mostly something about spells. I don't even know. But I was like, I found a stone statue, like join our covenant, blah blah blah. My eyes kind of glazed over. I'm like, yeah, sure. Apparently I activated hard mode.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

And for a while I was like, man, Dark Souls 2 is a lot.

[Jeff Grubb]

Harder than Dark Souls.

[Dan Rykert]

It's a cult. It's a cult that whenever giants go to grab you, it warps you to their fists and then they beat it.

[Mike Minotti]

So wait, Warpy hand call.

[Dan Rykert]

Have you played Bloodborne Demon Souls?

[Mike Minotti]

I did play Bloodborne. Okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

Not. Not Demon souls though.

[Mike Minotti]

Not I play. I've like started a couple times. I got too far. Same sending to Sekiro. Played it. Never got too far.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Mike Minotti]

So I plan to go back to Sekiro and Demon Souls. I want to play Bloodborne again.

[Jeff Grubb]

But.

[Mike Minotti]

But I'm holding. I'm holding out for some kind of remaster.

[Jeff Grubb]

Stop. Don't. Don't do that.

[Mike Minotti]

However long it might be something.

[Dan Rykert]

Guys, do not hold. Play Blood Bloodborne tonight after.

[Mary Kish]

No, because I did that with. I replayed Metroid prime. Then I replayed paper Mario 2 and.

[Jeff Grubb]

A certain level of certainty that they are not working on a Bloodborne remaster.

[Dan Rykert]

Like go play it.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, I'm going to wait.

[Dan Rykert]

I. Okay. Bloodborne is one of my top five games of all time. I. I'm telling you, it's good enough where you could play it. And then if this imaginary PC whatever port comes true, you will want to replay it and do a new weapon.

[Mary Kish]

It's 30 frames character, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, if you buy a 1500 dollars.

[Mike Minotti]

PS5, absolutely do an anti Cortez.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's not happening.

[Jeff Grubb]

We can just steal Andy Cortez's.

[Mary Kish]

Oh yeah, take turns.

[Mike Minotti]

Only one of him.

[Dan Rykert]

Bloodborne is awesome. I've never played. I don't think I've ever come around in a game so hard. Maybe Death Stranding is the only other exception. I did not love Sekiro the first time I played it. I got like five hours in and I remember like it just would not click with me. And then I went and I replayed Bloodborne. I was like, I gotta give Sekir another chance. Jake Decker talks about all these bosses later in the game that sound awesome. And I went back and for whatever reason, like the I like was more open minded about what it wanted me to do. It's all about countering obviously and like just like constantly pushing yourself toward danger in fights. The more I embraced like Living on that knife's edge. The more I was like, okay, I kind of get what this game's doing. And now it's like, God, that game is genius.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Like, I got five hours into Sekiro and I was enjoying it, but then fell off. And now I'm like, really excited to eventually get back there, started again, and really be all about it.

[Dan Rykert]

They have boss fights in that game that are some of the. I mean, Dan, you know, in terms of games that make you like, you know, like that force pattern recognition in bosses. I love them. But like Sekiro. Yeah, yeah. Sekiro is just. There's bosses there that I've never gotten into this, like such a fugue state as when I fought some of those boss, like, all right, I got to jump this attack. I got to parry this one. I got to dodge and then I got to parry. By then he should be his. His key should be down. And then I. I don't know.

[Mike Minotti]

No, I. I am worried because my builds in. In all these games is very tanky sword and shield thing. And that worked really well for me in Elder ring. Worked very well for me in Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 2. The shield has been kind of garbage Turbo but sort of making it work. But yeah, Sekiro, it's. It's much more about parrying, which I never do.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, but it feels so good that you won't. You'll get it.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm very good at parrying in Resident Evil 4 Remake, so I'll be fine.

[Jeff Grubb]

They're gonna be fine.

[Mary Kish]

I flirted with the idea of going back to it because it was the first from game or I guess of. Of the like souls type from games that I beat.

[Jeff Grubb]

Your big metal wolf.

[Mary Kish]

I'm an adventures of cookies and cream.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, yeah, let's.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, Sekiro is your first.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, Bloodborne is the first one I beat.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, my bad.

[Mary Kish]

The reason I'm scared of Sekiro is I can't do the thing. The from games I beat are like, as far as the souls type ones are bloodborne and Elden ring and both of them I just. Just cheesed and farmed and just fucking got super duper leveled up. And you can't do that in Sekiro. The other thing is Kayla, my sister, who is maybe the best, like game player. It's just insane how quickly she can pick up and parry and do all that shit. I sat and I watched her for hours try to beat the last boss and she was like, it's impossible. I can't do it like. And if she. She beat almost all that game on a PlayStation portal in a different floor, then yeah, she's ridiculous. And she was like, this is way too fucking hard.

[Dan Rykert]

I think you're selling yourself a bit short, honestly. I think Mike Tyson's punch out is. If you can.

[Jeff Grubb]

If you could be Mike Tyson, you could beat anything. Any boss in any from game. Yes, that's correct.

[Mary Kish]

Can I modify mod Sekiro? First of all, the bosses are Mike Tyson probably. And I can play as Jake Paul.

[Jeff Grubb]

Which is what you need to beat games. I get it. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Of course. Jake Paul sucks.

[Dan Rykert]

For the record, I. I do think Sekiro is one of the games where you need to you're gonna but like bash your head against some bosses. Like there's certain bosses that gave me trouble. That Jake was like, oh, weird. That I had no problem. And then Jake's like, oh, that's the hardest boss in the game. And then I one shot it. I don't know. I think it's more just about like people's mind wrap around it. Minds wrap around it differently. Yeah. Kayla not being able to beat it. Scary.

[Mary Kish]

But I'm not discounting the possibility. I just. Ooh, boy. It's probably the one that scares me the most.

[Jeff Grubb]

When you do the front parry where you step on the other person's weapon. It's one of the best feelings in.

[Dan Rykert]

The world animation ever.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's incredible. And you'll get addicted to that. And you'll want to get through the whole game because of it.

[Mike Minotti]

Better than parrying a chainsaw with your knife and resident before.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right there. It's neck and neck. But don't worry.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm really excited to start Dark Souls 3 because apparently that one's like a lot like Dark Souls one, but faster paced and it is. That sounds kind of nice.

[Dan Rykert]

I got so much for giving that game an 8 at GameSpot. I stand by that. And then Kevin Van or who reviewed the previous ones before he left Gamespot, he's also like, yeah, I would have given an eight. So everybody was like freaking out about that as well.

[Mike Minotti]

We all have one of those. I gave devil may cry 5 of 7 and some people are still mad at me. But it's all right. I was right.

[Dan Rykert]

Dark. Dark Souls 3 is the one I'm most likely to reap. Or I'm always the closest to replaying it is. However, I think they definitely kind of were more writing the ship after two and playing it safe.

[Mike Minotti]

Sure. Yeah. Because it's like also more of a direct sequel to one. Right. A lot of the same people and characters are kind of showing up or references at least to that pantheon of characters. Characters. Whereas Dark Souls 2. It's almost like a Final Fantasy thing where it's like, yeah, It's Dark Souls 2, but it's not connected to the previous thing in any real way, story wise.

[Mary Kish]

Mike, I'm an idiot. I spent a solid 30 seconds confused because I thought you said I gave Devil May Cry five of seven. And I was like, wait. I didn't know he was reviewing back in 01. And I was like, wait. And his scoring system was out of seven.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, we were real unusual games. We had that seven seven point scale.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right.

[Mike Minotti]

Metacritic hated us.

[Mary Kish]

Five of seven for Devil.

[Mike Minotti]

No, five of seven is just my seven favorite. My second favorite board.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I get that.

[Mike Minotti]

I don't know why even. I don't know why I even bothered.

[Mary Kish]

With that one, because seven of Nine was a big thing.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, you wouldn't know Seven of Nine.

[Mary Kish]

Which.

[Jeff Grubb]

The one that put the lotion under her shirt in that one.

[Mike Minotti]

That's the.

[Dan Rykert]

Paul, what the are you. What is this?

[Mike Minotti]

We're talking about the sexy Star Trek characters, Mike.

[Jeff Grubb]

They space. Now, come on, get on board.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, Seven of Nine. And then T apostrophe P, O L.

[Jeff Grubb]

Search that with lotion.

[Mike Minotti]

Both of them wear cat suits.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

David. It's David Duchovny. What? No, no, it's. It's not David Duchovny. It's the other one I always conflated with the guy from. From. What's the time travel show?

[Dan Rykert]

I always got David Duchovny and John Ritter mixed up.

[Jeff Grubb]

Really?

[Dan Rykert]

Okay, I can see.

[Mary Kish]

We were talking about Duchovny recently because of Taylor Leone.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's right.

[Dan Rykert]

What happened with them?

[Mary Kish]

They were married, but he was a sex addict like his character on Californication, and so they got divorced.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Biography.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, I know Seven of Nine. I never know was her name.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Is it Quantum Leap? Steve song. Kind of incredible and weird. It's so happy.

[Jeff Grubb]

You guys ever watched the new Quantum Leap, which has apparently been on for, like, multiple seasons now.

[Mary Kish]

Really?

[Mike Minotti]

That's the thing that broke me on reboots because it's like. Like 15 years ago, if you told me Quantum Leap was back, I was like, well, that's important.

[Mary Kish]

But now how the whole world's gonna stop? No one even talks like, oh, Miami Vice is coming back. And then no one talks about it beyond the national.

[Mike Minotti]

I think might be like, my vice was a Hit, but they'll even die.

[Mary Kish]

Stuff like Saved by the Bell. Like things that were like, touchstones of a generation. And they'll come back with the original cast and no one cares. Full House. Yeah. I think Polar House did actually weirdly well for a second.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did well.

[Mike Minotti]

I might have. I think it might have thrown off in the end. I don't know. But you're right, like, every. It's at a point now where everything gets rebooted, so it doesn't matter.

[Mary Kish]

What could they reboot that would actually have, like a massive, like, oh, this actually matters and we need to watch.

[Mike Minotti]

Seems sacred somehow. So far, in terms of, like, rebooting into a new movie or show has been back to the future for like, some.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, didn't they? I think the guys that are responsible that said that they literally will not let it happen until they die.

[Mike Minotti]

Right? So, like, maybe when that happens, that might be. I don't say good, but people will be like, okay, we'll take notice.

[Jeff Grubb]

Once the Point Break remake happened, I'm like, who cares?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, who cares? Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

And I was just like, oh, I won't even remember this happened a couple of years from now. So I'm not even going to get mad about it.

[Mary Kish]

No. Remember when, like, Ren. The Spike TV era, when Ren and Stimpy came back, when it's like, they say fuck and they fuck now it's like, what?

[Mike Minotti]

That was so freaking weird. That was on that new TV buck. It was that and Stripper.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Jesus.

[Mike Minotti]

Spike tv, which was the channel that played the Star Trek the Next Generation reruns to bring it all back. So I was watching and Rob for a couple of Spike TV and Ross. So, yeah, I was watching a lot of Spike TV. Yeah. 709 to Paul. Pretty good grub.

[Dan Rykert]

You've been playing Star Wars Outlaws.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah. I kind of got back into it after some traveling and I am glad that I'm able to take it slow. I don't envy anyone that had to review this game in a handful of days. Because if you just like. I acknowledge there's a lot of mediocre elements, especially at the beginning of the game. I think it makes a pretty poor first impression. It is a stealth game in many ways. And it's not like the best stealth. It's not bad. It's fine. You can have fun with it, especially if you get into the Nick's character, who's your little sidekick space dog that you could send out to basically mess with anything and everything. It can go dance in front of a camera and then you can walk past the camera and it's fine. It can attack every enemy, it can distract every enemy. You can upgrade it. So eventually it can distract like three enemies at a time. You can get very powerful, but that takes time. For me, though, as someone who's like, in a weird place with Star wars where there's some stuff I really love and some stuff I find very, very off putting with some of these shows. And just in terms of the quality, not in terms of the like, oh, it has representation or something. I know there's a lot of weird stuff out there about that.

[Mike Minotti]

You're always saying that Star wars is too woke these days.

[Mary Kish]

Say that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I was wearing the Star wars shirt on January 6th. Absolutely. I am mostly just enjoying hanging out in this space because it feels very Star Wars. And that doesn't just mean you go to Tatooine, which you definitely do in this game. I've actually not been there yet. They have some new planets that just feel like, oh, my God. They have some designers that really get it. And every five steps is another picturesque Star wars moment where there is someone cooking some awesome space food and there's people hanging out, hanging around out there, or they're gambling. And none of it, most of it, the vast majority of it, you can't interact with. So it is very much like this diorama. But I'm like, accepting that and just enjoying the ambiance of it. And. And because I'm not rushing to find the next fun thing that I can do in this world necessarily, I'm just sort of moving through it in my own pace, I'm finding that very effective.

[Mike Minotti]

When I did the demo, like, when the planet I was on was this kind of like savannah themed Star Wars, I thought that it was like a very interesting biome choice.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. So that's because that's a wind biome and they like, there's people who farm wind and stuff for energy. And like, it's like they know what they're doing. They like, know what makes like a Star wars biome work. And then I went to a snow planet that was. Instead of like a hoth, it is actually a very populated snow planet. So it's like a lot of structures built out of stone and there's a lot of fire pits everywhere and everyone's trying to stay warm. And you go inside and there's some opulence, but mostly that's just where the crime guild worlds are. And then there's just a lot of people just scraping by. And I love that.

[Dan Rykert]

So they go there and Rise of Skywalker.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, really? Is that the. Right.

[Dan Rykert]

Russell's character is the.

[Mike Minotti]

He's bought that movie out of his mind.

[Jeff Grubb]

But that is actually that planet is my favorite part of that movie.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, it's cool. It's. It's like. It's like monk architecture, like Asian monk, but, like. Sorry, they specifically pulled from Tibetan architecture and then put it in, like, a very blizzardy planet. It's super cool, for sure.

[Jeff Grubb]

And it works.

[Mike Minotti]

Place in Uncharted 2.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

This type of stuff, like, this type of, like, you know, Star Warsness that you like to explore is. Did you like Jedi Survivor in that same type of way?

[Jeff Grubb]

I do. And I've not played through all of Survivor. I kind of fell off because Zelda came out at the same time. And then I got so busy. I haven't gone back. But I love Fallen Order and I keep meaning to go back to the Survivor. And now that Survivors Survivor is on old gen consoles, I'm going to see if it works better on the ally and actually play it on there. Oh, okay. Yeah, so. But yes, I. I do like that stuff. And like, when I watch the shows like Mandalorian. I never loved Mandalorian, but the best parts of it were like, oh, some concept artists, like, cooked with this Pacific Northwest planet where they're all fishermen and they're wearing, like, the rubber overalls and stuff. And I'm like, I like just thinking about what it's like to live in these places. And so, yeah, I. I like that in most of my Star wars games, even, like, going back to Shadows of the Empire where it's like, oh, this fun. A prison planet or whatever. Like, how. How does this work? And now they're like the sewers on.

[Dan Rykert]

This the whole time.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sewer level. Yes, of course there was.

[Mike Minotti]

When I was at that preview event, I did an interview with some people, worked on the game, and I tried to ask them if they were inspired by Shadows of the Empire. And they. They looked at me and I never felt so old in my life the way they looked at me. Oh, no. Oh, no. You people are making a Star wars game. And even you are like, how dare you bring up Shadows of the Empire?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, I don't know if it's a comic Con or, like, DVD commentary. They talked about their. Maybe this is more well known than I'm bringing it up as if, like, it's a cool tidbit, but they've talked when they're designing a new planet, they. They. Their mantra is 70, 70% familiar, 30% new. So they'll take the Pacific Northwest or the Serengeti and then add the wind farms or the like the Taxi Driver 70s neon vibes in the city and stuff like that, which is like how they grab you with something, you know, or at least have seen online or in textbooks and then bring in the weird touch.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yep. Yeah, they always, they always try to ground a lot of stuff with familiarity. That was like the thinking with like the John Williams music too. It's like, oh, so much weird stuff. But let's use a classical like very familiar score. And yeah, that, that's always been one of the appeals of Star Wars. But I play the game and now I'm just having fun kind of consistently no matter what I'm doing. The, the. I did a couple of stealth missions through Imperial fortresses that I found very satisfying. Just because I do have more abilities now. The fighting the Imperials doesn't have any of the ramifications of like I'm maybe I'm getting in good with one of the factions, but I'm definitely pissing off another one. It's like, no, you just can do whatever you want to the Imperials. And everyone seems to be okay with that except for the Imperials, but they always are kind of aggressive towards you, so that's fun. And then I'm like getting the hang of the faction system where it's like everything I do is going to have. Have ramifications. And that feels a little bit like the Han Solo fantasy that I would have imagined as a kid where it's like he's just doing his thing and sometimes he's really in good with Jabba. And then the next week he did one thing to mess up and now Jabba put out a hit on him and it's like, yeah, that, that is happening here. So playing it at my own pace has really been nice. And I, I'm not, I'm not sure if it's a game I'm like going to recommend to everybody, but if you have an affinity for Star wars, obviously and you've ever had a where it's like not everything is working for me, but I still am enjoying it because of this and this. If you've like been through that enough times, you'll probably know if this is going to be for you.

[Mike Minotti]

Are you enjoying the suboc mini game?

[Jeff Grubb]

I am, yeah. It's. It's a pretty. Pretty decent in game card game. Yeah, I, I had a pretty bad run right at the start and now Every time since then, I've kind of won consistently, which is pretty fun.

[Mary Kish]

I should. I should consider playing both Outlaws and Jedi Survivors. I've heard great things about Jedi Survivor, for sure.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did you like Fallen Order?

[Mary Kish]

I, like, liked. I didn't beat it. I got pretty far in it, like, near the end and I stopped. But, like, I love the original trilogy. I have, like, weird nostalgia for the prequel trilogy, as flawed as those are. And I really liked 7 and 8, but then I hated 9. And I haven't seen really any of the. I don't have Disney plus, so I haven't seen any. You don't need to watch.

[Jeff Grubb]

You can watch Andor.

[Mary Kish]

But that's good. I've heard that's really good.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's the best TV show that's ever been made. But yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. So that is the one I'm curious about. But yeah, as someone who just does have a certain fondness for Star wars without being a super fan, I feel like these games sound good enough to. Where it's like, I'd like to just kind of be in that world a bit.

[Jeff Grubb]

You know, I think Outlaws might be. Yeah, that might work for you, actually. Yeah. And then the Survivor is just. Apparently the story gets very good. And I like that sort of light, Dark Souls style game. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Dan, I'm curious what you'd think about Outlaws. I think you would like it to a certain extent. However. Grub, have you done stealth missions for the main story story yet? Main storyline, or are they the imperial bases that are in the open world?

[Jeff Grubb]

I've done both.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay, gotcha.

[Jeff Grubb]

The one. The one main storyline, Imperial base. One I did was kind of frustrating because I couldn't figure out the line they were trying to.

[Mike Minotti]

That was like the head in the jar.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

I played that one on my preview.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. And I. Once I figured it out and I got to, like, past like, the big. There's like a big open space and then there's like a kind of some. Yeah, the hanger. And there is some, like, platforms along the wall.

[Dan Rykert]

Wall.

[Jeff Grubb]

And I'm like, where is this leading to? And I didn't see that. There was like the wall right in front of me was like, oh, there. Now those are things I could, like, climb on the wall. And my brain didn't process that. And because of that, I, like, got kind of lost for a little bit in there. And that was. That was frustrating. And at that point, you don't have a ton of abilities, so. Yeah, that was. But everything since then, honestly, that was the big Hump for me. And then everything since then has been a lot of fun.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay. Yeah. I've seen so many reviews. Talk about how it does. The instafail stealth missions, like, circa Uncharted 2.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

They patched those, though, right? Like, they did make.

[Jeff Grubb]

They did. Yes, they did, actually. They did make those easier.

[Dan Rykert]

What did they. Oh, they. They like.

[Jeff Grubb]

But, you know, I specifically patched.

[Mike Minotti]

They said the instant failures in the early stealth missions were the patch notes, whatever that means. I don't know how they.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay, that's what they were addressing. That's good to know for this group, though. So none of you have played much of Jedi Survivor, if any?

[Mary Kish]

I played, like, the opening when you're.

[Jeff Grubb]

I played like a couple hours.

[Mike Minotti]

Five hours. Ish. And then we got kind of busy. I also kept waiting for a patch to fix the performance, which, like, maybe never happened.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, the PC version got a little bit better.

[Dan Rykert]

People are saying, okay, I played on PlayStation. But, Dan, I know we talked about on Fire Escape for. And I told you, I think if you play more, you'll like it. I.

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Dan Rykert]

1 Fallen Order I liked. However, the thing that Jedi Survivor surprised me. They go very hard on the 3D platforming in that game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, yeah, it becomes like Prince of Persia, sands of time, kind of.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Dan Rykert]

Wall running and swinging, and you. A triple dump jump. Triple dump, triple dump, Triple dump.

[Mary Kish]

My Larry, you see that girl?

[Mike Minotti]

She's got a triple dump.

[Dan Rykert]

That was a single dump, Dan. Nice.

[Mike Minotti]

Beautiful.

[Dan Rykert]

No, you start getting air dashes and these, like, supernatural grappling hook stuff. They go harder on the platforming later in the game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay, I need to play this.

[Dan Rykert]

The chasing of that game is very weird because you get to that planet early on, that's just huge.

[Mary Kish]

Huge.

[Dan Rykert]

And you can explore that for, like, eight hours. I would encourage the frog freak. Yes. I would encourage you to keep moving to new planets as soon as they open up, because you can go back to all these. And I think that helps the pacing. It gets to the point where you're meeting characters that then give you their powers and you're picking up stuff Mega man style, and then all of a sudden, you are just, like, airborne for 10 seconds at a time.

[Mike Minotti]

It's.

[Mary Kish]

Whoa. Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, I should play this.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. It gets like, a Zelda structure, too, in the sense that they're like, all right, well, we got to kill this guy and get that thing. We got to kill this person and get that thing. She's fucking stuff. I've got to go kill her. Where do you want to go first and you kind of pick. That game really surprised me. I wish I had played more of it when it first came out, but Jedi Survivor is real. I don't think people talk about it enough because, again, I don't think the opening is that strong.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I just felt bored and I felt like when I started it, I was like, I feel like I can see what this is. It's just a. Aaa walking, you know? Yeah, it's. It just.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, they also. It's. It starts doing. You're building up your own cantina and doing like, base building. Like Red Dead Redemption 2 Horizon, Forbidden west style.

[Mike Minotti]

Say Red Dead Redemption 2 for. To these two or Horizon.

[Dan Rykert]

Right. It's doing those things more like. It's more gamified.

[Mary Kish]

More like a video game. Oh, okay. Well, Horizon, for all its faults, is a video game. I'll give it that.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, no.

[Dan Rykert]

Red Dead Redemption, for all of its qualities, is one of the best games ever made. But, well.

[Mike Minotti]

Well, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm a reasonable person.

[Jeff Grubb]

Triple dump.

[Mike Minotti]

Triple dump.

[Mary Kish]

Red Dead.

[Mike Minotti]

Three out of seven dumps.

[Dan Rykert]

I still have seven of nine images up on my screen. I haven't seen any of you for a while.

[Jeff Grubb]

There's nothing wrong with that. You too.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm going to be more to Paul over here, but I get it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

To pull pretty.

[Dan Rykert]

Wait, who.

[Mike Minotti]

Real quick around the horn. What's everybody's favorite Star wars game ever? Jeff?

[Jeff Grubb]

God, I really do like fun. It's coach Tour.

[Mike Minotti]

Let's go tour, Dan.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, go to Mike first, Mike.

[Dan Rykert]

It's a tie between Galactic Battlegrounds and Empire at War. Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Rogue Squadron 64.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Or that one where you lightsaber fight Darth Vader.

[Jeff Grubb]

That one's great, too. Rogue Squadron is awesome. Like, listen, Mike, you're right that, like, Rogue Squadron 2 is. Is a fantastic. But Rogue Squadron, for the 64 rules, I'll probably say.

[Mike Minotti]

I'd probably say Kotor. Jeff took it. So I'll say Episode one, Pod Racer.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, Co's great.

[Mary Kish]

Racer's great. I liked Masters of Terakazi. You know the who reason I like Terazi. Listen, it's a shitty fighting game, but.

[Jeff Grubb]

You have a character named Horror whenever you get one.

[Mary Kish]

Sixth grade for sure, but I think it was like R2. If you were playing as Luke or Vader or something, you could literally just like, press it. Like. And like, every kid loves that. And just having like a button that's like. And make the sword come out the saber, like, that felt great.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's good.

[Mike Minotti]

We talk about how we in Blight Club we play like worst games ever. And there are some games that when people like this is one of the worst games ever, that it makes me roll my eyes. Masters of Teres Kasi is definitely one like. Oh, come on.

[Mary Kish]

To be fair, I only played the demo disc version that let you play as Luke and Darth. And me and my friends are just like, we didn't actually play it. I didn't actually like, this is a good fighting game. I just like pulling lightsabers out.

[Mike Minotti]

Sure it's clearly no Tekken, but like, no.

[Mary Kish]

Jesus.

[Mike Minotti]

It doesn't offend me. Like, it offends some people.

[Mary Kish]

Right, Right. There was a novelty to like playing a fighting game as Luke Skywalker. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

All right.

[Jeff Grubb]

I have a soft spot for Shadows.

[Mary Kish]

Of the Empire, that Phantom Menace game I bought and I tried real hard to enjoy it because I spent 50 I.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's. That is a guilty pleasure for me. I like. I like Phantom.

[Mike Minotti]

I want to play it again.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's good. It's not like Jedi power battles. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Obi Wan for Xbox when I went back to recently was like, oh, this game is way simpler than I.

[Jeff Grubb]

Wait a minute.

[Mike Minotti]

It's like a very. Then we'll beat them.

[Dan Rykert]

Jedi power battles.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm having a weird CS1 and Dreamcast. Yeah. It was just a beat them up with the. With the Episode one Jedi. That was the only one at the time.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay.

[Mike Minotti]

It's like kind of fun, but it's very.

[Mary Kish]

Is Mace Windu in it?

[Mike Minotti]

Base Windu, Obi Wan Quon and like a fourth one.

[Dan Rykert]

Right.

[Mike Minotti]

I forget who Mahar you.

[Jeff Grubb]

Which. If I wanted to play one of these Star wars strategy games, which one would you recommend now?

[Dan Rykert]

So Empire War still has an active like very like vibrant modding community.

[Jeff Grubb]

Wow.

[Dan Rykert]

I would say that is a better rts. However, I always liked Galactic. So Galactic battlegrounds. They took Empire at War two's engine and made it into Star Wars. So you might.

[Mike Minotti]

Age of Empires 2.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. What did I say?

[Jeff Grubb]

Empire War.

[Mary Kish]

Empire War.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, sorry. Age of Empires 2.

[Mary Kish]

Right.

[Mike Minotti]

Because that's the one I like because it was just age of Empires 2 is Star Wars. I'm like, oh, this is super cool.

[Dan Rykert]

It gets awkward though when you're in this sci fi game where they have literal planet sized lasers that can blow up planets and you still the way they tried to conform to the age of Empires 2 unit type. So they had to make like every army has pummels which are these machines that roll up to buildings and hit them like battering rams. I'm like, why does Star Wars. You know, this is Star Wars. They have cannons and lasers and whatnot, but they have a scenario editor where you could just get a blank field and then litter it with the. With ATS and whatnot.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, God. I gotta recommend. We're playing that Warhammer game and they do like an RTS version that. I got to tell you about that later, so. Oh, Warhammer does like an rts. Like a total war.

[Mike Minotti]

Did you. Do you know about. Do you know that Dan's playing Space Marine 2? And it's like, wow, Warhammer. That's. This is pretty neat.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm not. I'm not as into 40k. I'm into fantasy. Are you. Are you mocking me? Are you fucking with me?

[Mary Kish]

No, I just. I started playing my first Warhammer game and it's pretty cool.

[Dan Rykert]

And I just wanted Space Marine 2.

[Mike Minotti]

Space Marine 2. 40K.

[Dan Rykert]

So to be clear, I'm not the biggest 40K person right now. I'm more into fantasy. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That's part of why Warhammer sucks, is it's confusing.

[Dan Rykert]

There's no. It's not.

[Mike Minotti]

It doesn't suck.

[Mary Kish]

It doesn't suck. It's just like. It's very hard to like as a. As a lay person to be like, what the.

[Dan Rykert]

Is anyone talking about ever this high fantasy? And there's one that's featured and the.

[Jeff Grubb]

One that takes place in the year 40,000. It's just not that hard.

[Mary Kish]

What's going on, Satchels?

[Dan Rykert]

That. I don't know what the fuck you mean about Vermin Tide.

[Jeff Grubb]

Vermintide is Warhammer. It's fantasy.

[Mary Kish]

There's 900 Warhammer things. Some of them are painting figures, Some of them are RTs, some of them are rats and olden times. Some of them are crazy space Terminator priests.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's a feature so jealous that Warhammer gets so much bullshit. I would love, love that.

[Dan Rykert]

It's like what Star Wars, I think for years was trying to do with games.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. It was successfully doing like in a lot of ways in the in GameCube era and a little bit before that.

[Mary Kish]

This is my first taste of it, though, and I think it's fucking awesome. Like Space Marine 2. Me, grub and Jan are playing it. We're a couple chapters in and God damn it, that's just not a fun ass game. Like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. So, yeah, Mahari, you play Total War Warhammer.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

And then there is. What is the other one? That's like the company of heroes.

[Dan Rykert]

Heroes 1 Age of Sigma 3 was 40K. Dawn of War series was 40K. That was Relic Entertainment.

[Jeff Grubb]

Relic. And Relic is the one that does Company of Heroes.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Correct.

[Jeff Grubb]

They did, right? Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

But no, I play Total War, which is Creative assembly, which is. They do all the historical Total War.

[Jeff Grubb]

Games, like show Total War. Rome is the last one I play way back in the day.

[Mary Kish]

History.

[Mike Minotti]

That's true.

[Dan Rykert]

Correct. Good job. Here's the. Here's the layer of fantasy Warhammer that people don't always know about. If you're looking at. At the map of the fantasy Warhammer map, it's just a parody of Earth.

[Jeff Grubb]

And then there's Jesus in that one as well.

[Dan Rykert]

There's Jesus figures all over Warhammer fantasy. Like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. Warhammer 40K. Apparently the Emperor is Jesus.

[Mike Minotti]

He means Jesus Christ.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, this is just the world I'm looking at the picture. That's. There's Africa, there's North America.

[Dan Rykert]

So the different factions are like, inspired by different historical cultures. And then like the green skins, the orcs are actually. If you hear them talk. I don't know if you could say that there.

[Mary Kish]

I live in the ancient city of Quintex. Mike lives in the forest of Arim. This isn't as about the author, I.

[Dan Rykert]

Think, Dan, I know where both of those are. To a pinpoint. I could tell you. Ancient city of Quintex is over near like southern. It's like Central America.

[Mary Kish]

Grub and Mike are in the Petrified Forest.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's right.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

The.

[Mike Minotti]

The last Warhammer normal Warhammer game I played, I think was Age of Reckoning, the MMO that was actually really good. But then World of Warcraft just kind of stole all of its best ideas and used them. And then Age of Reckoning died pretty shortly after that. It was kind of a shame.

[Dan Rykert]

I've been talking to Vinnie because Vinnie got the games on us in a sale and we're trying to find time so I can kind of Sherpa him. Dan.

[Mike Minotti]

Dan.

[Dan Rykert]

I think. I don't think this will actually ever happen. However, there's a world in which I actually get you to sit down and try it for like a few hours. And the shit the armies you can builds, I. You would love so much.

[Mary Kish]

Dude.

[Dan Rykert]

The rat. The scaven. The rats are. Here's the thing. They are based. Their weaponry and their fighting style is based on World War I weapons. That's right.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's how it is in Vermintide. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

They have rattling guns that shoot rat guns.

[Mary Kish]

All right. I'm Listening D. Search.

[Dan Rykert]

No search. Rattling gun. Warhammer 3.

[Mary Kish]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

And it's just. They shoot this green warp stone that fell from outer space on a. Is it a meteor or a meteor hits the earth.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's exactly what I would expect.

[Dan Rykert]

And then they have. And then they have ninja rats because they dug underground and were trying to come up in the empire of man, but they dug too far and they came up in Cathay.

[Mike Minotti]

They dug too. They greedily and.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes, exactly. And they came up. And they came up in a fantasy like Japan, and they learned ninja tactics, so they became ninja rats. And there's a whole faction of the Skaven in War Warhammer 3 that is based on sutterfuge and you take contracts to kill different people. And then there's. There's the Dark Elves who get these ships that you can sail up and down rivers and then bombard from it. It's.

[Mary Kish]

It's. Can't. Can I get. Okay. Because everything I'm hearing about. I just did a whole podcast with Benny in Next Lander this week too, and Benny was talking about Warhammer. Everything I hear about Warhammer from everyone sounds awesome. And, like, exactly my mix of, like, super stupid that takes itself the right level of. Seriously.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

What is the. For me with Warhammer, if I don't want to buy a model train set and paint things, I just want to.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, play a lot of the games.

[Dan Rykert]

Play.

[Mary Kish]

Play good videos.

[Dan Rykert]

Honestly, Space Marine 2 is a great intro. It's that third person, you know, like action arcade shooting and fighting. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

And let's play Vermin Tide versus no, Dan.

[Dan Rykert]

We played Ver Tide. Tim Tur got us into.

[Mary Kish]

Well, here's the thing. I. I think so. That needs to be like a. A B step for me because, like, I don't like fantasy stuff.

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't fancy one.

[Mary Kish]

The reason I like. Honestly, I'm a dumbass and I see a Terminator priest in fucking Space Marine. I'm like, what is this cool, dude? And I'm so invested in this.

[Jeff Grubb]

We can do Dark Tide first, then. Let's do Dark Tide first, and then we'll go to 40K. That's.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, 40K.

[Mary Kish]

You gotta ease me into the deep end here, you know, Like, I love.

[Dan Rykert]

Everything I'm hearing, so. It's also important to note there's been a lot of speculation about what Creative assembly is doing next. There was the rumor, the Star wars rumor for a bit.

[Jeff Grubb]

I did hear that. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Which I don't know that that has borne out.

[Jeff Grubb]

You Grub.

[Dan Rykert]

You would know More than me, but from everything.

[Jeff Grubb]

Years off.

[Mike Minotti]

If it's happening.

[Dan Rykert]

It was more like early talks. However, people are still assuming that 40k, they're gonna do Total War, Warhammer 40k. At which point you're gonna start learning all the different factions of Space Marines. You're gonna learn like Starcraft style.

[Mary Kish]

Like space rts.

[Dan Rykert]

No, Total war.

[Mike Minotti]

Total war. What if Dan, just like. Because dawn of War is considered like one of the.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh yeah, Dan, you. Dan, you can play. Dawn of War 2 is a command and conquer style RTS based on 40.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's like. Yeah, like one, like level down in terms of what you're controlling.

[Dan Rykert]

But yeah, I could see me and you during our Red Alert 2 stream kind of stuff with dawn of War. Dawn of War 3 was fine, I would say. I think dawn of War 2 was the peak 3 got.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, those games have good co op, right?

[Mary Kish]

I'm looking at screenshots. This looks like. Like I've been bemoaning Command Conquer being dead forever. This looks like the type of. I won, dude.

[Dan Rykert]

The company, the. The developer that made Company of Heroes one of the most lauded RTS ever made these.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, well, hang on now. Because I wanted to like Company of Heroes back when it came out, but then it was one of those things where it's like, I don't want to be one dude sneaking around. I want bases, armies.

[Dan Rykert]

You know, I use that to illustrate the point that at least they. They know what they're doing. But no, this is more Command and Conquer. Like the unit cap is more absurd. You get, it's more Starcraft.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. I want. Why 2011? Geez, I want to play this.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know. Dawn of War 3. I. I honestly haven't gone back. Dawn of War 3 may have aged better, but it kind of.

[Jeff Grubb]

Let me see if there's like recent reviews on that.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I mean, I know. I just like from my like, very offhand knowledge, I know that dawn of War 1's considered classic.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

And maybe three, not so much. I don't know.

[Jeff Grubb]

D War 2 or dawn of War 3 is still mixed with recent reviews. And dawn of War 2 is all very positive on Steam.

[Mike Minotti]

2 is kind of where 1 was over. Overwhelmingly positive.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. I still think 2 is better. 3. 3 definitely took a few steps back. I think they oversimplified things. I think that was done for three would have been 2015 or 2017. 17.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

I think that was the era where a lot of like, strategy games were trying to like, get as many players as possible. So they dumbed down a lot of things.

[Mike Minotti]

Are Final Fantasy 16 year. Yep, I get you.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. And D War 2, I think they didn't give a. And they were like, let's cater to our audience.

[Mary Kish]

All right. I'm. I'm looking at screenshots and stuff of this. There's a weird orc with a pirate hat. I think I'm like, dangerously close to, like, wanting to get into Warhammer, but if we.

[Jeff Grubb]

What if we picked a book to read?

[Mary Kish]

I would do it. We could do a book club or a Warhammer book. I would do like a good entry level one. I would do that.

[Jeff Grubb]

So actually I got a friend that writes some ones about like the. Like the. The elite sniper team and stuff. Not. Not. No, not Jeff Grub. Although Jeff Grub I think does write some Warhammer.

[Mary Kish]

The other scrub. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I will say, if you don't like fantasy, it's. You're. You're gonna prefer 40k. I think. However, I actually, in my experience, 40k takes itself more seriously than fantasy does.

[Mary Kish]

But I mean, just the stuff I've heard about, like, oh, the orcs paint their cars red because they think it makes it go faster and because they believe it, it works and like all this and all that.

[Dan Rykert]

And they also. The orcs in Warhammer fantasy, they're inspired by football hooligans in, okay, the uk.

[Mary Kish]

I can like fantasy. I like Zelda. I like Game of Thrones. You know, like, it's.

[Jeff Grubb]

I was 40k, like CRPG last year. Rogue Trader.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Did you. Do you guys not talk about in Giant Bomb?

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't think so.

[Mike Minotti]

We have a little bit of a CRPG blind spot. I do what I can, but it's not much.

[Dan Rykert]

No, very fair. I being very, very reductive. It's Baldur's Gate 3, but Warhammer, 40K.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Dan, you would not like it.

[Mary Kish]

It's.

[Dan Rykert]

It's even. It's eight times more complex than Baldur's Gate 3. It's not as good as Baldur's Gate 3, but I still enjoy.

[Jeff Grubb]

They have. But they have. Every genre is like the point.

[Mike Minotti]

Like.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

No, I want to keep playing Space Marine 2 and I want to play the RTS stuff. That sounds great.

[Dan Rykert]

Try. Try dawn of War two. But again, I think there's a. There's a point where Warhammer fantasy. I like it less because it's fantasy and more because I. There's a character called. His name's Kairos Fate. So there's. There's a bunch of different Races. And there's dwarves, there's humans, there's high elves, there's dark elves, there's wood elves, there's orcs, there's. There's a whole undead faction modeled after ancient Egypt. They're mummies. And then there's ones that are based more off, like, Bram Stoker style vampires. Seeing all these ones clash, you're like, okay, I'm gonna go fight the vampire. So I got to focus on taking out the leader because then the skeletons and the zombies and these, like, huge battles, rats will all crumble. It's more about, like, the spectacle just gets so fucking ridiculous. The lizard men are dinosaurs and they have, like, Aztec trappings and they. It's so fucking funny because these, like, Sarus, these like, mini, like, crocodiles will be riding T. Rexes. So they're dinosaurs riding other dinosaurs into battle.

[Mary Kish]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

It gets to a level of ridiculous where it's the most, like. I honestly, like, I. During some of these battles and thinking this is like, Dan Riker level of, like, just fun, bullshit kind of spectacle and, like, pomp. It's so fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

Did you play Bolt Gun?

[Mike Minotti]

Yes, I did play both guns.

[Dan Rykert]

That game was fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

I really was. Yeah, I liked it.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. I thought it kind of went on a little long for what it was, but.

[Dan Rykert]

But I liked it. Agreed.

[Mary Kish]

I'm. I'm gonna download Bolt Gun because, yeah, that did look cool from what I saw. Okay.

[Mike Minotti]

Boomer shooter.

[Mary Kish]

I. I want to keep dipping my toe in there and, like, I want to keep playing space marine with you guys.

[Mike Minotti]

Bolt gun's great because it has a button that's just like the taunt button. They recorded, like, 500 lines for, like, the things he screams at people. So it's like always something different.

[Mary Kish]

It's fine the whole time.

[Dan Rykert]

There's a 40k show in the work with Henry Cavill at the lead.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, Henry Cavill.

[Dan Rykert]

He is a huge Warhammer.

[Jeff Grubb]

Mr. Warhammer. 40K. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Nerd.

[Mike Minotti]

It's a good. Be, like, kind of good at first. And the writing's going to let him down.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes, probably. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Right.

[Dan Rykert]

Dan, you were also played. What did you play? No, sorry, Grub. You were playing Plucky.

[Mary Kish]

Ah, yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah, I played Plucky Squire.

[Mike Minotti]

They think it's Sucky Squire.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, we never said that, me and Grubber.

[Jeff Grubb]

Plucky Squire it is. I'm finding it pretty boring. Is kind of where I'm at. And it's hard to, like, people say. Maybe it gets a little bit better once you get a little bit later into it. But I'm finding it very hard to like build up the momentum to get past this. These early sections. I'm about an hour and a half in. I've not played it more since we. We talked about it down on the Bombcast.

[Dan Rykert]

A lot of good stuff out there.

[Mary Kish]

And we're both bored by this thing.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. What is Ply Plucky Squire is that it's the, the storybook game where the character is kind of in a Zelda, like in a little book that sits on a table and it's hand painted and it's. It's gorgeous. And then something happens in the book so that the character gets teleported out of the book into the real world and then he becomes a 3D character that is walking among little beetles and coffee mugs and rulers and pencils and it's. That's a really cool effect. It's a really cool idea. I thought this game looked amazing in trailers. And I play it and it's kind of just this slow plotting, deliberate game that stops frequently to tell story and then even more frequently to tell you how to play it.

[Dan Rykert]

We'd love games like that on fire escape.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. It is. Is very undue in a lot of.

[Mary Kish]

Ways, but on paper it's something that I feel like me and also you grub would look. It's like we got some Zelda stuff. We got a good gimmick with the like jumping in and out 2D and 3D. We got platforming sections. We got tiny character, big world type stuff. And it occasionally does like a clever gimmick thing where oh okay, you interact with this thing in the 3D world and it does this thing, the 2D world or the book turns vertically and it turns into more of a like climbing level, level type thing. But none of the actual like outside of the gimmicks, none of the moment to moment gameplay feels super engaging or challenging or clever. It's just, it's got a lot of ideas and it just doesn't really run with any of them far enough to be very engaging, you know?

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. That is. And that like. So I've. This is what I've heard. This is one of the reasons I'm like not feeling too encouraged to keep playing is when people say it gets better. They're saying it do. It does a little bit less of the hand holding, a little bit less of. You go into an area and the camera's going to show you exactly what you need to be doing. Then you just go do it. Which I. I really dislike and game does a lot of. But even if it did less of that, I'm not like believing this game's going to suddenly win me over because I, I think it's going to keep doing what it's done so far, which is here is a new idea now you're going to take the words out of the sentence and put it into a different sentence and that's going to change the level. And I bet it's not going to be a whole game of that. There's going to be a couple instances of you where you do that and I've heard that as well. So kind of having a lot of ideas and committing to none of them is maybe going to hold this game back for me.

[Mary Kish]

Yep. I think we're. We're very aligned on that. Like, honestly, with all the stuff coming out that I'm curious to play and even things we've brought up here, like between Warhammer and Star wars and things I want to go back to, the odds of me wanting to go back to Plucky Squire are very low right now.

[Mike Minotti]

I still want to try it. Like I'm. I. It's on PlayStation Plus.

[Jeff Grubb]

For people that are wondering.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I am scared like I might align with you just based on what I'm hearing. But you know, some people seem into it a lot of wonder.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's got an 84 on open critics still. John Drake loves it. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Even Greg Miller was bored by it. And that guy likes everything.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, he's got terrible taste. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Big Star Starfield defender.

[Dan Rykert]

Grub. I'm curious about UFO 50 as well.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Just started this same grub.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. And I'm only. I'm in the first game, but I, I like what they've set up immediately. Where it's like here is. You could see all 50 games and they have a fake year by them and it goes from like 1983 to like 1989.

[Mary Kish]

Like straight up NES period.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. NES period it. And so what they're suggesting here is not suggesting it is like the, the deliberate like story of the game, the narrative, the lore is this UFO 50 was a console and. Or the UFO was maybe a console and it existed through this time and the games came out and they started this way and they're going to progress and some of these games are going to get sequels to themselves inside of this. It's a. I guess for people that don't know it's a collection of 50 games, but it's not a 50 games in one. It is a fake narrative history of these games coming out over this period of time. And they are all not mini games but like full NES style games.

[Mary Kish]

Like things that you would find in rent. And like that's part of like I'm. I played like the first like four games at this point. Like we both started playing today I think. And the thing I kind of like about it is like some of them kind of suck. And I mean that in a way that I like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

The first. Like because I remember as a kid that had the NES and was constantly going to video stores and stuff like that. That and just like looking at box art and being like okay, what is a Robo Warrior? I'll try this game. What is this thing? And then you play it. It's like this is kind of confusing and it kind of sucks. But like you still have that nostalgia for these games because you just played them a lot and you were a kid. That first game on UFO 50 I'm running around, I'm kind of trying to figure out the map. I can't figure out where the fuck to go. It's like, okay, my lives are eggs. I don't really know.

[Jeff Grubb]

I like played for a long time.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

And all I got was eventually I found one chest that would open and it gave me 50 bucks and I couldn't. I couldn't spend it.

[Mary Kish]

I that's. I exact same experience. That's the only.

[Jeff Grubb]

And that was a long time of like searching around so many rooms I went into where it's like there are enemies here. Maybe I can kill some of them. Some are too far away. They are attacking me. And I have these six lives and then if I die I get a game over. It's frustrating but I think what's going to happen here is oh, this is like the first game on this system. It probably will get a sequel later on in these 50 games. And I bet that one will have all these ideas and it'll be so much better. And it's like even if that doesn't necessarily happen, there will be games that are like successors in other ways to this and will build on these ideas and be different. And I find that very cool. I mean it reminds me of Retro Game Challenge which was a very similar thing that was Game Center CX the in Japan and it got localized here as Retro Game Challenge where kid is putting. He actually gets teleported back in time. Sits in front of a console with the. With the kid that was during that time might be himself. They like have magazines in that Game where they read about games that are coming out and then later in the game you play those games and some of them are platformers or shooters and then they get more complicated and like one of the last games you play is like a full Dragon Quest style rpg. I love that this seems like that, but even more even bigger. Derek Yu and his friends designing real awesome indie games that are. Exist in the 80s. It's such a cool idea. But that first game is. It sucks. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

It's like I. I love minigames, obviously, or collections of games like you said. Grub. These are not minigames. These are things that like a lot of NES games were just like, here's. This is all you do, you know, it's just this, here's sky kid and you just. That's what the game is, you know. And yeah, these are all. It's not warioware. It's certainly not like Mario Party, like minigame type stuff. But I've always loved collections of games and this having that theme that like this cohesive, like, okay, it is this console and this lore behind it and everything. I'm really intrigued by it. It's also kind of what I wanted. Like, got so excited about the playdate because it's like, okay, we're gonna have a bunch of weird little play for the record.

[Jeff Grubb]

But I get what you're saying and I've got.

[Mary Kish]

No, I've got a playdate. And like I still. There are some very clever things in games that have come to that. But overall it's like I'm not really pulling that thing out and charging it every time there's a new game or anything. The fact that here it's like a rare replay for.

[Jeff Grubb]

From an alternate universe.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, exactly, from an alternate universe. A different like a NES competitor that only existed in, you know, Ireland or something, you know, And I'm just having only played four games of it and like all of them, they haven't been like, the first one's not great and the second one, I don't even know if I would. I would call great or anything. But it's like I am intrigued to like. Man, I like this concept so much. I think I want to like, you can like gold cartridge them by like meeting certain objectives, but then you can like Cherry Red cartridge them by like, you know, beating them. Beating them. And having like this built in kind of achievement system. Like, I kind of just want to like learn all these weird games. I think it's such a cool gimmick.

[Mike Minotti]

And it looks so up My alley. And like just looking at screenshots, like the one is clearly like supposed to be kind of like a wild guns. The one looks like it might even be a bit Zelda E. And that's really cool. So. Oh yeah, I definitely want to play this.

[Jeff Grubb]

And like the real suggestion here underlying all this is what are they hiding in here? Is there stuff like beyond like if I do do certain things in these games or like that first game. Maybe this is the case with all the games. But when you press the start button, there's a console command thing that you intercode like game Genie. And I'm like, how do I find those codes?

[Mary Kish]

What does that do? Right?

[Jeff Grubb]

So it's like we might be having like a fez like situation here as well, which where that actually doesn't always work on me. I don't always fall down those. Those pits. But it's like in this case, I think the, the setting is ripe to sort of catch me with that. And I hope it does. And I, you know, I've already heard like some stuff and I'm not going to spoil it here, so I won't say anything thing. But it's like, oh, I want to play this game right now because I want to experience the self myself firsthand.

[Mike Minotti]

It's very, very itself too. Super UFO 50, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's.

[Jeff Grubb]

I wouldn't. I literally wouldn't be surprised. Although this game took like eight, nine years for them to make. So maybe they want to do something different games.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. Yeah, I think we're exactly the the same spot Grub. And I'm so excited to play more. That's. That's going to be a big plane game for me coming up.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

[Dan Rykert]

Grub, you also, you previewed flight sim.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that's right. And I could talk about it here because it's coming out Monday. I went to the Grand Canyon. I flew a jet, a real jet. That was pretty wild. I was in a Humvee tour at like 6am of the grand Canyon. And the guy who was driving told us all about all the people who have ever died in the Grand Canyon. That was amazing. But then I played Flight Simulator 2024 and I think it is definitely earning being a sequel. Like they. This is not just an update to 2020. This is a new game. And the real big thing there is that there's a couple of things where I think technologically it does actually look improved. It especially looks improved whenever you are flying near ground level. They have it's. It's like orders of magnitude more detailed to the point where a lot of the, these challenges, the, these new challenge modes they have in there, in here will be like fly a helicopter that goes and scoops up water from the ocean and you drop it on forest fires to put, put those fires out because now the forest looks so good, they want to take you closer to the ground. And then that leads into a lot of the career mode, which is I think the most gamified Microsoft flight simulator has ever been. Now they were quick, quick to say this is still a simulator, this is not a video game. But everyone, no matter who they were, what, what kind of player they were, they were asking for more stuff to do. This is us answering that. And everyone that was there at the event will went to this mode first for the most part. I actually went to the leaderboard chasing mode first. But everyone else went, yes, everyone else went to the career mode first because I think it's like people want to have some guidance and it's this web of first you're going to get your pilot's license and then your private pilot's license, then you're going to get your commercial pilot's license and then you're going to be able to take that and choose the next thing on this web and you'll have choice of go and fly one of these helicopters that puts out fires or go and fly an F18. And so you'll be able to pick and choose. And it's mostly procedurally generated but it does feel more guiding and like you have objectives so you can explore all these amazing things and all these incredible places that they've recreated with their, what they call their digital twin of the planet Earth. And it's like, oh, this is a really good way I think to get in a lot more people into this game. And I was really impressed with what they did. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Because most people I know who. Well, not I, I, I know a few like die hard fans of 2020, but most people I know who dabbled in it were just doing it for like the tourism.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. That's literally one of the three groups they mentioned were digital tourists. People who come to the game to see different parts of the world and like whether.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Fly to Fiji. Right, exactly.

[Mike Minotti]

Around Disney World.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, exactly. I was, we were visiting the Grand Canyon and I spent a lot of time just like, this is cool, I'm going to, I'm going to fly around the Grand Canyon. And we, I took off from the Grand Canyon Airport and I'm like, oh shit, that's literally the resort I'm at right now. And it looks completely photorealistic. It's really amazing.

[Mary Kish]

Bachelor said the Grand Canyon was kind of lame and boring.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah, right. It doesn't impress him but you know, he's just.

[Dan Rykert]

Sorry you. So in real life you went to the Grand Canyon?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, they. They flew us out to the Grand Canyon.

[Mike Minotti]

When he says he flew a jet, he means for real.

[Mary Kish]

I threw an actual we say for shoot around here.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, my mistake. I'm sorry. I'm trying to fit in better.

[Jeff Grubb]

I. Yeah, that was the. How did C Vision Jet.

[Dan Rykert]

Fly a jet.

[Jeff Grubb]

So they Cirrus is a relatively newer. They started in the 90s Private plane manufacturer and they have several planes in the game. And as part of that partnership it's clear they also want to like show off their newer jet powered private plane which is. Is a like 6 seater small plane but with a jet engine. We got, we got in the plane and I'm sitting in the back seat cuz I didn't want to like go in the pilot seat first. I was getting in there, I'm like okay, I'll let someone else go up there. Charlie hall from. From Polygon. Actually.

[Dan Rykert]

Charlie must have been here.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, he. And he goes, he takes the, the pilot seat first next to the actual pilot that's there. And then he turns to Charlie.

[Dan Rykert]

License. Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

And he's like but you do you want to take off? And Charlie took. Actually did the, he did the stick. He wasn't doing the rudders and he wasn't doing the, the throttle. But he actually got us up in the air and he flew for a few minutes and then I got to take over and I got to do the big turn back towards the airport and it was, it was amazing. Very cool. Before that's the first time I've had my hands on the. On a stick.

[Dan Rykert]

So I'm assuming it was like a driver's ed car where the pilot could take over if you're about to like kill everybody. Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

He could have computer could take over.

[Mary Kish]

Instead of like the brake that he can hit as the turns us an eject.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, there are several cool things about this jet. One is there's a giant red button that anyone in the plane can reach that is a return to ground. If the pilot dies. Like if he has a heart attack, you hit this button. And what it does is it doesn't like go back to your airport. It finds the nearest airport, creates a flight plan, tells the the traffic control. Here's what's going on. I'm going to land the plane now automatically. And it just lands it. Now if the engine fails, there's another big thing you can pull that is a whole plane parachute. A. And the thing I was about to.

[Mary Kish]

Say that as a joke it has.

[Jeff Grubb]

It and it's like I watch. We watched videos of it and it's like, that looks incredible. It just works. Apparently it's already saved like a lot of lives because they've been doing it for a while.

[Dan Rykert]

Comes out of the whole plane and the whole caps.

[Jeff Grubb]

Which I want to say is. I can't remember what that actually stands for, but it's. Yeah, caps. It's the parachute. Parachute system that.

[Mike Minotti]

But the P stands for parachute.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes, it does. In the S stands for system. It's like a cabin or automatic, but.

[Mike Minotti]

It'S an aerial parachute system.

[Dan Rykert]

Automatic parachute system.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. And it shoots out. So like for the propeller planes it kind of shoots out the back. So at first it like is going nose down but then it like does like. Yeah, the triple dump for the jet. It actually comes out of both the front and the back and it just lands flat on the ground.

[Mary Kish]

It.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's incredible. But he had a stick on his right hand. I had the stick on my left hand. And you could see like for a little bit he's keeping his hand there in case. But then for a while he's like talking to the guys in the back and I'm just flying the plane. The thing with these planes is while they are mechanical, they're not fly by wire where a computer is like doing a lot of the work for you. If you get like, like if you would try to like actually make this the plane, like to do a loop de loop or something like that. The plane just won't let you. It's basically impossible for. For someone to crash these planes. It was really cool.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. I would immediately, if I got in this co pilot seat, I'd turn the pilot be like, I hope you brought your Xanax and then try to do a barrel roll.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, he tried to do a barrel and it's like it takes him that far and then it beeps at him. He's like, nope. And it like leveled it out on its own. It was really cool.

[Dan Rykert]

Similar automation.

[Mary Kish]

Barrel rolls and sailboats. Sound fucked up.

[Mike Minotti]

Hey Dan, you don't like flying? You want to fly a jet?

[Dan Rykert]

I would do it with that. I wonder if that would help, like being in control of it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Being in control.

[Mike Minotti]

You know what?

[Mary Kish]

Because for me it's like everyone that's afraid of flying it for the most part seems to be because they're afraid it's going to crash or something. It's like I have the utmost faith in pilots and the technology and it's like I've never once thought there's going to be a crash or a terrorist incident. It's all just. I fear the panic attack.

[Mike Minotti]

No, that's how I am with some of like the big rides. I don't like, I'm like not afraid I'm going to get hurt, but like playing fight simulator 2020. Like, you know, I was like a little wary of planes and I'm pretty good now. But I do think that that did help like actually learning how airplanes.

[Mary Kish]

Like I read a book about that. It is nice to know that it's like, oh, that's. That sound is probably this, you know, Right?

[Mike Minotti]

Exactly.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

But the game itself is, is really solid. I was playing with a hands on throttle and stick a hotas and Vinnie was there and he was playing with a yoke. So he was doing a lot of the big planes and I was flying F18s and stuff like that. And it just, it feels really good. You can dial it in where, where like I did. I was doing the challenge with the F18 flying really like near the ground in the Grand Canyon, going through these gates and at first I was crashing a lot and eventually I was Maverick. It was Top Gun Maverick. And I eventually got to a point where it was like I got through this whole.

[Mike Minotti]

Did you attack the enemy base?

[Jeff Grubb]

I attacked the enemy base.

[Dan Rykert]

Targeting system turn off.

[Jeff Grubb]

I did like I did that.

[Mike Minotti]

Cool.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like air drift and stuff. On a couple of the turns I felt very cool.

[Dan Rykert]

Everybody looks over at Grub and he's doing that, the 10G stuff like Eric.

[Jeff Grubb]

Greenberg did walk behind me and I was like being very like. I was gesticulating a lot and he's like damn Grub. And I'm like, that's right. Fucking stand back. Aaron Greenberg, dude, did you talk.

[Mike Minotti]

Did you and Aaron Greenberg talk about me? I sat next to him at Gamescom. We didn't but we not everything.

[Jeff Grubb]

We did joke about him throwing me off a cliff. So that was fun. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Are crazy stunt like game press events back is between that. What you're describing is like some classic oh seven three, six zero shit. Me and Jan are doing some crazy shit next week. Like trips that sound very silly and fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

Separate trips too.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, very separate. Different things but like it's like damn.

[Mike Minotti]

I don't think I know what Jan's doing yet to tell me.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, it's insane. It's weird. I went to London for Metal your man. Are we. Are we doing this again?

[Jeff Grubb]

I could do this again. It does feel. It feels a little bit. I think what's happening is, is these companies realized. So the way this one worked is we were there for the press day and there was a foreign press day the day before and then the day after was going to be the influencers. So I think they're like, we can get our money's worth by doing all of them in one event back to back to back. And it's like this is actually now worth it again.

[Mike Minotti]

So I wonder who they like the most. I wonder what day is their favor.

[Dan Rykert]

It.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, I bet the people that like pay for it all like the influencers the best. And I bet the people who run it like us the best.

[Mary Kish]

Just the old guy media people.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Vigorously.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. But what's.

[Mike Minotti]

We talked about summary movies. What's the best plane movie ever? Real quick.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, is it Air Force One?

[Mike Minotti]

You think it's Con Air Executive Decision.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean it's Top Gun, Maverick movie.

[Dan Rykert]

Based on an airplane. Oh, man.

[Mary Kish]

Airplane Executive decision over con Air passenger.

[Dan Rykert]

57 is really good. Awesome. I think mine is Air Force One.

[Mary Kish]

Air Force One about three years ago. And I was a little disappointed because like I forgot how often they're going down to like here's Glenn Close, the vice president talking about politics. It's like, no, just have ass kicking president up there, beating up Gary Oldman.

[Dan Rykert]

You know, executive played by Harrison. Harrison Ford.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's very good.

[Dan Rykert]

Finally ejects the terrorist vice president basically in the form of Gary Oldman off his plane by punching the parachute button on his chest. And he says, I did love Air Force.

[Mary Kish]

And then he says, just get off my. It's very good. But executive decision is underrated.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, executive decision, no.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, Kurt Russell. John Leguizamo Minati doesn't know who that is.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm very patriotic. So United 93 for me of course.

[Mary Kish]

Wasn'T as bad as the Rocketeer.

[Dan Rykert]

I think the rocket.

[Mary Kish]

The Rocketeer is not an airplane decision.

[Dan Rykert]

Really good.

[Mike Minotti]

It's. There's a lot of airplanes in that movie.

[Dan Rykert]

That's. That's another really good closing line from Harrison Ford in. As in knowledge is their treasure. No, clear and present danger at the very end. Have you seen clear and present danger?

[Mike Minotti]

Yes, I see clear presentation. That's my favorite hacking scene. Dan, you got me with that Indiana Jones.

[Dan Rykert]

He says, this guy Says like that. The President says to Harrison Ford. He's basically trying to encourage Harrison Ford to play along with this cover up. And he says, it's the old Potomac two step. It's just how we do things like, I'm sorry, Mr. President, I don't dance. And then he leaves the Oval Office.

[Mike Minotti]

Pretty good.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I think it's clear Present Danger Better than Patriot Games, actually.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, Patriot Games is the one about the Irish.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Richard Harris plays the famous IRA leader, and then Sean Bean is the villain. And Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford.

[Jeff Grubb]

Hunt for the Red October. Hunt for the Red October is by far the best.

[Dan Rykert]

My family, my siblings and I argue about whether Hunt for Red October Clear and Present Danger or Patriot Games is better. They're all what? Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

What about some of. Some of all fears? Do people not care about that one anymore?

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't think they cared when it came out.

[Mary Kish]

Great.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

It's that character still, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

It's Jeff Bryant.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

What about the Chris Pine Jack Ryan one?

[Mary Kish]

Or the gym from the Office? Jack Ryan.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Hey, that. That first season was pretty good.

[Dan Rykert]

The Harrison, though. So the Harrison Ford episode of Conan O'Brien podcast was really good.

[Mary Kish]

Very Harris Conan were always amazing together.

[Jeff Grubb]

I adore Con Air, so I think I might actually put Con.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm weirdly like, put the bunny in the bag.

[Mary Kish]

It feels like the most meme movie ever. But it was sandwiched between the Rock and Face off and I was obsessed with the Rock and Face off and Conair. I just liked, you know, I like Conair. It's a lot of.

[Jeff Grubb]

I love Conor.

[Mary Kish]

Conor's a lot of fun. I would say if we're writing out a 10, the rock and Face off are both tens. Conair is an 8.5 where it's gone to 60 seconds. I'm not a car guy, so I never really cared about that one.

[Mike Minotti]

Wow. But, oh, it's so fun. Oh, I think that movie is so fun.

[Dan Rykert]

And then a car guy. But I like that movie.

[Mike Minotti]

If I'd say Rocketeer. If you don't let me have Rocketeer, then I'll say Pop Gun. Maverick.

[Jeff Grubb]

Airplane. Airplane's pretty good.

[Dan Rykert]

I do enjoy the airplane. And it's always Sunny. The Gang Beats Bogs episode, you have me watch that. They're just referencing all these movies because they're like Mac and Charlie. If there's anything that movies like Passenger 57 Executive Decision have taught me is that there's a hatch I can access to let me freely navigate the bowels of the plane.

[Mary Kish]

I'll even say Die Hard 2. I know Die Hard 2 isn't beloved, but Die Hard 2 does some fun playing stuff.

[Dan Rykert]

Can I admit I forgot about. I've seen Diego one, I think, 10 times. I have never. Oh, I've seen Live Free or Die Hard. I have never, never seen any other.

[Mike Minotti]

Die Hard movie with a vengeance. Die Hard.

[Jeff Grubb]

Incredible. Die Hard with a vengeance is incredible. Mike can make all the noises he wants. It's awesome.

[Mike Minotti]

Die Die Hard two's Die Harder, Die Vengeance is the third one.

[Mary Kish]

And then Live Die Hard is for.

[Mike Minotti]

I am admittedly, definitely more down on that than, like, 99% of people, apparently.

[Mary Kish]

I go 1, 4, 3, 2. And then I haven't seen five best.

[Mike Minotti]

TR 14235 is one of the worst movies I've ever.

[Mary Kish]

That's what I heard Tim Tur say. And Tim is a huge Die Hard mark. So I was like, if Tim says that, I don't need. No, that was a good day. Hard.

[Mike Minotti]

Another day.

[Mary Kish]

A good day to Die Hard.

[Mike Minotti]

I heard another day.

[Mary Kish]

No, you're another Day, which is a Bond.

[Dan Rykert]

James Bond. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That's an okay Bond movie.

[Jeff Grubb]

No.

[Mary Kish]

The invisible car and the laser and the. That's.

[Mike Minotti]

It has.

[Dan Rykert]

Back to life with diamond skin. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

That movie is stupid in a way that I like.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Best train movie. Sorry. Let's just do it. I like Unstoppable a lot.

[Mary Kish]

Under Siege two.

[Jeff Grubb]

I have. I. I'm gonna watch Under Siege two. I. Under Siege one is actually my number one guilty pleasure. I've never seen one.

[Mary Kish]

I've only seen two.

[Jeff Grubb]

Love Under Siege one. I watched that like 20 times. I love it.

[Dan Rykert]

I've been meaning to rewatch Snowpiercer recently.

[Jeff Grubb]

That bad? Probably the best.

[Mary Kish]

What is it? Train to Busan is the one.

[Dan Rykert]

Train to Busan's really good director.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, wait, we forgot about the plane one. Ho.

[Dan Rykert]

Done two train movies.

[Mary Kish]

What's that?

[Dan Rykert]

Bong Joon Ho. Has he trained to Busan?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, he did Snowpiercer too, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Did he train to Busan?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I train. Trains are great in movies.

[Dan Rykert]

Why did I think.

[Mary Kish]

No, he did not.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, did you see Source Code?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

That movie sounds good.

[Mary Kish]

Rules.

[Mike Minotti]

I love in it, he's the voice of the father.

[Mary Kish]

We forgot when we were talking about planes about Money Plane with Kelsey Grammer and I was going to bring it up Alligator.

[Dan Rykert]

We also forgot airplane.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, we did we.

[Jeff Grubb]

On a plane.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, no.

[Jeff Grubb]

I like. Yeah, Source Code. Unstoppable. What do you guys think about Bullet Train?

[Dan Rykert]

I seen it.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

There aren't enough.

[Dan Rykert]

Speaking of Bond, that dude in Bullet Train is rumored to be the next Bond or he. I mean there's the new person.

[Jeff Grubb]

He got a divorce from his like his wife and stuff. It was like apparently like a. A cradle robber. She's like much older and like was his man manager and stuff and people are very happy for him. I know way too much about this guy.

[Dan Rykert]

I can't remember something. Taylor Johnson or.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Aaron Terrell.

[Dan Rykert]

Taylor Johnson.

[Jeff Grubb]

He played quicksilver in the Avengers 2.

[Dan Rykert]

But he was also in Bullet Train.

[Mike Minotti]

But there he count Dumbo as a train movie. Why not? Casey Jr. Is very prominent in a Casey Junior's Coming Round.

[Mary Kish]

You sang this in the Germany travel.

[Jeff Grubb]

Money Train with Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.

[Mike Minotti]

Why is there a money train and a money plane everything?

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm just looking straight. Automobiles are also good.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh sure. But that's everything. That's why it's so good.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I did not see Murder on the Orient Express.

[Jeff Grubb]

New one Before Sunrise only has the beginning of the movies on a train. So I don't know if I count.

[Dan Rykert]

That what Bond was it. Was it Spectre? That had a big. A big sec.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, the David Good train scene.

[Mary Kish]

Had a train.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

The opening action sequence on the train. I think that was Spectre. That was.

[Mike Minotti]

I do not like the poor express. I find it very upsetting. I do not not like that weird motion capture.

[Dan Rykert]

I love Polar Express.

[Mike Minotti]

Really, it's. It's gross.

[Jeff Grubb]

The train scene in studio or in.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, spirit away.

[Jeff Grubb]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

That's really one of the best plays on your train. It's just not quite prominent enough. Right movie. But boy, it's close.

[Dan Rykert]

There should be more train movies.

[Mike Minotti]

I agree.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Train levels in video games rule. The end of Gears War 1, the end of Uncharted 2 and Uncharted Lost.

[Jeff Grubb]

Even though it's disappointing. Hitman's train level. I just like that I was on a train. So I gave. I gave.

[Mike Minotti]

But I was excited. I was on a train.

[Dan Rykert]

I wish they were Timesplitters Future Perfect had a train level as well.

[Mary Kish]

Oh yeah. You see, they added trophies to time splitters on PlayStation. I'm about to be on a shoot Bullet Train for the first time soon.

[Jeff Grubb]

And gee, I wonder where you're going.

[Mary Kish]

Is that not a concept? That is in many places.

[Dan Rykert]

There's only one who could say there's high speed trains.

[Mary Kish]

But yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be on a high speed train. Could be I'm going to Denmark. But I'm very excited.

[Mike Minotti]

Denmark should be the second place to get a boot.

[Mary Kish]

Is there only one Bullet Train?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, I think there's one that's referred to as the Bullet train.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. We'll try to figure it out. Doing an arg. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I'll never tell.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I'm very excited, though, because TR trains are cool as hell.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm not gonna ask what your favorite car movie is. I'm gonna ask, is there a better.

[Jeff Grubb]

They are in multiple places. I'm sorry. They're not very many, but they are.

[Mary Kish]

I'm in one of those. I'm in one of the. Like, under. Like.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're going to Saudi Arabia.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're gonna make a big deal for fandom.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm not gonna ask what your favorite car movie is. I'm gonna ask, is there a better car movie than Mad Max Fury?

[Mike Minotti]

Road Ward vs Ferrari is like an ultimate dad movie. And I'm not even a dad. But I never feel more like a dad than when I'm watching.

[Mary Kish]

That's correct. Drive.

[Dan Rykert]

Wait. Drive.

[Mary Kish]

Why am I drive with gossip?

[Jeff Grubb]

I.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay, this is, like. This is really a hot take. I hated that movie.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay. I loved it when I first saw it. I watched it all the time. I'm the exact demographic. I'm sure you're not surprised. I liked it. I rewatched it, like, two years ago. My wife saw it for the first time, and maybe it was because I was seeing it through her eyes for the first time. That movie is a bit cringy nowadays, really. Yeah, I bet.

[Mike Minotti]

I bet it is.

[Dan Rykert]

It's tough. So many of the scenes are just. Is it Carrie Fiser, Carrie Mulligan and Ryan Gosling staring at each other? And then I think that soundtrack has become so, like. Has been mean so many times. The real.

[Jeff Grubb]

Kind of a parody of itself at this point.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

But we rewatched Baby Driver a few weeks ago.

[Jeff Grubb]

I hated that.

[Dan Rykert]

I hated.

[Jeff Grubb]

Baby Driver is amazing.

[Dan Rykert]

I loved it this time.

[Mary Kish]

I don't like that.

[Dan Rykert]

I was on board for what it was doing. The energy, the. Just like the.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, you do have to get on board.

[Mary Kish]

He was trying to show off. It's like, who's my playlist? It's like a guy at a party who's like, check out my music taste, you know?

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I don't.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't. I generally don't like Ansel Al Gore, but the movie just like. It was so. Like Infection.

[Jeff Grubb]

I like Rush the. Not for Versus Ferrari, the other racing movie about. I think the Australian guy and the German guy.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Rush is a really good racing movie.

[Mike Minotti]

I'll just say again, I do like on 60 seconds a lot.

[Mary Kish]

Fast and Furious. Obviously a Speed racer.

[Jeff Grubb]

Speed Racer is actually probably the best.

[Mike Minotti]

That's one that I haven't seen that I bet I would love. I never saw either of the Italian Jobs, and I know those are well liked.

[Dan Rykert]

I like the Italian Job.

[Mary Kish]

Death Proof is kind of fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

Actually. My favorite car movie is Tucker the Man in his Dream with Jeff Bridges about the Tucker car company that was in Chicago. And they like how the Detroit automakers, like, shut it down.

[Mary Kish]

It sounds like a movie. It's.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Francis Ford Coppola. Very much dad movie. Anytime it was on tv, I would watch it. And. Yeah, I love Tucker. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I see.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's one where it's like, I will sometimes be, like, gonna go watch that on my plex and just put on Tucker and that'll be my night.

[Mike Minotti]

Did anybody see the Ferrari movie?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's good. It's good.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, it's.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, I haven't.

[Mary Kish]

I like Michael Mayer.

[Mike Minotti]

It's a bit weird. It has, like. It's mostly just a drama with, like, sudden bursts of extreme violence.

[Mary Kish]

Oh. There is one part where it's like, oh, my God.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

That was a shocking. Pretty shocking.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, Grand Tourismo. Overall, how. How would you forget?

[Mike Minotti]

I want to see it.

[Jeff Grubb]

I do, actually. Should have made that joke about Aaron Paul's need for speed.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Drive Angry.

[Mike Minotti]

I kind of want to see that.

[Mary Kish]

I love Drive Angry. The Nicholas.

[Mike Minotti]

I think Mar's probably right. It's probably Fur road.

[Jeff Grubb]

Fury road's actually probably it.

[Mike Minotti]

But I really kind of like I.

[Dan Rykert]

Was going to watch Furiosa on a plane recently, I didn't watch it good. I watched seven, and there was a. Every once in a while, while I had to, like, look around to make sure people weren't looking at my screen.

[Mary Kish]

I love seven.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, it's awesome. It's just like, there's some to the airplane.

[Mike Minotti]

Like, that's not like, generally my thing. Like a seven, Right? Like, kind of like dark.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

You only take tens, but, like, I get it. Wow.

[Mike Minotti]

Sevens of nine.

[Mary Kish]

It's like the five of seven. You gave exactly my favorite rating scale.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, there. There's there's probably more. Car. Oh, cars.

[Mike Minotti]

Oh, cars.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, cars.

[Mike Minotti]

One's fine. Cars two is terrible. Surprisingly fine.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Cars two is just. It's a spy movie starring the comedic sidekick from the last movie who, as a doofus comedic sidekick, is incapable of character growth. So, like, he's Just kind of stumbling through situates. It's a bad movie.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, it's like a whole episode of Mr. Magoo, but as a feature show, it really is.

[Mike Minotti]

It's like I like the live action Mr. Magoo way more than this.

[Dan Rykert]

All right, you guys want to do emails?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Mike Minotti]

I guess so.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Okay. As always, you can write into firescapecastmail.com that is firescapecastmail.com any questions, comments, concerns, corrections for Dan and Mary. I don't ever need corrections, so. So don't worry about that.

[Mary Kish]

But if you want on Twitter, just.

[Jeff Grubb]

Send the ones from a Hardy send to Mike Minati.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes, you can send in questions. We read on air. We have two tonight. The first is from Katie from Knoxville. High Fire Escapaders. I love listening to you all every couple of weeks. I've recently been playing Kingdom Hearts 2 again. I'm fascinated by the story, but have a hard time piecing it together after bits of combat. I tend to forget once I'm actively playing. Replaying the game was spurred by Snowbike Mike from Kinda Funny and his Kingdom Hearts playthroughs. I've started looking into books that explain the lore because I tend to remember more about a story if I read it. So my question is, has a story from a series or franchise ever intrigued you so much that you want to inhale as much of the lore as possible? Also, I guess this would be more for Minati if they didn't say that specifically. But also if you have recs for good reading material, Kingdom Hearts, I'm here for it again. Love you guys. That is Katie from Knoxville.

[Jeff Grubb]

Huh.

[Mike Minotti]

So in terms of reading material for, for Kingdom Hearts, there is like a manga version of I think most of the games or manga. Excuse me. So I was going to check that out.

[Dan Rykert]

It's manga.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, we were all going to come on.

[Mike Minotti]

We were waiting, everybody. So you know what?

[Mary Kish]

That gets a triple D.

[Mike Minotti]

So you know, if you play, if you read that, you can kind of take it out at its own pace and it's a little bit different. So that's funny. They brought up that Snowbike Mike stream because it is incredible.

[Mary Kish]

It's got very funny.

[Jeff Grubb]

If you want to get into the lore, just go watch one of the incredibly long YouTube videos.

[Dan Rykert]

There's a lot coming.

[Mike Minotti]

Ones that also like do explain the lore, but they're very funny too. So those are, those are a good way of doing it. Yeah, I get, get a little bit into the lore sometimes things. I mean, even still, even though I Love Lord of the Rings and know a lot of it. There are some very good Lord of the Rings lore channels and the lore there goes so deep right into things that like, you know, are more in the summer really in and whatnot. So I love those little lore videos about Middle Earth still. But I did like a few for Elden Ring when. When that was happening. I know some of those were very popular. Super deep in there. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

I was going to say from software. I mean it's also a result of how from software tells their stories. They. They intentionally are obfuscating most of it and then drip feeding in items and just like passing conversations. But yeah, there's. There's devotee video does really good stuff and then to more way back in the day turn me on to who was the one that does the bloodborne. I don't know. I'll find it. But there's. There's. Yeah, I think it's fatividya. Okay. But yeah, from software I got really obsessed with. The obvious answer is like I wasn't into Warhammer until I played Total War Warhammer 2. I didn't play the first. I demoed the first game for a preview for Gamespot and I had never played a Total War before. Embarrassed myself and then played two and then at that point went back to the historical games. But that's what got me into Warhammer Fantasy because I'm seeing every unit from the tabletop game in their digital form.

[Jeff Grubb]

But they got you into Warhammer and Total War. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Jeez.

[Jeff Grubb]

Wow.

[Mary Kish]

That's a potent moment for you.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. There's a reason that's like all I talk and think about sometimes. Because both of those things are pretty complex things to dive into.

[Mary Kish]

You should have told me about it.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. I just kind of. I usually keep my interest in myself and don't raise brave about them.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I can. I can help you out though. The lore's not that confusing in Kingdom Hearts too. You know when. When Sora stabbed himself with Riku's Keyblade in Hollow Bastion and released his Heartless, that also simultaneously created his Nobody, Roxas. So then Roxas kind of woke up on his own and ended up joining Organization 13, whose goal was to assemble Kingdom Hearts so that they could find their own hearts because. Because they didn't have to be clear. Heartless have hearts. Nobodies don't have hearts.

[Dan Rykert]

Kingdom Hearts 2 begins with your Roxas and you're in. You're in this like bizarro sun drenched town and you're eating these blue popsicles.

[Mike Minotti]

It turns out you're in a computer simulation.

[Mary Kish]

Mike. Listen. You have three sentences sum up the trilogy of Kingdom Hearts.

[Mike Minotti]

The power of friendship wins. I only need one.

[Jeff Grubb]

Roxas is Sora with an X.

[Mary Kish]

True. Is that like evil Sora?

[Mike Minotti]

No, not evil. In fact, he's pretty cool. We like Roxas. Roxas is a good.

[Mary Kish]

How do I smile? Mike?

[Dan Rykert]

I, I have very fond memories of Kingdom Hearts.

[Mike Minotti]

That is so man. Honestly, Marty. It's been so long since I've talked to somebody excited like Cam who likes.

[Mary Kish]

Kingdom I. Dude, I spell Roxyx again.

[Dan Rykert]

R O X A S I know Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I had, I had my period. Never played three.

[Mike Minotti]

Three's fun. It's, it's a little easy. And the story does get very stupid.

[Dan Rykert]

Star wars night.

[Mike Minotti]

No, Star wars will probably be a rumor. Yeah. In the one that trailers they show like for a second what looks like Endor. So it'll probably be Kingdom Hearts 2 was definitely just one of my favorite games ever. I actually legitimately love it.

[Dan Rykert]

Once Kingdom Hearts 1 gets going, it's phenomenal. Also I still listen to Traverse Town music.

[Mike Minotti]

Everyone oh those soundtracks. Like even Jeff will have to give respect to the soundtracks because you love Yoko Shimamura.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. No I, I that's a really good soundtrack.

[Dan Rykert]

I like the theming of all the levels.

[Jeff Grubb]

I just didn't enjoy playing that game composer. I got frustrated very often. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Mahardi, have you hidden this for this long that I had no idea you'd even played Kingdom Hearts.

[Dan Rykert]

I, I I contain multitudes and you don't.

[Mike Minotti]

I know that you have to keep talking. He's like talking about experimenting with crack in college.

[Mary Kish]

Well, it makes me a little concerned.

[Dan Rykert]

What?

[Mary Kish]

But yeah, I've never heard you mention.

[Mike Minotti]

It'S a very popular series. Lots of people have played Kingdom Hearts.

[Jeff Grubb]

That doesn't make it okay.

[Mary Kish]

There is a ferver among Kingdom Hearts fans that I look, I get being a big fan of a franchise and stuff, but I have been in the same room as people when like a new Kingdom Hearts trailer is announced and their reaction to it is like Reddit.

[Dan Rykert]

Does not like this.

[Mary Kish]

Who doesn't?

[Dan Rykert]

Reddit does not like when you on I understand excitement.

[Jeff Grubb]

I've certainly they should be better games.

[Mary Kish]

If you showed a new Metal Gear or something, I'd be like, oh, that's Naomi. That's it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh my God.

[Mary Kish]

Raiden's got this or whatever. But I Have seen people have like.

[Jeff Grubb]

Reactions that are religious experiences.

[Mike Minotti]

Like, like Oprah just gave you a car reaction.

[Mary Kish]

Way beyond like, I cried at the Twilight Princess. Those type of reactions, you know, like.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm not at that level. I just really, for a while I, I had a Kingdom Hearts, like Kingdom Hearts one and two. Especially one. I, I, I think I've played three times. I really enjoy it.

[Mary Kish]

What is that? You're not a Disney guy. What, what's your deal here?

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know.

[Mike Minotti]

Good action RPG's.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Once they get out of their own way and they stop stopping the game every 10 minutes for a cutscene, they. The action gets pretty satisfying. The like, actual, like building out your character, your party is fun. The boss battles, the scale and the scope are really impressive.

[Mike Minotti]

Dark Duck is in your team as a mage.

[Dan Rykert]

That game, like, has a really good sense, sense of like, atmosphere everywhere you go.

[Mary Kish]

And I, I don't, I'm sure.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, it's the Metroid prime of. Yeah. Action RPGs.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

With Donald Duck in them.

[Dan Rykert]

But I'm not like a Die Hard of them, but Kingdom Hearts one, I. For a while, I think I considered one of my favorite games, but I'm not, I don't know. It's weird. I'm not a Kingdom Hearts person per se.

[Mary Kish]

I understand.

[Mike Minotti]

I mean, look, it definitely. I understand. People fell off after two when it was like five spin offs that like, you thought you didn't have to play because they didn't have the number three in there.

[Dan Rykert]

I played Dreams.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. Then it turns out that they're all super integral to the story. And the story kept getting more and more complicated. When Dream Drop Distance introduced time travel. It was kind of a. Oh, come on. What are we doing here?

[Dan Rykert]

12 I played.

[Mike Minotti]

It's like a pretty early 3Ds game.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Drop distance 3D.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah. 3D is the three dumps.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

There it is.

[Mary Kish]

I can't relate to Lore. Video games getting more complicated as it goes on. Anyway, my answer to this question is Metal Gear Solid. That is the only answer to this question. Even Zelda, which is part of like my holy trinity, is Mario Zelda. Metal Gear. People talk about oh so unique Zelda time. Yeah, I know. I like the underground bands like the Beatles.

[Dan Rykert]

I love making games. And we don't talk about this enough. Nintendo.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Nintendo makes some good ones. Yeah. So. But like Zelda, I don't give a about the Lore. I've never cared. I've never cared.

[Jeff Grubb]

This link, I'm looking at my top 100 games list. And I don't think any of these. I care about the lore.

[Mary Kish]

No, the only one is Metal Gear, and that's the one where it's like, oh, there's like, a little book in the first one. The. In the Darkness of Shadow Moses. And I'm going to read every word of this. I'm going to read, like, breakdowns of, like, I've beaten Metal Gear Solid two so many times. By the time I read this, like, Junker HQ thing, which is, like, a whole thing about the symbolism and what this game meant. And me like, oh, my God, this is, like, blowing my mind. What this is actually doing Metal Gear. I want to go all the way in on all the time and literally with nothing else. Although Warhammer is tickling something with me.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah. Warhammer's definitely the. Maybe the closest.

[Mike Minotti]

How much did you. How much do you love. Just, like, that timeline at the end of Metal Gear Solid four, right? Or.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, there's the one. There was a separate app you could Download on the PS3 that was just a timeline that you could just go around and see, like, okay, this one. Ocelot did this and. Oh, it's the best shit.

[Mike Minotti]

Jeff, have you ever cared about lore outside of Star wars for anything?

[Jeff Grubb]

No, not. I mean, I, like, I played Armored Core 6, and that didn't make me care about. I really like the story in that game. I know a lot of people, like, dismiss it, but I think it's incredible.

[Mike Minotti]

How the story ruled in that game.

[Jeff Grubb]

Really good storytelling. I thought it was really right up my alley. And a lot of that is, like, I always think about that moment where it's like, you get hired to do a mission, and then you go down a corridor, and then all the invisible people that hired you to do a mission actually attack you instead. And it's like, oh, that rules.

[Mike Minotti]

And then you have to like a good game.

[Jeff Grubb]

You have to battle against. Then you have to fight your way out of that corridor. And I'm like, this is good. And then that made me really want to be, like, understand what was going on, that story. But that led me to, like, I think I'm gonna watch Gundam, that I do that sort of thing. I. And then, like, not lore. This is just history, but Forgotten City and Pentament both made me, like, interested more in, like, Roman history.

[Mary Kish]

What about Golden Idol and stuff like that where you have to kind of learn the lore of the game. It's not a historical thing, but, like, you have to know, like, this family history and all that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, anything where it's like that's, that's also like pentiment and stuff like that. Any game where it's like the, the ongoings of the world are part of how you need to think about the game to understand the mechanics. I love that.

[Dan Rykert]

Why the fuck am I blanking on the murder mystery on the ship?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, you love corporate Dim Oberdan Return.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, Obra Dinn. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Dan Rykert]

12 minutes has come up the last three episodes in a row and it's.

[Mike Minotti]

Always fans Princess stories.

[Dan Rykert]

Jesus Christ tells me that all the time.

[Mary Kish]

That's my thing.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, I had something else. Just another game related. No, another game came to mind that the lore I got into, I used to care.

[Mike Minotti]

Care. I used to kind of care about Warcraft lore for a bit there. Then Shadowlands Jump jump the ship so much. Although I've been enjoying the War within story. So maybe I'll be back.

[Dan Rykert]

Speaking of the War within, oddly enough Warframe had an expansion, the War within, which is what got me into Warframe lore. And Warframe, like Warframe puts much of his lore front and center. However, there's a lot that's kind of hidden around in like little codexes and what whatnot.

[Mike Minotti]

Like I like FOF Izzy 14 Teens lore, but it's so extensively covered in the game that I don't need outside material for it.

[Dan Rykert]

Actually Dan, I don't know if we talked about this Warframe. Much of its lore can be traced back to an event horizon type incident on a spaceship where a bunch of kids were the only survivors of this. They basically encountered hell and then they came back and were able to control their eyes out. No, these kids came back and they were the only ones that control these like assassin ro. Robot ninjas.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay, Warframes.

[Mary Kish]

That sounds pretty cool.

[Jeff Grubb]

Kirby's dream course. I like the lore in that.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, explain it.

[Jeff Grubb]

You go in the hole, you in a hole talk. Yeah, actually I am like going back and forth on my top 100. I, I, I always like the suggestion of the lore of Castlevania where it's like all these acolytes are bringing back Dracula and now sometimes they're doing it in the near future. And that's why my character a handgun. That's where I'm at vibe though.

[Mary Kish]

It's like, I don't know, I played every Castlevania Metroid style like and, and it's, I don't know what the happening in any of them other than oh no Dracula.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right. But, but anytime they start talking about that stuff, it's contributing to that vibe, which is where I like my lore to be.

[Dan Rykert]

I do like.

[Mike Minotti]

Like, in Portrait of Rue, and, like, the one character from, like, Calvinia bloodlines on the Genesis shows up in a po. Like, yeah, that's kind of neat.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's kind of neat. That's. That's as Muchard, I think. Yeah. I think for me, a lot of times, lore just feels like it gets in the way of what I want from a video game, you know, Then I see Metroid Dread. And I liked a lot of the payoff of the ongoing lore in that game was really good, actually.

[Mary Kish]

But also, there's stuff like Mario where it's like, there's almost no time given to, like, lore or anything. But, like, because there's just so many games and so many characters that, like, you have to kind of create your own weird lore of, like, oh, wait, we saw Mario's parents in Yoshi's island. And then, okay, so war. Here's their deal. What's that?

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, but he's actually from Brooklyn. Good. And then the wildest thing is Mario Galaxy 2 not being a storyline sequel to Mario Galaxy 1 and instead is like, maybe a reboot, except that it has so little regard for the story. Mar1. I think calling it a reboot is even generous.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

It's more of a cast of characters and enemies and locations. And, like, I just kind of like.

[Mike Minotti]

That there's like, every other Mario games, like, we were going to the new neighboring kingdom, and there's been 20 of them at this point. Like, that would. Brothership was like the kingdom where we. Everybody is a. An electrical outlet. I don't know you.

[Mary Kish]

I care more about whether the Koopalings are Bowser's kids than I do like anything that's ever happened in the Last of Us. You know, I like a game where.

[Jeff Grubb]

It'S like, I'm, like, shocked to learn something's been happening the whole time. Like trials. Evolution, I think it was, or Charles Fusion.

[Mary Kish]

Fusion was the robot one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Where it's like, wait, what? What are the robot. Is the robot trying to me. What is happening?

[Mike Minotti]

Portal was like that where you didn't really think Lore story.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. And that is part of the overall lore of those games. Yeah. That's a good example.

[Dan Rykert]

Well, thank you, Katie. Dan, do you want to read this one from Brad?

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

It's also about Kingdom hearts.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yep.

[Mary Kish]

It is not. Hey, gang. I know you all also experience photic sneeze reflex, where bright light can trigger a sneeze, but did you know that it's also called autosumal dominant compelling Hel. Ophthalmolic outburst syndrome.

[Jeff Grubb]

Shortened. Castlevania collection actually shortened.

[Mary Kish]

That is Achoo syndrome. Have you ever had really good or really bad timing for a sneeze? Sl. Burp. Sl Fart. Brad and Phoenix.

[Mike Minotti]

I had not heard of this until Dan, you told me about it when we were in London. Real.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, Marrying me. Also, it's. It doesn't sound as strong with me. Like it only works like 60% of the time. But Mary.

[Mary Kish]

Both every time. And then when I explain it to someone that doesn't have it, they think I'm bullshitting them. But it is like if I am walking from a store at 2pm into the parking lot and the sun is shining down, like. Like I'm going to sneeze like crazy. Like you bonk stand it a million times and even like indoor lights and stuff can do it. But yeah, I think it's like a third of the population has the gene, but maybe there's different, you know, severities of it. But I super have it. But am I the only one on here that has No.

[Dan Rykert]

I. I do too.

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't have it.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, Grub. You have it and I do not. You do not. Ma hardy does.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Me, you and Mary have talked about all having it, but it sounds like you have it more. Sometimes if I need to sneeze and I. It's like I can feel the sneeze going away. I can look at like a light bulb and it will trigger it.

[Mary Kish]

No, that'll totally work. But like, if I need it, I'll walk over to this door and I'll look up at the sun and just like, oh, there it is.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

What would be the funniest thing to trigger sneezing?

[Dan Rykert]

Ejaculation. I was going to say coming would be good.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, wait, no, let's go down this path here. Yeah. What would be the funniest thing that would trigger coming or farting?

[Jeff Grubb]

Sneezing.

[Mary Kish]

You sneeze and you come and you fart every time there was a word. Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's like, what do you take for that? Pepper.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

But I still have photic sneeze reflex. So I walk into a parking lot and I sneeze, come and purr.

[Jeff Grubb]

What's the medicine you take for that? I walk in the parking lot, I look up at the sun every 10 minutes. Sneeze.

[Dan Rykert]

Comfort. Holy shit.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, would anyone all of those feel good independently?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You know, like, would that just be awesome? Would that be the only thing that makes me feel.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's why I'm taking Pepper.

[Dan Rykert]

Is that just what like G spot orgasms feel like farting. And that's what happens.

[Mary Kish]

Parking lot at like TJ Maxx.

[Mike Minotti]

I was more like, I don't know.

[Mary Kish]

Every.

[Mike Minotti]

Every time you get the check, you seize or something. I don't know what I was thinking about.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, man.

[Mary Kish]

What would be super inconvenient?

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean like an email.

[Mary Kish]

Every time somebody hand. Oh, what did you say? Mani. You said something like when you.

[Jeff Grubb]

Every time you get the check.

[Mary Kish]

Get a check. All right. That is a good one. Or. Or a receipt.

[Mike Minotti]

Like every time somebody tells you never.

[Dan Rykert]

You'll never get a second date ever.

[Jeff Grubb]

Someone says, that was a really nice time. And then boom.

[Mary Kish]

Every time a dog barks anywhere in.

[Dan Rykert]

The world, whether you can hear it.

[Mike Minotti]

Or not, the dog parks, you sneeze.

[Mary Kish]

Dog barks.

[Mike Minotti]

Because you see, just go forever.

[Mary Kish]

Back and forth, parting, coming, sneezing.

[Jeff Grubb]

Whenever Miyamoto says, please be excited, that's when it's direct.

[Mary Kish]

When they snap.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Anytime you see a dead body to wakes would be already.

[Jeff Grubb]

Come on.

[Dan Rykert]

You know, any wake you're at, you sneeze, come fart.

[Mike Minotti]

God.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, why did it turn into snoozing, coming and partying every time?

[Dan Rykert]

Cuz you mentioned it.

[Jeff Grubb]

I thought it was you that did that.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, you did. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

They don't all have to be that.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, okay.

[Jeff Grubb]

Well, ideally you're right. It wouldn't be that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I don't want that. No.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

God.

[Dan Rykert]

What would that. I feel like you would if you. Okay, actually, scientifically speaking, I think if you sneezed and came and farted at the same time, you're not farting 90% of the time. You're also. Your pants. There's no way if you're doing those two other things, you're not going to be able to control your body is.

[Jeff Grubb]

Loosening its valves to that degree. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

Every time left.

[Mary Kish]

Every time you hear a car honk and you live in New York City.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, no Siren.

[Mike Minotti]

My least thing about being wearing diapers, all the honking. I'm like, I heard more honking today than like I have ever honked in my life. I could never. You know, it was anxiety because we'd even think about honking at somebody. No way.

[Jeff Grubb]

You guys. You guys understand. Like there was this a thing like those honk if you're horny things on the back of cars where it was like they're doing that. So when you honk at them, if you're mad. It's like, oh, I'm saying I'm horny instead. It's like, you got you deterrent.

[Mary Kish]

I never put that together. That's.

[Mike Minotti]

Me neither. It took.

[Jeff Grubb]

It took me quite a bit to realize that as well.

[Mary Kish]

I guess I never stopped and thought about it because, like, it would be weird to just be like, tell me you're horny with your car.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right? Like, and if there's a bunch of them, like, honk if you, you know, think kittens are cool. And, like, there's all kinds of.

[Mary Kish]

For whatever.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, exactly. Yes. So it's like, you can't honk at me if you're mad at me because then you're saying this.

[Mary Kish]

You're just being a weirdo, saying you're horny in your car.

[Jeff Grubb]

Right? Exactly.

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Jeff Grubb]

So it's like a. Yeah, I don't.

[Dan Rykert]

Think I put that together either.

[Mary Kish]

That's kind of cool.

[Jeff Grubb]

Took me a while. Yes.

[Mary Kish]

Good.

[Mike Minotti]

Honk if you want to. You can leave your friends behind.

[Jeff Grubb]

Go on.

[Mike Minotti]

Friends don't dance in. They don't dance in there. No, friends of mine.

[Jeff Grubb]

Thank you.

[Mike Minotti]

You're welcome.

[Jeff Grubb]

And if that anyone sings that, then you come sneezing fart, right?

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Mike Minotti]

Come sneeze and fart if you want to Leave your friends behind.

[Jeff Grubb]

Whether you want to or not, it's going to happen.

[Dan Rykert]

What if. What if it was. Every time you make a donation, it triggers that. So imagine like, your friends trying to get current, your friend's trying to get you to donate to, like, a good cause, and you're like, I. I can't explain why.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sexual harassment, sir.

[Mike Minotti]

Do you want to round up your total today to feed starving kid?

[Jeff Grubb]

No.

[Dan Rykert]

And then you accidentally press yes. And then just like every time the.

[Mary Kish]

Please silence your cell phone thing comes up before a movie.

[Dan Rykert]

Just rip shred ass to answer the question.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah?

[Jeff Grubb]

What was the question?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, have you ever had really good or really bad timing for a sneeze.

[Dan Rykert]

Burp fart we talked about in last episode? My airplane fart was pretty. It would have been embarrassing if I get. If I, like, had that bone in my body. But also, people were asleep. I don't need to retell. Well, I guess Jeff and Mike weren't here. I was falling asleep in my. My seat. You know, like how. But I didn't have a pillow or anything, and I was in an aisle seat. My head bobbed really hard and woke me up and I farted as I jolted awake. It was on a red eye and I looked around and everybody was sleeping. Or had headphones in. Except for one.

[Jeff Grubb]

Loud enough, right? Yeah. Where it's probably gonna get washed away.

[Dan Rykert]

It was loud fart though. And like only one person farting a.

[Jeff Grubb]

Lot of my last flight.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, my. My best fart in my life was me waking up. We were at my brother's apartment. My other brother was already up and we already like do jokes where, you know, so in Final Fantasy the spell levels, there's fire and there's fira and firaga. So there's fart and farta and fartaga. But we no one had, no one would ever dating that we would dare claim was a fartaga. We never came close. There's a lot of fartas.

[Mary Kish]

So you held onto that. You made, you made a count, right? Like, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

So like that morning though, like I just woke up. Like I let one rip. It woke people up in the next room.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

My brother says, looked at me and I had the biggest grin on my face. Like it was like, you know, without saying, I was like, that was it.

[Mary Kish]

That was far.

[Mike Minotti]

We did it, everybody.

[Dan Rykert]

Mary, Jake and I were in the guest room at Dan's house for Game of the Year last year. And I woke up at like 7am and was holding them in for a bit. And I was in the bottom bunk. I was like, I don't, I don't care. And I start ripping ass. Jake and Mary were both laughing. I think it was the reaction you want, right? Yeah, I've been doing a lot of long farts lately. Like eight seconds, right? I'm getting, I'm getting better at them.

[Mary Kish]

Good.

[Jeff Grubb]

Sphincter control.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, Yeah, I got sphincter control.

[Mike Minotti]

That's a pretty good one recently. And I don't know if it's because of COVID or the Covenant medicine, but I was really letting him rip there for a bit.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that. That Pax load will do is doing that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

Vaccines.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, he's the back.

[Dan Rykert]

You think Bill Gates putting the shot into your sphincter?

[Jeff Grubb]

Uh huh. Bill Gates controls the sphincters.

[Mary Kish]

I promise. The story ends with parts my dad frequently brings up. There have been a lot of times my dad and I have drunk together and we've both gotten very drunk. And frequently one of us got drunker than the other. This is one where he came to pick me up from a thing and he was relatively sober. It was my 10 year high school reunion. I went back to Kansas City and I just, you know, I wasn't super social in high school. So it's like I was just Kind of curious to see what everyone was up to and like none of the people actually. Anyway, I got really drunk and my dad came to pick me up at the Kansas City Power and Light District. And as he's like helping me out, I'm in full blown. This is 2012. I'm just driving drunk. As he says, I met you. We're. Oh yeah, we're walking down the sidewalk in Kansas City. And I guess it was just one thing after another of him thinking I was gonna get us killed. There was like, I guess a biker dude that was walking like in an alley that had like tattoos all over his head and face and everything and a leather like cut and all that. And I guess my dad's like kind of like helped me walk by him and I just point in the guy's face and I go, you're tough. Then we kept going like the next block. There was a girl on her cell phone talking and she was like clear like she was like having like a screaming contest with like a boyfriend or an ex boyfriend. And I guess I was just like, it's fine, it'll all be fine, it's fine. Until she like turned around, was like, shut the fuck up. Like, so it was just like one thing after another, my dad being like, you're going to get us fucking killed. And so you wind up. There's a picture of me from this night just like passed the out in his backseat. And he had to give me telling.

[Jeff Grubb]

You these stories because you don't remember this night, right?

[Mary Kish]

I. I wasn't like fully blacked out or anything, but I was drunker than I've been in many, many years. I don't drink that much these days. And we get back to. We went to a bar and we met up to a girl he had just started dating at this time, this woman. And like this. Oh no, I had heard about this one for a while. He'd been dating her for a few weeks. And we met, met at the Red Balloon, this bar that my mom and dad met at. And I guess I was just so fucked up that it was like, okay, we gotta get him out of here. And they like kind of brought me back to the car, take it back, back to dad's place. And then to get. They just wanna get me inside and throw me on a couch so I just pass out. And so it's me in the center, arms around dad here. We got his new lady here. And we're walking up like there's like, you know, 12 to 15 steps going up to his place, and he said, every single step I've heard it.

[Jeff Grubb]

He said it.

[Mary Kish]

He remembers thinking it was the funniest thing in the world, but he didn't want to laugh because he just started dating. So he's like, God damn it. This is so funny. I can't be laughing at how stupid. Here's my son. Oh, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

That's incredible.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's beautiful.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

I never. Yeah, I got. I've got pretty drunk. I never got blackout drunk. I never. I don't know if that's a thing.

[Mary Kish]

It's been a long time.

[Mike Minotti]

I never remember, like, waking up, being like, I don't even know what happened.

[Mary Kish]

It's a bad enough feeling to where it will really make you think, like, oh, I remember the last time. I think last time I blacked out, I think, was that fucking pax where I told you I've been at Buffalo Wild Wings for, like, the whole weekend in Seattle. And it was just seriously a thing where I was just like. People kept showing up, and I kept drinking, and I just, like, blacked out at one point. And then I woke up in my room. It was the. The night before the. The night before the packs, where everyone threw hot dogs at me and. Because I was, like, puking that morning. But I woke up, and I don't remember leaving Buffalo Wild Wings. And I just remember being like, holy. Like, I wound up back home. But, like, there's this gap of time. I don't know how many hours I remember talking to people, like. Because it turns out, like, Ben Pack helped me get back to the hotel room and stuff and asking him, like, is everything. I do remember what he said, because I was worried, like, I. What did. What does Blackout Dan do? I don't. I wasn't there mentally.

[Mike Minotti]

I'm scared, too, thinking about it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And I asked Ben Pack, and he was like, you mainly talked a lot about how much you love being married, you know? Okay. All right. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. I. I won a bottle tequila in a bet, and everyone sat down with me, and basically I took every shot with someone else. So I drank probably half a bottle of tequila and that they told me I jumped into a trash can and I tried to drive somewhere. Like, not, like, just a trash. I jumped into, like, a big dumpster outside our apartment complex. And. And then the rest of the story is. I don't know. And then I woke up my bed the next day.

[Mary Kish]

But it's. Did you have the same. Like. Oh, God. What?

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, yeah, no, it's not happened since Then. And that was 20 years ago. Like, pretty close.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm so glad that I Legitimate ones in my life. And, like, the first time, I was like, I'm never doing this again. Then the second time, of course, like, just happened. I was like, all right, this is. This is enough for me to.

[Jeff Grubb]

There are a couple where there was, like, I definitely lost the bodily control, but I remember everything.

[Mary Kish]

I rather brown out or whatever they call it.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. Like a birthday where it's like, oh, we got to get him home. And I'm like, why? I remember all this. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

Back when I did drink, like, more like I would just get sick or just fall asleep before then. And this point, I'll just get a headache before I can even get close to that point now.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

But no, my. My. My inopportune farting was probably the time I lulled off to sleep heavily.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Lulled off to sleep heavily on the plane.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, that's a. Oh.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, the plane one.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. I. I jolted awake falling asleep on the plane. I guess you can't really lull.

[Jeff Grubb]

I only fart at the most opportune times.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So, yeah, a lot of mine targeted.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah. I picked my moments. Yeah. I've also awoken. I woke Steph up when we were earlier, when we were dating, she was on the other side of the wall, and it, like, vibrated the couch she was sitting on.

[Mary Kish]

So, you know, a real fun thing to do as a married guy with pets is like, you know, I'll think bonk is, you know, out of your shot, and I'll just let one rip and then be like, oh, nice. You know, it's like, oh, blame it on Gizmo. You know?

[Dan Rykert]

Do you try to do it out of earshot of.

[Mary Kish]

She definitely doesn't, like, care, but I think I just. There is a part of me that's just like, I don't just want to be tearing ass all day in the.

[Jeff Grubb]

House, you know, it's mostly subconscious. Mostly.

[Dan Rykert]

Amanda listens to this podcast, so I can't really say. Yeah, me neither. I never do.

[Mike Minotti]

Hi, Amanda. I'm Mike. Nice to meet you.

[Dan Rykert]

I never see a Patreon subscriber.

[Mary Kish]

Can she see you aggressively winking right now?

[Dan Rykert]

I never. Absolutely not in the same room to make her laugh.

[Mary Kish]

Ever.

[Dan Rykert]

The long farts are definitely not for her entertainment. Ever. I go outside. I go for walks to fart.

[Mike Minotti]

I love farting for my nephew. He thinks it's very funny. His mom, not so much. She'll get mad at me, which just kind of makes It a little funnier.

[Dan Rykert]

There's definitely not rules for where I'm actually strictly not allowed to fart in the apartment. Definitely not. Definitely, definitely not.

[Mary Kish]

I allow myself to fart with abandon in a situation like this where it's like, oh, it'd be funny if the mic picked it up or something. But there's no one in this room. I definitely. I've scaled it back as I've gotten older. You know, there's the Ben Hansen stories, like, oh, I thought it was funny when he poured his coffee out because I farted in the same room as it. But, like, I wouldn't be running around if I lived or if I worked in an office. I wouldn't be, like, farting on people's faces or anything.

[Mike Minotti]

But of course not. You're so clumsy for that very.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, no, Mike. I see your face because I farted on you before. Just like Tim Turia sat on my head and farted numerous times, and I felt his fart vibrate through my skull. But no, Mike, I was in the office. I. No, it was at Tim's place where I farted on your head, right?

[Dan Rykert]

No, you're. It's not on my head. Right into my face. Also, the night before, you fed me cat treats.

[Mike Minotti]

Jesus Christ.

[Mary Kish]

We know each other very well, Mike.

[Dan Rykert]

I think. Yeah, I know. It was. It was enough where I laughed on the way back to SF from Tim's place.

[Jeff Grubb]

I do like when Goblin Dan does appear, where it's like, hey, here's some rocks from outside this. This building. I'm gonna put it inside your seat.

[Mary Kish]

That was the biggest because it's like, okay, so There was the WrestleMania match where Shawn Michaels fought Vince, and he was, like, blowing snot at him and doing all that stuff. And Jim Ross was like, oh, my God, I never thought we'd see him again. That was the old Shawn Michaels. That was me with the rocks and the shoe at that. You. You saw the old Dan.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm adamant that that only got asked by of hand because Balor and Mike were both just going, oh, my God. Oh, my God, I can't believe he's doing this. Oh, and I'm, like, trying to. No sell it so you'll lose interest. And they're just like.

[Mary Kish]

I was getting, oh, my God, this is.

[Jeff Grubb]

I can't believe it. Oh, my God, He's a toddler. He'll run out of steam.

[Mike Minotti]

Out of the office building for fandom and decided to fill his shoe with.

[Mary Kish]

Stole grub's shoe.

[Mike Minotti]

He sold grub's Shoe. And that was the issue. You wouldn't give it back. So you're like, I got his shoe. And then it was like, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

He's like a little British orphan. Yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

He's trying to pretend like, oh, I'm going to give him the shoe. It's okay. He can come back. But he secretly filled it with rocks. But as soon as the door opens, of course, Grump just snatches it as fast as he can to get his shoe back. And then rocks go everywhere. And then the people who work there to clean up, they're not happy.

[Jeff Grubb]

They thought the window shattered because it's all a glass.

[Mary Kish]

Very loud.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, God. So many things are coming to mind.

[Mary Kish]

Well, we were in Portland. We were with Mary, you know, a week or two ago. We're sitting by a fire pit, and Mary had these, like, sandals on. And I told her a story like, oh, you know, when me and my sisters would go see movies if they wore sandals? I thought it was hilarious to, like, in the middle of the movie when it's super dark, just grab one of them and just throw it all the way down and just, like, deal with it. Like, God, fire pit.

[Dan Rykert]

And I told Mary.

[Mary Kish]

I was like, you know what?

[Jeff Grubb]

See, that's what Mike was like, yeah.

[Mike Minotti]

It's like, I can't handle it. I can't handle it.

[Mary Kish]

I think Mary did something. She either, like, took them off or, like, tucked them away from me to.

[Dan Rykert]

Keep them tucked under. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

He's gonna throw these shoes in a fire.

[Dan Rykert]

You kept putting goldfish in any drink I had when I wasn't looking.

[Mary Kish]

So.

[Dan Rykert]

But then I also had a pocket.

[Mary Kish]

This was years ago.

[Dan Rykert]

I had a pocketed shirt, sort of like this one.

[Jeff Grubb]

This was Tuesday.

[Dan Rykert]

This was last week. And so by the time he started putting goldfish in here, where I was bulging with goldfish. So at a certain point, pocket and my drink. So, okay, at a certain point the night, I had a hand on my pocket and a hand over my drink, like, someone that was waiting with a.

[Mary Kish]

Bunch of people who hadn't seen this going on. So he just looks insane.

[Mike Minotti]

Patriotic.

[Dan Rykert]

A bunch of Australian people are coming up to me, and, like, I'm meeting them for the first time, and I'm pulling goldfish out of my shirt pocket and eating them while we're talking, like, what? But no, at Tim's place, we were about to go see Creed 2 with Tim Turry, and he had never seen Creed 1, which is one of the best movies ever made. So we're like, let's watch that at your place.

[Jeff Grubb]

For a second there, I thought you talked about the sequel to the band, but keep going.

[Dan Rykert]

We're going to go see Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson and Creed 2. So we're like, let's watch the first one. And toward the end, Dan had a bag of chips. I think they were like, pretzels of some sort. So I was sitting in the middle between them, and Dan started just, like, feeding. Putting pretzels right into my mouth for, like, 10 minutes straight.

[Mary Kish]

Like, like, how many of these can I put in before he stops me?

[Dan Rykert]

And then finally he puts something in my mouth, and I'm just chewing, like, loudly. I'm like, I'm not, like, making the noise something. And I realized that he had put cat treats into my mouth and he had. He had, like. He had, like, primed me to eat cat treats. And then, yeah, the next morning, it's always around Tim or Hansen when Dan starts to get into, like, big brother bully mode with me. And he starts. He went to go sidestep.

[Mike Minotti]

I.

[Dan Rykert]

There's a coffee table in front of the couch, and I was just sitting hung over on the couch, and Dan, like, sidles, like, between the. The table and the couch and farts right into my face. To which, you know, in a movie.

[Jeff Grubb]

When, like, there's like, the. Not the, like the big bad, but the big bad scientist that will just, like, test anything on any human. That's. That's Dan in goblin mode, I think. Yes.

[Dan Rykert]

No, the.

[Mary Kish]

I still.

[Dan Rykert]

One time was here when you actually. Amanda. This is the first time Amanda saw me, like, get mad at you. Like, genuinely. I was. I was done with it.

[Mary Kish]

We were coming up.

[Dan Rykert]

We're on a fourth floor walk up.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, there's the shoe. Okay.

[Dan Rykert]

And I'm carrying. I'm helping to carry Mary, one of Mary's suitcases up, and I'm leading the pack up the stairs. And four flights worth, let's say there's like 15 steps per flight. So for narrow, two, tough to get through. We're going up to my apartment and Dan just keeps, like, flat, tiring the back of my shoe with his foot.

[Mary Kish]

And for the first, I was grabbing your ankle with my hand and I.

[Dan Rykert]

Was carrying a suitcase. So I. The first flight, it was funny. And I remember thinking, like, oh, he's an adult. He'll stop. And then we. And then we get to the first. We get to the second floor landing and we turn and I'm like, all right, I'll. He's not going to do it. And then he does on the second floor. And I actually immediately was like, all right, Dan. Like, chill the fuck out.

[Mary Kish]

But you're also laughing, too.

[Dan Rykert]

I was laughing on the second flight, but then by the third flight of stairs.

[Jeff Grubb]

By the third flight of four.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, stop.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm like, dan, I'm going to fucking kick you in the chest so you fall down these stairs if you don't stop grabbing my ankle. And he kept going as I threatened his life, basically.

[Mary Kish]

And he'd be worth it if that's how it ended.

[Dan Rykert]

Amanda, later that night. Amanda, later that night was like. You were, like, actually mad. I was like, yeah, I do that to my dad.

[Mary Kish]

And he doesn't like that either has.

[Dan Rykert]

It's so uncomfortable.

[Jeff Grubb]

Anyone hit you, Dan?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Dan Rykert]

I don't know, Mike.

[Jeff Grubb]

I think we gotta start hitting them. I think we have to start hitting.

[Mike Minotti]

Anybody that don't want to hit.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm talking about Hardy. I know you're not gonna hit him. No, I've been know.

[Mary Kish]

Hey, let me think back. I've been punched, like, but it was like bullies, and I got punched a lot by bullies, sure.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, no, I mean, as a result of your actions.

[Dan Rykert]

Mary did. At our. At the bachelor thing.

[Mary Kish]

Mary punched me. She.

[Dan Rykert]

Charlie Horse you. Because of the. You were over her shoulder playing Pac man and you were fucking with her.

[Jeff Grubb]

Why would you mess.

[Mary Kish]

So scary.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. At our.

[Mary Kish]

No, don't fuck with Mary.

[Dan Rykert]

At our bachelor bachelorette Long island party, there was a. I don't know. How would you describe it? A tabletop Pac man cabinet.

[Mike Minotti]

I heard the tales from. From past episodes about your Pac Man. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

And I think, Dan, you were doing something. You were just antagonizing Mary and.

[Mary Kish]

Because I was winning and I was.

[Dan Rykert]

Mocking her, and at one point, she just turned around and wailed on your shoulder. And that was the only time, knowing you for how many. 12 years now, I actually saw you legitimately. Shut up after, like, someone made you stop.

[Mary Kish]

She's intimidated. She made it very clear, like, okay, all right. I'm going to keep the shit up, dude.

[Dan Rykert]

Your face, the emotions you went through was so funny because I turned. We were playing board games at the table while you guys were doing that. I turned around and I saw it happen because I think I heard, like, some turmoil. Saw her hit your shoulder, and then she went back to playing. And I could tell from her face she was legitimately pissed. I know her like, you know, we've seen her get her temper flare. And I saw you, like. Like, kind of like not knowing how to adjust to Clam up a little bit.

[Mary Kish]

She's way out of line. Way out of line. And then you just went into fun here.

[Dan Rykert]

You went into like supportive friend mode to her. All of a sudden you're like, no.

[Mary Kish]

What other option did I. Yeah, she's.

[Dan Rykert]

Gonna punch you in the dick if you kept going. It was really, really.

[Mary Kish]

I got the message. No, like I, I understood what she was saying.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, that was the. At the wine fort. But yeah, I, I think I fart too much.

[Mary Kish]

I met the right spot now.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, yeah, I've really dialed it in.

[Dan Rykert]

Nice.

[Mike Minotti]

The triple D. All right, well, thank.

[Dan Rykert]

You, Brad from Phoenix. That's our episode. That's episode 90. Thank you, Mike and Jeff for joining. That was our longest one in a while. We haven't gone that long. We used to, we like used to approach four hours in our early days. 90 episodes in. We're not built for that anymore.

[Mary Kish]

Combination of a lot of games. Talk about. And also I feel like when we have guests, it's like, well, okay, we got a lot and four people.

[Jeff Grubb]

Does add a little bit extra there instead of three fun, though.

[Dan Rykert]

Thank you two for joining again. That's.

[Jeff Grubb]

I had a great time.

[Dan Rykert]

Mike Minati and Jeff Grubb Game Mess and also Giant Bomb. You've. You've heard both of them on the show before. Not together. This is my first time with both of them on a normal episode. Non bone.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're listening to this on Monday. On Tuesday night at 9pm on Jeff Grubbs game mess on YouTube. We'll do less than the Nintendogs live at 9pm Eastern so you can watch that there. It's we have a good time and then we do another show on Thursday.

[Dan Rykert]

Game Best decides what is last Nintendogs.

[Jeff Grubb]

For those who don't know it, it's a Nintendo podcast. It's a Nintendo podcast for those who are also in Nintendo prison like we are.

[Mike Minotti]

Yep, yep. And if you didn't hate listening to me talk about Disney, I do a Disney podcast with my brothers 90s Disney 9.0s Disney new episode. We talked about some of our most memorable meals across all of the Disney properties. Our next kind of top of the month episode where we do our big topics is going to be a be about Rescuers down under, one of the more underrated. I like that Disney animated films from the era. So yep, I like that one.

[Jeff Grubb]

I watched that a ton as a kid.

[Mike Minotti]

Fun. Fun.

[Mary Kish]

Also, if you want to watch the worst video games of all time, we currently have Mike Manati playing Alone in the Dark 2008 for the Wii.

[Mike Minotti]

Wii.

[Mary Kish]

We just wrapped up Daikatana with Jeff Grubb. I've done Superman 64. You can see the wig if you're a video watcher here.

[Dan Rykert]

Wigs get me going.

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, yeah, it's good stuff.

[Mary Kish]

Blight Club is like Mount Rushmore, like video feature series I've ever done. It is so much fucking fun with these guys and it's the worst ever. So just go to YouTube and type in Blight Club and you'll see some really, really good stuff there.

[Dan Rykert]

Yep, I'm just here. Here at Fire Escape.

[Mary Kish]

You're the professional.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Focused in your lane. Flourishing.

[Dan Rykert]

No, I'm not. In my free time, I'm not focused. But professionally, yeah, I'm just here. And then day job stuff is not Forward facing. Yeah. 90 episodes. I think we did the math. January, February. We'll have more news coming out soon about Game of the Year stuff in November when Mary's back. Oh, yeah, we didn't like. Mary's just traveling again. Yeah, we all got to hang out last week in Portland, which is super fun.

[Jeff Grubb]

She's on that Saudi bullet train. She's hanging out there.

[Mary Kish]

That's the only one, I think.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, it's the only one.

[Dan Rykert]

She's going to a Nixon nostalgia convention.

[Mike Minotti]

Is that the Watergate?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

We will be back in two weeks. We'll have more news about Game of the Year stuff coming out soon where we.

[Mary Kish]

Zelda.

[Dan Rykert]

Probably talk about Zelda and I think that's about it. If you want to go to firescapecast.com you can become a patron member Patreon member if you're not already to get ad free episodes or video episodes or just you can treat it like a tip jar if you appreciate what we do. You can also go to Firescape Merchant if you want to get sweatshirts, crop tops, swim trunks past the season for in most parts of the world, or rather in our parts of the world. But.

[Mary Kish]

But the most important thing to bookmark is fuckjake.org Everyone should go to fuckjake.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean, why give them the oxygen, right? Why fan those flames for someone so terrible?

[Dan Rykert]

Well, this was funny on this button here. We have not. We said it.

[Mike Minotti]

We have not.

[Dan Rykert]

We have not gotten any emails about this or tweets or anything in port. If you listen to last episode we talked. Do I want to describe. No, Dan, you explain this because this was your fucking ploy. I don't feel like.

[Mary Kish]

No, it was. This is all Jake. This is 100% Jake. We did the whole bit that Just came up about like, oh, fuck jake.org and we're gonna like, you know, talk like Jake sucks or whatever. And then I think one of us. It might have been you, Mike, saying like, oh, yeah, don't even tell them what it is.

[Dan Rykert]

Just say like, look what Jake did go to. He bought fuck jake.org and Jake Decker.

[Mary Kish]

While editing this podcast, bought fuck jake.org.

[Dan Rykert]

He gambled on the fact that we had not yet actually purchased it because he was completely. And he just go to it.

[Jeff Grubb]

And then we began his career as a Jedi. But the mental toll the job took proved too much for our brave adventurer. He now writes and plays games, seeking a middle ground that allows him to do both for a living rather than them distracting him from the work he is getting paid for.

[Mike Minotti]

Find that middle ground, Mike. You do it. Get there, buddy.

[Mary Kish]

We were sitting at a picnic table in Oregon when ready for.

[Dan Rykert]

Ready for a party. And. And Dan said something like, I should have known something was up because that's not how URLs work. You're like, you should go there and see if. See if it like tells you how to buy it.

[Mary Kish]

See how much it costs. Yeah.

[Dan Rykert]

And I was like, that's not how they work. I would have to go to hover. And then we had a bunch of.

[Mary Kish]

People around us and so I went.

[Dan Rykert]

And then like Dan was watching me intently across the picnic table so he couldn't see my screen. And he saw. And like it dawned on me and I was so impressed. I wasn't even angry.

[Mary Kish]

No, you dropped your phone and immediately put your head in your hands.

[Dan Rykert]

Yes. Right.

[Jeff Grubb]

And then I was like, surrender cobra.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's all Jake. No, you did like this kid from Kid and play where you're wearing this wig.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, I just. I'm just reading some of your old stories on Gaming Nexus and also like that. That site's still going, huh? Good for them.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah. Based out of Ohio. A few of them.

[Mike Minotti]

What?

[Jeff Grubb]

Oh, man, we gotta do something, Mike.

[Mike Minotti]

We don't like that. Jeff and I like saying we're the largest gaming media company in Ohio.

[Jeff Grubb]

So yeah, we're.

[Dan Rykert]

At least they were when I was. I went to my first E3 with them. I did GDC. They were good, good dudes. Brought me on and that's how I got my. My portfolio going off the gray.

[Mary Kish]

This is post game inform, right?

[Mike Minotti]

Most.

[Mary Kish]

Well, I've seen your E3 2013 stuff. Or were you like 2012?

[Jeff Grubb]

Ish.

[Dan Rykert]

I was fall 2012. I think I would have started. Yeah. Maybe the gaming X After. No, because I would have had stuff samples to send to Miller.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, well, you have a ton of like E3 2013 stuff.

[Dan Rykert]

I remember the Last of Us. I had gotten a bunch of people. It was similar to Bioshock in what year was that?

[Mary Kish]

September 10, 2013. You have your last of us.

[Mike Minotti]

Last of us is your last.

[Dan Rykert]

Oh, oh, sorry. So last Bioshock Infinite, I believe, came in when we were all at gdc and the last of us came in while we were all at E3. So I had to rush. When I got home, I immediately downloaded to play it to review it, which I didn't give it was, you know, I was still new to everything. It was great.

[Mike Minotti]

Gave it a nine. You said excellent. Better for worse. The Last of Us is hard to experience most of the time. This is a very good thing. I wouldn't use very by the way. You say great instead of very good. Just a little note there as themes of violence and survival will push the plot toward its effective.

[Jeff Grubb]

Have you met Gandalf the Great Mike?

[Mike Minotti]

Jesus, no.

[Mary Kish]

It's at the bottom of his Last of Us review. It's at the bottom of all of his work is the amount it's on.

[Dan Rykert]

A mouse [e-mail] Don't. If I. I still. There's gonna come a day when I'm gonna see that shirt in the wild and I'm gonna.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, it's gonna be good.

[Dan Rykert]

Gonna have to weigh some pros and cons in my head. But anyway, thank you, Mike. Thank you, Jeff.

[Mike Minotti]

Yeah, thank you.

[Dan Rykert]

I'm sure you'll be on again. First four person episode, I believe outside of Game of the year or bonus episodes.

[Mike Minotti]

We're going to be telling our grandkids about this. Yep.

[Mary Kish]

Of course they'll know.

[Dan Rykert]

They'll know all about my farts and how I eat cat treats.

[Jeff Grubb]

Your exploits.

[Dan Rykert]

Yeah, it's all chronicled. We will see Everybody again in two weeks for episode 91. Thank you so much for joining tonight. We'll see you soon.

[Mary Kish]

May.