Fire Escape Cast #92

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #92 Summary

Release Date: October 21, 2024

Hosts:

• Mike Mahardy (New York)
• Dan Reichert (Portland)
• Mary Kish (Minneapolis)

---

1. Campfire Chats and Nightcaps

The episode opens with the hosts engaging in their trademark casual banter, reminiscent of their earlier, more laid-back discussions. Mike Mahardy sets the tone with a humorous remark about being tired, immediately followed by greetings from Dan Reichert and Mary Kish.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (00:13): "It's like the Seinfeld noise."

The conversation soon shifts to recounting a recent get-together where Mike crafted a delicious pineapple daiquiri. Dan and Mary chime in with their own beverage experiences, highlighting the camaraderie and light-heartedness that characterize their interactions.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (01:12): "What do you call it? Pinot Noir here."

---

2. Mary’s Camping Adventure

Mary Kish shares her recent camping trip, emphasizing her lack of experience but highlighting the comforts she invested in, such as an advanced inflatable mattress. This segues into a discussion about the practicality and comfort of modern camping gear versus traditional methods.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (02:22): "I was off the grid. I was camping."

The hosts humorously debate the merits of inflatable mattresses, with Dan expressing surprising comfort levels despite initial skepticism.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (02:57): "Those are comfy. Like, inflatable. Like, you'd think that they'd be shitty, but, like, honestly, they're totally fine."

---

3. Upcoming Game of the Year Stream

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to announcing their Game of the Year live stream, scheduled for November 16th. The hosts express excitement about being the first to announce their opinions, aiming to outpace major outlets like GameSpot and IGN.

Notable Quote:

• Mike Mahardy (06:07): "We officially have a date for our game of the year stream for 2024 to decide the best games and give the best opinions."

They discuss logistics, including streaming platforms (Twitch and their own YouTube channel) and encourage listeners to follow their social media for updates.

---

4. Spotlight on Patrons: Dr. Fernando

Dan Reichert shares a heartwarming story about meeting Dr. Fernando, a longtime patron who recognized him at a bar. The encounter underscores the community support behind the podcast and highlights the diverse backgrounds of their listeners.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (10:04): "If you didn't see the tweet. I was at a bar with Alex Boniello in New Jersey a few days ago... and he was like, oh, sit down. Oh, he's a Broadway guy."

Mary Kish and Mike Mahardy commend Dan for his positive interaction, suggesting that Dr. Fernando could even be a guest on future episodes.

---

5. Balancing Busy Lives and Personal Interests

The hosts delve into their hectic schedules, particularly Dan’s reluctance to cook and his reliance on convenient food options. This leads to a humorous exchange about time management and the challenges of maintaining a healthy diet amidst a packed schedule.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (16:28): "But you guys just want to eat the little factor meals or your little crusties."

Mike Mahardy playfully chastises Dan for his time constraints, while Mary Kish calculates his daily activities, poking fun at his lack of time for cooking.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (25:04): "Just 40 minutes of teeth. Go on."

---

6. Gaming Discussions: Neva and Astrobot

Mary Kish introduces Neva, a new puzzle platformer published by Devolver, praising its stunning watercolor visuals and thoughtful puzzle design. Dan expresses curiosity and commits to downloading the game.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (46:17): "Neva is actually quite a charming and well thought out puzzle platformer, Dan. And I think you're gonna like it."

The conversation transitions to Astrobot, with Mary and Dan sharing their enthusiasm for the game’s polish and variety, while Mary expresses a minor critique regarding its boss fights.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (80:42): "I think they are, you know, just like ... they're just like really easy."

---

7. Gimmicks and Gadgets: Nintendo Alarm Clock

Dan Reichert reveals his latest acquisition, the Nintendo Alarmo, an alarm clock that integrates with his Nintendo account to play various game themes upon waking. The hosts humorously speculate about its practicality and potential frustrations.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (35:28): "It's a Nintendo alarm clock. It's called Alarmo and it watches you sleep."

They predict entertaining scenarios involving the alarm clock’s features, blending nostalgia with modern tech.

---

8. Audience Engagement: Listener Emails

The hosts read and respond to listener emails, adding an interactive dimension to the episode. From humorous anecdotes about voice recognition mishaps to challenges about identifying commonalities among classic games, the interaction fosters a sense of community.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Kish (122:13): "Here's your challenge. What do the following all have in common?.... Final Fantasy 7, Silent Hill, Two Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons, Epic Mickey, Luigi's Mansion, Dark Moon, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Lollipop Chainsaw, Until Dawn, Beyond Good and Evil, Braid, Shadows of the Damned, Persona 3, Paper Mario, the Thousand Year Door."

---

9. Remakes and Game Preservation

In response to a listener’s challenge, the hosts discuss the trend of game remakes and remasters. They debate the benefits of preserving classic games versus the pitfalls of cynical re-packaging, sharing personal opinions on titles like Resident Evil 4, Zelda, and Outer Wilds.

Notable Quote:

• Dan Reichert (128:07): "I don't see it as a negative. I've always liked remakes and remasters."

Mary Kish highlights the balance between maintaining original game aesthetics and updating them for modern audiences, emphasizing intentional design choices in remakes.

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10. Wrapping Up and Future Plans

As the episode nears its end, the hosts recap key points, reiterate the details of their upcoming Game of the Year stream, and encourage listeners to support the podcast through their Patreon. They continue their playful banter, teasing future episodes and inside jokes.

Notable Quote:

• Mike Mahardy (148:36): "Well, as of this recording month, heads up, November 16th, it will be in the evening we will start."

Closing Remarks: The episode concludes with humorous remarks about visibility into someone’s bathroom, underscoring the relaxed and entertaining nature of the podcast.

---

Conclusion

Fire Escape Cast #92 offers a blend of personal anecdotes, in-depth gaming discussions, and engaging listener interactions. The hosts maintain their signature humor and camaraderie while delving into meaningful topics like game preservation and community support. With an eye toward upcoming events and continuous listener engagement, the episode exemplifies the dynamic and entertaining spirit of the Fire Escape Cast.

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Support Fire Escape Cast: Visit fireescapecast.com to support the show, access exclusive content, and stay updated on all future episodes and events.

Transcript

[Mary Kish]

It's like the Seinfeld noise.

[Dan Reichert]

You're just mumbling.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's both. It's the pops and the.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, so you do the deeper thing, and I'll do the little pops.

[Mary Kish]

That's what I wanted. That one's good. Okay. Okay, you do that. You do the guitar, and I'll do the bass.

[Mike Mahardy]

And you want to be my latex salesman? It's a clack. It's a clack. Episode. I'm so tired. Welcome back, everybody. Episode 92 of the Firescape Cast. I'm Mike Mahardy here with Dan Reichert.

[Dan Reichert]

Hi. Hello.

[Mike Mahardy]

And Mary Kish.

[Mary Kish]

Hello.

[Mike Mahardy]

Straight out of New York and Portland and Minneapolis, as always in New York.

[Dan Reichert]

I saw you in New York. Well, New Jersey, I guess. Two days ago, I had dinner with you and Amanda and it was delightful.

[Mike Mahardy]

Days ago. I'm actually finishing the pineapple juice I opened the other night.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh. Oh, that. You made some good cocktails. I just busted open some Saint Audet nut.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nice.

[Dan Reichert]

What do you call it? Pinot Noir here.

[Mike Mahardy]

St. Audette D's nuts.

[Dan Reichert]

Ah, yeah. You made great cocktails. That was a nice nightcap there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, those are good. It was the last word riff. I call it a pineapple daiquiri.

[Dan Reichert]

It was very delicious.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's pretty good. It's just. What was it? It was just white rum, aperol, pineapple juice, and simple and lime juice.

[Mary Kish]

You can put aperol in anything and it usually tastes better.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Where were you, Mary? We were all having fun.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Thanks for fucking coming over.

[Dan Reichert]

Geez.

[Mary Kish]

I was off the grid. I was camping.

[Dan Reichert]

Thought we were buds. What the hell? And Mike and Amanda, just drinking, having a good time, wondering where he was.

[Mary Kish]

Hang out in the church. All the heroes, all the stars.

[Mike Mahardy]

Where'd you. What? You were camping for real?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I, I haven't been camping in years. Definitely over five years since the last time I, like, slept in a tent without having Internet access. But it was great. I, I, we went into middle of nowhere. I had a little tent. I invested in a good mattress, which I think was the clutch move.

[Dan Reichert]

Inflatable.

[Mary Kish]

It's like foam and inflatable. So it has foam in there and then you add air so that it's poofy enough, but it's not, it's not all foam so that it tight. Packs really tight into, like, a tiny little container is great.

[Dan Reichert]

I did. So I used the roll up. I actually just bought more inflatable mattresses for my house because a bunch of people coming over for extra life and new Jokers and stuff. And. But you have to plug into like a normal outlet. Like, are the camping ones. Do you not need a full deal real?

[Mary Kish]

This one is battery operated and you charge it so that when you get there, you just put the inflator on it and it inflates on its own. So you don't need to. As long as it's charged, you don't have to do anything, which is super.

[Dan Reichert]

Those are comfy. Like, inflatable. Like, you'd think that they'd be shitty, but, like, honestly, they're totally fine.

[Mary Kish]

We have a whole life.

[Mike Mahardy]

We gotta get a new one.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna send you what I got because it's my opinion that what I have is better than an inflatable mattress. Because a lot of times inflatable mattresses have this mistake where they're like, look how tall it is. Right? Like, it's like six mattresses packed on top and it's all air. So it's going to be super comfortable. But the reality is, is you don't need 3ft of height of air and that's not comfier, Right. So the mattress I have is like, what, 6 inches tall? It's not very. It's not very thick, but it's a combination. Like, maybe that's all you need. Speak for yourself.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, my goodness. Jeez.

[Mary Kish]

It's like a combination of. Of mattress material and air that makes it so comfortable. And I realized when guests come over, I'm not going to give them the air mattress that I have for the house anymore. I'm going to give them the 10.

[Dan Reichert]

Mattress going to be covering ticks and bear fur and stuff.

[Mary Kish]

That is not. First of all, it is brand new. It's like only been used it for this one trip and it was in a tent where there's not outside still.

[Dan Reichert]

The elements you gotta have inside and outside mattresses.

[Mary Kish]

What are you talking about? You put like a sheet on it.

[Dan Reichert]

It's bird poop and shit on it.

[Mary Kish]

Inside of a tent.

[Dan Reichert]

They're crafty.

[Mary Kish]

They're not getting in there.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, not while you're there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Where do you store your air mattress or. No, where you store your tent.

[Mary Kish]

Sorry, in my house, in the closet, like most people.

[Mike Mahardy]

How do you know there's not birds and bears and briars and brambles and.

[Dan Reichert]

Briars? What's a briar?

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't know.

[Dan Reichert]

Patches of them.

[Mike Mahardy]

I know that hear it sometimes.

[Mary Kish]

Got a couple of woodsmen over here a little bit worried about briar. In my tent, but I'm telling you, like, there's no debris going on.

[Dan Reichert]

Grizzly briars.

[Mike Mahardy]

I got tulip on my pants. Oh, there's bear pollen in my nose. I'm allergic.

[Dan Reichert]

All over my lunch.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, the vaulters are coming in with their chlorophyll.

[Dan Reichert]

What?

[Mike Mahardy]

Speaking of air mattresses, we got news.

[Dan Reichert]

What? Where are we going with this?

[Mike Mahardy]

Jake and Mary and me will be sleeping on air mattresses at Dan's place.

[Dan Reichert]

No, you guys will get the normal mattresses. I constructed the triple bunk beds, but all the mattresses are still there, so you're going to get the normal ones and then the overflow is. The other air mattresses, will they be.

[Mary Kish]

Connected to each other?

[Dan Reichert]

You can do whatever you. You can Tetris the hell out of them however you want. I've got all the mattresses you figured out.

[Mike Mahardy]

We officially have a date for our game of the year stream for 2024 to decide the best games and give the best opinions.

[Dan Reichert]

We're going to scoop everybody this year. We're scooping every outlet with our game of the year. We're going early.

[Mike Mahardy]

We're literally going more than a month earlier than last year. We will be doing our game of the year live stream on November 15th.

[Dan Reichert]

16Th. 16th.

[Mike Mahardy]

16Th. Sorry, 16th.

[Dan Reichert]

Saturday the 16th.

[Mike Mahardy]

Saturday, November 16th, the 15th.

[Dan Reichert]

We got to watch the Mike Tyson fight.

[Mike Mahardy]

The 16 is Mike Tyson. More important stuff. November 16th. It's a Saturday. More info forthcoming about this specific time. But it will be live streamed on.

[Dan Reichert]

Twitch and safe to assume we'll start in the evening. Like in the past. I would say somewhere between 5 and 7 Central. Sounds about right. And then we'll probably go late into the night, but stay tuned to fire escape socials and our socials and stuff, and we will keep you abreast.

[Mike Mahardy]

We're going to beat Gamespot. We're going to beat ign. We're going to beat Giant Bomb. We're going to beat Keely. We're going to beat Polygon. We're going to be the first. We're going to get an opinion.

[Mary Kish]

Take that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Kind of funny and kind of funny. We're going to beat the besties. Everybody's going to have to follow us. We're going to beat Min Max.

[Mary Kish]

I always wanted to beat Ben Hansen.

[Mike Mahardy]

Everybody's going to have to follow up perfect list on November 16th.

[Dan Reichert]

Mary, I saw you taking Ben Hansen to that chicken place. I got to go there next time I'm in Portland.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's. It's that video that he released it of the. Behind the scenes is so good. And it's a very nice reflection of the experience that we had. Very fun. Good times. So. Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Looked great.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. We should do. We've. We try and mix it up every once in a while, but we like Dan's house for goatie for a few reasons. One, it's central. It's moderately equal from both me and Mike to go to Cool.

[Mike Mahardy]

Judge Jake's gonna be there.

[Dan Reichert]

No, of course.

[Mary Kish]

And of course Judge Jake is going to be there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Well, you didn't say his name, so I was just making sure he got.

[Mary Kish]

Credit because first of all, Jake isn't going to be there. It's cool. Judge Jake is going to be there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Jake Decker has refused to come to every single game of the year we've.

[Dan Reichert]

Minnesota sounds too cold. He's a.

[Mary Kish]

He's a. I think it's selfish.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

This little Ojai boy comes out of the mountains into the desert and says, no, I don't want to come to Minneapolis. Go to fuckjake.org and you'll get. You'll know all about it.

[Dan Reichert]

You should.

[Mary Kish]

I care for.

[Mike Mahardy]

Jake shouldn't direct people that site anymore, but. Sorry. Yeah. Other reasons we go to Dan's Continue.

[Mary Kish]

Dan usually has a large level of equipment that is conducive to us doing a long stream that he's already set up and is eager to put up all the energy into setting up a big live stream in his living room.

[Mike Mahardy]

He usually has a large house, at which point I was going to be like, is this like a house of leaves and it's shrinking, or does it.

[Mary Kish]

Switch houses every year? It gets a little smaller.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. It's weird. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

There's random hallways that you can't see from the outside.

[Mary Kish]

It was a strange deal with a witch he made in the woods that day, but his house was lower.

[Dan Reichert]

The interest helped the interest rate I had. I'd be a fool to say no to it. To that witch.

[Mary Kish]

You'll lose one foot of width.

[Dan Reichert]

It's fine. It's fine.

[Mary Kish]

Six inches of length and a little headroom.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, I do have one other housekeeping thing. I'll bring it up at the end of the episode, though. But as of November 1, we are switching to subscription billing for our Patreon. If you're already a Patreon subscriber, whether it's for the ad free episodes or the videos, disregard this. You will get charged on the 1st of every month as you always have been. But if you're not a patron or if you've lapsed and are considering coming back for end of the year stuff, I think that's a nice quality of life feature. Most of all patrons going toward this. But also we're happy that it'll work for Firescape patrons as well.

[Dan Reichert]

Speaking of our patrons, I want to give a shout out to Dr. Fernando.

[Mike Mahardy]

Which is just the coolest name ever, I have to say.

[Dan Reichert]

I like saying Dr. Fernando a lot. Yeah. If you didn't see the tweet. I was at a bar with Alex Boniello in New Jersey a few days ago, and we were hopping to a second bar because the first one was closing. And as we walk in, we see a guy sitting there at the bar with a drink. And he turns and he does a double take and he's like, dan Reichert, for the record, did not at all recognize Alex Boniella. And he's like, oh, sit down. Oh, he's a. He's a Broadway guy. He's a Disney. He's like a Disney actor guy. But he's like, oh, yeah, sit down. And I got the drinks for the rest of the night and, you know, paid for me and Alex's drinks, had some great chats about movies and video games and all sorts of stuff and being a doctor.

[Mike Mahardy]

And can you specify how he knew you? Because right now the story is just about how he knew who you were.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, no, specifically, he was like. I'm bringing it up on this because he was like, oh, fire escape. Big fire escape fan.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, cool.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes, yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

I would have loved to just continue. And it was a story about how somebody recognized you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, we went to high school together, Fernando. Yeah, no, no. Big fire escape band. Dr. Fernando. And yeah, great dude. And wish him the best. And thanks for being a fan.

[Mary Kish]

Yay. That's wonderful. Sounds like a good evening. And what a nice surprise. That's lovely.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, he was like. He was like, oh, I don't want to, you know, don't want to be weird or don't want to be pushy or anything. I was like, no, no, no. Trust me, you can tell that every once in a while there's like, fans and stuff that are just a little weird and don't understand boundaries and stuff like that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Colleagues that are weirder than that who will come up to shows, be like, you don't remember who I am, do you?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, But I told Dr. Fernando immediately, like, no, trust me, I can already tell, you know, you're a. He's a 40 year old doctor with a family, real deal, serious job. And he was very, very kind and everything. I was like, trust me, you're. You're not. You're not doing anything wrong here. You're being very, very pleasant. So cool, dude. Dr. Fernando, the official doctor of the fire escape cast now.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, let's get him on an episode.

[Dan Reichert]

Dr. Fernando. Yeah. I told him to email in. So if you ever see Fernando email, let's. Let's put him at the top of the list.

[Mike Mahardy]

I checked. I've not seen anything yet. However, I would like at some point for him to. Yeah, email actual medical stuff. Not like patient records. That'd be cool. But debunking information we have propped up as fact in the past, which we never do, so he'd have to dig really deep into episodes.

[Dan Reichert]

I think he said we were all pretty right about everything we say. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I believe that's what most people who listen to this podcast say. You're pretty much right about most of the things.

[Dan Reichert]

Medical advice podcast.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. If I ate cardboard, would that burn calories?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah, yeah. We did figure that out.

[Mike Mahardy]

We were right about that, actually.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Once in a blue moon.

[Dan Reichert]

We were smart.

[Mike Mahardy]

Broken clock. What else is new? Wait, Mary, overall, how was camping? I actually have been talking to a couple friends about. I miss camping. I grew up, like, in the woods, basically, in central New York. I miss it. I want to do it again. However, time is tough, and then once you get to a certain part of the year, there's a shit ton of mosquitoes or there's snow. And I feel like I'm missing the window this year, unfortunately. But I do want to do it more.

[Mary Kish]

I was pleasantly surprised with how camping went, considering I don't consider myself a camper at all. Uh, but I put a lot of energy into the cooking situation. So I got one of those burners that uses a butane canister and just has a little flame. And then I got a big pot. And on night one, I made hot pot with thinly sliced beef and. Yeah, baby bok choy and caffeine and also some eyebrows.

[Dan Reichert]

When you sand your eyebrows off using propane because it's dangerous.

[Mary Kish]

It's butane. Yeah, it's butane.

[Mike Mahardy]

Same thing.

[Dan Reichert]

It's gonna blow up.

[Mary Kish]

It's very different. And it's pretty safe.

[Dan Reichert]

You're just lucky. You're lucky you're not missing a limb or something right now.

[Mary Kish]

I'm not taking kitchen advice from someone who can't cook eggs.

[Dan Reichert]

It's not advice. It's just a warning to be careful around explosive gases.

[Mary Kish]

It's not. I mean, gas is explosive. And thank you for the warning. It's very safe. You just can't be a ding dong around it.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm like the Smokey the Bear for explosive gases.

[Mike Mahardy]

I think I've told this story actually for a year. Jake, me, Justin Haywald, Eric Taylor, who I don't think people would know listening to the podcast because he wasn't like, on the editorial side. But we all lived in that house out by the beach in San Francisco. I probably told this way back in the show, but every time I hear.

[Dan Reichert]

About.

[Mike Mahardy]

We had a gas thing in this building like eight months ago, to me and another neighbor were like, does the stairwell kind of smell like gas? And it turned out a plumber, like, left a valve open after fixing our neighbor's boiler. So we had to open all the windows, evacuate the building for a bit. It reminded me of the time I woke up from a nap after work in the sunset and had a searing headache at like 7:00pm and you know, absolutely love Eric Taylor. He's an absolutely great dude. He is kind of a DIY dude. And he wanted to install our new. We all pitched in to get new washer dryers for the laundry room. And again, he took it upon himself to install it. And I think he had done something out of order. So basically, the house flooded with gas. So I woke up with a headache, a pounding headache from having inhaled it. So then we had to. We aired it out after a while. But every time I smell gas, I get like a. Like a phantom pain? No, like a return headache from the house.

[Dan Reichert]

So two questions. If you had not left the house, would you have died?

[Mike Mahardy]

I can't imagine it would have been good. Like, if any of us had been like, lighting up a joint.

[Dan Reichert]

That's right. And that was question too, was like, if one of you was lighting a candle or a joint or something, would you have exploded?

[Mike Mahardy]

If I had a headache from it. And granted, I was on the same floor as the laundry room, so I probably got it worse than anybody. That also explains a lot about my. Me. If. Yeah, if I've been doing anything, I think I could have done damage to myself in the house.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that's scary.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, that's why. An honest mistake. An honest mistake. That. Yeah. But that's why you call plumbers.

[Mary Kish]

You have to. You currently are messing with gas because you have. You have heat in your house. Is it electric?

[Dan Reichert]

Well, yeah, but I don't do anything with it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Are you talking to me?

[Mary Kish]

No, I'm saying Dan is Saying he doesn't mess with gas because it can kill you, but you are messing with gas because it's in your house.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm saying, like, I'm not doing things that have. Like, there's a gas line that goes to my deck that I will never touch. In fact, I'm trying to. I want to get it ripped out because I don't trust myself with it. And also, there's. I think our stove is. Is it gas if there's, like, actual flames coming out of it?

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Then that's why it's like, every once in a while, I have to heat up water to, like, heat up these burn ends or whatever. And every single time I'm like, this might be it for.

[Mike Mahardy]

I get the trepidation. Like, one of our burners on the stove, you have to spark a few times, and then by that point, a decent amount of gas has been released. You have to release. And don't take. And don't take my word for it. I don't want people blowing up. But, like, I've done. I've sparked it like, six times, and it's a pretty big. But it never singes my hand. I just.

[Dan Reichert]

There was that part in Fight Club and his whole apartment blew up.

[Mike Mahardy]

What happened in Fight Club, remind me.

[Dan Reichert]

Is they showed that they did the David Fincher Square to show behind the oven, and then there was one little spark, and the whole fucking place blew up. I've been scared of it ever since.

[Mike Mahardy]

I think that's because the gas leak had been going on for several days, is my point. The burner, like, gas dissipates fairly quickly, and then the flame itself kills, like, burns the gas immediately.

[Dan Reichert]

But what if some of it escapes and then it's all over the place and then you try to light a candle, and then everyone just. You know, I.

[Mike Mahardy]

From my understanding, if there's enough of it, it could be bad. But, like, your gas, you drive a.

[Mary Kish]

Car in the car.

[Dan Reichert]

I can doordash. It's fine. No, the car handles all the stuff. I. I don't want to do anything where I'm in control of the explosive gas. If the car is doing it, I trust the car to do it right.

[Mary Kish]

You fly. Have you ever seen any.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm not piloting. I'm not filling it up with gas.

[Mary Kish]

Shoots the plane and the plane explodes because there's gas in the plane. That could happen.

[Dan Reichert]

That's unrealistic. That's ridiculous. Everything you're talking about Die Hard 2 situation.

[Mary Kish]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is that why you don't like cooking, Dan, because the stove.

[Dan Reichert]

There's a lot of reasons I don't like cooking. I could do the chicken wrong and then you die of salmonella. I don't know how ovens work. So I could explode. There's like some crazy oil and water thing where it just. There's magic fire that can't be put out that goes everywhere and gets in your face and you're scarred for life. There's super knives, there's. I'll just doordash or do my delivery stuff for the end of time and it's totally fine.

[Mary Kish]

What happens when they spit in it?

[Dan Reichert]

I'll take spit over exploding.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's fair.

[Dan Reichert]

Thank you.

[Mike Mahardy]

What would happen if doordash Uber eats? Move on. Grubhub. Just what say there's some weird law that like Biden enacts before he leaves office. It's like they're all illegal all of a sudden. You can't use food delivery service. I guess you go back getting frozen stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

I get the stuff delivered they put in the fridge.

[Mary Kish]

And you can't have that either.

[Dan Reichert]

Why would that.

[Mike Mahardy]

So the microwave. So it's microwave you're fine with.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm fine with the microwave. I have no. No worries about the microwave.

[Mary Kish]

Electrical fire.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, whatever. That's fine. I've been using. I've used a microwave a billion times in my life. I've used an oven like seven times.

[Mary Kish]

I've used my gas oven as many times as you've a microwave and I've been fine.

[Dan Reichert]

Are there electric ovens? Because I know there's electric and gas stoves.

[Mike Mahardy]

You can do like the flat ones. The plates that just kind of heat up or. No, sometimes they're just not. They're flat surface. The whole stove is flat surface. They're circles to indicate where they are.

[Dan Reichert]

That's it. But oven wise, I don't know. Like, I don't.

[Mike Mahardy]

Could get one of those, I guess at some point.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I think we got a nice.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just get one of those instead of the Switch two.

[Dan Reichert]

I just never. I just never. Look, I don't. Trying to find a way to expense a stove.

[Mike Mahardy]

Submitting your expense report to fandom.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nintendo stove.

[Mary Kish]

The stove.

[Dan Reichert]

I got Nintendo alarm clock now. We'll get to that later. Yeah, no, I'm just fine. I've gone my whole life without really having to learn any kind of cooking stuff. And I mean I can do the shelves and cheese thing now and I can heat up my burnt ends. That requires you to boil water. So like I got that Figured out.

[Mary Kish]

That's great. By the time you're 60, you'll be able to make a salad.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't need to. My dad's 60. He doesn't know how to do anything. He knows less than I do. What does he do?

[Mary Kish]

Does he also order the North Star of People?

[Dan Reichert]

No, he's not. He just microwaves. Just cheesy, you know, bullshit, Whatever, stuff. Like, it's all just microwave, like, you know, Hot Pockets and pizzas and stuff.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm gonna sound like a dick. I think. Maybe not. Mary, you be the judge.

[Mary Kish]

Here we go.

[Mike Mahardy]

If you've gotten this far, go for it. I think you're missing out on a very enjoyable part of life, which is actual cooked food.

[Dan Reichert]

I'll put it this way. There were a few times in the last couple years where I've been. If there's one thing that'll get me to do things, it's money. And I've gotten sponsorships from, like, hellofresh and shit before. And so I've done some hellofresh streams. I was like, hey, they're paying me to cook. I'll cook. And it was actually laid out pretty well. I'm not getting paid by them right now, but it actually did teach me how to do it. And it was fun, and it did taste very good. It's just the idea of doing that, like, every night for my dinner seems insane. And then to think that there are people that do that all the time, but with, like, more people, like, they do that with, like, oh, I gotta cook for two kids and another adult. Like, that's the wildest shit I've ever heard of.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is it the. Is it the time cons? Commitment?

[Dan Reichert]

Time concerns? And also, it's just, like, stuff. Like, a lot of these ingredients and stuff go bad in a couple days. So it's like, how do you fucking juggle? Like, getting. Like, you can't just. You can't go to Costco and buy, like, three months worth of cooking stuff. Yeah, it's like you're buying vegetables and stuff that goes bad and everything. And.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I think. I don't know. I got to a certain point in my life where cooking became this meditative way to end the day. Working with my hands to create something. I don't know. I'm not. I'm. I'm. You know, I don't.

[Mary Kish]

But you're. You're an organized person. I think, like, the thing that I feel like. You feel like you don't have is that it's just so crazy that you would be able to schedule it and organize it, but you can schedule all sorts of stuff. You've never broken an embargo because you know how to set your calendar to something and keep your brain to it. It's the same thing with eggs. It's the same thing with lettuce. You know what I mean? You gotta use it by the 12th of October, you know, get it done.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. Okay, so let's. Let's. The capacity. Yes, I could learn it, but I think a bigger issue is, like, I'm just trying to eat healthier now. And so, like, I'm like, okay, great. I'm gonna get. I can buy frozen broccoli. And I got an air fryer that'd be a great way to make snacks throughout the day, is just, you know, put some olive oil and salt and pepper and, you know, lime juice and stuff on it and air fry some stuff. It's great. I bought it all. I have a bunch of broccoli florets in my freezer, and I did it once and it was awesome. But I would love to do that every day. But it's like, I don't have time to, like, between meetings and recordings and shit, to, like, preheat for five minutes, throw them in there and toss them around and put them in for another five minutes and, like, eat a whole pound of broccoli. I don't have time to do that between stuff, but I do have time to go, like, eat a couple Uncrustables, which, by the way, I just discovered uncrustables. I think you could have gone my entire life without knowing the glory of uncrustables because I was afraid, because they had jelly in them. And while we're in Jersey and I just need to stock the fridge with some shit to eat during the day. Bonk was like, you've never had uncrustables? And I was like, no, they're incredible. It's the perfect ratio of peanut butter and jelly.

[Mike Mahardy]

Bonk's enabling you.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, no, Bonk knows what I like, and she knows good quality. And so she's like, you should get some Smuckers Uncrustables. And I got past my fear of jelly. And then it's like, now I can open the door to uncrustables. And I'll be damned if it's not the softest bread. A great ratio of peanut butter and jelly. I'm a big Smuckers Uncrustables guy now.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, A whole new world for you now. That You've learned about jelly.

[Dan Reichert]

It's true.

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't want to tell someone how to live their life. And I'm struggling because here we go. You say you don't have time. All you have to do is play like 20 minutes less of echoes of wisdom and I beat that game.

[Dan Reichert]

That was like 25, 30 hours. I beat it. Okay, so you're telling me I shouldn't have beaten the game and done my job?

[Mike Mahardy]

You could have beaten it a day later if you had committed to. If you don't want to cook, then go for it.

[Dan Reichert]

The broccoli isn't going into. The broccoli doesn't have a time where it's like, oh, we're still talking about broccoli. Like, if I'm talking about echoes of wisdom in February, it's like, oh, we were done talking about that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Sure, fair enough.

[Dan Reichert]

October.

[Mike Mahardy]

But yeah, but broccoli is not embargoed.

[Mary Kish]

There's no embargo on broccoli.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Okay, it was a bad example. I just think you could probably find 20 minutes in your day if you really wanted to cook if you don't want to.

[Dan Reichert]

I wish I could.

[Mike Mahardy]

I guarantee if you gave me your schedule, I could find you 20 minutes in your schedule.

[Mary Kish]

What's the pie chart of your life? Where do you fill most of it? Sleeping.

[Dan Reichert]

Sleeping is like six to eight hours.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, good. What else do you got earlier? What else you got?

[Dan Reichert]

I got, okay, for every meal, I got to take out my teeth, gimmick and do a whole brushy thing and everything. So you add all that up, that's probably 40 minutes of my day.

[Mary Kish]

Just 40 minutes of teeth. Go on.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

We have eight hours of sleeping and 40 minutes of teeth so far. Continue.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, and there's variables, like bonk travels.

[Mary Kish]

A lot and so when Box travel document out.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. When Bonk's traveling, I'm on dog duty, which means that's, you know, several times to take them out, watching them, you know, take them on little walks and stuff like that. So, you know, I got the dog business going on.

[Mike Mahardy]

I just don't think you're. I know you're a busy person. Trust me, I'm aware. You are. You are like, busy to the point where you need like a personal chef to be cooking for you. If you wanted home cooked meals.

[Mary Kish]

Go ahead, Dan. What else? Besides if Mary and I can find.

[Mike Mahardy]

If Mary and I can find 20 minutes in our schedule, and I'm not saying we use it to cook every time I'm saying if we could find it, you could probably find it.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, put it this way too. I also try to play a ton of games to talk about them for work and for personal enjoyment.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, Mary, Mary, do you know Dan plays a lot of video games? Oh, Mary, what do you do with your time?

[Dan Reichert]

Do you know how much wrestling is on every week? I'm multitasking. If I am watching wrestling, which is maybe a couple hours a week on a non pay per view week, I am also playing my Steam Deck or my Switch while I'm watching wrestling. So, you know, that's maybe three hours if I happen to have a Monday open. I'm three hours or actually two hours now of Raw while I'm playing Steam Deck. So I'm also playing my games then, right?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How many times you hung out with Ben Hansen in the last two weeks? Three weeks?

[Dan Reichert]

Not at all.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, but you see him a lot, right?

[Dan Reichert]

No, I. I was actually. I know. You know what? I did have Ben Hampshire. Broccoli. Hang on. I had them over. I had a few friends over recently.

[Mike Mahardy]

And I remember telling them no.

[Dan Reichert]

And I remember telling them this is the first time I've been able to have anyone over since like early July.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm so busy. My wife is.

[Dan Reichert]

You asked me to explain how busy I am. I'm telling you now. I'm getting mocked. You son of a bitch. All right, I run. I run. And my long runs could take two hours. I run four to five times a week. That's at least an hour every time.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Dan Reichert]

I try to meditate every day. Try to do that. That's. Let's put that down for like 10 minutes a day.

[Mike Mahardy]

Stop meditating.

[Dan Reichert]

No, meditating is healthier for you than broccoli.

[Mike Mahardy]

I love messing with Dan because doctor.

[Dan Reichert]

Visits, dentist visits, therapy.

[Mike Mahardy]

Get Dr. Fernando on the phone. Ask him how much sleep you really need.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm pretty sure 68 hours sounds probably pretty smart. There's odds and ends, getting your winter tires put on. I had to go to Costco this weekend. Constantly traveling. So I got no weekend time to do anything because I've traveled every weekend for the last four months or whatever. So there's that. I got. I haven't even gotten to the day job stuff. We got big stuff going on that we're planning for, like around game of the year time. We got all sorts of stuff around the game. Awards and Giant Bomb at night. And then I'm on the Bobcast every week. I'm on the Boise dump truck every week we do upf, we do other streams, ultra squeezing, playing games on. I don't know if you're doing all the math here. There's not a lot of broccoli time.

[Mary Kish]

I'm doing all the math and it's called eight hours of work and 40 minutes of teeth.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dr. Fernando finds time to go to the bar and he's a doctor.

[Dan Reichert]

I haven't been to a bar in Minneapolis in months. I don't think I. No, I don't think so. I can't remember the last time I've been at a bar in Minneapolis.

[Mike Mahardy]

Your life sounds horrible, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

No, it's all good. I'm just saying I don't have time for broccoli.

[Mary Kish]

You do have time for broccoli.

[Dan Reichert]

Not if it takes 25 fucking minutes to get it ready. I just need to throw a Smucker's Uncrustable in my head.

[Mike Mahardy]

Why does it take you 25 minutes to make? To what?

[Dan Reichert]

Air fry. You gotta preheat it. You put it in there for five minutes, you take it out, you toss it with the olive oil and all that gimmick, and then you gotta put it in for another five minutes. So that's like you got like 20 minutes right there. And then it takes a big ass pound of broccoli. It's gonna take me a while to eat. Plus the teeth. Shit, I want to.

[Mike Mahardy]

I want to. It takes you five minutes to preheat. What? The air fryer?

[Dan Reichert]

Let's say three minutes to preheat.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's three.

[Dan Reichert]

Five minutes to put it in raw dog, take it out, toss it around with all the bullshit. That takes a few minutes and you got to put another five minutes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, that's 13 minutes.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, 13 minutes of making 22. I'm just slow eater. I can't eat very fast. And a big pound of broccoli takes a while.

[Mike Mahardy]

You're going to take just as long to eat delivered food though.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, for lunch I almost always just have peanut butter sandwich.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, okay. So you're making something.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, but a peanut butter sandwich is like five minutes. And then it's easy to eat a peanut butter sandwich quickly too. So that's like a 10 minute deal. I can sprint and do between a recording and a meeting or something like that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Then you have meeting that you probably gotta go to. Yeah, you got a show, you got a plan.

[Mary Kish]

Then you have meeting and then you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Got gas to fill up in the car, you got a dog to walk, do.

[Mary Kish]

I've done the math. If you have seven hours of sleep, 40 minutes of teeth, one hour dog, two hour wrestle, 42 hour game, eight.

[Dan Reichert]

Hours two hour wrestle a week. Two hour wrestle a week, if that.

[Mary Kish]

I'm giving it to you per day, you little bitch. Shut up.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, she's trying to help your argument and your.

[Mary Kish]

This is for a 24 hour day, okay? One hour of run, 10 minutes of meditating, one hour of doctor, slash other.

[Dan Reichert]

Medical slash mental, what?

[Mary Kish]

Whatever the fuck you want to do with it. You have a whole hour for it, and then that gives you 50 minutes of cooking and eating.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, shit.

[Dan Reichert]

When am I supposed to play video games?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, do you factor video games in?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, when do I play video games?

[Mary Kish]

Not include the two hours of wrestling. If you combine the work, the games and the wrestling, I have given you 12 hours of garbage.

[Dan Reichert]

12 hours of garbage. What?

[Mary Kish]

Yes, 12 hours free. Are you saying free work, games and wrestling.

[Dan Reichert]

So how much is broccoli time?

[Mary Kish]

50 minutes.

[Dan Reichert]

15. 50.

[Mary Kish]

50. But you need to eat three meals, right?

[Dan Reichert]

So that's the thing. You didn't factor in breakfast, you didn't factor in dinner time.

[Mary Kish]

Banana said done. Yeah, broccoli, 20 minutes. There you go.

[Dan Reichert]

Broccoli for dinner takes three minutes to hook heat up all my microwave meals for dinner. So that's three minutes right there. And 30 minutes to eat. Not a lot of gaming time going on here. And then there's just a billion like.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, tell us you're not watching wrestling while you're also eating little factor meals or your little crusties.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I eat upstairs. We don't have a TV up there.

[Mary Kish]

You just stare at yourself in the mirror while you eat an uncrustable.

[Dan Reichert]

I sit at a little table in the. In the kitchen and I eat my. I. I have the newspaper. I look at the newspaper.

[Mary Kish]

I bet you face a wall, you little freak.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I face the table and read the newspaper. I check the weather and stuff like that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Why do you read the newspaper?

[Dan Reichert]

Because I thought it'd be nice to have. I don't want to put a screen on.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's. That's a. That's a noble pursuit. Yeah, yeah, we'll give you that.

[Mary Kish]

You make time for reading a newspaper, but you. While I'm eating a vegetable.

[Dan Reichert]

While I'm eating.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, wait, you just told us that for. You just told us recently that for every meal of the last, like, few months, you've been playing balatro.

[Dan Reichert]

That also happens a lot, too.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is it the newspaper? Is it Balatro Dan?

[Dan Reichert]

It can be both. There's Three meals a day.

[Mary Kish]

Let I let us remind you you are under oath, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I'm not. And then we didn't even factor in the fucking 50 emails and 100 texts and fucking Slack messages and discords and bullshit. I got do between all that's a work. But that. That just work hours. That's all day every. And then my dad can't figure out his Hulu because the batteries died again.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, do you want me to put in time for you to scratch your ass?

[Mike Mahardy]

You have to tell an adult how to do adult things, Dan. I can't imagine what that must feel like.

[Mary Kish]

You want me to put in time?

[Mike Mahardy]

Jesus.

[Dan Reichert]

I'd like to have some time to have a conversation with Bianca. That'd be nice too. I'd like to pet a dog. Have some time to pet a dog. Maybe look at a book for a second.

[Mary Kish]

Why don't I take away some of your two hours of wrestling per day that I've granted.

[Dan Reichert]

You don't. I don't have two hours of wrestling a day by any means. Maybe two hours a week. Maybe two hours a week.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

His time is very valuable.

[Dan Reichert]

We do movie nights. We do a movie night every week. And that's important to have those times. Like we're just going to set this aside and we're going to watch a movie and that's good. So that's. That's one night there. There's lots of day specific things like that. Like a physical therapy.

[Mary Kish]

You have time for broccoli on a good day?

[Dan Reichert]

Sometimes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Cherish those good days.

[Dan Reichert]

I do. I cherish that broccoli. It only happened once in the last two weeks I've owned this broccoli. But it'll keep happening.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's good for you. I'm glad you're eating the broccoli once every two weeks. When I'm done with work, I just lay in the middle of the living room floor and fart for six hours. I didn't know you were doing so much stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

That sounds amazing.

[Mary Kish]

It's good for you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, it's true. So what else is up, Dan? What's new?

[Dan Reichert]

We got a Nintendo alarm clock.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Let's save that for the game section, okay?

[Mike Mahardy]

Because he was waxing poetic about this thing at dinner the other night.

[Mary Kish]

It's not a game to me.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes, it sounded awesome.

[Dan Reichert]

It's a Nintendo. So it's a Nintendo thing. So I'd say that belongs in the gaming section. I'm still in the bullshit section.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this has been. This has Been bullshit. It's been good radio.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thanks to Dr. Fernando for the beers. I don't remember getting any of those, but that's fine.

[Dan Reichert]

Just me and Bonell.

[Mike Mahardy]

You guys want to talk about video games?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan and Mary, the holiday season is coming up, which means we should be getting ready to bring those Beaujolais to Thanksgiving dinner. We should get really into those hearty reds for the cold winter months, but that doesn't mean we can't get into some whites. I got an awesome Grenache Blanc that I've been loving from the Languedoc region recently from First Leaf. Dan, you've been using First Leaf for the last couple of years. Have you liked it so far?

[Dan Reichert]

I've loved it. I'm drinking a 2020 Pinot Noir right now and getting started with First Leaf was a breeze. I just answered a few quick questions about my wine preferences on their site and they put together an amazing assortment of top notch wines just for me. Gets delivered right to my door.

[Mary Kish]

You can bring a great bottle to your next gathering with First Leaf. Go to try firstleaf.com fireescape to sign up and you will get your first six handpicked bottles for just 44.95. That's tryfirstleaf.com fireescape tryfirstleaf.com firescape all right.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan, everybody knows you want to talk about this alarm clock, so just go.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I just, I. I'm just seeding the future conversation because I just got back in town and I had my alarm o waiting there and so I went through the setup today. It's plugged in by my bed. You have to set up the sensor detection radius. Mary, have you seen this thing?

[Mary Kish]

No. I need to see it.

[Dan Reichert]

Nintendo made an alarm clock. It's called Alarmo and it watches you sleep. And it's got a big chunky fun button on the top. It's the most. It's like a dial for the settings and stuff. And it's such a chunky fun button to hit and you can set it to like shuffle between like 25, 35 different scenes from different games. Like Nintendo 7 like Mario, Splatoon, Pikmin.

[Mike Mahardy]

2025 scenes total from several games or.

[Dan Reichert]

They'Re going to have downloadable ones. So yes, I had to tie my alarm clock to my Nintendo account, which is nice strange for alarm dlc. So.

[Mike Mahardy]

The Glad you found time to do this, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

It's my job, Mike. Three hours every couple of weeks with you assholes. I forgot to clog that.

[Mary Kish]

True. We're Taking. We're taking a precious broccoli time.

[Dan Reichert]

I forgot that this broccoli and Nintendo.

[Mike Mahardy]

Alarm could be frying a full turkey right now.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm not saying the stuff I do is. It's stupid.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just saying there's a lot to do of it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

So there's like what, Bowser's Castle theme to Mario, et cetera. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

So for instance, like the one they showed off in the trailer was like they had like a Nintendo direct for a alarm clock, which is hilarious. So it's like, oh, okay. So Mario Odyssey music is going to start playing to wake you up. So I set my alarm for 7:30. So tomorrow will be my first morning. I wake up to it. I set it all up today. So Mario Odyssey music starts and it gets louder. And it gets louder if I don't get out of the bed because it's looking at you. And then as you start moving in bed, it starts making sound effects. So like on the Mario scene, like as I move and toss and turn, I'll be like collecting coins. And if I wait too long then like Bowser music starts and Bowser comes in and starts being really annoying. And it won't turn off until you like get up and get out of bed. And like there's like a splatoon one. So I could wake up and if I move, it's just a bunch of ink, like splat sounds until. I don't know if I'd want to.

[Mary Kish]

Wake up to that.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it's going to be a nightmare.

[Mike Mahardy]

Maybe it's just me. I had an alarm clock, the same one. I still have it now, but I don't use the alarm there anymore. I use my phone. But the noise of that alarm clock when I was younger, really, really, really. I associated it with, you know, getting out of bed. Starting the day in like middle school and high school. And it was the worst. I don't want to resent Nintendo music for getting me out of bed. Maybe, maybe it would be different as an adult if I switched to a new one. But I don't know, maybe I'm stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

That I'm actively playing. It's like, you know, like I'm not playing Odyssey right now. I'm not playing Pikmin right now. Splatoon. I haven't played in forever. Like I don't think it's going to be like, oh, I'm getting too much of this, you know.

[Mary Kish]

But do you get up? Do you enjoy waking up in the morning? Because I think what Mike is saying is that you Will associate music you enjoy with an experience you don't enjoy, which is like, waking up.

[Dan Reichert]

That's a time will tell thing because, yeah, tomorrow's the first morning.

[Mike Mahardy]

How fucking funny would it be if you got out of Nintendo jail, but then all of a sudden couldn't play Nintendo games because you hate the music?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, sure, that's its own jail. It's like an own. Like hell where you associate. You associate Mario with, like, waking up and it makes you angry. So you've completely lost your love of all Nintendo games.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't think that's. I don't know. Considering I took, like, careers in both fields that I love video games and wrestling, and I still love video games and wrestling, I. I think I might be immune to the over saturation of the things I love.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe it might be the case. Does it work with amiibos?

[Dan Reichert]

No, there's no amiibo support for my alarm clock.

[Mary Kish]

I feel like it's the perfect amiibo opportunity to, like, put a little amiibo on there. And it's like, okay, now we know to set your alarm to Dr. Mario.

[Dan Reichert]

That would be fun. Because, like, I used to get gimmick alarm clocks in college because I was always so bad at waking up. So I had one where it was like a helicopter thing that would take off and fly around the room, and you had to catch it and put it back on the stand before it go off. I had one where you set a target on the wall across the room and you had to pick up a laser gun and hit the target with the laser gun before you'd get up. I got one that would roll off the counter and just go wacky, like, under your bed and roll around everywhere. And you had to catch it to turn it off. I had a bunch of real bullshit alarm clocks.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't know if these existed. There's a whole industry I was unaware of.

[Dan Reichert]

This is around the time that I was just like, tasering myself to get up. Like, I was trying everything to get out of bed. So I'm. I'm up for a gimmick alarm clock. So this seems like a more adult way to do that than.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I was gonna say, it seems like you progressed.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah, I've gotten better at waking up.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I wake up to the news on an alarm clock as well. Like, I. I don't use a phone. I. My fear is that if I go to sleep with my phone, I'll look at the Internet until I'm like, literally falling asleep, which I don't like, I don't think it's a great way for me to fall asleep. So I don't have my phone in the room at all. It's downstairs on a charger. And I set a alarm clock, which is called the Dream Machine to npr. And I usually wake up to the morning news, which is super bland and boring and a perfect way to wake up.

[Mike Mahardy]

I like waking up. There's something very calming about the news, as long as they're not talking about, like, nukes going off, then it's a nice noise to wake up to. It's very jazz music.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Like, Mary, I think I. I'm of the same mind because I. I do the thing where I have my phone across the room from me, so I can't just, like, lay in bed and check the Internet or whatever. Problem is, alarm goes off. Yeah, you got to get up and go turn it off. But then it's very easy to just flop back in bed and then spend 20 minutes dicking around on. On your phone. So, like, I want to do the same thing. I want to have the. The phone, like, two floors down, and then I have to just. With Bowser until I get up, and then I can deal with my phone later.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, but there are news on it.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know. I don't know if the big chunky button does that.

[Mike Mahardy]

What is Alarmo doing to keep you from just flopping back into bed?

[Dan Reichert]

I think Bowser starts yelling at you if you don't get out of bed because it's motion detection. So I don't know if I can. Like, I'm gonna test and see if the big chunky button will. Like, there has to, like, there. There are settings you can do where it's like, oh, yeah, you can hit the button to turn it off. But I want to see if the default mode is just like, no, you have to get out of bed, otherwise this thing's not going to shut up.

[Mike Mahardy]

Part of me is really excited to hear more about this, and the other part of me feels like this is the premise to a Black Mirror episode.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure, sure. Yeah. It's funny because I. I'm talking optimistically about it now, but by the time this goes up on Monday, I'm sure I will have talked on, like, giant bump stuff for personal streams about, like, man, this thing's fucking annoying, or I love this thing, so time will tell.

[Mary Kish]

I. Let's take votes. What do you think? I think you will think it's annoying. I think Bonk will think it's super annoying.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, so that's the thing is Bonk always gets up way before me. She gets up early, you know, runs, you know, she's like very, very.

[Mary Kish]

Can she set her alarm to it too? Will it go like woohoo and then she'll wake up and then she'll go back to sleep?

[Dan Reichert]

No, she, she's not gonna do that. I don't think she could if she wanted to. No. So in fact it doesn't really work if there's two people in the bed, which I saw people joking that like oh, Nintendo may have alarm clock that only works except you're single.

[Mike Mahardy]

But no. So like if you're not, it will make you single.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. So if I'm getting. If I'm setting up for 7:30 every morning, she's probably going to be up and doing her business by. By that time anyway. So by the time Bowser's coming after me, I think Bonk will have started her day. So we'll see.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is 7:30 your standard wake up time?

[Dan Reichert]

It's what I try for but a lot of times it's like, you know, we record these later and you know, weekends are always all over the place and so man, it really depends. But I try for 7:30.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I like a good 7:00. I feel like that's a good time. I enjoy playing games in the morning over coffee now more than I do late at night. But yeah, if we like tomorrow morning for instance, I'll probably get up closer to eight or something.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

But yeah, I want to. If you're still using Alarmo by the time we're in Minneapolis, it's going to be funny to like. I'm assuming I could hear it from the other room.

[Dan Reichert]

I should just set it up in the room that you guys are in. Oh yeah, I guess you guys all deal with it. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I don't want to wake up to alarm.

[Dan Reichert]

Maybe I do ink splat sounds.

[Mary Kish]

I want to wake up to New Donk City. I want to hear what it sounds like.

[Dan Reichert]

You know what, let's do that because we're getting dinner and going to the watch the Tyson fight on Friday night. Probably have some drinks, be up a little late. I'll set up alarmo in the room you're in and you can report on it during our game of the year.

[Mary Kish]

Thank you.

[Dan Reichert]

You're welcome.

[Mike Mahardy]

Sounds great.

[Dan Reichert]

Just don't break any of my fingers this time.

[Mary Kish]

I never. I have. I. You're not going to catch me slipping. I've never broken.

[Dan Reichert]

I didn't Press charges?

[Mary Kish]

No.

[Mike Mahardy]

But you did fall someone at the wedding in. I forgot to talk about this in the bullshit section at the beginning. I went to Hawaii for the first time last week.

[Mary Kish]

Oh.

[Mike Mahardy]

Two of my good friends Brad and Zoe got married in Hawaii. He's from Sydney, so that's halfway between New York and. Or, sorry, Hawaii is halfway between New York and Sydney. So that we did a destination thing and they brought up Brad and Zoe had been here hanging out with Amanda when we started our live show. So they heard about the Mac and cheese when we started the show last year. So I had to. I had to tell the story about the Mac and cheese tub to a bunch of Australians and Texans that I did not know. And then it. Like I was trying to tell it in an adult way because we were at a wedding. But the more I went on, the more I realized how deranged the whole thing was. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Imagine me having to explain it to several doctors.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, these.

[Mike Mahardy]

These were. These were. Some of these people were doctors, but they weren't mine.

[Mary Kish]

Men of science. Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

So the Mac and cheese tub. So it's a podcast. Dr. Fernando gets it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, he gets it. But anyway. Mary, what have you been playing?

[Mary Kish]

I've been playing Neva, which is the. It's a new game published by Devolver from the people who made Greed, which I believe was spelled G R I S. And I used to say, oh, Gris. But I think that it's Gree. And it was a nice, beautiful game. Gree. But it didn't have, in my opinion, the mechanics or gameplay that I was looking for. And I ended up kind of playing through it and thinking it was fine, but not having strong memories of it and thinking it was. Was really important or worth playing again. Neva is actually quite a charming and well thought out puzzle platformer, Dan. And I think you're gonna like it.

[Dan Reichert]

Neva.

[Mary Kish]

Neva.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm gonna download it. N E V A. Got it. All right. It's on the list.

[Mary Kish]

So it has a very charming visual style like Gris. They're known for this. I mean, it is stunning. It's like playing a watercolor. Their choice of colors, their character designs, the audio is just tremendous. It is a. Is incredible what they were able to construct visually. Their art director is a genius, and I just think it's a stunning masterpiece visually.

[Dan Reichert]

But what they did, all these pictures. Sorry to interrupt. I'm just.

[Mary Kish]

No, no, go for it.

[Dan Reichert]

All these pictures don't have much in the way of a hud. Does the game do that? Where it's like, there's not a lot of stuff obscuring the screen and there's.

[Mary Kish]

No talkie at all.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, not just talking, but like. Like HUD elements, like health bars and numbers. I'm not seeing a lot there. So is it just like a painting?

[Mary Kish]

Like, there's like, nothing. There's nothing. Every once in a while. Okay, there is. There's some. It's very, very limited. They will do stuff like saying, I'm trying to, like, not do spoilers either, but they'll do stuff where they'll be like. In the very beginning of the game, they'll be like, oh, yeah, if you want to double, you can double jump now. So hit a twice. So very simple. None of the puzzles have any visuals. There's no dialogue because it's one lady and a bunch of animals. And so the only thing that she says is Neva, because it's the name of the animal. And so all of her dialogue is calling the animal. This one reminds me a bit of Trico, the Last Guardian. Hey, that was cool. He said the same time, it's kind of like a. You're training the animal a little bit. You have to guide it, you have to tell it what to do. It helps you in combat, which is pretty cool. It helps you solve puzzles. And the only thing this character says is Neva. That's all it says. That's all they say. Neva. Neva, Neva. And you just kind of like control the animal and guide along its way. But where I think it gets interesting, I think. I suspect that the first hour of this game, a lot of people will be like, oh, this is just a very simple platformer. But as it progresses, there are really interesting mechanical puzzle designs that are very well thought out and again, require no text. It's just visually guiding the player of what to do. And there are these more difficult platforming puzzles that are optional, and the only way that you get them is if you just see a platforming section and you're like, oh, I wonder if I could do that. And you'll noodle on a little bit and maybe spend 10 minutes figuring it out. Once you do it, you just get to the top and there's like a little plant and it gives you a nice little audio cue that you made it, and that's it. And you don't have to do that. You don't have to do any of those. But I found the more difficult sections for platforming really fun and enjoyable. And they're little secrets you have to look for them. You can miss them if you're not paying attention. So it's got like, really good secrets. I was pretty floored by some of the puzzle design where I was like, okay, this is difficult, but it's understandable. And it is all makes sense mechanically, what it's telling you to do over time. I never got stuck. I never was like, totally out of my element. I figured every puzzle out within about 10 minutes, which was really fun and made me feel really smart. I was so pleasantly surprised with the puzzle platforming in this game. It's miles beyond what Gris was able to do. And I just think for people who played Gris and was like, ah, it's not really what I was looking for. You gotta try Neva because it's doing something else. And if you've never heard of those games before, just look at the trailer for Neva because it is so visually stunning, it might be what carries you to give it a purchase. It's really up there for me this year.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, this does look really sharp. I'm definitely curious and it seems like, I mean, if there's not a lot of dialogue or anything, it seems like you probably get into it pretty quick. Quick.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

You're looking to Google it. It's N E V A. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. I'm curious.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Because they were the studio. This is Devolver that published it, Correct?

[Mary Kish]

Correct.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nomada is a Spanish studio. I remember when Grease first came out, they were talking about how they were trying to go for like a journey meets. What's the Xbox platformer?

[Dan Reichert]

Ori Banjo Kazooie.

[Mike Mahardy]

They were going for like an Ori vibe. So, like the bang.

[Mary Kish]

I think this one's closer to Ori.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, interesting. Cool.

[Mary Kish]

It's not a Metroidvania, but it has Ori like, platforming elements to it that I think are akin to it. There is a double dump, dump. There is a double jump and dash. No, I don't want that associated with me.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's a triple. Dan, you one up turkey.

[Dan Reichert]

She got the turkey.

[Mary Kish]

It's a triple. It's a double jump.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, my God. I gotta play this Neffa game. There's a double dump in it.

[Dan Reichert]

Double dump, double dump jump.

[Mary Kish]

Damn it. There's a double jump and dash.

[Dan Reichert]

And the double dump and dash. The triple D. No, the old double dump, dad.

[Mike Mahardy]

Done many of those to a 711 in my day.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Sound of a double dumping dad.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

They called me the poop Bandit.

[Dan Reichert]

You clog it up and you Got to get out of there before anyone realizes it was you.

[Mike Mahardy]

It could be anyone still on the lookout. He's got to know who ate six.

[Dan Reichert]

Taquitos and then shit their pants.

[Mary Kish]

They know it was you.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's wearing a balaclava and brown underwear.

[Dan Reichert]

To shit up a 7 11.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, God. Never sounds. I want to play it.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, Okay. I feel like I've sold it.

[Mike Mahardy]

You have. I know. The fact that you said this is more like Ori than Greece was actually does make me want to play it.

[Mary Kish]

Because it even has full sections like the original Ori. If you remember, there were sections of Ori where they were kind of like time based. So something's chasing you and you have to do a very. You have to do an amount. The escape jumps and dashes and climbing sequences, those are the best parts in succession.

[Dan Reichert]

Dumps and dashes. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Neva has sections like that, which I think is really cool. So I think it's really well made and just a beautiful experience. And so I really do recommend it just to Took. I want to say it took like 30 or 40 minutes before I was like, okay, this is special. So you might find that the very beginning is very simple because it is very humble. Origins of. You know you can double jump up here and you're like, yeah, I know. And I thought at first it was going to be too easy, but it. It gets better.

[Dan Reichert]

I'll decide some days to do broccoli and some days to do Neva. So.

[Mary Kish]

Spend your time on Neva. I approve of you giving up broccoli for today or tomorrow if you want to play Neva.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I do want to play it.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Speaking of playing a game for 40 minutes before it gets good, Dan, I'm hearing that metaphor refantasio. Am I saying that correctly? Takes like 10 hours and then all of a sudden it's great. And I asked this to be clear. I asked this as someone who fucked.

[Mary Kish]

Why do you sound like Santa?

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't know.

[Dan Reichert]

Genuinely brave.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, wait. I asked because. Dan, I'm genuinely. Bonk and I were talking about this the other night. Me and her share like a.

[Dan Reichert]

It was that night that I started it.

[Mike Mahardy]

We share a love for this kind of game. She's been trying to get me to play. Not trying to get me, but recommending Shin Megami Tensei 5 for a while. And I love Persona 5. I'm curious about metaphor because I like this style of Atlas rpg.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. I've never played an Atlas game, I think, before this. And so I specifically.

[Mary Kish]

Great start.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, but it was that night I went in with the best of intentions. It was, you know, Mike, you and Bonk were talking about it. I've heard so many people talk about like, ooh, we got a new game of the year contender in town. And I was like, you know what? I am going to go into this open minded. I'm not just going to be like, hey, this story heavy JRPG stuff isn't for me. I'm not going to like it. Everyone likes this a lot. I know good games. Not every game is for everyone. But it's like I'm at least going to give this an earn real try. And before I started, Bonk was like, hey, make sure you put like at least a couple hours into this before because you know it is story heavy up top. And it was like, no problem, like two hours. I can handle that.

[Mary Kish]

No problem.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I can do that. I was on the road so I had no obligations at home or work or anything. I laid in bed with the Steam deck. I was like, let's do this. One of the very first things that happens the first time you have control over the game. And Mary, I'm curious if this sounds appealing to you. So a bunch of anime happens, okay. And as as want to happen in animes. You're like a fire Emblem kid and there's a king and there's a bunch of swords and magic fire wands and a lot of just like, oh, I'm an evil prince. And it doesn't really sound like you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Were actually paying attention. Like you just told us you.

[Dan Reichert]

I was looking. There was no wrestling on in the background. I wasn't thinking about broccoli. I just sat there and I was paying attention to it. And then it stops and there's a scene or a screenshot where it says the person speaking is scheming, man. And it says, is fantasy limited to the confines of imagination? Would you call it a powerless creation and you have to choose like that's right or no? And I looked at that one screen and got so mad just like, oh brother, this stinks. This is like this is not. I can't fucking handle. This is. And I know it's not for me, so I'm not. I don't want to go all Des stranding Red Dead 2. This game sucks. I'm not going to say the game sucks. Everyone says it's a really good game. I believe them. But I almost quit right there and I was like, no, I got to at least get through the first couple hours. I quit I almost quit six times before finally quitting 12 minutes in.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, fair enough. Sorry.

[Dan Reichert]

Wait, I'm not.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, let me. Let me just stop for you for a second.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

You said because you're a really big person. Person that it was very important that you got through multiple hours because it was asked of you. I thought I could do it six times. But you made it 12 minutes and it was quit.

[Dan Reichert]

It was one. It was some of the toughest 12 minutes of my life. At no point did I feel like I was playing a video game. I controlled an Fire Emblem guy as he ran around and dodged sand worms for 30 seconds before another cutscene about philosophy or capitalism or something started.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan, can I read a quote for you? And then you have to guess what game it's from, please.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, is this going to be the. Is this Metal Gear or is this.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm on the dumbest lines in Metal Gear Reddit.

[Dan Reichert]

Go ahead. Yeah, let's hear it.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm a shadow.

[Dan Reichert]

I understand why this is the Hippocratic.

[Mike Mahardy]

Made my point. No, no, no. Okay. So I.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, here's the thing. Metal Gear is about real life.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm going to punch.

[Dan Reichert]

We don't have magic wands in the real world, Mike.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna.

[Dan Reichert]

The cold war happened, man. Metal Gear is teaching about history.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, okay.

[Dan Reichert]

Nukes are a concern. Magic is not. One of us has lessons about the real world. The other is nonsense.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nukes are a concern. Be a really good sound bite bite. Yes. I will say even Persona 5, like one of my favorite games took. And again, I'm the first person to say if a game takes 10 hours to get good, it's probably a bad game.

[Dan Reichert]

I've never had patience for that.

[Mike Mahardy]

I. Most Atlas games I played do truly, you know, to people's points get much better when they get out of their own way and let you actually go back to the home base. Like talk to your party, improve a relationship and then go back into a palace. Do the heist, do turn based combat, maybe merge a few Personae. Like once they actually get out of their own way, let the systems actually kind of. You're having fun for a while. I think they're great. However, I've never. I've also never played a Persona game. Persona 4's intro is relatively short compared to other ones I played. I wish they would get out of their own way sooner, but I think.

[Dan Reichert]

One of the reasons I don't. One of the reasons I thought this might work better for me than like a Persona is Personas about fucking, like, high school kids and their problems. And I could not give less of a. I thought if metaphor was actually about, like, big, you know, kingdom concerning things and kings and queens and stuff, I thought that would at least be better in dip shits in high school.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, but Persona is about high schoolers. However, as you go into the game, it becomes more and more about, like, nation, like Japanese government, and, like, suicide conspiracies. It's not about high school, really. They're just high schoolers who are pulled into bigger situations, which is more real than all the kings and queens stuff you just talked about.

[Dan Reichert]

But look, if I don't love kings and queens and fantasy stuff and swords and all that. Yeah, but, like, I would take that over high schoolers any day. Like, because, I don't know, I just. What could possibly be interesting about that versus, like, at least, like, I like Game of Thrones. That was fantasy, and that's cool. I like Zelda just because it doesn't talk too much. Like it. I can like things with swords and magic. It just can't fucking talk all the time or be stupid like Lord of the Rings. And so I was willing to give this a shot, but it's just like, oh, man, it was. It's a brutal, brutal start, and I could not do it. It's probably a good game.

[Mary Kish]

Probably good 12 minutes, though.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. I mean, my tolerance for that horseshit is unbelievably low. Is fantasy limited to the confines of imagination? Would you call it a powerless creation? I'll put it to the panel. What do you guys think?

[Mike Mahardy]

You've got it all wrong. You were the lightning in that rain. You could still shine through the darkness. I'm a shadow. One that no light will shine on. As long as you follow me, you'll never see the day.

[Dan Reichert]

Is that Metal Gear?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Who says that?

[Dan Reichert]

Metal Gear. That's not Grey Fox.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's a conversation between Raiden and Snake.

[Dan Reichert]

Cool.

[Mike Mahardy]

Wait, you are? Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Let's just tell me some cool metal.

[Mike Mahardy]

You're like, no, you'll know. This one. This one I'm actually not convinced is done. Dumb. You are above even the boss. I hereby award you the title of big boss.

[Dan Reichert]

You know who says that? Lyndon B. Johnson.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I know. That's the more real life.

[Mary Kish]

Even your dogs have had enough.

[Dan Reichert]

Gizmo just left.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, my God. I guess now this is pretty funny actually, too. I guess now would be a good time to mention that my father killed himself because I slept with my stepmother.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that sounds like Somaticon shit.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, probably.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Okay. That guy sucks.

[Mike Mahardy]

So fantasy with lightning in that rain.

[Dan Reichert]

I.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's. I know. I'm just teasing you. I also, I've had to fight through the beginning of many an Atlas game and then all of a sudden I get to games I love. So again, I'm kind of being a hypocrite by saying if you have to fight through several bad hours, then the game's probably not that good. I stand by that from a philosophical standpoint. But I also will be the first to admit that I love games that start terribly sometimes.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, even games that are more in genres that I'm prone to liking. Like, it's one of the reasons I never liked Assassin's Creed is like, I remember people talked about Brotherhood and some people like, were like, oh, check out three the setting, school or whatever. I remember giving Brotherhood and three a shot and being like, it's five fucking hours in and I don't even have my like, cloak. I'm not even jumping off of buildings and stabbing people yet. Like, I don't give a fuck about Desmond or whatever. Don't make me do this stuff for hours before I do the cool assassin stuff. It's like. And every Assassin's Creed to me was like that. Just like a bunch of boring ass story. Before you do the cool stuff, you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Want to just skip the foreplay.

[Dan Reichert]

I just want to play a video game at the end of the day. That's it. And like, if I don't feel like I'm playing a video game, I'm going to hate it. And I played 12 minutes of this and I didn't feel like I was.

[Mary Kish]

The whole point of it is to like have agency. And I feel like in a lot of these ways, when they start with too much story, it's like, I'm not here to watch a full length feature film. That would be great. And that's lovely if you can convince me that there is a film worth of value in here. The Last of Us does such a good job of having a cinematic intro, but I am in control, right? I am running around, I am trying to save my daughter, I am driving, I am dealing with a lot of zombie situations, but it also pulls me into an incredible story. I feel like there's just some of this that can be lost when it's just like dialogue, heavy dialogue, so much story. And ultimately I'm like, but what am I doing here? Why am I playing this?

[Mike Mahardy]

Half Life 2 still one of the best intros to any video. Game ever.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Or even, like, little things. Like, you know, like, Bioshock was good about, like. Oh, you could walk around while listening to the audio log. So it's like, okay, you're getting in kind of the flavor details and stuff about Rapture, why you're, like, going around searching through trash cans, getting shit and, you know, looking for collectibles. It's. I want to feel like I'm playing a video game pretty much at all times.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Unless Metal Gear gets passed for everything.

[Mike Mahardy]

Speaking of, a few episodes ago, I had said I was getting back into Diablo 4 to see how it's doing, and now Vessel of Hatred, the big expansion, is out, so I've been playing the new character class, the Spirit Born. And I've been trying out the new campaign area, recruiting some new mercenary AI companions. First off, Spiritborn Class is extremely fun.

[Dan Reichert]

You were talking about this at dinner the other night, and that actually made me half interested to jump back in. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. I mean, even if you're not playing the new class and you don't have Vessel of Hatred, I think the game's in a much, much better spot than it was last year. Again, I talked about this a few episodes ago, but in general, I think the loot is more rewarding. I think the pacing is better for leveling up and crafting your abilities and just crafting in general, getting better items for your specific character. The Spirit Born, specifically, I would describe it as a mix of the monk from Diablo 3 and as unfortunate. And, you know, all the tropes it trafficked in was the Witch Doctor from. It's like they took the Witch Doctor and made it not offensive, and they combined it with the monk. So you are basically this. Your weapons are all spears or glaives or bo staffs, and then got. The armor design for this character is so cool. I'm trying to think of, like, a movie it compares to, but, you know, like, they come out of, like, the jungle biome, so covered in awesome tattoos. They get really cool weapons, but most their attacks are like, quick punch, like, hand to hand. Like even the Monk from Baldur's Gate 3 kind of class. But combined with. I'm doing the. The poison build. Basically everything I do is either leaving a trail of poison behind me, applying poison to one enemy, and when they die, a swarm of flies will go to other enemies nearby. My. If people punch me, they get poisoned. So I'm doing a lot of thorns, which is the effect. Again, when you get hit, they take damage, but now it applies poison. They're a very fun class. And they're also pretty nuanced. Like I spent 20 minutes looking through the skill tree the other day just seeing different potential classes because it's one of those things where I put all of my abilities right now into the green. The Centipede skills, they're called. So I'm going really heavy on poison. But of course you can mix and match if you wanted to. At a certain point, you do this hunt side quest to unlock the passive ability. And then the passive ability you pick from the spirit of the gorilla, the spirit of the Skyhawk, the spirit of the Centipede, and the spirit. There's one animal I'm missing, but those give you specific passives that can either it'll say like, oh, anytime you use a Centipede style attack, you'll do this effect. Or anytime you use a gorilla style effect, you'll get this buff. Secondarily. That passive will also make every single attack you do a gorilla style. So basically the passive is just saying like, you're choosing the style of martial art that is inspired by the spirit from the jungle. Jungle. They're really cool, well rounded class. And they're also. They've got that quick snappiness that the monk had in Diablo 3, which is my favorite class. Like if you go to punch someone from far away, it'll warp you to them and you'll just do like three quick jabs at their chest. It's really satisfying. I'm playing on PS5 and it's. It's just feels great. On controller, my ultimate again, I just summon this giant centipede who shoots out poison globes when he first comes out and then starts thrashing around in the middle of the battle.

[Mary Kish]

Is there anything that poison doesn't poison? Is it weak against anything?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I think there are certain enemies with resistance to it. I don't know exactly what it is. I'm not that well versed in the game, but I think there are certain like, areas where the enemies have a proclivity for like antidote or whatever it is. But yeah, the armor, all the new armor sets. Like each piece of armor I get just looks awesome on this character. And that's not. Again, I played the Necromancer recently when I went back to the game and those all look great. Like that game is just in a like Diablo 3 esque state. And Diablo 3 was a game I played a lot. This game's still not as cartoonishly fast paced as three was, but it still feels great. And it feels like they Got away. The storytelling is still pretty, you know, goth and macabre and it feels like. I don't know, I'm not 14 anymore, so I don't really. I'm not like, like craving that Diablo 2 kind of horror that they were going for. But it feels like they're. With this expansion, with the storytelling, they've kind of gotten away from that in a good way, in my opinion. The environments are really cool looking in the new jungle area. And they've got. There's another thing where you basically can recruit these AI mercenaries who then act as your companions, which is really nice if you're playing solo. I've not played co op yet. I actually don't know if. If you play co op, can you each bring one of these mercenaries in? But there's one that's like a tank mercenary. He's a one armed blacksmith who can taunt enemies and then draw attention away from you. There's another one who's a reformed cannibal and she's very much. They're despicable character or she is despicable character but she's useful in a fight. Yeah, I'm having a blast with it. It is a full fledged expansion. It reminds me of maybe not quite the scale of Reaper of souls with D3, but in terms of something that introduces a new character class, a new area which. If you have the expansion and you start a new character class, as long as you've beaten the campaign in the base game, if you start any new character class, you can just skip the campaign. You'll go right into the open world. You'll have the new jungle area. It's available. It's just down in the southwest of the map map you can explore at your leisure, rank up, do all the side activities, get new armor at a pretty rapid pace. It's. They've. They're starting to figure that game out really well and I'm enjoying it.

[Dan Reichert]

I. I keep wanting to like once I have a good chunk of time between games I. I want to play that because that came out when I was in the middle of moving and so I just never really got a chance to play it because like I thought I'd be able to play it on Steam Deck, but it's. You have to always have a connection with that one. So like it's not good for planes and things like that. So I was frequently unable to play it. So it feels like now, anytime after now would probably be a great time to jump in. So.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I mean even if, even if you don't play the Spiritborn, play the Rogue, play the Necromancer, what have you. When the game first launched, I tried it and I bounced off like, I. I did not enjoy it at all. It missed those power jumps that made earlier Diablos, but especially three really satisfying for me. You'd get that one armor piece and all of a sudden you're one hitting enemies that you were just taking 10 hits previously to kill or. Oh, all of a sudden your attacks are leaving this trail of fire all over the map as you sprint around. So there's more of that now. Your character, it's still challenging, especially if you play on, like, if you find the right difficulty level, it can be challenging. And a lot of these bosses do force you to really switch up your. I mean, you're still rotating your spells in a similar way, but like, oh, I actually have to use potions that sprint away from this dude. And all of a sudden now I'm running away from people because they're too powerful. And that poison trail effect is useful because they're chasing me while I'm healing, but they're getting poisoned behind me. So then I go back to them and all of a sudden I'm doing more damage. Yeah, I'm having a blast with it. It's still a very, you know, passive experience as far as video games go, but. And yeah, it's definitely tickling the lizard brain kind of game design, but right now it's. I'm really enjoying it.

[Dan Reichert]

Sometimes that's fun and welcome when you want one of those.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's what I want when things are crazy. And that's like, I have, you know, an hour to play a game or something. Like, yeah, sure, I'll get that fucking sweet new glaive that does fire damage and then I'll do poison damage alongside it.

[Dan Reichert]

Sometimes that's just the right type of game. I was on a plane today for a few hours and I was like, okay, I'm gonna. You know, I got all these UFO 50 games to play and these other ones to check out. And it's like I just played Balatro the whole time again. It's like sometimes you just wanna, like, brain completely off. Play something very comfortable, you know.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'd started a new Stardew Valley farm on the way to and from Hawaii.

[Dan Reichert]

Nice.

[Mary Kish]

I was going to say. What did you do on the plane ride? Because that's such a long travel experience. You got to have something.

[Mike Mahardy]

Recent flights, I've gone just to Vampire Survivors or Balatro. But yeah, the Stardew Valley. The farm's not super far along. I have sprinklers and everything doing their shit now. But I just did the base map. I know there's a bunch like the islands and the river map. I want to try those. But every time I go back, I'm like, I kind of just want to mess with the base map again and go meet the townsfolk and do that shit. Yeah, outside of that, I watched. What movie did I watch? Oh, I watched. I rewatched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I watched it for the second time. I don't know, this is probably not a cool movie to like like, but I really enjoyed that, generally liked it.

[Dan Reichert]

I was mixed on it. It wasn't, like, my favorite and wasn't my least favorite of his stuff, you know, I thought. Did you. Had moments.

[Mike Mahardy]

Did you watch it once? I'm curious.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, just once in the theater.

[Mike Mahardy]

I watched. I saw in theaters. I was like, okay, that was fine. Like, I. I don't think it was as arduous to watch as Hateful Eight. Also, like, a movie I still think is too long. And, like, that's the only one I.

[Dan Reichert]

Haven'T seen of his. And I'm still curious, even though I hear it's not great that that movie.

[Mike Mahardy]

I guess if it's going to have a fighting chance, you've got to be, like, settled in on a winter night with a big glass of whiskey and.

[Dan Reichert]

Ready for the winter night something.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I saw that in theaters and was like, it just keeps going.

[Mike Mahardy]

There's an intermission. The ending was real weird, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I don't remember being this funny. Like, I was laughing pretty hard on the plane. And it takes. I mean, I think it takes a lot to get anybody to laugh hard when they're watching something by themselves. Amanda wasn't watching it with me. Like, some of the lines that Leo delivers were. And Leo's really good at those. Like. Like Wolf of Wall Street. He has a bunch of those lines where he just says something really fucking stupid.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

But give that movie another chance. If you just don't have anything to watch and you have fucking three hours to kill, watch that movie again.

[Dan Reichert]

Did you rewatch anything else, Mike?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. What was it? My wife watched a movie she had never seen before. I'm trying to remember what it was. Oh, right. The best movie ever made. Amanda finally saw MacGruber and lost her shit.

[Mary Kish]

Did she like it?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, one of us, because we talked last episode. Like, that's kind of a litmus Test. I'm like, I've never. I've talked about it, you know, ad nauseam to Amanda. But, yeah, on Friday night, we were. We did like, nothing the weekend before Hawaii because, you know, we were getting ready to travel. And I said, we've been wanting to watch Dunkirk. It's just like the one Nolan movie she hasn't seen. So we're like, we could watch Dunkirk. It's kind of an anxiety attack for two hours. But, you know, we can watch it. It's really well made. I think it's actually one of his best movies. Or we could finally watch MacGruber. She's like, okay, you know what?

[Dan Reichert]

Which, ironically, one of Christopher Nolan's favorite movies. I'm not kidding. Kidding.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is it really?

[Dan Reichert]

He has said in interviews how much he loves McGruber. Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

So it's. We start watching it and, you know, you could tell. I could tell. She was immediately, like, locked into the humor.

[Dan Reichert]

Good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Even the song.

[Mary Kish]

You have to be in the right mindset because it's so stupid. It's so utterly stupid.

[Mike Mahardy]

She was aware of the SNL skits, right. However, she did not know it was like the Lonely island crew, basically, minus Andy. It was.

[Dan Reichert]

A lot of people assume it's like a badass SNL movie that's just based on the, like, kind of one note sketch. They don't realize it's a Lonely island action parody. And it's like, if you like Pop Star or like Hot Rod, it's like, better than both of those, I think.

[Mike Mahardy]

And she. And I watch Palm Springs like, twice a year still. And she's like, oh, I didn't know it was like Jorma. And I forget the third one. So. The third one, sorry. So, you know, like, immediately the storm. The song's like, we made a fucking movie. And she was, all right, that's pretty funny.

[Dan Reichert]

Skilled lover dossier.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. And then as soon as he blew them all up with C4 is like, time. What the. I hate him, but I love him.

[Dan Reichert]

You guys. Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

At one point, and I actually. No, I know the point. It was when he was walking into the club with his radio in his white suit and the blonde hair and the sunglasses. She's like, are we supposed to think he's kind of hot?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, no.

[Mike Mahardy]

I was like, all right, that's not what.

[Dan Reichert]

That's right before he takes an upper decker in the party toilet. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

And he goes up to the bartender, he's like, I'd like an X5. Don't know what you're talking about. He Slams his face in the bar. He's like, he didn't know anything.

[Dan Reichert]

And he gets weird about Kristen wig calling that waiter handsome. That guy, why don't you abandon the mission and why don't you marry him?

[Mike Mahardy]

And then he points out, like, objectively, not great looking dude. He's like, go interview him. Go watch, Go watch him.

[Dan Reichert]

That guy, not that guy.

[Mike Mahardy]

But no, I, I, I legitimately don't think I've heard my wife in the entire time we've known each other laugh as hard as she did when. Cause it's a one, two punch. If you're a fan of Top Gun, the sex scene is a one, two punch because first after, you know, you get in the rhythm. She loves Roadhouse too, so the throat ripping was like, hell yeah. Right up her alley as well. When the take these Broken Wings starts to play, you're like, oh, they're doing homage to Top Gun. Great. This movie's even better. And then she starts fingering his belly button. And this is hilarious. And then the movie, the music cuts and he's just hard cut, like, yeah, hard cut to him. Just like feral humping while Kristen Wiig is clearly laughing but trying to cover it up. And I've never heard my wife laugh like, harder in her life. And of course, like, the, the more the scene goes on, the harder you.

[Mary Kish]

Laugh because it's so awkward.

[Mike Mahardy]

Sorry. It's not a one, two punch because the uppercut comes when the same exact thing happens with his. The ghost of his dead wife on her tombstone.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. Wow.

[Mary Kish]

You really described this film very accurately.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nothing I said just now was exaggeration. If anything, I played some of it down. Yeah. And also Amanda, like, super into anything with Val Kilmer, so.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah, he's great in that also.

[Mike Mahardy]

She said the same exact thing. I think our favorite thing about the movie is it's like there's not a single cast member that's not fully on board with the humor and understands the assignment. You know, like, yes, Val Kilmer, Powers booth, Ryan Philippe. Well, Kristen Wiig obviously would be.

[Mary Kish]

But like, Kristen Wiig carries a lot of that film, quite frankly, for sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

But, like, you expect her too. Whereas, like, Ryan Phillippi comes in and you're like, why is he this funny? And why is he on board with putting celery in his ass in this scene?

[Mary Kish]

He just is. He's an actor.

[Mike Mahardy]

I still the two. I'll shut up in a second. But I still think my two favorite.

[Mary Kish]

What other scenes haven't we described in detail?

[Mike Mahardy]

I still think Our. I might be butchering it, but he says, we better dig a ditch out back for all the dead bodies because it's gonna get pretty smelly in there. And then Ryan Phillipe says, that's a really gross way to put it. It's a very funny line, but also.

[Dan Reichert]

I'll suck as many. I mean, rip as many throats, but.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just so fucking stupid. When Val Kilmer and his henchmen come up to the nuclear warhead and he's looking up at it and he's like, have you ever been to dc? And his henchman's like, no. He's like, I was talking to the missile. Yeah. But I figured Amanda would like it, but, like, I didn't think she laughed harder than I did the first time.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, Godspeed. It's our job.

[Mike Mahardy]

We're gonna watch it again this weekend. She doesn't know it yet, but Good, good.

[Mary Kish]

Watch it again. Yeah, the second viewing is the real judgment.

[Dan Reichert]

Just get better.

[Mike Mahardy]

We were just saying this the other night. Like, there are some jokes in that movie that are funnier when you're expecting them. Like, of course, the. When the sex scene comes out of nowhere for the first time, it's just shock. And from there it becomes hilarious. But there's someone you're anticipating, y'all. So I burst out laughing. Mary, what else have you been playing?

[Mary Kish]

I played Astrobot. Finally.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, let's hear it.

[Mary Kish]

Dan was hyping it up. It is very good. It is so imaginative. And there's probably not too much more I can add that I don't think you haven't said about how. I mean, it's obviously an extraordinarily well executed game. There's so many more elaborate worlds in this one. It's just longer and more enjoyable than the last Astrobot that I played. So it's really fun, especially when you get a Astrobot. And it's because there's, I think, seven per level that you're rescuing, typically. And if you miss one, they're in the order that you should be collecting them in. So if I miss one, I can always go back and find it, which is really nice. Nice in a lot of those levels. So it's a nice. Yeah, it's nice for collectors to just be like, okay, I got them all. Now I can enjoy the level, the little dances. The amount of polish in this game is unreal. I. I do actually have a gripe with it. I think that the boss fights are mid.

[Dan Reichert]

Really?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I think they are.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow.

[Mary Kish]

I think they are. They are. Okay. And I'm not. I'm not saying it's, like, bad. I'm saying this game is phenomenal. But I was told 10 and I think that the bosses are like an eight.

[Dan Reichert]

That's okay. I mean, I disagree. But, you know, to each their own with me. I just thought that, like, most easy.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe for like little baby children, they're not super hard. Baby. Baby as baby mode.

[Dan Reichert]

No. Speedrun launches this weekend. That's when the. That's when the real big boys come out to play.

[Mike Mahardy]

But no, who's the. Who's the one at Giant Bomb? That's really good.

[Dan Reichert]

That's me.

[Mary Kish]

I think it's Jeff Grubb.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, just wait. Just keep an eye on the leaderboards. We are. No, we were already talking about it where it starts now.

[Mary Kish]

I. I think I saw a clip from the leaderboards when Jeff Grubb.

[Mike Mahardy]

Grubs got kids and broccoli to think about, though.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, he's so good at eating broccoli too. I think that's another thing that he.

[Dan Reichert]

Can have the broccoli.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'll take the Astrobot.

[Dan Reichert]

Hey, look, we're both gonna go back and forth. He's gonna have times where he beats my time. Mike Minati is gonna try out Astro speed running for the first time.

[Mary Kish]

I'm excited to see nobody's worried about Minati. We're talking about.

[Dan Reichert]

He's never done this before. He's out of his league. He's not a speedrunner. So.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, dumb question.

[Mary Kish]

Throwing Minati in there as fodder. Yeah, you could probably meet Minati.

[Dan Reichert]

He thinks he can step in with the big boys. He's never done speed running.

[Mike Mahardy]

A lot of people think I'm a good speedrunner. Won't say who, but there's many people.

[Dan Reichert]

Are saying I'm the best. Many people, they all agree.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, dumb question though. Speedrunning mode, I'm assuming would have nothing to do with the bots. You just get through the level as quickly as you can.

[Dan Reichert]

Right. And the way they're doing it is. I love that they are doing it smarter than fucking Nintendo did with their Speedrun specific game that didn't even have fucking leaderboards. It is going to be five levels and it seems like I didn't know they were going to do it this way. It seems like they're going to parse them out because the first one comes out as of this recording, any hour now. I mean, by the time we're done, I might be able to load it up. So I don't know if they're doing one a week for five weeks, I think that'd be smart. And I think. I love that idea of just having, like a week to fixate on one level and try to really hammer that one down instead of like, oh, I'm gonna kind of cherry pick and do this level or this one. There's five at once to choose from, so I think I'm just gonna obsess over them one week at a time. And, yeah, it's gonna be a fucking blast. I think it'll be one world per week.

[Mike Mahardy]

Week.

[Dan Reichert]

It's not world, so it's. It's dedicated Speedrun levels.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, they're new levels.

[Dan Reichert]

My understanding is that it's new Speedrun specific levels. I don't know if they're gonna be that long because, like, the ones that were in the Speedrun levels in Playroom were not super long. They were just incredibly tight, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

So I'm. I'm expecting more of that, hoping for more of that, because it was incredible in. In the last one. So I think this is really smart. I think I'm gonna get dangerously into this shit, so. So that's going to be great.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, how far ish would you say you're into it?

[Mary Kish]

Astrobot? I got 240. Oh, so you played a lot.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, so you play.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, I've completed every planet. Yeah, got it. And I've completed the PlayStation.

[Dan Reichert]

Got it. Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

Can I put you on the spot and fuse it?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really very good. And the only negative I really had was that I thought the boss fights were a little like an afterthought, considering how thoughtful these games are. So I would say it's a nine. It's very good.

[Dan Reichert]

I love the boss stuff where it's like they would typically utilize whatever the gimmick of the level was. So it's like, oh, this octopus, you got to make sure you're using the gloves to kind of pull on his eyes and beat him up and stuff. And then, like, in between, the phase would be like a level part where, like, the waves go down and you have this platforming section and grappling section before you go beat them up again. Like, I loved it. I guess. I guess didn't work as much for you, but. I don't know. I thought they looked amazing. They were all huge and awesome.

[Mary Kish]

They look amazing. I think that the first three bosses, I was like, that's it. Like, they were just so simple. Like, you know, just one and done. I felt like they were. The combat in general of this game is very simple.

[Dan Reichert]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

You just punch them and they fly off the screen and explode. Like, it's not a very complicated game and that's fine. Not every game has to be difficult in order to be good. So I think the difficulty level is like, really low in this game.

[Dan Reichert]

I agree.

[Mary Kish]

Even Mario bosses, like, tests you a little bit more with how it attacks and things like that. I. I thought that some of the bosses were just straight up. Like, I, I just thought that I was burning through them. I couldn't believe that they didn't make them a little bit more challenging for the player.

[Dan Reichert]

I think the most challenging stuff in Astrobot is those, like, PlayStation button levels. Like the, you know, the cross, the square, the triangle, like the. Just kind of linear ones. Where did you do the lava one?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I like the ones that were featured as well. I will say there were times when it was mimicking a game like Ape Escape.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep.

[Mary Kish]

So cute. When they were like, we're playing homage to a game and that is the most important thing. God of War. It was so cute. They even had, like, you know what I'm talking about. Like, they had the giant thing that you lift with your strong hands to get the item inside. And they made it feel so heavy even though you're Astrobot. And so he's like. And this giant stone device is opening for you. I mean, that is just so, again, so much detail and so much care just to be like, it's kind of like God of War, you know? And it's just so sweet how they.

[Dan Reichert]

Where he has to like, slowly go into the crevice and stuff. And you're collecting the crows and stuff.

[Mary Kish]

Like.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, they pay homage to a bunch of great games. And also Horizon Zero Dawn.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. And also that. This nice little dick Drake.

[Dan Reichert]

Drake's Fortune, the Last of Us thing.

[Mary Kish]

They had a couple. A nice little homage to that as well. Like, they had an explosion scene where like, you. You shoot some. You get a gun in that level, which is so crazy for Astrobot. Yeah. And you're just like, you're shooting everybody and everything's exploding and cars are swinging around. It's really fun. Like, they've. They did so much effort with that type of thing.

[Dan Reichert]

So much love went into this. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I do, I do think it's a fantastic game. There's no question. Question that it's a very well made game. And I, I super recommend it for people. I did. I had a bit of a sticker shock. I shouldn't have but like at the $60 price mark I was like, all right, well this better be like a really good experience. And I do think it's worth the $60. Like I just, I think it is.

[Dan Reichert]

Especially if we want to do the, the 300 bots. And then if you get into the Speedrun stuff, like there is definitely like a lot there. Like I'll play through this whole game again for sure. I just, there was just so much joy every moment I was playing it. So. But no, I, I, I see what you're saying. It's not a difficult game even to like a hundred percent it. I don't think it's particularly difficult outside of a few of those linear like smaller levels. And you compare it to Mario. Like I think Mario does a better job of like okay, if you just want to beat it, it's going to be easy enough. But also if you want to get like all this shit you're going to.

[Mary Kish]

Go through, you want to get all.

[Dan Reichert]

Of it, you got to be crazy ass levels. Yeah. Like Mario has more there if you really want to challenge yourself. But in terms of just like pure joy and exploration, you know, I put this up with the best of them.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it is joyous. There is no question. It's, it's so, it's, it's like colorful and sweet and cute and there's fills of surprises and they do their little dances and ah, it's a very sweet little game. So yeah, I've, I've loved it. I've enjoyed it. I'll also say when the original Astrobot came out, my parents were visiting me and they always want to know a little bit about my work, which is very nice. And it's hard to put on a game that your parents can play or understand. And I put on Astrobot.

[Dan Reichert]

The VR1 or the, no, the original.

[Mary Kish]

One and the one that came with the Pixel. Well, not the original one because I think the Original 1 was PSP like.

[Dan Reichert]

A device anyway, the Playroom thing technically. But then it was like as far as the platformers it was the VR rescue mission and then it was Playroom, the one that came with the PS5.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. So the Playroom and my parents actually could play Playroom and like pick it up and understand it. I think that this is the same type of game where like if I had a six year old that was visiting me or if I had a parent that like isn't much of into understanding games, I could give them a controller and be like just punch stuff. They will figure it out and they will enjoy that experience. And I think that's meaningful for people to be able to give them a game and let them explore and play and have a good time. So I think it's a universal game. But for someone looking for a hefty challenge, I think it's. It left a little to be desired.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Mary Kish]

Too easy. Good for Dan, but not. Not for me.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm a Speedrunner. Records.

[Mary Kish]

Well, then win.

[Mike Mahardy]

Well, you can't win.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, you just. I will drive around to no easy way out.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, dude. Do you want to do, like, a promo video where I'm at the top of the stairs with an Adrian wig on? Be like, you dressed as Adrian.

[Mary Kish]

You can't beat him.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm just seeing flashes of grub as I'm driving around my Subaru.

[Mike Mahardy]

It just keeps coming back to me at the top of the stairs.

[Dan Reichert]

Ah, KFBR 392 license plate instead of Southpaw. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Playroom was the game that I was playing in the lounge at Gamespot when Dan put a permanent marker in front of my face. So when I leaned forward, it was Rescue Mission. It was the VR one.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, Rescue Mission.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, Rescue Mission. And so I got permanent marker on my face because he put it in front of me. So I leaned into it while I was playing this VR game. Real fun. Dan, you've been playing Mario Party Jamboree.

[Dan Reichert]

I did, I did. It's. I've reviewed it for Gamespot.com. i don't know if you two are familiar with that website, but you should look up my review. I. I've been doing writing for GameSpot and I've really been enjoying it. It's bringing me back to my roots, you know, did the Nintendo Museum article, did the Metal Gear Solid Delta preview, and now my first review in a launch time, it's Jamboree. I'm actually on the very low end. If you look at, like, the Metacritic and stuff of this. I've even seen in the YouTube comments that this reviewer must not like Mario Party or must not have friends to play with. And I love seeing people being like, oh, this guy obviously has it out for Mario Party. Doesn't like Mario Party. No, I've got high standards for Mario Party. It's always a weird series to review. And I've been reviewing them since the gamecube ones because a lot of times you have to play a lot of solo Mario Party, which even for me is awful. The idea of playing Mario Party solo is just. It's like all the faults are laid bare. All the like, you know, just how long it takes to go around the board and just everything's so laborious and random and all that stuff. Like it's just like all the good parts of Mario Party and the chaos and fucking your friends over and laughing and stuff like that is gone on and you just are like, oh God, this is what I've been playing. But then something magic happens when you get some friends together. So like I didn't love this, I liked this. I like Mario Party Jamboree. But as of this recording tomorrow I'm getting grub and minati and Bailey and we're gonna do like a three or four hour stream of playing this and drink beers and stuff. And I'm sure it's gonna be a blast. But I stand by my complaints. They really touted like, this is the biggest Mario Party ever. It's got 22 characters, it's got 112 minigames, most minigames ever. But as I played it I was like, the party mode, I was like, why do these? I keep seeing a bunch of repeats. And then I realized like, oh shit, like almost half of that 112 is tied up in other modes. There's a lot of bloat in this. There's a lot of modes for like here's like a single player thing, here's a two player flying mode and stuff, here's this cooking minigame thing, and here's all these online modes that you may or may not play. And a lot of the games are exclusive to those.

[Mary Kish]

So it's like, oh, the games are exclusive to the mode that you're playing. So you're actually not getting 120 games for the actual game unless you play.

[Mike Mahardy]

Every mode, some of which are.

[Dan Reichert]

But that's the thing is like I played all those modes a lot while I was reviewing it and like I just don't see myself going back to any of these modes. Maybe I'll dabble with more of the online stuff once it's actually like out. But everyone just wants to play the main party mode. That's what Mario Party is. And it's kind of some of the most just like rote minigames are in the party mode. A lot of them are just kind of really slow paced and laborious. And I know random chance has always been a big part of Mario Party. But like a lot of them lean on it in this one. And it's just a bummer cause I think there was almost, it seemed like there was more priority put into like putting a little something for everyone regardless of if you're solo or have one person over versus the four player mode. And it's like, man, I just wish they would have focused on the four player mode because like the maps are good and it's the best original maps they've had since at least the Gamecube era. Because like 9 and 10 were those weird Wii and Wii U ones where you're all going in the same car. You know, Super Mario Party's maps were bad. Mario Party Superstars were great maps, but they were all like greatest hits from the 64 era. So like, man, like some of these maps, like this mall map and this raceway map and stuff, like they're really solid, clever maps. Maps. But when a lot of minigames aren't really up to snuff, especially coming off of Mario Party Superstars, that was a Greatest Hits of Mario Party. So it's like you've got all the best, most fun minigames from like 10+Mario party games now all of a sudden, here's a bunch of original ones that aren't that great. There are some really good ones, but for the most part they're like kind of mid to low tier. I don't know, it's just, I have a feeling I'm going to. Now that it's new, I'll play a few rounds with, you know, I'll play it this holiday with my family. I'll play, I'll do a couple streams with it with Giant Bomb and stuff like that. But like, I think after this winter I'll probably just be going back to Superstars. Like I think that's the, maybe the best Mario Party ever. So I don't know, just, just a lot of, A lot of, a lot of complaints. Some are nitpicky, some I think are more substantial, but overall it's not exactly what I wanted. And stuff like the 20 player online mode is kind of not what I think some people wanted. It's. It's not a 20 player Mario party game. It's a separate mode that's just not going to get a lot of replay value, I think. So what is it? It's like. So there's like a racetrack and there's just one track basically with like a bunch of spots on it. And you play these mini games against you know, 19 other people or bots and every coin you get, you advance a space and you have to finish like a certain number of laps to win. And the thing is though, it just repeats a lot of these Minigames and they're kind of longer and some of them aren't great. So. So it's like, oh, here's this like claw machine type thing where it's like all you do is hit a to like move your finger forward to scoot stuff off the edge and you have to do that for a while to get coins and it takes a while and then like it'll go through two other minigames and you're right back to that one. So you might do that three, four times and it's not really fun the first time. So every time these kind of pull up like, oh man, I got to do this for another fucking however long. So it's not super exciting. It's not like you're going around along board game thing and doing all the mini games. It's like specific mini games that are maybe not the most exciting.

[Mike Mahardy]

That struck me as their take on something like fall guys, like the tournament kind of format. Is that fair at all?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. In fact the Bowser level is in that because it usually does like two minigames and then like a Bowser stage that is like an eliminator type thing. So it's like, okay, all 20 of you are running away from Bowser and Bowser's destroying the floor and you're falling down, you're trying to survive. And it's very kind of fall guys. And I said in the review, like, there is really a place for Mario Party to incorporate stuff from like, you know, inspired by fall guys or the battle royale genre or these more like larger multiplayer modes. I think that'd be a really cool thing to introduce to Mario Party. But this one, it just kind of feels half baked in a lot of these minigames are just not very exciting. So can't see myself.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, probably don't get the time for the quality of them. Now there's a question. I know we don't usually read comments on reviews, but Dushness asks, but what's the rating if you're 6 years old? And I think that's a really good question for your review.

[Dan Reichert]

I think if you're 6 years old, 6 years old or 40, I think Mario Party Superstars is the better option.

[Mary Kish]

You think that they would give it a 6 out of 10?

[Dan Reichert]

I think they would give it a thick out of 10. That's hard to do.

[Mike Mahardy]

He doesn't like Mario Party. Why is he reviewing it?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, look, I heard people say I'm just anti Nintendo and yeah, just don't have friends to play with. So you always work on that. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I like it. I'll. I'll play plenty of it. It just. Yeah, Superstars is a lot better.

[Mary Kish]

Okay, good to know.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary Slay the Princess sounds very familiar. Is that from last year when it's like that weird like graphic novel, black and white kind of thing?

[Mary Kish]

It is. I played Slay the Princess because it's is Halloween season and I like to play scary games this time of year. So I was going to play a different game and my chat I was streaming was like, oh, you really should try Slay the Princess if you've never played it before. And I was like, yeah, you know what, I'm just gonna do it right now. So I downloaded it and I played it on stream. I beat it on stream. So I want to say it's about three and a half hours to complete. This is. That was my experience. I think could be different based on how you play it. Now for a graphic novel, which I do not like nor play, I thought this was very good, but I have to say, like, I just don't care for graphic novels. The thing that made this function for me is that you don't have to read. They have really good voice actors that are saying all the dialogue. So while it's text heavy, there's good voice actors reading the dialogue to you so you feel like you can get away with it. Also, the narrator is a part, is a character in the story. What's that other game that does that where the narrator's telling you like, go. Yeah, no, not Bastion.

[Dan Reichert]

Stanley Parable.

[Mary Kish]

Stanley Parable. It's got Stanley Parable goo going on.

[Mike Mahardy]

That was my second guess.

[Mary Kish]

It's got, it's got that going on where it's like, the game is called Stab. Slay the Princess. Stab the Princess. Slay the Princess. And the narrator when you start the game. This isn't a spoiler. Like, this is like the game concept is like, as you start the game, the narrator is like, and so you've started on a pathway and you are going to go to a cabin and slay the princess. So on you go. And then you kind of decide for yourself, like, okay, I guess I'll go and slay the princess because you've told me to. But you can also question it and be like, but why? And then the narrator will talk to you and be like, well, because that's what you're supposed to do. And you're like, why though? And so you start to ask yourself questions as you go to the cabin. The narrator will tell you what to do. They'll say, like, there's a knife on the table. You're going to pick that up to slay the princess. Again, it's up to you whether or not you pick up the knife. Don't pick up the knife or ask questions like, but, you know, do I have to pick up the knife? And the narrator will say, you really should pick up that knife. As you go down to the dungeon or, like, basement of this cabin, you'll see the princess. And it's pretty spoopy. I mean, it is stressful at first. She's, like, chained to the wall of the dungeon, and she's probably, like, a little scared or, like, fighting for her life, essentially, and, like, trying to convince you not to kill her. Depending on how you play will dramatically alter the series of this game. And I don't want to spoil it, but it got pretty intense pretty quickly for me, especially on a live stream. I was like, oh, my God, it is graphic. It is not for children. It is a very visceral, vivid, violent game. I think it's very cool. I think it did new things that I thought were well done for this type of genre. And again, for a genre I don't typically like. Like, I think it. It did some really interesting stuff visually and thematically, and the way that you get to choose your path is very interesting in this game. I will also say I don't think Dan will like it because it also asks some existential questions.

[Dan Reichert]

Hit me with one.

[Mary Kish]

I. I don't have them memorized, but, like, there is a portion of not.

[Dan Reichert]

Afraid of existential questions.

[Mary Kish]

Yes, you are. You stopped a game within 12 minutes because an existential.

[Dan Reichert]

Not because it was existential, because it was stupid.

[Mike Mahardy]

If we don't remember what it was like before we were born, then what could it be like after we die?

[Dan Reichert]

It's going to be like that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. How can we know what nothing feels like if we don't remember when it fell?

[Dan Reichert]

We don't. But we'll figure it out. We'll die.

[Mike Mahardy]

What is true darkness?

[Dan Reichert]

Close your eyes.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, that's black. What is lack of any kind?

[Dan Reichert]

Color blind people know.

[Mike Mahardy]

It'S true.

[Dan Reichert]

See, I can handle big boy questions.

[Mike Mahardy]

What? What? What would your grandfather say? What would. What would your grandfather's first words be to you after Saint Peter lets you through the pearly gates?

[Dan Reichert]

Act like you're somebody.

[Mike Mahardy]

You have passed this.

[Dan Reichert]

See, I can handle this stuff.

[Mary Kish]

Answer me these little riddles. 3. If you wish to cross the bridge.

[Mike Mahardy]

Which of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's policies, do you find? No.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, let's keep it real nice and light.

[Mike Mahardy]

Fucking suck on that one, white stain. Answer that.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, we know what Mary would say, but anyway, go on. How dare you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, wait, were you gonna here when we did that? Was that when you were gone?

[Mary Kish]

I was not able to defend myself.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I think it was. She was gone when we talked about how. When we outed her as her true self.

[Dan Reichert]

Insurrectionist.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Insurrectionist.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Where were you on January 6th?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, you had a bunch of zip ties and.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I did.

[Mike Mahardy]

She had her tools. She just kept shouting, I need to have my tools. I need to go to Washington in.

[Dan Reichert]

D.C. fell off that wall like a dope, I don't think.

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't know. I mean, I'm laughing very hard, but.

[Mary Kish]

It impacts my job. I was on a live stream for Twitch today, going over some of our new policies and like, decisions as a company, and one of the things that I said was clipped and put on Reddit and everybody was like, saying whether or not they agreed with the policy decision, which I did not write, by the way. And someone in the comments said, I don't agree with her policies, but her opinions on Nixon are pretty good. How dare you?

[Mike Mahardy]

Want to see a text Mary sent me recently?

[Mary Kish]

Opinions now.

[Mike Mahardy]

Do you want to see what a text Mary sent me? Yeah, I don't know if you could read that.

[Dan Reichert]

It says, I'm done with Nixon, Reagan is a slut, and I love it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, she texted me that out of nowhere. See, that's my receipt.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Notes app.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, no, that's. He's gotten a Android. That's what that looks like.

[Mary Kish]

You're just putting it in there.

[Dan Reichert]

Pornhub comments about you loving Reagan.

[Mike Mahardy]

Why? Yeah, why would that. Why is that Funny bit. Someone's going to do an AI porn with Mary and Reagan.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, God, Jesus, reach out and touch the face of God.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, God, God, Jesus. Dan, you also were playing something, I think.

[Dan Reichert]

Beautiful transition. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

I really don't try sometimes.

[Dan Reichert]

I can tell I beat Zelda. Echoes of wisdom. Yeah. Not a whole lot more to add other than just that. I know I've talked about it before on here and I continue. Continued to appreciate and enjoy that game more as it kept going on. I think as your. Your tools keep, your toolbox keeps expanding. There's clever stuff you can do. I. I do, I think. Mike, it was you that told me the trick about. Or was it grub? Grub might have told me about pausing flying. No, no, no. The Pausing, like, instead of like going through the entire horizontal crazy scroll list of echo goes, it's much better to just like pause and go to it once. Like. Yeah, once you're a couple dungeons in, you just have like, you know, 20, 30, 40 plus things. And it's just like, instead of scrolling left to right, going to a full grid and just picking it is actually like way, way better. So that, that was a nice tip. But yeah, yeah, it's. It's a really solid game. Mainline Zelda game. It's great. It's. If I were to rank it, it would probably be in the middle to low middle. It's. I like it better than Spirit Tracks. I like it better than Zelda 2. I like it better than Skyward Sword. I like it better than Link's Awakening. It's probably better than the Oracles. So it's. Yeah, I'd put it in that, like kind of, you know, six to eight maybe. Maybe. There's a lot of Zelda games. I don't know, it's middle of the pack to maybe like low middle. But they're all really good games. So, yeah, it's a really solid one and it's a very unique one, which I'm into the idea of the series playing around with things like this. So cool stuff. Really enjoyed it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I like that this game kind of continues what Tears of the Kingdom. I mean, Breath of the Wild to some extent, but especially Tears of the Kingdom started in that the developers are pretty much like starting to really let go of it and let the players break shit, which is super cool. I don't think every Zelda going forward needs to do that, but I like that this is a continuation of that with a different skin and with different systems, which is a nice. I like that they're not just like abandoning it now that they're, you know, moving on to this relatively smaller Zelda game. Still a big Zelda game, but, you know, it's not open world or Open world era. Yeah, I want to keep playing it. I'm still right at the end of those first two dungeons. First, I guess technically their first dungeon is the, you know, the tutorial one. But I'm right at the end of the Gerudo Jabu Jabu dungeon. So it has just opened up. They literally gave me the spiel that you get in Zelda games where it's like, you could go here, here, go do this stuff. You just. Here's the overall objective. Okay. I really. It's not that I.

[Dan Reichert]

Then you're the Part where it picked up for me.

[Mike Mahardy]

I am very much motivated to. I just have not had time to go back yet. I could have played on the. Something about that game. I loaded it up on the plane. I was like, I can't. This is. I don't know. It's not that I can. I can't think that way on a plane. I need to do something like even more mind numbing. I wanted to, but I also like. It's a Zelda game. I don't, I don't know like Zelda games are. So I need to really sit down and just pay attention to a Zelda game, even if it's not that complicated. It's just a, I don't know, a ritual thing.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I don't think it's one I would play, you know, many, many hours at a time of. In fact I had it that whole flight home from Japan. I only played like two or three hours on that flight. And then I tend to. I got into the rhythm of like, okay, I'm to get to the next dungeon and I'm going to finish the like. Every dungeon has a thing where it's like, oh, you got to find these, you know, star bit things or whatever to open up the dungeon. So like I would have these very.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's the whole game.

[Dan Reichert]

All them do these cut offs. There's several dungeons where it's like yeah, you got to go into the, the still world and you got to find like five of these things and then it opens the door. So like then I quit and be like, oh, as soon as I pick it up the next time I'll be right at the dungeon and then I'll play until the start of the next one. So yeah, I broke it up quite a bit. But yeah, over overall, very, very positive on it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I like it a bunch. I'm gonna keep playing it.

[Mary Kish]

I haven't played it yet. I need to, I need to get my hands on especially before goatee discussions.

[Dan Reichert]

I think it'll. It'll certainly be in my top 10.

[Mary Kish]

Speaking of goatee discussions, how high is UFO 50 gonna be up on there?

[Dan Reichert]

I still have a lot to play but as. Cause you know it's. It's set chronologically. I'm playing them chronologically. You can pick them in any order. But like, you know, it's set from like how was UFO 40N the 49th? I'm not at the 49th. I'm at like the 26th, 27th right now. Played about half of them and they're getting Better quickly. There's a lot of fun ones in the early parts that are said, you know, 83, 84, stuff like that. But now, oh, man. Bonk told me about this one that I skipped ahead to called Party House, which is such a clever, fun thing where it's like you're. You have a house party and you. It's. I don't know if you'd call it a rogue. I guess it's a roguelite, roguelike, where you're letting in these different types. So it's like, okay, if you get three troublemakers in the house party, the cops come, and then you kind of like, lose and you have to restart or actually, no, you can blame it on someone, and then you can't use that person going forward. But you can do stuff where it's like, okay, if you invite a hippie in, the hippie will nullify one troublemaker. He'll, like, calm him down or whatever. So, like, you're kind of choosing who to bring in. Like, you can bring in security, and security can choose one person to kick out. So it's like, oh, God, I got two troublemakers. I'll bring in a security kick out one. Or you can invite a dog, and the dog can sniff and see who's going to come in the door next. And so you'll know it's safe to let one more person in because it's like, oh, it's just a hippie, or it's an auctioneer. And so, like, there's like, auctioneers that will make money for you. And then you can, like, hire a comedian that you have to pay money to. But if you have a full house, if you fill the whole house party, you will get more popularity, which popularity is the currency to invite more people to your house party. So it's this real, just constant push and pull of like, okay, I want to try to fill up this house party. I want to earn money because you can expand the house to invite more people in and to win. Like, there's several different scenarios. The first one is like, if you get four aliens, if you get popular enough, where four aliens come into your house party, you win the first challenge. And so it's just this really clever thing. I haven't really played anything like this. I'm just trying to, like, manage these resources and, like, popularity so I can invite more people, money, so I can expand the house. You know, things to nullify the troublemakers and things like that. It's. It's definitely my favorite one so far.

[Mary Kish]

But it looks Like a game jam. Just like a bunch of game jam games, right? Like, not everything is like super polished, but it works.

[Dan Reichert]

That's totally what UFO 50 is. And like, I mean there's 50 games in there and some of them are just like. You'll play them for like, you know, 30 seconds. Be like, okay, I get it. Not really for me. Moving on to the next one and then you run into one. Like the last one I loaded up was this Rock on Island, which is like this caveman tower defense game where you're like placing these cavemen, you're upgrading the rocks and spears and dinosaurs are coming in and you're, you know, trying to fend them off. You know, you're running around as your own dude throwing bones and stuff. And it's. There's just so much variety in this game. I've only played like half of the games and I found at least seven or eight games that like I want to go back to and like beat. Like these are full games that you can beat and they've been getting better as the chronological as it's been getting further in the timeline. So it's a really fascinating thing. It feels so accurate to. You could imagine these games coming out in 84, 85, 86, things like that. But incorporating ideas from modern gaming into this old aesthetic and just a fucking awesome project. I really love it and I know I still have so much more to discover. So it's. It's one of the cooler things this year for sure.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, very cool. I kind of want to play this too before Goaty and I like, I think my fear is that this one looks like it's a big time suck because there's your judgment on whether or not this game is good is going to be based on how many of the games that you've played within it and enjoyed.

[Dan Reichert]

I would say play them all, but if something doesn't grab you once you understand what the hook is, drop out. Because like it doesn't take long to see what the hook is. I mean these are meant to be games from the 80s, so like, you know, it's not like you're going to be watching 30 minute cutscenes before the game starts. Like you'll know real quick if you're into it. So yeah, it's, it's definitely, definitely a highlight of 2024 for me.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, what the fuck is Drill Bit?

[Mary Kish]

This is just a little one. I haven't played too much of it, but I played Drill Core, which is a. Oh gosh. What kind of game is this. I'm going to say it's strategy and it's rogue light. Because if you up, you die and you have to start over.

[Dan Reichert]

That's like life.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, start over.

[Dan Reichert]

You just die.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's just like life. And you do start over.

[Mike Mahardy]

You maybe we just don't know.

[Dan Reichert]

Existential.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So you're drilling and you're trying to get the, I don't know, rocks that you're drilling and they go into your drill core and then you can upgrade your drill core for different things that help you drill more or go deeper. Ultimately you're just trying to go deeper into the.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm not sure if you're on earth, into your soul.

[Mary Kish]

You're going deeper into the ground each time, but the deeper you go, the more the bugs come for you. And so you need to have defense systems set up turrets. You can get like rocket launchers, etc, and those require the gems that you're drilling. You get three different minor types. This one made me think of you, Mike, a little bit because there was like a strategy thing that I feel like you would enjoy min Maxing. The idea here is, is like you have guys that literally drill. You need to tell them what to do. So there's like a little bit of a, you know, micromanagement where you're like, you drill here. Then there's carriers, they go down, they get the little gem enemies and they bring it up into the core. And then there's defensive gunmen and those guys, their only existence is to just shoot any bugs that are trying to kill the workers. Your workers can die. And so you have to be thoughtful of like, how many drill people do I need? How many carriers do I need that are bringing the gems? How many defensive guys do I need to make sure nobody dies? And if they do die, which they absolutely can because I had a worm come through and just wipe out my whole team once. I was like, I had to wait until my machine over time made enough gems that I could get a new drill guy. And it cost me like two in game days, which I think ultimately led to my demise. The. You have to be conscious of when you want people to be drilling, when you need to pull them back because it's too dangerous. When to invest in more turrets so that you can stop the bugs from killing you, or when you invest in like technology that helps you drill faster or smarter. I, I invested in this technology that essentially like boosted the speed of my little, my little dudes by 20%. I thought that was really interesting. I Also just want to say, although I don't think it's relevant, that the trailer contains IRL video of miners. So it'll show gameplay, and then it'll show, like, a guy in a minor costume, and he'll be like, it's getting really bad out there, man. Like, we gotta do something about these bugs. And then they'll shoot and then they'll show the game again.

[Mike Mahardy]

Sounds sick.

[Mary Kish]

It's irrelevant. But I think it's a really funny trailer, and it's why. It's why I ended up getting the game, because it's such a stupid trailer anyway. It's. It's an interesting concept that you have to, like, balance all these different pieces of the game. And I'll also say that for someone like me, who does not usually gravitate towards these games, similarly to how I do not usually gravitate towards, like, novel games. But I liked Slay the Princess. Drill Core is simp. Yes. Drill Core is simple for me to pick up. I understood it fairly quickly what it was trying to get me to do. And while I did die very early, twice, I ended up figuring it out and getting pretty far before I died last time. But I haven't put that many hours into it yet. But, yeah, it's a cute little strategy game. And the trailer was very funny.

[Dan Reichert]

Nice.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'll play that. Is Drill Core like a play on Marine Corps? But it's not spelled like that, is it?

[Mary Kish]

Which part? Core. C O R, E. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, it's like toward the core of the planet.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. That's what I think they're joking about because you. You're going down. Yeah, it's the. The little boys that you're sending down there, they're. They die a lot. And I think that's kind of funny too, even though it's not good for you and the gameplay. But, like, it's. It's crazy just how squishy they are. They die so many different ways, and you could just. You just make new ones. So they're. You're a bit flippant about them. Kind of like with Helldivers, you know, every time you lose a man, you're like, ah, damn it. Anyway, I'll just make another one. Towards the end of the game, I really didn't have much of an appreciation for my crew, but that's. That's Drill Corps, baby.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary Kish loves Reagan, loves making new boys. You guys want to do email else?

[Dan Reichert]

Sure.

[Mary Kish]

I hate Reagan.

[Dan Reichert]

Your favorite? Second favorite?

[Mike Mahardy]

No. Jake.

[Dan Reichert]

Third favorite. Third favorite, Nixon, Trump, then Reagan.

[Mike Mahardy]

Back.

[Mary Kish]

I don't like any. Jake, keep all this.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right. As usual, you can write into firescapecastmail.com that is firescapecastmail.com with questions, comments, concerns. They're good questions. They might be read on the air like these ones tonight. Although we do have a couple of responses to previous comments and conversations we've had on the show. I'll read these. I'll read this first one. This is Joe from New York said after our fucking, like, 25 minutes, spud gun convo. Spudfiles.com spudfiles.com never forget the hairspray or body spray you spray into a potato gun is ignited, and the tiny explosion launches the potatoes. Dan is afraid of gas stoves. I promise that was not planned. I actually have not fully read this email until. So I don't think he should buy a potato gun. Also, Dan, decency laws in Japan forbid showing genitals. I don't know what this is referring to. They're blurred in every form of media, even pornography.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, no hard feelings. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

So, yes, the version of no hard feelings you downloaded in Japan is censored because you downloaded it in Japan. Oh, Jennifer Lawrence and her bush.

[Dan Reichert]

That's just so fucking. That's so funny to me that me and Bonk separately watched and downloaded that movie and we both happened to download it in Japan separately. We weren't on the same trip, and we both just thought, like, oh, it's a pixelated scene. She actually watched it with her parents while we were in Jersey recently. And I asked her. I was like, okay, so was it full vagina? And she. Yeah, it's full vagina.

[Mike Mahardy]

So, yeah, when Anna was listening and, like, on the way back from Hawaii, she's like, I saw her bush. I'm not imagining it.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. Fascinating. Fascinating. That is funny. He's such pixelate genitals.

[Mary Kish]

I just think it's funny that you thought that the film did that and was like, and this is where we pixelate her crotch.

[Dan Reichert]

Why would I think I. As far as I knew, I just downloaded it on Netflix and watched it.

[Mary Kish]

You know, it is shocking. But, like, it's such a core part of what makes that scene insane is like, I can't believe they showed the full part.

[Mike Mahardy]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

I believe died every crank.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thank you for the pause button. Thank you.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that way you can see the suplex.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, good form on that.

[Mike Mahardy]

I got to make sure I have the. Oh, this was anonymous. Hello, fire escapees. Quick story. I thought you might like background information. I am A longtime member of the BDSM scene, and today in therapy, when I was trying to describe the difference between a munch and a play party, the phrase, it's like talkie versus Dewey just shot out of my mouth before I could even think about it. And I left the doctor even more confused. Confused. All the best.

[Dan Reichert]

So what do we think? What do we think?

[Mike Mahardy]

Play party Munch. Has to be.

[Dan Reichert]

I hear play party, and I think it's like an orgy thing.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Play party must maybe, like, be a larger BDSM gathering.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, we're all running around whips or whatever. Yeah. And munches.

[Mike Mahardy]

Munching.

[Dan Reichert]

But talkie versus Dewey.

[Mike Mahardy]

Eating ass. Right? Munch.

[Dan Reichert]

But that's not talking.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you're not talking versus Dewey. You can't say anything.

[Mike Mahardy]

You guys don't talk when you're doing it. All right.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

What did you. What do you guys want to do for your vacation this Christmas?

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. Yeah, we were kind of on this while you guys were on the.

[Dan Reichert]

What's a munch?

[Mike Mahardy]

A munch is a casual social gathering for people involved or interested in kink, bdsm, alternative relationship lifestyles, or fetishes.

[Dan Reichert]

So, like, they're just hanging out and having, like, hors d'oeuvres or.

[Mike Mahardy]

Correct. It's just, you know. Okay. Social gathering for like minded people. And then a. And then a play party is when. You know, that's not when you get together to talk about video games. That's when you get together and you fucking play Mario Party.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. I think that makes sense. It's just like, oh, we all have a similar interest as, I'll hang out and talk about our. And then it's like, let's go. Let's go to town is the other one.

[Mike Mahardy]

Let's play Helldivers 2 tonight. No. Shut up and get in that pod.

[Dan Reichert]

Instead of podcasting about video games, you're in there actually, like, shooting the bugs. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's the bonus episode versus the record. The episode.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure. Okay. No, this tracks. I get this.

[Mike Mahardy]

I do like that our lingo has crept into BDSM culture now, which is awesome.

[Dan Reichert]

Excellent. Yeah, let's keep that up.

[Mary Kish]

Let it marinate. I want all of the BDSmers to think about talkie versus Dewey.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thank you for the email and this next one. Mary, you want to read this? Yeah. Mary, do you want to show yourself?

[Mary Kish]

We want to know, you little kinky guy. You could have used a little. Could have used, like, a little pseudonym or given yourself, like, a little fake.

[Mike Mahardy]

They had an email address. But they asked that to be anonymous as well.

[Dan Reichert]

That's fair. Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, read this one from Justin from Marco, San Marcos, Texas. Oh man. That feud is still ongoing. Going. That's our. That's one of our two listeners from San Marcos.

[Mary Kish]

Fire Escapees. Here's your challenge. What do the following all have in common? It won't be tough to figure it out. Final Fantasy 7 Silent Hill Two Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons, Epic Mickey, Luigi's Mansion, Dark Moon, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Lollipop Chainsaw Until Dawn, Beyond Good and Evil, Braid, Shadows of the damned, Persona 3, Paper Mario, the Thousand Year Door.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't know Braid and Shadows the Damned got re releases this year.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah, I played that Shadows of.

[Mike Mahardy]

Damned good game, that game back in the day.

[Mary Kish]

These are just some, not all of the games that we bought 5, 10, or 20 years ago that are now being asked to buy again. And these are all from this year alone. Oh, that is interesting. I didn't realize that this year these are all until dawn. Really.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah. They just did that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I understand.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, wow.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I'm all right. I'm going to finish. I understand that a lot of this is cynical repackaging, but I recognize that some of his attempt to give development team something to work on between tent pole releases is. My question is what happens when we run out of past games to mine? There's always more games to mine, baby.

[Dan Reichert]

And you can remake.

[Mary Kish]

These are a finite resource. No, oil is a finite resource because there's so many goddamn games out there. You can always remake crap. Dare I ask how many AAA development is propped up entirely by remakes and remasters? And how long that appetite can they be expected to last? Cheers. Justin, the original and biggest Fire Escape fan from San Marcos, Texas.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't have a problem with this. I've never had a problem with remakes. In fact, I like, you know, they're mentioning this being like cynical repackaging to take advantage of nostalgia. I mean, sure, I'm sure that happens where it's like, okay, let's just, you know, crank this out and try to wring some extra bucks out of it. But I also see it as kind of a preservation thing and I also see it as a way to make these run better on current hardware. I think of stuff like Spyro, which I never played back in the day, or Sly Cooper, or even like Jack and Dax or Ratchet and Clank. A lot of the like, early games in those series that once those HD collections and stuff came out, that's When I discovered them. And if it weren't for those remakes, I wouldn't have been able to. And then by the time I come around to it, it's like hd, it's running better. You know, some of these, like this huge list of games that he mentions here, like, I, I don't think Final Fantasy 7 really counts because that is like a full remake remake. That is a remake remake. The rest are a lot of, you know, rereleases, things like that. But ultimately being able to play all these old games on modern consoles, I don't see as a bad thing. You know, I know Resident Evil 4 has been re released and remade on a million things. I don't have a problem with it. It's one of the best games of all time. If I want to be able to play it on my switch, maybe not on my phone, I don't need that. But like modern consoles and PCs and stuff. Especially as someone who goes back to old games for my job and I like to shine a light on old great games and stuff. If I don't have to break out a PS2 and run it through a retro tank and do all this bullshit to stream it and show it to people, all the better, you know, or go to emulation. You know, that's, that's the thing. The alternative is you go to emulation. So I don't know. I don't see it as a negative. I've always liked remakes and remasters.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, there was that period where I think it was like my snarky take 10 years ago. It's like I'd rather just see new games rather than retreading old ones. I'm like, I think there's a lot, lot of the business aspect of designing games that I'm ignoring when I say that. Yeah, there's the preservation angle, but there's also the angle of like, I think good remakes are a chance to edit the bad parts of a game out. Like Resident Evil 4 remake, I think is really good. I still, it's apples and oranges to say whether I like the original or the remake, but I do think like Resident Evil 2 is a good example. Like those are, those are not just transforming it into an over the shoulder third person game. I think they're also removing a lot of fat from the originals. Like, I think good remakes are a chance to do like a director's cut vision of an older game. Which is cool because I, more than anybody, I mean, you have me and Mary here, we have been playing Old Resident Evils for going on seven years now. Those are, I'll be the first one to say, despite my love for them, they're not the easiest games to go back to. And I'm not just saying like they're hard to access in certain regards. I'm saying they have not aged super well design wise. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

And some sensibilities and stuff.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I love Resident Evil remake. The original. It's one of my favorite games of all time. That also is, you know, that was them editing stuff and then when it came out on PS4 they're like, let's maybe give an option to not use tank controls. I think it's a good way for you to interact with incredible games in a modern, with modern sensibilities that I think I'm all for that because again, to Dan's points, like, I want my nephews and nieces to experience Resident Evil 4. If the best way for them to do that is to play the most recent remake. Is it the version I played? No, but they're still going to be like, holy shit. The Chainsaw Sisters. Oh my God. El Gigante. I think that's great. Sure. Again, maybe they're churning these out in a sense, but you can do it.

[Dan Reichert]

In really meaningful ways. I think Resident Evil is probably the leader in terms of meaningful remakes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Cheating by picking like, you know, the foremost one.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, let's go to another one. You know, Zelda, one of the best series of all time. But like they improved upon some of the, like Ocarina. You know, it's like, okay, everyone hated the water temple. Okay, well here's a much better way to do that. Or even like 3 DSLRs are now.

[Mike Mahardy]

An item instead of equipment.

[Dan Reichert]

That type of stuff. Majora the Bomber's notebook. That type of stuff like Majora 3D is absolutely the way to play that game. Wind Waker. You know, people complained about the sailing taking too long and all the tingle map shit at the end. Wind Waker hd. I just played through it again. It's fucking awesome. Still, like, like, yeah, sure, sometimes they might just up res the thing and throw it out there. But then sometimes you get a full ass remake like RE4. And then sometimes you get the like, okay, let's take some of the best games of all time, like these Zelda games and just, oh, here are the things we know that fans didn't like about it and let's improve upon that. And I will always be in favor of that.

[Mary Kish]

To like Justin's credit. I don't think every one of them does, does benefit or you know, ADD and so there is a bit of an exhaustion from it. For example, I didn't know that Brothers A Tale of Two Sons is one of these, but did it need it? Brothers A Tale of Two Sons is like a pretty good experience for the era that it came out in. I'm not confident I understand why that was re released.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure, yeah, that, that's, they didn't feel as needed. I mean, yeah, there are going to be the big series that get it and deserve it and then they're going to be the ones where it's like, oh yeah, I don't know, do we, do we need this again right now?

[Mike Mahardy]

Well, some of them run like dog shit and you could tell they really were just churned out because people knew that you would buy. What's the, what's like a recent example of a remake remaster that was terrible.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I mean there's just one, not that recent but like the Silent Hill HD collection. I know it really sucked and like Now Silent Hill 2, you know, did it right it seems. But then I think, you know, people get very cynical about things like the Naughty Dog stuff like with Last of Us getting the remakes and part ones and all that stuff. And it's like, oh man, this game just came out a few years ago. You know, is this really, you know, like I think people look a little side eyed at those, especially when they want new stuff from a studio like Naughty Dog. But it's not like it's this or that. It's not like they're making a remake of a Last of Us game in lieu of making a new IP or something. Like they're going to be making that at the same time too. So yeah, I, I, I don't see the problem. Some, some are going to be needed and, and really well done. Some are going to be, they're going to run like and aren't going to be needed. But you know, there's good and bad with everything.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, the quality of remakes and remasters is almost as wide of a gamut as the quality in brand new games. Like you can get really good new remakes, you can get really easy ports and you know, some will do their job like Skyrim will keep releasing on shit and I'll probably keep playing it. Others, like I said, Resident Evil 2 remake will now become one of my all time favorite games. But like, yeah, I'm done being like by default cynical about them. But that's not to say I'm not going to criticize the ones that really do feel like cash grabs because those absolutely exist.

[Mary Kish]

Right.

[Dan Reichert]

There are things like, you know, the Mario 3D All Stars clothes collection, which. Those are three of my favorite games of all time. And I'm a little disappointed in that. Like nothing. It all just kind of feels like just ports of these games. Nothing got added or improved necessarily.

[Mary Kish]

I think that's the real gut from this, is that like, that feels remastered to me, where it's just kind of a whatever addition, but they've put a new name on it when they could have maybe remastered one of your favorite favorites and actually plussed it up.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

What would you have preferred?

[Dan Reichert]

Would I have preferred like Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy to get like, you know, 69 and everything's like. It's just. It looks great, it runs great at 60 frames a second. Of course, of course I would prefer that. But the fact that I can play all those games on my switch is not a negative to me, you know, but it's also not going to like impress me the way that like a. An re4 or something would, you know?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's a one size fits all thing, but I don't think they're ever going to run out of games to remake and remaster.

[Dan Reichert]

A lot of fun games out there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Really quick question I'm going to. I don't even. You don't even need an explanation. But like, so far from the PS5 Series X generation, we're talking about Pandemic and beyond. Sure. What is the game? And this is impossible. It's kind of a loaded question, but what is the game you want to see? What's the first game you want to be remade from this generation in the future?

[Dan Reichert]

Mary, do you have one? I got to think about that.

[Mary Kish]

A game made this generation that I'm looking forward to being remade for. Like, I'm asking you to predict the next gen to play.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, remake. What's a game that was really good. But you think it could be edited and like, maybe next generation will get it really right with like a director's cut version.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm looking at my top 10.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. I'm looking at my Steam library real quick. I mean, the thing is, is like, I want to be careful that I'm not just like making this a graphics conversation because I think you can.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, no, no, no.

[Mary Kish]

Not that I'm specifically saying that, you know, like, I don't, I don't want this to be a Graphics conversation. When I think about Quality of Life.

[Mike Mahardy]

It'S like what is, what is the game? This generation that you were like, oh God, it's so close to being a great game, but it's like it's not quite there. They need this. This was annoying. This was annoying.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm sorry. I just pulled up my top 10 games of 2022 and I put Sonic Frontiers above God of War, Ragnarok. And that is such a troll.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

That's incredible.

[Mike Mahardy]

I got God of War. Ragnarok would be one of them. All they have to do is cut 30 hours from it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

And eight characters. No man.

[Dan Reichert]

What would it be? I'm looking here.

[Mary Kish]

Remastered as well, which is such a.

[Dan Reichert]

Tears the Kingdom. Breath the Wild. Okay. Breath Wild was before that.

[Mike Mahardy]

But like I will 1000% buy both of those on the switch three or whatever the.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Give me the frame rate. 60 frames a second. Tears the Kingdom. Like that'd be awesome.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. I'm thinking back in the reviews I did where I was like, everything's awesome, but there's this one little thing that doesn't detract from the whole thing. But sure, like I don't know, Death stranding, director's cut kind of.

[Mary Kish]

So don't you start.

[Dan Reichert]

I got me into it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Although that, that was. Honestly that was less because of the director's cut ideas.

[Mary Kish]

There's a couple of like scary games that I. I wonder if like with a couple of modern touches if you could really people up. Amnesia is such a scary game and I wonder if like with some modern outdated these days updates, you could probably really scare the out of these kids.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm not tried that.

[Mary Kish]

They did. And you know what's interesting? Okay, it's interesting you bring that up, Dan. They did update it, but it's not the same game. They made new versions and a lot of the times the game having tough graphics helped with its scariness because you can't really see what it is. Like it's so jarring and up and the graphics are just low enough quality. You can't fully see it and that is disturbing. So there is an element, I think of the classic old gameplay that serves the scariness well. But I will say like the idea of having like really good resolution, really up to date graphics and still not being able to see what the thing is that's chasing you and ultimately killing you. I still think they could, they could figure it out.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, and, and that's the argument with stuff like when they made the remaster of Shadow of the Colossus is that it was kind of cleaned up quite a bit. Like, the graphics look cleaner, but, like, there was an aspect to the PS2 quality that, like, the blurring and things like that kind of added, like, almost a dreamlike quality to that game. And by cleaning it up, maybe lose a little bit there. I like the remake.

[Mary Kish]

You lose a little bit of the atmosphere, a little bit of the style at the time. And. And a lot of people would always say that too, is because when you're making games for an era, you're making very intentional decisions with every. Every shape and choice, every polygon. Like, it had a very distinct purpose back then. And now you can just be like, we'll just make it look like. Yeah, make it look like a boy. And it's like, what do you've changed the entire director's intent.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. It's not all about realism. Like, that's something I think about a lot with Snake Eater. You know, I. I played Delta at the preview event. I've seen the trailers, and I'm watching Kayla play through the HD version of the original, but the HD version is still the same graphic style. And I. I think that's an example of them doing it pretty right. Because, like, Snake looks like Snake. Vulgan still looks like a. Like a comic book character. Like. But, yeah, some of the early trailers and stuff is like, oh, I hope they don't go too far into photorealism here because, like, it did have a bit of a style to the look, even if it was largely realistic style, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. I. I also think it's interesting that you can go. You can do the opposite.

[Mike Mahardy]

Right.

[Mary Kish]

Like, you can make a modern game that looks like a classic game. UFO 50 seems like it. Is it 50 UFO or UFO 50?

[Mike Mahardy]

UFO 50.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it.

[Mary Kish]

It seems like that's doing it. I'll also say that Crow country is very clearly inspired by Silent Hill and is made in the vein of Silent Hill. Like, it looks like a classic arcade game. It's not meant to be remastered. It shouldn't look any different. It's intentional for it to look the way it does, and it's killing it. So a lot of the times I feel really motivated to just say, like, if the intentionality is there, leave it alone. Because, like, that is the way it's meant to be and it Ha. It's. It's a place in time. You know, I. I think a lot of the times, like, they really are just meant to be the way they are, and you just leave those sweet baby Games alone.

[Mike Mahardy]

I think I've got one. I think hear it. The one that it's. I think it's genuinely one of the best games ever designed is Outer Wilds. But like I could see some sort of update to the controls for the jetpack and the spaceship or like I didn't mind.

[Dan Reichert]

I kind of like the way that.

[Mary Kish]

They controlled, but I don't think it's universal. Like my parents could never play that. Like, it's very difficult to like process. I also think that it, it does. I think it's a great example. I think my problem with Outer Wilds is like it doesn't explain enough to the player to the point where you can get wildly lost and go on two hour tangents which are fun because you're exploring space, but if you, if you lose the narrative too far down that path, you can just disappear. I think that is a good contender. Yeah, for sure. I can absolutely see that one being like something that would blow the young children's minds. The kids that are born in 20, 20, 20 and are now 4 years old.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right, well, thank you, Justin, the original and biggest fire escape fan from San Marcos, Texas. All right, we got one more. Dan, do you want to read this one from Rachel?

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. Hi. Hi. I live in Michigan where we now have a hands free driving law. Finally. What? While sending a text through Siri, I got caught behind someone going so slow, I started loudly complaining about it, not fully realizing I'm still using Siri to send a message. So half the message was about chicken wings followed by a slew of expletives. He had a good laugh about it. If you could get any actor, video game character or human, you know, to be a Siri voice, who would you pick? Me. It would be the Turtle, Pope or Blade from Elden. Ring for me. Papa Vinny from Nextlander would be cool as hell too. Excellent. Okay, well, thank you so much, Rachel. Rachel also says your soul is. Cat piss has made its way into my lexicon. That sounds like a Mary. I don't remember the context, but that sounds like a Mary.

[Mary Kish]

I said that about you, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

That's what I would have guessed. Yep. All right.

[Mike Mahardy]

Who would I use?

[Dan Reichert]

Mike Minotti?

[Mike Mahardy]

You should have turned left back there, Dan. You missed the turn. Take a U turn, Dan.

[Mary Kish]

This isn't Disney.

[Mike Mahardy]

This is not Disneyland, Dan.

[Mary Kish]

It just always directs you to Disney. Even when you just pick Taco Bell.

[Dan Reichert]

It will only take you to Epcot Center.

[Mike Mahardy]

Maleficent has been misunderstood her whole life.

[Mary Kish]

Turn left.

[Dan Reichert]

It just constantly singing bullshit From Frozen or whatever.

[Mike Mahardy]

You'll arrive at Agrabahn Approximately 34 minutes. Minutes.

[Mary Kish]

This brutal impression.

[Mike Mahardy]

God, there are the heartless and then they're the heartless at Hollow Bastion. They're very different.

[Mary Kish]

It's just correct.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know what the hell you're.

[Mike Mahardy]

Talking, and I. Jeff. Jeff Grubb. So Mike Minati does a thing where he is. He'll talk about Disney. He'll talk about Disney. Okay? I'll be the first one to say he'll talk about Disney a lot. And then that's my best bet, the first grubbing person.

[Mary Kish]

But you also have to go turn right.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's right. So I. I beat. I'll say it. I'll say it. I beat Dan in Astrobot. Speed runs all the time.

[Dan Reichert]

All right, Mike, hit him with a Jeff. Bachelor. Hit him with a Jet Bachelor. Or a Siri.

[Mike Mahardy]

Hey, asshole, you forgot to turn right. Mario's back that way.

[Dan Reichert]

You suck. Sucks.

[Mike Mahardy]

Ah, man. If it's not hockey, I don't. No, that's not him.

[Dan Reichert]

That's.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, you got.

[Mike Mahardy]

You guys ever been to. Oh, have you guys ever been to Jersey? All right, I think I. I've extended my. I've. I've exhausted rather my. My impersonations. Unless you give me someone else. I want to try.

[Mary Kish]

That's so impressive. I would never have the guts to do that. I think it's Peter Brown.

[Dan Reichert]

Hit him.

[Mike Mahardy]

Peter Brown.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, man, Pete's tough.

[Dan Reichert]

Rob Handlery.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, no, I'll do Pete.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

The retro video game stores back there, man, like, here's the thing about CCR TVs.

[Mary Kish]

It.

[Dan Reichert]

You gotta like Credence Clearwater T. What the fuck?

[Mike Mahardy]

No, no, no. Just like. I promise I'm going somewhere with this. I'm going somewhere with this. I promise. You gotta really consider that the cathode rays in the 87 models are not the same. And you gotta like. No, no, Dan, go away. I'm trying to tell Rob this thing.

[Mary Kish]

Stop. Stop in 10ft.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, Rob. Oh, I can do Rob.

[Mary Kish]

Rob's. A lot of us can do Rob because he has this iconic thing that he does.

[Mike Mahardy]

Rob animated.

[Mary Kish]

And.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I. It wouldn't even. I don't think it would play well.

[Dan Reichert]

Mid 2010s GameSpot people are getting a show here.

[Mike Mahardy]

This is not okay. Give me someone else.

[Dan Reichert]

Richard Nixon.

[Mike Mahardy]

You have just passed the local house.

[Dan Reichert]

Waffle. Seems like the best word to say is Richard Nixon waffles. I hop.

[Mike Mahardy]

I will not have any of that. You will go to Waffle House. I will reluctantly remit the presidency of this country.

[Dan Reichert]

You just had to shake your jowls as hard as possible to do Nick's.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's tough when I don't really.

[Dan Reichert]

Jolly man. He was.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, that would be a great.

[Mary Kish]

I would pick that one. I think it'd be pretty fun to have Nixon tell me how to get to the nearest gas station. I think that's pretty fun.

[Dan Reichert]

They used to have that on, like, early aol, where it's like, you could pick celebrity voice packs for your. Like, because I had Letterman, and he'd be like, hey, Skippy, you've got mail. You know, so, like, all the different, like, you know, friends logging in or you've got mail would be, oh, here's Regis, here's Letterman, here's whatever. Like, that was fun.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. No, but I guess short answer, though, I would like to have an obvious one's like, James Earl Jones.

[Mary Kish]

Bob from Bob's Burgers would be so nice, because I actually. I find it so cathartic, just the way he talks, and when he's disappointed, he always goes. And so, like, every time I missed a turn, he'd just be like, oh, that's the wrong turn. And I'd be like, oh, that's not so bad.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Jermaine Clement would be good.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Stone cold Steve Austin. Bret Hart. I think I want Bret Hart. A lot of wrestlers.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, There's. There's. There's options. I would like Vinnie. Vinny's a calming.

[Dan Reichert]

Vinny's. Vinny's a very.

[Mary Kish]

That is a calming voice. Yes. Vinnie would do a great job as a Siri car navigation system.

[Dan Reichert]

You guys never had Vinnie as a manager. Vinny, like, you know, great friend, obviously, great podcast personality, but, man, I had him as a manager. He's maybe the best manager I ever had, like, in any job. Like, he's just, like. He's just a. He's just a person that cares about people, and he's just gonna put Vinnie over here. He's just a great man.

[Mary Kish]

I knew it. I knew it. I always assume that. And my brief times working with him, I was just like, this just seems like a person who really cares about the company and the people that he's working with and their lives and why it matters and seems like kind of person when you're like, I'm late because there's, like, a rainstorm. His immediate reaction would be like, are you okay? And do you need something? Can I help you? Like, that's not like the kind of guy that's like, well, you're five minutes late.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. And also very patient when you're just, you know, doing your. Or whatever. Like, you know, he's. Yeah, no, I just put Vinnie over. He's. He's the best.

[Mary Kish]

Damn it. Make that man a manager again. Somebody hire that Vinnie. I know, but it doesn't benefit me.

[Dan Reichert]

Get him in charge of Twitch.

[Mary Kish]

I want him as a manager of any Twitch.

[Mike Mahardy]

Twitch. All right. Well, thank you, Rachel. We appreciate, Appreciate it. And as I mentioned before, if you want to send in questions for the show, that is firescapecastmail.com and that's our episode. I mentioned this at the top, but again, if you are a patron subscriber, you can basically ignore this. However, if you're not, if you've lapsed, or if you're considering being a patron to get ad free episodes or video episodes before the end of October, note that by. By November, as of November 1st, we will be switching to subscription billing. What does that mean, you ask? If you sign up for our Patreon on October 25th, say you will then be charged on November 25th for your next billing cycle as opposed to the first of every month. No matter when you signed up in that month, it was a bit of a quality of life annoyance. So Patreon's rectifying that across the board. So if you're on the fence and you want to maybe support us, you want to get ad free episodes, you want to get video episodes, you. You want to be keyed in on all the news for our big game of the year stream, which again, is November 16th.

[Dan Reichert]

16Th. Mark your calendars.

[Mike Mahardy]

2024, you should sign up. Now is the time to sign up or anytime before the end of the month. And you will not just be automatically.

[Mary Kish]

No, it has to sign on November. You do not do it now. We won't let you listen to it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, or just riders as we come up there. Give you a full month. Exactly. Well, as of this recording month, heads up, November 16th, it will be in the evening we will start. I believe the thing we do now is it will be on the fire escape cast YouTube after the fact. So if you want to see the VOD, it'll be on the Fire Escape YouTube. The audio will come up the 18th on this feed and then I believe the actual stream. We never set up like a Twitch thing for, so probably on mine. Right. That's what we're doing.

[Mike Mahardy]

We have one, but it was mainly a placeholder, but I guess we can figure it out.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, well, yes, follow both. No matter what Follow Dan Reichard and Fire Scrapecraft, if that's what it is. We'll see. We'll figure out the details. But no matter what, it will be on the fire escape cast YouTube and the audio will be on this feed later on. So that is coming November 16th live.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Dan and I the other night both predicted our. We both had a prediction for the winner of game of the year this year.

[Dan Reichert]

I think we. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Although one other one came up, Dan, that was not discussed that I kind of. Maybe this is not a good.

[Dan Reichert]

Came up and was not discussed.

[Mike Mahardy]

Right. They came up afterward. I was like, oh, we didn't. Dan and I didn't mention that, which is probably a bad sign. However, then I'm like, oh, right. That was a huge game this year that we talked a lot about it. Just like, I think maybe because it was sort of live servicing co op multiplayer.

[Dan Reichert]

Keep talking.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I don't want to. I want to save it. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Of the year. It's good. It's not my top 10.

[Mary Kish]

The.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's not your top 10?

[Dan Reichert]

No, I literally. I just. I'm looking at it right now. I have my top 10 loose list here. It's on the. It's. No, it's. I. It was great, but it. It would probably be 14. It'd probably be like 14, 15 for me.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's where Astrobot is for me.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

We are already starting our politicking and we will discuss more of this. I think I know I'm gonna win the 16th. Nobody knows. Shut the fuck up.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. Mary, what do you have going on outside of Fire Escape?

[Mary Kish]

This twitch shit, you know.

[Mike Mahardy]

People might not. Yes, I know. I'm not doing this for me. I don't give a fuck what you do outside of every week.

[Mary Kish]

Mike, why do you always ask me this question? You know, what I. What I'm up to.

[Mike Mahardy]

Do whatever the fuck you want. I don't give a shit. Did you even answer it? I don't care. Dan, what do you have going on?

[Dan Reichert]

Giant bomb dot com, Paul, The Bomb Cast, voicemail, dump truck, all those Giant bomb shows. I'm actually home until like Thanksgiving, so I should be able to get some personal streams in. So. Follow Dan Reichert on Twitter, Twitch and Instagram. Yeah, I'll actually take it easy and just stay in Minnesota for a bit, so. Looking forward to that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nice. Yeah, Looking forward to the weather. Just got cold here in New York and I don't know if it's going to turn again, so I'm enjoying the cozy weather. Cozy indoors already.

[Mary Kish]

Soup season, baby.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thank you so much, everybody for joining us. I just noticed that I can see right into someone's bathroom back here.

[Dan Reichert]

Anything cool going on in there?

[Mike Mahardy]

He's just peeing. Standing and peeing. It's way far away. But I never noticed that's a bathroom that I could see into.

[Dan Reichert]

Just a full. Like, you're not seeing like a wiener right now, are you?

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't think so. I'll send you.

[Dan Reichert]

They should close the blinds if there's visible wiener.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'll send you a video. But thank you, everybody for joining episode 92. We'll. We'll see you again in a couple weeks. Get ready. I think. Is that the last episode before Game of the Year?

[Mary Kish]

What, are they gonna remake it so you can actually see the dong in the window?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I want 4K dong.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Interesting.

[Mike Mahardy]

November 4th. Episode 93 is the next episode on November 4th.

[Mary Kish]

And then the frames per second on that dong.

[Mike Mahardy]

Next episode after much is that dongy in the window.

[Dan Reichert]

Got ray tracing on that dong.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's really enjoying it too. It seems like dls.

[Mary Kish]

Is there V sync on that dong?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, V sing dong.

[Mike Mahardy]

Anti aliasing. The whole package?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, it's the whole package. All right, that's good. Got DLC and its balls.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Motion.

[Mike Mahardy]

Two episodes away from Game of the Year. He's yawning late here. 12:30.

[Dan Reichert]

He. He's still.

[Mike Mahardy]

Wow, it's a long.

[Dan Reichert]

Still going.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, he's still going. If you want the video version, you can see me watching someone pee.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, check out the Patreon.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dude, finish up that guy. I'm obsessed.

[Dan Reichert]

We can't end the podcast until he's done peeing.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's so far. Like, this is really far away. It's just. It's a window I see all the time. I just never realized the bathroom.

[Mary Kish]

You have to be careful. At some point he's no longer peeing and he's just pulling it.

[Dan Reichert]

Does his penis have any chromatic aberration?

[Mike Mahardy]

So I cannot even stress how, like, perfectly framed it is where everything. It's his waist down is covered, so it's like a. Oh, good.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, well, then that's. That's all decent.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like a PG rated.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, see, like jumping the aspect ratio. The letterbox. Dong.

[Mary Kish]

Letter box dong.

[Mike Mahardy]

Funny. If he looks up.

[Dan Reichert]

No, you're getting arrested. If he looks up.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, I'm just joking. I didn't.

[Mary Kish]

It's a video version. We all saw it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, I'm so sorry. I think I see what's happening.

[Dan Reichert]

What's that?

[Mike Mahardy]

I think he's at a standing desk.

[Dan Reichert]

That's very. Wait, does he have a shirt on?

[Mike Mahardy]

I can't. Oh, it's far. It's a silver.

[Mary Kish]

What does he do for a living?

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't know if his dick is out. Oh, he's at a standing desk.

[Dan Reichert]

It's like when Butters peas and it's just like, shirt on, pants down.

[Mary Kish]

How much is that window?

[Mike Mahardy]

He's like a floor below me. Yep.

[Mary Kish]

What a twist. Produced by M. Night Shyamalan for this.

[Dan Reichert]

To actually be a standing shamadong.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, who's to say?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yep. No, he's a standing desk. Wow, he got me good.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, he's just working probably.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's probably playing Helldivers, too.

[Dan Reichert]

Good game.

[Mike Mahardy]

Not Astrobot, though. That's episode 92. Thank you.

[Dan Reichert]

You think I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do some big crazy thing where I'm trying to push Astrobot to number one. I know my spots. I know it's not for you, Unreasonable man.

[Mike Mahardy]

Why would I think 2 you2 are gonna do some crazy thing when you try to force Pikmin 4 into number one at the end of.

[Dan Reichert]

Look, we were just trying to give it its flowers, all right? We were being reasonable.

[Mike Mahardy]

It wasn't it our number two. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

We're very happy with how that turned out.

[Mike Mahardy]

You tried to push it.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, darn Zelda game got our Game of the Year.

[Mike Mahardy]

We will be back on November 4, at which point we will be prepping for our Game of the year livestream on November 16, which will go up November 18 as the next episode. Breakout episode. Thank you, everybody, for joining. We'll talk to you later. Until then, have a good couple weeks.

[Dan Reichert]

It.