Game Scoop! 843: Did an Extra $10 Kill a Franchise?

Summary

Game Scoop! 843: Did an Extra $10 Kill a Franchise?

Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Damon Hatfield
Guests: Pierre Schneider, Sam Claiborne, Justin Davis

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Episode Overview

In this week’s Game Scoop!, Damon Hatfield and the IGN crew—Pierre Schneider, Sam Claiborne, and Justin Davis—tackle grim news from the games industry, including underperforming franchises and cancelled sequels, dissect Nintendo’s latest financials and Direct, and dive deep into retro gaming and AI’s encroachment in game development. Expect passionate debate, sought-after recommendations, and rapid-fire 20 Questions.
Main Theme: How pricing, competition, and evolving tastes are impacting beloved gaming franchises, and what the future holds in a rapidly changing industry.

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1. The $80 Price Tag and the Death of a Franchise

[02:12–08:46]

• Discussion on Obsidian’s Outer Worlds 2

  • Obsidian confirmed Outer Worlds 2 underperformed in sales; a third game is not planned.
  • Damon: “It’s a little strange to come out just three or four months after it released and confirm you’re not making a sequel. Why not just leave that up in the air?”
  • Obsidian had three major releases in one year—seen as a symptom of things going wrong behind the scenes.
  • Pierre: “Some of our favorite games are not the best-selling games of all time.”

• Financial decisions and "The Damie Bump"

  • Jokingly, they discuss whether Damon’s recommendations help or hinder sales (“the sort of Damocles”).
  • Sam: “Maybe this was a financial decision made before the Damies... you can shift your fiscal year to actually be any quarter you want.”

• Microsoft’s Influence & Franchise Leverage

  • Given that Microsoft owns both Obsidian and Fallout, why not just order a new Fallout: New Vegas?
  • Artistic independence vs. business logic.

• Eight-Year Development Hell

  • Avowed's development issues: started as a multiplayer Destiny-like, rebooted as single-player, eight-year cycle.
  • Justin: “It’s a miracle it came out at all. Makes it kind of even more impressive.”

• Rapid AAA Game Development is Risky

  • Long dev cycles—"You hope in five years people still want what you’re making.”
  • Example: Star Wars Outlaws developed in the shadow of shifting IP popularity.

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2. Did a Higher Price Sink Outer Worlds 2?

[08:12–09:14]

• Was $80 Too Much?
  • The game’s original $80 price tag (since rolled back) may have soured perception.
  • Pierre: “When they openly say it’s a failure, that means people on Game Pass didn’t play it either.”
  • Timing and market competition (“too much competition, too many similar games”).
  • Sam: “The fall release window is just not helping games.”

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3. The Baldur’s Gate 3 “Camp Soft-Lock” Saga

[09:49–11:22]

• Damon shares he’s become “soft-locked” at Baldur’s Gate 3’s camp due to a bug.
• Playful suggestions to “blow on the data,” “put it in the fridge,” and Nintendo bug anecdotes.
• Pierre: “It sucks when there are bugs that only you encounter... and there’s no apparent solution.”

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4. “Cairn” (CAIRN): Surprising New Climbing Indie

[11:28–16:24]

• Sam Claiborne’s “Cairn” review
  • Describes it as a hard, open-world climbing sim with Dark Souls-like challenge.
  • “It’s so fun. If you love the ‘climb anything’ parts of Zelda, you’ll love this.”
  • Inventory system: physically cram items by shaking the bag.
  • Justin: “Got a 9/10 on IGN. Other critics like it too.”
  • Recommends turning on assist options for a less punishing experience (“the game is meant to be hard”).
  • Bodies on the mountain add morbid realism.
  • Sam: “When you die, you lose 15, 20 minutes. It’s like Dark Souls in that, like, you lose a long time.”

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5. Retrogaming: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance & Teardown

[16:24–22:29]

• Damon returns to “Teardown”
  • A sandbox destruction and heist game—“Perfect for kids who just want to smash through buildings.”
  • Picking up items triggers a one-minute high-stakes escape; spray paint used to plot escape routes.
• Pierre’s Path of Radiance “SRPG” Obsession
  • Deep praise for Fire Emblem’s mechanics, especially the shove/smite abilities and RPG balance.
  • Pierre: “I love this game. It’s an SRPG… the shove and smite moves… makes it really strategic.”
  • Criticism: game stuck in 4:3 and has unattractive sidebars on Switch.
• Justin: “Isn’t this game like 80 hours long?”
  Pierre: “About 50. Pausing to fix guides added time.”

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6. Quick Hits: MMOs & The Bear

[22:29–24:17]

• Justin has watched The Bear and is revisiting Lord of the Rings Online (“Played the first 40–50 hours multiple times. Never see the late-game!”).

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7. Metroid Prime 4 & The Underperformance of Metroid

[24:17–31:17]

• Metroid Prime 4 sales omitted from Nintendo’s “million sellers” list
  • Later clarified: over 1 million units across Switch 1 & 2.
  • Justin: “For Metroid to barely eke out a combined million in sales… it’s kind of a catastrophe.”
  • Pierre: “It missed the big holiday shopping season, released in December… only a month of sales in there.”
  • Sam & Pierre: Defend the game: “Amazing visuals, fantastic atmosphere, some issues but not worth dominating the discussion.”
  • Damon: Hesitant to play—prefers the 10/10 classic Metroid Prime 1; sees 8/10 as “meh.”
    • “An 8 out of 10 Metroid Prime is kind of like, oh...”
• Debate over whether the game feels “too old school”
  • “It feels like a GameCube game—great for some, but general tastes may have moved on.”
  • Sam: Compares to demand for retro-styled Half-Life 3 or old-school Mario 3D platformers.
  • Pierre: “When the game is over, I want to play it again—always a sign it’s good.”

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8. Nintendo’s Censorship Confusion: Dispatch & The Eshop’s Oddities

[35:10–41:38]

• Dispatch Censored on Switch 2
  • Nintendo’s port of acclaimed narrative game is censored; “black bars” cover nudity and gestures.
  • Damon: “It seemed like Nintendo forced the censorship, but maybe it was the Japanese ratings board (CERO).”
  • Sam: “It’s actually funnier with the black bar.” But notes: buyers weren’t warned pre-ordering.
  • Nintendo’s E-shop hypocrisy: bizarre “Call of Beauty” AI jigsaw puzzle game with sexualized art is approved, while artistic nudity isn’t.
  • Seal of Quantity (joking about lack of quality control on Eshop).
  • Pierre: “Just call each other… someone just pick up the phone.”

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9. Nintendo Direct & Japanese Devs Take Center Stage

[41:51–48:46]

• New Amiibo dolls (Leon & Claire from Resident Evil)—questionable quality.
• Nintendo Direct heavy on Japanese titles, visual novels, and revived obscure franchises.
  • Pierre: “It’s like GBA/GameCube drought era… all these Japanese games are coming over because there’s a gap in big releases.”
• Culdcept series disclosed
  • Board/card battle with notorious AI cheating; nostalgia for the PS1/360 cult classic.
• Goemon collection only shown in Japanese Direct; retro Japanese platformers finally coming west.
• Arcade Archives launching ‘Console Archives’
  • Announcements for Cool Boarders, Ninja Gaiden II, and the first official “Doraemon” release in the West.

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10. AI and the Future of Game Development & Podcasts

[56:24–65:45]

• Sony Patents AI-Generated Podcasts Read by Game Characters
  • The crew mock-scenarios: Kratos doing promotional AI podcasts, in-game recommendations “in-character.”
  • Damon: Reads from Sony’s patent (paraphrased): “Unique podcasts could be presented in the voice of a video game character from a game already played by the gamer.”
  • IGN Commenter: “I can’t think of a more soulless experience than an AI-generated podcast about my recent trophies.” [58:22, Damon] -Pierre: “The more natural [AI] gets… it’s inevitable… But hopefully people are compensated when they turn Kratos’ voice into a podcast.”
  • Justin: “Once you’re out of handcrafted content… it’s just a treadmill that never ends. There’s nuance; gamers don’t realize software already generates nature in their games.”
  • Skepticism and dread about a future when AI dialogue and content is indistinguishable from human-made—AI may save development time, but at what cost to authenticity and art?
  • “It can’t take five years to write a story for a video game… I don’t think it should.”

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11. Game Recommendations and Quick Hits

[65:51–73:13]

• Mega Man Collection still beloved by a new generation.
• Classic games still accessible, enjoyable—kids connecting with Mega Man, Pilotwings 64, Star Fox 64.
• Discussion of accessibility—save states make permadeath games less punishing, speed up long RPGs, and facilitate intergenerational nostalgia.
• New HD-2D games from Square Enix ("Adventures of the Millennium Tales") spark hopes for a Chrono Trigger remake—just wish they’d pick better English names.
  • “If your name is Elliot, I don’t mean to insult you, but you’re not Arathorn or Aragorn...” [53:17, Pierre]
• Arcade Archives expanding into console releases.
• Humorous grumbling about English translations and the enduring absence of Mother 3.

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12. Video Game 20 Questions: Mega Man 2 (NES)

[67:51–71:40]

• Rapid deduction:
  • 70s/80s/90s game
  • Has a number—on NES—by Capcom—Mega Man game—an even number—no Rush (the dog)
• Correct guess: Mega Man 2
• Discussion of the game's enduring legacy and shifting fan sentiment (rising love for Mega Man 3 lately).
  • Sam: “You get to fight the Mega Man 2 bosses in Mega Man 3—an unbelievable feat for NES.”

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13. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On franchise fatigue and money:
  • “Some of our favorite games of all time are not the best selling games of all time.” — Pierre [04:14]
  • “It’s a miracle [Avowed] came out at all.” — Justin [06:01]
• On the potential influence of Baldur’s Gate III:
  • “Does that raise the bar for what people expect from an open world RPG with companions?” — Damon [09:14]
• On Metroid’s struggle:
  • “For Metroid… to barely eke out a million in sales… it’s kind of a catastrophe.” — Justin [25:52]
• On AI podcasts:
  • “I can’t think of a more soulless experience than an AI generated podcast discussing my recent trophies.” — IGN commenter, as read by Damon [58:22]
  • “The more natural [AI] gets, the… you know, it’s just inevitable we’ll go down that road.” — Pierre [59:22]
  • “Once you’re out of handcrafted content… it’s just a treadmill that never ends… I want to experience something that someone else made. Otherwise there’s no point.” — Justin [60:29]
• On Nintendo's inconsistent E-shop curation:
  • “Nintendo’s Seal of Quantity.” — Pierre [39:10]

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14. Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:12 – Outer Worlds 2 cancellation & Microsoft/Obsidian talk
• 06:01 – Avowed’s dev troubles and AAA cycles
• 08:12 – Did $80 price kill the franchise?
• 09:49 – Baldur’s Gate 3 bug story
• 11:28 – “Cairn” indie climbing sim, review
• 16:24 – Teardown & Fire Emblem nostalgia
• 22:29 – Justin revisits Lord of the Rings Online
• 24:17 – Metroid Prime 4 underwhelms
• 35:10 – Dispatch censored on Switch/Nintendo Eshop hypocrisy
• 41:51 – Nintendo Direct: Amiibo and Japanese third-party focus
• 47:15 – Culdcept, Goemon, retro console archives
• 56:24 – Sony patenting AI podcasts, philosophical debate on AI content
• 65:51 – Game nostalgia, classic game discovery by kids
• 67:51 – Video Game 20 Questions (Mega Man 2)
• 71:40 – Closing reflections, family gaming

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15. Overall Tone & Takeaways

The tone is passionate, nostalgic, and at times irreverently skeptical—yet hopeful about the medium's creative future. While there's lament over beloved series fading due to economics or poor timing, there’s also deep community and curatorial pride: indie gems, retro classics, and new curiosities abound. Lively, expert debates offer listeners sharp insight and humor—Game Scoop’s trademark blend.

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In closing:
Game Scoop! 843 is a must-listen for fans who love spirited industry analysis and gaming’s evergreen joy.
“That’s all the scoops we have for you this week.”

Transcript

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Pierre Schneider]

I'm your friend Pierre Schneider.

[Damon Hatfield]

We are also joined by Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

I just want to point out this intro is completely unprompted.

[Justin Davis]

Unprompted.

[Damon Hatfield]

No Prompter and Justin Davis and we got a great show for you this week. We've got unfortunate news that a couple big games recently have underperformed, leaving their future up in the air. No, that's not true. Actually we know the future of one of them and there's not much happening with that one. We've also got this.

[Sam Claiborne]

A couple of them are both Metroid prime or Metroid Prime 4 because this came out for Switch 1.

[Damon Hatfield]

And technically a couple of years. I gotta believe we also had this Nintendo Direct today, which is one of those. That could have been an email, but there's still a couple interesting things to talk about. And also, I don't know if you guys heard, but PlayStation is coming for our jobs, so. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see about that.

[Sam Claiborne]

But first, I don't stand a chance.

[Damon Hatfield]

But first, Obsidian Seattle Rules two underperformed and there won't be a third, which first of all, if you remember, obsidian are adorables 2:1 a day. Last year it was one of the top five Damie games of the year. Okay, so it didn't get the Damie bump. Does the Damie bump not mean anything?

[Pierre Schneider]

It might. It might cause the opposite. It's a sort of Damocles.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's possible that this was a financial decision that was made before the Damies and we always advise people not to do that. You know, you can shift your fiscal year to actually be any quarter you want.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's true.

[Sam Claiborne]

You might as well just do it at the end of quarter one.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Wait for the Danies.

[Sam Claiborne]

Safely accommodate the Danies. Right.

[Pierre Schneider]

I. I guess with. I never understand why that team, if they're making games that are like Bethesda games, why don't they just make a Bethesda game? The ones that people buy because of their names.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like a good question.

[Damon Hatfield]

Like a new Vegas follow up.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, like a little Fallout side story or a little Elder Scrolls or something like that.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I mean, if that's what it takes. Yeah. If Microsoft owns Obsidian and Microsoft owns Fallout, there is nothing stopping them from making fallout New Vegas 2.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, well, nothing stopping them. And also nothing stopping Xbox from just telling them to do it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right. Return to Vegas or idea, just slap the name on it. You already developed a Skyrim this year and a Fallout or Starfield type game. Right. You devoured and this you have two games that you could just have retrofitted to be franchises and sold billions of copies. That said, I respect that they have their own artistic vision and these games are both really, really loved.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's the tough part.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's a really good game. I loved this game.

[Pierre Schneider]

But the world today is that, you know, people love franchises and it's hard for. It's hard to get people to try new things. And name recognition counts for something. Now, granted this is the second game in the series already, so there is some name recognition. But like the reality is some of our favorite games of all time are not the best selling games of all time. And so.

[Damon Hatfield]

True.

[Justin Davis]

What do you do?

[Pierre Schneider]

Well, you put Mario in it.

[Justin Davis]

Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, so this is. As part of a Bloomberg interview, Obsidian revealed that last year's Outer Worlds 2 had underperformed. A sequel is not in development, which I think is a little bit strange to come out just three or four months after it was released and confirm you're not making a sequel. Why not just leave that up in the air? Because the sequel would be years and years down the road anyway.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe they're trying to get. Well, I guess it's for investors, right? Or I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I guess so. It's like you're taking your toys and going home a little bit.

[Pierre Schneider]

For users it might be, well, you got to better go back and play it now and show us. Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

But it's the opposite. It's like, don't like now. Maybe if it was backlogged, people will be like, I won't bother.

[Pierre Schneider]

It feels like when you hear a TV show isn't getting a second season, you're like, well, I'm not going to watch the first one.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, 100%.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's like that. Although if you think about Obsidian, they've now worked on this series for 10 years now and neither game has been a huge hit. There doesn't seem to be a lot of like enthusiasm for this franchise. So maybe they're just like, okay, whatever, that's enough. On to the next thing.

[Justin Davis]

That's fair. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is a absolute miracle that they put this and Aoud out in the same year and so.

[Damon Hatfield]

And grounded two. Grounded two into early access.

[Justin Davis]

I didn't know, and maybe this is public knowledge, but I didn't know until the Bloomberg reporting that Avowed started life as a destiny, like, you know, a multiplayer sort of. You know, we did it like we.

[Sam Claiborne]

Took one destiny like back for the single players and then it was.

[Justin Davis]

It was stuck in development hell for years and years and got rebooted with a new director. And then, you know, so it's like it came out and was like, okay, it's this reasonably scoped, you know, single player action RPG and not every game needs to be a million billion hours. And it's like I didn't know that. That game took like eight years to make and it's a miracle it came out at all. So that makes it even. Kind of all the more impressive.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sam, what's the opposite of a miracle?

[Sam Claiborne]

A shit show.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Because I think that's more what last year was for Obsidian. I don't think they wanted to put three games out in one year. In fact, Brandon Adler, who served as director on the Outer Worlds 2, says. I'm sorry, it's Josh Sawyer, studio design director, said, it's not good to release three games in the same year. It's the result of things going wrong.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then it was three marketing cycles for three different. Very like, you know, huge games, but.

[Damon Hatfield]

Two kind of similar.

[Sam Claiborne]

Similar.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's the issue too, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

True. Yeah. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I also like the bad. And then Brad Brandon Adler, director on Adult Worlds 2, said, I don't think anybody really likes five, six, seven year dev cycles. Nope, nope, we don't like those.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, especially you think. I mean, we don't like it. Right. Because you have to wait a long time for a game. But like it does. It must be really tough to work on a single project for that long as a creative, like, it's just horrible. You know, it's like movies, you get to make one. One movie a year, basically, if you're, if you're involved and if you're an actor, you can make a couple. But you know directors, they can cook out one a year.

[Pierre Schneider]

Well, and the damage is exponentially higher when a game is. Takes that long to develop. Right. And then that means you're not going to get another one.

[Damon Hatfield]

You start making game today, five years seems to be kind of the minimum for a triple A game. So like you're like, okay, well I hope this franchise or this genre is popular in five years. Yeah, I hope in five years time people have an appetite for what I'm starting to work on right now.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's what we were just talking about for Star wars outlaws, right. It's like you take this bet on like, hey baby, Yoda's pretty popular. Star wars has another trilogy in the middle of it right now. Maybe that'll end good. And it's like, nope, nobody likes Star wars anymore. All your money's gone.

[Pierre Schneider]

I know. And you're making it for PlayStation 5 and there's not going to be a PlayStation 5 when it comes out. You'll be on PS6. And yeah, it's.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it's almost happened to GTA.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

And of course also my Xbox originally announced an $80 price tag for the Outer World 2. Now they eventually walked that back, but do you think it's a case where it did. It did or it soured people on the game already. The damage had been done.

[Pierre Schneider]

No, it was also in Game Pass. Right. And like. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I. I think when. When they. When they openly say it's a failure, that means people on Game Pass didn't play it either. Right. I mean, they're. Yeah, there's this big subscriber audience there. It just didn't like People just. Maybe there was too much competition out there, too many similar games, and people just didn't have the time to play it as well.

[Sam Claiborne]

I can't say this enough to, like, they got. They got really lucky that there wasn't GTA at the time and everything. And there was a kind of a quiet fall, so it should have had good chances. But, man, this would have made a great game to play in June. You know, just like everybody's home from school, got to play a single player, big open game. Well, they can just all. The fall release window is just not helping games.

[Pierre Schneider]

They can hire some external company imported to Switch 2 now.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm surprised we didn't hear about it today.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I wonder if also, is there anything to the fact that. So what, Ella Rose one was 2019, Al Worlds two is 2025, and right in the middle was Baldur's Gate three. Does that sort of like raise. Raise the bar for what people expect for an open world RPG where you have companions?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

But look, we got Oblivion Remastered and other things.

[Damon Hatfield]

There just.

[Pierre Schneider]

There were a lot of things to play if you. If you actually look back at last year.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right. Yeah. Speaking of Baldur's Gate 3, Sam, do you have any updates?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I started playing Cairn.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

My update is that I played a little bit more Baldur's Gate. I can continue to play it. I have no problems with it. In fact, I like it a lot. But I did start playing Cairn. Do you want me to talk about that?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, first I wanted to share that I'm afraid my adventures in Bald Gate might have come to a premature end because I seem to have. I think I'm soft. Locked in camp. I went to long rest and so I'm in camp. And to end the day and heal, you have to use your sleeping bag. But when I try to use the sleeping bag, it says you can't fast travel right now. Uh oh, and that's it. If I switch to another character, try to use the sleeping bag. No, you can't fast travel right now. So I don't know if anyone In Scoop Nation has any tips? I'm not sure I can get out of my camp.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, I mean you can just blow.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'll just, I'll blow on the data that's on my PS5 hard drive.

[Pierre Schneider]

I'll fix it. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you try putting it in the refrigerator?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Put a wrap a towel around it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

It sucks when they're these sort of these, these bugs that only you encounter in a video game and then there's like no apparent solution. I still, I still cannot. 100% Indiana Jones because there's that stupid bug with the wheel.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's going to be out on Switch before you can read it on Xbox.

[Pierre Schneider]

Every time there's a patch, I'm like, nope, not fixed. I just, I cannot wanna send it.

[Sam Claiborne]

But they acknowledge the bug that you had?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, yeah, you could play it again.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's in our wiki. We describe how it happens.

[Damon Hatfield]

Maybe you could play it again on Switch 2 and finish it there.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's such a story driven game. I don't feel like replaying it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Does it have cross save? Just pick it up maybe.

[Pierre Schneider]

Okay. All right, so just pay for it again is what you're saying that will fix it.

[Damon Hatfield]

How? What? And how is Karen, Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, so Karen is a climb everything.

[Damon Hatfield]

And to be clear, we're not saying Karen right? No Karen.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes, yes, no C, A, I, R, N, which means a pile of stones. It's a. So it's a climb everything. Really difficult open world game about rocks. Did I sell anybody? I got everybody there.

[Pierre Schneider]

You got us so excited with the rocks.

[Justin Davis]

Got a 9 out of 10 on IGN. Other critics like it too. You're climbing mountains. That's what it's about.

[Pierre Schneider]

It looks really fast.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, it has this kind of Dark Souls combat level of movement where it's like you have to find the seams and get the right stuff and everything. I actually turned on a little assist that tells you where your perfect hand grips are. Because once the game gets to a certain point and you want to do a bunch of extra stuff that's been helpful. It's not like there's other options. And again the game is very hard. So there's other options in there that let you like have more places, ways to save and stuff like that. But I didn't turn those on because they warn you in the game, this game is meant to be hard. If you turn these on, it kind of ruins it. So I didn't do that. But I turned up anyway. So what you do in this Game is you're exploring this cliff face and this mountain and cave system.

[Pierre Schneider]

Shaky leg.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is the leg. It's jittery or. Because his, like, muscles are exhausted.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's cramping. And so you can, like, press a button to, like, shake out one arm and breathe for a second and try again. But you have to be in a really good position to do that. Otherwise you got to use these. These anchor points, which you only have, like, a couple of. So if you run out of those cliff face, you're just never gonna get there. When you die in this game, you lose 15, 20 minutes. It's like. It's like dark souls in that, like, you lose a long time. So you have to be really. It gets really stressful, you know, when you're climbing. But what's cool is that the mountain's full of cool stuff. There's a backstory about, like, a troglodyte race that has, like, tombs and, like, you know, like, lore. And it's like, you know, like, some, you know, fake British or, sorry, fake European country. I don't know, Switzerland or France or something like that. You know, it's supposed to be, like, a.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's not a fake country.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know.

[Sam Claiborne]

So then they have all that, and then there's, like, secrets. And then there's, of course, what happens in Everest. Like, people die and they leave bodies everywhere. So you find these, like, ghoulish scenes, and then you, like, have to, like, loot them and, like, find cool stuff to, like, use from, like, a skeleton. It's. It's fantastic. I love every minute of it. I've been helping make some guide pages for it because I found stuff so hard in it. But, like, I don't know, everybody on this show would love this game. Like, it. It feels like the parts of Zelda that are like, I'm just going to get up this damn thing, you know, and you just, like, commit to it. And that's what the game is, with a lot of walking and running around segments that are not like that because you're exploring. But there's a great inventory management system. It's actually really good. Whatever you can cram into your bag. And you can actually, like, tamp it down by shaking your bag and cram more stuff into it, like, organically. Like, it's like, if you feel like you can't get any more, it's not because there's, like, not a cube left. It's like you can squish stuff in there. It's so fun. Is what and you need what platform carry and cook.

[Pierre Schneider]

And I play this on.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's on PS5 and PC.

[Pierre Schneider]

Can you wear a hat in this?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, you're wearing a hat the whole time. It's like a net hat. But this. You know, Damon's going to cut this segment because as we all know, I don't like any games. And so whenever I talk about a game I like on this, like Metroid Point 4 or something. Like, we don't actually. We cut it from the episode, but for this one, I thought you guys might be interested.

[Pierre Schneider]

I'm actually going to play it.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's so good.

[Justin Davis]

It looks very downloaded. I have it downloaded. I'm looking forward to starting.

[Sam Claiborne]

And I really do recommend turning on. Just. It's one thing. All it does right now what you're looking for is corners and seams and that's fine. But the game isn't perfect at that because if it's overhanging you a little bit, you can't really. Unless you really spend a long time with each hand grip. Then it's a little bit more annoying than just turning on this box that says like, you got it, you got it. You need that. Also rain. It sucked so bad that first time that happened. I was like. Because I have Breath of the Wild in my mind, right? I'm like, everything's ruined. It's not so bad. Don't worry about it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay?

[Sam Claiborne]

Don't worry about it. You shouldn't climb like this, but it's.

[Justin Davis]

Funny if you do it.

[Pierre Schneider]

I was, I was updating the IGM playlist homepage and I'm like, huh?

[Sam Claiborne]

Why?

[Pierre Schneider]

Why is everybody playing this game? It was right at the top, so must be popular.

[Damon Hatfield]

Are you playing on Steam Deck, Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, I'm playing on PS5 and it's. I. I would recommend playing on a controller because, like, my hands are like sweaty and like cramping from, you know, how much I'm like focusing on this game. And like, I wouldn't want to do that on this team deck necessarily.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cool. That was not on my radar, but it looks good.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

I love it.

[Damon Hatfield]

I've also returned to teardown. Anyone remember this one from a few years ago?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is the, like Smash Everything Heist Minecraft graphics game that was, I guess I played it a couple years ago with Kingo because it was on PlayStation Plus. Then they removed it, which is super lame PlayStation and Kingo was super bummed. So I've been waiting for a sale and last week the base game is $30. But last week.

[Sam Claiborne]

The.

[Damon Hatfield]

Special edition, whatever it's called, was 20. I was like, that doesn't make sense. But whatever. So I got the.

[Sam Claiborne]

This game is so goofy.

[Damon Hatfield]

I got the special edition we've been playing that he lists. It's like a perfect sandbox for kids because he doesn't even care about stealing the stuff. He just wants to smash all the buildings. He'll get in a van, drive through a building and just laugh hysterically. It's great.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, that's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'll let him play for a few minutes before bed, and then after I put him to bed, I come back and play a couple missions because it's a really, really fun, clever game. It's got a really satisfying gameplay loop because you arrive on the scene and there's no time limit to start. So you can just sort of.

[Sam Claiborne]

You.

[Damon Hatfield]

You find what it is you have to steal or destroy, and then you have to work backwards to figure out how you're going to get to your getaway car. Because you only have one minute once you pick up the item that you're supposed to steal. But it's really fun. You might have to, like, kind of.

[Sam Claiborne]

Stand there and plan your route, and then you grab your thing and run.

[Damon Hatfield]

You plan your route. You may have to destroy holes through walls to make it. You know, you can run as fast.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, so you can path it out, too?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, that's. That's what you're. That's the whole game. And you have a can of spray paint that you can use to spray your path, so you can just follow the path you made. It's really, really fun and clever. Sometimes the thing you have to steal might be movable if it's in the bed of a truck or on a boat and you can drive it closer to your getaway car. It's a. It's a very, very clever game.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's awesome.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's Teardown Perry, you've been playing Fire emblem on the GameCube version on Nintendo Switch.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's right. Path of Radiance. You know the. Notably one of the two parter games in the Fire Emblem series, Radiant dawn for the Wii. Wii follows up on it. There was actually connective tissue. You could transfer Items from the GameCube game to the Wii game, which probably means that they wanted it to come out on GameCube.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

With your saves, you collect these coins that can be used to forge stuff. No, I went through it already. I finished it, like, spent like 45 hours or something. I fixed up, fixed up our guide a Little bit. It's so freaking good, man. I love this game. It's an srpg, which stands for Shove rpg because the game introduces the shove and the smite moves where when. When a character is just out of reach of. Of an opponent, you can like another character can shove them forward. As long as they're lighter and so you can get extra movement range. It makes it really strategic. It's really fun.

[Justin Davis]

Great.

[Pierre Schneider]

And then it doesn't have it. I feel like I love Fire Emblem. I've played every. Every game ever in the series except for the mobile one. And I. I always feel like the later ones sometimes get a little bloated with the things that you do in between the strategy missions. This one has like the right amount of building support, you know, recruitment. Recruitment and sort of conversational stuff. It's really good. The only downside is. And by the way it runs. It runs at 60. It's up res nice. The only downside, it's 4, 3. And it's still Nintendo to this date. Insists on having the hideous sidebar graphics that you can't turn off. Even though modern displays, you actually get more burn in with these patterns than not having them. Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's just like a subtle, like kind of grayscale.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's still.

[Damon Hatfield]

Why?

[Pierre Schneider]

Why on an oled, you don't. Why light?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

You know, why turn on the lights if you don't have to like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

You should be able to choose flying toasters or rat maze or something like that for.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pierre Schneider]

Don't need anything on modern screens.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you. Can you shove people off cliffs and stuff? Like enemies?

[Pierre Schneider]

No, no, it's not.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's not verticality to it. Is there any verticality to the levels?

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, there's. Sometimes you go up a mountain pass and so the horses can't go as fast as somebody on foot.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or are there Pegasus riders?

[Pierre Schneider]

Those are my favorite Pegasus wyverns. Falcons love those.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I love those.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I like making strong ones.

[Pierre Schneider]

And then most notably, one of the coolest things about this game is there's. In the last three missions, I think second to last mission there is the Black Knight. And like, the game wants you to not be able to beat him. And you can like, you have to really plan how you spec out ike the main character, how you what. What skill you give him in order to even have a chance at beating the Black Knight. Most people go through the game never beat the Black Knight. It's okay. You can run away if you fight him and Lose, you're dead. And you have to redo like an hour of the last mission. It's really brutal. But yeah, most people just run away, don't fight him. And then they get a character recruit that's not as good as the one you would get if you beat him. Anyway, it's a fantastic game. It feels really, really modern in every way. Except for voice acting is cheesy. Of course.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can just put on the Black Knight pinball soundtrack while you.

[Pierre Schneider]

There you go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Beat the Black Knight.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Isn't this game like 80 hours long? Isn't it crazy? It's about 50.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's about 50. Realistically, I mean, you know, I haven't.

[Justin Davis]

Played it since it was new and I just remember it just going on and on and on and on.

[Pierre Schneider]

You know what? Now, because you have save states on GameCube on Switch 2, it actually, you can probably do it in like 30. And you know, I paused a lot to write down stuff and improve our guides, so it probably isn't 40.

[Sam Claiborne]

Such a huge boon. I mean, it's permadeath in this game too.

[Pierre Schneider]

It is permadeath. And like you can cheat now with safe states. You know, the, the stats upgrades and the main mode are randomized. And so if you don't get your speed boost on Ike when you wanted it, you can just put a safe state before you level up and then go back and try it again.

[Sam Claiborne]

So what year did this come out? 2001.

[Justin Davis]

No, no, three.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, five maybe.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. So definitely Two Towers was out by now and they should have called. Shove. Toss. Toss, man.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, toss me.

[Justin Davis]

You got, you're going to have to toss me.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, it look, I mean, look, it's, it's just great. I mean, it's like, it's, it's polygonal. It, it still looks nice on today's screens. It's, it's fairly fast too. You can turn off combat animations and just do it in the field like here. So it's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

I will have to revisit this one. And Justin has been playing Watch the Bear, right.

[Justin Davis]

I, I, I did finish watching the Bear. I'm in between video games right now, so I did start back up Lord of the Rings online. So, boy, like, we'll see if it's. Yeah, that's exactly like, I know it's like I have this reputation as a big lotro booster and super fan, and I've talked about it off and on over the show for the last decade, but I don't really like what happens is I go back to that game and because it's an mmo, I don't remember where I am or what any of my abilities are, anything that's in my inventory. And I have no idea what's going on. And so what I actually do is I start Lord of the Rings over and I do the Shire and Bree and the Lone Lands and maybe if I'm, you know, really stick with it, I'll make it to Rivendell. And so I play. I've played like the first 40 or 50 hours of that game probably five times in my life and I've almost, I've almost never made it farther than that, which in MMO terms, like I barely made it out of like the early game, you know, and then I bounce off it and go do something else. But, but in non MMO terms it's like, well, you know, like 50 hours. That's like a whole video game's worth of game. But it's great. I'm playing, I'm playing a hobbit Guardian. I also have, I also have a hobbit. Burglar is another fun class to play.

[Sam Claiborne]

Burglar.

[Justin Davis]

And the Shire is so good. I mean it's so, you know, it's early game MMO stuff. So it's all the garbage that you normally hate in a, in a massively multiplayer game where it's like, ah, you know, go deliver, you know, these flowers and go like I literally spent like all morning just delivering pies to people and that was it. And like in other games you would hate that. But in this game it just feels very peaceful and homey and it's very hobbity and they're all really cute and so it's a lot of. I really like running around the Shire in that game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Nice. Data privacy is more important than ever in our online lives. And that's why we at gamescoop recommend surfshark. With Surfshark, you can confidently browse the Internet securely from anywhere you are. It helps keep you safe online by blocking pesky ads and malware. You also get data leak alerts, so if a company drops the ball, you can catch it before the bad actors do. Even better. One surfshark account lets you protect unlimited devices for your entire household. With over 4,500 servers across more than 100 locations worldwide, Surfshark is a one stop shop for online peace of mind. You can also sign up for Surfshark Alert which will notify you if your personal data has been part of a data breach. Alternative ID will let you create an entire online identity and proxy email to shield your info and keep your inbox free of spam. And of course there's also Surfshark's private ad free search engine and antivirus software. Surfshark also offers 24. 7 customer support via live chat, email or social media, along with a risk free 30 day money back guarantee. Head to surfshark.com gamescoop or use code gamescoop at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN. Stream your favorite shows and stay connected wherever you are with Surfshark. That's Surfshark.com Gamescoop and don't forget to use promo code Gamescoop for four extra months of VPN. Goodness. Okay. Nintendo silent on Metroid Prime 4 beyond sales prompting fan concern over the series future, Nintendo's latest financial results are notably silent on the sales performance of Metro Prime 4, which has not appeared in the company's list of million copy selling games for either switch 1 or switch 2. Although have you seen that Nintendo has since clarified that combined sales have exceeded a million.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Which is. But even so, I mean, you know, we've been talking about Nintendo financials on this show. You know, they, they reveal them once a and we just marvel at like, you know, 80 million copies of this and 4 million copies of that. And like the part that always drove that like really hammered home to me how insane Nintendo's successful run is not necessarily the 50 million sellers and the 80 million sellers, but that every single random Nintendo game, 3 million of this and 4 million of that, it'd be a mega hit for any other company. Yeah. And so for Metroid to, you know, barely eke out a combined million in sales between the Switch and Switch 2 version is. It's kind of a catastrophe.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's a bummer. But guys, it missed the big holiday shopping season. It was a December release, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

And I mean that's a choice. It means that we got less than a month of sales in there. I hope it picks up. And there was just a lot of negativity around the launch too. Like I thoroughly. We talked about this. Sam and I both really like this game. We enjoyed it. Yeah, it has issues, but to constantly always lead with the issues when there's so much good stuff in this game feels like underselling all the just the cool moments you have in this game. It's just the atmosphere is fantastic.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at it.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's such a, such a tech demo to really shows the Switch too. So hopefully people will Pick it up. Maybe it'll go down in price someday and entices some people. Maybe switch to owners are stingy. I don't know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. So I didn't play it.

[Pierre Schneider]

What?

[Damon Hatfield]

I didn't play it. You should play it. Well, maybe. Except here's the reason why is that Metroid Prime 1 is a 10 out of 10 game.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

So an 8 out of 10. Metroid prime is kind of like, oh.

[Pierre Schneider]

Well, Maybe it's an 8 out of 10 because it has like an annoying fetch quest thing.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

But Wind Waker had that too. And if you think about Wind Waker's.

[Damon Hatfield]

10 out of 10. But Wind Waker's 10 out of ten.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

But if you go back to Wind Waker now, the original, not the HD version, you would be annoyed at the Trifle Shards quest. And like, it would.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think Wind Waker is more annoying than this.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah. And then same with stuff like Skyward Sword and games like that. Like, I feel like this is. It's so funny because the things that, that are the worst in this game are the things that are the most Zelda. It's the horse riding around the Overworld in Twilight Princess. You know, like that sort of stuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

You don't have to do that stuff either. Like we 100% this game, the crystals, you have to. Yeah, but like, that takes a long time and I did it.

[Pierre Schneider]

No, I. I know, but that's not fun. The crystal collection is. Smashing into crystals is fun, but after like doing it five minutes, you're like.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm saying that just going. You barely. You don't do a lot of like backtracking travel through the desert. You're like, oh, this sucks. Like, I need a radio. Like, that's all nonsense. I think you'll play how this game works.

[Pierre Schneider]

I think you'll play it. And like for the first half of the game, you're like, what the hell are people talking about? It's. It is honestly like the. Some of this stuff is just amazing. It's. It's just.

[Sam Claiborne]

I would argue that the back half then picks up. Like there's maybe a little. But like, you know, the ice part is amazing. You know, the fire part's amazing. Those are all the, you know, later games.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's kind of dumbass ending. So like, it's like this, this story is not.

[Sam Claiborne]

It does have a dumb ass ending.

[Pierre Schneider]

But if you, if you also, if you like collecting like everything and stuff, like the going back for like a missile tank or something like is generally fun in this game. Like, oh, my God. They built these really co. Puzzles around some of the extra stuff you don't have to get.

[Justin Davis]

But there's definitely. I mean, you know, we've been talking forever for years on this show about how video game review scores are more than just math. It's not like a game is 10 out of 10 and then loops. Now it's an 8 out of 10 because it has this fetch quest. And so that's part of. I think In Metroid Prime 4's case, that works to its detriment of, like, you know, it's not just like, oh, let's make a list of, like, I don't like these four things about it, but it just feels kind of old school. Like, it feels like a game that could have been released on the GameCube. Like, you know that just from a game design sense. And, like, that can be a pro for some people. Like, you know that there's a comfort in that, and they're ready to go back to that kind of, like, style of. Of, you know, game design. But I think for general audiences, it's like, tastes just feel like they've kind of moved on a little bit. Like, Zelda evolved with the times, and Mario evolved with the times. Metroid kind of hasn't.

[Sam Claiborne]

And.

[Pierre Schneider]

And I think so.

[Sam Claiborne]

But, like, if we got Half Life 3, and it was so much like Half Life 2, and it was all gravity gun puzzles and really good story, like, who cares? Like, that's a retro game now, basically. But it would be really cool. And that's how I look at it. I mean, every time there's a 3D platformer that, like, really works, like Astrobottom, like, you know, like, it.

[Justin Davis]

It.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's points of innovation in that game, but, like, it's also pretty old school.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, I. I want to believe that people will give this game a chance and go back and play it. I was generally sad when it was over, and I think that, to me, is always a sign that ultimately, for all the criticisms I have, I could talk for an hour. And I actually did. Logan and I did a spoiler cast. We talked more about the things that annoyed us, and then we kept stopping ourselves going, like. But I really liked it. And I think when the game is over, I go like, I kind of want to play it again. And I think that is a sign that it was a good experience. And it's freaking gorgeous.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is good. Every time I see it, I just can't believe this is a Nintendo Switch.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah. And it lives up to that.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can't show what you're actually seeing in this game when you're playing it. And you're in these ice caves and everything is covered in frost and damage is looking really good. It looks awesome. It looks so good. It's like Doom or something.

[Pierre Schneider]

And you can have these visuals at 120 frames per second on Switch too.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah, I really do. I can't recommend it more. I think it's a total demi game and I think you should play it despite score. You know what we can do? We can go in the archives and lower all the other scores.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, I'll do that after the show. I'll just change all the scores.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, here's what we do. Let's do an Is it still fun Today episode on it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, that's great.

[Pierre Schneider]

No, please, it's just a review. Please play it. It's not. You know, honestly, it is a game in the vein of Window and so if you like Wind Waker and Skyward Sword has, you know, annoyed me in. In some parts. It's like if you enjoyed that, this, this game is. This game is. Is good to play.

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Sam Claiborne]

The longest part of the process, I'm.

[Justin Davis]

Thinking, is going to be staying on.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hold with my current provider, trying to break up with them. Stop paying way too much for wireless just because that's, that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. Cut out big wireless, bloated plans and unnecessary monthly charges with 50% off. 3, 6 or 12 months of unlimited premium wireless. Bring your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts, no hassle. With a seven day money back guarantee and customer satisfaction ratings in the mid-90s, the Mint makes it easy to try it and see why people don't go back. If I were in the market for a new wireless plan, I'd be looking at Mint Mobile ready to stop paying more than you have to. New customers can make the Switch today and for a limited time get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 per month. Switch [e-mail] Gamescoop that's mintmobile.com Gamescoop upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only over 50 gigs may slow when network is busy. Capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. Additional terms apply. Cmintmobile.com. Sticking with Nintendo Para Last week we were talking about Dispatch. It came to Switch two. Yeah. Have you played Dispatch yet?

[Pierre Schneider]

No, no. It's censored.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, not on, not on other platforms.

[Pierre Schneider]

I was actually going to play it and then all the negative chatter. I'm like, we're going to wait and see what happens.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's a fantastic game, but I really love the game. I played it, I'll play it on one of the other consoles. But it's unfortunately censored on Switch 2, which is really weird because there's other games that have nudity and they ain't talking about it.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, But Sam, you said it's actually funnier when there's like, a big black bar dangling.

[Sam Claiborne]

I know what's great about the black bars. Like, it just. I don't think it detracts from the game too much. But we keep. We keep using this image on IGN of like, a black bar, but it's like, kind of by, like, her collar. Yeah, that. But, like, that's real. That's actually a censored moment.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's how they do it. That was their solution.

[Sam Claiborne]

We're trolling people.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

I mean, you probably wouldn't even notice there was nudity if that black box wasn't there. But now, you know, that's the point.

[Sam Claiborne]

Of the game, too. That's actually a funny moment.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's a funny. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's really weird you would miss out on. It seemed initially that Nintendo had forced the censorship, but then there was a theory that it was the Japanese ratings board saying, cero, that just doesn't allow that stuff. And games like Cyberpunk 2 CD Projekt created a separate version for Japan, like an edited version of the game, and then they sold a different version elsewhere. And so the theory was that Ad Hoc, the developer here, wouldn't or couldn't make a new version for Japan, so they just made one censored version for the world. However, that's not confirmed. That's just a theory. Neither Nintendo or Ad Hoc has confirmed that. In fact, this week, Ad Hoc says it is legally unable to explain why it couldn't release a separate uncut version. It's legally unable to explain, but. No, it's not.

[Pierre Schneider]

But this confusing thing is like, the Witcher 3 exists on Switch.

[Damon Hatfield]

Exactly.

[Pierre Schneider]

And, like, there's nudity in it. And so I'm not sure what happened. Like, somebody just. Just call each other. Just somebody call someone.

[Damon Hatfield]

What if they. What. What law would be broken if they explained why or who would sue them? Would Nintendo sue them? Because that would look really bad for Nintendo.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, they, like, signed an NDA in censoring their game for Nintendo standards. And then in that NDA, it said, you can't talk about what you censors or why or what our rules are. I don't know.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, it's probably possible. I'm legally not allowed to explain legal things.

[Sam Claiborne]

And Nintendo probably doesn't want a list of the things that have to be censored in a game out there because, like, you know, a nipple is obvious. But there's probably shit that they want censored that's not Obvious that, like, is a little bit controversial.

[Pierre Schneider]

There's nipple in Mario Odyssey.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's true.

[Justin Davis]

Male nipple.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. So and so they censor. They censor a middle finger. They send her, like, there's a, there's a, A sex scene. They censor some noises.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, there's a lot of nipple in Mario Kart. That's the cow.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, the cow.

[Damon Hatfield]

Teats, Sam. Yeah, those are called teats. Okay, Jobbert, let's get this ready. Server and I have something to share with the class. So I just want to point out the complete insanity that a fantastic game like Dispatch, that has a boob and a middle finger and a hanging dong that's in shadow, that had to be censored while at the same time this is allowed on the shop. No problemo.

[Sam Claiborne]

Call of Beauty.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is fine. This is fine. Call of Beauty. It's a. For our, our listeners. This is a new game on the Eshop available right now, Call of Beauty. It's where. It's a jigsaw puzzle game where you make jigsaw puzzles of AI slop women wearing scantily clad military outfits.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, at least.

[Pierre Schneider]

Look, I, I appreciate that they went for a wholly original idea.

[Damon Hatfield]

And yes, Call of Duty is the exact Call of Duty font. The old school Call of Duty font. Yes. Amazing.

[Sam Claiborne]

Can I play this on my bar top monitor in 1992?

[Justin Davis]

How does this stuff get through?

[Damon Hatfield]

It's because they have. There's a Nintendo Seal of Quantity.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yes, I know. I am familiar with the Seal of Quantities.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's a.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's nobody paying. Well, apparently someone is paying attention because Dispatch couldn't get through.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, but this company can't legally say why they're allowed to put this in the store.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, well, I was curious. So this is made by a company.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's not made by any person.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is.

[Sam Claiborne]

I am company.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's made by a developer called where is it? 17 studio. And they have a website and I went to check a website and the. All of their images didn't load. But they do have a slogan. So seventeen Studio, the developer of Call of Beauty slogan is we don't make games. We make only good games.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, good. That's it.

[Justin Davis]

I like the, like, I like that the, the quantity. There's a. There's a related feature that's been developing over time where the Nintendo Seal of Quantity is also becoming. Damon goes down the rabbit hole and we just see like, you know, look out.

[Pierre Schneider]

Do you remember the Wii age? Did you. Did you go to Best Buy and stop at the Cash register and look in the giant bucket of Wii games. It was amazing.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know, I know.

[Pierre Schneider]

Like, I don't think there's a complete catalog of all that stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, the Game Boy advance version of that there was just, like a tumble of dented cardboard boxes and a big bin at Costco. And, like, half of them were episodes of, like, you know, Cartoon Network shows. GBA Video.

[Pierre Schneider]

GBA Video.

[Justin Davis]

Still discovering new Wii games to this day.

[Damon Hatfield]

Thank you to Super Fighting Robot on Twitter for pointing out Call of Beauty to me. That was quite, quite fun.

[Sam Claiborne]

How partial do you think the nudity.

[Justin Davis]

Is in Call of Beauty?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it says partial immunity. Sexual themes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Only one way to find out. So speaking of Twitter, this whole thing with Dispatch and the developer, Ad Hoc, it could have been. The part that's really crappy is that they didn't tell people ahead of time. Ad Hoc has a social following. They have 140,000 Twitter followers. So I will look back through a feed. They were promoting the Switch 2 launch of dispatch saying, pre order now. At no point did they. Did they say, hey, heads up, anyone? Everyone, we just want to let you know that due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to censor Dispatch on Switch two. We're sorry if you're disappointed. We just wanted to let you know before you pre order it will be a censored version. They never did that. And that's the crappy part. They took people's money without telling them it was going to be censored.

[Pierre Schneider]

I want to play this animation.

[Justin Davis]

I still maintain that it's funny. It's funnier with the black box.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, it was you who said, I'm.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not arguing against it, but the people who bought the game should make that choice.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sure.

[Justin Davis]

Agreed. And they should have the choice to turn it on or off.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly. Okay. There was a Nintendo partner direct today. My biggest question coming out of it is Pear, are you getting the Leon Amiibo?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. And Claire, have you seen my.

[Pierre Schneider]

Have you seen my new display? I saw the people.

[Damon Hatfield]

You have people building it for you? I got two people in there building it.

[Pierre Schneider]

Some small shelves put in that are just going for Amiibo. Yeah, we're going bankrupt because pair got new shelves. No, no, I just had a couple of new shelves because I couldn't fit all the Amiibo anymore. Yeah, I will get those.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's. It's stupid now.

[Damon Hatfield]

They.

[Pierre Schneider]

They like this thing is getting away from Nintendo a little bit where, like, they're making bigger characters. Like, I don't like that. Stuff. But this, this still. I mean, many of them are still really nicely made.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Except for Leon.

[Damon Hatfield]

Does it look derpy? I didn't. I haven't really seen. Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Which is super dirty.

[Pierre Schneider]

Does not look great. Yeah, but they're. But they are actually.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like a kid took a magnifying glass to him in the sun.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

His face is melting for a while.

[Pierre Schneider]

If you remember Amiibo. I don't want to talk too much about it maybe, but people are like switching off and like leaving already and buying Call of Beauty. But in the very beginning, they were sort of locked in to do the Smash Brothers poses. And then they had to like come up with ways to actually make them stand up. That's how you got like P stand. P stand link and all of that with that yellow.

[Sam Claiborne]

That was really great.

[Pierre Schneider]

Stream coming out of his legs. And like here they can do any pose they want. And like, this is the pose they chose for Leon. I'm like, come on. Leon looks so good in the game too. I don't know what they're doing.

[Justin Davis]

Should we have Leon doing something interesting? No, he should just be standing there. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Same with Claire.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, got it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Do they do anything?

[Sam Claiborne]

Our.

[Damon Hatfield]

Our article didn't say if these amiibo do anything in game, it's all bs.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. They unlock weapons, right. Or weapon skins. Yeah. I mean, it's the usual Amiibo stuff like, which, by the way, like Nintendo and I love Nintendo, but they absolutely get a pass for like cool costumes and stuff. Are just locked behind these, you know, 30, $40 at this point.

[Pierre Schneider]

Make them half the price and take the tech out.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Pierre Schneider]

Like, take the NFC stuff out. Because like in the beginning, remember, the concept was you swipe your amiibo, it could store. You bring it to your friend's house and you load your Amiibo character or something like that sort of stuff would be really fun. Like you could use an amiibo to like instantly create a custom like, login or whatever on your friends, like when you're playing Smash Brothers to load your name and all of that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right?

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, that there's actually a reason. Well, there was a good idea at one point and then they just turned into collectible.

[Damon Hatfield]

But when, like when Breath of the Wild came out, I would bring my switch into the office so I could use your amiibo to get like, you know, meat and gold and arrows and like actual useful stuff in the game.

[Pierre Schneider]

Well, you get something useful in Metroid Prime 4, which people really, really liked.

[Damon Hatfield]

What, the music?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

That was so. That was the biggest nontroversy of our generation.

[Pierre Schneider]

It does not change.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know about that. Although it's Justin biggest gaming non traversies. Yeah, good feature there. Yeah, that's a good feature.

[Sam Claiborne]

But if you have one is such nonsense. And like you do need to listen to a podcast, as I keep mentioning, while you play the. While you collect your green crystals. But having the techno bops doesn't help.

[Damon Hatfield]

Listening to a podcast while you play is something that Sony has a solution for. Sam, which we'll get to in just a moment.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh God, they're coming for us.

[Pierre Schneider]

Did you like the Nintendo Direct?

[Damon Hatfield]

It was.

[Justin Davis]

It's fine. It was. Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Logan on NVC was reading from my Path of Radiance review from like 200 years ago and my final paragraph was all about how it's great that there's a drought of Nintendo games because it makes Nintendo Translate games to English that would have never seen the light of day. I mean, we got Fire Emblem because they weren't any other GameCube games coming out. Like that started this sort of Western discovery. GBA games and GameCube Games of fire Emblem, right? And this direct felt like that it was like, here are all these Japanese games. Like there's literally a visual novel game in here that I don't think would be in an official Nintendo Direct if they were, if there was a lot of Western support.

[Justin Davis]

And I mean the console is getting real third party support, like not just kind of like lip service support, but like big actual video games. So it's like that's a big deal and that's exciting to see Switch 2.

[Pierre Schneider]

But I mean the story goes that Switch 2 dev kits went out really late to some devs and especially smaller devs. And so there's this sort of. There's a little bit of a gap. And so if you watch this direct, like it is mostly, I don't want to say sloppy seconds because they're good seconds, right? Like Valheim. They're like quality games coming to Indiana Jones, coming to the Switch two now. So there's a lot of good stuff, but like there were some really funny Japanese games that. Yeah, that.

[Justin Davis]

There was one.

[Pierre Schneider]

There was like, I'm happy that we're getting them and that they're getting translated to English.

[Justin Davis]

This is the game I was going to talk about. So it's perfectly timed where like I remember that moment where like Live Live was announced and then no one knew what was going on or cared except Set pair and you were losing your Mind.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you see that? This game is like Live Alive that they showed.

[Justin Davis]

Well, you talk about that too. But I want to bring up the moment, the. The moment in this direct. For me, that was. That was that card game, Damon. It was C. Yeah. Like by the way, if you've never played it, that's what that card game was. It's absolutely a damie game where you know, the elevator pitch is. It's kind of like half Monopoly where you're moving around a board game board and then you're taking over and like owning spaces on this board game. But then it's half like card Battler where if you land on a board game square that someone else has claimed and put a monster on, then you fight them with cards that you have in your own hand. And I played it on the PS1 and was absolutely enamored. And sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on earth that cares about and knows about this game franchise. And so they announced not one but two Culdcept games today of an updated re release of the original with some quality of life features and then a brand new Culdcept as well. So I'm pumped.

[Pierre Schneider]

There was a Pair game in the direct, but it was only in the Japanese direct and that was the Goemon collection. Konami finally woke up from its slumber since they released Goemon on the DS. That's the last game and they're releasing a 13 game collection. So they got there, I think it was four Super NES games.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does it have that crazy Super Nintendo one in it with all the amazing like mech stuff and everything?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Goemon 2 on the Super NES. Yeah. All four Super NES games, the NES games and the Game Boy games are in this collection. So Anything in the 2D realm before.

[Sam Claiborne]

We call that Legend of the Mystical.

[Pierre Schneider]

Ninja here before mystical ninja 64 and all that? Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I can reveal to you all now that I. I swapped out our 20 questions game last minute right before we recorded because it was going to be Legend of the Mystical.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh man.

[Damon Hatfield]

I had a whole conversation about that with Pair this morning. I was like, it's too. It's too soon. Too soon. I have to switch it out.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, that's so mean. That game's so good.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I was waiting for a episode that paris on to do Mystical Ninja.

[Pierre Schneider]

Now you can never do it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, never. My culdep story real quick is I played a cul de step game on 360 and Justin's right. I was like, this is so me board game card game. There's some sort of like getting characters to marry and then you play as like their lineage. But then I realized after a long time put into it, the game was total BS because like I was like playing a level and my dice rolls weren't going the way I wanted to. So I was like, I'm going to start over. I'm gonna start over. And I did that a couple times and I was like, wait a minute. Every time I restart over, the dice rolls are exactly the same. It's not random at all.

[Sam Claiborne]

You're kidding me.

[Damon Hatfield]

So it was total B.S.

[Pierre Schneider]

Really?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

The game. The game. And I say this like, look, as I said, I might be one of the biggest cults at fans in the United States, but that is 100% true. Like the game will hose you. Like you'll.

[Pierre Schneider]

You'll have.

[Justin Davis]

If I. If I land on any single square, I'm fine. Except. Except this square. If I land on this square, I'm host. And every single time it'll like, it'll like the AI. The AI cheats like hell. And so hopefully that's something that can be addressed.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's funny.

[Pierre Schneider]

How did I never play this?

[Damon Hatfield]

Real quick, I met.

[Justin Davis]

It's a parody.

[Sam Claiborne]

You were busy playing Fortune street on Wii.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's right, jo.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I'm at 1% on my IFB.

[Sam Claiborne]

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[Damon Hatfield]

Are we good?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. We wrapped this episode.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, we're done.

[Sam Claiborne]

Damon. Damon, we're done. Episode's over.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, well, that's all the scoops we have for this week. The other one I wanted to call out is Adventures of the Millennium Tales, which, yeah, I guess was announced last summer, but I missed. And this is another 2D HD game from square Enix. But this one is an action rpg. So what more. Secret of Evermore.

[Pierre Schneider]

Secret of Mana.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Secret of Mana.

[Pierre Schneider]

The good secret one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Then Final Fantasy. And this looks really cool. Like, I love this art style. This looks great. My one concern is that it seems super serious and melodramatic and there's all this really, really dense lore building and weird names for. For everything. So that's. That's my one.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, you can. You can try out a demo you can play.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, the demo's out on Switch.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, it's. I. I thought this was really exciting. I. I really love this approach to the art style because you can make very pretty games on hardware that is not super duper powerful. And like, they keep getting better and better at it. Maybe someday they'll make a chrono trigger like that. That would be really nice.

[Damon Hatfield]

They should.

[Pierre Schneider]

But seven times, in keeping with Square Enix naming strategy, can they just come up with a cool name like just once?

[Damon Hatfield]

Octopath Traveler.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's so bad. Yeah, like, Live Alive is bad too.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love that game.

[Justin Davis]

But just call this. Call it like Dragon Lancer or something and they'll sell like 10 times as many copies.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm Dragon.

[Pierre Schneider]

This is not. Like, if your name is Elliot, I don't mean to insult you, but like, you're not. You're not Arathorn or Aragorn.

[Damon Hatfield]

Like, you're it.

[Pierre Schneider]

You know, like give. Pick a cool name out of the.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mark on that one.

[Pierre Schneider]

Out of the.

[Sam Claiborne]

It ain't a legendary character name really, is it?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Elliot, look how cool that looks.

[Pierre Schneider]

That.

[Sam Claiborne]

That pull out the. The establishing shot of that town.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's looks. I hope it's. I just hope it's actually fun.

[Pierre Schneider]

The demo is fun. I enjoyed it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cool. You. You already played the demo. Wow, you are fast. And then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does it have slimes?

[Damon Hatfield]

Not. Not a dragon Not a drawing.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you. But do you start at like little dinky enemies and there's a lot of them or does. Is it pretty interesting?

[Pierre Schneider]

No, it's fun. It's also puzzly.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, interesting.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

The other thing to note is that the folks that do the arcade archives are now doing console archives, so bringing back old console games.

[Sam Claiborne]

I saw that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Which is cool.

[Pierre Schneider]

They ran out of obscure shmups for you, man.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, they haven't. They haven't.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. There's no way they have.

[Pierre Schneider]

Every time a new one comes out, I'm like, man, like we don't even have this one in our database. It's like some obscure Japan only arcade game. And so now they're going to do it with console games. Like the first games that they're releasing, Cool Borders, which. Okay, that's known PlayStation, like that was an early PlayStation game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. But then they're also doing Ninja Gaiden 2, which that's also very known.

[Pierre Schneider]

But then they go. And then Doraemon for. That's like any Famicon 1986. But I mean, I love that there. And this is my criticism with Konami. Like if Konami would translate some of the Super NES Goemon games, they would be. They're some of the best third party platformers on the Super Famicom. And like.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, would they have to be translated to.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they have. They have city scenes where sometimes you have to like show somebody a pass to come get by.

[Sam Claiborne]

And like I thought that's what kept the ninja mystical.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, no, there's a lot of. There's a lot of town stuff in those. But yeah, I mean, apparently releasing Doraemon for the first time in the West.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, that's coming out here now. I missed that. I thought it was just this one.

[Pierre Schneider]

Is not coming out.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I thought it was just Ninja Gaiden 2 and Cool Borders.

[Pierre Schneider]

No, Doraemon is a TBA game. It's coming and for the first time in the west. So that you can be a robot cat.

[Sam Claiborne]

Everybody that.

[Pierre Schneider]

Let's be realistic too. Like, obviously messing with old code is not fun. But like fans have translated many of these games and it did not take them years. And it would not be very costly to translate NES games with limited text. They just don't have that much. One of the difficulties. Like Japanese is very compact and English is not right.

[Sam Claiborne]

But isn't that the Mother three thing that like, like people fan translate it, but they never.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, it's impossible to translate. Come on, give me a break. Like seriously call A fan and they'll do it for you in two weeks.

[Justin Davis]

I mean that's why Reggie retired.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, exactly. Reggie couldn't take it in.

[Sam Claiborne]

We're like one month away from, you know, AI being able to completely just code that game for free for.

[Pierre Schneider]

You know what? You're right. And that would be a good use of AI because they're fantastic games that were never translated and released here. So 13 Goemon games.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, speaking of AI, Sony patent system to generate AI podcasts in the voices of your favorite PlayStation characters.

[Pierre Schneider]

I think it'll be so natural.

[Justin Davis]

Who would have. Do you think Kratos would have a manosphere podcast?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's like. Like you're gonna be listening to Kratos hosting a podcast, talking about politics. So I have some stuff to read here. This is from a patent submitted in mid 2024 and it claims the system dubbed LLM based generative podcasts for gamers will generate reading from the patent unique personalized podcasts of news that is a that a particular gamer would find interesting and could be presented in the voice of a video game character from a game already played by the respective gamer. It appears this could be offered to players on the home screen when they Power on their PlayStation console. Video game platforms currently lack the ability to provide unique and targeted content to gamers to update the gamers about things that are happening on the platform. There are currently no adequate solutions to the foregoing computer related technological problem that's patents speak for. There's gotta be another way. In some examples, if the gaming platform wants to highlight specific games for players to experiment with, the podcast can suggest different games to different players based on a cluster to which the relevant player is assigned. These game recommendations can also be provided in the generative AI podcasts in game specific character voices no less. Recommendations may be prioritized and jump out a little more to the listener to get the listener to note the recommendations.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, voice actor did the voices for those Y. It's kind of brutal. So this is not aloy telling you about her day finding herbs, which she already does while you play the game. That's all she talks about. So it's not that, it's that it will tell you all of the e slop games you could be playing? No, it'll be like in the shop and the voice of Kratos.

[Pierre Schneider]

It'll be like boy, did you play C Call of Beauty? Did you play cult boy?

[Damon Hatfield]

Ign commenter wild360. I think some did it best. I can't think of A more soulless experience than an AI generated podcast. Discussing my recent trophies.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's always tough to judge stuff like this because if you go back in history, things that seemed stupid and impossible become commonplace over time. Right. Like, I can't tell you how. If you remember when the iPhone was announced, people said, no, I want buttons. Buttons. Right. It was as simple as that. It's like, don't get rid of the buttons. I need the buttons. You cannot use a phone without buttons. You need to tap numbers. And then now you will never think about it. And, like, if you watch movies like Blade Runner where Harrison Ford or what's his name. Gosling, who was in the second. Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Where Gosling talks to an AI character and she feels like a real person because she's played by a real person like that. Like, the more natural it gets, the. You know, like, it's just inevitable that we'll go down that road, that these things will get better, and that when.

[Sam Claiborne]

You'Re playing, too bad for you pair because they patented it.

[Pierre Schneider]

I know, I know. I can't do it. But, like, I imagine, like, the Witch, like, in the future Witcher game, like, the NPC dialogue is generated on the fly, and, like, what will make it interesting is that.

[Justin Davis]

Man, that's the worst.

[Pierre Schneider]

I know, but it's reacting to the things you already did. And so as long as there's good story structure and personalities and all that stuff, I'm just saying, like, don't knock it. I hate. I hate the thought of, you know, voice actors being replaced. And hopefully people get compensated when they turn Kratos's voice into now a podcast.

[Justin Davis]

Right.

[Pierre Schneider]

But, like, what.

[Justin Davis]

What? Empty calories.

[Damon Hatfield]

Empty calories is a good way to put it. Yeah, I hear you.

[Justin Davis]

But.

[Damon Hatfield]

But.

[Justin Davis]

But, you know, it's what. We don't need people consuming, you know, the thoughts and words that have never been thought before. Like, there's just no. There's no. Which, by the way, like, the Pope said that recently. I didn't. That's not my quote. Like, but it just. It, like, so there's radiant quests in, like, Skyrim.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right?

[Justin Davis]

And, you know, and Fallout. And then in the beginning, like, you know, for the first week that those games are out, people like, oh, man, this is amazing. Like, they keep sending me on all these quests, and, like, it just, you know, the game never ends. And then people figured out that it was this treadmill that never ends.

[Damon Hatfield]

Bounced me off of Fallout 4.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

And once you're out of sort of handcrafted Content like this, this is kind of hoity toity perspective of art, is that it's like, you know, you having a conversation and engaging with the artists. It's you engaging with the creatives that created that. Right. And like, I don't ever really put that much thought into it. I'm just like, well, I'm, you know, I'm here to have a good time. I want to play the video game. But then, like, then I realized that there actually is some truth to that. And I do want my video games to kind of challenge me and say something and have a perspective. Because if it's just AI creating something that's tailored for me that no one has ever seen before, then I don't. I'm not interested. You know, I want. I want to experience something that someone else made. Otherwise, I. Otherwise there's no point.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is my argument against Mario Maker.

[Justin Davis]

I don't want to make it made by creators.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, Mario Maker is a great example of things can go off the rails. But like, yeah, I don't want to be Sarah Connor here. But like, I think, I fear eventually, Justin, you won't be able to tell the difference.

[Justin Davis]

Right.

[Pierre Schneider]

Like, that's the, that's the point.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think the issue is that, like, if you have an NPC that's like, recognizes that you're in a banana costume and they didn't need to write that because you designed the banana costume yourself, that's pretty interesting. But all they have to do is offhandedly say, like, wow, you look like an idiot banana, and then get on with a written dialogue. Like, that's if it's indistinguishable. But then they're also like, we all played games when there was text and stuff like that. I'm interested if games can trick me into thinking that it's written stuff. But like, it says we're not even close to that. Right. We're even close. And I don't necessarily want that anyway. But that's not even what this is about. This is about podcasts, about information. And that is a trend in the world right now where people study or especially in, you know, for school, where they, they digest a textbook and then listen to people talk about it as a podcast. That is what kids do now. It's like, this is getting ahead of, like, well, how do I make a decision about something? I want to hear it in podcasts.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Personally, I cannot, I cannot free myself from the artifice of that when I, when I.

[Damon Hatfield]

That.

[Pierre Schneider]

Right. Like, there's. It's this sort of uncanny valley thing. But you know, obviously younger audiences, I'm.

[Justin Davis]

Very torn between, you know, you're right where like, you know, people didn't like, it's the Henry Ford quote, right? Like before the car was invented, if you ask people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. So like there's an element of like, you know, you need to tell people and show people what they want. But then, but then I, but then like I'm at war with myself because in the other half of my brain it's like they're solving a problem that. No, no one is asking for this. Zero PlayStation owners are like, this is what I want on my home screen.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I don't believe this and I'll play devil's advocate here. What you were. All I just asked for was for game development time to not take five years. And one way to do that is to fake all the audio. So, you know, it is, it is filling a problem, unfortunately. And I'm not saying that's a good thing and it's not a good solution.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, to be fair, Sony patents weird things all the time and you know.

[Pierre Schneider]

Sometimes you depend things so others don't do it. Right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Justin Davis]

It's all advertisements they want. They say if we can get people listening to this 10 minute podcast about what's new in the Eshop, then we can, then we can sell a spot in the middle of that to Activision when the new Call of Duty comes out. Yeah, that example, that's owned by Microsoft, but whatever. Yay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Then to be clear, just Justin's point about this being something that that's, you know, that nobody asked for. I totally get that he's talking about the podcast thing, but I was just doing a callback previous thing where unfortunately people are looking at game development times and saying like, how are we going to shorten all this and make this easy on us? That's.

[Justin Davis]

This stuff is not cut and dry. Like, you know, so there's a movement with gamers and I'm painting with a broad brush. Gamers aren't a monolith, but generally speaking they're anti AI, right? Like they don't want it in their games. We see it in our comments, we see it on YouTube, but it's like, but it's not. There's nuance here of like software has been putting trees in your open world games forever for 20 years, you know, and like you click a button and it generates a thousand different versions of an oak tree that are Non identical and then plops them into your world for you. So, like, you know, like, just like that's generative. Like that's generative, you know, content creation. Right. So, like, where does. Where does. You know, people need to have a kind of reckoning with themselves. Or maybe they don't.

[Sam Claiborne]

But, like, you know how everything's a. You're totally right. Everything's a culture war too. And so you were just saying, like, you know, like, all these, like, people are like, anti AI Probably. Maybe not all of them. I can't wait for the pro AI, like, you know, political movement where it's like, no, I want everything to be AI. It's so much cooler than humans.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And you've been fully fooled by the robots.

[Justin Davis]

So I think. I think part of it. And part of it is a narrative. Like, that's where people get a little bit queasy feeling is like, yeah, use software to generate, you know, my trees and, you know, my biomes in Minecraft. But. But maybe, maybe not to be creating sort of endless narrative experiences for me is where things start to feel a little bit icky.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. I mean, it can't take five years to write a story for a video game. I don't believe or I don't think it should. It can't take five years to design your characters.

[Sam Claiborne]

They certainly are not that good. George R.R. martin's taking a lot longer.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sir.

[Justin Davis]

Oh.

[Damon Hatfield]

Anyway, I just think they're AI George.

[Justin Davis]

RR Martin taking shots here randomly at the end of an episode of Game Scoop.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you think? Every day he's like, what would. What, dear chatgpt? What would Sansa do next in this scenario? I finished the book.

[Pierre Schneider]

I finished the book.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, well, on that note, I am really, really liking a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, by the way.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's good.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's really, really good. Okay, That brings us to video game 20 questions. First, we have a little anecdote from Charlie Gadson in San Diego, who says to answer Sam's question at the end of last week's episode, yes, the team is on a winning streak. Four wins in a row to start the year. An average of 19 questions needed. That's your average. So you get in either 18 or 20 questions.

[Justin Davis]

What? The average can't be higher than that. Oh, because. Okay. Because, wait, we could get it in 20. Yeah. Okay.

[Pierre Schneider]

I think I played Destiny with Charlie.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gatson like 10 years ago, and Charlie says all four games picked this year have been from after the year 2000. So do with that information. With that information.

[Pierre Schneider]

Mystical ninja.

[Sam Claiborne]

We're gonna get going, man. And then era to screw us all.

[Pierre Schneider]

I said to Damon was the Japanese director had Goemon in it. And then he had a funny look on his face and I thought I was boring him. But he was already calculating what to replace him.

[Sam Claiborne]

And we know Damon. It's so easy. He switched to Bomberman. So we can get this in one question.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it probably is Super Bomberman.

[Pierre Schneider]

It is a Bomberman collection coming.

[Damon Hatfield]

Let's find out. Our suggestion this week comes from Rodell, also in San Diego. And my son and I listen, listen to the show every week. Recently he discovered Redacted and is in love with the redacted. He keeps bugging me. He keeps bugging me to Suggest redacted for 20 questions. So here's my shot. And with that, let the questioning begin.

[Pierre Schneider]

So if he's like, he recently discovered Pokemon and he's obsessed with the Pokemon.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Because, like, what would you be obsessed with?

[Sam Claiborne]

He's obsessed with the gritty, realistic reaper boot of Bomberman.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s or 90s?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Pierre Schneider]

Does the game title have a number in it?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's a great question.

[Sam Claiborne]

I thought we weren't allowed to ask that question.

[Pierre Schneider]

Really?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, you don't ask. Does the game start with the letter?

[Sam Claiborne]

Start with an A?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Wait, so it came out in 70s, 80s, 090s?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, let's wordle this one.

[Pierre Schneider]

So good, dad letting his kid discover a classic. Thank you.

[Justin Davis]

Sonic 2 Mega man, maybe. Yeah. Okay. Did this game originally come out on the 16 bit console? No, it's not Sonic 2.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this on the NES?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Could be Mega Man's. You're right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was this made by Capcom?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's five.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, let's try to get this really quick.

[Justin Davis]

Everybody calm down. Should we do six? Should we do six Mega Men?

[Sam Claiborne]

It can't be Mega man one, but.

[Justin Davis]

Nope.

[Pierre Schneider]

But hold on. Capcom made more than just the Mega Men. You know, it made Ghosts and Goblins games with sequels.

[Justin Davis]

We know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's not that many. There's like Chip and Nail, ducktales and.

[Justin Davis]

Not that many with two in the title. From Capcom on the nes. Two or more.

[Sam Claiborne]

I just named them.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah. Should we ask if it's 2D side scroller?

[Sam Claiborne]

Why are we doing this?

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, it is.

[Justin Davis]

It is gonna.

[Pierre Schneider]

It is gonna. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Ask if it's a Mega man game.

[Justin Davis]

Is it a Mega man game?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

You don't think his son was obsessed with Mickey Mousecapade?

[Sam Claiborne]

I was.

[Justin Davis]

I don't I don't have sucked. Does this game have an even number in the title?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

All right. I don't. I don't know where to. I don't know. I don't have a clever way. It's not Mega Man 3 or 5.

[Pierre Schneider]

I'm not a. I'm not a Mega man guy.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's Mega Man 2. Let's just say that it'd be Mega Man 2.

[Justin Davis]

It's Mega Man 2. Four or six.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah. But, like, is there. Is there. Do you guys know NES Mega Man? Is there one that's notable? Because you wouldn't pick one.

[Justin Davis]

It is absolutely two. I just don't have a clever way.

[Sam Claiborne]

To, like, four and six have Rush in them and two doesn't.

[Justin Davis]

Is that true?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Rush is in three. Oh. But we know it's not three.

[Sam Claiborne]

Three forward.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Does this have Rush the dog in it?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Is it Mega Man 2?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. Mega Man 2, you guys were so fast.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's ridiculous.

[Damon Hatfield]

You've brought down your average now.

[Justin Davis]

An interesting thing is happening. Yeah, we did.

[Sam Claiborne]

We brought down the average for many, many years.

[Justin Davis]

For like 20 years. Mega Man 2, it's like, oh, that's the best one. Mega Man 2 is the best one. And then there was this minority, this contingent of people that I actually think Mega Man 3 might be better. Yeah. There's been an actually contingent for Mega Man 3. And now I swear, if you were to chart, like, over the last decade, like, Mega Man 3 is now getting its flowers, and more people are like, maybe that's the best one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Consumer sentiment. You do get to fight the Mega Man 2 bosses in the end of Mega Man 3, which is an unbelievable feat for NES.

[Pierre Schneider]

I always had such a blind spot for Mega man games because my first Mega man game was on the Super Famicom, not on the. On the Famicom right here. And I played it. I was like, eh.

[Sam Claiborne]

I cannot believe Sam Claiborne spoiled another game by telling us about the end of Mega Man 3.

[Damon Hatfield]

It starts with a joke that you wouldn't get then because, like, Mega Man's not wearing his hat in the beginning. And before he runs off to start the level, his, like, robot friend gives him one of the construction worker hats to put on.

[Pierre Schneider]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

And then he's like, well, maybe try this hat instead. So you playing him must be like, what the heck's going on?

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah. I had no idea what was going on.

[Sam Claiborne]

That hat looked a lot safer.

[Justin Davis]

What was? It was the anecdote was the anecdote that his Kid was like, he discovered.

[Damon Hatfield]

The Mega man collection and he's been in love with the kid at school.

[Pierre Schneider]

Ah.

[Damon Hatfield]

So that's cool.

[Pierre Schneider]

That's cool. That's great. I mean, like, I did this when, when my kids were little, we would go back to. We hooked up the Super NES and like, just would go back to older games and, you know, like. Got it. Kids need to be classically trained.

[Sam Claiborne]

We, Per and I on our team, we have a co worker, Mitchell, whose kid is obsessed with Mega man as well. And I've seen him playing Mega man in the background during, like, meetings and stuff. He's very, very young. Like just a couple years old. So this is a thing. Mega man can appeal to the young still.

[Justin Davis]

That's funny. Just because my daughters have absolutely no. Like, they just cry whenever they die in a game. So, like, you know, they're not interested in anything like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I was like 19 or 20 when I stopped crying when I died.

[Justin Davis]

In games, yeah, they get it from their dad.

[Pierre Schneider]

I'm the one who's crying with hard games and make my son beat them.

[Sam Claiborne]

Dude, I. You could, you could cry playing Karen. It's so brutal.

[Pierre Schneider]

If you really.

[Sam Claiborne]

That game, it's like I really just spent 20 minutes, like meticulously, like, planning this, this thing and then die.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's just like, I don't mind the games where I. It's hard and I die because I was being an idiot and not careful enough. It's just like, oh, you know, as you get older, your reflexes get, get, get a little slower. So, you know, like, I was very.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was very mad.

[Pierre Schneider]

Keep going.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, these games, the Mega man games were harder in Japan. They made easier versions for Americans.

[Pierre Schneider]

I see. Okay, well, that explains it all. Because.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sad little thing.

[Pierre Schneider]

Because I was young when I played this.

[Damon Hatfield]

When Kingo is getting Nintendo Switch time, I often find him playing pilot Wing 64 or Star Fox 64.

[Pierre Schneider]

Amazing.

[Damon Hatfield]

He likes playing those two games.

[Pierre Schneider]

Star Force 64 is really good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, nicely job. Thank you for the suggestion, Rodell. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoopgn.com and hey, listen, right now you can get Humble Choice for just $14.99 and score a curated bundle of PC games for February, including Resident Evil, Village, Date, Everything, Core Keeper, Starvaders, Steamworld, Build, Squirrel With a gun, Bus Simulator 21, and Big Helmet Heroes. This month's choice supports nPower, a charity whose mission is to move people from poverty through tech skills training. And quality job placement. Head to humble bundle.com to start playing today and support a good cause. And that's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you Pear. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you to Jobert working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGame Scoop and try to do that PlayStation AI podcasts.

[Justin Davis]

Sam.

[Pierre Schneider]

No prompter. No prompter.

[Justin Davis]

I don't think we want that heat.

[Pierre Schneider]

By the way. Gamescoop is like Game of Thrones now with all your spin offs. You got like you brought back game scope which I watched. It was awesome. That was really fun. We gotta do.

[Damon Hatfield]

We're gonna plan a version. Sam had that great idea to gamify it like a IGN live and have two teams where they work together.

[Sam Claiborne]

So.

[Pierre Schneider]

So a mark of a good video is like if my. My son actually is interested. Like I was watching it and he just came over and then he stood there and he watched the entire game scope and he was greatly amused.

[Damon Hatfield]

Did he guess any of the games?

[Pierre Schneider]

No. He was like, this is bullshit. How can you tell it from those bricks?

[Sam Claiborne]

Those bricks? Persian bricks. We're not going to talk about it on the show then, but did you see that game is loosely like a chrono trigger, Live Alive kind of knockoff. Which one?

[Justin Davis]

We'll talk about the HD2D game. The Elliot.

[Pierre Schneider]

Elliot. So just just to be clear, Elliot was already announced before.

[Damon Hatfield]

Save it for the show. I want to talk about that.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he wants to talk about it. No, Elliot was announced before, but I.

[Justin Davis]

Is that the one you're talking about?

[Pierre Schneider]

I wish.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, it looks great.

[Pierre Schneider]

I would square would ever make a good name for game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's a bad name.

[Damon Hatfield]

Save this stuff for the show, man.

[Pierre Schneider]

What else was in the direct? Like that direct was so boring, I thought.

[Justin Davis]

I mean they showed off that. They showed off that really cool 80s anime style.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, that one's good. Yeah, yeah, the anime one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

But I'm a little. I try not to be too taken in by. It's like, yeah, the art style is incredible. But it's like kind of.

[Sam Claiborne]

But it is what everybody wants right now, right? It's like the co op couch. Co op.

[Pierre Schneider]

It looked really fun. The co op action looked really fun to me.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm surprised that somebody in Japan kind of looked at these western trendy games that are winning awards and they're like, let's make one of those and make it our way.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Smart. Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Again.

[Pierre Schneider]

I was telling Jobet that when My wife and I lived in Japan. It was like all of the TV shows were this nonsense. It was like, yeah, popular.

[Sam Claiborne]

Jesus Christ.

[Pierre Schneider]

And like, it's just cannot. Like, I. I think they all die and we just never hear about it. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is there a point to this? Is. Is something gonna happen or. They're just doing it just to do it.

[Pierre Schneider]

It says, challenge complete.

[Damon Hatfield]

And now it says, like, can you do it? Can you be wrapped up like a mummy? Like, of course you can, but, like.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Well, you don't understand what the goal is of this challenge.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I don't.

[Sam Claiborne]

That pharaoh is talking.

[Pierre Schneider]

I think she now needs to say things, and they need to be able to understand what she says.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Pierre Schneider]

Imagine you have to come up with these ideas.

[Sam Claiborne]

Have you all watched or started the new season of Shrinking, which I think is good?

[Pierre Schneider]

I haven't watched it yet.

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is such a Ted Lasso successor. Like, it's like, you know, it's like, feel good, but really funny.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

That type of stuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

But doesn't veer as far into sentimentality that.

[Sam Claiborne]

It doesn't. Yeah, no, it does in. In, like, you know, maybe like in a counseling session or whatever. But, like, the main characters are all well done. It has. Fucking Brett. It has a. The. The co. Creator of Ted Lasso and I, who also co created this. The big British guy that plays Roy Kent.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

He's. He's on the show now.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, he's. He's been a main character since the first.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, God.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is the.

[Pierre Schneider]

Where they blow cockroaches into each other's mouth.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, this is too gross, man.

[Sam Claiborne]

Jesus Christ.

[Pierre Schneider]

No way.

[Damon Hatfield]

No way. It's too gross. This is terrible.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is terrible.

[Justin Davis]

You think since this is all Japanese tv, like, by the end, like, every Japanese person ends up on two of these shows at some point in their life eventually. I think about that with Great British Bake off, it's like, that island's not that big. Like, and they get 12 bakers every year. Like, they must run through them eventually.

[Pierre Schneider]

Yeah, well, you saw that problem with. Have you ever watched LEGO Masters?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, they ran out all the LEGO.

[Pierre Schneider]

Masters first two seasons.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's so funny.

[Pierre Schneider]

Amazing builds. I tune into fifth season and they're like, building shit. My kids build. I'm like, what is this? This is so bad.

[Sam Claiborne]

So what you're saying is this show was good until they ran out of cockroach blowers? That's right.

[Justin Davis]

I'm just saying every. Every Japanese person inside Joburg.

[Pierre Schneider]

No what the fuck, man?

[Sam Claiborne]

Take it off.

[Damon Hatfield]

Why is it a cockroach? Use, like, a cricket or something.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, sometimes they use crocodiles.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think it's like a Jerusalem cricket.

[Justin Davis]

It might be a cricket, but it's a bug.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's a bug.

[Damon Hatfield]

I hate this. I want to go back to the German cutting things in half show.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

Do the German. German. German shopping cart challenge.

[Sam Claiborne]

I. I 100% cut a banana that way this week and showed my wife, and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, you're German, right? You understand? Too bad.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's a long.

[Sam Claiborne]

Bring it to me.

[Pierre Schneider]

You got to show them the German marble track. Making the marble land on a toy train challenge.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, what?

[Pierre Schneider]

That's excellent.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like launching off of a little toy onto a train.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Pierre Schneider]

There's a really convoluted marble track, and you have to time the marble so it falls onto a container on the back of a toy.

[Sam Claiborne]

We've all played video games with that.

[Pierre Schneider]

Exact type of challenge, but you're not allowed to see it when the other team does it. You have to be blindfolded. And then, you know, so, like, you're getting closer and closer.

[Justin Davis]

When I get really, really stressed out at work, I sometimes will watch, like, marble track, like, Rube Goldberg marble track videos on YouTub know what?

[Sam Claiborne]

That's been ruined, though. Anything more than model trains. That's, like, the height of German culture. Loves.

[Pierre Schneider]

Loves model trains. But, yeah, board games would be better. Okay, here we go.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's.

[Pierre Schneider]

It's called Eisenbach Hindy.

[Justin Davis]

Time it right now. It's way too fast. Oh, no, it's slowing down.

[Sam Claiborne]

So cool.

[Pierre Schneider]

Remember, there's different points for the different containers.

[Sam Claiborne]

I see. I see. Number one.

[Pierre Schneider]

Okay, Damon is, like, enough of it.

[Damon Hatfield]

If we are ready, I do need to. Kingo has his first baseball practice tonight.

[Pierre Schneider]

Oh, okay, Cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, you can watch this instead, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, we'll just do this instead of scoop.

[Pierre Schneider]

I think maybe we should do, like, react scoop sometime.

[Sam Claiborne]

We should. God.

[Justin Davis]

Now we can't use this clip there.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, just cut that part out, or I'll bleep it. I could even bleep it. That's even better.