Death Stranding Review (2025) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Death Stranding Review (2025)
Release Date: May 21, 2025

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Introduction

In the May 21, 2025 episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast, hosts Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye, and Andy Cortez delve deeply into their experiences and insights surrounding the highly anticipated release of Death Stranding 2. The episode focuses primarily on their comprehensive marathon stream of the original Death Stranding game, providing listeners with an in-depth analysis of both gameplay and narrative elements.

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The Death Stranding Marathon Stream

The podcast kicks off with Tim and Greg reminiscing about their extensive marathon stream dedicated to playing Death Stranding. The hosts recount their commitment to completing the game live, emphasizing the unique challenge of syncing their in-game actions with physical activity—namely, Tim walking on a treadmill to mirror Sam Porter Bridges' deliveries within the game.

Tim shares the initial skepticism they faced from fans who believed he hadn't played the game since its original release in 2019:

"People are like, you didn't play this in 2019, Roger. I couldn't with everybody else." ([00:40])

Despite these doubts, the hosts highlight their dedication to bringing fresh perspectives to the game years after its debut, aiming to rekindle interest and provide valuable content ahead of the sequel’s release.

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Gameplay Mechanics and Storyline

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the core mechanics and storytelling of Death Stranding. Greg praises the game's open-world design and the freedom it offers players:

"It's a true open world, and you choose how you want to go and attack it." ([14:20])

Both hosts explore the innovative features such as building roads, using ziplines, and the integration of online elements where players can interact indirectly by utilizing structures built by others. This aspect not only enhances the gameplay experience but also reinforces the game's central theme of connection.

Greg reflects on his initial reluctance to engage with the game's slower pace but eventually appreciating its depth:

"I did play it, and I said, I love this game." ([01:30])

Tim echoes Greg's sentiments, emphasizing the sandbox nature of the game and how it caters to their content creation style:

"It's the ultimate sandbox of go. Whatever you want to do." ([14:20])

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Characters and Story Insights

The hosts delve into the intricate character development and narrative arcs that Death Stranding offers. They highlight the performances of key characters, particularly Mads Mikkelsen's portrayal of Die Hardman and Heartman’s poignant backstory.

Greg expresses admiration for Heartman's character:

"Heart Man's my guy, for sure. I could watch an entire movie about Heartman." ([29:34])

Tim delves into the emotional depth of characters like Fragile and Mama, discussing their tragic backstories and how they contribute to the overarching narrative of isolation and connection:

"They have created this world that feels so effortless." ([19:03])

The conversation also touches upon the game's thematic exploration of connection, loss, and the human condition, reinforcing why the game resonated deeply with both hosts.

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Criticisms and Ratings

While the hosts are largely enthusiastic about Death Stranding, they do voice specific criticisms. Greg points out pacing issues and moments where the narrative felt repetitive:

"He over explained a lot of things that I don't think we needed to." ([28:22])

Both Tim and Greg discuss the integration of traditional boss fights into what is essentially a walking simulator, expressing that these segments felt out of place and detracted from the game’s unique appeal:

"Boss fights are not very good. They became a chore." ([42:40])

Despite these critiques, the overall ratings reflect a high level of appreciation. Greg assigns the game a 9 out of 10, citing its innovative design and emotional storytelling:

"Death Stranding a nine out of ten. Capital A Amazing game." ([55:01])

Tim concurs with a slightly lower but still positive rating of 8.59 out of 10, commending Kojima's unique vision and the game's ability to offer a memorable experience:

"It's a great Kojima title that I love and I will think about forever." ([56:49])

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Food Marathon

A unique and entertaining segment of the podcast covers the extensive food ordered during their marathon stream. The hosts humorously rank their culinary choices, sharing both successes and culinary missteps.

1. Chili's
   Roger crowns Chili's as the top contender, praising the variety and taste despite a minor hiccup with the sliders arriving "butt naked" ([62:15]).

2. Red Robin
   Coming in second, Red Robin received mixed reviews. While the burgers were too greasy and underwhelming, the inclusion of classic items like egg rolls was appreciated:

"Red Robin is above Denny's, below Chili's." ([68:31])

3. Denny's
   Ranked third, Denny's was marked down due to the disappointing experience with their Grand Slam breakfast:

"The Grand Slam was a totally 4 out of 10." ([65:11])

4. Corn Dogs
   The least favored, corn dogs were criticized for poor execution and lackluster taste, despite creative attempts to enhance them:

"It should be the dog surrounded by cheese. That's a true half and half." ([69:50])

The food ranking segment not only provided humor but also highlighted the challenges of sustaining such a long streaming session.

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Audience Interactions and Future Content

Interacting with their passionate audience, Tim and Greg responded to super chats and viewer comments, encouraging fans to engage with future content surrounding Death Stranding 2. They announced plans to dissect the sequel’s trailers in-depth and explore additional lore to better prepare for its release:

"We will make that a separate piece of content. Sometime between now and Death Stranding 2, me and Roger will sit down and kind of go frame by frame." ([71:11])

Additionally, they teased future marathon streams and potential new game content, maintaining an engaging and community-focused approach.

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Conclusion

Wrapping up the episode, Greg and Tim reiterated their enthusiasm for Death Stranding despite its minor flaws. They expressed anticipation for the sequel and the continued exploration of Kojima’s evolving universe. The hosts emphasized the memorable experiences shared during their marathon stream, both in gameplay and in camaraderie, solidifying Death Stranding as a standout title in their gaming repertoire.

"Playing through this with you, Roger, was an experience, right? I really love the idea of this game." ([56:50])

As they sign off, the anticipation for Death Stranding 2 remains high, promising more engaging discussions and in-depth reviews in future podcast episodes.

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Note: All quotes are attributed with their respective timestamps for reference and context.

Transcript

[Mike]

Yo, what the heck is going on? Everybody, welcome in to your kind of funny Games cast for May 21, 2025. It's a lovely Wednesday, aka hump day. Hump day. And it's Mike and Roger to get you over the hump and looking forward to the second half of the week.

[Roger]

That hurt, you know, I mean, like, what. What. What's the level of Mike giving you a high five or a low five?

[Mike]

I love giving a good, crisp high five. It Passion in life.

[Roger]

You want to hurt me. I know you do.

[Mike]

One of my top five passions. Given a nice, crisp high five, you see it through, and you just do the low five.

[Roger]

Do the low five. But do it how you did to me.

[Mike]

Be gets it. You know, he likes the pain. You got to get a nice, crispy high five to start your day sometimes. And of course, that's what Mike and Roger are going to give you during today's kind of funny games cast, because today we're talking about our death stranding experience. Yeah. It's 2025, and we're gearing up and getting ready for death stranding here. Well, I mean, it's like, people are like, you didn't play this in 2019, Roger. I couldn't with the rest of. With everybody else. No, we're different, Roger.

[Roger]

Exactly.

[Mike]

That's why we're bringing the hype in 2025.

[Roger]

Exactly. I thought I was above death straining when I saw Die Hard, man. And I saw Mama and I saw these dumb names. I'm like, oh, why would I play that stinker? And I play it, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, my whole life has changed.

[Mike]

Yeah. I said, I'm too dumb to understand this game. And then we played, and I said, I love this game.

[Roger]

Yeah, I'm the right amount of dumb.

[Mike]

I'm in this right here. Like, I'm a jabroni that will just walk. Okay. And, like, I did that. So, Roger, we're gonna talk.

[Roger]

So. No, no, no. Before we do that, how have you gotten away with playing all of the Metal Gear Solid games except for five not playing?

[Mike]

Yeah, all.

[Roger]

The Metal Baron played all those. And then also Death Stranding, which you did not play.

[Mike]

And then.

[Greg]

And then you did actually play Metal Gear Solid five.

[Roger]

Yeah, that's the one he had to play decidedly without.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roger]

I was pretty up that in the Baldur's Gate situation.

[Mike]

Well, here's the deal on this one, Roger. A lot of people were like, mike, you didn't want to play. Mike, why didn't you Grab the controller. And I did. I really wanted to grab the controller, but I didn't want you to take away my shine because I know all the jabronis out there watching and listening, know if I took a step off of that treadmill and let you walk, and they would have said, oh, well, Mike didn't actually walk step for step with San Porter Bridges.

[Roger]

I think there was a lot of people already saying that I.

[Greg]

Anytime I, you know, tuned into that stream, were you sitting down, looking at a big tv, ordering food, baby breathing.

[Mike]

Heavily in the microphone. And so I ensured that through the entire thing. I mean, just so everybody knows out there who are watching, listening, you know, we got to day three. I guess it's day two. But day three was Sunday, heading into Monday, Friday, I was dying, right? Like, my feet were tightening up. The soles of my feet were burning. My yams were looking good, though. They were strong and solid. And he's like, mike, like, let me walk for you. I can see you're in pain. Like, please just take a seat. Let me do this. And I looked at you, Roger, I said, absolutely not. I will walk the entire.

[Roger]

No, you did the, you did the mic thing where you said, no. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you the time. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

[Mike]

Never. Never. So did I get to play this? No. Did I want to play this? Yes. But did I do it for the content? Of course. And so we're going to talk about the content and what we created during our Death Stranding marathon stream that just happened last weekend. Yeah, and we're going to talk about our Death Stranding.

[Roger]

We finished it last night.

[Mike]

We finished it last night. So we're going to talk about all things Death stranding and our excitement for Death stranding too. So today's Kind of Funny Games Cast is all about death Stranding and we want to share your experience with us. So make sure to super chat away. If you're watching live on YouTube and or Twitch, give us some of your favorite moments from Death Stranding. One, tell us some of the things that you're looking forward to in Death Stranding. Two, we're going to talk about all that and everything in between, because this is the kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in the video game world live on YouTube, Twitch, and of course, later on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with the kind of funding membership available on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. To get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get your daily exclusive show Greg Way for a chance to be part of the show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as super chats as we go. Don't forget we're kind of funny. We're an 11 person small business. All about live talk shows today during Kind of Funny Games Daily, Greg and Tim talked about, is Xbox up right now? Are they winning?

[Roger]

Are they up right now?

[Mike]

We'll talk about it. And of course they talked about it. Go check it out after this. The stream will be Greg playing Outer Worlds for their RE review. Coming up very soon. Greg, Andy and Stella, I believe are all replaying the Outer Worlds to get ready for Obsidian's next big RPG of the year, which is crazy to say about into Outer worlds.

[Roger]

Crazy.

[Mike]

They're going to be talking about it on the RE review. So this today's afternoon stream is Greg playing the game? You can get in your questions, getting your thoughts about the game with him live over on twitch and on YouTube. Of course, if you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is Greg Miller talking about the last of us now that he's a dad. Oh, and you know what? We're going to talk about dads in this game too.

[Roger]

A lot of dads.

[Mike]

And I wonder what Greg thinks about being a dad after playing Death Stranding. Because like, you're my future. You're my bridge to the future, Roger. You're my son now.

[Roger]

Oh, okay. Where does Mads Mikkelsen play into all this?

[Mike]

We'll talk about that, of course. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Thank you to our sponsors Subway Surfers and Factor, but I'll tell you all about them later. Let's jump into the show. Right, Roger. Let's talk about our death stranding experience. Thank you. I forgot about that.

[Roger]

Where do you want to start, Mikey? I mean, I guess we should just start with like the start of the marathon stream. Kind of like where that came from.

[Mike]

People like, yeah, what the idea was, what did we actually do? Maybe people didn't watch it and they don't care. So like, what should, what should we tell them about?

[Roger]

So yeah, so in the beginning of this year for Kind of Funny Day, we had a bunch of promises and kind of laid out the next year of Kind of Funny with a few big events, right? We talked about Game Showdown, we talked about top 100 games of all time. And one of the things that we mentioned that we were going to do this year was a death stranding walkathon marathon stream. A literal marathon stream where for every step that Sam Porter Pridges makes stone bike, Mike will also make that step in order of course, going back to the bit, if you don't know already, that Mike is a hardened athlete. He attempted or was had a thought or at least was going to run a marathon. Okay. The, the half marathon T shirt. The half marathon got rained out. So then everyone got the medal including myself, who also didn't run it. But Mike didn't do no training. Was not, was not planning on going to that event. But you know, he, he swears that he could have done it.

[Mike]

Slept like a baby. I dreamt about it.

[Roger]

You're running the marathon in your sleep every single night. Just toss it and turning. So that was the idea behind this stream. And also of course I, I had the honor of meeting Kojima and, and the Caroline Polachek connection, which is very exciting and like it's happening for the sequel. So I wanted to play Death Stranding 2. Death Stranding 1. I've never played a Kojima game full through other than Peace Walker.

[Mike]

Wow.

[Roger]

Which is a weird one and half of Metal Gear Solid 5. So I wanted to really put my time in and, and actually play Death Stranding. And I wanted to do it in some type of marathon stream because I know if I start I'm probably going to stop halfway through and then never actually finish it. So I wanted that accountability. So I wanted to sit down with you or I guess stand up with you and, and have you walk and I play. And I thought that was, that was create something, something special and something unique. And Mike, we freaked it. We absolutely did that for Friday starting at I believe 2pm all the way until Sunday ending at 3:30am 3:30am we completely went crazy and we were just in this room ordering a lot of food. We'll probably do a tier list of all the food that we ordered and ate during the big.

[Mike]

Be big. That's.

[Roger]

You got to carb load. People say you carb load before the marathon. We carb load during the Marath marathon. We were taking, you know, you have the water stations where like the kids hand you like the Gatorade or whatever. People were handing us Red Robins fries. It was incredible. We needed to be our biggest supporters. So we just went crazy on this weekend and we, we played the entire. Most of the game. I think we had people Said chat said by the time we finished it, they said, oh, you only have three hours left. And then we proceeded to do a seven hour stream to finish it off yesterday.

[Greg]

Well, you know how, how much of the. The intro was ordering more food.

[Roger]

Yeah. Okay, well that's again, you have to carb load. Right. Even though Mike wasn't walking during class.

[Mike]

We need to figure out what these corn dogs were all about.

[Roger]

Yeah. Again, we will do a ranking by the ending of this. So which is the best dinners that we had. But I was, I was very excited about this because I wanted to play this game and it looked interesting. Yeah. And Mike, I don't know what your impressions of this game are, like what you came into it with, like what you played A little bit of death training.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

A while ago.

[Mike]

It was a special one for me because I'm a person who tried Death Stranding and I put it down. Yeah. When I first played it, it wasn't for me. I usually don't vibe with these kind of slower games. And so I put it down and I watched Miles Luna, who I got the idea from, to do the walkathon marathon stream. And I, when you said, oh, I want to be prepared for Death Stranding 2, I thought, man, this is the perfect win win scenario. Right. Me and Roger both get to play the game together and we can do a walkathon marathon stream. So like let's make great content out of this. And so I pushed you hard of let's do this in one weekend. And you said, Mike, like, why don't we just try one little ten hour stream, see if it's a hit or not and we'll go from there. And I, I pushed you of like, no, let's sit in the room and let's play it all the way through. I think the audience will vibe with it. We're a month and a half away from death stranding too. There's no better time for people to get caught up to get you and I prepared and kind of build the excitement for it. And also, you know, that's kind of my role here is to try to find fun and engaging ways to create content on the live stream side of things that are audience can have fun with, the team can have fun with. And it just seemed like a perfect blend of you and I together all weekend long. Minimal resources. Right. Greg, Tim, we, we only called Barrett about seven times, you know, so zero times. A couple of times for help.

[Roger]

But we didn't want to bother you. It was too late.

[Greg]

It was for the celebratory thing, the nice thing, you know, didn't want to call me.

[Roger]

Then we did call Blessing. He, he, he now has confirmed that he saw the, the call coming in, like he was there. He was actively looking at his phone and then decided to say no.

[Mike]

And so for me, it was exciting, right? This is exactly what I wanted to do as something on the content side of things for kind of funny, I thought it was going to be really fun and exciting. And then on the flip side, I get to experience death stranding, right? Play in quotes there. But like, really, I get to experience death stranding with you, one of my best friends, and also prepare for death stranding too. And so for me it was like, this is a win, win. Let's see where it goes. And it turned out to be an experience of a lifetime. Roger. This is something that I will laugh at, giggle in my mind, and remember forever of you and I starting on Friday at 2 o' clock in the afternoon and just kind of experiencing it moment by moment, where it was going to go. How much will I walk? How little will I walk? How long is a Kojima cut scene In a walking simulator game, we learned they're pretty long.

[Roger]

Pretty long.

[Mike]

But then we also learned that Roger doesn't follow the simplest path. Okay, because here's the problem, Chad. Roger's talking lot. He's chirping a lot about like, oh, Mike, you didn't play the game. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like if I played that game, I would be cutting paths that people have never seen before. Roger. I would be following the most efficient paths from point A to point B. There you are, Roger, looking at your best friend, Snow Mike. Mike on a treadmill, dying right? Please, Roger, give me a break. Can you just get to point A to point B? And you are out here taking the most inefficient routes possible. Scaling up the side of a mountain fast, find an invisible walls, get lost on detours where we just needed to go and deliver the package, but goddamn, did it make for some great content.

[Roger]

You know, I, I, what's your name? Snowbike Mike. Yeah, I thought it was Snow Bitch. Mitch, for a minute there, I didn't realize that you weren't a hardened athlete, that you couldn't figure it out. Because I see the vision, right? I see the vision. I'm trying to find the area of the most friction, but also the least friction, you know what I mean? Sometimes you got to go up the mountain to go down the mountain. You're trying to go around the gonna that's gonna prolong your hurt. I just want to go up it and then down it. So I figured it out and that's going into it really quick. If we're talking about the game itself, I forget who said it in chat, but it was such a clicking moment for me of why I was digging this game so much. And if I'm at the point now where of course, we have the sequel, so I shouldn't probably go back and replay some of it, but I really want to because the chatter said this game is going to picking up your groceries from the car and bringing it all into the house in one trip simulator.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Roger]

That' what that's what it is. And that is something as I feel like that's like. Like a. Like a dude thing. Like he. Like, you know what I mean? Like a dad. A dad dude thing, right? Where it's like, oh, I got this. Don't worry, honey. And it's like, I have free hands. I can help you. Oh, no, I got this. And he just. Just take everything in your hand. You're about to fall, you're about to break the eggs, but you do it anyways. And you're like, oh, look how cool am I? That's what this game was for me. And it was such a great experience trying to basically do the things that I do in Skyrim, right, where I'm just like. I'm like breaking the fucking geometry. I'm finding all the little rocks that I can go up that the developers didn't really design this for. But I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to go around it like I was breaking this game so much that I found fucking invisible walls. I didn't realize that there were invisible walls in this game, but we found it. We climbed up a mountain and they were like, yo, you can't go up this fucking mountain. You got to stop going up this mountain. And for me, that is the stuff that I really clicked with that I didn't realize or even think that I would even click with. I thought I would be a story person. I thought the story was going to be the thing that made me keep on going throughout this, you know, 50 hour experience. But instead it was actually the gameplay of it. And if I were to do it over again, I absolutely would, because I now I see the vision now. I get it, everybody. I should have built roads. I get it. I should have built a few zip lines here and there. But once I actually figured out, oh, I should have been building zip lines and I actually did it for the first time. Fucking clicked everything into my mind. And this was. This gameplay experience is something special.

[Mike]

Yeah. I think that's the fun part about making it a livestream and content and kind of knowing that you're. Your best friend is walking the entire time. Like, we can't sit around and kind of look out and map out what you want to do. Because this game is really fascinating. Right. It is a true just open world, and you choose how you want to go and attack it. And then they give you tools that will help you elevate that throughout. Right. Of like, hey, let's make this a more efficient and easier. Where you can build a road, then you can ride your motorcycle on it, or we can make these zip lines that will conquer all of the terrain and you just fly over it. And it's like when you're making content and it's supposed to be for the laughs, and it's also like, hey, Mike is dying on this, and we only have so many hours in the day. You're screaming at me as I'm trying.

[Roger]

To go up a mountain.

[Mike]

We cannot just sit there and utilize the tools that are given to us. It. You miss out on a lot, and it's wild to think of, like, we did it. I think a lot of people get caught up in the first one at the beginning of the game. And I found this the most fascinating. He's like, they give you three paths and you kind of go, oh, okay. Like, I see the vision. But then after that they just like, good luck, figure it out. You can go any way you want. And then. Then they build on that of like, now you can build all these things. I found that so fascinating and cool that it's just the ultimate sandbox of go. Whatever you want to do. Try to climb this. Roger's got too many boxes on the back of his head and he's in a cave and he's swaying left and right.

[Roger]

I'm hitting the ceilings of things and the boxes are falling down.

[Mike]

It was cool.

[Roger]

Yeah, it's.

[Mike]

Gameplay wise, it was cool.

[Roger]

Absolutely. The. The word that I kept on going back to was meditative. Right. Even though I'm on a stream and it is flashing light, like bright lights in my face, Mike is walking. It smells like burnt rubber because we're burning this fucking treadmill the entire time. Yeah, I did have that sense of like, oh, if I had this and a glass of wine, I could just do this all night. Like, I can just really take My time. And it kind of resets. It reset me as like a gamer a little bit. Because for me, I'm the person that if you. It is a nightmare to watch me play a video game most of the time. Because my fiance, she doesn't play video games like that. So, like, she watches a lot of the gaming experiences as like a spectator, right? I'm the one in the control controlling seat. I'm the one playing the game. And as she watches me, she's like, you got to stop fucking running around. You got to stop pressing the L3. You got to stop looking, swinging the camera around. Like you have, like, you're, like you have no attention to anything. Like, I'm always running and going from here, here to here, not really focusing on anything, trying to find, you know, getting lost for this. It is, oh, you're from here to here. You're going across the country. All you have to do is just take your fucking time. Yeah, just take your time. Build a rope. Like there is nothing in between there. Of course, there are some times when, you know, an enemy pops up and a fucking BT attacks you and you're freaking out and it's annoying, but other than that, it is. You just had to take your time. You got to just think about what you're doing here. And the journey in the gameplay is the journey, right? It is going from point A to point B. It is not just A. I didn't for the first time in a video game in a very long time, I didn't think of going from point A to point B as a chore. I thought that is the game, right? That is the fun of the game. And that is kind of the most subversive. Subversive. Subvert. Jesus Christ. Subversive thing that I didn't expect from a Kojima game. I didn't expect that the traversal was going to be such a key part of the fun of the game.

[Mike]

What a fun time, Roger. I had something on the top of my head, but I forgot it. But it's just, it was so much fun to watch you work through things, watch you explore this world and kind of be a passenger alongside your decision making. I think that's the fun part. When we always talk about it's always a nightmare to watch someone play a video game because you're thinking of five different things they're not thinking of or you want to go some other way. So it's always fun to see what people decide and what you decided to do. I'll never forget our. You Know, most of our tracks took about 15 minutes. Some of the longer ones were like 24 to 30. Might have been the longest one. But somehow Roger, on a normal trek that's supposed to be like 13 minutes took 45 minutes. And that was just him exploring, wanting to conquer the terrain, wanting to have his own story. And I think that's a really cool part about this. And on top of that, right, you're in this world that is kind of experiencing this insane situation going on with the timefall and the start of death stranding, right? And it's like nobody's out there, right? The only people out there are porters similar to you that are moving packages and supplies to different areas. There's also the bad guys with Higgs, but like, it's wild of like, there's nothing, not even wildlife in this world. And so it is a very empty world. And when that music swells up and you crest that first peak and see a vista, or you go to some, you know, the big. Where we burned your mother's corpse there, the big furnace or whatever incinerator, it's like, oh, man, like, these are cool. And the art style in this game is wicked.

[Roger]

Yeah, man, it's. It's hyper realistic, but it doesn't rarely, I should say, gets to the Uncanny Valley, right? We have. We have characters and people that I know, right? I've seen their faces in movies and television and their directors. We have Guillermo del Toro in this. We have Mads Mikkelsen. But I was very rarely creeped out by like, oh, that's Mads Mikkelsen, but he's in a video game and he's not real. But it's like they. They have created this world that feels so effortless. And I think I stand by this. We were having that discussion during the stream where I was like, I think this might be like, top five best looking video games ever made. And you were like, no way. And then we start talking through it and we're like, oh, maybe it is like, I at least totally think this is my top five. Probably top three, honestly. Best looking, highest fidelity video games ever made. Because the stuff that they were able to do, especially when it came to the terrain of this world, like the. The moss on these rocks, like, look photorealistic and I just can't. I'm so excited to see what Death Stranding 2 is specifically when it comes to that and the visual fidelity of it, because, man, it looks so good in 2019, six years later. Holy. I'm sure that they're doing some crazy.

[Mike]

Stuff with the desk manager that destination is right. I love the. The crazy collabs that he had with Conan and the cosplayer, that was crazy. Him with the weird otter hat was so much fun. It's wild that there was. There's so much to this game. And like, you and I, we learned a lot. We didn't do much of it, but, like, it's crazy that there's an honor hat that you put on that helps San Porter bridges swim a little bit more. You got a crazy exo suit that you can put on. You can build these roads and it's like, well, we didn't build any roads, but, man, when we jumped on other people's roads, that was awesome.

[Roger]

And thank you to everybody who built those.

[Mike]

The online connection is cool too, right? Of like, you start and you don't really see that. Then out of nowhere it's like, oh, well, here's somebody else's rope that they, like, took this path and they're going to help you out. Oh, later on in the game. 20 hours and here's this guy's road that he built out and, like, really thought about. It's like, that's really awesome too. So I loved, like, all of a sudden you started integrating, like, other people's buildings. And we shared this world that was our world, but also, like, yeah, we started connecting the knots.

[Roger]

It work. It works as a great tutorial, right? Where you're walking around this world and like, someone like me who was not building anything at first, right? Seeing the amazing creations and the smart designs that people were building out, right? Where someone. I think. I think I use someone else's zipline for the first time. That was how I was introduced to the zipline. Even though they wrote it and they said, you can use zipline, but I'm like, how. How far can a zipline go, right? You jump on someone else's zipline for the first time. They very smartly. I don't know how they built this out, but they do it in a great way where, you know, if you don't have anything built in a certain area, they're going to put something there from someone's online experience and throw it there and show you, hey, listen, you could be using these things and you hop on the zipline for the first time and you're like, oh, this is how I could be doing this. I could be building out an entire world.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

So it works as both, you know, working into, like, the themes of the game as we'll talk about, right? Like connection and you know, all these different people that are connecting and throwing different zip lines and roads. So it works in that sense, but it also works as tutorializing the entire experience.

[Mike]

Yeah, we didn't get to see Jeff Keighley.

[Roger]

No, we didn't.

[Mike]

Disappointed on that one.

[Roger]

Come on, we should.

[Mike]

Shaw Herman.

[Roger]

Shaw Herman.

[Mike]

That was pretty lit. Conan, of course saw Conan is right. Then there was a bunch of big names that he brought in. A awesome cast. A small cast, but an awesome cast. Roger and I want to talk about the cast right after a word from our sponsors.

[Roger]

This episode is sponsored by Subway Surfers. The goated endless runner that carried me through middle school, high school, college and now adulthood is celebrating their 13th birthday, which also marks their 200th world tour update. And they're going big because Subway Surfers decided to travel to not one, not two, but 21 different locations in their 200th world tour special events. It's kind of funny. As resident Zoomer, I can seriously say that I adore Subway Surfers. It's one of my favorite comfort games. Grabbing items, completing challenges and pulling out a hoverboard right as I'm about to hit a train feels just as good now as it did when I was sitting in the back of Mr. Cockburn Spanish class. Play through all 21 destinations to unlock amazing rewards such as characters, hoverboards and in game currency. Just tap the 200th World Tour button on the screen to start playing. And exclusively for best friends, head over to kindafunny.com subwaysurfers or scan the QR code on screen to get a ton of special in game rewards. The Update ends on June 1st, so scan that QR code, download Subway Surfers and start running if you don't want to miss out on all the rewards I already did. This episode is brought to you by Factor. When life gets busy, food can sometimes feel like a chore and the fast food trips can go from a weekly to daily occurrence very, very fast. So buck those trends and make this season your best with nutritious 2 minute meals from Factor. Eating well has never been this easy. Just heat up and enjoy, giving you more time to do what you want. With 45 weekly menu options, you can pick gourmet meals that fit your goals. Choose from Calorie, Smart, Protein plus Keto and more. We at Kinda Funny Love Factor Meals Blessing Greg loved for a quick lunch in between shows and I adore it as a healthier alternative instead of the dreaded hump day. Too Tired to cook. Drive thru run. Helping me to get on track with my goals. Get started at factor meals.com kindafunny50 off and use code kinda funny50OFF to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code kinda [e-mail] kindafunny50 off for 50% off plus free shipping. Factor meals.com kindafunny50OFF all right, so we.

[Mike]

Talked about our experience over the weekend. Me walking, you playing, us eating a lot of food. So much food, late nights, lot of laughter.

[Roger]

Talk about Chad Kroger.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm sending an email too. Might change my life.

[Roger]

Mike's reaching out and making some connections of his own. We learned about it, him and Lenny Kravitz.

[Mike]

I'm gonna throw the phone in the ocean. 30 days.

[Roger]

30 days on his compound in Peru.

[Mike]

There's some moments here that gotta be found inside of there. Or maybe if you just watch it, you'll enjoy and laugh because there, there was some great times.

[Roger]

Yeah. And the entire thing is gonna go up this Saturday. It is actually processed. It's going up. So on YouTube you can check it out Saturday. I'll probably throw it up at like 6am our time. Get it up super early. For the East Coast.

[Mike]

People watched a lot of KFAF episodes. Shout out to Nick and Andy.

[Roger]

You know, really carrying the stream on the back.

[Mike]

Really care.

[Roger]

We had to get a written notice from them.

[Mike]

We had to get approval from those two to play some old episodes. And so, yeah, it was a really special experience to share with you, Roger. Our incredible audience of kind of funny best friends. So I encourage everybody to check out the VOD that will go up this weekend. Watch the finale that also happened last night. But I think another cool part is we talk about the gameplay. Roger. But there's a wild story going on and I think at first you kind of get hit with it and there's a lot to take in by the middle. There's a lot of questions. And by the end you're riding this roller coaster of like, holy cow, it's going down. Kojima's back again.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But it's also carried by a really cool cast of characters.

[Roger]

Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. That was. That was surprising to me. Right. As I mentioned earlier, I was, I put my. I put my nose up. Thumb my nose at the idea of like, oh, these characters are named Fragile and Die Hard man and Dead Man. I was like, what a. What a strange idea. But by the ending of this, I'm like these. This is my crew, right? Like, this is. This is absolutely my crew. And I fudge with all of them in different ways. And now I'm at the place where, man, we've watched the. I'm sure we've seen the trailers for Death Training too, right? I'm sure you've seen at least one of them, right? I've seen one of them or two of them.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Before. But like, I. That meant nothing to me. It's all white noise. Right. Like now I know. And I haven't re. Watched those. And I'm so excited for the sequel because, man, this is such a great crew of characters as you were alluding to.

[Mike]

Yeah. It's interesting of Sam Porter Bridges Journey. Right?

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Someone who has dooms doesn't like to be touched because of his dooms level allows, like the BTS can touch him and he gets a rash. So now he's also a porter. He's out by himself. Right. This is a guy that's kind of isolated and doesn't have much connections going on. His mom calls and he's like, mom, I don't want to do it right now. I'm busy on the road by myself. And it's like wild when you bring up your crew because at the end it's a team. This is a team effort and everybody's together and they're here to help Sam overcome this giant obstacle and save the universe and the world. It's like, wow, that was like a really big journey to go on. Because at the beginning, Sam was gruff. He wasn't speaking much. He wasn't wasn't shaking anybody's hands. He was just a man on a mission. And then it changed to like, oh, this is some beautiful stuff. He's got a team.

[Roger]

Yeah. And I think that goes back to like the. Which I understand. I think this is like. Even though I love this game so deeply, I think for multitude reasons, right. The connection that we had during the stream, like that whole scenario of us playing it just elevates the game so much on top of that. But I love the game for what it is. I will never begrudge anybody for the criticisms that they will have about the writing or the way that Kojima builds out his stories. Because I get it, right. It is very on the nose in some places. It is very aloof in other places. Right. He over explains a lot of things and then he under explains a lot of things that I'm sure he should have actually just explained in the first place earlier on, like dead Man.

[Mike]

What's up with Dead man? This Frankenstein.

[Roger]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mike]

We just kind of gloss over, okay? He's built of stem cells and dead individuals. Don't worry about it.

[Roger]

But he doesn't connect. But it's about connection, right? He doesn't like connecting. He doesn't have any friends. I get it. I totally understand the criticisms behind all that, but it worked for me. It worked. It all worked for me. Of, like, it is so campy. It is so out there. The fact that this character is. This character is wearing a mask and his die hard man, and his whole thing is that he. It's hard for him to die, right? Like, it is so. It is so on the nose, but it works for me because of just how simple the story is and also the world they've built here, right, where everybody is so afraid of connection at the very core of their existence, right? Because, like, connection could kill them, right? Like, the idea of connecting, getting too close to somebody, that is what basically broke a lot of these people and their origin stories, right, Was their connection. And then the severing of the connections, and then they all go, mama, you know, with her baby. Right? Like, it's. That is kind of the core of it. So then when you have, like, characters that have insane names, right, it is almost like this layer of protection between, you know, the connection that they want to have deep down, but they also don't want to have because they want to protect themselves. So, yeah, it works for me on that level. But I understand the criticisms of it all, for sure.

[Mike]

Tell me some of your favorite characters, because I know you love Heart Man.

[Roger]

Yeah, Heart Man's my guy, for sure. I mean, I. I could watch an entire movie about Heartman, right? When I think about, like, what the A24 movie is going to be like, I think about some of these characters and, oh, I want a prequel. I don't even want to see. I want a prequel. I don't want an adaptation of the game. I want them to explain or go into some of these characters a little bit more. But, yeah, Heartman, for anyone that doesn't know, is a character whose family is killed in the initial death, stranding in the initial void out. And during that moment, he also dies, or at least his heart stops for a little bit. So he sees his family going on the beach, which is like their version of purgatory, and then he wakes up. He is. He's revived from his heart attack, and he spends the next, you know, years of his life dying every 21 minutes. He dies for three minutes, and he goes on the beach and he tries to search for his family, and he's, like, forever alone. Like, he's. There's no connection to anybody else on his beach. So I thought one. That was such an interesting and unique character idea, right? And, like, the way that they built out his room and everything around him, like, they sold me on the idea that a man could die every 21 minutes for three minutes, and he's figured out his life. Like, he's very efficient. And also just the. The way that. That. How compelling that is. Right? Like, I think that's, like, that. That kind of. That. That was one of the moments that, like, touched me in the feels where, you know, this guy is just trying to search for the only thing that has ever connected him to people, right, Is his family. And he just is forever alone in that sense.

[Mike]

How about Big Cliff?

[Roger]

Big Cliff.

[Mike]

Hero.

[Roger]

War hero. That's Mads Mikkelsen, everybody. That's Mads Mickelson.

[Mike]

He put on a performance.

[Roger]

Yeah, man, that dude delivered. Yeah, it's. That's. That was really cool because I love Mads Mikkelsen. I don't know how familiar you are with his work, but, like, I love Hannibal. He's incredible as Hannibal Lecter in the show. So it was. It was great to see him. And I also. He was also the guy that I would see in all the trailers. I'm like, okay, I know Mads Mikkelsen's in this, but, like, what is his deal, right? And by. By the ending of this, it was very aloof until the very ending when you. When you get that reveal, which I won't spoil necessarily for anybody. We might get to spoilers in a little bit, but I thought that twist was really great. And the. His overacting is also perfect, right? Like, him. Him. They have the flashbacks of him talking to the BB and him being, I'll take you to the moon, bb. I'm gonna take it in the mood. It is so over the top, but it works in context and it brings it home for sure.

[Mike]

Yeah. When that story evolves and you learn more and more, I love every moment of connecting to BB and getting a flashback right now. First we're like, is this BB's memories? Whose memories are this? Because you are seeing it through the eyes of bb. You are in the. The tube and you're going, okay, well, I guess this is the baby. Like, what's going on? And to see it more build out and him and Die Hardman. And then the story with the President, like, oh, man, this is crazy.

[Roger]

I love it. But I also think that that is a little bit of my criticism towards the ending of the game. I think that's where my criticisms of the game kind of like, start to snowball a little bit. Right. I still love this game. I think I would say if I were to give it a score on the kind of funny scale, I would say it's like a 9 out of 10 for sure. Like, it's an amazing video game. But that last kick of the game, I don't know if it was the hot. The hot dogs that we had, the corn dogs. I don't know if what was happening there, but it just. He over explained a lot of situations that I don't think we needed to over explain because it was shown to us many times before, and there was a lot of things that I was just like, could have used a little more time on that one. Right. And that was the Mads Mickelson of it. All. Right. Where we had it, we saw it. We saw it every single time. We would. We would connect to the baby. We would see a cut scene. So I got most of it right. But we just kept on showing the same thing, sort of. And like, there was a moment where they explained, I guess, the BB of it. All, right. They show it. I'm like, oh, I got it. Cool. And then they, like, took a very long time to finally reveal, like, exactly. And tell it to the audience.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And I just feel like those things could be. Could have been conjoined a little bit more and truncated. And then also, of course, with like, the actual ending of the game where people are like, man, the last hour. This game is crazy. I'm like, I. For sure, I agree with you, but I get what he was going for of like, you know, you're running on the beach and there's like this constant, like, you have to. It's. It's a very. You just have to keep on going through the motions because that's what, you know, Sam Porter Bridges is going through in the. On the beach, in the actual world. But as a player, I was like, man, we. We could have just made this a little bit shorter because I wanted to, because, you know, we're at the point now where I want the answers.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And now we're just. We're just stringing us along a little bit more.

[Mike]

Well, here's what we're going to do. It's time to rip the band aid off. Roger, I appreciate you being so good to our audience out there of holding back the spoilers. But of course, as Toby Blue writes in and says go full spoilers. In my opinion, it's a six year old game and most of us have watched through the stream together.

[Roger]

That's true.

[Mike]

So yes, right now we're gonna pop the top on this, Roger. I don't want you to hold back anymore because I know you're doing so well at keeping it all hidden and kind of shadowed off. But like, let's talk it. Take the jacket off, Roger. Let's talk about full spoilers. Let's get weird one with this story, Roger. Because yeah, BB is. It turns out to be a couple of things. Your BB that you see in the memories to is actually Sam Porter Bridges. It's him.

[Roger]

But the BB on your thing is actually a different bb.

[Mike]

It's a different bb.

[Roger]

It's not him.

[Mike]

So you think it's a bb, but it's not your bb, but then it turns out to be your bb.

[Roger]

Yes.

[Mike]

Because it's your baby.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. And it's like, it's crazy story, Raj.

[Roger]

It's a crazy. But yeah, that's. I think that was my just initial criticism of like, man, we're. We're so close. We're so close to like. We explained it, we explained it when we. When you show my sister. Fuck. Why am I forgetting Amelie. Amelie. Fuck. I was going to say Alphabet. Which is the, which is the mama's twin sister, whatever, but it's not her actual name. Whatever. Amelie. When you're with Amelie, right? And she like shows like, they show it. They show like the thing of like, oh, the baby. And like gripping the baby. I'm like, oh, I put two and two together that moment. But then it takes like 20 to 30 minutes later on to then be like fully do it again. But I was like, man, I just wish that we can continue that.

[Mike]

So I already knew about that. Oh, Washy already told me because I a long time ago. This is an old game. And like me and my buddy Washy were talking and Washy was like, wow, this game's crazy, Mike. I was like, watch. You just tell me. Like, I don't know.

[Roger]

I'm never gonna play this.

[Mike]

Just tell me. And so I already knew about Cliff being the father to San Porter Bridges. And there was a moment in our stream yesterday when we got to the finale where you connected the dots, but then you were like, okay, because it took. We didn't get there right. We got, we got right to the doorway where it's like, if you put it together, you would understand. Oh, is Sam Porter Bridges the baby here? And he's his son. But then we kind of pull back and then we don't go full in until later on. And so I got to watch you live in person go, what? Oh, my God, am I. And then like, you had to stop because we just, we went hard left. I totally get what you're talking about there. Because it did take some time to finally go back. Tell us the whole full on story of. Oh, yeah, San Porter Bridges is that baby. And oh, man, that baby died. And then Amelie met him on the beach, gave him the Lion King, threw him back and said, you're a repat.

[Roger]

He's a repat now. Yeah. It's interesting because I understand. I think I'm starting to understand the way that Kojima works and operates. Right. He is somebody that really respects and loves acting. Right. He loves to see his favorite actors act and do their thing and man, they nailed it. They nailed it. They did a great job here. Die Hard, man, is what I get at. Right. So he likes to stay with those moments and spend a lot of time with these actors and make sure that they have those moments. And then everything else kind of falls to the wayside a little bit. Right. Like, he explains it and it's there in the game. I'm sure I would have understood that the. The Timefall wasn't Timefall by the ending of it. Right. If I. If I really, like, listen to it and connected the dots. Right. But it just. It didn't. By the time we ended the game, I was like, oh, wait, what? In the chat's like, oh, no, that's not Timefall. Don't worry about that.

[Mike]

Well, I took that as like, we stopped the death stranding.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So the rain is now safe again.

[Roger]

Yeah. But then it just. It got a little confusing.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Roger]

Where it's funny because it's like this game is very confusing throughout the entire time. But I felt like I was there. I felt like I was. I got it and I understood it. But in the last hour of it kind of exploded everything, but then also built it back, but in a way that I wasn't. I never got to the place that I was before where I felt like I was on it and I was getting it and I was. I was on the same path as Kojima. And then we get to the end, I'm like, shit, I do need that hour long video explaining it all. Which is not a bad thing, right? I mean, a lot of a lot of games that I love do that exact thing.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

But it just. It felt like I want this next experience. I know it won't happen to just be a little bit more tighter when it came to. When it comes to narrative. I know that's never going to happen.

[Mike]

It's going to be crazy.

[Roger]

It's going to more.

[Mike]

Where do we go? Cuz, like, Fragile, right? Yeah, but what's the line?

[Roger]

But I'm not that fragile. She says it differently. Twice. She says, I'm fragile, but I'm not that fragile.

[Mike]

It gets me every time.

[Roger]

Every time.

[Mike]

And that story was crazy with her and Troy Baker, who we'll get to in a minute as Higgs, who is the bad guy of all of this, wanting to push for the death stranding, the big apocalypse, the extinction level event. And it's like, man, Fragile has a story, and at the beginning, she's just eating these space bugs. And you're like, all right, like, what's up with Fragile? She's just teleporting all around, and then she gets the coolest story in the video game. I loved that part.

[Roger]

Yeah. No, I. Her whole thing. I was like, this is corny in the beginning, but then you get to that point, you get that. Yeah. He does a great job of making you care about characters that you will. You would have never thought that you would have cared about just by giving them the most tragic backstory humanly possible. That and Mama, just two extremely tragic backstories that you're going to then love those characters forever because of that.

[Mike]

Man, that Mama's backstory was tough, too.

[Roger]

Insane.

[Mike]

Yeah, that was an insane one.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then she builds. She builds the weapon to cut BTS out from this world, to send them and actually send them fully gone. And it's like, oh, we're gonna. We're gonna cut the baby.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

That's crazy. That's a wild one.

[Roger]

Yeah. It is funny that he. He's like, hey, we gotta kill one Margaret Qualley. But I love Margaret. Quality. So we gotta have another bar. Quality.

[Mike]

We gotta make twin sister.

[Roger]

Yeah. They're gonna become the sim. Don't you. You worry about it. Don't worry about it. But I also did like the way that that story kind of came to a head at the ending. Right. Because we have my mom. Right. The two versions of my mom's sister. Right. We have the one in. In. On the beach, in the sky, we have Amelie, and then we have Beatrice. Right. Which was my real mom Or Bridget. Bridget.

[Mike]

Bridget Bridges.

[Roger]

Uh, Bridget. And then we have, uh, Amelie, uh, up in the sky. Right? And then it's the same thing with, uh, Margaret Qualley's characters, right? We have the one that's living, but then the other one's also in the BT realm technically. But it's also, like, coming back and forth. It's like the ha. And the. Enjoyed that stuff. I felt like that. That kind of came together for me because I first. When we had the two versions of Margaret Qualley, I was like, okay, bro, I know you get. I know you love Margaret quality, but we could.

[Mike]

We could have.

[Roger]

Yeah, exactly. If you kill her off, you don't kill her off. But I appreciated that.

[Mike]

Yeah, that was good. You brought up Die Hardman. I want to kind of go through the list. I want to get to Higgs for sure, because I still have question marks.

[Roger]

Yeah. One of the weakest characters.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Let's talk about him right now.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

He's a badass villain. Awesome look, right? Troy Baker giving a performance, like, really making you feel it. But then, like, he's so little used that it's like, oh, I didn't get to learn much about him.

[Roger]

And that's on purpose, right? Like, I mean, because he is in the sequel, right? Like, they. They show him in the trailers, right? He looks badass. He looks like a tar. Right. Like, not to spoil anything, but you see in the trailers.

[Mike]

Well, I mean, we can spoil that.

[Roger]

Well, yeah, I don't want to spoil for you. I don't know what. You know, whatever.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah. Oh, you mean. Yeah, don't worry. I've seen the trailers.

[Roger]

Okay.

[Mike]

And she also says, like, I couldn't kill her.

[Roger]

Him.

[Mike]

Yeah, exactly what you wanted to kill.

[Roger]

So I'm sure for the next one, he's going to be. He's going to be all up in there. But in terms of the main storyline, they really push him as like, this is like the Big Bad. And of course, it's. It's a swerve, right? It's a swerve because he's not actually the technical Big Bad. It is. It is. Amelie is. Is sort of the Big Bad. I would guess you would say she's the extinction level event, so I understand why. But they built him as this. This huge, big deal. And when you get there, you're like, oh, I guess he's done now. Okay. And they even do, like, the Metal Gear Solid four thing, right? Where you're fighting him and you're punching him, and it's like, am I supposed to feel something right now, because I'm not. And that's like. That is the biggest gameplay thing that I have throughout this entire thing is that the boss fights are not very good. I don't think I've had. I had one really great boss fight that I think back on and say, man, this is the one. Because right before the. I get into the. The Troy Baker stuff and fighting. No, right after that, they throw me into like a mini boss thing that just was just a bullet sponge and took forever and just stopped my progress fully. And I just. I hated it. And I was like, looking at the chat, I was like, am I doing something wrong? And they said, no, this is pretty much what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be just throwing grenades at them and blowing them up.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Took forever. And then we get to like, the actual, like the look of having, you know, Amelie stuck to a bt, this massive Kaiju looking BT that is controlled by Higgs is cool in premise, but it just results in me shooting rocket launchers at them forever. And that was my biggest criticism of. Of metal gear solid 5. When I got halfway through that game, I stopped playing it because it was like, no, now you just got to shoot rocket launchers and blow up a bunch of zombies. I was like, that's not what I'm playing this game for. So I think that's like the dissonance between Kojima's like, baseline design of like, he's making this game, this, this. This open world delivery game. And then up. Now you got to have a big boss fight.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Okay. How do I integrate that? Well, you're just going to shoot a bunch of rockets at people. So it's. I want him to figure out some way to make that a little bit more cohesive. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know if it is non traditional boss fights. But yeah, I mean, in my mind, I'm like, I could have done this entire game without boss fights and been fine for the most part.

[Mike]

Yeah, it was fun as a passenger to watch you. Right? Of like, the first boss fight was exciting because you didn't know what was happening. You had that kind of like screaming yelling of jumping from building to building to get out of the tariff and then also fight back. And we were laughing, having fun, and there was a moment of like, oh, I'm figuring it out and I'm freaking out. And then by the end, when you fought the giant whale, you're like, oh, wow, this is really boring. Like, yeah, this. I'm not even moving on this one. Like the first two boss fights, you were really actively moving, parkouring through this area while fighting. When you fought that final whale, you stayed on the same roof the entire time.

[Roger]

The best boss fights, quote unquote, boss fights were the stuff of the cliff. Right? Because that. That is more. Oh, those were more, I would like say like cerebral like psychology based ones where you're inside of these massive war scenes, right. You go through World War I, World War II, and then Vietnam and then you're just. It's doing the same thing, right? Where you're running around and then he has. He has a bunch of guards that you're just picking up off the floor. You're shooting them and then you just have to get the right cover situation, eat enough bugs and then you're done. But it was fun to explore those areas and I think maybe something like that, but with more exploration or even more cargo based things. Like if I had to deliver things to certain areas in order to get a gun, like that would be interesting, right? Like I. I don't know, like kind of connecting. Connecting the strands, right? Connecting the dots between, hey, this game is all about balancing my weight and getting from point A to point B. And then oh, this boss fight is completely different. When picking up guns and shooting and it's called like it's Call of Duty is. Is interesting. And I think that that is a. That is a big not issue, but something that a design challenge for Kojima to potentially overcome.

[Mike]

Well, it's interesting. We talk about the boss fights, right. But then there's this open world combat that I found really exciting to watch you.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And what I'm excited for is like there's moments where we start going from oh, you just deliver to hey, there are other delivery guys out there that have now kind of gone rogue and want to steal your packages, right. I called the mules and you start to get a couple some weapons, right. You get the lasso gun and you can kind of do that. You get the rubber bullets. The rubber bullets. And it's like there was fun moments of what I think we've seen with blessings preview and others previews. And now heading into Destiny 2 is like there's going to be a moment now where it's like, oh, you can completely avoid that and walk your path and get away. You can stealth through that and maybe slowly take them out or there's some combat here. And you showed that combat in those kind of situations of like I'm just Lassoing guys. But it was fun and exciting to watch.

[Roger]

Yeah, it was way more involved than I thought it was going to be. I thought this was going to be. From what I heard, I. I truly thought there was no way to non lethally take out these people. I thought I had to just blow them up and then run away or something like that. Like, I thought it was completely a no go, but no, you can, you can really take these people down. And that's in the base game because we're playing the Director's Cut. We should say that specifically played on PC, which. So there are some added things, but it doesn't seem like anything too formative. I think there's some like mini areas that we went to like that are indoors that are more stealth based. But the stuff that we were doing most of the time with like the rubber bullets and stuff, that was all, you know, added in the base game. So it was, it was very surprising and it was fun. That was fun stuff. And that reminded me of like a metal gear solid 5. So I'm excited for the next one to see how that expands and how, how stealth can I get with it?

[Mike]

Yeah. An awesome crazy mechs.

[Roger]

Oh, is that what's happening?

[Mike]

I mean, I'm just seeing the trailers, right. Of like seeing them on top of these giant bodies and stuff with like no heads.

[Roger]

I'm so sick because I, I don't remember spaceship. The only thing I remember from the, from the trailers are the kid stuff. You know, Luis, as we'll talk about in a second, just Luis walking around or being a little bit older and then the Troy Baker. Troy Baker running around with the electric guitar. That's all I remember from the trailer.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

So I'm excited to see more of it.

[Mike]

I think the exciting stuff is a lot of people are pointing out in the chat of like there's some cool Higgs AKA Troy Baker lore that you can go learn on some side stuff. A lot of people saying, like when you do the marathon stream, you don't get to spend the time. And so the, the fun part is like, Roger, do you think as the lead up To Death Stranding 2, will you spend a little more time going back to Death Stranding 1? Right. Will you go and spend a night building roads? Will maybe you go do some of the side content to expand the story? Because a lot of people are saying, hey, maybe we missed out on that. Which is understandable.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

When it's like Mike's dying, there's a timer on the stream. I'm Mike's. Y' all just like this or I'll kill you. So that's on me, audience. You gotta remember.

[Roger]

And I totally.

[Mike]

Also a piece of content.

[Roger]

Yeah, yeah, it's a piece of content. And also, like, yeah, I will go back and play some of it. But also, I think my criticism still stands, right? Like, I understand you put more lore in the. The side stuff, which I respect, and I'm sure it's great. But also, if you're. If you're making a main villain of a game or like. Or a semi main villain that I'm supposed to care about and doing the. The big punching thing, where it's like, oh, we're really putting everything into this fight, right? Like, this is a huge deal that me and Higgs have finally met, and I don't really know shit about this guy, and I don't really care about this guy. That stuff needs to be funneled into the main story pretty. Pretty well. Like, I. You can't just leave that to the sides of Bill. Well, you didn't look at the side stuff like, no, the main story needs to be the main story, and it needs to. You need to kind of account for that.

[Mike]

He was a bad guy.

[Roger]

He was a bad guy.

[Mike]

He was dropping nukes, man. Yeah, he had Fragile delivering nukes. He tried to get you to deliver a nuke. You had to whip that thing into the. That was a cool moment. I enjoyed that. When we failed that the first time, like, what the hell am I supposed to do? That was really, like, yeah, that was fun. That was a good man. And so, yeah, I hope that you go back, because I think the coolest part is we got to see the world share their creations with us. And I would have loved to see you spend more time, because I think, yes, the coolest part is when we started building ziplines. Oh, and I love. Just like we talked about, when you watch someone play a game, it's a nightmare because you're thinking of seven other other things.

[Roger]

You did good, though. I will say, I just want. I don't want to cut you off, but I'm saying you did a great. In terms of not backseat driving me.

[Mike]

You did great.

[Roger]

And I do love the moment. I wish I had it. I want to post it one day of just me, just you, to say, why don't you go around this? I said, why don't you just shut the up? I was like, mike, it's. It's noon. I'm hungry. Shut the up. Let me cook it.

[Mike]

It is so Cool. Of like, this game being a true sandbox and it being the walking sim where it. The object is to get from point A to point B, go however you want, right? And there's going to be people like me. It's like, well, Roger, why don't you follow this canyon and then get to, like, the flat land where it's gonna be easy and take a slow walk around that? And you're like, no, no, I'm going up and over this goddamn mountain. I'm gonna cut the time down by half. Believe it. I'm gonna make it another one.

[Roger]

The vehicles.

[Mike]

The vehicles.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Okay, we gotta talk about the vehicles for a second.

[Roger]

You gotta elevate the vehicles. Dude.

[Mike]

Why is that thing banging off of every single rock? Roger.

[Roger]

The end. I can't believe. I can't believe. I love. I love Kojima. You know what I mean? I dapped him up. You know what I mean? Like, it's a great guy. What the fuck? Like, that. That. That's a. That is what the. That is an offense that should have delayed the video game. Like, that is the fact that.

[Mike]

Look at that.

[Roger]

I just banged into the smallest rock humanly possible. And just hard stops.

[Mike]

Unacceptable hard stops.

[Roger]

That is not how you design these things. No, it needs. There needs to be some type of allterrain vehicle. I know there's a truck that we didn't get. Oh, sorry about that one, everybody. But either way, the motorcycle should not be hitting every single rock. Unless someone told me, which I couldn't. I couldn't believe. They're like, hey, you should do a wheelie. I was like, what? And I do a wheelie, and you can just wheelie the entire time, and that avoids every single rock.

[Mike]

Yeah, it was a. That was a weird one of, like, do the wheelie, and you were avoiding, like, 90, but you're also still banging into summers. Like, yeah, look at that.

[Roger]

Just right there.

[Mike]

Never felt good. Never looked good. Quite right with the motorcycle. And that was a disappointment of, like, the vehicles are clearly probably supposed to be used on the road. Right. But when you go off road with them, you're just having the time of your life. And it. It felt so frustrating to watch you bang into things and be like, he's getting no momentum. Like, just help him out. You know what I mean?

[Roger]

Look at me.

[Mike]

I'm just struggling.

[Roger]

Just absolutely struggling in this game. Yeah. So that's a. That's a huge area of improvement for the next one. So I'm excited because it seems like that's. That's the direction they're going for. Yeah, that. That would be very exciting.

[Mike]

The ramp also made me laugh because we got a good one coming in from one of the best friends out there. Did. Did you use the ramps and did you hit any stunt tricks from Jake C. Over there?

[Roger]

I think we hit one and we're like.

[Mike]

We hit. We had three ramps total. One ramp was sick and it actually worked. The other two ramps sent us directly, just dead vertical and then straight down. There was no ramp. I was like, give him about 40ft on that.

[Roger]

Come on, Come on, Kojima, chase.

[Mike]

What a time on that one, Roger. And so, yeah. What are you. What are you excited for? For death stranding to Roger. Because I think of it like, I mean, clearly we're putting all the boxes back on our back. Yeah, I would assume.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Is he still delivering packages and this? And so, like, you got the weight game again.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You're juggling things, vehicles, of course, creating roads and ropes and ladders. Like, what more do you want? What do you want to see refined? What do you want to see expanded on?

[Roger]

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot I want to see expanded on terms of the story. I'm very excited to see this universe get bigger and to see more and more characters into it. Right. Just building upon the baseline that we've created here. We have El Fanning. El Fanning is in it. We have a ton of new actors and people that are going to be added to the death stranding universe. So I'm very excited about that. But, like, in. In terms of, honestly, hype level, like, just getting that out there, this year is a weird one for me because I look around and I see a lot of people saying, man, this year is really great in terms of video games. And it is. It for sure is. There's a lot of great games coming out, but there hasn't been. Like, last year was such a Roger year and like, a very real away from the jump. Like, we had a Yakuza game that we had Infinite wealth, which is incredible. We had Final Fantasy. We had Even just in the beginning of the year, we had a Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. Right. Like, we had like three of like, one of my top 12 games of the year. Right. Right there in January. January, February. And this year, I'm just. I'm just not feeling it. Like, there's not really many things that are really grabbing me, getting me super excited, getting me into that level. And this one is the first time this year where I'm looking forward to a game in the way that, like, I get like, butterflies in my stomach. Like, I'm thinking about, like, oh, my God, like, what an experience. Like Death Training 2 is that level of hype that I came out of nowhere and I'm so deeply excited for. So, yeah, I'm excited for. Just to see how crazy Kojima gets with it. Like, are we going into time loops? Are we going to multiverse shit? Like, are we. How we. I mean, I saw the fucking second trailer where it's like doing some Metal Gear Solid shit. Like, what does that look like? Like, is that how far we ride in that line? Are we actually going to skirt up into potentially making some type of weird, like, multiverse shit? Like, I don't know what he's doing here, but I. I am interested and I'm also interested to see the gameplay improvements. Because, yeah, it's. Of course we have to be going across the. The city. No, we're going somewhere else, which I don't. Whatever. We're going somewhere else. We're going to a different continent. We're going to a different area delivering stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And I'm excited to see one, how they adapt that terrain and then to how they kind of create the baseline at the beginning of it. Right. Are we starting with everything that we ended with that's training? Like, do I get the zipline immediately? Because that's what I want. I just want to start off with everything and I just want to add on, add on, add on. So by the ending of this game, I feel like I'm fucking invincible, doing insane shit. Like that would be a really cool idea is to start off with just, hey, you have baseline, you can build zip lines. You have the PCC2, whatever it's called. You have the motorcycle, you have the car, you have everything. Okay. Now we're gonna get crazy with it. By the ending of it, you're gonna be fucking Iron Man. That would be my perfect world where we just go. Because I don't know if you've ever seen those videos where it's like what 2000 hours in death stranding looks like. And these people are doing insane shit. They're running, they're fucking flying, they're doing insane stuff. So if we can get there and like, for the. For the. For the normal gamer by mid game, like, where you're just doing wild shit and you can kind of focus on like min. Maxing that level of stuff, that would be dope.

[Mike]

All right, Roger. Well, of course, the title of this is our review of Death Stranding in 2025. You have already given it a number. But let's do the fun little review synopsis from you right now. Roger, you played Death Stranding here in 2025 for your first ever time ahead of Death Stranding 2's release in June. What would you grade it?

[Roger]

Yeah, as I said earlier, I would give Death Stranding a nine point. No, I will give Death Stranding a nine out of ten. On the kind of funny scale, I will say that that is a capital A. Amazing game. Capital, Amazing game. I don't. I. I don't know what you're.

[Mike]

You're doing capitals lowercase amazing. You're going with capital A Amazing.

[Roger]

Yeah. Capital A amazing. But not all caps. Amazing. Right.

[Mike]

That. Like that.

[Roger]

I would say it's a 9 out of 10. I definitely see where this game can be improved on and I see the world where Death Stranding 2 can be that 10 out of 10. For me, it definitely has that road to do it. All it just needs is the quality of life. Right? That is all I want. I want more quality of life stuff and I want that story to go absolutely bonkers and for him to kind of streamline the things that we're explaining and not just re. Explain the same thing 10 times. Because that's what it felt like towards the ending. But other than that, I had an incredible experience with it. An incredible time hanging out with you, doing this amazing stream, hanging out with the audience, supporting us for so long, breaking records at kind of funny here and really getting me to experience a game that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise. Right. And Death Training two has the possibility. I mean, we know for sure it has Caroline Polachek in it and she's doing the title song of Death Training on the beach. The song called on the Beach. So we have a contender. Contender. T E N 10 out of 10. I'm excited and I'm hoping for it. I'm hoping for it. I'm hoping for it. I think. What about you? If you were to rate it, if you were to give it a score, I know you didn't play it.

[Mike]

I'm an 8.59. Okay. I think it was a great. To an amazing game. I think it. I think it was another Kojima title that I love and I will think about forever. Just like when me and Barrett did Metal Gear Solid games, I was wowed by what this guy is capable of. As someone who didn't play the Kojima titles back as a kid.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Experiencing them now as an adult who is talking about it. With his friends and experiencing them live and getting awesome tidbits from people who are super informed and, like, experts. And it's like, oh, wow, this guy has got something. And his team is truly incredible. And so, like, I am kind of ride or die freaking gm. I really love all of his work and his team's work. And playing through this with you, Roger, was an experience, right? I really. I love the idea of this game. I can't wait for me to play it, right? I'm excited to go hands on the sticks because I am someone who loves going on a hike. I like scurrying up the side of a mountain. I love creating my own path. And so, yeah, this game really speaks to me. And then on top of that, the weird, wacky storytelling of Kojima always gets me excited because we get to do Lale Lule lore breakdowns, and we just make up the inner parts of the story where people are like, well, that's not true. And then we figure out what's true and what's fun. It's like, awesome stuff that he leads us on this cool little trail. And I loved our experience, Roger. I will definitely cherish it. I will remember it. And I can't wait for two. I'm excited to do it, hopefully all over again with you. I got new shoes.

[Roger]

Oh, shit.

[Mike]

You know, so, like, I will be bouncing off of this treadmill with you right on it.

[Roger]

And I'm excited about this because we have potentially, we might do it again for another marathon. We're still. We're still talking about it, figuring it out, but also, you and I get to react and kind of break down the death stranding two trailers, which I'm excited about.

[Mike]

So, yeah, hopefully that's some future content.

[Roger]

Yeah, exactly. And it seems like he's cooking up another trailer. I see him at one more. I see. I see. I see images of him fucking in premiere Too many.

[Mike]

But, like, that's lit. That's lit.

[Greg]

Like, let's do the one. You do the one big one.

[Roger]

Yeah. The second one was kind of crazy, you know, I mean, what if the third one has the Caroline song? You know? I mean, we got to listen to it. We got to listen to that song one more time.

[Mike]

How amazing is that to think about Carolina getting this opportunity and, like, having your song as the title song. It's like, oh, snap. That's like a James Bond song. I know I've said it a couple of times, Roger, but, like, that is the honor of, like, oh, snap, you're the James Bond. Song that's. Yeah.

[Roger]

I think about the Metal Gear Solid 5 Title Theme A lot. So, like, the fact that she's able to get that level of thing is. Is very exciting. So. Yeah, I'm. I'm excited.

[Mike]

Really? Cool.

[Roger]

I'm excited.

[Mike]

I can't wait to hear the music.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because everybody, we were going crazy for the music in the first one.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The music hit at all times. And every single time, every track through it. Roger.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Hit at the right moment and they were all like, perfect. Everything was really good. Y' all put me on the churches now.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I don't know who that was. Now. Now I'm into that. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, I'm excited to see what he's got up his sleeves because this game needs really good music for what it was. But I don't know what two is going to be. Yeah, it could be over the top action all the time.

[Roger]

Exactly.

[Mike]

I have no idea.

[Roger]

And then also we have a movie coming out too that is actually happening. Happening. Like they're actively casting and. And they have the director and like they're making this happen. This a 24 death straining movie directed by the same director as Quiet Place Day one, or Part one or whatever it was called. And then also he directed the movie Pig with Nicholas Cage, which I adore. So, man, that's gonna actually happen. That's exciting.

[Mike]

Honestly, if you asked me way back when this first dropped, there's no way I thought this was gonna get a sequel. Yeah, there's no way I thought we'd be making a movie as well.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But it's exciting times because after Death Stranding 2, we look forward to OD and then fizz it. Like, we got a lineup here of games coming for this team.

[Roger]

Od. Will it come out?

[Mike]

Oh, he didn't. He didn't say it. You know, let me talk about visit for everybody watching live over on YouTube and on Twitch. We're not done. We're going to end this podcast in this episode of Gamescast with a fun one I love. Roger and I and all of you share the fun of our experience. But the experience wouldn't be the experience without the moments. And there were some moments of ordering food throughout this marathon stream. And I want us to rank the food that we ordered Roger. So to end today's Gamescast episode, we're gonna look back on 60 plus hours, a marathon stream that went from Saturday to Monday morning and also a Wednesday afternoon. We ate a lot of food. I had a lot of meat Sticks.

[Roger]

A lot of meat.

[Mike]

An insane amount of meat.

[Roger]

Ate a lot of nuts. Put a lot of nuts.

[Mike]

Heart rate was through the roof. Yeah. We didn't talk about the heart rate.

[Roger]

Yeah, yeah. A little scary. A little scary.

[Mike]

The best line was, oh, man. This was from Teemu. It's not reading right. Then we put it on you, and it was just perfect.

[Roger]

It's just perfectly normal. It was a perfectly normal heart rate.

[Mike]

And so, Roger, let's look back at what we ate. Yes, we had some snacks. We definitely had a lot of Starbucks. But we also had some fun moments of ordering meals together.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

What did we order? What? Where should we.

[Roger]

So I'm just gonna go for, like, for the dinners. Right. That's easy. Right? Including the one from yesterday. Right. So we had night one. We ordered Chili's. That was our first freak nasty idea. Thank you to the audience for talking us through that one and getting us the triple dipple. Then we got Denny's for the second night.

[Mike]

That was tough.

[Roger]

That was pretty.

[Mike]

That was unfortunate. French toast, was it?

[Roger]

No, no, that's not great. Let's go back a little bit, because.

[Mike]

If you watch that clip.

[Roger]

If you watch that clip, Mike was not happy about that French toast. Then we had Red robin to round that out. That was also tough. That was a tough one. And then yesterday, we bought a bunch of corn dogs from.

[Mike]

Yeah, we had Korean corn for the first ever time. That was tough. So let's work through them. We started with Chili's. We got excited by Chili's. A little. Little, Little duo date to Chili's.

[Roger]

Yeah. That was beautiful.

[Mike]

We got caught up in the app. Caught up in the Triple D. Yeah.

[Roger]

We got. What was it? The. Oh, no, but you got the sliders.

[Mike]

You got two orders of sliders.

[Roger]

Stupid idiot.

[Mike]

Both of them came just butt naked. No. No ketchup. No mustard? No ltos. No, no.

[Roger]

The issue was that the. That they were mostly like any slider, mostly bread. And you got so mad about it. You're like, I don't want to eat this.

[Mike]

Well, it's like you got to put a little something on it. You can't just give me a King's Hawaiian roll and a slice of bad meat in the middle.

[Roger]

I think you specifically said you didn't want on it. And then I told them not to put on it. And then you got mad.

[Mike]

That's why I was butt naked. Then that's why I should have got some ketch. I got those. And what else did I get?

[Roger]

You got the chicken. Oh, you got Mozzarella sticks. You get chicken. No, you got chicken. You got chicken. The hot Nashville chicken tenders or whatever.

[Mike]

Oh, and they were good. Those are smacking sticky.

[Roger]

Those were.

[Mike]

Yeah. I should have gone with the quesadillas.

[Roger]

Yeah, you should. And then we got the egg rolls for me and you. Those are way too spicy for you.

[Mike]

I said, those are too spicy. You said, mike, this is just black pepper.

[Roger]

The whitest man in the world. And then I got the chicken tenders as well. And I think I got mozzarella sticks or something like that, but, yeah, that was good.

[Mike]

So Chili's S tier.

[Roger]

That's number one.

[Mike]

S tier, number one.

[Roger]

I mean. I mean, for. I don't know about S tiers or whatever, but let's just do number one.

[Mike]

All right. Chili is number one right now. Number one right now.

[Roger]

Okay, let's go.

[Mike]

We got to talk about the other ones.

[Roger]

Oh, then those chips.

[Mike]

Chips are unreal. You know, the chips are going to drive chilies.

[Roger]

Absolutely. And then we had Denny's. Oh. So there's. There's four options.

[Mike]

So we made a bad call here. We gave the opportunity to the live audience watching during the marathon stream to vote on what we should have for dinner. And you gave them four options. And they, excuse my language, fucked me. Yeah, they fucked us.

[Roger]

Yeah. Look at them. They fucked you like that.

[Mike]

I mean, these are some moments. Roger, you gotta watch this.

[Roger]

We gotta watch this.

[Mike]

This is my only break. Yeah.

[Roger]

Huh? That's you right there.

[Mike]

This is my only break.

[Roger]

That was.

[Greg]

That was your only break right there.

[Roger]

Like two hours, conveniently.

[Greg]

All the KFA on the couch is cut out.

[Mike]

And so. Denny's.

[Roger]

Denny's.

[Mike]

Were. We think about breakfast. Eggs 24 7.

[Roger]

You know, also, that's when you ordered an extra. No, that was Red Robin. We'll save that.

[Mike]

Yeah. So I went with my classic French toast, sausage links bacon. Okay.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And I told Roger, I said, if this French toast doesn't have syrup, you best believe I'm throwing a temper tantrum. And I'm going to hit you with this Roger message. This poor doordash driver. Please, God, make sure this.

[Roger]

He's going to kill us. Yeah, and there was. There was. Which was great.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And, yeah, so I. It was bad. I got the Slam Witch or whatever the fuck. The Grand Slam witch.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah, that was a bad.

[Greg]

The Grand Slam.

[Roger]

Yeah, the Grand Slam, which had, like. It was like bacon. It had ham, had eggs and a cheese, and it was like, on a sourdough with, like, cinnamon on it. It was fine. It was like a totally. Like a 5 out of 10. 4 out of 10. It was. Whatever this was, it sucked.

[Mike]

This is the Denny's history. Denny's history right now. Well, I mean, we're gonna move.

[Roger]

We have four.

[Mike]

Well, Denny's is two right now, technically. And then we move. We move them.

[Roger]

Okay, it's definitely four, but yes.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

All right. So then Red Robin, we had next.

[Mike]

I. I blacked out. I don't even remember. Oh, we got a big Ass burger.

[Roger]

We got big ass burgers. We got extra fries, and they were the most greasy thing that we've ever had in our lives.

[Mike]

That burger was tough.

[Roger]

It was an issue because I know, because I'm, as a former bigger person, I still have it in me, right? Like, I still only want to do is eat whatever's in front of me. And I destroyed that burger. And you didn't even finish that burger. So that's how I know that we have an issue here, is that when Mike doesn't even finish a burger and I destroy a burger, that's not good.

[Mike]

We got a problem.

[Roger]

We got a problem. And it wasn't. It wasn't like a good destroying. It was not like I was, like, into it. It was a bad burger.

[Mike]

I had a peach milkshake. It was also Anna root beer float. Peach milkshake. Peach rings milkshake.

[Roger]

Yeah. It was awful.

[Greg]

Oh, I thought it was just a peach milkshake.

[Mike]

It's rings. Well, it was a peach. It was a peach milkshake that they put the. The cute candy, gummy peach rings in.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Awful.

[Roger]

Yo, did you know the story about this Barrett?

[Greg]

No.

[Roger]

So we did a thing where on the stream. He said he wanted two milkshakes. He wanted. He wanted a Dr. Pepper Root Beer float, and he wanted a. The peach ring milkshake. And I said, hey, Mike, you can only get one. I'm ordering. You can't get two. And then he said, I'll rock, paper, scissors for. For it right now. And if I win, I get to order, too. And I said, okay. And I beat his ass.

[Mike]

He beat me.

[Roger]

I beat his ass in a way that I already told him exactly how I was gonna beat him.

[Mike]

It's funny because 20 minutes before, we talked about rock, paper, scissors technique.

[Roger]

Yeah, exactly. I was telling him that what I do is I go. I always go. When I go paper, I go paper, I go paper. And then if it's a tie, people freak out. And then they go rock because they want to be strong. And then I stay paper. I always Win. And that's exactly what happens. Happen. So I beat his ass, right? And then as I go to the bathroom, after I order everything, he talks, I come back and I see on the chat. All a bunch of ones and chat. Be cool, Chappie. Cool. And then I. And then I go back in the clips and I find him. Be like, chad, I just put $20. And I ordered the same milkshake to hear. I ordered the second milkshake. So. So the same doordash person picked up probably the easiest lick of their lives. Double it up, bro, because you just. You just spent $20 on one milkshake. That sucked.

[Greg]

Also, I. I heard you were warned about the. The Red Robin pizza and you ordered it anyway.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

So that's also another great part. Yeah, we ordered.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Which Jeff Grubb was defending because.

[Greg]

Yeah, it's Donato's, which I am also. I can also speak to as someone who was born in Ohio. No, absolutely.

[Mike]

That was not.

[Roger]

I could have told you it was the weirdest pizza in the world because it smelled really good. You take a bite out of it, you taste the pepperoni, you're like, oh, this is good pepperoni. And then you start tasting the sauce and the cheese, and you're like. Like, why is there no flavor here?

[Mike]

Why is it so.

[Roger]

Why is there zero flavor?

[Mike]

That's crazy.

[Roger]

We. So that was bad. So that Denny's. I would say Red Robin is better than Denny's because I would have. I ate the entire burger, and I like the fries.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And the pizza was like, not. It was awful. But it was. Also had pepperoni. That was pretty good. So I'll give it a pass there. You know what I mean? Come on. So I'm gonna say that Red Robin is above Denny's, below Chili's.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Roger]

And then, of course, yesterday we had corn dogs.

[Mike]

Oh, this was a bad decision. This was many corn dogs. I haven't had many in my life. And he didn't really know what it was. The idea of elevating the corn dog in such a way where all of a sudden there is French fries mashed up French fries surrounding the outside of this corn dog. We've taken the corn dog and just dipped it in a bunch of Cheeto flakes. Look at me throwing that flakes. Then for some reason, we decided to make a. A half and half where it's. We cut the dog in half. And then on the top half of the corn dog out, it's just cheese because we want to do fried cheese sticks. But who Wants just a cheese stick. So let's do half and half. And it's like, no, it should be the dog surrounded by cheese. That's a true half and half. And they said, no, it's half cheese, half dog. And that. That was a bad idea.

[Roger]

Yeah. And the mozzarella wasn't good.

[Mike]

Right.

[Roger]

And then when you have. When you have these things, right, they're not mozzarella sticks. Right. So they don't have the same textural, like, contrast. Like, they're not as, like, crisp as you would want them to. And then the cheese just sucks. So then it's like, oh, this is like a bad mozzarella stick. And it was $8.

[Mike]

Just take the mott stick. Take the dog. Wrap the mott stick around it. Corn dog.

[Roger]

Yes.

[Mike]

That's all I want.

[Roger]

Shadow tricks or tests. Mike has awful taste, takes bro then.

[Mike]

Says, it's a mott stick and a dog. And I'm describing what it should look like.

[Roger]

Yeah, no question. Yeah, of course.

[Greg]

More importantly, what the. Is this green one?

[Roger]

Yeah, this is the talking one.

[Greg]

It looks like just. It's carved, covered in, like, moss.

[Roger]

Yeah, it didn't taste good either, actually. No, it was the better one.

[Mike]

No, Takis was. Oh, really? I like Takis more than Cheetos, I think. Cheetos wasn't hot, but they had.

[Roger]

We also got Cheetos. Hot Cheetos. Fried Korean chicken. And that was pretty good. It was like. It was like. It was like a general so's chicken, but, like, super fake spicy. So I liked it, but I also hated it because I was like, oh, I'm gonna die if I keep on.

[Mike]

Eating this, because that was too spicy. I didn't like that at all.

[Roger]

Yeah, so I. I actually would put.

[Mike]

This lower than Denny's.

[Roger]

No way.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'd put this lower than Denny's. That's how I feel in my heart of hearts. But I'll put it above Denny's for you. But, like, Denny's at least gave me a cold French toast that I could eat.

[Roger]

I'll give it to you, actually. Yeah. So, okay, our list goes like this. Chili's at number one, red Robin at number two, including the pizzas from Donato's, which he also called Dante's Denny's at number three, and then corn dogs at number four. So that was. That was. Oh. Grub killer says, to be honest, you didn't finish any of that order. We put a dent, bro. Me and Mike were throating dogs. We were in there.

[Mike]

We ate that first dog.

[Roger]

We Were we were the glizzy. We're going by for bite.

[Mike]

We were sharing the wiener.

[Roger]

Oh, dude, we were sharing that wiener. We loved it.

[Mike]

Let's jump in and let's finish today's games cast with some super chats coming from you, the incredible best friend audience out there on YouTube and on Twitch, MJ or M junior monkey writes and says, y' all gotta watch the Death Stranding 2 trailer. Now, since you've experienced the first game, we also have another YouTube membership from Mr. Monkey saying, Watch that Death Stranding 2 trailer. We will. We'll make that a separate piece of content. Sometime between now and Death Stranding 2, me and Roger will sit down and kind of go frame by frame. We should probably do it sooner than later before I forget everything because, you know, got a lot going on.

[Roger]

Figure it out.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah. And of course, we do have a super chat coming in from Ricardo Gonzalez who says, mike, what about those themes of Dead Wife? Oh, dude, Lot of themes in this game. Okay. A lot of themes in this game. And now that we can spoil it, themes. Okay. Thank you. C.J. split side.

[Roger]

They were trying to do the zoom and he's like, I thought he was.

[Mike]

Going to go like, C.J. split side.

[Roger]

Right.

[Mike]

Mike, is that shirt a large or an xl? I'm happy to report this shirt is an xl. Okay. It's got more of the boxier fit, so I think it hides the gut pretty well.

[Roger]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Mike]

Okay. But I, I, I'm not double XL yet.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But the question will be tomorrow when I wear the other T shirts. Oh, you're gonna wear that are not boxy. Will it be? Oh, Mike, you need a double XL on those because this is the new boxy look. All the kids like, I like the boxy look. I don't like the boxy look that much. But also, I'm just looking for a comfortable T shirt.

[Greg]

You don't like the boxy look?

[Mike]

Suck it. In my gut, because my gut's so bad. How do I get so big? It's when somebody.

[Roger]

We learned yesterday that he has a double gut. He has a double bump above his big belly right here.

[Mike]

Feel that? And also, my belly's cold. You feel that right there? No, right there. You see? Like, isn't that crazy? It's like, if I take my T shirt off, there's something protruding out of here. It's like the alien coming out of somebody's belly. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, is something to pop out of stuff like Mike's belly. Be careful. You know that.

[Roger]

And then it's very cold. The top of his. The top. The tip of your belly.

[Mike]

Yes, yes, yes. Very cold.

[Roger]

Brighton. Jace, the drone says congratulations.

[Mike]

Watch out. It's a duma. It could be a tumor. Cal rides in. AKA kebab. Says, Mike, what are your thoughts after yesterday now that you finally completed the epic journey of Luigi's Mansion 3? Ah, great game, Great game. I love that game so much. Thank you, Cal. And then finally, Cameron. Cameron Abbott, AKA Reverend Cam Abbott, writes in and says, Roger never did the deliveries to find out he was your client on multiple occasions. Really great reveal towards the end. Now show me them yams, Mike. So, Roger, you got some fun side.

[Roger]

Content to do if you want to continue.

[Greg]

Followed up with that saying that was about hitting Higgs.

[Roger]

That makes sense.

[Greg]

You'll see Higgs kind of being your client.

[Roger]

Surprised that there's no like new Game plus. I would have loved a new game plus. I hope that's. That's in the sequel.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, that should be plus like jumping. A lot of people are saying it could be a hernia. I don't know what a hernia is. I'll look that up. Fingering it like you got a feeling.

[Roger]

Go to a Dr. N. He's just fingering it. He's just having a good time. I'm freaking it.

[Mike]

Right.

[Roger]

He's freaking it right now.

[Greg]

Do you think there's something. Sorry, just to get. Get away from this kind of conversation with new Game plus. Do you think because of the nature of the like strand, like, do you think that like gets in the way of.

[Mike]

Yeah, but I just.

[Roger]

I just want the zip lines from the beginning.

[Mike]

Right.

[Roger]

I wanted to be able to just start making right for the real. Yeah.

[Mike]

I want to be put back into my world after everything.

[Roger]

Well, you can. You can't continue the game and I.

[Mike]

Just want to run and build and then do some side which is what I will do.

[Roger]

But I wish there was like a full new game plus because I would like to kind of do everything in order and kind of go like that.

[Mike]

Cupcake Bliss writes in right before I was going to end the show and says, how do you guys feel about the scenes between Sam Bridges and Cliff at the end of the game and Die Hardman and Cliff versus Cliff.

[Roger]

Oh, I love that stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah, I thought all of it was very good.

[Roger]

Yeah. The Die Hard man stuff, especially when you think back to. Because they did. They do the. They have the emotional moment and then they kind of like go back to it and, like, explain really why that's so emotional later on, like, right afterwards. So I, I, at first I was confused. Like, this. He's acting really well. Like, this Die Hard man, the, the actor. I forget his name, but he's incredible. But I was like, okay, well, why is he so emotional right now? And then they fully do the reveal. Like, here's exactly why. Like, let me show you that moment again.

[Mike]

I, like, throughout, as Dead man pulls you aside in Heart man, go like, hey, we don't know where this guy stands. He could be evil. And, like, he's. Everybody's always watching because you're connected. And so it's like, let's. Let's keep an eye on this. And then we find out the backstory of, like, oh, no, this guy's just ride or die. And, like, he's lost a lot of people that he cares about, but also, like, he, he's going through some things.

[Roger]

Yeah, no, and I, I think that's kind of like the, the core of the game, which I think is interesting, is, like, there, there, of course Higgs is a bad guy, but he also, I'm sure he has a lot of trauma and everything. We're gonna get into the next game, right? Like, they're like, Amelie is not necessarily a bad, bad person or, like, the bad guy of this game. Right? She is a sort of a redeemable character because that's kind of what her whole mission is.

[Mike]

She's trying to hold off.

[Roger]

Yeah, she's trying to hold off. And she, you know, she's. That is, that is literally her purpose on, on this planet is to blow it up. Right? Yeah, it's kind of like bucking destiny. So, yeah, I was, I was happy that there wasn't like, oh, Die Hard man is the secret villain of the game. Right? Like, that. That was kind of like elevating everything else.

[Mike]

Yeah, I liked, I like Die Hardman and Cliff. I thought that was really cool. And then I loved, I mean, the, the crazy Kojima stuff, the over the top action movie stuff of like, you got five minutes. I did my best to, like, help you. Nobody's listening. Like, you got to get out of here with this baby. And yeah, all of that scene was super dope. I liked Sam Porter Bridges with Cliff. I love that reveal of Roger getting it. But then also, yeah, we have to go sideways for about 15 minutes before we go back to the full reveal. But, like, I mean, all the scenes with Mads is wild, right? Like, every time he connects and he's The BB is so much fun. I love that cupcake. Bliss writes in again one more time says, do you think we'll get more Higgs in stories? Test training too?

[Roger]

I'm excited to break down those trailers and look that deep into that. Let's also shout out to Red Hudson right there.

[Mike]

Let's finish it off. Read it, Roger.

[Roger]

To finish off Mike and Roger Goats, these streams were an absolute blast. Thank you both. Bring back the hashtag yamcam for DS2. We have some exciting ideas to elevate it and really elevate the GAM cam and also elevate you ordering food. Food. Because we're gonna try to eat healthy for the next one. But also if Chili sponsors us, we won't.

[Mike]

Yeah, we're not gonna give a.

[Greg]

Either way, you guys are gonna freak it.

[Roger]

We're gonna freak it out. And that's what. That's what it's all about, bro. Come on.

[Mike]

Kind of funny. Best friends, thank you for joining us on today's Games Cast where we look back on our death stranding experience here in 2025. Roger gave it a score. But most importantly, we got to relive the fun moments with all of you and talk about a game that is just wild and exciting and. And we'll get a sequel next month, so hopefully we'll all be talking about it in June with all of you because this has been kind of funny. Gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you through the fun nerdy news you need to know about into awesome game discussions, reviews, topics, opinion pieces and more. Here. I'm kind of funny. And after this, we have a stream going on. Greg is going to jump into the outer worlds for the big RE review coming up soon with Greg, Stella and Andy. So jump into that, tell Greg what you think about the game, what you should be talking about for the RE review, and thank you for your time and your day. Have a wonderful one. Goodbye, everyone.