CSB373: Never Reheat 2 Year Old Beef
157 min
•May 20, 202611 days agoSummary
Castle Super Beast discusses video game industry pricing, AI hype cycles, and detailed gameplay analysis of indie and AAA titles including Death's Howl, Ace Combat 5, and Resident Evil 9. The hosts explore how console price increases alienate younger players, why AI announcements are poorly timed, and examine nostalgic game design through comparisons with Metal Gear Solid 4.
Insights
- Console price increases (PS5 now $550+) create generational barriers to entry—players who can't afford hardware as children won't become lifelong console customers, undermining long-term platform attachment
- Poorly-timed AI announcements by major publishers (Capcom, Xbox) signal disconnection from market reality; token costs now exceed employee salaries, making AI economically irrational for game development
- Stealth gameplay as filler content dilutes game design; bad stealth sequences are worse than no gameplay at all, as seen in Directive 8020's repetitive avoid-creature objectives
- Spoiler mechanics in narrative games (showing character survival in future scenes) destroy player agency and tension, forcing players to make decisions based on meta-knowledge rather than emotional investment
- Character fantasy fulfillment (playing as dinosaur, piloting mech, flying jet) requires precise movement feel tuning; speed/weight must match the fantasy or immersion breaks entirely
Trends
Console exclusivity strategy collapse: Sony abandoning PC ports for single-player games signals failed attachment-rate theory; players won't buy hardware for delayed ports at full priceScalping economy maturation: Pokemon card anti-scalping measures (quizzes, pack opening, box perforation) indicate scalping has become systemic enough to require retail interventionPlayStation transparency shift: Player count widgets on PS5 will expose underperforming games (Marathon vs Destiny 2), pressuring publishers to justify live-service investmentsFighting game design convergence: Marvel Rivals adopting 3v3 tag mechanics after Street Fighter 6's success shows genre-wide shift toward team-based complexity over 1v1 purityNarrative design debt: Games building unsustainable mystery boxes (Directive 8020's unexplained twists) without planning payoffs; FF14 retroactive retcon success is exception, not ruleAI cost inversion: Generative AI token pricing now exceeds hiring junior developers, making AI tools economically irrational for production workflows despite executive enthusiasmIndie deck-builder saturation: Death's Howl's brutal difficulty and minimal tutorials reflect genre maturation toward hardcore-only design, excluding new players entirely
Topics
Console Pricing Strategy and Hardware AttachmentAI in Game Development EconomicsNarrative Spoiler Mechanics in Story GamesStealth Gameplay as Filler ContentCharacter Fantasy Fulfillment in Game DesignPokemon Card Scalping CountermeasuresPlayStation Player Count TransparencyFighting Game Design Evolution (3v3 Tag Systems)Deck-Builder Game Difficulty TuningNostalgic Level Design (Raccoon City vs Shadow Moses)Live-Service Game Viability MetricsPC Port Strategy for Console ExclusivesGenerative AI Token Cost vs EmploymentRetcon Narrative Design in MMOsRoguelike vs Single-Player Game Progression
Companies
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Announced PS5 price increases and cancellation of PC ports for future single-player games; also introducing player co...
Capcom
Executives publicly excited about generative AI in game development despite poor market timing and token cost economics
Microsoft Xbox
Killed AI gaming initiative and co-pilot for Xbox after brief announcement; signals executive pivot away from AI inve...
The Pokémon Company
Big Camera retail stores implementing anti-scalping measures including quizzes, pack opening requirements, and box pe...
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Published Directive 8020 (Dark Pictures Anthology); criticized for repetitive stealth gameplay and poor narrative str...
Supergiant Games
Developed Hades, referenced as gold standard for deck-builder and roguelike design compared to Death's Howl
Bungie
Marathon live-service game underperforming; Sony downgraded acquisition value by $350M due to poor player retention
Square Enix
Final Fantasy 14 praised for retroactive retcon design and narrative payoffs that justify early mystery-box storytelling
Project Aces (Bandai Namco)
Developed Ace Combat 5; praised for immersive flight fantasy and character-driven narrative with dramatic pacing
Insomniac Games
Spider-Man games referenced as perfect character fantasy fulfillment through web-swinging mechanics
Valve
Steam player count transparency (Steam Spy) contrasted with PlayStation's new transparency initiative
NetherRealm Studios
Mortal Kombat 1 (Invincible Versus) praised for 3v3 tag fighting mechanics and character design
Arrowhead Game Studios
Helldivers 2 referenced as successful live-service model with strong player engagement
People
Woolie Madden
Co-host discussing game design, industry trends, and personal gaming experiences throughout episode
Pat Boivin
Co-host analyzing game mechanics, pricing strategies, and narrative design with Woolie
Matthew Mercer
Noted as having first acting role in Ace Combat 5, sounding like a child in the performance
Sonic Fox
Competed in Red Bull Knockout event using team fight mechanics in Guilty Gear Strive
The Twins (Haru & Atoshi)
Japanese duo who won Red Bull Knockout using freestyle mechanics; first time playing separately
Reggie
Mentioned as attending Anime North panel and collaborating on FF14 stream with Woolie
Hina Bobina
Collaborating with Woolie on FF14 stream; discussed chemist job class ideas
Quotes
"The best mitigation is more damage. Yeah the enemy can't hurt you if they're fucking dead."
Woolie Madden•Death's Howl discussion
"You're given a losing deck and then following it up with the thing the tutorial gives you no wait. There's no tutorial is like the this whole conversation in in fucking isolation"
Pat Boivin•Death's Howl game design critique
"If you don't give a fuck about attachment rates and just want to sell software and make money like that and it'll be fine. But you're actively trying to push people to go get the hardware."
Pat Boivin•PlayStation PC port strategy discussion
"I'm a fucking dinosaur. It's hard to explain it any other way. Just feels like you're an actual dinosaur."
Letter writer (Devil Dinosaur in Marvel Rivals)•Character fantasy fulfillment discussion
"Nobody can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
Woolie Madden•Marketing and spoiler discussion
Full Transcript
Yo yo, hey, well what's up you stuttering man? Oh, oh boy. Oh, you stuttering it up. Oh Hold up a second. Oh, no. I think What's going on you downloading all those horseporns again all of them. Yeah Oh, yeah, you just hit a button and all of a sudden. Okay, it's better. Yeah, I Had a I was trying to mute chrome And it was it was acting up. There we go. We're better. That's it. That's all it takes Yo, what's up with cat shit? It stinks And it's full of the talk. So It is full of the talk. So now I had the talk so a million years ago for sure Probably so you're immune to with the voices then probably the voice well the voice says hug cat Is the voice as like are you immune to the voices or have you just formed your personality? I think I had the voices already. Okay. I think I like maybe it's a little stronger So apologies for the the delay today But uh, I have a 17 year old cat that fell into his poopies And so we needed to take a very scary shower Showering with the cat is terrifying. This is the second time in a month. I've told you about it It's very scary because you have a very angry creature Because because in the shower cat reverts from pet to creature Right doesn't matter how much time on their hands no matter how much time passes. They still hate getting wet yeah, and uh And uh, so you're naked in the shower and you're just like wow. I hope this creature doesn't grab ahold of anything important Man But on the plus side when you have to bathe your elderly cat they smell really nice afterwards There's no like shower booties or anything like that to To cover up the the claws for temporary No, man, you ever you ever try to put clothes on the cat? No, but I can imagine they don't like it. Yeah, they don't like it yeah I get um, I'm just like like, you know, if they if they've got a muzzle and a cone You know and stuff like that then I figure they might have something for exactly the scenario you're describing So they do there's a little there's a little uh, uh plastic things you can put on a cat's claws To cover them up But you have to you have to like literally put a little hat on each individual claw Oh boy, and the cat doesn't like that either. Okay Like a like a Like an outlet plug or like a usb. Yeah a little bit. Yeah, okay Yeah, that's asking way too much for an hour somebody just asked a question. Why am I naked? Do you take showers with covered in shit with all your clothes on? Bro, is that what you do? It's make sure to really rub the poop into your clothes It's just it's we're fast-forwarding the process here and you're just yeah, why why put risk on anything Why not just cut straight to the because then you put the cat in a towel and hand it off to your wife And then you take a real shower right afterwards boy um Okay, well, uh, that's a morning Yeah, man It is that'll wake you up. It is um cool cool uh as far as weeks go I uh, I didn't have A ton a ton a ton going on, but there is uh one thing that I have been playing Uh, and I wanted to talk about it Iceman What the fuck is iceman? That's the you know what that's the best answer That's the best answer in the world. Let's just let's not dig into that at all and just continue. Okay That is the funniest thing you could have possibly said. Okay Oh Oh, is that one of the new drakes? Yeah, oh my god. I don't even know what they're called Oh I don't even know what they're called. That's hilarious. That's really good That's super funny. I like we are so checked out I mean, yeah, I caught all I caught was just the amount of people just laughing at the concept of like it's been two years since the walk And uh, dude, I I'm I so I'm not a wrap aficionado. I dip my toe in now and then right This is like fisher price casio speaking spell beats over like ad libs. Yeah, it's it's the worst shit ever It's unbelievable. All I saw was people just going yo never reheat two year old beef Right, just don't do it. So drink is still talking about the kendrick. Uh, lemar fucking blow out He's still heard over it and he's got that angry scar and he's doing all the Just jaded scorned all the things that show how hurt you are after the lawsuits didn't work out He's still making new music talking about he put out three albums in a day So I think he can get out of the deal with the studio that he sued. Oh my god So all I heard but like I gotta tell you most of it isn't even like his butt hurt feelings. Most of it is Wow, this is trash. Yeah, this is terrible I just saw some people laughing at the fact that one of the songs is called ran to Atlanta You know because it's like that's that's basically when you just he's trying to reclaim The thing that the verse where kendrick was like, yeah, you you basically Appropriated in ran to Atlanta and hooked up with all these other people that were more influential than you and you're like, oh I'm gonna reown that now and it's just it's nuts. It's nuts to still be on it And like I think literally after that like we're all gonna move on super bowl moment Like I don't think kendrick ever mentioned anything pertaining to this ever again He just moved on as did the world. That's crazy um So it's really funny because i'm scrolling through tiktok and Now now once I watch a couple videos now i'm in the i'm in the drake algorithm And I got to see just my favorite sequence of events and this happens for anything right which is drake puts out three albums. He is now all top 40 songs on streaming Legitimately very impressive now granty put out 43 songs. He's a very popular artist. So like that makes sense but yeah all top 40 spots and then I woke up this morning and scrolled once And it's like drake suffers the largest decrease in streaming numbers in spotify history I'm like oh because people listen to the songs And then went i'm never listening to that shit again. Oh my god Oh, yeah, someone just wrote but the future refused to change I don't know if that was meant to be a double entendre or not But that was fucking bars if it was if you understand that what you're actually saying with that that's incredible Oh future did refuse to change. What is Uh, what is going on what I was talking about which deserves way more attention than it sure does this whatever it is reheated beef Is disgusting bro No, this is interesting. I so I played The hardest card game. I think I've ever played in my life Um, and it's it's and that is a War video game card game. I should say okay um There's a game that came out called death howl I don't know if you heard of it I'd have not it is a um, it is a very beautiful uh indy style pixel art walk around and um, you are a spirit who is um Basically like it seems like oh, I got such a preview code for this Yeah, it looks like you're I have heard of it. It looks yeah, I think it's pretty new and um, or at least it's been around for you know a couple months and you are um a spirit of a mother who's seeking Your child who is being taken into the afterlife is basically the intro. Yes, and you're chasing after them I would like to apologize to death howl because I I got sent a preview code And I was like this art looks great and then I loaded it up and it showed a card at the bottom of the screen And I turned it off and uninstalled it and it raced it from my mind. Wow. Okay, so you did take a look for a second All right So I kept going because I was curious based on the visuals and the fact that you know I do enjoy a good deck builder and I do enjoy some You know a turn based and grid based Tactics and as then all the things, you know I mean I enjoy me some sleigh the spire and I enjoy me some Into the breach all these things I've talked about etc so this game is basically doing all of that in one and You walk around and when you get into a fight the it becomes an isometric tactics grid uh, and then you get a deck of cards at the bottom of your the screen and uh, you have to beat the enemies and it is Fucking insane how brutal this thing gets like It's so wild in that it's basically what I can tell what I'm walking into is a game for uh people who are extremely familiar with deck builders extremely comfortable and Looking for a challenge, right? It does feel like this ain't for your first rodeo or your second or third um is um I was just talking to the page about this in the car and I'm like you can't tell people to die anymore because that's like too rude Right and we're past that part of the of the the internet. Um, but the word perish Has taken its spot then perish. Um because parents is non-directed It's like I guess you'll just perish and what I hear from you describing this as somebody who You've played a bunch of card games and if you're describing it as psycho brutal then the game to you is saying perish Yeah, and well like and it's got some it's got some like particular Kryptonite for me, but it's got some for you as well and it's interesting to bring this up in the context of the game design because um what they're going for Is what I I feel like what they're going for is a Actually not oh not the the uh overuse of the term but the actual Souls like You're thrown into a pit and it's insanely hard figure your way out and survive, right? um But the the the way the game works is when you walk into and I you walk into An enemy and then the fight starts and there's like three or four enemies on the board and uh You have like five pips of five action points as you would in say slithers pyre You know and cards have different costs, right? Um, however every step you take on the board costs an action point Unless you have a particular card that moves you for the for the cost of one You want to walk three spaces you're losing three of your five points Okay, and then you only have two points to spend on All your cards which cost anywhere from zero to one to two to three to four Etc and your good cards usually cost two or three in some cases movement also costs movement also costs So your ability to do things in the game is extremely limited. Uh, this is this game is called death howl again Once you manage to fight something uh and take it on whatever you hit Um, you know, you'll do whatever damage Um, let's say low single digits or honestly do you do a couple hits here and there? Um, if you do like four damage to something that's considered holy shit. That's a ton, right? Okay. You have a low numbers Low baby numbers go you have 20 hp total personally Right when they hit you back they hit you for like six Oh When you take poison you get poisoned and you can also get um Uh, uh, uh, like double damage status dropped on you by basic enemies And suddenly that one damage of poison turns into four damage per turn that you're taking Okay um Once you beat the fight You are each time you kill an enemy it gives you a kind of soul the current currency The damage you take doesn't heal You continue moving across the map and you do not heal Uh until you make it through more fights until you get to your bonfire quote-unquote Once you get to your bonfire, uh, you can unlock. It's a fast travel point. You can you can go to but You can uh heal up and turn your soul currency into um Things that add like skills to your character But that same currency is also used to buy new cards This seems a lot. So if you want to heal you cannot make new cards I Okay, but I want Okay, this feels like So souls games and and they're and they're progeny. I guess you would call it um They have like a really simple set of rules which is Hard maybe even unfair encounters with full resets And like the the goal of long-term progression the most mistakes you could make are in that fight Now you're describing that like Polls resources that you may or may not have gotten. Yes just to get your full reset exactly Furthermore most of the time you're working your way over to like let's say a side quest or um a Main path You're gonna fight small group small group big group at the end And the big group with the harder enemies that can do 10 damage to you and basically two shot you You're fighting that at the end of the gauntlet you've done Hoping that your 20 hit points can make it all the way to and take out the big group Right um And then again once you unlock that fast travel point you can go back to them However, if you pick up a side quest item Uh a side quest begins and you can no longer quick teleport or fast travel. You must slowly walk your way through everything Okay, so this is a row right? Yes. No. No. No. It's not it's not a roguelite It's not okay because a jigokuro in the chat was like well I don't understand just lay the spire does this because with camps Where you get to either you know buff or heal up and i'm like yeah, but slay the spire is a roguelite Which you're supposed to die 80 90 of the time. This is like a continuous Like journey right this like a this is like a proper single player game where you go level one level two level three area here area there Yeah, it's it's it's really interesting in how they're going about this and it's nuts Well, why don't you just say game is bad and move on because we're a podcast because that's we're having a conversation And I don't just think game is bad But I I want because there's parts of the difficulty that I admire and like and there's parts of it that I find Insane and ridiculous and by getting into the conversation about it We'll have content and discuss something interesting about that That is this Shiniest fucking sentiment Awesome because video games are interesting to talk about and I think that there's something here worth discussing I'm gonna talk about something that sucks ass in a couple of minutes And I have like an hour in my gut to talk about it because it's interesting so uh Right so you cannot fast travel anymore Once you pick up a side quest card and begin a side quest which puts you on a gauntlet It's crazy, right the challenge has been never been higher and Essentially when you die and you get spit back out to before the fight um Your resources your your corpse run is that your the sole currency that i'm talking about gets dropped on the board And you have to go back and win the fight to get it, right? um, okay All right, that's normal that's that's yeah, so that's there and or if you but while it's on the board uh You have to go pick it up or it's or uh every turn it ticks down until it goes away So that's the lords of the fallen mechanic. Oh, yes, nobody liked it. You're nobody like that Your corpse is slowly deteriorating if you don't get to it fast enough. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the corpse is slowly deteriorating over turns furthermore If an enemy goes on top of the corpse it powers up Yeah, eats it like bloodborne and now the enemy has it and is harder to fight Okay, so all this is established and this is your baseline This is what the difficulty of the game is doing needless to say that you start out and you make a left you make a right and There are Enemies you cannot defeat right right around you in the first starting area, right? Got it and very typical I'm kind of like, okay Come back later is the idea here and you do get a little bit power more powerful You come back later and you're still getting absolutely curb stomped because at no point Does that hp of 20 points ever go higher and things are still hitting you for more? I'm not seeing that level up occur, right? You're just becoming a more perfect player. You are getting more efficient at it and you're you are spending Those sole currency points to buy new cards and those new cards are better But and this is a huge huge thing now all with all this difficulty in place I find it absurd I find it absurd and kind of obscene in places and nuts to be Uh that brutal about things, but there's a lot of games I love that are all about the challenge and if you know the genre and you're walking in going. Yeah, like fuck my shit up fam All of this makes sense, you know What is crazy is that the games the actual path it sets you out on? gives you um 20 cards and You have How do I put this the deck it gives you to start with is a losing deck that cannot win Oh Well, that's thematic but also oh but like if you keep playing and just buying and buying cards and adding it to your deck as well You will not be able to win Because it is too many cards and there's too many bad cards and you will not get your good attack cards often enough To be able to survive so the thing the tutorial gives you there's no tutorial But the thing that it introduces you with is incompatible with succeeding Well, I gotta tell you I gotta tell you You saying You're given a losing deck and then following it up with the thing the tutorial gives you no weight. There's no tutorial is like The this whole conversation in in fucking isolation So that sounds so brutal. So after fucking After like staring at this and going well, hold on What do you actually want from me game? Because I I hit the point of like going this is insane This is insane, etc. All these layers and after a point. I was like wait, hold on What do you actually want here? Right? And so it turns out that like the way to actually play that the game doesn't explain to you Is that you have to start removing cards from your deck? You have to learn to delete the cards from your rotation to get better stuff more frequently You want about 15 cards, which is the minimum and you basically want the minimum amount Almost at all times to even have a shine at surviving And the way that it sets you off down the wrong path is double nefarious In addition to everything I've just said because some of the cards they give you are like block cards Which are you'd think about using them the way slay the spire block work But you but it's worthless Because the block cards give you like one or two points of block in many cases You're getting hit from the numbers way above that so that entire defensive mechanic of like Trying to block the damage you'll never block full incoming damage And you're dedicating five or four of your 20 card deck towards cards that just do this So It gives you mitigate a tiny amount It gives you a failing Mechanic as part of a deck that's too big to begin with and shoves you off and says go and puts all those things in place It's batching. It's the craziest thing. I can't believe it's this difficult and this insane You know, there's something that I learned a while ago There was a phrase that became popular in ff 14 and Ever since I learned it. I've discovered it's actually like True of almost every game I've ever played which is the best mitigation Is more damage. Yeah the enemy can't hurt you if they're fucking dead. Yes And so the way I started succeeding and getting further into the game is by always carrying the minimum amount of cards Making sure that some of those cards exhaust so that I can get an even smaller rotation in the fight And doing yeah, just big number and that's it Um, also you have to I mean goes without saying but you have to position yourself to you have to know what the enemy's attack patterns are And know what all their attacks are and how to position to move around them, etc Yeah, you can't just walk up wing it and hope for the best and The and then and then even then even if you're playing moving properly because like I said moving costs money Costs resources that you then can't play your best cards around You still might get rng'd out. You still might get fucked on with that, you know So it really is like I'm looking at it as like a I I like the parts of this that are well besides the beautiful art style and and the store so far the story and yeah It's very striking very cool. It kind of looks like I wished what nidhog turned into sure sure I can see that. Yep that art style expanding into itself Instead of never making a sequel instead of never making a sequel I I I like the idea of like some of the you know, obviously the not hand-holding Games can be hard and present you with hard challenges that you've got to come and smash your head up against But the idea of like it's not just the undead asylum. It's also like giving you The wrong equipment that's going to make you it's giving you it's making you encumbered It's not just undead asylum. It's undead asylum plus you have heavy shit on which makes you with with bad defense And when you roll you can't roll properly So you but you don't know that you're supposed to take your shit off And it sends you into the fight and you can't move or do anything And you're not blocking any damage really because anytime you hold up that shitty shield All that damage gets taken and you can't you can only fat roll and the game was like Yeah, actually you were supposed to take it all off and play naked Idiot and you know what man the guy who just just got every achievement and slay the spire too and is sick of his thousandth and 20th run of caves of cud here's this description and goes yeah Must be must be you know, uh, but I that's that's kind of the bit is like The stuff where it actively gives you like bad things is where I'm like this is too much. This is madness, you know furthermore I'll just get a side note. Um, there's there's some Controller problems as well like it's if you play with the mouse you're fine But on a controller it doesn't select the ui properly pathic is bad which is really annoying because there'll be a trap You'll have traps on the board sometimes and you'll be like i'm gonna step around this and then it's like nope The auto-pathic says you have to go on it like but I can use the same number of moves to avoid it and it's like nope Right, so the shit that you're just like this is actively annoying Uh and hostile, um There are things you could pick up that are like rings to to to continue the souls analogy here But those rings will be a really good benefit, but the condition is it adds more cards to your deck No, I hate it which then makes the whole thing pointless That condition better be pretty fucking great It wasn't it's not so far the the two three that I've picked up that do that. It's not it's never been worth it. Um Yeah, I I just I'm I'm blown away by as each of these new things get introduced How actively hostile this game can be towards the player And if you are a deck building aficionado if you're fucking living and breathing that world if you are strong you might be able to Run this and parse it and be like I want to suffer hit it in my veins As hard as possible it seems if that you're like from what I can tell I was looking over the steam reviews for the people that fit that mold Like this game is great Like the very the top steam review on this game's page is like Hey, you have to absolutely adore deck builders and grid based strategy games and be good at both You must be a master of both Because you don't have the the resources to move efficiently or if you had like a lot of the time Just playing it straightforward You will be like I will like your thoughts are let me walk up to that thing and hit it And you spend the points to walk up to the thing Then you only have enough points left to swing once and hit it for a little bit of damage and then you can't move to safety So then you just die, you know um Yes, yes, it really it really is and and Uh, and I will say that like it also is a game without perfect information So you don't know where the enemy is going to move in advance So you can't plan around that in a puzzle like one either, you know Um Yeah, yeah, oh and there's other little wrinkles to it that are these are more interesting Quarks of the of the system, but it's it's the world is split into these different areas, but every area has its own Nature deck that is associated to the area and then you have color colorless cards that are that are permanently with you and If you choose to make like cards from the area Then you can get like benefits to playing the same card in its own But it's more expensive if you play it in different areas, you know, so oh that's little fun things like that that are incredibly complicated Yeah, it's a it's a it's a cool idea, but like of course again you you In the hunt for synergies, which is the only way to survive like you you basically have to like Sacrifice a lot of your options, you know um And and what I ended up doing is because I I kept playing and I started started to figure it out And then I'm like, okay cool. I see what's going on here and it does scratch the itch that I have when things are going well But Goddamn it and it does also feel like the start of the game is going to probably be the hardest because as you get better cards Let's let's see how the enemies and and stuff ramp up on you But um, you know, what I kind of ended up doing was like, okay, I had a deck where with the bare minimum um My first attack was cheap and it would push enemies away And then my second attack was ranged and I then I just spent my last points to move out of the way of attacking Or there's certain cards where if you choose to discard them Um on purpose because a lot of your attacks also will say discard two cards in your hand Yeah, so if you have like three attacks, you're not going to get to do three You're going to do one good one and two are going to get discarded, but you can put you can put stuff in your hand where um You get a benefit for discarding. So it'll draw a new card or it'll give you one point of shield or something like that um So there's there is a rhyming reason and rhythm to it here, but it just it of course explains nothing and if you want to go Uh hammer nails into your foot Uh, virtually But you're down. Maybe I do but you might be down for it. You might be down for it. Um, it's it's cool See, I'm glad to Here's here's where I'm at. I'm glad to hammer nails into my foot all day If the hammer and the nails are consistent and don't change shape That's where I'm at, right? I threw myself into the grinder on On mr. Radon for like a full evening Because it was the same thing every time and I could learn to how to handle that hammer, right? But this this run this run You don't have the same weapon and you don't have the same spells And your shit's changing as you go. That's too much. Hope hope the rng's in your favor. Hope rng's I've I've I've been like enter the gungeon like Like 10 times and that shit can get really hard But like your your personal strength can also scale to infinity in a game like that Same with the the enemy forces um You don't seem to be describing a game that can Like fucking scale your own power to infinity Yeah, um Again knowledge adds a good bit and like upgrading your character to certain in certain ways like one upgrade I got after putting a bunch of of those access points in which you might never do if you want to build new cards If you build up enough if you if you build up enough access points and put them into the skill tree Some one of the things is um when you kill an enemy you get one of its moves as a card you can play Oh, that's cool And then that might help you survive the fight if it's got a really good card on its hand like um There's this one owl that basically just like stares at you and does 10 points of damage like if you kill it But you know you get one really good move for one really good turn It's gonna and it's gonna be gone in this turn if you don't have the points for it by the way, you know uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, so death's howl is the name of it and Uh, it's it's it is definitely a master class in This is hard Too insane good mixed with this is hard too insane bad um, and it's it's both it's making me feel both things and I haven't quit it yet But I want to see as I go further in which of the two is gonna Come out on top I might I might stop I might stop I don't know You you're probably gonna stop It's very pretty in the world in which you have highly limited time. Yeah um anyway Hey, would you like my review of the playstation 5 Rogue like shooter sequel to returnals saros saros. Yes returnals. It's a one sentence review. Oh I was on the play. I was playing kingdom hearts and I scrolled down I'm like, should I play saros and I moved my controller one thing to the left and went a hundred dollars Oh my god, all right Oh my god Hold on. Is it a is it the same length as returnal? Yeah Give or take Jesus that's canadian Yeah, plus tax. It's a hundred and four hundred and five dollars with tax. Yep. How long to beat 20 hours? Oh my god Yeah, I had a similar experience someone recommended That new anime racing game that looks super realistic, but they have anime characters Yes, I also was going to look at that. Okay. What was it? I forgot what it's called shifter or something I also forgot what it was called because this exact scenario happened. Yeah, I I yeah this exact scenario also happened Oh, yeah, that new game. That's like a realistic. I'll do a stream of that. Let's take a look. No, I won't $80 Is there a demo? No Why not? How is there not a demo for this $80 racing game? Yeah, um, I was like this is a full that's crazy with no way to Preview see what's going on and then on top of that too Um And this is just me, but like I was like, okay this this thing with the anime characters in it Who made it? What else do they make? I gotta figure out if this is who's a producer on this that's making this game cost as much and it's the folks that make moto gp and When I looked down their list of of previous games, I saw that it was all previous moto gps and other racing games Yeah, and that kind of bummed me out Because I I realized that I don't want a racing game for people that make racing games I want a racing game from someone that made some other shit because then I'm like If you told me you're so right if you told me you made like tetris and now you're making a racer a racing game I'm way more interested in what you have to say about racing Okay, so hey Hey, do you want to buy saros the new playstation exclusive roguelike? Or do you want to play? mugenics and hades That price is madness dude. Oh my god. Yeah I just went and double checked. I went and double checked on steve. It actively paused me in my tracks. I was like, yeah um Like for example though because it was brought it was mentioned It's like this is like a such it's fighting game coded in a racing game And I was like, well, I do remember that other fighting game coded racing game buck up and drive where it's split screen Top gear view like outrun style and you're both driving and spinning at each other On the track trying to hate each other and make each other crash while you're racing and that's it's dopest fucking you have life bars It's great. You know like you're you're you're yeah, you're you're Road rashing but two player and fucking going at it. Um, and that's I want I want ideas like that Coming to the genre from from outside. You know, um Burnout is is is is sick and split second is sick and all these games were very cool Split second. Oh my god. What a great game with only one flaw. Hmm Did you play a lot of split second? Uh, not a ton But I I was watching uh schmup god pat play a bunch of it too because I got about 80 90 of the way through split second and it was like it controlled so well And the the race gimmick was very so awesome And then if you were in front on the last lap of any track The cpu would go twice the rubber band speed of their car To just fly past you in a way that made it unwinnable Yeah, um I all this all this to say ultimately that i'm like i i'm infinitely more interested when when that's who's behind it, you know Um, that pricing is madness. I can't What that's my review my review is me all live on stream going 100 dollars No, thanks wasn't return all so expensive on release it was 60 bucks. Hey, will it you Because i'm sure this is in the news about all the consoles getting more expensive. Um, it's a bad sign When people who stream video games every day Look at the price of your game and go. Yeah, right. No, thanks I mean I again my first thing that's that's dire My the first thing I do is I go like is there a demo and second a return almost 40 bucks apparently Okay, and then second I go like is this a Like a full like nine cad. Wow 59 you 60 bucks. I saw 60 everyone everyone's arguing everyone's arguing about how much the game costs All right, well fight amongst ourselves and the person who survives was correct That's how it works um Anyway, uh, yeah, yeah that that's what what are you doing guys? You know, okay, and then at that point of course reggie was like well you have a demo. It's called an hour and 59 minutes Right, and it's like yeah on steam. Yeah, I guess so I've just on steam Which I just I've never really done that thing. I haven't done the review the the return thing at all, but Really never no, um, but it just is Because because I've picked up games and spent like 90 minutes like fucking with them and be like I can't get this game to run at all Right like I can't get it to fucking boot or this runs so bad that I'm gonna send it back um Like that that's my primary use for for for review like I bought battlefield 5 on release or 6 6 on release And I was excited to play it Couldn't get it to boot For an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah, fuck that. That's crazy and like it costs like 100 bucks. I'm like, I'm not fucking keep Fuck that There's a couple times where I play something and if I'm like I don't get what's going on here. I'm almost like I'm so used to Possibly learning after the fact. Oh, you didn't there's something you're missing that made this all click for example Once this podcast is out someone might get in touch and be like, oh death howl. Here's what you didn't know about it Here's actually there's like this this one little trick death howl hates it And this is what makes the game make sense, you know, uh or something to that effect and at that point you were long past that Two hour mark, but yeah, um In any case that's that's wild on that pricing Um, yeah, and I guess the only other thing I was going to bring up to is um Uh got to try some of that team fight views and I was so I was I had this in my gut and it was like hey So I have seen some opinions. Yeah I would I have not messed with it myself and I would like to know Is this as fucked as I am seeing people talk about so it's going it's it's hard to say But I think that like what we have right now Evidence-wise is just there's the uh, uh the competitive side and then there's the casual side and then there's just the overall What's good for the game, right? One I'll say that like as far as what's good for the game goes. This is a brilliant move It's super smart because it's just you it's the most fun fuse easily by far easily Well, let's let's have the other two parts of the discussion before we decide that it's good for the game. Sure Sure, um It is banned from combo breaker understandably Not because of like what it is, but mainly because If you signed up as a duo or as a single it's too late to change your registration That yeah, that's new character rules And so the mechanics of how to set the tournament up around this thing that wasn't a time there at the time of your registration Which is now locked Don't make sense. So that's super that makes me. Yeah, um What is uh, uh, uh happening is of course, yeah, lots of the top players are as we were talking about last week's talking about how This feels just way too busted feels insane and it'll be too strong and uh, It'll be it'll feel too much like a wacky party thing inside of the game competitively. Are you playing guilty gear is suika here? um and And then there's like, uh casually The the part where it's just it is a really fun thing It is a blast and it makes It encourages people to just team up with anybody and just press buttons just do stuff, you know Um, you have a limited amount of time to do stuff and there's downsides to it But in general if you want to jump on with a friend or do the duo finder And and i've seen a bunch of people that that like are just jumping on duo finder and just and Hitting the comms and playing together with no real game plan. You just you just call in and call in your partner and go nuts um, I think that's I think that's healthy for like Encouraging what the game's philosophy is and getting people to play duos more so plus It's not as It's not like the the insane batchet nonsense of street fight across tecans mode where it literally never stopped Is stupid and the marvel infinite version where it resurrected your dead character was also stupid, right? So this being the seven second limiter on it They you know, we'll have to see like what the um, right amount of time is but it feels like it can be tamed and so sonic fox was saying It can be nuts, but also you can counter play it and so This is kind of overblown because once you kind of understand how to address it and defend against it Everything seems really strong at first until you learn how to play around it um You know i'm not not not to draw it out too long, but like the fact that you have to spend Both your bars on you and your partner's side the fact that um You can defeat them by hitting the partner and knocking them away And that you only have to block one character's mix-ups because the other person is always hitting mid Right, you don't have to worry about overheads or anything like that There's stuff like that where you're like you can fight back, you know um now that's all On paper on paper. Yeah What's your actual experience of using it? Do you use it and people's brains just shut off and go? My actual experience of using it and then fighting against it Uh and then playing the rest of the normal matches is that freestyle is still stronger and harder to fight against I'm actually watching you fight somebody uh with freestyle right now freestyle still seems really freestyle is more insane it is need to Right, there's something about it. It is a so team fight is really strong But it is but freestyle is still crazier and and like the best way I summed it up to talk to reggie about it was like uh When you have those seven seconds begin you have seven seconds of your brain going Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck and you have to really like pay attention and panic and do and deal with the the chaos Yeah freestyle That is happening for the whole match Is there an assist on the screen? Split your attention. Yeah, and then you wait you wait for the cooldown every six seconds And then it'll be it'll be there again And with free with a team fight once they spend the meter they're out of meter So then they can't do it again So you might not even see it, you know the for the rest of that match They also if they spend their meter trying to parry trying to end a combo with a normal super doing a level three All these things that take meter mean they can no longer team fight You know so like it's unlike freestyle, which is always going to be there. You just wait for the cooldown So freestyle is still a better fuse automatically. I'm like I I fear that more and I was able to fight against people Doing team fight stuff and fight back. I was able to kind of deal with a couple folks that were like some people's game plan was Round start back off calling the team fight raw going right like I'm not even going to stop for a second And I was able to like bionic arm those people You know block a little bit get them off and etc and then just kind of handle it and then they're fucked So That's how it felt in execution. Also when me and regi were kind of just trying to figure out how to make it work We were getting some cool synergies going But like it didn't feel like it was better than we were individually, you know, right? So that's that's kind of how I felt about it is that it it feels like very strong But not that but it but it feels like freestyle is better And the best what about at the casual bitch baby level at the casual bitch baby level um Because I assume like because one of the things that 2xk has had a problem with is like they'll have a character like You know Braum and they'll be like braum is fine because he dominates at low levels and it's like Yeah, but he sucks at high levels, right? And vice versa with various fuses and whatnot And it's like because if you have something that it's like at top tier It's totally balanced because there's you can do this you can do this you can do this But it just completely fucking stomps out new players 100% that's also a problem. Yeah, I saw I saw one of the most insane videos was uh to kill sage with braum and timo and braum jumps out pulls the shield up The opponents in the corner and timo just just throws does their bulls just throws poison at them and that's it, right? That was really that was disgusting Uh Yeah, I feel so at the casual level you call in both characters and they both hit you and start wailing on you for like uh about 650 damage And that's like a really good double down combo or You know, um a basic like you they're doing that the amount of damage they're doing when they both touch you Is the same amount as a really good extended combo from You know any of the other fuses so But the difference of course is again here you used two beater from each of your character to do it versus um One bar and your cooldown assist So that's what I think is happening casually Another really good angle for this is I don't know if you heard about it But there was a red bull knockout event that took place I did not hear about this and the the red bull event had duo's doing team fight a bunch. It was a bunch of players Uh Bringing that in and we got to see what high level optimized You know versions of the game right of it looks like and there's some really cool insane shit, right? There's some nuts combos that involve like I think it was like Like ari and timo just kind of like otg spike otg spike And they're just like volleyballing the opponent off the ground for seven seconds You know building up the and then what and what's happening is timo is building up his mushroom You know or his other like Stuff his badges, right? uh but in the end the final match was uh sonic fox and inzem using team fight versus the twins And I don't know if you've heard about the twins, but I have not heard about the twins The twins is the coolest shit in the world. Here's why They're the strongest japanese players They're literally twin brothers playing duos and 2x ko and They basically are like the epitome of Thinking the same with the same brain They're never seen those like those little things where you have like twin five year olds But you separate them by like a door and you say okay guys raise a hand Or stand on one foot or do a dance and like nine times out of ten They'll do the same thing because it's the same it's the same Guts the same like pieces so so the twins And that's the name spelled out T W I N Z Are drift compatible Fighting game players that are crushing it in japan and they're so strong Um, and they won they beat sonic fox and inzem for grand finals And they did so using freestyle you know so That they're still like they're showing the power of that that fuse right? All that's great all that's super fun. It's really hype as well because you know like they're always playing together That's the deal and then at the end of the match Damascus gets up and goes i want more and he pulls out a second first place trophy And he puts it down and he's like Now that grand finals is finished For the real winner you two have to fight each other It's like good old double dragon. Yeah Fucking double dragon rules So they had they're like let's go right you both are you both get your trophy But like want to use the real winner do you accept and they're like let's run it and I don't think they've ever been seen Fighting individually before I don't think they've ever been seen playing The game not together So they had to face each other down and the portrait on the screen which had the two of them together Becomes like a versus you know um And then just to show you how much they understand the bit in the moment They're like okay. We always fight together. We've never been seen alone Juggernaut versus juggernaut of course Perfect amazing. It was so hype. It was so hype. It was a brilliant Fucking way to end things off. Uh fucking kudos, man. France. They they they ran a sick event and Yeah, and and in the end uh the so the twin whose name shows up more is haru, but uh The the other brother won actually it was atoshi who won the set but a really cool like bit and a good gimmick And I don't know that like this is always applicable But for at least this kind of event where duos are encouraged Double-dragging at the end just to fucking run the set and see who gets the real trophy is is hype is how mm-hmm That is kind of like a storybook kind of you like that's how you would write it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm And of course it's first to one. It's all for it's not a real you know A Placement in the bracket or anything it's you could they could decline if they wanted to but of course you like Yo, let's fucking make it hype guys, you know Uh and in the end I too he chose this the trophy that had his brother's Character on it because it's like now fucking I want that one with yasuo Yeah, so that was that was great. Anyway, um That's pretty much it for me, uh just want to remind folks that um this week Gonna be uh heading out to anime north So one Um, yeah, I'm gonna take wednesday. I'm not gonna stream on wednesday I'm gonna take it to just prepare because we have a lot of packing and stuff to figure out logistics and center off Uh in toronto anime north. There's gonna be a woolly versus panel. There's gonna be a versus wolves panel Um, gonna be going down with reggie. Uh, john's gonna be in tow Come hang out. It'll be the 22nd to the 24th. Um this weekend and then As a heads up the week following i'm gonna stick around in toronto There's some family and people to visit over there. So i'm not gonna be streaming All of next week Uh podcast i'm gonna give it a shot based on the setup we have we'll see we'll see what we can do But in terms of the regular stream, uh, that'll be gone and i'll be back to regular streaming as of, uh, june So once the new month starts, we'll i'll be back and then that'll be the plan And because there's only uh, uh, uh, uh that much time left allow me to give you to just remind everyone that We're closing in on just about a week left to go grab your reggie So go hit up the makeshift reggie in the in the lab um campaign And and and get yourself a little reggie because uh, that thing's gonna be gone forever in just over a week from now forever Oh my goodness forever ever Uh All right, uh, what's going on? Oh, yeah, and phoenix right and um, pragmata are gonna continue of course of course What's going on it was kaboose's fourth birthday? Hooray Kaboose you had a birthday good job. Oh Little boozy Little boozy had a birthday He got extra treats on his birthday, but not too many because we got to keep him trimmed So his knees don't explode because he's crippled. This is important. Um And as a result I had a big old 24 hour stream again because man, I actually think those things are fucking blast I had a lot easier time with this 24 hour one that I did the last one. Are you getting the hang of them? Uh, no, I got a better night's sleep beforehand Fair enough So the first one I actually you know when you have like a very important alarm to wake up for and so you're like Oh, it's four I had one of those right this time I that didn't happen And I decided to start at eight o'clock in the morning, which was like half an hour after I got up Instead of two and a half hours after I got up Because that first 24 hour stream between like eight and 10 a.m That's when I started to real like turn into a Fucking bowl of yogurt. Just just Wait, wait, wait, you started right after waking up this time Right after waking up. I got up at 7 35 took a shower and came over to the office. Oh my god. We're different people I I can't my day cannot begin and I got I got right into it too. Like you can go watch the beginning. It's like it's like it's right into it My boot up process is like hours long, man Holy shit, okay I dude I gotta get up with the with the guy every morning and he wants to read books and go to the park And and eat breakfast fair enough Obviously, obviously I am nightparent It will hey, yeah Yeah, see yeah, see I be I became I became morning parent. It just worked out that way anyway So the three games that I've only the most tangential relation to kaboose's birthday because they all featured uh, uh, gross dog creatures in them I played reanimal which is Functionally little nightmares three It's not called little nightmares three. There is a game that is literally called little nightmares three Isn't the font is it the font just the font of little It's it's really like no, no, it's it's not it's it's like block font instead But regardless bandai namco owns the name little nightmares. So when the team wanted to leave bandai namco They had to make their own game and it's called reanimal um It's very good um in in terms of games that are your your Tiny child character in a spooky environment being limbo inside little nightmares one and two and three and reanimal um, this is definitely a confident the second best one Of this of the trilogy quadrilogy. No of all of that whole genre. I would say inside Like takes it away Oh, okay. Okay. Okay inside is okay. Hold on. We're counting We're counting reanimal inside and little nightmares one two three Yeah, okay because like that and limbo limbo. Yeah, right because that's that's that that's like a whole genre in and of itself, right? um It has full co-op which is fun. I didn't use it, but it is fun And it is a really well made A little trip through a bunch of very spooky environments with an extraordinarily confusing story That ends very confusingly Um, but yeah, it's just a bunch of great like puzzle and action scenarios with running and platforming in this very very cool aesthetic um, it's a very easy game to review very good very short Like uh, I picked it up. They all are and um, I I blew through it in four and a half hours um And I don't know about replay value like there's some hidden masks You can find but like well, okay, what i'm thinking of I don't know about little nightmares, but with inside and Um Fuck the other one we just said Um limbo limbo little night. I wouldn't think of replaying either I would think of just like that one run through and then you know the plot is very Simple and cinematic so inside had a couple of things that you could find that would change it Like there was a fundamentally different ending to inside That you could you could find um very early in the game, but um Yeah, no these these are not like these are replayed because I want to do it again Not because there's something different that I might find um But yeah, no, I I I think re-animals great and if you're kind of into that then it's absolutely a game to play It's also getting dlc, which I assume is why the ending is a little flat It's a little It's a little confusing confusing for confusing sake. It's one of those stories that It plays it straight and then you get about halfway through and you realize that they're like a significant proportion of what you're seeing is metaphorical Like directly metaphorical instead of literal Yeah, I'm also remembering the um Uh Little light mirrors three apparently is like not great Compared to the first two. I also heard that and that's why I didn't play it. Yeah No, like my tattoo artist was like super into into them And I remember he was just telling me that like the third one just shits the bed for some reason don't know Oh, there is a secret ending in re-animal interesting Interesting Interesting well, that's cool. I wonder what it gets you Uh, but yeah, no very cool game Uh, no notes. It's it's a really cool little game If you like any of the prior ones that I mentioned you should check it out Uh, then we banged that one out and we gave caboose some treats and we put a little uh party hat on him And me and page wore this pug hat. Yeah Um, which I can't wear because it gives me migraines and page wore it for about 10 minutes And she's like, oh my god, my head is sweating. Oh my god. Is it the wrong size? No, it has none to do it's it's a headband Oh, it's elastic. Okay. It's a it's a furry like headband. Oh, yeah That'll squeeze if I wear that on my head. I'll get migraines and I'm not gonna get migraines Five hours into a 24 hour stream. Yeah Not gonna do it And then page also had to take it off because it was so because the the pug fur Shit on it is so warm that it was causing her head to sweat like that's not good either And then we played the new game of the dark pictures anthology Directive 80 20 So before we even start let's go through the hit list of of the dev team behind until dawn and um Uh, uh fucking uh the dark pictures and after you sue until dawn you say each one reminds me good or bad Until dawn it was great. Good. Everybody loves until dawn Except for that one part man of madan What's that except for that one thing but yeah, yeah, I think until dawn's fantastic. It's great. It's great man Man of madan. Some people think it's good. Some people think it's all right, but it's like on the positive side of things, right? Uh little hope is the worst game they've ever made easy It's it's terrible. It's it's it's offensively bad house of ashes good Good game good game house of ashes The devil and me not a good game Not good. I wouldn't say it's like terrible, but not good The quarry quarry's okay Some people like it. I'm not a big fan Casting of strength frank stone me and page gave up We got halfway through that shit and just quit Okay boring shit, okay. Yeah, I'm that I'm trying to remember there's I remember it's a dead by daylight one There is one of them that you just ripped to fucking shreds. I guess that was the one yeah Oh, yeah, and uh and the other thing is that dead by daylight was supposed to have frank stone be a killer in their upcoming Like, you know roster and they cancelled that because of response to casting frank stone Okay, like fuck that game Uh and now we're here at directive 80 20 and directive 80 20 says hey Do you want a really incompetent remake of the thing? Oh God i'm offended Oh Fuck off I just got here to this thing appreciation club. I just arrived and i'm super mad at that The thing is so incredible because this came out in the 80s or the 70s What it came out a long time ago and you'd watch it today and be like wow This is obviously one of the best movies ever made is literally a perfect film I watched I watched it like fucking whatever a year ago. It is a perfect film end of story move on All right, so i'm gonna go over some real basic things. I'm not gonna spoil anything But we're gonna go over the basics so dark pictures game You know, uh, you can pass the controller back and forth to plays different characters They added a round robin mode now, so you're not locked into different characters. You just pass the controller God, i'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is so unfair because by setting that up now I'm just like okay, so we're thinking about the thing right all right go on talk about this game now like It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah Well, no, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Well, they the game here's the thing The game's advertising is absolutely clear. It's about a monster that can mimic you And and pretend to be you and it could be anything. No, that's the the pro here's the thing is the problem yeah, um So And no, i'm not gonna spoil their casting because some people it's a narrative experience It's a narrative adventure people can go into it as they want and also more importantly I don't have to spoil the game to talk about the problems right so That's your setup. So first of all it is a full-size game It is so the dark pictures anthology have traditionally been three or four hours long And they've been like short little things and they come out relatively often so they do a bunch of different ideas This is a bigger one. It's closer to like until dawn sized and The quarry that is a bad move The the cork hunseet Doesn't last long enough and in fact you feel them stretch it like quite long so the first thing that happens Is the very first thing that happens is you have a canadian guy on the spaceship that is clearly a british or irish person Trying to do a canadian accent and it is the worst shit. I've ever heard in my life It is terrible and in fact most of the acting Is quite bad So bad bad start bad start real bad start performance capture is a huge part of these games. Yeah, um Not good. Um, so You know we go through you know managing the space station Oh, I'm gonna talk to the robot which choice will you make and I'll give you that little thing about oh You've branched the path now so and so is the caring version of themselves. They'll act differently in a later cutscene You know that kind of thing like you would expect from until dawn um the story Is that a big gross alien monster? It's your ship with a big pile of goo on the way to a planet to colonize it And the big pile of goo starts replicating Members of the crew and start being an evil monster. You know like the thing Problems start immediately and I mean immediately The first scene in the game in which you see a monster pretending to be another person It is a hunched over lady with a hoodie over her face to to hide her identity And the only choice available to you playing the game is to push up on the analog stick to go closer to her With your handout going hey Hey, are you okay? Hey In a game about making choices This is one of the most important choices I could possibly make and I didn't want to make this choice This leads to a struggle and a fight but Of weird note is that Right away. This is the first encounter Okay, we've encountered a hostile lady Who the player knows that it's an alien monster that changed Right And it decides to chase our hero around As a human being with a stick Okay, like it doesn't turn into a monster or do anything weird It's like is it moving super fast and doesn't have the ability to kill you with that stuff. Oh, no It can't kill you. Yeah, but it's just walking around. Okay, and here we go and we've we in this section We have discovered how they've decided to make this more of a real video game. That's not very amuggas It's not but it is amuggas. We'll we'll get there in a second and uh, the way that the way that they've decided that Hey, these have recently been they they choose your own adventures, right? your only gameplay is quick time events And exploring an area and choosing um story outcomes, right? Like that's been the narrative structure of nearly all of these games for a while And the people behind the dark pictures anthology and they said, you know what we need to do We're gonna make this more of a video game. We're gonna put gameplay in here And what they have decided to do they have added the gameplay of really bad stealth sequences Okay, as you crouch behind waist high sci-fi cover in a very basic stealth game And uh, oh my god, ronnie sam in the chat calls it sawdust gameplay. Oh my god. That is a great term because it's just there for filler. It's just there for filler And Very very dull stealth gameplay Um, and uh, you know, we do it in the first section and I go well at least we're not going to do that that often Right, okay So we load up and we get a bar or a bunch of characters and then we Establish that there's problems with the ship and they're trying to figure out why That character's acting weird and the player knows that it's because they're an alien You know, it's the so on and so forth This is where we discovered that they're not just cribbing from the thing. They're also cribbing from alien So we have like a one-to-one recreation of dalas going in the vents Uh to seal the alien off Uh stuff like that And it's all like pretty mediocre in terms of like acting and plot When the real problems start happening and I mean big systemic problems Is a couple hours in you get to play as a guy named Cernan He's a turkish guy that me and page incorrectly thought was german So we did a german accent for all of his dialogue in the entire game only to find out After we beat it that he was from turkey. Oops um That's fine. We're throw we've been throwing a german accent on francesca von karma even though her objection is in Unaccented it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's fine. Um, and we play a section of cernan. We get to know cernan and then the game goes 22 hours later and does like a big red thing and like skips forward in time and what we do as cernan Is we do a stealth sequence from the alien pretending to be a member of the crew Which I succeeded and got away Then we flashed back to the present Now knowing that cernan is guaranteed to survive all events until that happens Right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah Which that happens with three characters or they flash forward to show you at the end of the game And then you succeed them And then the game tries to go. Oh no, so-and-so is trapped in the ice lab You should save them and I'm like, I don't have to say they're gonna make it because they're alive in a later scene Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah totally, but they might hate you Yeah, but like it is it is a massive systemic like narrative issue um that like permeates the first like 80 percent of the game that would that would my overactive like Plot brain would fucking Zoom in on that and hate it. Well, we started to make decisions Based on whether or not we knew characters were quote-unquote safe for later, right, right, right, that's Wrong, that's terrible. That's not how you're supposed to play or enjoy a narrative game, right? And like I look back on that and it's like, oh those sections in the early game Have no nothing actiony or exciting going on at all So I am of the opinion That these scenes from later in the game were spliced back into the beginning to help with pacing It sounds like you're describing a game that's like the same length as all the others except they're fucking Dragging that shit. Yeah So this is a minor spoiler, but it is it is the biggest part of the game's problem And it is a fundamental mistake in how it goes It takes The vast majority of the game. I think six out of eight chapters For even one character to suspect that the alien is mimicking people And you know right away, you know within the first interaction that's fucking annoying This means you go through scene after scene after scene after scene Where they're like, why are they acting so strange or how'd these extra people get on the ship? And you're like Cuz yeah, like yeah, so so like Steel man a good old John carpenter or a good old You know Ridley Is gonna take its time before the threat is unveiled Sure, uh, would you say six of eight hours? No And as soon as we have that moment we have Multiple scenes in which characters are split up Right in some kind of action sequence and everyone's suspicious and then they meet back up and nothing Oh, okay If I told you that this is a game based off the thing and the thing monster and it features One Which one do I shoot moment in the entire game? Would you be surprised? Wow, okay So is it just one so is it just mainly like I don't know if the group I'm with Is get no it's not like that at all. It never it comes up once it comes up once And there's there's a bunch of reasons for this There's a bunch of like mechanical reasons for this that I don't think they planned around correctly One of which is that when the alien is imitating somebody About half the time it speaks it has audible distortion like monster distortion on its voice Yeah, okay, so you can't actually blend in with anybody Yeah, you can see them for two seconds. They'll be like just open the door. I'm your friend Why don't and it's like you're it's fooling no one right? It's doing monster Trap and it's like if you're not gonna have them trick the player into who's a doppelganger or not Why are you using doppelganger? But the second one and this is really important that I had characters get injured and lose an eye. I had characters Get injured and have frostbite damage and fire damage and like get scuffed up and bleed and have cuts on their faces We discovered very early that every doppelganger that is presented will be pristine and uninjured This led to a scene in which there was a room full of injured people And them going it could be any of us and I'm like it can't be them them them them or them Because they're hurt because they still have the injuries from the earlier scene right right right And I'm like this is like Like this is the guts of this type of story is it could be anybody and I never thought that Once and what you just described is also applicable in a game like no, I'm not a human But that's the actual gameplay is hey good job. You just noticed this person is not Dirty right they looked really way too clean And page and I'm gonna say 99 of the pet in the chat Had no doubts about anyone even Once in the entire game. It was it was Incredibly obvious who was and who wasn't and what was and like they have some moments where you get split up And there's like a door and you're like open the door I need to get in and there's two of those and one Laughably obvious. It's a monster and then two laughably obvious. It's not the monster Just trivial And And on top of that okay, we eventually get some monsterism Right, we get some thingism And if okay, we're a thing creature it can transform into things it can what's that cool design Well, they're So John Carpenter's the thing only shows you the thing a couple of times because they only had the budget to make a couple of dummies, right? This is a video game where you can make multiple models and squash and stretch them. What if um The thing that can be anything Turns itself into the same enemy model like 40 times Nothing changes and it's like head to toe the same the same monster man, okay And um the like the way that the fucking dog exploded is completely different from the way the head splits open and and that's all Yeah, so we have we have a situation where there's like a big pile of goo on the wall And like the same monster that has been chasing you the whole game just comes out of the wall and it's it's and i'm like it just The you I should be seeing less of these and they should all be unique and they should all be people that i've tried to trick me um And then from a mechanical perspective, um the last hour and a half of the game Is back to back to back to back Stealth sequences against the same monster with every character in the roster And it's bad stealth and in and it's kind of offensive because you get this thing at the top of the screen that goes new objective avoid the creature That's the same as the last objective which was avoid the creature and the objective before that which was Avoid the creature and the objective before that which was avoid the creature and these weren't fun those times either Are you just like is the camera just jumping around as multiple people are escaping a maze or something like Yes Yes Okay, all right, all right, um and Um on top of that they have uh, they have their twist Which most of the game builds up the fact that there's a alien on the ship as the twist even though they show it to you within 10 minutes at the start of the game very strange Then they have their secondary twist which is Okay And then they have their third twist which seems like it'll go somewhere And then they just do absolutely nothing with it at all And it's one of those twists where you your brain just starts to go. Why? but Wait, no that doesn't How okay like and then the game just ends not like sequel hooking or something No, no, okay The big the big twist of the game Doesn't make any sense Like from a from a practical or narrative perspective Like it does like I don't understand how it can exist in the game's own The game's own universe. So we ended the game just going like What? Um waste of time more more than anything waste of a good premise man Um, I'm so curious how these games are written because Okay, it feels like a first draft Is what it feels okay because I'm looking to see like yeah how of the dark pictures Of all the super massive games. Okay until dawn Uh, lary pheasant and graham resnick. Uh, okay. I'm not a lot of the quarry um A couple of the same names are popping back up here for men of mid-end little hope And so on looks like directive 80 20 is the same Writer as No, no, these are new people Yeah, well, I should stop. Um, okay also So the the this game also does not feature any of the dark pictures anthology like curator like in between chapter like Like, you know narrative hook where there's like a you know a spooky guy in a in a in a study doing kripkeeper shit Until I was in the last chapter of the game And in the last chapter of the game you could pick up one of the coins for man of mid-end And your character goes, huh, that's weird. That shouldn't be there And he stands up And the curator which is a british guy in a suit with a bowler hat Is standing behind you a posing And I went what? And then a couple extra scenes throughout the end of the game had the Curator just standing in the background in modern day clothes and a bowler hat a posing And I'm just like what the actual fuck is this and what it is is that? Um, if you when you pick up that item they unlock Something called zero death replay Which is every time your character could die the curator shows up a posing in the background And if you get through the entire game with all characters alive you get the scene with the curator who Gives you like a vague sequel hook But like I swear to god we're on a space station running for monsters And there's like a dude a posing in the background and it looks like shit Okay, and it's meant to be like a narrative like if you see it's meant to be like oh right the dark pictures if you see okay, sure Well, well that answers my question. I was gonna ask like is this actually part of the the the Yeah, no it is and also because they're assholes they they uh, they imply that um 80 20 is a sequel to one of their prior games And uh, you see a little a little Callback and you're like, ah this this fucking week. Okay fucking Um, because that's awesome. Yeah, just don't waste the time So waste of time Um, how long is this anthology? How many are there? Oh, we've done them all so uh in total we're going up on 40 50 hours I guess now. Oh wait. No, but no, I just mean to say like is this the last one or is everything their release This is the last of this season. Okay. Okay Wow Um, I yeah, total waste of time That sucks man because after until dawn it was definitely an exciting idea to think oh, we're gonna make more stories shorter so that they can come out more frequently and If they're all hitting that quality then great. Oh, this is the first of season two. Oh good Oh, yay So that's that's uh, direct of 80 20 um It's bad They should go back to not having gameplay in these games That's a bold statement of me to make um They they No No gameplay better than bad gameplay A million percent um Especially when it it clearly feels out of place and nothing that they've done before this Seems like they would know how to um Yeah, that's it's bad It's not good. Damn. All right. So that was a massive bummer So page came over to do a 10 hour stream As a big old to help me out and uh, we uh, we were like wow, this is shit. Wow. What a bummer But then I moved on to ace combat five. Hey, guess what? Hmm flying planes Fucking cool Is there even a dog? Anywhere yes You're playing as the you're playing as the ace of the war dog squadron. Oh my god. Okay. All right. Got you. Got you um Ace combat just kicks ass. I don't think there's anything like I don't think there's anything specific that I need to talk about How fucking sick was the music? It's fucking incredible. Yeah, okay Done um ace combat five. So I couldn't finish it. I couldn't get far enough into it to finish it. I'm gonna be finishing it. Um, uh, later this week um, and uh ace combat always has Uh, a lot too much sincerity. I think it's matthew mercer's first acting role Um, in which he sounds like a child He sounds like a little boy. It's super weird. It's strange um and um Riko nagase's sister From rid so rich racer model the ridge racer mascot her sister k nagase is a character in the story What the lord? She flies planes wow um Very weird Um ace combat five. Hey, guess what a war happened. We're flying planes. It's very dramatic um Multitude of mission types. It's super awesome I stopped at the perfect moment in that game because it's doing something that I haven't encountered in an ace combat game We have objectively won the war as of mission 18 Oh of 27. Oh Okay And I'm like What? Mm. Keep in the okay Hey Peace reigns. Yeah, okay. Okay. We're doing we're doing flybys of like a of like a of like a soccer stadium As the vp does like a speech to mark the end of the war. Okay. Okay, and I'm like Something's gonna pop off something Doing blue angel stunts Yeah, absolutely Uh, it's probably the belkins again It's it's almost always the belkins. They're such fucking assholes. God damn this unsung war These motherfucking dirty yukes and they call the this fictional country. They they referred it's as yuka to bonnie but your your your um, but your your wingman referred to them as dirty yukes and i'm like Oh that hits I could feel it Ah Koikos and kips Yeah, oh it hits Um But uh, yeah, I'll be getting back to that. Uh as of me that was pretty much the end of my week. Uh, I'm did I do anything else? Oh, I played subnautica too yesterday No, uh, I did a sponsored stream through twitch. Uh played subnautica too Uh, didn't mess around with it too long. Maybe about an hour or so Um, it's an early access so it's not the polished perfect spit shine game that subnautica one is I have lost my thalasophobia. I was about since I played subnautica one I was about to ask you don't you have thalasophobia? I did I so subnautica one made me so anxious. That's why I started the mind goblins video series Yes, because I'm like this is a like this is a weird Extreme reaction to swimming in the ocean in a game. I mean this is absolutely nuts It is not an irrational fear large shadows in bodies of water underneath you should be unnerving Yeah, they should be but yeah, I played a bit of subnautica too. It's cool. It's fun No, that's it It's not done That that's that's my current review of it Um as of this week, I got a lot going on uh today after the podcast I'm going to be doing an ff 14 stream at 7 p.m. Pacific With my new friends hina bobina mint castella ecto and chromo chromo So me and four v tubers are gonna be playing ff 14. I've become brickey. I guess You are you are the meat the meat tuber. I'm the meat man Just me but I got this meat dog. So it works Right, uh, so we're gonna be hanging out and doing a bunch of old stuff and shooting the shit. Um yet, you know I was talking to hina we were chitchatting and had like a stepbrothers moment where I was like, oh, you're my new best friend because we're talking about What classes they should add? In the future to ff 14. She's like, yeah, you know who I really want my who chemist and I'm like, yes I've been saying chemists for literally 10 years. You have the best taste Like period like you are a hundred percent right What's the source on that job? Finally has the tactics. Okay I want a healer that throws potions that smash on the party members face Perfume and it does a little bit of damage because you smashed a bottle on their face But then they get a heal they get the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Like I I want the big heal to be to take a bottle and turn it upside down and just fuck it's right in their fucking face That's like that's what I want Baldur's gate like in legging Baldur's gate through gate three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah Uh, so there's that uh, and then I'm gonna do some more Kingdom Hearts and some more uh ace combat five Alrighty I uh, I accident man So I got to a very tough boss fight in Kingdom Hearts two, which I won't mention the name of it I accidentally speed ran it Um, you know when the the audience is like building you up like oh man, this is gonna be so awesome I beat it in like 30 seconds And Uh, and I was like, oh that was a cool thing and then I looked through the comments and people said that this could not have been More ideal You got the quick time event within five seconds Won it and then you took enough damage to go into your critical limit And then you picked the one move the boss can't handle to do four times in a row and just and I like I I Naturally did the speed run technique. Wow. Okay. Okay interesting Yeah, um I had I had a there's a boss in pragmatic that like it was kind of strange because like it kind of just showed up sat there and died And then it turns out that like I was doing a heat loop over and over on it So fast that it managed to not do any of its cool. Shit sick and it's like, okay Some builds will delete your ability to see the cool thing This is one of those games I am getting A little annoyed At it becoming a staple of my channel to skip the cool part of the fight. Yeah Yeah, this has become like a thing where two three times a year Everybody get excited for the boss fight and I just Fully skip one or even two phases like the fight I'm talking about I skipped both of the second and third phase Yeah, I think I think I wouldn't mind if games did like hard like limitation tricks to make sure that you could have these moments occur um Because like there's things like like damage stuff because the other thing that's really annoying It's like something that happens is you know a dialogue is happening and you're walking and talking and then you interrupt one because the next one triggers Because you walk too far right. Yeah, because you walk too fast super annoying hate that shit, right? Just actively like like make it make it stop Like have have a thing in place that makes it like makes you have able to see that bosses are it's a little bit trickier in the sense that like if it's a game where they They can do one of many things and then you're supposed to hit a threshold and sure but doing what the um the thank you dlc in in uh Expedition 33 does where you're like, okay time for a cutscene to occur now phase two begins Is like, okay, great. Now you're gonna actually get to see it, you know Yeah, so like uh ff 16 had that where you hit like a damage threshold and the boss just went cutscene like immediately like just and um To try and stop this from happening, but if you hit it hard enough You can still Because what you do is you just go from cutscene to cutscene right right right right with the big like um But yeah, but that's it for me this week make sure to check out tonight's show It's gonna be a big collaboration very excited I've already moved my character over to the correct server And I and you know what you know what's great about making new friends that are also vtubers They're showing me a bunch of technology that I didn't know how it worked Like have you heard about uh, what's this called? It's called fugi Fugi is what people use to put everybody's avatars on the side of the screen In your discord call. Oh So that one that so that your audience doesn't have to fucking guess Who's talking if they don't know everybody's name Wait, so like when I'm talking my little discord avatar, I'll go And when but it'll be on stream. It won't be like just hidden away in the discord Okay sure Somebody in the chat says oh, you don't really know about that. I'm old and I don't collab that much with people Give me a break. Well, you're the person I collab the most with everybody knows what your fucking voice sounds like on my show Not much need for what you're describing, but uh, sure. I'll take some fucking blowfish meat I am super worried that I am going to be the oldest man in the world in a couple of hours Because I'm going to be in a group of like everybody in their 20s You and I I have a kid. I'm married Okay, I'm bald So I was gonna say you might be But my impression from the outside is that like okay vtubers traditionally like especially like you're going You know the original like once from japan. Yeah, you're the oldest man in the world. Um, yeah, that's great But english vtubers it feels like there's actually a gamut of older and younger folks Like not there's there's a couple of english vtubers that I've Uh, seen where I'm like, oh, that's somebody that's r.h.r. Actually older there. There's yeah, you know So there's a couple people going for it So maybe don't think that's gonna be I think I'm just gonna be the old person I think I'm just gonna be very old But I'll live For a while anyway No, that's that's what would you would you not want to be that you want to fucking You want to be hip and young and In there with the like I just don't want to be dead That's that's it. I think yes, so here's Well, here's the thing it's all it's always this moment where you go. Oh, remember this and the group goes no Sure, I just it's just the because they go I was five years old and I okay well 9-11 was a big deal Sure, sure, I just you you you seem To me you have been comfortable deciding to be the old man even when you were not old Yeah, you're right. I had practice so yeah old soul. That's what you say sure Yeah, all right Let's take a break. I gotta take a break. I gotta take this dog. Oh, yeah, you know, it's time, huh? brb This dog has a great sense of time. Oh my god. Oh my stop hitting me How do you do Yeah Quick word from our sponsors We love our sponsors. I love our sponsors so much Uh the podcast this week is sponsored by ag1 and uh That is your easy way to get your daily health drink with multivitamins Pre and probiotic superfoods antioxidants all that stuff you need in one scoop I probably need a good amount of those more than I have right now. 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Literally, you know, it's like oh shit your body isn't digesting the worst things for you Well, then you can feel kind of normal for a second, you know, so yeah um Get yourself some food that'll actually Make you feel better as well Not just psychologically, but literally like you wake up not hating yourself because you're like oh, shit My body's not in pain because you're not eating like crap. You're eating good stuff healthy stuff. So yeah, mac factor meals has um ability to you can build around your goals So if you're looking for weight loss overall nutrition more protein if you're looking for glp one support Uh strength and workout recovery whatever the case you need You've got lots of options with with factor. They've got the muscle pro collection, for example And uh, they're very selective, you know, they've got uh 175 plus ingredients banned that are no good and that they don't use No artificial colorators or sweeteners. No high fructose corn syrup. 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Thank you Shopify Thank you Shopify And last but not least this week the podcast is sponsored by invincible versus Hey invincible versus how's it going? That is the brutal tournament quality superhero 3v3 tag fighter That is available now um You can you can get it on uh playstation 5 or on Uh windows or xbox, so be sure to go check it out. Uh, I can I've said it already but That game is is coming along. I'm seeing there's uh people are Getting really good with my my favorite character is Cecil. I think it's super sick that he's in the game and Cecil is apparently keeping up with the god level that's awesome of ultramites and such You know, he's using tech that is the cost of a small island nations gdp To keep up, but he's teleporting and shooting guns and calling down You know, uh, uh the lasers and he's and he's one of the best characters and I love that that shit's really cool um And of course, you know, you've got the uh, uh the 3v3 style That is fast and and you know Heavy tag based from the folks that made killer instinct love that fighting games. So people don't really know what they're doing Yeah, um, I was describing how on my stream, you know max billion came over and Told me he's like hey pick Alan the alien Go into training mode jump and press boost and dash forward and I was like, oh my god You can super dash in any direction while in the air So the movement's really good and fun and flowy. It's it's got some great stuff And if you're a fan of the series as well, um, it's got a ton of the characters from, um, all the seasons and, uh, original new character elemental as well She's like Bending the elements. It's pretty cool Yeah, so be sure to go check that out invincible versus out now on playstation xbox and pc Thank you invincible versus. Thanks invincible versus All right, uh, what's going on in the news? Probably something at least at least one or two things sure Uh, this is something I actually wanted to mention last week. We didn't get around to it in time but kind of just funny, um, so, uh This yeah, jesse cox was talking about this over on geekenders, but There was a store In japan big camera that sells pokemon cards Sure And as you might have heard scalping has become quite rampant It is a problem So yeah to deal with it big camera has decided to Fight the scalping you must agree to three conditions when you buy pokemon cards What are they riddles? Yes, one you must complete a quiz of 15 questions Based on the pokemon universe Oh, only those who answer the quiz corrections questions correctly will be able to purchase the item Second also if you take a photo of the quiz you're refused service Second you must open the pack of cards in front of them Oh my god, this is just safe supply for pokemon cards This is just safe supply for pokemon cards. You must prove that you know What pokemon is Then you must open the pack in front of us And third you must agree to let them Um, they cut along the boxes perforations to open it so that you cannot resell the box As if it were new and unsealed smart Yeah, um scalping has always been a problem But scalping has has never been the problem it is now. I feel like You I feel like if you charted Like the economy in real dollars and inflation alongside things that are being scalped The lines would basically touch yeah as they went up because I would say that there's always been You know, again, you know about the whatever like rise and grind, you know, you got the hustle bro Yeah, you got a hustle looking for that let that leg up But I would say that um the the knowledge of taking all your currency and making it as liquid as possible And moving it into things that have appreciating value has become widespread and common and known Yeah, I know I know a guy who uh put all his money into pokemon cards because it was like a shelf stable asset There you go, right? You know and it's what folks have been doing with paintings for years, but now it's just it's attracting all the the worst attention because instead of a You know paintings with a bunch of assholes in a gallery You've got uh kids getting like Shouldered blocked out of line While you know a fucking dude hits up the vending machine and just buys everything there So what you're supposed to do traditionally is buy the cards off the kids And then resell them at a markup But in today's internet connected world you can now track shipments And correlate all this nonsense to cut the kids out of the deal Like back in the day if you were going to elementary school and some of the high school kids ran by and like I'll pay you 20 bucks for any pokemon cards you have on you right now Be like fuck it. I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna use the 20 bucks to go buy more pokemon cards Right I'll pay you for that charizard sticking out of the spokes of your bike Yeah It's in horrible condition Um, no, of course, of course, but that and that also is just a through line because that's what baseball cards were like as well You know, yeah all the way through But yeah, you basically get to the cut the middleman out level that we're at now rarity as value No intrinsic value all extrinsic market value And I will say that you know from what I can tell with pokemon and like magic the gathering and a lot of these card games um, there's a lot of people that are fans of the thing that also are part of the market and Absolutely, you know, there's an interest in that and that worth growing as they're looking at it as like Oh, I play I like the game But also I want a high value thing because sure that pays off But anyway, all of this is like the same assholes that are buying up every video card and every other fucking scalping situation ps5's, you know back in like in video and the pokemon card company Whoever the fuck they are and all the console companies are seeing oh people are buying up cards as fast as we can print them This is crazy. Why would we ever create a system in which people who actually just want the cards can get them? Because you are cutting the nose off of your future So one of the things that I don't know if it's a news article this week or whatever But every single fucking video game console has increased in price since launch. Yeah not decreased Increased and some class action lawsuit 50 That's so there's a class action lawsuit against Sony for the price hikes. Yeah. Yeah Like Sony was like 150 us dollars, right? And it's like well, we got to save costs on the playstation Well, what are you gonna do when nobody has a playstation? And then doesn't want to buy the next playstation because they'd never had a playstation because the playstation is too expensive Like you want to talk like you want a big picture? When you and me were kids it was the Like default that you had a brother or a sister Right. Yeah two kids three kids sometimes four kids, right? So when mom and dad were like will buy a 200 dolar Nintendo what was that that was actually Like i'll take my brother and i for for example 250 dolar playstation that was actually a 100 dolar 125 dolar playstation for each child Hmm right now a lot of kids are only kids because birthright down and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah And it has no games. Yeah. Well, that's another story. That's a different story from this week. That's a different story. You can't live in a world where console exclusivity becomes less of a thing because there's PC ports, and then also yell it has no games. Because by yelling it has no games, you're demanding that exclusives come back. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to say, though. I think it's really fun to say. You are creating a hostile world where exclusives come back if you fucking keep saying that. No, but for real, like Sony and Nintendo and to a lesser degree, Microsoft, we want lifelong consumers of our products. And it's like, well, you can't get lifelong consumers if you don't allow them to get the foot in the door as children. Right. Like, you know how I bought a fucking GameCube? I bought it with lawnmower money. Right. Right, right. You know how long it would take somebody to buy a fucking PlayStation 5 with lawnmower money? It would take like the entire fucking summer. And maybe more. That world doesn't exist anymore. It's just. Yes, but that's my point. The world that you can't keep pricing these things like that world is still here. I. It's not. The PlayStation 6 should just be a cheaper PlayStation 5. It should be the same box just cheaper. But if it if it can't if it can't wow everybody by looking in like the most realistic whatever blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it doesn't matter how much it wows people. People can't afford to buy it. Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't. It's the same shit every week. Me and Paige will be like driving somewhere and listen to the radio and it's like, no, Gen Z doesn't doesn't go on vacations. Why is that? Do people just want to stay? They don't have any money. Yeah. They don't have any money. It turns out it turns out Nintendo going humble on on the tech for years has the right idea. But they also were not. But they also are not humble on the price. They're never they never been humble on the price. I bought two Nintendo Switch twos on the day of launch. And some people are like, that's stupid. Why do you need that? And like because I'm going to have to replace one one day and it will be cheaper now than it will be later. And I didn't think I was going to be proven so correct so fast like Nintendo does half the equation, but then they don't pass the savings on to the onto the buyer. Basically, they save money on the production and then still put out the price and lock it in and never drop it, you know, so that they can they can get the best of both worlds there. Anyway, I think this is fucking sick. I love the idea of of assholes being in line, trying to think about shit, what does a rare candy do? Fuck. Or getting one of the 15 questions wrong, you know, and then also having to open the pack in front of everybody to prove that you. I think it's great. I think it's fantastic. It would also be kind of hilarious and wild if you were a massive Pokemon fan, but you fucked up one of the most basic questions ever on the thing. It's like winning the lottery in Canada. Oh, the skill testing question. Yeah, yeah, fuck up, bed mass or pet mass, depending where you're at. Oh, good job. You're at two million dollars, dumb bum. That like fuck that being said, there's also potential here for a great bit where the questions are insanely hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what's the good IV for a vaporion? Man, I don't fucking know. Well, goodbye. How many pixels is missing? No made up of. Oh, 40. Yeah, yeah. No bad guy. You have to stop playing so much Pokemon. Did you just answer the question? He said it's defense. That's get out. If you answer that one correctly, they tell you to go home and stop playing Pokemon. You've you've done too much for your own good. You're not allowed to buy this. Yeah, no, you should stop. Trick question. You solved you answered the 15 questions. You're not allowed to buy it. You're not allowed. You're too you're too. It you're too deep. You need to get out of here. You needed to get 10 right in order for this to be allowed. Actually, you answer too many. Get all 15. Some nice men are going to come help you. Anyway, great policy, good bit. Something else that's changing for the first time. There's a widget that's updating on PS5 that's going to start showing player accounts for certain games. Fucking sick. This is awesome. So, I mean, I can just imagine the fucking Steam Spy like the like the FGC numbers are like coming in their pants, dude. Like it's that South Park shot. Just just stand. No, just the fucking not everywhere. I can't really yeah, Randy rather. The level of like you have no because consoles have always been the like, oh, well, the console numbers are high. Well, it's always been the OS that you can use. It's always been the day when consoles and physical sales were like the number one thing. And PD sales results would come out and you'd be like, OK, these are this is like a ballpark figure of whatever. But at the bottom was a little asterisk that always said the same thing, which was not including Walmart. Which was the biggest retail United States. So you'd be like, well, I don't actually know what these things are. And that's what we have on Steam with Steam Spy and all that. Because yeah, you get the Steam numbers, but consoles, particularly the PlayStation, do bigger numbers overall on a huge number of games. So missing that is like missing half or more of the pie. But now we have Steam and PlayStation numbers. You're going to know you are going to know if a game is doing well or not. Huge caveat, though. Huge caveat. Because yeah, because Twitch Stream numbers is also something people use as a metric. Right. You look at the 2xco stream numbers and you're like, oh, I hope the game lives out the year. Well, the other one is people use signups at tournaments to see where things are at. How many people are entering the bracket? But the huge caveat is it's not every single game and it's not every single count. Because obviously they know that they don't want to discourage anybody from playing something that is not popular. So it's going to show you either the top ten and, you know, how many people in the top ten in your region. Or it's going to show you the trending ones where a smaller game that recently got an update of some kind, which led to like a lot of people playing it again. It'll show you the tick up in percentage. Right. So people returning to an older game. So you can just expect the Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty and a couple of games to be up there. Everything multiplayer. Like everything multiplayer is just going to dominate that whole time. But so now we're back to the old metric of, hey, brand new game supposed to be hot. They say it sold a lot. Why didn't it break into the top ten for even a day? Right. So Marathon is a lot better than I thought it would be. And the people who play Marathon are having a really great time. Marathon's numbers are bad. They're not good. Sony put out some statement a little while ago where they like downgraded the first God, it was such fucking financial nonsense. They downgraded the value of the acquisition of Bungie in confidence by like $350 million. But like the long and short of it is the marathon is not I keep forming the way they want it. I keep forgetting is Marathon paid and Ark is free. Marathon and Ark are paid. Both are paid. OK, OK. Yes. I think Marathon numbers dipped below Destiny 2 numbers at some point over the past couple of weeks, which is really bad because they gave up on Destiny 2. Like that's in maintenance mode. Wolf. OK. Unfortunately, when you make a violent cutthroat game for sickos, it tends to, you know, concentrate on the dankest sickos. Yeah. And I know and I see folks going like, I want the real numbers. It's like, you're never going to get the real numbers because that can get the real number for Grand Theft Auto. But, you know, but like the company giving up the real numbers is giving up their like critical to critical market information, you know, like hiding what is not successful and inflating what is is a big part of this thing. You know, I tell you, like sometimes, sometimes you get that experience on Twitch and you're like, I'm the world's number one streamer at this game because it's never been fucking streamed on this platform. You are once again speaking to the Gorotair God. That's right. I am the Gorotair God. He is the Gorotair God. There is no other. He's just him. Lest we forget. I kind of forgot for a second. But as soon as you started to do this, the fucking Gorotair. Gorotia. Yeah, I think I think. Yeah, I get the move. It's the kind of hype people up for, you know, stuff that's trending and whatever, whatever the case is. But you are really all I can think is just you are empowering those fucking number gooners. And you know what, man? You know what they can do? They can do something great where they're like, hey, ghost of. Kansai or the fuck, you know, the next one that they'll probably do. Look, these numbers are so crazy. They're so much bigger than than Yote and Tsushima's. And it's like, well, a lot of people like me didn't buy Yote because they were waiting for a PC release. And there isn't going to be a PC release. I'm going to. Still not buy Yote. So PlayStation CEO says single player Sony games will no longer be coming to PC going forward. I have to say this was obviously going to happen because of the way they put it out. They would they they want when they put out there. Like they publicly put out like their business strategy for going to the PC market and you and me heard it and heard it on the podcast and immediately were like, wow, that is obviously not going to work at all. Well, as their idea is as speculous. You go ahead, sorry. The their idea was that six months to a year or two, 18 months after God of War came out, they would put the game out for full price on PC and then you would play God of War on PC and you go, wow, I'm crazy about God of War. And then Ragnarok would come out on PlayStation and you go, well, I got a help on that right the fuck now because I'm crazy about God of War. I'm going to go buy PlayStation five. That is no one. If we lived in 1998 and PlayStation's cost two hundred fucking dollars. Yeah. You know what? Maybe. I don't know, but we don't. You know, I just watched the latest Super Best Freds video on YouTube and I'm so crazy about them. I got to go get the latest one on vessel. I got to get in there early. That is a deep hole. Also, I'm pretty sure those vessel videos are gone. Some of them are. I'm pretty sure that those no longer. Some of them are gone forever. I'm telling you, dude, it's it's like, you know how much competition I have? I have a PlayStation over here. So I was waiting for Ghosts of Yote to come out, for example. And I'm like, man, I really love Sushima. I would love to play Yote, but I keep my one PlayStation over here at the office. Yeah, I think I think that the consensus we kind of secretly came to was, wow, that's a terrible idea. Nobody tell them. Just let them go. Nobody tell them. Yeah, just oh, no, no, no, no, totally. Yeah, we're going to be so hyped to go get that latest sequel on the on the on console after we pick up the PC version. Totally for sure. And then and then they go, hey, yeah, I don't I don't get it. The PC numbers for these games that we release at full price a year and a half later. Aren't doing what we think they should be doing. I don't get it. I get it. You're releasing them for full price a year and a half later. That's it. Yeah, I think I think that, you know, it's pretty it's pretty clear. They're like, OK, we're not going to be doing this shit anymore. But if they ramped up and kept doing this, they'd run into the same problem that Xbox basically runs into, right, where you every everyone looking at it goes, well, why do I need that particular box? And then Microsoft themselves says, well, you don't because see this right here. That's an Xbox sees it. It like covers my water like congrats. Congratulations. You spent a lot of time and a lot of money making people expect games on a console that you didn't have a chance to you didn't feel like supporting for the long term. And now there is a bunch of go to Sashima and God of War fans that are just like darn like that's that's the level of emotion here. Well, all darn. Ultimately, it's a bummer because I think it's cool to have more shit ported elsewhere, but their reasoning was always this dumbest. It was always insane. If they wanted to do it, they should have done a day and eight. And then they would have made a bunch of money. But now that they're not going to do it, I'm just not going to buy some of those games because I have to. Yeah, like, like if you if you don't like remember the word attachment rates, right? I do. If you don't give a fuck about that and just want that to be like nothing, then you go, yeah, we'll sell software and make money like that and it'll be fine. Right. But you're because you're actively trying to push people to go get the hardware. I I. I imagine, you know what? If you take goes on a steam sale like discount on the PlayStation five at some point during a holiday and by that, I mean 50 percent off or more. Yeah, maybe I'll pick it up. So that's that's what I did versus she didn't buy it on release there either. So the banner of this of this article is a picture of Wolverine, right? And I'm wondering what how that's going to affect things, you know, especially if it's like this is not a sequel to something coming out like Horizon or or it's a sequel to Spider-Man 2. OK, but it's a brand, but it's a new it's a new IP starting out, you know. Anyway, yeah. So there it goes. You know, it's really funny because they said it's only the single player games because the multiplayer games actually do benefit massively for being on multiple platforms day and day, if they're cross play, their populations up. And that keeps them viable as sailed products for longer. Yeah. No, so that's that it's specifically single player. That's specified. Yeah. Now, remember the New Horizon game is coming out on PC and phones only. Correct. Anyway, beyond that. Yeah, we talked about the hikes, etc. I mean, you know, Marvel related somewhat, but there was an interview where they were talking about Tocon and it was originally actually planned to be a one view one fighter. And the and they saw the success to XK is having and they're like, yeah, the director said originally they planned for it to be a one view one. And they're kind of like, yeah, this is pretty, pretty standard. Like it'd be a normal fine fighting game. But they felt that it didn't capture. It didn't encapsulate what the word Marvelness should mean. That's interesting. Yeah. That's very interesting. And then when they said we could do two of you two or three of you three, they're like, yeah, but that's already that's that's already been done. That's kind of standard. What if we tried some crazy shit? So specifically the word Marvelness. I like that inspired that. I like that a lot. And pretty random, but cool. I will point out when I see it, they the the the when Ingrid drops on May 28th in Street Fighter Six. They're also then Street Fighter is once again back to the basement. They're adding two modes, one called random avatar match and avatar arcade. And these are both things that should have been there from the jump. But it is kind of my understanding when I saw the trailer for it. I was like, that it's actually really weird that it took like multiple years to get to this. Yeah, because people played the Avatar battle stuff and they still do. And it's it's a goofy side fund mode that's there for freaks. But you still have to go grind out World Tour to get your character maxed out and then to get all the moves and to get all that shit and to further more to get the costumes for your secondary characters, all this stuff. People don't want to do the grinding out. So this is just, hey, also, when you go down to the random battlehub, you have to fight whatever, you know, toxic asshole is sitting there queuing up. This is a just a rank not ranked, but this is an online random match that you queue up against with other people. And everyone's at the same level. They all have maxed out skills, maxed out stats. You can go build a character out of the same ingredients and everyone can just start playing and fight against other people randomly and multiplayer. And then second, there's Avatar Arcade mode where you can go fight against some of the story NPCs and other avatar other World Tour characters just in a straight arcade run. And you can fight against the real main cast as many times as you want to get. Yeah, and you can unlock their cost to unlock their costumes and their points and stuff for you. Yeah, cool. So it's just a fun secondary way to go get all that done instead of grinding through World Tour and playing against other. It's a way to distract you from the lack of value with the new character coming out or from the lack of costumes coming to the main fighting ground, you know, it's like new costumes. It's crazy. It's crazy how long it takes. And like whatever, since the logic of that has been explained, I understand. But it still is just like a poor decision. I don't care. Yeah, like, you know, at a certain point, I'm like, I don't care. Yeah, we only have the what you should have allocated your resources differently. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I will not listen to the reasonable explanation of why it takes so long for these costumes when I can see you guys selling like an $80 term teenage mutant Ninja Turtles like Avatar collab on the fucking storefront. It just think again, they got a separate studio entirely, just putting stuff out there with a great output. But they're not working on the part of the game that people want updates coming to. So. Yeah. OK. I mean, there was another. There's like whatever. There's an article Capcom execs excited about Gen AI, meanwhile, shocker, meanwhile, creatives are a uniquely poor time to announce this as the new limits on AI mean in most cases, using your tokens is more expensive than paying an employee. Oh, has that happened? We we have we talk. I briefly mentioned it a few weeks to you that Claude did something to their tokens because they were running out of money. And so people were like, I blew through every token I have on 930 on a Monday morning. What am I supposed to do? And the answer is you're supposed to spend thousands of dollars on your tokens so you can pay more for this piece of shit than an employee that would actually know what they're doing. So Capcom. Very behind the times. The time to have announced this to get people excited and shareholders would have been like three years ago. Yeah, not now during the pop of the bubble. Well, it's so this just I saw this article pop up and looking at it. It feels like like essentially after the folks that made the games because they we know that the artists and the people working on the teams are actively like fuck this shit. After that resident evil nine Yassification fiasco, it feels almost like, OK, you click on this to hear that. In the meanwhile, up on the in the C suite at the investor meeting and the earnings reports, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, guys, don't worry. It's still all about it. We're not we're not losing sight. Right. Never mind what what the what the artists and creatives actually have to say. It's it's so. Man. So like, for example, we didn't even cover it, but Xbox has said that they're going to they they're killing co-pilot for for Xbox and that they have also killed their AI and gaming initiative, which is nuts because the lady running Xbox now is an AI person that came from the AI division. And was like, we're going to do it. And like we're like two months later and they're like, no, fuck it, kill it. Wild that Capcom was like, you know what we should do? We should put shit in our mouth right now. And you're seeing, well, look, it's like, again, these are the execs and all the folk folks on this stuff is they're getting emboldened by things because, like, one of the things that popped up was a study the other day of, like, how many gamers actually care about AI and their games or go to or whatever. And there's a whole lot of people that don't care actively or undecided. Of course. Right. There's a lot of people that don't know, don't give a fuck and are neutral on it. And it's like as as the as that as the you add time to this axis now, as we add the Z axis of time and people start losing their jobs more, do you suppose that they might start caring a little bit more? Or I don't know. Over time, you are more likely to have to interact with a part of your computer or a computer or your phone that uses the AI in a way that you're just constantly frustrated by. That's like, so for example, like, you know, co-pilot keeps wanting to reinstall itself on every computer that Windows uses, even though Windows themselves actually remarked that less than 3 percent of people click that button on purpose. Oh, yeah, you accidentally clicking on the little fucking star thing. Yeah. The the icon has now been established, the little, the little star thing in multiple all the stats that you see about to keep people care about AI or people use AI. They're all legitimately like untrustworthy because Google says we have eight billion searches a day because we mandated with every Google search or they'll go, hey, gamers, do you like AI in your video games? Full stop. No distinction between generative AI or the CPU difficulty. Characters doing things. Yeah, yeah, sure. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's again, the equivalent of going to fucking Fextra Life and having one of their streams load up. And it's like, hey, you love the Twitch stream, Fextra Life. Did you know how much you watched that? I remember, I remember streaming Dark Souls like some mornings, like way back. And I had like a pretty good amount of people in there. And I'm like, I think I might be the top Dark Souls three streamer right now, like at this time of the day. And then I'd like look at the category and it'd be like Fextra Life, like forty four thousand fucking people. And I'm like, how? By fucking how? By life. And then I found out, oh, it's playing on every single fucking page. By the entire Wiki network. You open up a Wiki and it starts running that shit. And there's nothing you can do by just lying is how, you know, real numbers, guys, real numbers. Anyway, I fucking I feel like I'm almost actively avoiding some of it. Anyway, it's it's just Fextra Life has actually gotten super like it used to be something that I would use occasionally. And then like over time, it just became like the most unusable piece of shit. Oh, yeah. I mean, opening that up or a fandom site on your phone. You want you want to feel that shit just start fucking. You want to feel your phone turn into a fireball in like seconds? Anyway, um, let's take some letters. Hey, if you want to send in a letter, send it to Castle Super Beast Mail at gmail.com, that's Castle Super Beast Mail at gmail.com. Please send in only good letters. If you're writing a letter and you're like, this is a bad letter, fuck it, I'm going to send it anyway. Don't. Decide to make it good instead. OK. I was about to hear. OK, something just popped up and you know what? I got. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's let's get I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. Where is this going? Where do you got? I got I got baited by Hello, Mighty, number nine backers one and two. Oh, I got to check my email. I backed that crap. You've both gone on to state how there are a number of questions that shouldn't be answered. So how about the opposite? Have you ever experienced a moment in fiction where you got an answer to a question you wanted and you liked it? Also, I'll take Oh, thank God type answers. If my examples end up being the easy choices. I have one. I have one. There was a thread recently on the subreddit for Final Fantasy 14 in which they ask is FF 14 the best use of retcons ever? And the general consensus was no, but it's up there. There is a really obvious thing that you can watch happen in a realm reborn in Heavensward where they shoot some shots for like way, way, way later with no plan as to how to get there. OK, and then when it comes time to cash in on that, they come up with really good answers to those questions that they originally never had any plans for. Interesting. OK. Really, really, really good answers. OK. To the point of like retroactively making like certain pieces of music much more poignant because you're like, oh, my God, that song was about this the whole time. No, it wasn't. They engineered these events. You made it work to fit the lyrics of that song. Right. OK. OK. Yeah, I respect it. I respect it. That's one that's that's one way to create. Build yourself into a into a hole, dig yourself into a hole and then find a way out. Um, no, I mean, yeah, they're mentioned here, but it's like the the the basement, the basement and Attack on Titan. Yeah, the Attack on Titan base. Phenomenal. A plus phenomenal. And yeah, also the no credit there, too, to the the main antagonist and sinners. Good motivation. You know what? This is this is like kind of barely tangentially related. But I was talking about I was talking to Page about good twists in movies and we're chit chatting. And I'm like, I think probably my best movie experience twist in my entire life was seeing the Matrix. And she did not see the Matrix in theaters when it came out. She saw it on video later. And I got to experience a version of this conversation. I have not had yet before, but I guess that's how it is now. Or she looked at me and goes, what's the twist in the Matrix? And I go, it's so ubiquitous. And I'm like, oh, it's so ubiquitous that it was never it couldn't be a twist. It was because it only lasted for the week of its release. The one box office weekend. That one weekend was because I saw the trailer for the Matrix at another movie. It cannot be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. And it was just Kung Fu stuff and Lawrence Fishburne talking about like weird nonsense and like, what the fuck is going on? OK, I'm going to go see this movie. I don't know what's happening. OK, so if you're a young and you're listening to this and you happen to not know when the Matrix first came out as a movie, it did not tell you what it was about. And you did not know about the computer world subplot at all. The only thing you saw was Lawrence Fishburne and his little speech to Neo to Keanu Reeves. And he says no one can be told what the Matrix is. It would cut between like Trinity doing Kung Fu magic shit. Yeah. And that was it. That was the whole thing. It was a Kung Fu action movie with people in leather. And that's all you knew. And then you heard that line and that was it. And you're like, oh, well, I like that stuff. Sure. All campaign was I'm going to go see this because it looks cool. And also I would like to know what the Matrix is. So anyone who was in the theater watching that movie for the first time that weekend saw the whole thing about the world and waking up in the real world and all that. No idea. Raw. And that is a thing that fucking changed movies. It was insane. That that lasted for that weekend. You could imagine, right? It's it's a paradigm shift to school on Monday. Yeah. Your shot of of seeing that unspoiled was over. I almost imagine. So, you know what? That's actually like a Terminator 2, right? Because in T. Because Terminator 2 is weird because it assumes you didn't even see the trailer for the movie. Well, but I thought that it was my thought T2 was marketed as like, uh, oh, the Terminator is back and not that he's the protector this time. No, the trailers did, in fact, show that Arnold was going to protect the kid. Oh, so I thought actually really strange because the movie pretends you didn't see the trailer because it builds it up as suspense is like, oh, my God, there's two. What do you? Oh, no. OK, OK. Well, yeah, then I guess that that was spoiled entirely going in. But and it was very weird. You could have just not done that. You could have just been like, there are two Terminators now. How are they going to survive? And at the very least, the get down moment and you're like, oh, shit. You're right. But yeah. Um, OK, let's see over here. All right. Dear Willie and Pat, long time listener, first time sending mail recently at playing Marvel Rivals and there's a new character called Devil Dinosaur. He is, as you can imagine, a big red dinosaur. I played the dinosaur literally last night. He's fun. Yeah. I got to play him in match. And as people always lock into new characters for the first couple of weeks, when I was playing him in an actual match, I was overwhelmed by a primal feeling of I'm a fucking dinosaur. It's hard to explain it any other way. It just feels like you're an actual dinosaur. It feels like they fulfilled a character fantasy of playing as a big ass dino perfectly. And the only other time in recent memory that I've encountered this, it was when I played Insomniac Spider-Man games for the first time, just swinging around through the city. So has there been any key moments like this in games where you feel enraptured enough to feel a perfect character fantasy being fulfilled? Absolutely. Every game featuring a robot, the robot either has to move too fast or too slow. Sure. I your that. Robo needs to meet. It needs to move like an orbital frame from zone of the enders, or it needs to boost around like a freak like Armored Core or clunk. To be slow as shit. Yes, like mech warrior or Armored Core. Yes, you got to clunk the fuck around. It's ever it's ever Armored Core. We're talking about steel battalion. There you go. That is that is absolute. That is a perfect. If you watch any ace combat stream I ever do when I am pulling up, you will watch me literally be like doing this leading back in my fucking chair to pull up harder. And it's the only games that do that. Every ace combat I have played, I am physically moving around my whole body to get harder turns, which isn't real. So similar to the Devil Dinosaur thing, I've talked before on this podcast about like recently I talked about how Nagoriyuki feels perfect for his the character's plot and story and his system of containing your blood rage and not letting it overtake you. You all the things you do to keep yourself right on the limit, but not going over it and it's showing restraint and trying to be, you know, Zen in your style of fighting is a very cool thing. Also, Asuka is mentioned earlier in the show about being so distracted by the card game you're playing that the fight is inconsequential and you're just annoyed by it. But I think that Killer Instinct actually was one of the fighting games that did a really good job of making characters feel like their ideas and identity are worked into the way they play. Agonos, when you're getting the bricks and chunking up is amazing. On a wall. Yeah. And the I don't feel like I'm playing a character. I feel like I'm playing a wall. And like your whole thing with Agonos is every time you land a combo with him, you can put another chunk of armor into your chest and you move even slower and you're even and you hit harder and you can't do anything, but you're tougher. So it's fine. The trade off of speed for armor is great, you know? And one of the sickest ones to is Fulgor. You're a robot. Your robot doesn't have a normal meter. He has an engine that spins. And I remember playing Fulgor. The more you get in there, the more you go on offense, the more you dash in, attack, do stuff, your engines start spinning faster and faster and faster until the engine is fucking full speed. And then you can do a bunch of new moves, get a bunch of crazy shit going with your character, do cancels, etc. The other way to rev up your engine is by using your comeback factor, your your instinct meter, and that just revs your engine up right away. But if your engine is already revved up naturally and then you pop instincts to overclock it, the engine fucking overheats and spits out the giant height beam because it can't handle how much speed, how much output you're putting into it, you know? So yeah, it's just like I'm like, that makes sense with the way you play him, plus what this does. You put the two together and you get a super hype finisher as a result. It's great. That's a pretty good question. There you go. Dear whoever, a funny clown in a case says, I remember you were talking about forbidden solitaire and the conversation brought to mind something that my friends called the funny clown effect. The idea of a scare evil clown that kills people was originally supposed to be a subversion of a normal clown. But now the evil murder clown is so ubiquitous and invoked so regularly without fail that if you put a clown in your story, then the really surprising thing would be if he was just funny and friendly like a normal clown. I'm actually a big fan of things that are so suspicious that when they're played straight, you're like actually baffled. Right. Right. The unexpected straight punch. So my question is, does anything push your buttons based on this effect, a popular subversion that has so constantly been overdone that it's now boring, but the original take is the subversion? I think that wildly suspicious guy that doesn't betray you is my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. I have that. Like what? You did. You did it. There was there was a versus was bit with a mascara snake could who would look so evil and slithers, but never actually betrays you. I similarly would say if you had a super cool old man mentor in the tutorial and he survives, get the fuck out of here. Crazy. I can't believe it. He survived the tutorial. Are you insane? Oh, my God. Yeah. That would blow my mind. Knock my socks off. All right. And last one here. Dear nobody, Patton heartless, Willie. So Kupa Maniac asks, I recently finished RE9 and I couldn't stop comparing Raccoon City to the return to Shadow Moses in Street and Metal Gear Solid 4. That's that is by far the most obvious comparison possible. I thought Raccoon City was intentionally, intermittently interesting, but dull overall, though, whereas I think Shadow Moses has more going for it personally. Have other games done nostalgic chapters like this and have they been done better? Not all that much. In terms of RE9, I will say that Raccoon City, it they actually really pull back on the nostalgia. Most of the Raccoon City section in RE9, it does not take place in areas that you'd be familiar with, takes place in parts of the city that you never explored. The difference for me between MGS4 and RE9 is the MGS4 plays a lot in the same spaces, like a lot. Like it's almost entirely in spaces, you know, and they do a lot, a couple of interesting things. The main thing is that playing through MGS4 4 is kind of shit because you're doing it against the robots, the like the the the weird little hand robots, like nearly exclusively, and it's kind of miserable. Whereas in RE9, it's actually like a just a natural evolution of that game's Leon gameplay and it plays pretty well. But the payoff, the payoff for Shadow Moses is great. Yeah, people are saying I have I have three that come to mind. Right. People are pointing out there. I just lost it. OK, it was gone. I would say. But the best ever is the USG Ishimura in Dead Space Two. The best ever is the USG Ishimura in Dead Space Two. So the USG Ishimura is the ship that Dead Space One takes place on. And in Dead Space Two, you must travel through it to get to a different part of the space station. And because the marker causes some, you know, nightmare visions, you are repeatedly attacked by things that happened in Dead Space One, but they're not happening for real. And then once you calm down and go, oh, that was just a Dead Space One flashback, they attack you with something real. OK, from an unexpected angle that you wouldn't be able to deal with in Dead Space One. OK, I'll get there. Plus, I'll get stellar. The ones that come to mind for me are. Give me a second to delete that. Oh, yeah. It's fine. Early right away in Super Metroid, I really love that, like, one of the first areas you walk into is where you killed Mother Brain in original Metroid. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, the room you beat her in and escape is literally like it's right by the intro and you walk through and you see the grids and a lot of those areas. That's a fun one. And there's a small one in Fear and Hunger. The mayor's manner kind of looks a lot like the mayor's manner and the way it's set up and stuff. But then I'm also remembering, of course, Dark Souls 3. Yeah, it was Anor Londo. Right. But was it Firelink? And and and much like Ari 9, they this the amount of time you actually spend in the same location is very minor. Right. Like you it's the main part of the castle and like you find the old Firelink shrine, but like the actual amount of rooms is fairly small because I remember I remember when it was like, wait, is this Firelink? Is this Firelink? And then it takes a while and then at the end of the fucking DLC, it's like, oh, no, wait, OK, here you go. But yeah, yeah, those those are those are some of the big ones. Cool. All right. Personally, I'm a big fan of if you're going to return to an area and do a kind of like remember this place, you need to. You need to be sparing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like there's only so long I can spend in the remember this before I'm like, OK, that that's enough. Oh, fuck, the librarian near. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. And forgot about that. Cool. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. Much better emails this week. There you go. I will see y'all in Toronto come hang out. And we might do the podcast this coming Tuesday. I'll let you know. Take it. All right.