453: ID SOFTWARE DIES AT THE HANDS OF MICROSOFT

Fuck you Microsoft :D

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Speaker 1: M M. It's the Internet. You're busy, Let's do this.

Welcome to the Kay Mesticides podcast. This is the podcast

where we decide everything about the world of games so

you don't have to think for yourself. I'm your host,

Mike MANAUGHTI with me.

Speaker 2: Is Don Turbo Shawn McDowell.

Speaker 1: On today's show, Microsoft fires about half of id's software

UBI Software awards assass to create black Flag recinct des

by firing them, and uh, we'll cheer you all up

with the hat. If we can't what that we still

have We still have that had everyone? Uh Sean, I

bet I think you're like me. Look, I've been covering

for uh grab this week. You've been covering for jan

I think we're both a bit tired, a.

Speaker 2: Little tired, like look any other week, No problem, no

problem at all. Honestly, I'm I'm used to like helping

out enough and I'm basically just doing my usual stuff

plus video. This was a hell of a week to

have to fill in for people.

Speaker 1: Yep, yep, that is exactly right. So I'm definitely I'm

looking forward to the weekend. Maybe I'll maybe I'll get

outside that might be nice grass before a walk. Or

something like that. Yeah, grass, grass is neat. That's kind

of a neat thing.

Speaker 2: Huh, that's nice sometimes, you know, just like sometimes sometimes

you sit down at the Parker's Iron and just like

it's pleasant. I like this.

Speaker 1: Yeah, not a barefoot grass guy. I don't really like

that feel, but I like do some flippy floppias. Ye,

I'm not much of it. I'm not much of a

barefoot guy in general. I gotta be on it.

Speaker 2: I mean, in my own home, I got carpets, so

it's like, yeah, it feels kind of nice. At the

end of the day. I'm a night shower person, so like, yeah,

the shower and it's like this feels.

Speaker 1: See, I'm a morning shower person, so I kind of

like have Dan feed early on. And I got some

hardwood floors here and there, so I just you're not

set up for it.

Speaker 2: There you go.

Speaker 1: And I don't have this Christians saying I'm a fake

token fan. I've got the I got the hair on

the feet, trust me. There, I'm good on that front.

Oh God, there goes chat. Everyone's always anti carpet Sean

and I I just don't feel that way. I like

carpet just fine. I gotta be here.

Speaker 2: I don't choose on my apartment has y'all.

Speaker 1: That's also true. Yeah, if you're an apartment yeah, especially

in like yeah, the Midwest. Uh, you probably have there exactly.

All right, everybody, let's explain ourselves or game mass the

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to art Mods, Thank you to Christian for producing. I

can get more of all of us and Jeff uh

can support us by going to patre dot com. Slash

gay mess gets you as access ass access to our

Discord servers, Q and A sessions. And we're back after

a surprise break by PC crash. I know why, by

the way, when I tried earlier, I tried to turn

on that virtual game for you, and it automatically launched

AVerMedia stuff whatever. Diavermedia software for whatever reason, always crashes

my computer. That's why I never turned it on, and

I have like uninstalled it, and I've read installed it

and I've done all that, and the AVerMedia software is

just but it is terrible and it always crashes my

computer for some hawful reason.

Speaker 2: So awesome.

Speaker 1: All right, well we're back, all right, Well hey, well

whatever outside abut probably not important. Go to patreon dot

com slash game mess All right, okay, let's just get

into it. Uh I guess if this is the only

place where you get your video news. Somehow, Xbox laying

off a lot of people under moving studios around, and

cutting teams. One of the big ones happened at ID Software,

where they're laying off like more than half of the

staff there. It's pretty wild. They got a lot of

people gone from the tech side, people who work on

you know, id tech, which is the engine that the

Doom games use. The team is so small that some

are worried that they're just going to be relegated to

a support studio, or if they make a new game,

it's going to have to be on Unreal engine, which

is just disgusting. Right, I remember, the whole Unreal only

exists because they wanted to have a quake clone over there, right,

Like that's the whole thing, and now I try to

pitch some other games, including a Perfect Dark project of

their own, a multiplayer Doom, some original ideas. None of

those were picked up, But I don't know, Sean, how

are you feeling about the future of the ID right

now and just the state of things?

Speaker 2: Bad? Real bad, Mikey, Yeah, I think we've sort of

gotten our anger out another podcasts, so tonight we can

maybe a little more anelical and break down some of

this stuff. But yeah, just first of all, I'm a

huge fan of ID and like everything I've done, I

love Doom. I'm a big Doom fan, grew up with it,

and I love the twenty sixteen trilogy at this point,

and those games are phenomenal. They're all very very good games.

And the legacy of Doom and even our stuff like

Quake and Wolfenstein everything, it's so important the gaming in general,

and that's why this is just such a boneheaded move

where the optics are terrible, Like the layoffs in particular,

We'll start with that. The layoffs are just it looks bad.

It looks like he don't know what you're talking about.

You don't know what you're doing when you lay off

so many company, so many people at company that's so

important like this. You know, Jeff has talked about this

following up other people's reporting, and he's reiterated that, Yeah,

people within Microsoft, within Xbox are saying this doesn't make sense.

The cuts that they are making don't make sense when

you make cuts, you know, Like I hate to say it,

but it is like artists, musicians, like even like pr

people and stuff like that. You know, the people where

you can outsource that kind of thing. You don't fire engineers,

you don't fire the you don't lay off the people

who make the game run, because Unreal does not solve

everyone's problem. The reason that id tech is so cool

is that it's an engine that does what they need

to do duper efficiently. It's super portable. It's how I

got Doom twenty sixteen running us which one and now

like all of their games can be everywhere. It's great

for what they need to do. They built a tool

that's so cool. So yeah, I guess moving into more

of the technical side and the fact that this is

a bonehead move of like moving the studio to whoever's

left to Unreal, you don't do that because Unreal, frankly

is not a particularly good engine. It's it's a jack

of all trades, it's a master of none. People just

use Unreal because it's accessible. You know, it became an

industry standard because it can be used for so many things.

But like the best developers in Unreal, like I think

of fighting games for example, where nether realm uses their

heavily modified version to make a super photo realistic graphics,

and the opposite side, our system works use a heavily

modified version to make their games look basically two D

like anime and stuff like. They've heavily customized it to

suit their needs. But even that is like not using

the tools out of the box, because unreally is a

versatile engine. It's not like a super well optimized engine

that's going to run a shooter super well. Like we

we've seen so many instances of Unreal struggling to run

games like open world games and uh, larger RPGs and

stuff like that.

Speaker 1: The Oblivion remake, right and just games are just Unreal

games are just often incredibly heavy. They they feel they

look nice, and they feel heavy.

Speaker 2: And on like on PC where you know, the shader

compilation issue is a problem because they can't ship with

shaders like you can on console that's all packaged together.

You need to compile the shaders. You know, there's the

stutter struggle like Alex always talks about over a digital foundry,

Like the stutter issue is real with unreal. You don't

get that with intech. And that's why the Doom games

feel so good is because they made an engine that's

really good for that. It's like there's other engines like that,

like the are engine for example, that is really good

at doing as in Evil games that's sort of like

more enclosed area a type of thing, or like you know,

anything that they may do in the future with Devil

May Cry and everything like that, because well I believe

dmc FI was RI engine, but it was yeah that

they I mean, nothing else that looked that way. I

was just like it is, yeah, But the point is

like Street Fighters six also like you know on ari

E engine, like because they have custom Man engine that's

great for small scale stuff and we saw what happens

when you try to repurpose it moss arounder wilds ran

like as like these custom tools do a great job

of laying studio do what they're good at. That's why

it is so good. What they do they make shooters,

the Man engine, that's really good. Any fishing with shooters,

and to throw that all away is so shortsighted. And

it just goes to show that, yes, the people at

the top do not know what they are doing.

Speaker 1: Trying to figure out how this how they even think

this is okay. I wonder like somebody just like, well,

we don't need a you know, we love what when

they make games? That's nice, but why are we making

this engine? Don't they know about unreal is it? That is?

It did Doom the Dark Ages maybe miss internally a

little bit. And boy, even if that's the case, that's

one game and it's not like some of them where

like the games come out so infrequently, right every five years,

that's pretty speedy in this industry. Surely you can let

them have maybe one social one. We say this all

the time. It's pretty hard these days to do a

trilogy anymore. You kind of you do sort of. There

is a fall off after that second game these days.

Oh well, okay, get that team with it tech, make

a new quake, or make one of these new games

they were pitching. Let them do the perfect. There are

so many other FPS franchises that Microsoft owns that are

so freaking dormant, and they're whining all the time about

how they have to focus on their big ips. Well

do in a lot of these other ones absolutely should

be that then just aside from all that, it is

just it is so storied, it is so important. It

is just disgusting to treat them like this.

Speaker 2: Right, exactly what And we've said elsewhere too. I think

maybe even I've said this on this podcast in the past

few weeks, like what does focus they on core franchises

even mean at this point? Like what are they talking

about just nothing but Halo and Forts and Gears? Is

that what they mean? Like what could they possibly mean?

Are they talking to just Call of Duty and Minecraft? Because

based on the way at they're handling the situation kind

of feels like they might be, especially when I'm you know,

like Daccio looks at a fucking spreadsheet and like, you know,

this is hypotheticals, but like talking to Asha and saying like, well,

you know what you have to do here, there's our

some of our franchises do really good. And they say

our franchises as you know, Minecraft and Call of Duty, Right,

because that's the stuff they own.

Speaker 1: Like I think maybe focusing on major franchises means making

obsidi and cancel all their other projects and developments so

they can make the new fallout instead. And that's the

reporting going out now.

Speaker 3: Before you continue with that, the Mike she's this happens

like an hour ago, like an hour and a half ago,

were like, d I.

Speaker 1: Know, is the Federal Reserve thing he's talking about?

Speaker 2: That? Yes?

Speaker 3: After like she fired all these people, all these people

attle and she got rewarded with a big fat federal.

Speaker 2: You know contract.

Speaker 1: So she's been named an advisor to the US Federal

Reserve on Jobs and Product Activity, where she is, among

other things, is going to be assessing the impact that

AI is going to have on the economy, which you know,

she's got no vested interest in AI. She just knows Microsoft.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it goes beyond that. He was

the president of their core AI division exactly. That's why

she when I when I saw this happen, when I

saw that she was who was taking over Xbox, I'm like,

oh God, of course the hatchet man they send in

is the person who doesn't care about human lives at all.

He thinks that the machine is gonna be able to

do everything. Fucking this is where we are now.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I is gonna make the edge in about five years. Anyway,

it's as stupid and we have engineers that's insane. That

conversation might have happened. It's not. It's not insane to

think that conversation, oh man, have happened.

Speaker 2: You know where it happened at Epic because that's what

unreal engine six five point three plus vibe coding. That's

literally what Unreal Engine six as they're calling it is.

Of course, that's why they're switching unreal.

Speaker 1: I bet that Asha Sharma was listening to Tim Sweeney

talk about that fool. She would be nodding a long,

big smile on her face. Isn't she gonna be busy

being the CEO of Xbox like the other people into

sport I think are like professors and whatnot. Uh, she's

got she's got a pretty big job right now.

Speaker 3: She got she got all these agents that to help

her to assist her on her It's a really poor job.

Speaker 1: Asking gotta wake up every morning and ask the fucking

Microsoft AI whatever the hell it's co pilot. She's gotta

talk to co what she needs to do.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what Sachia, by his own admission, does, like

that's how he runs the companies. He asked co pilot

how to do things. It's like, oh my god, these

people have brain worms. This is insane. Like I feel, Mike,

We're talking about real things that are happening, and I

feel like a conspiracy theorist. I'm like, yeah, sound insane

when the words come out of my mouth. But these

are all just things that happened.

Speaker 1: These are so waitingly obvious.

Speaker 3: What they do. They move with the They move like

the wall's not gonna like like you know, they like

we are going to forget that this is happening, right,

They move with such a like wilderness. You know, it's

disgusting its people. He is not left versus righting his

bottom versus top, and they're fucking winning. They're fucking us.

Come on, y'all, what are we doing?

Speaker 1: All right? So yeah, and making fall, which like, yes,

that makes that makes sense that it always had to

happen at some point. It rites because of course they

were never ever going to actually be okay with waiting

until Funny thirty five for the next Fallout game to

come out. I suppose, uh, but of course they had

to wait and do it in the way that feels

like punishment to Obsidian the most an Obsidian is the

one is the company that has been producing most for

Xbox across a wide variety of games, neat things like Pentiment,

more life service things like you know, a Grounded or

you know, more multiplayer things, and of course the big

single player games like a vowed like Outer Worlds do boy.

I could see them just because just I could see

them just being the Fault studio, and I can see

Bethesa just being the Outer Scrolls studio and probably like

not much else happening over there.

Speaker 2: You know. I was thinking about this the r day

before the layoffs happened, and we knew that the layoffs

were incoming. I was thinking to myself, the two most

consistent studios for Microsoft in the past decade or so,

ID and Obsidian, right, and I was like, they better

not fucking touch these studios, and what do we have?

They gutted it and now they're trying to like you know,

pilot Obsidian now, and just I yes, this is something

that where if Obsidian wanted to do it they always

should have because yes, they made the best fallout, so

it always made sense that under Microsoft they should have

been led over in that direction. I forget there was

something there of like and now I want misquote Jeff,

but I thought he's talked a long time ago about

there's like some kind of like little I don't know

about these guys like Bethes though we're fall I know

they made that one, but like, I forget what that

story was a long time ago, but there's something there,

and it's just like, yes, eventually they should have been

led back to it because people love that fallout and

it's just I, yeah, to forgive me for not having

a ton of faith in them being told what to

do at this point, just I don't know. Something about

it thinks a little bit to me. Hopefully there's a

positive outcome at the end of it, but it's just

I'm a little apprehensive at this point, right, And.

Speaker 1: There's like that there's a part of me that's like

I am a little bit of that A vowed in

Outer Worlds two kind of didn't find larger audiences. Well

that's on Microsoft, but I did you know, I saw

people say things like, oh, outer world two just doesn't

have the sauce, and I play it, I'm like, I

think it's got plenty of sauce, guys, ouch wor sauce

do we need? So? I mean that's the other part

of it, right, is that it could be hard anymore

to make the game that is going to make everybody happy.

And even if you make a game that it looks

like Fallout plays like Fallout and it's made by people

who have made a Fallout, that is still not as

good as a New Fallout for most people. Right, Yeah,

that's kind of sad reality of it.

Speaker 2: I am with you though, Like now, granted I'm not

a big Fallout fan, but I did like New Vegas.

I did play that. I did pass the controller with

a friend back when I first came out when we

were in high school, and we stayed up all night

playing and it was very fun. And so when the

first Outer Worlds came out, I really enjoyed that one. Like,

despite not being into this style of RPG, Western rpg

is like usually not my thing. I'm not to Bethesda

bgs's game specifically, and I really clicked with the first one.

I just I have not played the Outer Worlds too

because it's been crazy, NonStop flurry of games. When I

am playing a modern trip play game, I just have

so many hard things to play. I do want to

go back and play too, because it it seems like, yeah,

they kind of just did in was pretty good. I

don't know, it's it's concerning.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty weird. I mean, you know, again, we're

this weird era where all all all these games, even

games that like, you know, I can't imagine it was

the biggest project in the world out of World two.

But everything has to sell so many copies like how

it's only how it was where there were yeah, a

lot more, a lot more games, but for game to

be a hit, it would have to sell a million copies,

like a million, and that would be really good. Not

like that any more. Uh, all right, So besides this

clear Black Flagracinct came out got pretty good reviews. It's

like it's at an eighty six and open credit. I

know there was some Steam review unhappiness for a bit

there because of the pretty uh lame d o C

that's in.

Speaker 2: The game player skins or something like that.

Speaker 1: Run a lot of stuff. Even that that was like

it was that negative seam reviews that mostly positive right now,

So I don't you know that the initial blowback was there.

I'm not saying it's dying down, but that that was

part of things. But people think they seem to think

the game is is good. Uh well, UBISA Barcelona, who

made this game, is still stuffering some layoffs. Tom Henderson

and Inside Gaming reported this The fifty one employees that

Ubi SA Barcelona, many who worked on the game, will

be celebrating slashed by seeking new employment. Apparently that these

last four announced on June tenth. They just didn't give

these a lot of the team kind of a new assignments,

which is crazy to me because there, how do you

just not immediately put that team on another Assassin's Creed remake.

This is the first like remake remaster, like a fancy

one of these. They remastered thesas Creed two trojy badly

right and and so like that probably did whatever it did.

But you could go back and give Assassin's Creed two brotherhood,

those two are beloved, give them a face list like this,

people would get very excited. I think even if you

want to Syndicate, which is one that people talk about

liking a lot and did a similar thing that would

do pretty well. Maybe even reposition Unity right, like hey,

Unity at Bugs when it launched eventually better now not

right now, And it's great. So there's so many other

Assassin Creek, even one. I think I would be excited

for a remake of one I like uside of the

creat one. I don't care anyone said so that would

be good. So the fact that you're just going to

downsize this studio for no reason instead of just immediately

putting them up, maybe they are being put on that

next one, except with not enough staff, and it's gonna

be harder, it's gonna take longer, and they're gonna have

low morale. I don't know what the hell they're thinking.

Speaker 2: Yeah, did I black out at some point? Why are

they being laid off?

Speaker 1: But I think it's just the usual, Well that project's done,

we're gonna do some downsizing. It's that old mentality that

I think Ubisoft is still kind of believes in.

Speaker 2: Yeah that checks out, It sure checks out. Yeah, because

but yeah, by all all accounts, you know, this is

maybe it didn't blow everyone away, but seems really good, Like, yeah,

this is if you want if you want a updated

version of Black Flag to revisit like this is the one,

right and they did a good job of that. So,

like you said, it doesn't make sense why they wouldn't

best be put on another game, new Assassin's Creed something,

because if where are we at with gaming right now?

In this game industry, it's like God, it's what. It's

a fucking meme from like Parks and recor or whatever

of like, you know, make a bad video game fire,

make a good video fired.

Speaker 1: Also believe or not?

Speaker 2: Also fired? Yes, maybe Fortnite Believe it or not also fired.

I just I don't know. Yeah, it contributes to the

downward spiral. Help it like it's a little hard to

find the light in the Triple A space. At least,

you know, all the other spaces are doing prey well

right now, like indies are thriving, like Double A seems

to be finding a foothold. But man, everything is so

weird in the Triple A space. Because it's why I

keep saying, it's corporations keep fucking people over and it's

so tiring of just it can only be narrow minded,

shortsighted executives not getting it. And I don't know how

at this point, they continue to not get it. I

don't understand, Like I can only assume it's because someone

incompetent appoints someone incompetent and that's how like you're not

to dwell on the Xbox news too much. But I

was also thinking today of like the fact that I

was Asha taking this new uh, territating this position, you know,

following up Phil like if it was anyone else, and

like I'm not even I'm not even saying like these

people are good fits because like they're not necessarily qualified

per se, but someone like a Todd Howard or a

Pete Heines or something, you know, someone who is in

there making games and runs a studio. But instead getting

someone who's just you know, quote unquote good at business

to make these decisions. Said, it feels like that's how

we get stuff with these Ubi Soft layoffs and stuff

with the Xbox layoffs, just like trying to keep the

business going in a way that is good for business

according to them, and just not understanding that employee retention

is so important to making good video games. It's like

we always run it back to Nintendo doesn't really fire people.

They've had their issues over the years with contractors, sure,

but they don't necessarily like have mass layoffs in this

way because they just move people to other projects. Hey

you're an artist, Well you are an artist on this project,

and we need an artist on this project. So guess

what you're doing art for that game, and like that's

that's how it works. You just keep that talent going.

And somehow these executives, especially at Western companies, for whatever reason,

just don't seem to understand that.

Speaker 1: It feels like I have been spending most of my

career in games media watching Ubisoft through baffling and stupid things. Yeah,

somehow still around, which I mean part mees like oh good,

because like boy they have they have some time to

people that work there, and they can make some cool

games sometimes. But god, the management there has just been

awful for what feels like forever. Ah, all right, let's

take a break. I'm sure we'll have some more things

that we can talk about. Relays wells in the super

chats wherever people want to talk about. We'll see what's

going on super chats. So then we've got the hat

still calming up. Everybody hear it? Back after this break?

All right, we're back. I just remembered I had to

do that now, all right, Seaw, would you please read

the super chats.

Speaker 2: From Rob Foster Cosgrove. Hi Fi Rush is a rhythm game.

Just as for Mikey than.

Speaker 1: What look, I mean, look, I would have accepted the

judgment either way. Right, It's okay, Look I won, It's fine, whatever,

It's all right, not to be.

Speaker 2: You really did? You really did across platforms like Blue

Sky was very much in your favor.

Speaker 1: Yeah, oh really, hell yeah. Although book Guy always with

Blue Guy. Whenever we do the toys, people always say

absolutely Team A or absolutely Team B. I'm like, oh guy,

I think it's kind of close, guys, right, but again

I think they find like the one of these games.

Speaker 2: I think it's basically boils down to Like with rhythm games,

you really have the divide between normies and like the

sickos like me and the normies are all just I

play I play Guitar Hero. I'm picking the guitar hero

on any of the sikos like me were like, oh,

you know, the other list actually has some really good

deep cuts and like all Elite beat A just really

rips so plenty of people, you know, the more sicko

types picked B but yeah, I think you got like

by the numbers more on your side.

Speaker 1: I think Big Mania did more for me than maybe.

I gave it a credit for that one up.

Speaker 2: Well surprised by that, but definitely exactly Missouri Matt. Thank you,

Sean and Mike for the content tonight. Yeah. I send

these before the show starts in case I fall asleep

or get distracted. You still gotta get paid. We thank

you as always Missouri Matt and I. Yes you must

have been following along. Congratulations on getting right this time.

We appreciate it.

Speaker 1: This is a rare three peet for Sean on game

Mess besides buy there, but let's give it up about

a hand for Sean.

Speaker 2: Getting you guys out here. Thank you, Thank you okay.

Next is from Zombie Porin Great job Mike and Sean

for filling in this week over at Giant Bomb. Did

Mike buy a Chinese handheld and does Sean smoke now

or is that just a Grubb and Jam thing.

Speaker 1: I did not buy any Chinese handhelds no, and.

Speaker 2: I did not smoke tobacco this week.

Speaker 1: Not that that there you go.

Speaker 3: I did accidentally, but I did.

Speaker 2: What the fuck you mean accidentally? Hang on?

Speaker 1: I think it was a joint and it was no

the background instead? What No?

Speaker 3: I was just grabbing and was like, I didn't realize

I put it in on. Is it is it?

Speaker 1: My mo oops, I'm lighting it. It is it is?

Speaker 3: It is a I used to I smoke for like

ten years in a row and then I cut out,

So I see.

Speaker 1: I just realized and was like, give a little whatever, get

it again. It happens, okay. Uh.

Speaker 2: Next up is from Laser Wolf. I didn't think Mike

knew about his Thursday night podcast anymore. Maybe he doesn't

hate me.

Speaker 1: Wow, I did. Look, I felt bad. It was a

couple of thursdays ago. That's my trip and last Thursday

my friend was in the town was like, I really

want to go to a baseball game, and I'm like, oh, okay,

I think I can. There's a game on Thursday. I

felt bad missing this. I'll tell you what. That was

a great game. There's a walk off home run when

we had a good time. It was hot, but uh,

it was a nice time. And look now now covering

this week, I don't feel bad about it anymore. It's

all right.

Speaker 2: I haven't been to a baseball game forever. Like when

when I for the year and a half I went

to school in Milwaukee, I would go Brewers games all

the time, go to thee get the Uker seats for

like a dollar a pop, and go on the day

days where they had cheap snacks. It would be like

two dollars brats. Like great thing for a college kid.

Speaker 1: I visited uh where they play when I was in Milwaukee.

It wasn't a game or anything, but we kind of

just like went there and there was like a little

museum section that was open that we could walk around

something like that. It was neat. Im. That's good. That's

gonna be one of my old man things. I'm gonna

do the whole I'm gonna go to every brish ball

for a year old in a road trip with my brothers.

You know, one of those things will be fun.

Speaker 2: That'd be a nice thing to do. Yeah, Like, because

baseball is such a casual like chill out, just hang

out with people. It's you know, you know, I think

you're you're with me, honestly know. People call it boring

and every thing, but it's like it's kind of like

I think watching baseball is kind of like a golf

type of situation where like, you know, yeah, it's not

always high octane action, but then cool stuff happens and

you're there to like to chat with your friends in

between innings and stuff.

Speaker 1: Like that, right, Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I yeah,

the vibe is fun that you can both. It's a

game where you can somehow pay attention and kind of

hang out with your friends at the same time. It

is possible to do both.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Marcus, we do. We do have a minor league

club here in Green Bay, but it's not the same

as going to It's fun. Sorry it wasn't now, am fam.

I still want to call Miller Park because Miller Park rolls

off the tongue. So well, okay, so that was it

from the previous video. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, So then

now onto the current ones. Antonio Morales, thanks for calling

you loutube every day this week.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you're well, that's my thing, now, grub, that's these things.

My thing is that it's loutube.

Speaker 2: You know what? It hits. I like it. I like it.

It gets uh the dubious food. Am I wrong for

questioning that the id gut could have been motivated motivated

by their recent unionization.

Speaker 1: Hmmm, oh, I mean where even layoffs at? But says

the who they desperately need to make oudor scrolls six

or was that many?

Speaker 2: As?

Speaker 1: That is it of course, but but that's a they have.

They have a union as well. Yeah, I won't put

anything past them.

Speaker 2: Like, yeah, companies hate unions. It's as simple as that.

We say that. Sorry, alleged union busting at certain companies

all the time. Uh, James Pies. I'm currently wrapping up

Persona five Strikers and am pleasantly surprised with how Persona

it turned out to be. Have either of you checked

it out? I have, but have you? Mike? Yeah?

Speaker 1: I played through the whole thing and I was also

I started like, okay, USO spin off. I was like, oh,

this is just an action RPG with some Musso eiment elements,

and this is kind of just Persona five two. I

like the Strikers quite a lot.

Speaker 2: Actually, I will say, yeah, so I like Strikers quite

a bit as well. But it definitely is a muso game.

But it's like, I think some people don't realize how

broad that definition has become. Because the Dynasty Warriors games

themselves are still very much like boards and hordes of enemies.

They just mow down by kind of bun mashing and

then with cool combos that end in like cool supers.

But the spinoff ones, like the High Rule Warriors ones

have become that's like, that's what PERSONAFI Strikers is. So like,

that's why me and Grubb talked about a little bit

but uh age of imprisonment from last year High Roll

Warriors a similar situation where it is a little more focus,

is a little more of an action RPG, just with

like the hordes of Enemies.

Speaker 1: Yeah, because I only played the first one and that

I guess what, like the musso thing like I think

of is the general game structure of you're on this

big map, there's kind of these defend points, and you're

just kind of running around a map to this point

than that point. The first Higher Warriors was that right,

and then Strikers wasn't, And maybe sounds like some of

the later High Rewarriors weren't really maybe doing an if

you stop.

Speaker 2: And think about Strikers is in the in the Palace

missions it is for sure because you still have to

like but instead of being hold control point, then hold

control point. It's go to point to like get to

the tower and like right something. So it's the same concept.

It's just like the order of operations is different, and

it's the same thing the Zelda ones, where it's like

it's less about holding a point and more about like,

you know, this is a war, we need to advance

the enemy, so it'll be like take this point, then

take this point, then take this point. So yeah, they're

they're fun though, Like I actually do like the spinoff

Musso still not fant Dnasty Warriors, but like, yeah, PERSONI

FI Strikers and stuff, very good from Laosian. Can you

explain how five hundred million dollars a month still doesn't

make money? Now?

Speaker 1: What is that exactly reference or referencing?

Speaker 2: I would assume game pass, second pass.

Speaker 1: I mean the problem if it's game passed, the.

Speaker 2: Partition has a follow up that says, what was it

August twenty twenty three gameplay was seventeen dollars a month

with thirty plus million users, so I pass.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean the issue is that they projected

a lot more, right, That's what their their issue is

over there. So it's this weird spot in corporate in

the way it goes with the corporate business world we

have where it doesn't it's not good enough. It's what

your projections were and what you were kind of hoping

for for your shareholders. Now are in this spot where

it's not to be nere as much as they thought,

but also making enough that they're not gonna stop doing it, right,

They're not just gonna get rid of game Pass that

it brings in all this revenue. It sucks. That should

be good enough, and somehow like it's never part of

the equation for people like it that well dooming the

dark ages that was good for game pass, right, they

don't care anymore if its good for game Pass.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and also I mentioned this on some show recently,

but remember the news that we heard that when Xbox

talked about the profitability of game Pass, they did not

factor in running the studios, Like that number is held

against the studios. It's not like subtracted from the profit

of game Pass. And so they're they're doing like some

weird napkin math over there on Microsoft like divisionally. I

think I mentioned this on the show as well, but

like that that chart of like you know, organizational structure

differences and how it's like Apple is everything connected into

the center, and then like Amazon is like sort of

like a bracket, like a tournament bracket from top to bottom,

and Microsoft is a bunch of pods all like Mexicans

standoff pointing guns at each other. Like that's the structure

of Microsoft is like every every freaking sub organization, every division.

That's the way I'm looking for is sort of like

at odds with each other. So that's how you get

weird situations like this, and like, okay, so how we're

running all these studios that we bought, so we had

to pay all these people, and that's eating into the

profitability and they want the profitability to be huge. That's

how I end up seeing layoffs because like, you know,

these games aren't selling as much as they use to it.

They still do sell, but it's like game pass exists

as the way that most people get those games, and

so you know, think about how many millions and millions

of people would buy a game at sixty dollars and

now instead those millions and millions of people are basically

getting that game that month for about fifteen to twenty

five dollars instead. Basically, so Yeah, it's whack. Next is

from shtaggy Crow. For my part, both the Outer Worlds

and Avowed did feel too small and scaled to what

a Fallout slash Elder Scrolls does. I want the exploration

of one big map.

Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, I think that point has become

clear that that is what a lot of people are

looking for. And you know, I think I think that's

a big reason why Crimson Desert was a big hit

and why a lot of people are willing to look

over a lot of its flaws is because it definitely

delivered that it has the really big map you can't explore,

and we don't We don't see a lot of that

very often, and people are absolutely going to expect that

from Elder Scroll six and this new Fallout game. Boy,

you're you're starting on that Fallout game that has to

have the very big map and all of the RPG options.

You're starting on that today. But when are we gonna

see that come out? That's gonna take a while.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's wild how the type of game that like

Bethesda is known for is now like the unsustainable type

of vame. It's so difficult to make that kind of

game that bass.

Speaker 1: So wild to think about, like how quickly like Elder

Scrolls three four, Fallout three, Skyrim then Fall four, How

like those all came out so relatively close to each

other and then just immediately we hit the wall. It's like, now,

wait a really long time for Starfield and then god

knows when the next game is after that.

Speaker 2: And like, you know, not to mention the fact that, like,

look at Starfield, there's a lot of empty spaces in

that game. Another do whereas you know, the people at

least think about say a Skyrim of like sure there's

travel time, but you'll just like find these little things

to do side quest along the way, like when you

go to towns and stuff like that. It feels like

it's just more difficult than ever to do that kind

of thing. Unfortunately, Zombie Porin is back. What do the

next sixteen hundred layoffs look like for Xbox? Oh?

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the fun part. We don't know, right, And

it's a strange thing because for some of these studios

like it, they weren't approached about like, hey, you guys

like want to you know, go independent or find a

new buyer. It was just surprise, here's the layoffs may

have preferred those options. So yeah, it's for all these

other companies. It is kind of scary about well, that's

sixteen hundred, so a lot more people you're gonna have

to lay off. Where the hell is that happening at

And it's hard to imagine that anybody's safe, including coalition

uh whatever. Three four three is called down the people

who make it's just the Halo studio something.

Speaker 2: Where like that Halo Studios.

Speaker 1: I believe Halo Studios get parties like yeah, you know

what you're doing? Yeah wow, So PARTI is like, but

that's it's going to become outerer. Scroll studios, upsiding is

going to become false studios are gonna make it as

as obvious, right even wonders, like even a Blizzard is

that safe from it if we're talking about that much.

A Blizzard's a company with a lot of people. Again,

that's just a lot more people they have to find

a fire yay.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Like what a lot of people have said this

age I said, I and ten dogs the ore day.

But psychological warfare, like it's it's messed up to expect

people to work with the knowledge that yep, and you

might just be fired at the end of the year.

That's not motivation. That is awful. Cono Nechosama is up next.

Watched SGDQ today, saw Mega Man dows. Yeah, they ran

down the silly Block, Mike, have you ever played it? Mike?

Speaker 1: Also at a I did, in fact have Mega Man

Thoss when I was a kid, and even then I.

Speaker 2: Was like, what is this?

Speaker 1: It was always I've always really liked Mega Man, So yeah,

I had it. So I watched that spear, I'm like,

this is wild. I could never get very far in

the game. It was really difficult for me. Boy, if

I was grubbing Dan, I would have me played Mega

Man Toss. I don't know. Maybe that's a blightning round thing.

We know how good we are picking those, right Sean?

Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be to be frank, it looks like it,

kaw looks pretty easy in general, Like you probably was

struggled on the boss fights, but like the levels of

themselves kind of just seem more dull than difficult.

Speaker 1: Gets staring. It's ugly, Uh, I knew like as a kid,

I mean, and the whole thing was, uh, basically one

guy kind of made it as a test And this

was at a time we're making scrolling in a PC

game was very impressive, and he got that going that

somehow like Captain's like, yeah, we'll publish that and it'll

become an actual product. So it's a it's an impressive

technical feed. It's oppressive in a lot of ways. It's

also it's also real weird looking.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I was watching the Silly Block while I was

editing stuff today and they told that story. I actually

didn't know that part of it that he just like

brought it to Capcom. I was like, you know, this

is kind of like Mega Man, This is like your

kind of thing. Would you like to publish my game?

And they were like yes, but you're gonna actually make

it a Mega Man game. So it was Capcom's fault

that it was a Mega Man game.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: Uh oh. By the way, there's been some other runs

like did you see that our a Gicken someone else?

We're doing a race of Sonic dream Team as we

went live.

Speaker 1: No, I didn't see that. I saw them doing this

the Sonic Educational that I also had already, So that

was incredibly nostalgic to me.

Speaker 2: I definitely why I want to watch the dream Team

run later? Do you remember that one, the Apple Arcade game.

Speaker 1: I remember it, and I never checked it out, so

I don't know very much about it. But it's pretty small, right,

It's like it's in the rush style mostly. Huh. Yeah,

it's it's.

Speaker 2: A very generation style game. I played. I played a

lot of it on my phone on the way to

EVO that one year that I went on my own

to do interviews because I think it had just come

out that at that point, or like I had just

got a free Apple Arcade subscripture or something. And it's

kind of a blend between generations and frontiers, where like

it is structured like generations, but like frontiers that give

Sock more room to run around, which, as we know

now in three D, that's what she got to do

with Sonic. It's actually pretty solid.

Speaker 1: Man, looking at the schedule and like next is out

and Ring all Bosses co Op Yep, that METROI dread

restricted and oh boy, I'm gonna be watching all night.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I'm drinking my red white and blue

raspberry mosser tonight. Are by No, I don't give.

Speaker 1: I didn't know.

Speaker 2: He's just such a Patriots. It's just blue raspberry and

I love Blue Raspberry. It is the only reason I

got But yeah, I'm gonna be up until like two

am watching GDQ, so that's why I breaking energy drink

at eight pm. G Nitro is next revisiting the Fantasy

Stars series again. One and two finished this week my

Retroy Pocket five, as I haven't played any of them

since the nineties. Is there a series you all really

want to revisit from your childhood?

Speaker 1: Boy, I revisit my childhood theories quite a lot already,

and there's often excuses I can come up with, either

you know, doing it on a stream on Giant Bomb,

or there's a new collection like the Sonic Games, right

Like I've played through all the original song games multiple

times even recent years, stain thing with my Mega mans Marios,

all these opportunities. There's there's almost more stuff from kind

of that three sixty PS three era that I haven't

played in a while that I want to do. I

haven't done BioShock want in a moment. I haven't played

an Uncharted game in a bit, and I love Uncharted,

so doing like an Uncharted series playthrough again might be

fun for me. But there's so many Like there's also

just so many games that I haven't played at all

yet I still kind of want to get to. Like

I haven't played Sly Cooper and that should have been

a childhood game for me, but I did it, so

I kind of want to go play that. Yeah, I

don't know.

Speaker 2: I do revisit retro games I like so often that like,

I'm not sure there're saying that I haven't really revisited

that I want to go back to. I do remember,

like maybe something I haven't done. While I was revisiting

the Mega Man Ball Battle Network series, I used to

just like play through like all of those games, uh,

pretty frequently, like in a row, and I haven't done

that in a long time, so I might do that

sometime soon.

Speaker 1: I have been doing a little bit of a hankry

for a Pokemon I haven't done, like a classic Pokemon

in a bit, So the easiest thing it would just

be a you know, I got a copy of Leaf

Green when they released. I got a code for that,

so I could just pick that up, kind of like

I don't want to play Black and White two though,

which never really went through, and I love Black and

White one, So I don't know, we'll.

Speaker 2: See, Yeah, I Black and White two would be a

very good choice. Like under you know, like like I

just told you, the story is worse, but in general

still a very fun game.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Sure.

Speaker 2: One more from Zombie Porin shout out Sean cyber bullying

Will onto the Dump Trucks.

Speaker 1: Good work, Sean Will. We had a good time on

that one.

Speaker 2: I thought Will would be a good fit for the

Dump Trucks. I'm like, yeah, I get on there. Man.

You haven't been on there yet? Why not? Outer Heaven three?

One three? My big question is does Todd Howard stick around.

He seemed to be a big proponent of Bethesda doing

things their way, but now Xbox is changing that.

Speaker 1: It seems like it wasn't too long ago that a

Todd Howard could easily just leave and do a startup

and get funding for that and all that. And that

doesn't see him as easy these days, right God, getting

getting money for a new video game startup. I think

Todd might just have to write things out here right

at this point's career, just do it a bit longer,

gets retirement kind of grin and bear. I don't know,

I don't know. Maybe he is going to go do

his own thing. Maybe he doesn't mind the direction change.

I kind of doubt that. The impression we always got

was that there was some pride about be says the

makes fallout. We know Obsitian did it that one time,

but we're gonna make that game when we're good and ready.

And Microsoft was finally like, no, you're not gonna be

ready for a long time. We're just gonna give it

to Obsidian.

Speaker 2: Yeah, And a big overarching thing with all the Xbox

stuff is, you know some studios do want hands off

and they were like, yeah, we're willing to like be

under this banner or anything like that, but we operate

well as is and we don't want you a mess

with that. Well, granted, I think because a little bit

slower to playoff games, maybe they're not actually one those studios,

but well, the reporting was some of these studios actually

wanted a little more guidance, and like, I forget if

this was analysis or like reporting from someone, like a

quote from someone, but the phrase like absentee parent was

being tossed around a lot, like in reference to how

people would refer to Xbox and like, yeah, I get that,

where if you're being like you see was it in

the in the in the Psychonauts documentary, right of like

seeing Matt Booty go in there and talk to them

all and everything like that, and maybe that just being

all that happens at that point. They're just like, all right,

let's get you like situated and into the xbox, like

you know, anything you might need to do on the

back end and everything like that, and then they're just out,

like peace out. And the talk was always seemingly that

they thought that would be a good way to like

let studios do their thing and then they just monetarily

reap the rewards. But clearly that was not actually what

some of those studios needed. And yeah, that's some of

the messiness there. Uh from I'm gonna go with pick

wid on this one. Uh. You two covered the roughest

news week like champions. You deserve an extra long weekend

to zone out to SEMSGDQ and positive vibes. Thank you

very much, boyos.

Speaker 1: Thank you. I will absolutely be doing that. What's I

think Exhibion thirty three is the finale game this year?

Speaker 2: I believe it is this year? Yes, which hey, solid choice, solid.

Speaker 1: Choice, Yeah, that sounds interesting.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think Saturday is just gonna be

a bunch of good stuff too. What welse I see?

It's gonna be Kingdom Heart's two final mix in the afternoon.

Hell yeah, all right, Super Mario sixty four one twenty

star task so the tool assisted speed on?

Speaker 1: Okay, So Task Pilot is back. Good.

Speaker 2: Guess a link to the past is after that, Super

dram World three after that, so some Kaizo and then

the other ending with Expision thirty three. So Saturday is

gonna be very good. I'm looking forward it, yep. And

then god, I still love this name so much. These

pitches love, Sosa says. Feels like these companies are under

us simating the appeal and size of our backlogs. Next

Gen seems absolutely absolutely cooked, and there's infinite retro games.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like the one boy, I'd say that I did

like Xbox that that Xbox did and recent memory was

the backwards compatibility stuff and the enhancements we got to

those games, and that was cool. That initiative never lasted

that long, and it feels like they never really found

a good way to promote that or you know, I

hate to say Monetizac as god knows what that could

have looked like. But they are doing really neat work there.

I love the idea of it, but yeah, I only

went so far.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was any one thing. May the

future would be looking a little different in next gen

and everything. But it's just become a perfect storm of

not being able to afford stuff, combined with all these

studios having issues under management or something like that. Like

things just all coming together to reach a point of

a lot of us, a lot of us I think independently,

I just decided, yeah, maybe I don't need to a

ton of money on new games and new hardware that

isn't offering much for me. Steam Sale just ended, and Mike,

I like, I was feeling a little guilty about like

buying a bunch of stuff today and I realized it

was only like seventy bucks. I got like eight games

or something like that. Yeah, that's that's one full price

game nowadays. And I got like a bunch of stuff,

like I got the Crisis Core remake and I don't

actually own Stardu Valley on steams I picked that out,

and like a bunch of other.

Speaker 1: Stuff, and like, yeah, just when I was excited about

was Dishonored two. I got like really cheap and I'm like,

I never played this Honor two. I like this Honor one.

You don't get these kind of games very much anymore,

and you know, worry about arcane at the moment as well,

So I'm like, yeah, I'm bringing to check out this

on or too. Finally, at some point here.

Speaker 2: It's the wonder of the PC ecosystem because even Watchdogs too,

which unfortunately is like a Ubisoft Connect thing you need

to be logged into their accounting everything. I hate that

shit what was two bucks? And I'm like, I really

like that game, but I don't have on PC. So yeah,

absolutely toss that card as well as Yeah.

Speaker 1: Sometimes absolutely it will be like this seems cheap enough

and I just I have it, but somewhere else. Yeah,

I'll get the PC version now, sure?

Speaker 2: Why not? Yeah? And we are caught up for now.

Thank you for the super chats.

Speaker 1: Everybody, all right, second, another break, We'll be right back

with the hat. Everybody, all right, everybody, we are back.

This is the side out of a hat. If you

don't know, inside this RB's gallon hat, I have slips

of paper with a phrase written on it. The phrase

goes into the sentence, what is the greatest blank of

all times. Some of these I put in. Some of

these are suggestions from our Patreon members community members. Are

you ready, Sean? I know how much you love the hat.

Speaker 2: I do. I love the hat. I know that you

don't always love my decisions when it comes to the hat.

So this is gonna be an interesting I was.

Speaker 1: A little upset. I wasn't here for the Sega Genesis one.

That's all all right. You know it's a Genesis kid.

Speaker 2: And I'm happy you are happy, you are.

Speaker 1: God damn it. All right, let's see here. Now, let's

get one from the bottom the start. We're gonna shake

it up, bro. Good First, make sure it's okay, because

I put a few new ones in there. So let's

picture some of the old ones right at the top.

Some of the new ones go to the bottom. Let's see.

But I got this one jumped out at me. All right,

What is the greatest? That's interesting because I don't know

how I forget what your history of this game is.

Who is the greatest overwatched character of all timecer? It is?

Tracer is in. It is so cool. Coracer is a

cool character, like a cool design, like the personality is

funchy Man just to kind of have like the high

energy they're almost manic pixie girl thing, but not an

obnoxious way. It's actually really fun, insincere and just the kit,

the teleportation stuff. I remember. I think that was like

a big moment for a lot of people playing Overwatch

for the first time, was trying out trays and be

like this is neat. I would still play a whole

like single player first Briton Shooter kind of based around

Facer's kit. I think that would be a time you.

Speaker 2: Should do that.

Speaker 3: They should do that game, right.

Speaker 2: Right, I've always wanted a single player Overwatch, dude, Like,

I think that campaign would really rip. But yeah, the

fun thing is like this is one of those like

I know, she's the poster girls, so she's the obvious choice,

and she's not even one of my favorites. I would

gladly nominate Ryan Hart Diva. Moira is my favorite. I

said this, Moira is my favorite character to play in

any video game ever. She feels so fun to play,

like balancing the orbs all over the place and then

like draining health with the life steal and then healing

your allies. She's my main and I love playing her.

Ess she came out, She's always my favorite. Mercy is

a fun character as well. Lucio the idea of like

a DJ sending sound waves out for healing and everything

like that. Bastian's pretty iconic at this point. I think,

even like Robot May May that the game.

Speaker 1: Is over ten years old now, it's kind of hard

to forget, like why it was such a big hitt,

and there's just a lot of appealing characters in there

from the get go. They have added some neat ones

even recently. I like Juno quite a bit. I think

Juneo is pretty cool. This is pretty new.

Speaker 2: Charatures are pretty neat Yeah, like God, I forget her name,

but the one they just introduced, the Japanese character, like

Japanese Robot. Yeah, she's pretty cool.

Speaker 1: He's cool, like I like Domina of course, all sorts

of neat one. So yeah, great characters in the game.

But it's Tracer. Tracer. Tracer is Needo. That's my word today.

Speaker 2: It is Neo. She's iconic, is what she is.

Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, alrighty, next one then those good work there,

pick one, but from the top this time, what is

the greatest interesting.

Speaker 1: Game within a game?

Speaker 2: That's a good time.

Speaker 3: Is it a meani game or is a actual full

game inside.

Speaker 1: If it's a meeting off of a mini game, I

think it can count. It's like, is it like a.

Speaker 3: Call back to another game that's inside a game like

Middle Gear or Solid four? You can play Middle Gel.

Speaker 1: I don't know about call back, and that's actually be

like a game you're playing. So what I have two

things that came up to my mind. First off is

of course like a Queen's Blood and Found Fantasy seven

and those are both yeah, I love like you know

those are those are mini games that are so robust

or not many They're not very many anymore. Actually, then

there's examples of kind of like classic games being in

a newer games like you can play Donkey Kong and

Jetpack in Donkey Kong sixty four or the way that, uh,

the one that blew me away is all of Maniac

Mansion is in the Day of the Tentacle, and it's

just this fun Eastern right. I know that actually there's

a room with a computer in it. If you like

triby to use the computer enough times, it just boots

up Maniac Mansion and that's super.

Speaker 2: Neat yeah, the Yaka is a series I feel like

is kind of cheating because they do just include like

basically ROMs in there. But it's why, what is it?

Speaker 1: I mean it's neat though, I mean that's that's basically

what's happening with like Maniac Manchin like I'm talking about that.

Speaker 2: I suppose I suppose that's true, yeah, which is very cool,

But it's also like I don't think of any one

of those.

Speaker 1: I think that's what it is, right.

Speaker 2: Not iconic, and I think that's why it feels different.

It's even it's not even like I just saw someone

bring up in chat like the ne e s games

and Animal Crossing. That's kind of what it feels like.

And you know, as cool of an add on as is,

I don't. I don't think of it in the same

way as does someone else point this out, And it's

one that came to my mind.

Speaker 1: Geometry Wars, Oh yeah, that's good, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: From Project Gotham Racing three or whatever.

Speaker 1: Uh huh, here's here's the one. Here's remember Puzzle Combat

and Mortal Kombat Deception.

Speaker 2: Oh didn't they have a karting game and.

Speaker 1: One of them had a crat They Yeah, they had

really neat many games in those for for a while there,

for sure. That's where I crashed. Bandicoo is un chart

at four, which is neat, but it was only kind

of that one level.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so those more bespoke things are more of what

I'm thinking about than just like a game being included.

Speaker 1: You know, what about some of the tech ones? Yeah,

tech and bowling.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, tech and bowling, Tech and ball, Yeah, those

are both good. I think Tech and Ball is like

pretty iconic in the FGC just because of how silly

it is.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess my question is are any of these

as good as Queen's Blood or Triple Triad yet?

Speaker 2: I mean, Geometry Wars is as good?

Speaker 1: Is actually up there? You're right then? That that that

and that really spun off into its own series, even

in a way that Triple Triad somehow hasn't. Like I

feel like there must be some mobile thing of Triple

Triad maybe, but I can't. They did.

Speaker 2: They did have a mobile for Triple Triad. I think

it was actually it may have been part of the

fourteen Companion app at some point because you you know,

you right, Yeah, I'm torn because like Triple Triad is

like the iconic classic one Queen's Queen's Blood, I feel

is just a more fun version of that.

Speaker 1: I might like, but even more Triple Triad God God.

Speaker 2: Geometry Wars is addicting and is also just a very

good game. Like I know, if Jeff was here, you

would definitely go for Geometry, but.

Speaker 1: He's not, and that's that's the fun part, right, So

I yeah, oh, you know there's stuff like Gwent for sure. Yeah,

I'm torn.

Speaker 2: I could say either Queen's Blood or Geometry Wars at this.

Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna say, Queen's Blood, all right.

Speaker 2: I'm I'm down to do Queen's Blood.

Speaker 1: We're doing Queen's Blood if I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: Geometry Wars lost game within a game to Queen's Blood,

I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: Actually yeah, playing Poker in Red Dead was actually also

really neat. I think disrespects. Get back to Maks.

Speaker 2: You love Geometry Wars. You know I love Geometry Wars.

Speaker 1: Do you have time to be er? You have time

to do gay mess Mornings tomorrow?

Speaker 2: All right?

Speaker 1: So I think taking the hat, shaking the hat, that's crazy. Yeah,

Sonic three is the best Geniis game was pretty crazy too.

I don't think I can do about that one. All right?

I thought you well, people would have at least four

streets Streets of Rage two, But nope. Oh this is fun.

This is fun. This is a fun one to have

you on. I think this is the fine providence here.

Who is the greatest star Fuck's teammate of all time?

Speaker 2: Falco?

Speaker 1: Right, Flippy PEPPI? Who am I forgetting?

Speaker 2: Could you be forgetting? Mike Command?

Speaker 1: All right?

Speaker 2: Uh?

Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you think you think we're gonna see Crystal again?

You think in the next Star Foks game it'll it'll

be it'll You think it's gonna be like such a

direct sequel to this remake that it's not gonna acknowledge Crystal,

Or you think there's gonna be kind of a time

jump and it's like far enough in the future that

Crystal is just there. They even like reintroduce her or

something like that.

Speaker 2: I wonder if they are just like there's some bitterness

somewhere in the equation where they're just like, we're just

gonna retcon her away. She's never coming back. That was

that was a rare creation. Nah, She's she's not part

of our thing anymore. I I hate Tom She's probably

never coming back, especially Hat could just come in and

be the new Crystal.

Speaker 1: Pretty neat cat.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: In the remake that remakes is need Yeah, and that's

my word. Yeah, that's fine. Look, I like all I

think the fun thing about Star Fucks is that the

whole team is cool. Even Slippy I always liked, and

we probably got the best version of Slippy in the remakes.

Speaker 2: I'll say this for the process of illumination. I think

Peppy's the worst out of the five main roster. I

think Peppy's the worst.

Speaker 1: I always liked N sixty four Peppy just because I

liked his delivery and voice, Like I was one of

those people forever ago, just going around screaming do a barrow,

thinking it was really funny. But sure, Falco is obviously good.

But look, if you want to have Crystal for this one,

you can have it.

Speaker 2: So when we say teammate, are we excluding Fox from that?

Does this physically mean team? How's it phrase? How's it phrased?

Speaker 1: I said teammate, which I know, what's the whole thing?

Speaker 2: Hang on, what was the paper say? It was the

whole thing? All? Right?

Speaker 1: Got what I wrote? I think it says Star Fucks

teammate is all this? Yeah, Starfux teammate is all that?

This says to me.

Speaker 2: Like I mean Star Fox is all for all four

members at I an't given point in time. So if

that includes Fox, I would say Fox. But if that,

if you don't think that's really in the spirit, then.

Speaker 1: We sometimes in the spirit. But I just think you're

more interested.

Speaker 2: If you say Crystal, I mean I don't think you'll

let me have Crystal.

Speaker 1: I tell you, I'll let you have it.

Speaker 2: All right, it's Crystal his own time. If he wants

to getting mad, anybody else Hoelete, you're common, I'll give ship.

Speaker 1: It's Crystal. Here we get congratulations. You use the boost

to get through. Okay, let's get another one. I ever

do a couple more at least everybody. Uh, I'm gonna

go deep, deep into the bottom of the hat to

pick this one out. It's interesting, not a franchise. I

don't know if you have any affinity for this. I

don't have a ton myself, but chat hope us out.

Who is the greatest Bond girl of all time?

Speaker 2: Oh God, oh no, Because I grew up with Bond.

I love the Bond movies. Look y'all know what I mean.

Why I say this, I don't remember any of them. Bond,

James Bond threw them away. Why am I supposed to

remember them?

Speaker 1: He is supposed to remember. I don't know if people

who like by answer because I don't know. No. People

are kind of to this game, this movie. These days diet,

other days wild. But halle Berry in that movie, huh, giks,

I just learned her name is in that movie. I

just call her halle Berry when I'm watching that movie

is not very often. Huh. Pussy Glory is an iconic name,

though we all know that this iconic.

Speaker 2: Name the only Bond your old name I'm gonna remember. Yeah,

Mortalization I don't remember because James doesn't remember.

Speaker 1: In the morning, if Dan was here to be streaming,

I think it should be on the top man.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucking Mike Maharty is screaming somewhere.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Vesper was, Yeah, Vesper and Casino I was really

good and probably the best acted. I do agree with

that for sure. There's the Martini. Yeah that's Ava Green.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I'll defer to you a little more on this. Mike.

You seem to like remember this a little more than

I do.

Speaker 1: Halle period is.

Speaker 2: Down jeans.

Speaker 1: Apparently, there you go. But if I just gave it

to that the lady in the island resorts in the

new game.

Speaker 2: Actually, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: Anyways, get another one in case you get tell I'm

not necessarily some huge bond guys with the classic movies.

I don't know. I don't know, all right, going from

the top here maybe our last one. We got quite

a lot going on here. Let's see another one.

Speaker 2: Huh.

Speaker 1: Okay, let's see what you know about this. Who is

the greatest iron Chef of all time? You ever watch

Iron Chef Sean.

Speaker 2: On a second in my life?

Speaker 1: Mari, Yeah, well, let me let me help you out.

In the original Japanese version, the chefs kind of represented

a different cuisines from the world, like kent Ken Knichi

I believe his name was the iron Chef Chinese, right,

so that was important. There was a My favorite the

original was here Yoki Sakai. He was the French, the

cussically French trained iron Chef. He had an incredible winning work.

He was in a ton of episodes. I liked Sakai

but a lot. Masa Haromiyamoto, though kind of cross He

sort of crosses generations because he was an Iron Chef

Japanese in the Japan show, and then when they did

Iron Chef America he also came over was an Iron

Chef there as well. That was great, and then an

Iron Chef America. He also had Bobby Flay, huge and

then Cleveland's own Michael Simon, who also had an amazing

win record. Michael Simon was an all star, just incredible

an Iron Chef America for sure, So plenty of choose from.

Like god, this something about the way Marimoto was on

both shows. It was kind of, you know, incredible in both.

I feel like I watched that guy grow up. He

was such a young fresh face. He's just a boy.

An Iron Chef Japan. Now, I've like been to a

couple of restaurants good, but boy, Michael Simon is cool

and he's a Cleveland guy. I do like Michael Simon,

but I think I have to give they got to

give their respect. The massa hero Moriymoto on cousine. I

love Iron bar Aye. Boy. When Iron Chef they started

doing those those dubs on Food Network at night, I

watched it religiously. I loved it, and then like that

transformed the network. The network went from actual shows about

learning how to cook to competition based stuff within the

span of a couple of years. Yeah, well I knew

it was big.

Speaker 2: I realized like it turned down Aron interesting.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's to kind of change the the whole network

over there, And that's like still guys grocery games, right,

that's still what that network basically is. God boy, I

like that. All right, Well that was let's see one

board that. How about one more.

Speaker 2: Give me one more? Give you what?

Speaker 1: That's maybe a little bit more relevant to your interest.

Speaker 2: Shot, we went to the peak of my interest in

the cratered down.

Speaker 1: Okay, I think you may got something here. What is

the greatest schmup? Get them up? Vertical shooter? Horizontal shooter?

What are you gonna of all time? Debbious that I

never played that one that much.

Speaker 2: That's the one where it's like your favorite game designer's

favorite game.

Speaker 1: I know about it. Yeah, I will say, like some

of my favorites are I love thunder Force, Flour on

the Genesis and Mosh. Those two on the Genesis both

feel really freaking good. And then of course there's Ikaruga.

You know our frosty demand always increases, right, Yeah. Yeah,

so that one's I haven't played Radiance Silver Gun yet.

I've been meaning to for quite a while. Eine Hander

also really freaking good.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I do like that one.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there's some classics you got to give respect for.

The Gradius is the art types. Zero Wing actually not

a bad game. I know, we mostly know the somebody

set us up the bomb ben.

Speaker 2: Yeah, you do know more about this than I do,

as I do like I do like shoota mups, but

you definitely know more about those. So I'm curious what

you're feeling right now, boy.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and like there are some that you're right that

I think the schmuff sickos would be screaming about more

so than what I know about them. They always have

strange names, right my my instinct that's either thunder Force

for Ikaruga.

Speaker 2: I do like Ikaruga.

Speaker 1: Yeah, shout outs to un Squadron on Super Nintendo as well. Hmmm, yeah,

those are definitely my favorites.

Speaker 2: Of the concept is so fun, like switching between the

bullet types and everything like that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's just it's a cool looking game and

it was kind of that time that genre was kind

of felt dead. So even even then, the idea that

we got a new schmup was actually kind of like, WHOA,

what a throwback, right, everybody, it's neat, It's neat. We

could just say it Garuga. That's a cool game. Kind

of stands the test of time to.

Speaker 2: I know some people in the chest at Galaga and

Gallaga I love it is one of my favorite arcade games.

I feel like it's just I guess it's in that category,

but just like the speed.

Speaker 1: Is so much to Yeah, it's like, to me, this

genre is almost just classic arcade game. Like it's closer

to Acmand than it.

Speaker 2: Is to It's closer to as Troy's than is the Career.

Speaker 1: Still it's like I I would rather play kind of

one of the I don't know, slightly more modern, fast

paced scrolling one of those, and like the stationary from

ups of the day.

Speaker 2: Yeah, there there's some and there's some cool ones too

in the more modern times, like the Darius Burst and

like with ultra wide monitors and stuff like that. But

there is something about Ikaruga where anytime I go back

to play that, I'm like, man, this game is really cool.

They were right to have frothing demand increase.

Speaker 1: It's the reason why I know what Tate mode is.

It's because of.

Speaker 2: There you go, all right, yeah, yeah, I'm down for Karuga.

Speaker 1: By the way, I'm like, I keep way from them

to do a parodius uh compilation, which is like the

silly parody braddiest games that Konami also made that also

just played like good ones of those, but they're really

silly and weird and goofy, and they look like a

ton of fun.

Speaker 2: I would, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that reminds me we're

robbing Chowaniki.

Speaker 1: Okay, all right, fantastic. Let's recap what we did here today.

From the hat, we decided that the best Overwatch character

is Tracer, best game within a game is Queen's Blood

from Fan Fantasy seven Rebirth, the best Star Fox teammate

is Bristol, the best the best Bond girl is Halle

Berry as a Jinx, the best Iron chef with Masahomia Moto,

and the best schmupp is Ika Rega. All right, fantastic work.

Thank you so much for helping me sort through this hat, Sean,

And now we're gonna take one more break. We'll come

back we'll read the rest of super Chat, talk about

anything we've been playing. We'll finish this show up here.

Be everybody all right, we're back Sean. What you been playing?

Speaker 2: Honestly, not a ton a ton mostly just still on

my retro bs, you know, retro achievements stuff, revisiting some stuff.

I have been going back. The Wii retro Achievements event

is still ongoing. I still have to give my badge.

I'm at thirty five out of the fifty points I

need and we only got like ten days to go,

so I'm gonna have to plow through some shovel where again, unfortunately,

I think, But yeah, I have been going back to

get all the achievements in Twilight Princess. That's been fun,

Like I do. I don't love Twilight Princess, but having

like played in spent a lot of time when now

I do enjoy it, I think has a lot of

charm when you get into like the smaller yeah village

and stuff.

Speaker 1: I thought I was about. The game had good dungeons,

at least, like I was like that stuff more than

maybe some of the vignettes in between.

Speaker 2: It might be the single best lineup of dungeons in

a Zelda game, because not a single one like I

actively disliked, and even the one where I was like

on the water dungeon, of course, it's always a water

dungeon like even that, Like they I think they did

some things so like leverly sort of revise their ideas

from the Water Temple and Ocarina time, which I thought

was like an interesting thing to do, is to say, hey, look,

we do more interesting things with water. And also the

iron boots are gonna be here in places, but it's

not like the defining feature of the of the dungeon.

That was pretty cool. So yeah, I've been having fun

revisiting that. And then also on the other side of

retro achievement stuff, Mario sixty four. Been playing that because

I want to get to Mario Sunshine, just because I'm

in the mood to play that for summertime. And I

was like, you know what, I fired up sixty four

on stream the other day when I was testing the superstation.

Why not just see this through? Why not just do

one hundred and twenty star run and also get all

the retro achievements as I go as well. So that's

been a lot of fun to do. As well, just

because I love Mario sixty four. It's why it's, in

my opinion, the greatest game of all time, so.

Speaker 1: I definitely can make that case. I love it as well. Yeah,

I've been playing a lot of that Taro Tech Legion,

which again is the game that's like Vampire Survivors with

the car that you customize as you level up. It's

been ships super fun. Yeah, it's kind of the gummy

ship editor, just with the ground vehicle you're attaching, you know,

turrets and blocks that like can increase of stats and speed.

So yeah, very gummy ship there. But it's just a

really fun one of these. I like the way controls

you have, the four different characters that all kind of

work a little bit differently, Like some favor weapons that

are more about just ramming into the enemies. Some of

them have like just like they send out drones and

that's where of the focus. You could get all these

things with any vehicle, but some just have some different attributes,

even sort of basic like gel designs that you then

can expand you just turn them into these absolute monstrosities

by the end. Tarotech Legion fun also start up out

and ring again. I'm finally gonna play that game without

doing any summoning. That is still a neat game. That's uh,

that is it's really pretty. It's fun. I've three of

the kind of some of the bigger bosses at this

I just went through that Magic School section again and

I have a kind of a Bleed build going right

now by this giant sword that I can swing and

it's it's kind of heavy, but it's decks based, and

eventually it's very satisfying when that Bleed broadcasts. And for

people don't know, Bleed is the status effect, where like

if you kind of like fill up the invisible bar

on the enemies, it just takes off a chunk of damage.

As that hits always feels really good. And that game yep, yep,

big stuff that I have been up to. So there's that.

Are we cut up on the super chats? The go ahead? Christy?

Speaker 3: Oh so you talk about you I've not played a

Black Flag yet.

Speaker 1: I have. I have.

Speaker 3: It's just it's hard to talk about remakes for me

because it's always the same thing that you like the

old one and the remake is good, you're gonna like

the new one. But I want to point people to

go read the PC Gamer review because the reviewer on

that review played the old game and the new game

back to back and then review it that way. So

it's a pretty good read.

Speaker 2: Yeah, go to that.

Speaker 3: Go to that read that review because it's really good.

It's like I played that game thirteen years ago, which

is crazy, and I don't remember anything, which is crazy

because it was so good. I remember, I remember it

being good, and I remember like enjoying it. But I'm

playing I don't remember what happened. I barely remember the

story or anything. So like planning back to back, that

is the real test for the remake, I feel, and

they it's not like I thought. To me playing the

remake now, I was like, oh, this is like a

nine out of ten, like an eight out of ten.

It's like a really good remake. And they gave it

a seventy five, which is like, oh, maybe the remake

kind of lost something from the original. And that in

that review that I'm like telling you what re they

go through, like oh, the park who was more methodical,

the story was a little bit better pace, and all

that kind of stuff. So people go read that review.

It's pretty good.

Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, might be checking that one out still myself.

At some point here we did get a super chat

sneak in Sean.

Speaker 2: Yes, we did. G Nitro put one in to say

rip Bonnie Tyler, whose song holding Out for a Hero

was part of the amazing ending of Saints frothree when

rescuing Shandy.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that one is said. I do think Total Clips

of the Heart is an all time good song. Just

every time that's one daytime it's on the RADI I'm like,

I'm gonna listen. I'm not gonna get out of the

car until this one's done again.

Speaker 2: Yeah, just great musician across the board. I do love

her stuff. Like you said, anytime it comes on the radio,

I always give a listen. So yep, definitely r I

P there.

Speaker 1: Oh righty we are at the end of the show.

Thank you so much much every hanging out, Sean. Thank

you so much for helping me here covering for Jeff

Curry for me the two previous weeks. Appreciate that. Tomorrow tomorrow,

everybody Games Mornings, Jason Fonellion, We'll see what fresh hell

awaits us. Tomorrow we'll have a upf. We're doing a

little bit of a grab I think Dan's gonna actually

play some Terotech legion if you're curious to see what

that looks like. We haven't played it on the site yet,

talked about a lot. We'll get away a bunch of

codes for it, but yeah, we'll show you what what

that looks like, Sean. Anything you want to show, I

can do any streaming this weekend.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll keep going with my Mario sixty four stuff.

So if you want to watch that, we'll be playing

on the superstation while getting hardcore retro achievements. You can

do that over on Twitch, dot tv, slash Turbo. Sean

stream nowadays every Saturday and Sunday at noon Central. It's

always a fun time just to chill hangout because it

sucks everywhere on the internet, and so I you know,

we try to find those podcasts where people are chilling,

like to hang out. I like for my stream to

be one of those. So if you want just like

a nice relaxing thing to put on in the background

while you do whatever, or you want to hop into

the chat, hopefully you check it out. I'd appreciate it.

Speaker 1: Awesome. I love streaming. It's it's always a ton of fun.

I appreciate people who show up there, and I'll definitely

be doing some more out and ringing out and ringing.

I don't like saying that this weekend as well, and

then next week Jan and Grab we'll be back. I

think I think you and I should really phone it

in next week. I think we deserve that we burned

at this point, right, yeah, yeah, I am right, Like,

let's let's just do let's just be real lazy. I'm

gonna be a diva. I'm going I don't want to

be on dump truck tires.

Speaker 2: It's new for you.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, thank you. I would usually never boy, Now,

I got.

Speaker 2: What was that outside? You like ther comfort zone? It's

pretty am right.

Speaker 1: I'm gonna be watching a lot of games then quick

this evening though, because I want to see this out

and ring and then Metro dread after.

Speaker 2: That at Metro's gonna be good. Yeah you said after that, right.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the Saga ages, like, yeah, yes, of

course we all know that. By the way, I did

check out that like Puzzle League thing the GBA won.

That's a bad version of that game. It's a bare but.

Speaker 2: So much better.

Speaker 5: It's so much better. Just buy that all right, by everybody.

Speaker 1: All right, black.

Speaker 3: Oh chat, watch young girls, don't play fighting games.

Speaker 1: Pop a coconut, bitch. There's so many ways to fund yourself.

Open your mind. I'm sorry to say that one didn't

quite get it. That's a good on the East grooms

opened your mind a