Game Scoop! 839: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Games

Summary

Game Scoop! 839: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Games

Podcast by IGN & Geek Media — January 9, 2026
Host: Daemon Hatfield
Guests: Nick Lamonte, Sam Claiborne, Mark Medina

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Episode Overview

The IGN Game Scoop crew kicks off 2026 with a wide-ranging, energetic episode, diving deep into the realities of today’s gaming landscape, shifting player habits, industry sales trends, and lively retro gaming chat. Key stories include the dominance of live-service games, an analysis of console sales slowdowns, Metroid Prime 4’s development quirks, notable speedrunning milestones, and listener mail. The gang also shares what they've been playing and looks ahead at anticipated titles and platform releases.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dominance of Live Service Games (01:35–10:30)

• 2025’s Top PS5 Games:
  Identical to last year—Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA 5, Roblox, and Minecraft dominate.
  • “Second verse, same as the first. They are the exact same games in the exact same order as 2024.” — Daemon (01:35)
• Lack of New Releases’ Impact:
  • The top-played games aren’t even PS5 exclusives; many can run on older platforms or mobile.
  • “So people are buying a PS5 or an Xbox to play old live service games. These games are old.” — Daemon (03:08)
• Persistent Gameplay:
  • Live-service games offer ongoing play, explaining their lasting appeal and lessening the impact of traditional, single-player titles.
  • “Other games end at some point and these games never end. That’s the whole point. They want to keep you there.” — Daemon (05:16)

Notable Exchange

• “Roblox is like 50,000 billion games, dude. That also doesn’t mean anything.” — Mark (05:23)

• Panel debates whether this is “doom and gloom” or just a sign of changing trends.

• Only 12% of gamers buy a game monthly; 4% buy more frequently (10:03).

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2. Decline in Console Sales and Nintendo's “Western Game” Problem (11:17–15:50)

• Switch 2 Holiday Sales Drop:
  • Down 35% vs. Switch 1’s first holiday season.
  • Nintendo (anonymously) attributes this to a tough economy and “absence of a major Western game.”
  • “Miyamoto once again dropping shade on Metroid.” — Mark (12:36)
• Third-Party Parity Lacking:
  • The gang argues Nintendo should better sync Western AAA releases (e.g., Assassin’s Creed, GTA) to grow Switch 2 adoption.

Panel Insights

• “When he says a major Western game, you think he means a game by a Western developer? Because when has that ever been a big draw to Nintendo?” — Daemon (13:36)
• “If they had released a 3D Mario, which we were kind of hoping they would... I think it would have been a different story.” — Mark (15:04)

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3. Metroid Prime 4: Open World Woes & Technical Achievements (21:08–23:35)

• Sam 100%-ed Metroid Prime 4:
  • “I loved it. I love this game. I think it’s really, really cool.” — Sam (22:21)
• Development Insight:
  • Devs wanted to add open-world elements due to Breath of the Wild’s influence, then roughly backtracked.
  • “It is so crazy. There was this pull to make it an open world game and then, like, no, we’re going to reverse that… ‘we can't start it over again, just leave it in.’” — Sam (22:32)
• Switch 2 Power Praised:
  • “It’s a very pretty game and I think it's a great technical showcase of the Switch 2.” — Nick (23:18)

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4. What the Crew Is Playing (24:53–29:46)

• Baldur’s Gate 3:
  • “This is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played.” — Nick (25:05)
  • Nick details the story depth, House of Hope area, and recommends the companion podcast Real Lich Hours.
• Dispatch:
  • “The voices and the characters are so good. It's Aaron Paul and he's the lead in it and he's great… It's got a lot going for it.” — Sam (26:49)
  • Nick and Sam discuss how its minigames refresh the Telltale formula.
• Hades II & Path of Exile 2:
  • Mark’s hooked on Hades 2 and is navigating POE2’s notoriously complex skill tree.
  • “The passive skill tree, when you zoom out, is the worst thing you'll ever see. It looks like the solar system.” — Mark (31:15)

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5. Avowed Announced for PS5 (32:39–33:53)

• PS5 port releasing February 17, 2026, alongside a 2.0 update.
  • “It's finally coming to a real console.” — Mark (32:56, jokingly)
• Panel highlights it as a great time to jump into Avowed.

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6. Speedrunning Milestone: Super Meat Boy No-Death Run (34:29–36:38)

• AbsoluteWildShredberg achieves the first-ever "no-death" run after 2,000 attempts/1,000+ hours.
• “At the end of his video on YouTube, he says this: ‘I’m going to be emailing everyone—Kotaku, ign, cnn, Chefs Illustrated—they’re all going to hear about it. I will unironically email ign.’” — Daemon (35:26)
• Crew celebrates this “impressive feat” and discusses the game's challenge and long-awaited sequel.

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7. Community Mailbag (38:54–44:13)

Christmas Card from Ross Arbor (39:18)

• Panel thanks an Ontario listener for a festive card.
• “Ross, I love you man, but I hate to tell you GTA 6 ain’t coming out this year.” — Mark (39:44)

Learning Languages through Games (41:05)

• Joe from North Bay considers playing Death Stranding in Spanish.
• “That is such a good idea... try to learn a language to turn on your game in a different language and do the subtitles. I think that sounds great.” — Sam (41:36)

Metroid Dread Discussion (57:46–60:50)

• Heated debate: is Metroid Dread a platformer or strictly a Metroidvania?
• “If you're bad at jumping, you will not get far in these games.” — Nick (59:54)
• “It's like saying a kart racer is not a racing game. Like, it is a racing game. It's a subgenre of racing games called kart racers.” — Sam (60:15)

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8. Listener Questions & 20 Questions Stats (49:00–52:21)

• Matt from Massachusetts recaps 2025’s Game Scoop 20 Questions stats.
  • “There are 516 unique games mentioned... The game mentioned most frequently… was Perfect Dark.” — Daemon (50:02)
• Sam requests more detailed win/loss stats for future analysis.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “So people are buying a PS5 or an Xbox to play old live service games. These games are old.”
  — Daemon Hatfield (03:08)
• “Miyamoto once again dropping shade on Metroid.”
  — Mark Medina (12:36)
• “Other games end at some point and these games never end. That’s the whole point. They want to keep you there.”
  — Daemon Hatfield (05:16)
• “I loved it. I love this game. I think it’s really, really cool.”
  — Sam Claiborne on Metroid Prime 4 (22:21)
• “At the end of his video on YouTube, he says this: ‘I’m going to be emailing everyone—Kotaku, ign, cnn, Chefs Illustrated—they’re all going to hear about it. I will unironically email ign.’”
  — Daemon recounting the Super Meat Boy speedrunner (35:26)
• “If you're bad at jumping, you will not get far in these games.”
  — Nick Lamonte on Metroidvanias (59:54)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:35 — PS5’s Most Played Games of 2025
• 11:17 — Switch 2 Sales & Nintendo’s “Western Game” Gap
• 21:08 — Sam’s Metroid Prime 4 Experience
• 24:53 — What’s the Crew Playing? (BG3, Dispatch, Hades II, POE2)
• 32:39 — Avowed PS5 Announcement
• 34:29 — Super Meat Boy No-Death Milestone
• 38:54 — Listener Mail (Christmas Card, Learning Languages)
• 49:00 — 20 Questions Stats Recap
• 53:15 — Video Game 20 Questions (Metroid Dread, lively genre debate)

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Tone and Style

High-energy, irreverent, knowledgeable banter, peppered with self-deprecating jokes, deep-cut retro gaming references, and honest opinions about industry trends and platform struggles. The cast blends hardcore gaming insight with accessibility for both long-time fans and newcomers—a signature IGN Game Scoop feel.

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Summary prepared for listeners who missed the show: This episode delivers a snapshot of the modern gaming industry, critiques and celebrates its idiosyncrasies, and reminds us why, sometimes, "we can't have nice games."

Transcript

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[Damon Ha]

What's up everybody? Happy Scoop year. Welcome to IGN gamescoop. I'm your host Damon Ha. Joining me here in studio is Nick lamonte.

[Nick Lamonte]

I'm back baby.

[Damon Ha]

We're also joined by Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

Happy scoopier everybody.

[Damon Ha]

And mark Medina.

[Mark Medina]

Happy 2026. I'm here Damon, and we've got a.

[Damon Ha]

Great show for you this week. Great show to kick off the year we'll be talking about. I think Sam beat Metroid and someone from inside Nintendo is throwing a little bit of shade at Samus's way over the Switch 2's holiday sales. We've also got a new trailer for Resident Evil Requiem. Avow was just announced for PS5 moments ago. Just moments ago. And we also have some Speedrunner news that I'm looking forward to sharing with Mark. But first, what were the most popular games on PlayStation 5 in 2025? Well, second verse same as the first. They are the exact same games in the exact same order as 2024. This info comes from Matt Piscatella from Circana the artist Frank formerly known as MPD and he shared on BLUESKY the top five most played games on us PlayStation 5s, Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA 5, Roblox and Minecraft. If you compare that to 2024 it was Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA 5, Roblox and minecraft.

[Mark Medina]

I'm going to assume that 2025 number six is ball pit.

[Sam Claiborne]

Ball pit.

[Mark Medina]

And I don't want to know the.

[Damon Ha]

Answer on a PS5.

[Mark Medina]

Just going to assume.

[Damon Ha]

Choose to believe that. Yeah. So a lot of people playing. So what are. These are live service games.

[Mark Medina]

Right?

[Nick Lamonte]

Right.

[Damon Ha]

All of them. But all of them. None of them require a PS5. Oh, also, yeah, some of you can.

[Sam Claiborne]

Play on a phone too. Don't you have a phone more handy than your PS5?

[Damon Ha]

That's what I think. It's also the exact same games on Xbox, just in a slightly different order.

[Nick Lamonte]

Right.

[Damon Ha]

So people are buying a PS5 or an Xbox to play old live service games. These games are old. Like it doesn't even say what Call of Duty they're playing, but everything else. Fortnight was the most recent game.

[Nick Lamonte]

Well, the thing with Call of Duty is weird because it's Call of Duty hq.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Because it's just one, you'll never know.

[Nick Lamonte]

Generic Call of Duty that whenever a new Call of Duty comes out, they just update Call of Duty. You should have seen me trying to Download Black Ops 7 when it came. I was like, where is it? I know I got the key.

[Mark Medina]

It's like you go to install it and it's like a mile long checklist. It's like, it's like, do you want the Modern Warfare 3 campaign?

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm like, no, I don't think there is an uncheck. Right. Because I went through that and unchecked everything.

[Nick Lamonte]

You can uncheck it. But I, I don't know. It's, it's, it's.

[Mark Medina]

I did on Steam, I think I did on PS5 too.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I mean I went down my controller and unchecked everything. But yeah, all I wanted to do is play the campaign. And to its credit, it does allow you to just download the Call of Duty campaign. You don't have to get everything. It's just a really weird platformy setup for it. Right.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's so silly how they do it because their Steam numbers are always just going to be messed up because no matter how many people play, there was like a moment in time where like Warzone was super popular and so their peak will always be then. Even if it's the new game they're competing with something from three years ago. Anyways, Call of Duty.

[Nick Lamonte]

And I'm sorry, are these numbers peak concurrent players or is it just the most played game playtime?

[Damon Ha]

Percent of active panel that played is what.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, I mean, you know, it does seem like initially like, where's Ghost of Yote? But like for the most part.

[Damon Ha]

Well, I knew it was gonna be Ghost of Yote, but yeah, no, but.

[Nick Lamonte]

Like first party PlayStation titles, right? I know your instinct. A lot of people's instinc like, oh well, we're all video games are dying or whatever. But it's like, well, I mean those games are kind of one and done, right? At a certain point you play those games, you finish it. And for the most part that's a good point. People play Call of Duty and they're just going to continue playing Call. Like Fortnite. I still play Fortnite and that's going to be in my regular rotation.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mario 64.

[Mark Medina]

That's all the market, the only game I've ever played. There's other games, so.

[Nick Lamonte]

So yeah, it does. It does seem a little bit like Doom and Gloom. But maybe it's not as bad as we initially think. At least I want to be optimistic.

[Damon Ha]

I mean, that's a good point because the other games end at some point and these games never end. That's the whole point. They want to keep you there.

[Mark Medina]

Also, Roblox is like 50, 000 billion games, dude. I was like, that also doesn't mean anything.

[Nick Lamonte]

I was all playing gross. So many family gatherings with, with like children much younger than me who are playing Roblox on their phone. I'm just watching them in their sonic skin playing parkour maps. I was like, dude, what is like, that's why.

[Damon Ha]

Why are so many kids playing roblox on a PS5? Like, just because their parents have one maybe.

[Nick Lamonte]

Like, to be fair, watching a kid.

[Sam Claiborne]

Their parents have this PS5 like loaded up with all these amazing AAA games and they're just there at their fingertips and they're like, I can't believe all my parents have is this stupid PS5. I guess I'll play Roblox on it.

[Nick Lamonte]

Watching a kid play a parkour map on a phone though is painful because he's like, you know, having to make precision jumps trying to like zoom in. He's pretty good, granted, using like the mobile interface, but it's probably a little bit easier on a controller, I would assume.

[Mark Medina]

I could barely type on a phone. I definitely can't game on one I.

[Damon Ha]

Can'T do on my phone. I can't like text with both thumbs. I can't. I can't even do that. Wait, I can't do this.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, wow.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is this like in a decade from now where people would be like, people were complaining you couldn't Use two fingers to use a phone.

[Damon Ha]

Like.

[Nick Lamonte]

Like how we were doing. Like you can't look and move at the same time in a first person shoot.

[Damon Ha]

Anyway, looking at these games, Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA 5, Roblox and Minecraft. Maybe this is why PlayStation stopped releasing games. And I kid, but their output has slowed. They put out games with much less frequency than they used to, but they have the data here. They're not playing our games on our console.

[Nick Lamonte]

Picture this.

[Sam Claiborne]

Can't someone else do it?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, picture this.

[Nick Lamonte]

They made a Last of us Factions multiplayer mode. That was a game as a service.

[Damon Ha]

Well, it also tells you why they were so hot to get their own game as a service. Because that's what people use their console for, right?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. That's why they all use like monthly active users as their metrics now.

[Damon Ha]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

Weird.

[Damon Ha]

Piscatello was also recently on Kind of Funny and he explained on their show, he said this is a quote. The way the market used to work is that players would buy one big new game, spend all their time on that, then move on to the next one. Yep, that's what I want. That's what I do. That's what I've always done.

[Mark Medina]

That's what I saw how it works in this house.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mark Medina]

Except for Marvel Rivals. I don't know what it is. I can't break it.

[Damon Ha]

A publisher has a game I want, I will pay them one time for the full game. I'll play it until I'm done with it, put it away, move on to the next one. That's how it works. So Circana puts out, you know, the monthly sales data and then they'll put out yearly sales data for 2025, which I'm very interested in seeing. But he said Piscatello's guesses, he expects their data is going to show that 30% of people that play video games would. Did not buy a video game in 2025. Wow.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, I believe it.

[Damon Ha]

30% of people that play video games did not buy a video game in 2025.

[Mark Medina]

But I mean, really just so many.

[Sam Claiborne]

People have been playing the or like one mobile game that's even.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Not even a shooter, like a cookie crusher, Something like that.

[Nick Lamonte]

That seems a little strange though, with the Call of Duty of it all though I guess they are probably playing just War Zone to be fair. But I don't know, People seem to do the multiplayer stuff in each specific bespoke Call of Duty. So I call a tiny bit of shenanigans on that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, do you think that this guy.

[Mark Medina]

I was just gonna say, like, there's a million of those gotcha games now, and those are all free. Genshin and Withering Waves and Infinity Nikki. And there are just so many games out there that you never have to pay for if you don't want to.

[Sam Claiborne]

Don't you think that stat was exactly the same in 1999, though? Because most people were playing Minecraft and Solitaire, they hadn't purchased those, those Games with Windows 98. Why not?

[Damon Ha]

Because it wouldn't be out yet. That's not a 90s game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Minesweeper. I meant.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, oh, there we go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Lamonte]

And then the free one level of that pinball game that I love.

[Mark Medina]

The space one.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

There's other levels.

[Nick Lamonte]

I think so.

[Mark Medina]

So 30% I could buy new maps.

[Damon Ha]

30% didn't buy a game at all. Our article says a further 18% would purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Does that mean 48%? If 30%. A further 18%. Does that make 48%?

[Mark Medina]

I don't.

[Nick Lamonte]

Damon, I work in video production. I'm out of math.

[Mark Medina]

Send this down to the. Let me send this down to the boys in the lab.

[Nick Lamonte]

I took a very specific walk and it did not lead me down the math route.

[Damon Ha]

48%.

[Mark Medina]

2, 2, 3 of a cup to 1/4 of a. What?

[Damon Ha]

Well, the stat is easier to read. Only 12% buy a game once a month. And 4% of gamers buy new games more than once a month.

[Nick Lamonte]

I'm in the 4%.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, we are good. The 4%. So once again, coming back to this list, you look at this list Fortnite, call of duty, GTA 5, Roblox, and Minecraft. What I would hope is that publishers look at that list and they say, okay, I think we're covered off on games as a service. Let's make something different.

[Nick Lamonte]

Unless you're a rock star. And then they'll be like, wait a second.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I, I, Man, I bet that number is not going to change when GTA 6 comes out. I think, I think people just live in GTA 5 and they're not gonna leave it.

[Damon Ha]

I mean, I did wonder what it's gonna do. You think they'll both be on there?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Nick Lamonte]

Like, at least I do think there will be a.

[Mark Medina]

We don't. We don't, we don't know when GTA 6 online is coming out, which will be next year. Right. So when GTA 6 online comes out next year, I think GTA 5 will still be Bigger because for one it's on more platforms and PC. For two, like GTA Online RPG and stuff like that. Like people aren't going to leave that stuff. Stuff they, they live in that.

[Sam Claiborne]

They never had a reason. They never said they're gonna do a new online. Right. That's just not even.

[Mark Medina]

They, they haven't said that they're doing one. You would assume that they will.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean they could, they could pull a World of Warcraft and just have GTA Online. Be GTA Online forever. Right.

[Nick Lamonte]

Or, or yeah, like a graphical, an engine overhaul or something. I don't know what that would look like, but that'd be, that's definitely going to be one of the most interesting things that happen next year for sure.

[Damon Ha]

Because it's excited for, like you said, as excited for GTA 6 as people are. It would be really hard to get them out of GTA Online into something new.

[Nick Lamonte]

Especially all the amount of money people have poured into their own experience in GTA Online.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. Then our next story is somewhat related to the first story. Nintendo source blames Switch 2 holiday sales slowdown on the economic landscape and the absence of a major Western game. Hmm. So this comes from game business. Switch to sales in the. Switch to sales in the US and within key markets in Europe fell behind the equivalent pace of Switch 1. Something that an unnamed senior Nintendo source blamed on a complicated economic climate and the absence of a major Western game. Was there any major Western game for Switch 2 this holiday season?

[Sam Claiborne]

I guess what they're saying is Tara and we only had a minor Western game.

[Damon Ha]

But to be fair, the main, the main holiday season is like November, the shopping season. November, Black Friday and Metroid Prime 4. The Western game came out in December, you know, a little bit.

[Sam Claiborne]

A little bit.

[Mark Medina]

Miyamoto once again dropping shade on Metroid. There's got to be sick of it.

[Nick Lamonte]

There's got to be a nicer way of phrasing that though, right?

[Mark Medina]

Like it is a weird, weird thing.

[Damon Ha]

Do you think that means. Go ahead, Sam.

[Sam Claiborne]

I, I, I mean we're making Metroid jokes because you know, we can. But you know, Call of Duty didn't come out on Switch. Right. That's, that's the major western game that they don't have, you know. Or are many other western games that didn't come out Switch.

[Damon Ha]

That's what I want to say. To be fair, the holiday sales were terrible for all three consoles, not just Switch.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was an industry wide issue this holiday because everybody was scared of gta Change things many years ago to get out of the way of it. There we are. Wake before gta.

[Mark Medina]

I don't know if this factors into it actually, but a lot of only PS5 went on sale, right? Like Xbox and Switch didn't go on sale at all.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, how could they? They literally cost more to import in the United States.

[Damon Ha]

When he says a major western game, you think he means a game by a western developer? Because when has that ever been a big draw to Nintendo?

[Sam Claiborne]

I know that's funny to think about that. I don't get it.

[Damon Ha]

It's a weird comment.

[Nick Lamonte]

Very strange.

[Damon Ha]

Anyway, the game Business reports US Switch 2 sales over the holiday period were down 35% versus the Switch 1's sales performance in 2017. So it's first holiday.

[Sam Claiborne]

But I do think like we've always. I know it's silly and it feels outdated to say this now, but like if there is a big fall game like GTA 6, but more like the next Assassin's Creed, like they really should get that out on Switch 2 at the same time as the other systems to make sure there's like this parity across systems and all things being equal, then people want to switch to because they're going to play all their. The two new games they buy in that quarter statistically on the Switch too.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, but I was going to say comparing the holiday periods for these two consoles in their launch years is not comparing apples to apples. Because with the Switch 1 it was unproven. It's a weird new system. We didn't know what to expect. They were coming out of the Wii U, so it wasn't nearly as much excitement for the Switch. But we got it on launch and then we started spreading the word about how great it was and Breath of the Wild and then Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out and then Mario Odyssey was there. So there was October. Like hype for the console crescendoed into the holiday season. Whereas here there was a lot of hype right at launch. Midnight launches for the first time in a long time sold really well. So I think coming into the holiday season a lot of people who wanted to switch to already had one. Like they were already covered.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I mean if they, if they had released a. A 3D Mario, which we were kind of hoping they would. Yeah, I, I think it would have been a different story. But launching with Mario Kart and then their being Metroid Prime 4, which, you.

[Nick Lamonte]

Know, I think their big game was.

[Sam Claiborne]

Kind of their own.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, they did have the Pokemon game. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Pokemon, so. But a mainline Pokemon is going to do a very different thing for Nintendo, although it's going to be on Switch one also. And this is the comparison, right, that, that he. This is the comment is about not Switch two sales necessarily being quote, unquote bad, but being fewer Switch 2s were sold in Switch ones. Is that the stat?

[Damon Ha]

Oh, I don't know. Just during the holiday period or just the Switch 2 is still. It's still the fastest selling console.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah. I, I don't. So, you know, we get to see people's playing patterns and the game that came with Switch 2 got a massive boost in the coverage that we do. So behind the scenes we can see that a lot of people got Mario Kart and they're looking up the things that you look up in Mario Kart from the start of Mario Kart that, that there is no other bigger theme than that for the holidays. And now that's not saying that's the biggest game, the most popular game or anything. But I can tell people opened Mario Kart at Christmas Day, no question about it.

[Mark Medina]

So what they should have done was get Claire and Kingdom Come Deliverance two on Switch to. By falling, it probably would have sold.

[Sam Claiborne]

More that, I mean, that type of stuff is like so essential to make sure that people play Switch 2 for. Because remember when Switch 1 came out, it did have a couple years where you could play admittedly lesser version of this game on that. So that's why Resident Evil Requiem is a big deal to have on it. Right. They are doing Assassin's Creed, you know. But they did get. They did Outlaws and stuff like that. Just those were not big western games.

[Mark Medina]

Right.

[Damon Ha]

I meant to ask you, Sam.

[Sam Claiborne]

They got Cyberpunk, five years old.

[Damon Ha]

Yep. They got a good, a perfectly good portable version. Cyberpunk. Thank you. Jumping back to those top five PlayStation 5 games for one second, I meant to ask you, Sam Fortnite, call of duty, GTA 5, Roblox, Minecraft, how closely does that correlate to IGN guide traffic for the year? Is there. Is there overlap there?

[Sam Claiborne]

Incredibly close. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the thing is about those things is that we know that that's where a lot of people play stuff, but also, like, there's not a lot of people that need strategy guides for some of these things. Although Roblox is one that's like a huge strategy guide point for us. There was actually a big RPG in Roblox called the Forge that came out in late May. Well, it got really popular in November, December. It's One of the most popular games of the fall. Like, it's a, it's a, an actual, you know, rpg, Mark. You played a little bit of it, right?

[Mark Medina]

I did.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's a, it's, you know, it has, it's typically like, you know, stripped down for what it is. But it's, you know, 20 years from now, a lot of people are going to be like, oh yeah, the first RPG I played is that game. Because, like, probably, you know, I don't know, tens of millions of people probably played it.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, game's huge. They just, man, Roblox needs to, they need to figure out the whole, like walking like you can't take a game seriously when you look like, you know, it's so funny.

[Sam Claiborne]

But, but, you know, the other thing about strategy guides and how we cover them is that usually a giant audience doesn't necessarily mean everybody's using strategy guides. A hard game means everybody's using strategy. Strategy guide. So there's plenty of hard games out this year that did really well. And one of those is Expedition 33. Yep. Hard, hard game.

[Damon Ha]

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[Sam Claiborne]

I did. And I not only beat it, but I went, I did the best I could to I 100%. So I got all the scans, which is great because when I was first playing that game I didn't know what was missable or not and I was very, very worried about that. But I happened to get the right missable ones sorted and then I was able to fill in the blanks. But then you have to do this thing like you have to get everything in the desert which is like all these green crystals. Like every time, you know those when you're driving around you have to just hit them. You have to get all of those or like somehow you get a radar that like allows you to like kind of get them all. And there might be some kind of like algo thing happening but it takes a long time. So I'd like put on a podcast and like drive around the desert and like just do that mindlessly because there's no music. Yeah. And, and it does unlock, you know, some cool in game stuff. But then it doesn't like the to 100 it, it just does the gallery. So I go to the gallery at the end. I've done 100 all the stuff digital items I see, you know, the ending, the special ending or whatever. And then I Go to the gallery and there's three things not unlocked in the gallery. And like I don't care that much. I'm not going to play the game for them. But it says it's because I didn't beat the hard mode. So I now I would have to play hard mode all the way through to 100, 100% which I'm not going to do. But I loved it. I love this game. I think it's really, really cool.

[Damon Ha]

Did you see the, the interview with the Japanese devs where they were saying because Breath of the Wild was such a big hit, that's why they felt like they should add the open world stuff into Prime 4 such.

[Sam Claiborne]

Everybody should check this out. We summarized it in news article.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is so crazy. It's like there was like a, you know, this pull to make it an open world game and then like, no, we're going to reverse that and then we have to leave a little bit of it in because we built the game. Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

They're like, we can't start it over again. Just leave it in.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nuts. It's exactly what you think it would be though. I mean that if you had to tell make up a story for how this game ended up how it is. That's what you would say, right? It's like an unfinished like half hearted open world.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

The stuff that is not that is. And even I don't really care about that. I thought it was all fine. Like it's all fine. But then the, I really like the, the, the, the power of the Switch 2 in this game. Like I just thought it looked really good almost all the time and I was so impressed by that.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's a very pretty game and I think it's a great technical showcase of the Switch too.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I mean, wait till you get to the ice stuff if you haven't played there yet. Like ice looks really good in this game and it doesn't look Switch good. It looks good. Good. It is a good looking game.

[Mark Medina]

Damn. All right.

[Damon Ha]

And you also started, you also started Terminator 2D.

[Nick Lamonte]

Sam.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. How far did you get in that?

[Damon Ha]

Like three or four levels.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I, I got to the point where I lost all my lives and you, you have to start over. Like it's not like a, you know, it's like a hardcore game. Right. So it's like I didn't, I'm not going to do that. I got to probably like, I don't know, eight or nine levels. Like I got past the Cyber nine infiltration stuff and then I got to the decision making points where you're like, do you, you know when Sarah Connor breaks into the. The people's house to like kill the guy that made the chip?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then she finds out that like, you know, she, she doesn't kill him. Like there's a decision to kill him or not and stuff like that. So I saw that stuff and I think it's interesting. This game is really amazing looking. Like it's really fun and cool. Like even like these parts where they're recounting the story and they're showing this really janky looking but totally accomplishable at a Super Nintendo. This. Yeah, like that, that would be like if that was on Sega cd, I would have been like, wow, you know. Yeah, I never thought about that.

[Mark Medina]

Graphics can't get better.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. It's a very cool game that I'm glad exists very much same. I'm not really playing anything new notable just completely random stuff and then something else for. Is it still fun, Nick? Anything you're playing you want to share.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is it still fun? Secret project. And then I am very close. I am within a stone throws distance of the ending of Balders. I am.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, nice.

[Nick Lamonte]

I'm at like I've Never beat it 130 hours or something right now. I'm. I'm genuinely sad. Like I'm trying to like procrastinate finishing it because I'm like this, this is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played. I'm. I'm in the House of Hope right now, if you know what that is. Cool. But there's just so much good writing happening in that game at every point where I'm just like. The premise of the House of Hope is so sick of just this devil has captured the personification of hope and uses the personification of hope to be like, well you. I can make you rich, bro, if you sign your soul away to me. And it's just like how like literary that is and just how clever. Oh, it's so good, man. And I just had a lot of major revelations that happened about who certain people are and I'm just loving every second of it. I'm. I'm like also listening to a like kind of accompaniment podcast from the people who do watch out for Fire Fireballs podcast. They do like a book club club style approach to Baldur's Gate. It's called Real Lich Hours, if you're interested in that. They take it area by area and basically go through every permutation of. Well in My playthrough, this happened. Well, I'm doing an evil playthrough, so this happened. So it's nice to have that context after I've cleared an area to be like, oh, that's what I missed. That's cool. And then move on. So big, big shout out there. Those, those, those folks are awesome. But yeah, this. I am excited to finish this game so I can move on and play other things. But I am going to be a little bit sad that nothing will quite reach this high, presumably until Divinity comes out.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, yeah, I never finished this game. I would like to go back to it now. Probably would have been a good time. I don't know. I might be. I might have missed that window, but. But we'll see.

[Sam Claiborne]

I have to do it too. I have to play the game and it's part of like, you know, like a career goal for me this year too. I have a pitch for you, Damon. I do think you should try Dispatch now that you have some downtime between things. I think that the voices and the characters are so good. And it's Aaron Paul and he's the lead in it and he's great. It's really good. He actually contributes a lot to the game being good, the way he plays his character. And then Jeffrey Wright plays a character that's really different from what Jeffrey Wright normally plays and he's really funny and I really like that. And then it's great. I have no complaints. And it has this cool overlay of being like a cop dispatch to superheroes that are going around the city and. And bumbling because they're actually super villains. Like, it's good. It's a good premise and it's got a lot going for it. And, you know, I was like, I was trying to playing. I started playing it chapter by chapter and that feels good too, because you stop playing and then the next day you pick up. It's like watching an episode of tv. It's like only going to be a half an hour or 45 minutes, right? So you can like kind of binge it if you want or not. But I started playing and I was like playing it too close to going to bed and it was like hyping me up too much. I was like, I can't play this easily.

[Nick Lamonte]

One of my favorite TV shows of last year.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is. It is. That's what it is.

[Nick Lamonte]

I devoured it. It's so much fun. And it happens to have, you know, the Dispatch mini game that, that Sam was talking about. It's such A fun, like, clever use of. It's a great way of shaking up that Telltale formula. Right. Because usually the, the gameplay of Telltale, apart from making choices, is you have to awkwardly navigate your character over to something and then do click on a little marker to shoot something in the head. But this is a more clever adaptation of making something feel meaningful without it feeling too gimmicky.

[Damon Ha]

Is there ever a part where you control it?

[Mark Medina]

Here's Alana.

[Nick Lamonte]

You don't typically control a character. It is very streamlined. I think it takes all of the stuff that wasn't fun from Telltale out and then just streamlines it and makes it more fun. Alana, is this character that you see malevolent little devil.

[Mark Medina]

The red lady.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, the devil girl. Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

Cool. All right. Well, I, I will check it out and then report back.

[Nick Lamonte]

Good stuff.

[Damon Ha]

Very tangentially related. My kids were watching Zootopia. I was not watching it.

[Nick Lamonte]

It was just one or two.

[Damon Ha]

One.

[Nick Lamonte]

One.

[Damon Ha]

Which is like 2016. Want to say. So they're watching. I'm not watching it, but it's on. And I hear one of the animals that's like, I think they're in like a, A mafia, like type of everything. And they say, someone has just arrived. They say, he says, like Walt and Jesse just arrived. And I was just hearing that. I was like, that has to be a reference. That has to be.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, definitely, Definitely.

[Damon Ha]

That was pretty good. Mark. Mark. Anything you want to shout out? You're playing.

[Mark Medina]

Let's see. So I, I finally, now that Hades is out, Hades too. I went. I, I started a fresh new file and I played like, man, I played like 50 hours over the break.

[Damon Ha]

Oh, wow.

[Mark Medina]

Because like it's, it's. I got the Legion go ass. Which is just like a beefed up steam deck.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nice.

[Mark Medina]

And I just, I can just take Hades anywhere. What a game. I finally got the true ending. What a fantastic game that is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is it better than Ball Pit?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, so different. I don't know.

[Nick Lamonte]

Hot take, ball pits.

[Damon Ha]

Real good. I think it's much.

[Mark Medina]

The thing is always. Yeah, the thing with Hades has always been that some people find it a little bloated because there's so much in it. But I, I did get to a point where I was just kind of skipping the dialogue because I was like, I, I, what the heck? Never stop talking.

[Damon Ha]

That's half the game.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, exactly. And then. Let's see. So right now I'm bouncing between. I finally had the Arc Raiders click moment where I played with my friends one night and I Was like, I got it. I got it. I'm in. I get it. And then I weirdly started playing POE too. And the game is very fun, but I have, like, eight level seven characters because I can't decide who I want to play.

[Nick Lamonte]

I thought we've already said we're starting mathematicians here. Path of exile 2 is like spreadsheet, the game of, like, how do I min max my character to get.01% faster sword?

[Mark Medina]

It's like. It's like the passive skill tree, when you zoom out, is the worst thing you'll ever see. I look at that space jobber. Can you bring up a screenshot of the passive skill tree in path of exile 2? It looks like the solar system.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's like.

[Mark Medina]

It's awful.

[Nick Lamonte]

What was that space game that have Starfield? No, no, no. That people have really no stories of, like, people losing millions of dollars. And it's all. It's like, to me, it's very much Eve Online of, like, looking at something like. I'm happy for anyone who's excited about this, but could not be me.

[Mark Medina]

It's fun to play, but I'm telling you, the passive skill tree is. Is the worst thing you'll ever see. It makes you want to vomit. There it is. That's the passive skill tree that zoomed out. It is just that zoom of how.

[Damon Ha]

Big it would look on, like, your screen.

[Mark Medina]

But it's awful.

[Damon Ha]

That's definitely.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like, Mark.

[Mark Medina]

It is the worst.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is the reason why people use max roll, right?

[Mark Medina]

100%. No way would I ever try to figure any of this crap out. Tell me how to be good.

[Sam Claiborne]

By the way, Max Roll are Mark and I's colleagues and with them. And they make an amazing tool for Path of Exile, too, which I'm sure anybody here has played Path of Exile is already using because it is essential.

[Mark Medina]

I'm not. Because I'm level. I'm not even in the double digits of letters levels yet because I can't decide who I want to play.

[Nick Lamonte]

You already messed.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, my build's. My build's messed up right now. I'm. Yeah, the druid's really fun, but yeah.

[Damon Ha]

I. I'm such a filthy casual. I didn't even know what Poe 2 was. Okay.

[Mark Medina]

Pillars of Eternity.

[Damon Ha]

Well, yeah, yeah, Nick said it. Nick said it. Avowed was just announced for PS5. I put it on the run. A show, but I don't know if there's anything much to say about that. I don't even know what the Release.

[Nick Lamonte]

Date is happy for the people who haven't.

[Mark Medina]

February 17th.

[Damon Ha]

It's right. It's right there.

[Mark Medina]

Then that's like, it's finally coming to a real console.

[Damon Ha]

Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

Thank God.

[Damon Ha]

All right. All right, everybody, let's settle down. That game is. I think that game is a lot of fun. So I think if you like Outer Worlds 2 on PS5, I think you should check out Avow World.

[Nick Lamonte]

Needs good.

[Sam Claiborne]

I feel like goofy faces, too. I forgot about the goofy faces.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, yeah.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. But they don't really bother me. I'm not mad about it.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, I don't either.

[Nick Lamonte]

The blue guy's kind of.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

They're doing a whole. He's got a great anniversary update.

[Damon Ha]

The actor, I think, is from Kotor, has been around for a long time.

[Nick Lamonte]

Path of Exile, Avowed is also getting like a 2.0 update.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Damon Ha]

Is that true?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it's doing new game, plus it's doing a whole bunch of stuff. So that's also coming out on the 17th.

[Nick Lamonte]

Okay. Yeah. I presume that they'd be one and one, so.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Nick Lamonte]

That's cool. It seems like it's a great time to jump into the game. It's never been a better time to jump in. And Valve.

[Damon Ha]

Whoa.

[Mark Medina]

A year after release.

[Nick Lamonte]

Sorry. That's my branded content.

[Mark Medina]

It is a fun game, though.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's a great game.

[Damon Ha]

I had a lot of fun with it, actually.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, one of the gaming ten commandments that we think should be in every game, where you can just kill all the enemies in an area and.

[Damon Ha]

Kill everyone and they're all dead.

[Mark Medina]

Travis's review will. It will. It'll always be my favorite thing where he's like. Basically, when you're ready to leave an area, it's like. It's like you're on a movie set, and if you haven't left yet, you just see them tearing down the sets behind you. They're like, you're still here. No, you're supposed to. You're supposed to move on. There's nothing left here.

[Damon Ha]

Baldur's Gate 3 is like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

Outer World. There's no reason for enemies to come back. Okay, we've reached our speedrunning story. Mark. It's taken 15 years, but someone finally completed this game without dying.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oh, I know.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, wait, I did hear about this. It was Super Meat Boy.

[Damon Ha]

Super Meat Boy.

[Nick Lamonte]

That's wild.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. I wasn't. I didn't know if it was. I didn't know if it was speed running or not. I thought I was like. I Was like, did they speed run or did they just like play it slow as heck and try to like make sure they didn't die?

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, he just know death.

[Damon Ha]

I think he's a speedrunner, but I think in this case he was just trying to beat it without dying.

[Nick Lamonte]

The. The speedrun category is a zero death completion, right?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that is.

[Damon Ha]

Goes by the name Absolutely Wild Shredberg right here in Sacramento here in California. It took him more than 2, 000 attempts in over a thousand hours.

[Nick Lamonte]

Wow, that's impressive.

[Damon Ha]

This is a really, really difficult game. I. I reviewed it and I beat it. But man, I could. I. I could never do it without dying. Never.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I'm surprised he did.

[Damon Ha]

And then listen to this. At the end. His video is like two and a half hours long of his playthrough. At the end of his video on YouTube, he says this. I'm going to be emailing everyone. Kotaku, ign, cnn, Chefs Illustrated. They're all going to hear about it. I will unironically email ign.

[Mark Medina]

Well, so I don't know if we've.

[Damon Ha]

Gotten any emails to our news tips line or something.

[Sam Claiborne]

And if you want to unironically email.

[Mark Medina]

Gamescoopgn.Com I don't understand the Ironically unironically. I don't get it.

[Damon Ha]

Also, I don't know.

[Mark Medina]

Ironically.

[Damon Ha]

I don't know what Chef's Illustrated is either.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, I feel like, well, you did it, buddy.

[Nick Lamonte]

Probably be more likely to cover Super Meat Boy than Sports Illustrated.

[Damon Ha]

Oh, maybe that. Yeah, maybe that's what.

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe that's the connection is it Cooks Illustrated. That's a great magazine.

[Mark Medina]

Oh yeah.

[Damon Ha]

That's associated with America's Test Kitchen.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right?

[Damon Ha]

Maybe he was just thinking that. And it says. Anyway.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's really funny though. That's a funny comment.

[Damon Ha]

Quite the feat to defeat Super.

[Nick Lamonte]

That's very impressive. That's awesome.

[Sam Claiborne]

And just in time to do the same thing in the next 15 years for Super Mutual 3D. Right?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. Which I checked. Still doesn't have a release date. Just a Release year.

[Nick Lamonte]

Sometime 20.

[Damon Ha]

This year.

[Nick Lamonte]

This year, right.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, this year.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. They had to wait till somebody beat this game without dying first.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

Now they can release it. Okay, I gotta write down our time code because Joe Bert's editing this episode.

[Sam Claiborne]

Thank you, Joe Bert.

[Damon Ha]

So I can do top 100 Xbox games.

[Mark Medina]

Holy smokes.

[Damon Ha]

On video.

[Mark Medina]

That's a lot.

[Damon Ha]

It is a lot.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, we can finally do it because they just finished their 100th game that's available.

[Mark Medina]

They got 100 games that's awesome.

[Damon Ha]

Congrats to Xbox for reaching 100 games.

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[Damon Ha]

Since Sam just shared our email address, let's check in with listeners.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'll.

[Nick Lamonte]

I'll do it. Hey listeners.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh hey. Hey listeners.

[Damon Ha]

Listeners. Remember you can always reach us. I just sat back and waited at the email address. Game Scoop.com or you can mail us a letter just like. Just like Ross Arbor in Ontario. New Market, Ontario. Did he sent us a Christmas card?

[Nick Lamonte]

Wait, was it shipped to the office? Okay. To your home? I was like, oh, 2000?

[Damon Ha]

It says it's a Christmas tree. It says Merry Christmas.

[Mark Medina]

Aw yes.

[Damon Ha]

Ross Arbor says Dear Scoop Crew, Omega Cops, Goose Camp, Damon, Justin, Sam, Nick, Mark. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks for another entertaining year. All the best for 2026 and hopefully GTA 6. Ross Arbor.

[Nick Lamonte]

Thank you Ross.

[Sam Claiborne]

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

[Mark Medina]

Ross, I love you man, but I hate to tell you GTA 6 ain't coming out this year. Sorry, buddy. Maybe next year.

[Sam Claiborne]

Ross if anybody else wants to send us letters, Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

[Mark Medina]

That's true.

[Damon Ha]

That's true.

[Mark Medina]

But those ones have to have candy in them or I don't want them.

[Damon Ha]

Ross also sent a card to Podcast Unlocked. What the hell?

[Mark Medina]

Wow. Unfortunately, that's so, like, I don't even care anymore.

[Nick Lamonte]

Let's read their mail. Let's read their mail.

[Mark Medina]

He just blasts out, yeah, open it.

[Damon Ha]

Unfortunately, no one from Podcast Unlocked lives in LA or works in this office, but I told Ryan that it's here. So next time.

[Mark Medina]

Why is the seal. Why is the seal broke?

[Damon Ha]

Next time he comes down to the office, I'll have it waiting for me.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's not illegal if it's addressed to a business. Okay, we can open their mail.

[Mark Medina]

What about. Ross does not care about NBC or. What's the other one?

[Damon Ha]

Oh, beyond, apparently.

[Nick Lamonte]

That's still coming. It just got delayed. Okay.

[Damon Ha]

Okay. Our first emails. Not. Not snail mail. Email comes from Joe from the North Bay. Do you know Joe Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you think he's talking about the North Bay of San Francisco Bay area?

[Damon Ha]

What other North Bay would be.

[Sam Claiborne]

I know. Do you have one? Do you have one?

[Damon Ha]

No. I live in the South Bay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is in Los Angeles.

[Damon Ha]

I live in the South Bay. But there's no North Bay.

[Nick Lamonte]

There's no North Bay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Damon Ha]

It would be Malibu, I guess, maybe. Anyway, Joe from the North Bay says, I ran into an old friend. He was shocked to hear I had not played Death Stranding. Oh, yeah. This is a good question for all three of you. But Nick in particular, I think he said it is his favorite game. So with all the years of perfect dark Resident Evils and playing in hardcore bands, I should give it a try. I know the story is supposed to be on its own Kool Aid. I have been working on my Spanish. Could I attempt to play it in Espanol? Or is Kojima too wild? And should I play it in English?

[Sam Claiborne]

That is such a good idea to turn on if you're trying to learn a language to turn on your game in a different language and do the subtitles. I think that sounds great.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, I think you could. I mean, play it in Spanish. It'd be all right.

[Damon Ha]

Oh, subtitles, of course.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

It's just gonna be. It's just gonna be dubbed, right? Like he. It's not going to be Norman Reed.

[Sam Claiborne]

Think how good the rest of the world is at speaking American English because of video games, because they can get them only in English or in English with subtitles or, you know, that's their choice with movies, too. It's like. Yeah, I think it'll help.

[Damon Ha]

Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, that's. That's a. That's a fun idea.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, Damon plays games in Japanese all the time.

[Damon Ha]

I do.

[Mark Medina]

I played. I tried. I tried to play. I tried to play yote in Japanese and I.

[Damon Ha]

What do you tried?

[Mark Medina]

I could. I couldn't retain.

[Damon Ha]

It's the best way to do it.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's kind of.

[Mark Medina]

I couldn't retain, like, any of the information, and I had to read the.

[Nick Lamonte]

Subtitles and ride a horse at the same time.

[Damon Ha]

That was.

[Mark Medina]

That was my issue. It's like, I'm like riding with somebody and they're. And I'm having to, like, read these subtitles. I. I just. I couldn't retain the info.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, that's the nice thing. It's. It's a game that doesn't. That stuff doesn't really matter. If you're on a horse and people are talking to you, nothing really matters. To repeat it once you get there.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah. Death stranding would be fine because most the only talking in the game is, like, cutcenes and stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like, every prepper, they have a lot to say.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, you're going to get right, but.

[Mark Medina]

Like, you're not playing while that's happening.

[Sam Claiborne]

Pizza was invented a long time ago, and pizza ovens have been around since then. I need you to.

[Mark Medina]

Sam, you're probably feeling water. That's called hydrogen. Oh, my gosh.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, yeah. And then, like, no matter what, you're going to hear it twice because the puppet's going to repeat everything as soon as you leave the damn prepper.

[Mark Medina]

Shoot. Okay, that sold me. I might be it.

[Damon Ha]

Well, Joe from the North Bay, the. The puppet's not in the first game. I don't think. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't think I'd skip the first game at this point. I think it. I think it'll feel really good to go from one to. What if I told you because they.

[Nick Lamonte]

Did a big Death Stranding 2 is just a remake of the first game, but with more.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is. It is.

[Mark Medina]

I know.

[Damon Ha]

Is that true?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, pretty much. It's not that different. It's just.

[Sam Claiborne]

But I think it'd be worse. I think it'd be worse to go if you're gonna play them both. I think it'd be worse to go in reverse order.

[Nick Lamonte]

Correct. 100%. It will not.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, there's a lot of quality of life stuff. Hey, the good news is destroy two starts in Mexico, so.

[Nick Lamonte]

Perfect. Yeah, you're right.

[Mark Medina]

100.

[Damon Ha]

Okay. Did everyone see the new trailer for Resident Evil Requiem out of ces?

[Nick Lamonte]

I refuse.

[Sam Claiborne]

The one where they showed the. The. The rainy street.

[Damon Ha]

Do you want us to not. You want to say that's all right.

[Nick Lamonte]

You could. You could talk about it. I just didn't want to watch. The game's out in like two months. I'm all right.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. But please, it just so it looks very nice. Looks very pretty. Unsurprisingly. Also, I learned some things about it. Does anyone else know when this game is set?

[Nick Lamonte]

It's like 2028. 2026.

[Damon Ha]

It's 2028 because it's supposed to be 30 years after Raccoon City was destroyed.

[Nick Lamonte]

1998.

[Damon Ha]

So Leon is in his 50s.

[Nick Lamonte]

Late 50s or late 50s? Early 60s.

[Damon Ha]

Well, he looks great.

[Nick Lamonte]

He looks fantastic. And he's driving.

[Mark Medina]

And he's driving a Porsche and he's sponsored by Porsche.

[Damon Ha]

But it's interesting. So 2028 because the. The Shadows of Rose DLC for Resident Evil Village is set in what, like 2037?

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah. It's far in the future way.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Wow. Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

But that DLC was not very fun. So I'm happy to be away from that.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean this is. This. This started starting to get in that Castlevania type of timeline. Then Dracula's castle appeared in 2035. But that was actually the 2000s version of it. Which you played in 1997.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

That's like the dawn of Sorrow time, like future timeline.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Damon Ha]

Which one is that? Not the one that. Is it.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's a lot of futuristic cast.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, there is one where it's like takes place in Tokyo and there's a lot.

[Nick Lamonte]

There's also a really sick. Sorry to as quick aside. Really sick ROM hack that released of dawn of Sorrow where you can play a full game as Soma if you chose the. The evil ending. So it's like what happens when he becomes the bad guy and it's what looks really cool. Sorry. It's a quick aside.

[Sam Claiborne]

If only Konami could make games like that.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, they've got something. They've been doing more stuff.

[Nick Lamonte]

Silent Hill did that Octopus.

[Mark Medina]

They've been doing Silent Hill.

[Damon Ha]

They were going to publish that Octopus.

[Nick Lamonte]

Game that hasn't come out yet.

[Mark Medina]

That's right. That's right.

[Damon Ha]

Anything about that in a long time.

[Mark Medina]

Or maybe it has inside Limbo game. Yeah, it looks cool.

[Damon Ha]

It did look cool. Anyway, in the trailer for Resident Evil Requiem, there's a scene where who. What's her name? Grace. Grace.

[Nick Lamonte]

Grace Ashcraft.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, she's like walking down a busy street and some people are like, that's not Resident Evil. Whatever.

[Nick Lamonte]

It looks like evil is whatever is in a Resident Evil game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. It's called Raccoon City. There's other people.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. She works for the FBI. Oh, that's. That's why. That's why I investigated the setting. Because I was like, I thought Raccoon City was destroyed. It's been rebuilt. It's been rebuilt.

[Sam Claiborne]

Years later.

[Mark Medina]

30.

[Sam Claiborne]

Just a little radioactive. No. No.

[Nick Lamonte]

Would it still want to live?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Mark Medina]

Anyway, she was even at 195 FPS.

[Nick Lamonte]

I mean now. Now, I mean, the human eye can only see 24. What are you talking. I'm kidding. That's a joke.

[Damon Ha]

She's like an investigator for the FBI. Right. And she's going. She goes to this hotel.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah. I think she's like a pencil pusher type. Not. Not like an action hero.

[Damon Ha]

So in that scene, it just looks like she's walking down the street approaching the hotel. That's all. It's not like there's going to be this open, huge open area that's busy with other people around.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah. The RE3 remake opens with you like chaos breaking out on the streets of Raccoon City, so.

[Sam Claiborne]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Nick Lamonte]

Nick, we've seen tons of people in Resident Evil before. It's fine.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Part of like a horror aesthetic can frequently be you are unsafe even if you're surrounded by the trappings of society and like how they take those away from you and how they make you like not believed by the people around you or make things happen that other people aren't seeing. Like that's all like horror trip stuff. It's common all over the place.

[Mark Medina]

Yep.

[Damon Ha]

Anyway, Resident Evil rec room continues to look good. It's out every.

[Nick Lamonte]

Every Re Engine man. I. It's just how do they make the game look like this? It's so cool. It's so good looking.

[Mark Medina]

Well, they turned to RTX on.

[Nick Lamonte]

RTX on.

[Mark Medina]

And that's. That's what they did.

[Nick Lamonte]

I mean, I'm fingers crossed. Oh yeah. What's up?

[Mark Medina]

Do you know what the RE Engine stands for?

[Nick Lamonte]

It's not Resident Evil Engine. It's rendering. Rendering.

[Mark Medina]

Nope.

[Nick Lamonte]

Nah. What is it?

[Mark Medina]

It's the Reach for the Moon engine. Reach for the logo is a guy reaching for the moon. Oh, wow.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is that true?

[Damon Ha]

It doesn't even call the reason any sense though.

[Sam Claiborne]

So what you're saying is Engine is the E. So we shouldn't be saying Engine. We should just Be saying it's built on the re.

[Damon Ha]

Is it?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, wait, is this like an ATM machine problem? Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

DVD player or DVD disc.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Damon Ha]

Okay. Getting back to listener mail. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Matthew Reed along with Stats Stats, we.

[Nick Lamonte]

Got some mathematicians in the house.

[Damon Ha]

Greg Kelly has the stats. The 20 question stats.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes.

[Damon Ha]

For 2025. And if it feels like Justin should be here, I get it. Justin does ces. But there's some key stats missing from this. So I will humbly ask at the end of this, ask Matt if we if there's. We could get a couple more stats and we can share those next week when Justin's back.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, good idea.

[Damon Ha]

Anyway, Matt is in Massachusetts. He says thank you for reading my 20 question stats once again this year. Hearing my note read on the show each of the past three years has been such a thrill. But not as awesome as it was flying across the country to meet you all at IGN Live. From getting destroyed, from getting destroyed at Mario Kart by pair to getting selfies with a bunch of you, it was the coolest experience. And I'm already looking forward to returning in 2026. Now onto my stats.

[Mark Medina]

I can't believe pear beat you if.

[Damon Ha]

All right, now onto my stats for the past year starting off so we're just talking about 20 questions. There are 516 unique games mentioned. Wow. During during 20 question segments.

[Mark Medina]

Jesus.

[Damon Ha]

It's by far the most since I've been keeping track of these stats. The game mentioned most frequently, which thanks to Sam, will now forever be known as winning the Prince of Persia Award, was Perfect Dark. It was named during five different 20 Questions episodes. Six if you count the mention of the Xbox 360 remaster. This is the most frequently that a game has been brought up during a given year. Since I started keeping track. There was a tie for second place with Dr. Mario Elden, ring Punch out, and Stardew Valley all being mentioned on four different segments.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow.

[Mark Medina]

Okay, okay.

[Damon Ha]

Last year's the year before 2024's most frequently mentioned game, Hades, was not mentioned once during any 20 question segment in 2025. Wow.

[Mark Medina]

Wow. Okay.

[Damon Ha]

The first game to be repeated was Tom Clancy's the Division, which was mentioned on episode 795 and then again on episode 803. Games mentioned in 2025 included 9 different Halo games, 12 different Zeldas, 13 different Final Fantasies, and 15 different Marios.

[Mark Medina]

Wow.

[Damon Ha]

The episode with the most unique games mentioned was episode 833, when a whopping 34 different games were mentioned before Mark finally figured out the correct answer. It was Titanfall.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah.

[Mark Medina]

That was only a few weeks ago.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Wow. We went through 34 games, landed on Titanfall.

[Damon Ha]

There were back to back. There were back to back episodes with the fewest games mentioned. In episode 808, Sam was playing solo and didn't mention a single specific game, although he did mention the GTA and Pac man franchises. The correct game was Psychonauts. And then in episode 809, Hollow Knight was the only game mentioned as the panel quickly guessed it correctly in just eight questions.

[Sam Claiborne]

So that's because I was internally thinking of names of games. I needed to say them out loud. That's what he's saying about that.

[Damon Ha]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I didn't win that.

[Damon Ha]

No. Yeah, not that one. So that's a wrap on 2025. A big shout out to Greg Kelly, the 20 question stats master, for putting all my data on the game Scoop Wiki every year. Happy New Year to the crew and everyone out in Scoop Nation. Long live the best and only video game podcast. Very cool to hear that.

[Mark Medina]

Fun.

[Damon Ha]

I would love to hear a win loss ratio. I, I miss getting that. So kd.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, we need that.

[Damon Ha]

So yeah, Matt, if I could humbly ask for if you have a win loss ratio, I would love to see.

[Sam Claiborne]

That as well and how it compares to previous years. Y.

[Damon Ha]

And that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Joseph in Nevada City, California, which I didn't know was it.

[Nick Lamonte]

I didn't know that existed.

[Mark Medina]

I, okay, I'm going to Nevada, guys.

[Damon Ha]

Nevada City. Joseph says this game has some, some of my favorite redacted in the past. Redacted?

[Nick Lamonte]

Oh, man.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you say Nevada City, California? Is that what you said? Yeah, yeah, that's like a grass valley area thing. That's, this is like, I, I, I've, I've heard a lot about that. It's like old ghost townie, gold country villages stuff.

[Mark Medina]

I wonder where it is.

[Sam Claiborne]

As you said, it's the grass valley near Sacramento.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Damon Ha]

Well, let the questioning begin.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is this game from, well.

[Damon Ha]

70S, 80s or 90s? Nope.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this game have recorded talky dialogue like the game Hades?

[Mark Medina]

I was gonna try to figure out a way to get Hades in there.

[Damon Ha]

Not like the game Hades for sure.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, that's a talkie game.

[Mark Medina]

There's no God. There's no gods giving you boons. Got it. Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

No recorded dial.

[Mark Medina]

It's got his favorite redacted in the red. Okay. That doesn't help us at all. Let's see here. Okay. Is this game exclusive to any platforms?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this game developed by Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo?

[Damon Ha]

In part.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, okay. It might be no Man's Sky. Okay, let's see. Let's. Let's figure. Let's figure out what platform. So is it. Is it Sony?

[Damon Ha]

No, that's five.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is this a Nintendo exclusive?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Nick Lamonte]

Maybe.

[Mark Medina]

All right.

[Nick Lamonte]

Nintendo.

[Mark Medina]

And maybe it's. Maybe it's Hades.

[Sam Claiborne]

It can't be because it doesn't have the dialogue levels.

[Nick Lamonte]

Dialogue.

[Mark Medina]

That's true.

[Sam Claiborne]

But not. Not co developed.

[Nick Lamonte]

Soft Monolith.

[Sam Claiborne]

Soft And Nintendo Xenoblade.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Lamonte]

That one has a lot of time.

[Mark Medina]

Fire. Fire Emblem.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. Let's think.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this game take place in the Mario or Zelda universes?

[Damon Ha]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's exclusive. It's on. It's a Nintendo exclusive.

[Mark Medina]

But we got to figure out which one.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Which. Which Nintendo. Okay, so is this. Is this on the Switch? Because, like, the most popular one.

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

All right, cool. All right, here we go. Let's see.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this game have. Does this franchise have a game that's on the NES?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this game eliminate all your RPGs? Yeah, I think it's Metro Prime.

[Nick Lamonte]

Unless it's Fire Emblem. Oh, I guess that would have been.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, kind of counts.

[Mark Medina]

It's not Animal Crossing or anything.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is this Ace?

[Sam Claiborne]

Can you play as a lady in this game?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Nick Lamonte]

Is this a platformer?

[Damon Ha]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a first person game?

[Damon Ha]

No.

[Nick Lamonte]

What are we at?

[Damon Ha]

You've asked 12 questions.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oof. What other. What other games are. Is this a strategy game?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, no.

[Nick Lamonte]

Okay, thank you.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, okay. Hold on. Is it an action game?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Okay, so it's either gonna be Bayonetta or. What's that other one? Astral Astral Chain. Oh, that's right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nes.

[Mark Medina]

Gosh dang it. Action game.

[Damon Ha]

That would have also just remember remembering that action is a very, very broad category.

[Nick Lamonte]

There is action in this game.

[Damon Ha]

Huh?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. So it might. It might be Mario.

[Nick Lamonte]

Do I. Do I play?

[Sam Claiborne]

It's not set in the Mario universe.

[Mark Medina]

I know. That was a joke.

[Nick Lamonte]

Do I play as a humanoid in this game?

[Damon Ha]

Yes. Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's a human, like character.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can play as a woman.

[Nick Lamonte]

You play as a woman.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can.

[Nick Lamonte]

You can't. Oh, can you. Do we want to. Do you want to ask that?

[Mark Medina]

No, we already did.

[Sam Claiborne]

The answer was yes.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oopsie.

[Sam Claiborne]

But it was that you can, not that you do.

[Nick Lamonte]

Gotcha. Gotcha.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is anybody listening to the answers?

[Nick Lamonte]

I'm just. I'M in the zone right now. I'm in my mind palace.

[Sam Claiborne]

So, you know, if Nintendo. Is this a franchise going back and it's not a first person game, It. It sounds like it could be that other Metroid game still, right?

[Damon Ha]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Metro Dread.

[Sam Claiborne]

Would you call that a platformer?

[Nick Lamonte]

I would call that a platformer, yeah. It's a Metroidvania. Calling a Metroid V Metroid game a Metroidvania?

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know.

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah, it's a platformer.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a sci fi game?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oh, shoot. Maybe it is.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, it might be Metroid Dread, then.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's on the Switch or it's something that's available. Is this part of the Metroid series?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

All right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Okay, There you go. But I'm a little unclear. And what. When something's on Switch. We didn't actually ask about if it was on the Switch, like as in Metroid zero originally. Yeah. We just know it's not a first person shooter and it's.

[Nick Lamonte]

But it's not a platformer.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this game originally come out for the Nintendo Switch?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

All right, well, there you go. You know the answer. You wanna. You wanna say it?

[Nick Lamonte]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I'm not saying.

[Nick Lamonte]

You do the honors.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sam, was there anything that could trip us up? Because, like, I don't think.

[Nick Lamonte]

I mean, what question are we on?

[Damon Ha]

You have one question and a guess.

[Nick Lamonte]

Do you get chased by a robot frequently throughout this game?

[Damon Ha]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

Is it Metroid Dread?

[Damon Ha]

Yes, it is Metroid Dread, a game I wouldn't call a platformer. I know there is platforming in it.

[Sam Claiborne]

I hear you.

[Mark Medina]

No, I think there is platform platforming.

[Damon Ha]

But, yeah, like, if you were making a list of the. We call them a Metroidvania.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Astrobot is a platformer. Mario is a platformer. Yeah. This is a Metroidvania.

[Sam Claiborne]

It has a jump button.

[Nick Lamonte]

This is a wild take. This is. You guys are blowing my mind.

[Damon Ha]

They have a whole. Like. Is Dead Cells a platformer?

[Mark Medina]

Yes.

[Damon Ha]

De Metroidvania. Dead Cells is a rogue Metroidvania which has platforming in it. But, like, that's not the genre that.

[Mark Medina]

You put it in.

[Damon Ha]

I don't think.

[Mark Medina]

Think.

[Nick Lamonte]

I. I'm.

[Mark Medina]

Would you. Nick, would you say this is a shooter?

[Nick Lamonte]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Or can you shoot? No, but. But hold on. She has a gun. What do you mean?

[Damon Ha]

I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

So I think what. It's like, this is this genre in essence, you know, Metroidvanias. Are they all a version of platformers?

[Nick Lamonte]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right. Because like, Castlevania As a platformer, Symphony of the Night came from Castlevania. Just because you can go back and open doors does not necessarily mean it's not a platform.

[Mark Medina]

I guess I'll say. The only clips I've seen of Silksong are people like pogoing and doing like these super complicated things. So I. Okay.

[Nick Lamonte]

If you are bad at jumping, you will not get far in these games. If you are bad at jumping.

[Damon Ha]

I see.

[Mark Medina]

What about you?

[Damon Ha]

Like, why did Metroidvania exist then if these are just platforms?

[Nick Lamonte]

It's a flavor of platformer.

[Damon Ha]

Now I'm trying to think of a Metroidvania that isn't a platformer.

[Nick Lamonte]

But it is very funny to call a Metroid game Metroidvania.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, it's like saying a kart racer is. Is not a racing game. Like, it is a racing game. It's a sub genre of racing games called kart racers.

[Mark Medina]

I didn't think about that, Nick. That's like calling Dark Souls a Souls. Like, you're like.

[Nick Lamonte]

It's raw, I guess, but okay.

[Mark Medina]

It's also kind of weird.

[Sam Claiborne]

True.

[Damon Ha]

I never finished this game.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's good.

[Damon Ha]

Just another one that someday.

[Nick Lamonte]

I like the last boss in it quite a bit.

[Damon Ha]

That was his. That was their.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh my God. Hard.

[Damon Ha]

That was the redacted. Joseph in Nevada City said, this game has some of my favorite boss fights in the past 10 years.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oh yeah. Samus has so much character in this game and I really like how like, badass they make her.

[Sam Claiborne]

Unlike Metroid Prime 4, in which you get the silent protagonist in this game, Samus makes some like, human decisions that are really interesting.

[Damon Ha]

But does she talk? Does she speak?

[Nick Lamonte]

She doesn't talk, but there's just a lot of like, okay, body stuff that she does. It's really cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

First of all, that's a huge spoiler and Nick is wrong. So which one, which one do you want to be mad about?

[Nick Lamonte]

I mean, it's been a minute since I played it, but does she say, okay, there's.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's a. There's a moment where Samus finally is like hearing out a point and then has a moment where she responds and it's awesome?

[Nick Lamonte]

No.

[Damon Ha]

Fair enough.

[Nick Lamonte]

I stand corrected.

[Mark Medina]

What the hell?

[Sam Claiborne]

It's in my. It's in my review, but I have to obscure it as like a moment that you won't expect. That's never happened in a Metroid game in this way because it certainly have another m. Very chatty in that game.

[Damon Ha]

Dread was developed by Nintendo and Mercury Steam.

[Nick Lamonte]

I like Metroid Samus returns for the 3Ds. There, I said it.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's a good one.

[Damon Ha]

You like that better than Dread?

[Nick Lamonte]

No, I like Dread more.

[Damon Ha]

But Mercury Steam did.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that one.

[Nick Lamonte]

That's why Zero Mission is my favorite Metroid game.

[Damon Ha]

That's. Yeah, yeah, probably. Probably. Same. Well, nicely job. You definitely got there. Thank you for the suggestion. Joseph in Nevada City. Viewers and listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address game scoop.com or feel free to send us a letter if you have. If you want to send me suggestions in the more traditional way. All right. Right now at Humble, you can get Humble Choice for just $14.99 and score a curated bundle of PC games for January, including Sonic Frontiers, Tomb Raiders 4 through 6, Remastered, Hunt Showdown, 1896, Etrian Odyssey 2, HD Nights, Day for Fishing, Metal Slug Tactics, Settlement Survival, and Wizard of Legend 2. This month's choice is available through February 3rd. So head to humblebundle.com and start playing today. And that's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you for joining me here, Nick. Thank you to both Sam and Mark. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. Happy New Year everyone out there in Scoop Nation. My name is Damon, this is IGN gamescoop and we're out.

[Nick Lamonte]

Sa.

[Mark Medina]

I love this streamer because all he does is stream these weird ass things like this egg thing he was streaming. He was watching. It was a cart pushing competition where they were pushing it into the corral and seeing how if they could make it because the corral was like super far away. And then there was another one where it was like it was like a hotel bed making competition.

[Nick Lamonte]

Oh, I've seen that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

We were watching that on Game Scoop.

[Mark Medina]

There are people there watching this.

[Sam Claiborne]

But the bed making was really impressive. It was like people throwing those sheets on so quickly.