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But this show, the

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main show, DLC, it's

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the show all about games! In their

1:57

many forms, games played on desktops, laptops...

2:00

and consoles, also games

2:02

that involve dice luck and cardboard. I'm your host

2:04

Jeff Kanata spelled two N's and one T and

2:06

I am joined as always by my friend slash

2:09

co-host slash nemesis.

2:11

The guy who's bringing

2:14

tie dye back, Mr. Christian Spicer.

2:16

Hello, Christian. Oh

2:18

yeah, for our video viewers, this is homemade

2:21

family and I, we did our own, our

2:23

own dyes. I love these intros you've been

2:25

doing for a while now. The intros are

2:27

always great, maybe for the last month or

2:30

two months. You might not know

2:32

this dear listeners, but at some point in there, you always

2:34

figure out what the weather is like at Jeff's house. Maybe

2:39

you're shopping, maybe you just finished doing your

2:42

kids laundry, maybe you just made pasta prima

2:44

dora for your family and maybe it's a

2:46

20% chance of ice on the roads today.

2:48

So pack an umbrella in the jacket, it's

2:50

gonna be a cold one. It's

2:52

a whole new thing for me, Christian. Weather. I

2:56

never had it before I moved here to Denver

2:58

and it's a delight weather to experience it. Very

3:03

observant of you. Hey, we got a great show for you. We

3:05

got tons of stuff to talk about. It's gonna be

3:08

a really interesting, interesting

3:10

news segment. And we

3:12

got great games to get to you.

3:14

Oh, it's gonna be a great show. And one

3:16

of the biggest reasons for that is we have

3:18

a great guest to do it with. You know,

3:20

the DLC always stands for your downloadable Kanata and

3:22

your downloadable Christian. But this week, once again, DLC

3:25

stands for developers

3:28

who are littler by comparison. Because

3:31

from the indie informer, we

3:33

have our friend Jill

3:35

Groat back with us. Hi, Jill. How are you?

3:38

Good. That was a fantastic. I was

3:40

like, why are you gonna make DLC and

3:42

do for like indie stuff? But that was

3:44

great. Absolutely fantastic. It's a good week to have

3:46

young because we got some fun indies to talk

3:49

about. I'm excited to hear about some of the

3:51

stuff you've been playing. And I, you

3:54

know, honestly, it's becoming

3:56

clearer and clearer to me as

3:58

I get older. My

4:00

tastes are just going more in the

4:03

indie direction than ever before. I

4:05

love a great big, splashy, triple A game,

4:08

I'm not gonna lie, but it

4:10

tends to me to be the case that

4:12

week after week, I'm more delighted playing a

4:15

new indie game than I

4:17

ever have been. And so it's awesome to talk

4:19

to you, and I love your website as well,

4:21

it's a great resource for finding those. Thank you

4:23

so much. I think another good reason

4:26

for this being a

4:28

good week to have me on, I've

4:30

noticed the past, I think, two weeks

4:32

you've had extended Game Informer fam guests.

4:35

Yes! So you're just continuing on

4:37

with the trend. Yeah, that's great, that's right, you

4:39

fit right in. It's our theme

4:42

month of April, you know, Game Informer.

4:44

Yeah. Awesome, well let's get into

4:46

it, and start the show the way we always do,

4:48

with Story of the Week. Story

4:51

of the Week, the Story of the

4:53

Week, Story of the

4:55

Week. Story

4:57

of the Week is the part of the show where we make

4:59

our case for the most important stories that happen in

5:01

the world of games this week.

5:04

You can always submit stories for

5:06

our consideration by sending us an

5:08

email to [email protected]. You can also

5:10

send comments, questions, anything you'd

5:12

like us to know, please reach

5:15

out. We love hearing from you,

5:17

[email protected]. But there's another way to have

5:19

your voice heard as well. You can show

5:22

up to our Discord, which is 5x5

5:24

DLC on Discord. Great folks

5:26

hanging out there, talking about all sorts of stuff. Take

5:29

part, it's a blast. But Jill, you

5:32

are our guest, so you get first pick of stories.

5:34

What would you consider to be your Story

5:36

of the Week? Story of the

5:39

Week, just throw my eyes over this

5:41

dock here. I am

5:43

so excited to hear that El

5:45

Paso Elsewhere is getting a movie

5:47

adaptation. I mean, for a lot

5:50

of reasons, obviously I'm the indie informer, these are

5:52

a great love of mine. But

5:54

the developer who works at Strange

5:56

Scaffold, Xalavier, and I can

5:58

never say his name. right? I'm so

6:00

sorry, Salvier. Salvier Nelson Jr. is an absolutely

6:03

fantastic human being. If you ever get the

6:05

chance, you should speak with him. But

6:09

this was one of the games from last

6:11

year that should

6:14

have, it should have won so many

6:16

more awards than it did, but it

6:18

was nominated, BAFTA nominated, and in

6:20

all other kinds of places. And it was, if

6:23

you did not say it, El Paso

6:26

elsewhere is a sort of Max Payne

6:28

inspired, you are going after

6:30

your ex who just happens to also

6:32

be Lord of the

6:34

Underworld and Dracula, vampire-esque

6:38

woman who is gonna

6:41

end the world. And it's like,

6:43

I knew I was all in on this game. When

6:45

you have one of the opening, I think it might

6:48

be the opening cinematic

6:50

where it is a character and the

6:52

character is like lo-fi, you know, you're

6:54

looking at like, PS1, I don't know

6:57

if there are eyes there, like, almost

6:59

pixelated, but they're looking at you in the

7:01

camera. And they're giving you like this monologue

7:04

that's heavy, and it's deep into like, addiction

7:06

and like how they're giving up everything they

7:08

had in life to be able to save

7:10

the world. They don't, they're not going to

7:13

make it out. There's a one way trip.

7:15

And they look you in the eyes through

7:17

the camera and say, I need you to believe

7:20

in me, or else this isn't

7:22

going to work. And then they came to three. And

7:24

if, if you believe enough, that

7:27

they will be where they need to be. And then they are.

7:29

And I'm like, I did that. Yeah,

7:33

really, really cool

7:35

news, as you said, to hear that this, we're

7:38

getting this next wave of video

7:41

games going to be turned into

7:43

other media, TV shows, movies, obviously,

7:46

Fallout is this huge hit right now, we had

7:48

The Last of Us, we're getting all of these,

7:50

you know, Halo TV shows, and it's, you know,

7:53

third season, I think now, these

7:55

things that are kind of getting traction, and I think

7:58

those big, Triple-a,

8:00

you know big mainstream household

8:02

name IP

8:04

I think are opening the door

8:07

for these lesser known games to get that

8:09

and we've we've talked in Previous

8:11

weeks about how there's all these kind of

8:13

things percolating. There's all all these projects coming

8:15

up and here's another one That was just

8:17

announced this week I Agree

8:21

with you. I think the coolest part of El Paso

8:23

elsewhere is its Storytelling

8:25

and it's it's style, you

8:28

know, it is dripping with style And

8:32

I think that's cool. I love the fact this

8:34

this to me Makes

8:36

sense. It feels like this is going to

8:39

be such a killer movie. It sounds like

8:42

Lakeith Stanfield is

8:44

is in line to play the lead, which

8:46

I think is great casting. Love him. I

8:48

think he's awesome So

8:51

who knows no director mentioned yet. We don't

8:53

have any kind of release date So this

8:55

could be a couple of years off or

8:57

whatever but really cool to hear El Paso

8:59

elsewhere is gonna be a movie Yeah,

9:01

whenever it comes out, I'll be there day one day

9:03

to day three. However long I can see it. I'm

9:05

gonna be checking it out The

9:08

question I have about this

9:10

to you specifically as as

9:12

the Indian former Do

9:15

you think? There

9:18

needs to be or should

9:20

be an overt Reference

9:25

mention Acknowledgement

9:27

of the fact that this is a video game

9:29

in The marketing

9:31

of this film Do you think that this

9:33

is the kind of thing that should push

9:35

people to the video game or can it

9:37

just live on its own? As

9:40

an adaptation and people can find that or not

9:43

find that as they may I think

9:45

it should be its

9:47

own thing, but I think You

9:50

never really have a situation where you have a movie

9:53

where people don't walk out and be like, oh

9:55

by the way Did you know that was a video game and

9:57

that's sort of how you get that word of mouth? I

10:00

think if they do it in the media itself, it

10:02

kind of can take away.

10:05

Obviously, like hints and nods to people who have played

10:07

the game and that sort of thing or Easter eggs

10:09

are always fun, but to like

10:11

legitimately call that out in the opening trailer

10:14

of like based on the I mean, I

10:16

guess they could do a based on the

10:18

game by blah, blah, blah, but I

10:21

don't think it needs to. I

10:24

think the story, like we were

10:26

saying, is so good. And

10:28

the cinematography of the game is

10:31

so fantastic and so stylish that

10:34

it will translate very well to a

10:36

video format anyway.

10:39

So I don't think people unlike a

10:41

lot of movies like let's go with the

10:44

Mario movie, you know, right, people

10:46

are using that Mario

10:49

angle to push people to the movie

10:52

because a big franchise and

10:54

whatever. But because El Paso

10:56

elsewhere is an indie, a

10:59

lot of people aren't going to be aware of it,

11:01

even if they are in the gaming space, so

11:04

that's not necessarily going to be like, oh,

11:06

it's a video game. I should go check

11:08

it out. And that might even actually be

11:10

a detriment because of the bad reputation

11:12

that adaptations tend to have. So

11:15

if you do start it as a just

11:17

a movie and people check it out and they love it

11:20

and then they find out later, oh, it's also

11:22

a game. I should check that out. I

11:24

think that is a more winning formula

11:26

than trying to do it the other

11:28

way around. I think that makes a

11:30

lot of sense. I'm inclined to agree. Christian, I

11:33

know you are a big fan of El Paso

11:35

elsewhere, the game. What

11:37

do you make of a

11:39

film adaptation potentially starring with

11:41

Keith Stanfield? What's

11:43

Robert Rodriguez doing? You know, like where can

11:45

we can we can we grindhouse this up

11:47

a little bit? Can we I mean, I

11:50

think it makes a lot of sense as

11:52

a film. The story is interesting. The

11:56

Max Payne movie is not good,

11:58

but that style of. of

12:00

cinematography and even going, I

12:03

think cinema is also ready

12:05

to, and we're seeing some of this, but I think

12:07

we're ready to see more of it, do something

12:10

similar to what the game did

12:12

and being a throwback. The game

12:14

is very graphically PlayStation one era

12:16

style, Max Payne

12:18

one basic polygonal work. And

12:21

I think we're accepting that

12:23

in film as well, like going back to

12:26

19 jeans are wider again,

12:28

90s is very much in again,

12:30

the 90s era. And I think having a slo-mo

12:33

bullet hell movie,

12:36

I think we're

12:38

ready for that. You know, at

12:40

the time there was every John

12:43

Woo movie matrix. We

12:45

had so many of these movies, DMX

12:48

and one too, like him and

12:50

somebody that had like a, I forget, but like

12:53

every movie had the, like they were, everybody's

12:55

trying to do it. It felt got played

12:57

out and then became annoying and how

13:00

many underworld movies did we have? And it kind

13:02

of just became, you know, this naked its own

13:04

tail, but I think we're ready for it again

13:06

to be done in

13:09

a knowing way, but with modern technology that can

13:11

make all of that look better in a really

13:13

cool way. And as Jill talked about the plot

13:15

of this game, and I really enjoyed the game,

13:17

I think it tells its story well, but the

13:19

plot of the game, I mean, to me, it

13:22

feels like from dusk

13:24

till dawn meets the tortured

13:26

poets department. And it's like, I want that.

13:28

I want all of that. So I think

13:30

it makes a lot of sense. And I

13:32

think I don't think it needs to market

13:34

it as a game movie.

13:37

I think you see that when they're trying to

13:40

bring a large audience to a new thing. And

13:43

unfortunately, I also agree with Jill, I think

13:45

part of what you said implied this, I

13:47

don't think El Paso elsewhere got the sales

13:49

or recognition it deserved. So I don't I

13:51

think Jill and I are ready to go

13:53

day one, but I don't think there are

13:55

fallout Legion of fans, you know, pounding

13:57

on the door to to see this.

14:00

day one. Whereas when you have a huge

14:02

following like that, you want to, hey,

14:04

every Fallout fan, we're

14:06

making a show, you know, it's going to be a hit. So

14:09

I think this thing's going to stand on its own.

14:11

And I think people are going to find the game

14:13

because of it. The game does awesome stuff with sound

14:15

also. Yeah, really cool score, I

14:17

think can be incorporated really well in cinema.

14:19

It does really cool stuff with its typeface

14:22

much in the same way

14:24

that control did

14:26

where it's kind of jarring and uncomfortable

14:29

at times. I think that's going to work

14:31

really well in cinema and the whole location

14:33

of it being this hotel

14:36

in hell, you know,

14:39

that slowly descends into madness. Yeah,

14:41

it's all there. I'm stoked. Speaking

14:44

of slowly descending into madness, you have

14:46

reminded me of something that happened very

14:48

recently when talking with someone slightly

14:50

younger than me, but not a lot younger than me,

14:53

where they turn to me and ask

14:55

like, really old movie The Matrix. Oh,

14:59

yeah. Oh, no, that's where I am right

15:01

now. You reply with a straight

15:03

face. No, never heard

15:05

about before. Thank you. We just

15:08

did on our paid DLC program,

15:10

we do the show with our

15:12

friend Lana Byshinski, who's a developer

15:14

at Riot and quite

15:16

a bit younger than either of us. Than

15:19

you, especially. Yeah, way younger than

15:21

me. And significantly

15:23

younger than Christian. But we

15:26

did a we just recently did a question about

15:28

the first R rated movie we

15:30

saw when we were too young to

15:32

see our rate, you know, like the movie you saw that

15:34

you weren't supposed to see. And for her, it was The

15:36

Matrix. And I was like, Oh, I'm

15:38

old. Yeah,

15:41

do it. Yeah. Anyway, El

15:43

Paso, excuse me, El Paso

15:45

elsewhere. Also, just

15:47

the strength of the title alone.

15:49

That's a great title. El Paso

15:52

elsewhere. Great title for a

15:54

movie for video game for anything. Great

15:56

title. So I you know, it goes a long way

15:58

to Um, that

16:01

should be showing up in movie theaters, you know, in the

16:03

next couple of years, pretty exciting. And

16:06

I love the indie games are getting a little of

16:08

that rub from the, from

16:10

Hollywood. Very cool. Christian

16:12

Spicer, what is your story of the week? There's

16:15

a lot of stuff I want to talk about, but I'm

16:17

going to pick one, Jeff. I'm going to pick one. My

16:20

story of the week this week, which I texted to you,

16:22

which I'm sure you probably already saw. But

16:24

when I saw it, I was like, Oh, ping this, ping this to Jeff for sure.

16:28

Yeah. And then on again, off again, relationship

16:30

with Blizzcon is off again. It's

16:32

off. No bliss. Microsoft

16:34

acquired them and there was like, what is

16:36

it going to do? And they're like, Blizzcon's

16:38

back. We're back. But everybody was like, yeah,

16:41

Blizzcon. And they now, I think they even

16:43

announced ticket pricing. Maybe I thought maybe not.

16:45

And then this week they were like, it's

16:47

not happening. No Blizzcon. We

16:49

love you, but we're not doing

16:51

it. Um, I think that's

16:53

fascinating in this Microsoft

16:56

era. The reason why I think it's

16:58

a bigger story than just like, Hey,

17:00

not happening again is I am very

17:02

curious to see what Blizzard's

17:05

identity is now. Like

17:07

in hindsight, it's easy to look

17:10

back at Blizzard throughout the years.

17:12

Oh, this is the more high

17:14

era. This is the pre Activision

17:16

era. This is wow. We

17:19

now call Wow. Classic era. This is,

17:21

you know, all these eras and I'm

17:23

very curious what the Microsoft era ends

17:26

up being. And this

17:28

very, very well may be the

17:31

first kind of marker of

17:33

that going forward. So I'm

17:35

curious. Interesting dots to connect. I

17:37

did not connect those dots, but I guess that one

17:40

must seeing as how, you know, Microsoft is

17:43

on some level calling the shots. It

17:45

is interesting. You know, Blizzcon has been happening

17:47

since what? Yeah.

17:51

Obviously the years, the COVID years, they did

17:54

not happen. There was some controversial

17:56

stuff going on with Blizzard and there was, you

17:58

know, it did come back. And

18:01

this is the first time they have not

18:03

had a Blizzcon without

18:05

some kind of global pandemic

18:07

preventing it since 2005. And

18:11

I think that alone is notable. Also

18:13

notable, they don't

18:15

explain why. There's no reason

18:18

given other than we decided not to. We

18:20

thought about it long and hard and we decided not to. Now,

18:24

this is the 30th

18:26

anniversary year for Warcraft,

18:28

the original RTS Warcraft,

18:31

celebrating their 30th anniversary.

18:34

Blizzard has announced a bunch of kind of things

18:37

they're doing to commemorate that milestone

18:39

in 2024. You'd

18:41

think their giant

18:44

successful convention would

18:47

rally around that year event if

18:49

they're doing things to celebrate 30

18:51

years of Warcraft anyway. You

18:53

would think, why not have this giant

18:55

party that we throw annually

18:58

in Anaheim? And

19:01

so to me, the

19:03

biggest part of this story is the huge

19:05

question mark as to why cancel it? What

19:08

do you think, Jill? I

19:10

wonder if it's a lot tied

19:13

up with larger macro things happening

19:15

in the gaming space. Sort

19:17

of like, obviously, Microsoft earlier this

19:19

year let a lot of people go. And

19:22

so there is some financial

19:25

things that are going on. And I'm

19:27

wondering how much of this is like

19:30

a lot of different companies

19:32

that did conventions and things like

19:34

E3. That's gone away,

19:36

obviously. And people who went

19:38

to conventions or like Nintendo said they were

19:40

pulling out of Gamescom. I

19:43

wonder how many of these companies are

19:46

looking at the bottom

19:48

line, that number, and saying, you know,

19:50

maybe it's not worth it to do

19:52

these in-person things. And then you think

19:54

about Blizzard's sort of controversy

19:57

still kind of roaming around and

19:59

them thinking, thinking like maybe it's not

20:02

financially viable, but also maybe they

20:04

want maybe Microsoft wants to get

20:06

away from having protesters and

20:08

that kind of thing show up to their stuff.

20:12

And maybe that's why they're not saying anything about why

20:14

they're not doing it. Because you don't really want to

20:16

say, we don't want to spend the

20:18

money and we don't want people showing up and having

20:20

bad press. So I

20:23

don't know. Like obviously, they're saying they're going

20:25

to have a Blizzcon, like it's not going

20:28

away permanently. But yeah, I think... Well,

20:31

they're saying that now. Who knows? Yeah,

20:34

I know. I'm thinking like E3 was very

20:36

clear about like, yeah, we're coming back

20:38

to... Put money on

20:40

it. E3 is coming back. Oh, my dad

20:42

said the same thing when he went to

20:44

go get those cigarettes. He said he'd be

20:47

right. Get the milk, honey.

20:49

Also, nobody blame me. If it doesn't come back, I'm so

20:51

sorry. You

20:54

jinxed it. Yeah, I mean, I

20:56

don't think you say we're canceling

20:58

Blizzcon forever in the first press

21:00

release. But yeah, it'll be interesting.

21:03

It'll be interesting. They certainly are

21:06

not without announcements

21:08

to make or things to show off.

21:10

We have a big World of Warcraft

21:12

expansion coming later this year, the war

21:14

within. And we have Diablo

21:16

IV's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, that's

21:18

slated for this year as well. They

21:21

say in the press release, we're going to have more

21:24

details coming about those launches in the next few

21:26

months. So there was

21:30

material there that could have built

21:33

an event on. So

21:36

it's not like they were without announcements

21:38

to make, without products to shill. There

21:41

was a lot of stuff to be said out of

21:43

Blizzcon. So you

21:46

may be right, Jill. This may be more of

21:48

like, we don't want to take the PR headache

21:50

of whatever this might

21:52

stir up. We don't want to spend the cash.

21:54

Although they sell tickets to Blizzcon. I don't know

21:57

if it is ever a money

21:59

loser. I don't know. I honestly don't know,

22:02

but it is strange and it

22:04

is notable that It's

22:07

not happening in 2024 I think it's

22:09

disappointing a lot of people Blizzard is

22:12

one of those companies that laid off a lot of

22:14

people and Microsoft their parent company laid off a lot

22:17

of people So maybe this maybe Christian maybe you're right

22:19

that this has something to do with that Reorganization

22:23

restructuring that just sort of like let's get our ducks in a

22:25

row This year and

22:27

and figure out what 2025 is gonna bring Yeah,

22:31

and I'm curious what Microsoft's approach

22:33

to conferences is or was

22:35

or I guess becomes because forever

22:38

ago PlayStation what they call

22:40

the PlayStation experience whatever like PlayStation had

22:42

a conference I think it was pretty

22:44

much right next door to Blizzcon one

22:46

year like that same office park convention

22:48

area in Anaheim and way

22:51

back then Jeff and we

22:53

were doing this show back when Lana was sneaking into

22:55

the matrix, you know forever ago I

22:58

talked about how much I loved that PlayStation

23:01

Conference and I I think for several of our

23:03

prediction episodes I predicted that this would be the

23:05

year Microsoft is gonna do one. It's low-hanging fruit.

23:07

It's an easy way to rally your fan base

23:11

For our listeners who aren't in their

23:13

way back machine with me That's also the time

23:15

when twitchcon was huge and everything all these cons

23:17

were huge And it was easy to do it

23:19

seemed easy to do all of these cons and

23:21

all it did is turn Mild

23:24

fans into the most hardcore fans like everybody

23:26

would go back I guess I'll go to

23:28

this conference and they leave with like the

23:30

PlayStation, you know triangles Like tattooed across her

23:32

forehead all of the gear and just like

23:35

hardcore fan and Microsoft never did that They

23:38

did kind of do their own thing, but it

23:40

was always at the same time as e3 Literally

23:43

right next door to e3 in

23:45

the space that they owned That

23:48

was part of e3 like it never

23:50

felt like they didn't they do there was

23:52

an Xbox convention a few years It was a

23:54

while back. I don't think there was Like

23:57

they do a Microsoft fan fest, but I don't

23:59

know I don't know if there's a physical presence

24:01

for it. Like a

24:03

huge physical presence for it. Fan fest,

24:05

they would do a physical thing at their

24:08

E3 showing that was part of that. I

24:10

think they've done a fan fest outside of E3

24:13

before. They definitely did a fan fest

24:15

because I went to a couple of them. This

24:17

may have been many years ago. At E3? No,

24:20

no, no, no. This was not even at the same time

24:23

as E3. I'm

24:26

always the one who's like participating

24:28

in the long distance stuff. Yeah,

24:31

oh yeah, yeah. They still do those, like the

24:33

long distance fan fest. I don't know, maybe they

24:35

did. I feel like they didn't

24:38

do one again when PlayStation was doing one.

24:40

But again, [email protected]. Put in the subject line,

24:42

Christian, you're an idiot. And like, believe me,

24:44

I'm very easily wrong. But

24:46

for a while now. Here's a, I found a website

24:49

called Xbox Fan Fest. I looked back at the history

24:51

of the event. The very

24:53

first fan fest was in 2015. That

24:57

was at E3. So

24:59

maybe I'm misremembering this. Fan Fest

25:01

2017. All

25:05

right, well this is great audio. Let me just

25:08

scrolling down this website. I'm

25:10

sure. I think a lot of them were part

25:12

of E3. I think they did have like fan meetups.

25:14

But I think kind of as Jill was saying, they

25:16

weren't big.

25:19

You know, they weren't like conferences with

25:21

announcements and Phil on stage. And I

25:24

don't, again, I could be wrong. But I don't think

25:27

they ever did anything. And they certainly never

25:29

spun one up as a response

25:32

to what Sony was doing back

25:34

in the day with their conferences. Where Sony

25:37

had this one, I mean, they were spending money. They

25:39

had, I think it was like Nate's Attic from Uncharted

25:42

4 or something like that. Like recreated and you

25:44

could go through there. And they had all of

25:46

the. I might be conflating because

25:48

they would, Sony for years did

25:50

one in December that was whatever

25:52

they called it. I can't remember what it was called

25:55

either. But it was the Sony. And

25:57

that like reveals there, they did like a whole. I

26:00

think Dream was it dreams or one of

26:02

those like had a huge presentation on stage

26:04

like a real deep dive. We

26:06

hung out with Calif. It was awesome.

26:09

Yeah, I don't think Microsoft has

26:11

ever really had that presence outside

26:13

of other you know,

26:15

Gamescom e3 style stuff. And

26:17

I'm curious. In

26:20

today's media age, what the value add

26:22

is perceived of those things. I'm

26:25

the weirdo who thinks there's probably more value in

26:27

them now, like actually getting people together. It's like,

26:29

oh, we're all connected. The internet makes it all

26:31

so easy. We're all connected. But man,

26:34

I love going to a live comedy show

26:36

or a concert or a baseball game, or

26:39

a nwls game and like nwsl

26:41

had the l s wrong way together

26:44

like there. I feel like I

26:46

crave that more now in our AI, smartphone

26:49

filled world that I think if

26:51

Blizzcon does come back, I think it could be a

26:54

real special thing. Yeah,

26:58

yeah, I mean, it was always one of my favorite

27:00

things to go to I was I'm a huge Blizzard

27:02

fan. And I went for almost

27:04

all of them. I remember there

27:07

was a while where like, the only one I missed was

27:09

the birth of my son. But but

27:12

then, you know, and then COVID happened and then,

27:14

you know, things change. But it'll

27:17

be it'll be a sad thing. I think if

27:19

Blizzcon goes away completely, it will be interesting to

27:21

see what 2025 brings. But no Blizzcon for 2024.

27:23

All right, let's

27:27

take a quick break for a sponsor and we'll come

27:29

back with my story of the week. All

27:32

right, my story of the week is a rumor

27:34

we're getting more info about

27:37

what switch to or whatever they are going

27:39

to call it super switch. Switchy

27:43

switcher switchersons the switch, the switch,

27:46

I don't know, Nintendo 65. There

27:48

you go. It's the new one.

27:50

Yeah, like it. Game

27:54

rectangle. No,

27:57

you can't put like anything

27:59

into Nintendo might do is possible. It's

28:01

true. It's true. It makes some decisions and you're

28:04

just like, okay. Call of

28:06

the dolphin finally. Um, anyway,

28:09

switch to we've, we've

28:11

reported on the show as well,

28:13

reported other people's reports, uh, that

28:15

supposedly pushed into 20,

28:17

25, not happening this

28:19

year after all. Some idiot predicted it would

28:21

happen this year. Just a real, real

28:24

loser. Speaking of jinxing, my goodness.

28:27

Um, so that supposedly not happening

28:29

this year. We don't have any official word

28:31

from Nintendo. In fact, you know,

28:33

worst kept secret in gaming because they have not even said

28:35

they're working on a switch to, and everybody just has assumed

28:37

people have been predicting the thing was going to come out

28:39

for the last three years in a row. Um,

28:43

anyway, we're getting more reports

28:45

as to what actually a switch to or

28:47

whatever it's going to be called is

28:50

going to look like, uh, and a, uh,

28:53

a new Spanish based website

28:55

called Vandal, uh,

28:57

has reported some things about how

29:00

it's going to be a larger than the

29:02

original switch, not quite as large as the,

29:04

uh, the steam deck, for

29:06

example. Um, but the big

29:08

news this week is that supposedly the

29:12

joy cons, uh,

29:14

are going to be

29:16

detachable just as with the original switch,

29:19

but they will attach to

29:21

the console using magnets

29:24

magnets are going to attach it. They're

29:26

going to be larger than the joy

29:29

cons now, which as an adult human.

29:32

Hooray. I mean, I love,

29:34

I love the Nintendo created stuff for, you

29:36

know, children mostly and small hands and my

29:38

children are grateful to have, uh, accessories

29:41

that fit in their hands. Great. But I'm

29:43

excited that the joy cons will be a

29:45

little bigger. I find them very uncomfortable to

29:48

use, uh, especially separated. Um,

29:50

but, uh, so they're going to be a little bit bigger and

29:53

they will, uh, that

29:56

the switch too is going to be backwards

29:58

compatible and it'll also be. compatible

30:00

with current Switch Pro controllers,

30:03

which is good news for me, because I

30:05

have like four of those things from my kids. And

30:09

anyway, so the big news is the magnets, the

30:12

magnets, which, you know, I got

30:14

all excited about the story and now it's saying it out

30:16

loud. It's like, is this even news? But I do think

30:18

that's cool. I do think

30:20

the idea of Joy-Cons that

30:22

snap like with magnets to

30:26

the outside sounds neat,

30:28

I think moreover, what makes this a

30:30

story of the week for me is

30:33

how similar

30:35

this thing sounds to the Switch.

30:37

Like they're not reinventing the wheel.

30:39

A company that has famously reinvented

30:41

the wheel over and over and

30:44

over again. Jill,

30:46

Switch is the home of indie games.

30:48

It's really embraced indie games. What

30:51

do you make of magnets on the

30:53

Joy-Cons? I'm

30:55

not surprised the amount of people I've

30:57

heard of or heard

31:00

from who've like snapped one or like put it

31:02

in the wrong way and can't get it back

31:04

out. So I'm not

31:06

surprised they're reinventing some of the

31:09

things. I'm glad to hear that

31:11

they are listening to feedback because

31:13

Nintendo is such a weird company

31:15

that a lot of the times it

31:17

seems like they just do things. So

31:19

hearing that the magnets for me

31:22

is proof that they are hearing

31:24

things from people and wanting to

31:26

make the experience better. It

31:30

is so funny that you mentioned they have

31:33

not even confirmed that they are working on

31:35

this thing and we are up to here's

31:38

all the tiny little things that

31:40

might be happening with it. I

31:42

mean, the Inda Council, one of

31:44

the podcasts that I'm on, we

31:47

already did our Switch 2 like perfect indie

31:50

lineup. We did

31:52

that last year because all these rumors have been

31:54

swirling around and we know it's going to happen.

31:56

Like there's no way it's not going to happen.

32:00

So I think that's why these rumors are

32:02

so easy to

32:04

pick up and to run with and they're always

32:06

on fire because you want it to happen. I

32:09

am surprised that Tears of the Kingdom came

32:11

out before the Switch 2 because

32:13

you just want like the

32:15

Switch is kind of chugging

32:18

along, you know? Like I want such an

32:20

upgrade in the next console.

32:22

I don't know if we're going to get it because, you

32:25

know, they do still want to keep it a

32:27

certain degree of, I

32:30

don't know, friendliness

32:32

or something. They

32:34

don't want it to be this like massive Steam

32:38

Deck type thing. Yeah. And

32:41

I get that. And I think the Steam

32:43

Deck is also a really cool thing to

32:45

bring up in this conversation because I think

32:47

that Nintendo didn't have competition for

32:49

this kind of handheld

32:52

gaming sphere for a while until the

32:54

Steam Deck came up. And

32:56

now they might be a little like a

32:58

little worried about it, you know?

33:01

Because you did, you said that

33:03

Switch and Nintendo is sort of the home

33:06

of the indie and it was.

33:09

That's true. But more

33:12

and more, especially with the Steam Deck coming out,

33:14

this space for an indie is what's

33:17

always been computer and Steam and because

33:19

that's a very friendly space. But like

33:21

more and more people are buying Steam

33:24

Deck specifically to be their indie machine.

33:26

Yeah. And so I think

33:29

that Nintendo needs to be

33:31

keeping an eye on this stuff. So

33:33

inventing, like

33:36

the magnets are a really cool thing

33:38

because it just proves that they are

33:40

trying to be competitive and that's great.

33:43

I agree. Yes. The, you know,

33:45

it's interesting that the Switch logo

33:48

was always that snap, like the little,

33:50

the two things clicking together, you know,

33:52

sliding in and clicking. And

33:55

I wonder if their new logo

33:58

or insignia or whatever. will acknowledge

34:00

that in some new way that it'll click

34:02

together, or, you know, instead of slide, maybe

34:04

it'll still slide. You can still slide with

34:06

magnets, but maybe that'll be some new, new

34:09

thing. But Christian, I think

34:12

one of the things that you and I have talked

34:14

about before lamenting the fact that

34:17

this is going to be apparently

34:19

a direct sequel to

34:21

a console, kind of

34:23

a first for Nintendo. I mean, I guess

34:26

you could argue Wii U to Wii, but

34:28

even Wii U had some wacky new innovation,

34:30

you know, the screen on the

34:32

controller. This

34:37

doesn't seem to be daring

34:40

in the way Nintendo usually

34:42

is with big console releases,

34:44

unless there's something about these

34:46

magnets that will be surprising,

34:48

or there's some other feature we don't know

34:50

about. What do you make of a Switch

34:54

2 that is just

34:56

more Switch? I'm here

34:58

for it. Because while I think Nintendo,

35:00

especially recently, has been the innovators,

35:03

and historically as well,

35:05

but recently, this great innovator company

35:08

in terms of what console they

35:10

deliver, historically, I think

35:13

they're the best perfection

35:15

via iteration of any

35:17

console manufacturer as well. One

35:20

of the hills I will die on,

35:23

I mean, I'm littered with hills that I can just stumble

35:25

upon and die. You don't have to push

35:27

me to die on a hill. I am happy to die

35:29

on a hill. One of my many hills I will die

35:31

on is the Super Nintendo and

35:34

the Game Boy Advance, being two

35:36

of the best consoles to have ever

35:38

existed of all time. And both

35:40

of those are in their name. The

35:42

Super Nintendo, the Super NES is just the better

35:44

version of the other one. And the

35:47

Game Boy Advance. It's the more advanced one of

35:49

the other one. It's like we found this thing

35:52

and now we've turned it to 11. You

35:54

know, whatever. And even within that handheld

35:57

space, I think Nintendo has

35:59

really smart. consistently

36:02

iterated with

36:05

feature bumps that don't raise price

36:07

a whole bunch. Whether it's the

36:09

Game Boy Color, even with

36:11

the Game Boy Advance, then going to the SP. And

36:14

then the SP, I believe, was the SP 101.

36:17

It got like a screen refresh somewhere in

36:19

there. And it's not, hey, now it

36:21

plays these better games. But they're looking

36:24

to tinker, to tweak, to improve. And

36:27

I think those two consoles show this idea of,

36:29

hey, we've struck gold, or we have something really

36:31

good here right now. Let's continue

36:33

to build on it. And so if that's

36:35

what they're seeing with the Switch, and as

36:37

Jill talked about, acknowledging Steam Deck as a

36:39

competitor, or some of these other gaming,

36:42

handheld gaming PCs as competitors, or

36:45

now our emulators we all have in our pockets

36:47

on iOS, and

36:49

that fuels a fire in

36:51

them to make this thing, whether it's

36:53

the UI is snappy, whether

36:56

it's the pickup and resume really works

36:58

really well. Something about it that makes

37:00

it the easiest thing to pick up

37:02

and play. That's super

37:04

exciting to me. I

37:06

love magnets only because

37:08

I picture, anytime someone

37:10

talks about magnets, I just picture in the

37:13

same clown posse wondering how they work. And

37:15

that always makes me happy. That always, like

37:17

I don't, that gives me a good laugh.

37:21

I feel like the, I'm curious

37:23

what their data is on Joy-Con

37:26

detached using, and use of,

37:28

not usability, but how often people did that.

37:30

And is it just to do like the

37:33

lazy gamer, I'm far, you know, like I detach

37:35

so I can have my arms in a comfortable

37:37

position. Or is it going to

37:40

have that weird split D-pad

37:42

thing that made both sides of

37:44

the Joy-Cons, in my opinion, not great because

37:46

it didn't have a real D-pad.

37:48

I'm very curious if they continue to lean

37:50

into that as an up or

37:52

a positive side of the console, because we

37:54

never use that here. I mean,

37:57

maybe sometimes we multiplayer that way when

37:59

like... oops, we need another controller.

38:01

And the person that gets the sideways joy

38:03

con is always pissed. Well,

38:06

my I'll tell you my seven year

38:08

old loves the detached joy cons. That's

38:11

his preferred method. I'm like, Jack,

38:14

do we hook up the pro controller for daddy?

38:16

Can you get me a pro controller? Does it

38:18

charge? Do we charge it? My son's always like,

38:21

detaching the two joy cons and holding them in

38:23

each hand. That's how he wants to play. You

38:25

know, we had like I said, we have four

38:29

pro controllers that he's been

38:31

gifted in numerous holidays

38:33

and birthdays. And,

38:36

you know, so that we could have a

38:38

full smash brothers or a full Mario Kart

38:40

session with the whole family. But,

38:42

you know, he

38:45

actually he has an opportunity

38:47

to use another pro controller, he wants to use

38:49

them detached. Christian,

38:51

you look like you had an epiphany. I

38:53

did. And I wonder if this is translation

38:55

or something or again, these are rumors upon

38:57

rumors. I wonder

39:00

if the magnet is them solving drift

39:02

and they're just using howl effect sensors.

39:04

Dude, those are those are magnets. They

39:06

need to fix drift. The idea that

39:09

that this those are magnets sold this

39:11

many units and has been out this

39:13

long. And that's still a problem. Drives

39:16

me insane. It's

39:19

all controllers that don't use that any controller of

39:21

PS five, I, you know, replaced it myself. But

39:23

when you have physical contact of things happening, and

39:25

that's why I think it's howl howl howl affect

39:27

that magnetic floating sensor. Maybe so maybe it still

39:29

is the same rail system.

39:34

And it just has an analog stick that

39:36

works now. I'd take that either

39:38

way. I'm looking

39:41

forward to the final official reveal of it. And it's

39:43

just like, it's shaped like a cow and

39:50

you write it somehow. And none of this is correct at

39:52

all. It's the

39:54

sequel to that the game they showed for the

39:56

switch to the milking of the cow. We

40:00

leaned into that. It's just Nintendo

40:02

console that you actually ride. I'm

40:06

a hundred percent. I wouldn't even blink at that app, but I'd

40:08

just be like, yeah, that makes complete sense to me. Uh,

40:13

or maybe it's so,

40:15

uh, far down the tears

40:18

of the kingdom route that the whole thing is

40:20

magnets and it's just like you're using like your

40:22

own shape, but

40:25

whatever it's whatever you want them to be. Yeah.

40:28

It's just magnet tiles. It's a, it's

40:30

Lego at this point. It's the switch.

40:32

You can buy four switches and make

40:34

switch Voltron if you want. I'm

40:37

into that. Why don't I can put it in cardboard and have

40:39

a VR version on my head? I'm in. All

40:43

right. Well, we'll obviously keep talking about switch two

40:46

until they actually tell us what it is. And

40:49

then, and then we won't. Then

40:51

we're done talking about it. And then, and then I'll have

40:53

no more word about it at all. Uh,

40:56

let's talk about, we got some, uh, fun games

40:58

to talk about. So let's get into it and

41:01

talk about what is on our playlists.

41:13

Jill. Uh, let's start with

41:15

a game we talked about last week, but

41:18

we talked about it. Let's looking in from

41:20

afar, all of us.

41:22

So anticipating what this game is going

41:24

to be. You've actually played Hades two.

41:26

Yes. I have actually played Hades

41:28

two and I literally got the code

41:31

the day before they announced that they

41:33

were like closing down the

41:35

playtest on Monday. So

41:37

I'm like, let me in. I'm going to play really quick. Um,

41:40

Hades two is so brilliant. I'm

41:42

not going to lie. It is

41:44

more Hades. I am a

41:46

huge, uh, Greek mythology nerd.

41:49

So I did play this on stream

41:51

and most of my stream is just

41:53

me going like, that's an interesting interpretation

41:55

of this person. Um,

41:58

it is smooth. it works.

42:02

I feel like the combat is even

42:04

better, even more fluid. It gives you

42:07

even more options to go

42:09

through than the first one. And I don't

42:11

know if that's just because I played

42:13

it so long ago and I was

42:15

playing on a Switch or whatever it

42:17

was, but it just feels so, so

42:20

good. I love the story. It's starting

42:22

to drip feed. You don't

42:24

get to play all of it during the

42:26

playtest, but you do get a sort of

42:28

sense of the main character is the youngest

42:30

of Hades' family, Persephone

42:33

the wife, and Zagreus

42:35

is his

42:38

son and the main character's

42:40

brother. And you get

42:42

the sense that something bad has happened to the whole family,

42:45

but Malenoe, who is

42:47

the main character, was saved by

42:49

the witch goddess Hecate

42:52

at some point very early in her life and

42:55

has grown up now to face

42:57

the Titan Kronos, who is involved somehow in

43:00

the tragedy of her life. So

43:02

there is some very

43:05

deep lore going on here and already

43:07

you're getting it as you dive into

43:09

the game. But there is

43:11

also a lot of like Supergiant

43:14

is so good at narrative

43:16

and drip feeding and giving

43:18

you humorous moments. I'm

43:20

already in love with Phrynos, who is

43:22

a frog, a giant frog that you

43:24

can stop by and like hug every

43:26

time you come back to the hub

43:29

world. Just talk about how your day

43:31

went, how your run went. The

43:34

characters are all you can feel the love,

43:36

you can feel the jealousy,

43:38

you can feel the hopes

43:40

and perhaps not

43:42

so hopeful. So

43:46

much that you want to win, even though you

43:48

don't know really what's going on, you want these

43:50

characters to succeed. And on top

43:52

of that, I think they've done a really good job

43:54

in this playthrough that I've played

43:57

so far of making

43:59

every single run worth

44:02

something. Even if you barely got through

44:04

or if you got to the end

44:06

boss you're coming back

44:08

they've got a cauldron

44:11

that you can throw ingredients into and

44:13

things will appear like you can talk

44:15

to the fates at one point if

44:17

you get something or you can summon

44:19

a merchant and now the merchants there

44:21

so you have to get bones because

44:23

that's the only currency

44:26

he understands or going through

44:29

and now there is some sort of like

44:31

gardening type mechanic

44:33

where you can find seeds and grow them

44:36

and then when you get them you can

44:38

unlock things from the scroll of the fates

44:40

that are kind of mini side quests so

44:42

like you've got tons and tons

44:44

of things on your mind all the time

44:47

you're trying to get more materials to unlock

44:49

tools which will help you get other materials

44:51

which will help you unlock more

44:54

weapons and the only two that I

44:56

know of in the game so far

44:58

are the the witches staff which is

45:00

a kind of mid-range spear type thing

45:04

feels really good you got to get it's

45:06

good to stand back a little bit and get

45:08

out of everyone's way and then you have kind

45:10

of two daggers which is

45:13

a really up close fun personal

45:15

type I

45:17

really enjoy it and it's not good because

45:19

I don't keep an eye on like projectiles coming

45:21

at me I'm just like I'm getting in

45:23

and some of the some

45:25

of the upgrades so far are

45:27

just so you feel real powerful

45:29

you're knocking people back you're pulling

45:31

people in you have the ability

45:35

because you are a character who

45:37

has been taken in by this

45:39

sort of a witch like goddess

45:43

your powers sort of reflect that so

45:45

one of your powers is called cast

45:47

and it puts a circle on the

45:49

ground like a little summoning circle that

45:52

holds people in place with ghostly hands

45:55

so that you can run around and sort of attack

45:57

them and all of your you All

46:00

of your attacks, if you hold down whatever

46:03

button for the attack, has an Omega

46:05

attack, and it's all magic-based. So I

46:07

feel like there's a lot more magic

46:09

involved in this particular version

46:12

of the game. So there's just

46:14

a lot that, even just from

46:16

this early, early play test, obviously

46:19

it's a play test, they're not even in

46:21

early access yet, but there's

46:24

a lot going on, there's a lot

46:26

of layers going on, and I'm super

46:29

interested to see how it all kind

46:31

of builds up over time and

46:33

keeps you going. And, you know,

46:35

I know there are a lot of people who played the

46:37

original. Hades got to a certain point and were like, I

46:41

can't keep going all the way through, like,

46:44

I'm not doing this, like, I'm not getting any

46:46

worth for it, and then just kind of fell

46:48

off from there. So I'm wondering if they are

46:50

using all of these to help

46:52

fix that problem, so people don't

46:54

fall off that easily. Interesting. And

46:57

we'll see, I wonder if they have

46:59

other things that they are introducing for

47:01

that reason. But, and of course, everybody's

47:03

like favorite, like, all the sexy gods,

47:06

seeing like everybody new and all the

47:08

new interpretations. They're so

47:10

fantastic. I took about a minute

47:12

breaking down Aphrodite, because I don't

47:14

know, like, I remember her being

47:16

sexy from the first game, but

47:18

like, she's sexy in this

47:20

game. Like, you are not wearing anything

47:23

except she's wearing like full sleeved

47:25

and like thigh high, like

47:28

golden boots. And

47:30

she's got a shield and a

47:32

wand sickle sort of thing

47:34

spear. That looks a lot like

47:36

Sailor Moon. And I'm like, I am

47:38

so fascinated with the iconography here. So,

47:43

you can go check that out if you really want to

47:45

see me dive into all of that. But

47:47

they love this. The

47:51

source material, they love this game. You can

47:53

tell they're putting so much into it and

47:55

they have a new story to tell,

47:58

which I absolutely. I'm in

48:00

love with it's great everyone. I hope

48:02

gets to play early access when it

48:04

comes out. They are ending the Play

48:08

test on Monday the 29th, which

48:10

is probably when people are hearing

48:12

this. Sorry everyone I Also

48:17

really love and you guys probably talked about

48:19

this how the play test has works either

48:22

intentionally or not as a

48:25

wonderful wonderful marketing plan for

48:27

the early access release and

48:30

Obviously people were gonna be excited for Hades 2

48:32

but with the added element of like please let

48:35

me in I want to play Everyone is

48:37

doing it. My friends are having fun now

48:39

when they release an early access like Everyone who

48:41

didn't get a chance to play it and everyone

48:43

who did get a place chance to play is

48:45

gonna be on it day One I

48:48

think that's genius Yeah masterfully

48:50

executed. Yeah, it's I Love

48:54

hearing you talk about I think you're the perfect person to

48:56

talk about it and I'm super jealous you got to play

48:58

it but wonderful details

49:01

and You have such

49:03

a you know expertise on the subject matter too. So

49:05

it's it's really cool hearing you talk about Hades 2.

49:07

I It

49:10

just seems like a home run super giant is

49:12

one of those developers you just I just had a complete

49:14

faith in them Knocking out of

49:16

the park. Yeah, and it seems like they're doing that

49:19

so far I'm curious if there's

49:21

like an unknown to it when we talked

49:23

about Nintendo doing that with their consoles And

49:25

I think for a lot of folks the

49:27

story in Hades was a surprise because in

49:29

so many of these rogue type games It

49:32

didn't Deliver the story

49:34

in a way where for me personally, I

49:36

was like, yes, I died I mean, that

49:38

was a good run But I want to

49:40

see what's going on back at home Like

49:42

that stuff was so compelling and so cool

49:44

and there were so much of it were

49:46

very rarely did I feel like oh This

49:49

again Like there was always something new

49:51

and I'm curious if Hades Hades 2

49:53

ends up having something similar that is

49:56

just a slight unexpected or

49:58

new tweak to the genre genre in terms

50:00

of narrative or storytelling that no one's done

50:02

before, which is a lot of pressure to

50:04

put on a studio who already aced

50:07

it once. But I'm like, can you aced it

50:09

even more this time? Yeah, is there

50:11

is there a sense in playing it that anything is

50:13

being held back? I mean, obviously, as you said, there's

50:15

only two weapons so far. So there's a lot there

50:18

that we haven't seen. But is there anything else that

50:20

you are maybe feeling like, Oh, are they holding that

50:22

back? Um, we

50:24

don't know what's happened. Yeah,

50:27

like they are drip feeding something bad

50:29

has happened. I have been with hecate

50:31

since I was like, almost

50:33

a newborn. I don't know my parents

50:35

that well, I don't know

50:38

why it's happened. I don't know what

50:41

that means to everything

50:44

happening. I for some reason,

50:46

the Olympians didn't know of

50:49

my existence, same as Zagreus.

50:52

And we don't know why that is either. So there's

50:56

a lot of story that is unfolding.

50:58

And just for me being paranoid and

51:00

not trusting things as they are shown,

51:03

every time that I read something

51:05

someone is saying to feed me

51:07

exposition or dialogue or story

51:10

or narrative or anything, I'm like, okay, so

51:12

according to what they understand, this is

51:14

how I wonder how much of

51:16

this is going to be, there's going to be some

51:18

kind of twist, there's going to be some kind of

51:22

who knows, I am I don't like obviously

51:24

with Zagreus tail, we sort of knew how

51:26

that was going to go. He was looking

51:29

for his mom, he was going

51:31

to find his mom eventually, like, we

51:33

sort of had that idea. For this, I really

51:37

don't know if she's obviously looking

51:39

to death to chronos is like

51:41

the tagline. Right? One of

51:43

those implications, like talk about a

51:46

rogue like, you know, a classic

51:48

idea for resetting time. Oh, yeah.

51:51

Killing chronos. Yeah. What does it mean

51:53

to kill time? Like, is this a God of

51:55

War type situation where you're like, personal

51:58

vengeance is not worth The

52:00

misery and cost to the entirety

52:03

of the world or is she

52:05

gonna be the bad guy by the end of this? Like what's

52:08

gonna happen here? I'm so We

52:12

said this last week too, but I'm just so enamored

52:14

by this notion of fighting your way back into hell

52:17

That's kind of a cool notion to hang a

52:19

game on to you. That's neat. Yeah, absolutely So

52:22

that's Hades 2 and hopefully the rest of us

52:24

will get a chance to get our grubby hands on

52:26

it soon Jill

52:28

you've also been playing a game. I checked out

52:30

a little bit because it's on game pass. It's

52:33

called another crabs treasure You

52:37

can see my review on this and one of the

52:39

first things I say about Another

52:41

crabs treasure is that when I started playing

52:43

I was terrified. I was going to have

52:46

to tell people I did not

52:48

like it Because this is

52:50

a beloved game anyone who doesn't know the indie space

52:53

Agrocrab is the developer. They're our beloved team.

52:55

I have a little plushie from them back

52:57

here They

52:59

were have been making another crab treasure

53:02

for several years and it has been

53:04

an indie darling and people have been

53:06

it is essentially a Souls

53:09

game, but you play as a crab and

53:12

that's already fantastic The

53:14

team itself is really funny and

53:16

they have very serious things to

53:18

say and they usually balance those

53:20

out very well But

53:24

the thing about another crabs treasure is

53:26

that there are some for

53:28

me early on Technical and balancing things

53:31

that made it really hard to get

53:33

into I was having trouble with

53:35

like the camera going into a cliff And now I

53:37

can't see what I'm doing and in a soul game

53:39

you really need to see what you're doing I

53:42

was having troubles with like either

53:44

my character or enemy characters clipping

53:47

through geometry Or getting

53:49

stuck in weird places where they could hit me or

53:51

I can hit them Which

53:54

was again frustrating because I need

53:56

those souls which is trash in

53:59

this in this game, but I

54:01

can't get it without getting hit. And

54:03

that is just so frustrating. Those

54:07

are things I hope can

54:09

be fixed. But

54:11

the thing that is everyone should

54:13

check this game out. Because this

54:15

is, as you go on, you

54:17

get more and more powerful. The

54:20

combat gets more deep, because you're getting

54:23

more and more things that you can

54:25

upgrade. You're getting magic attacks

54:27

and attacks that go along with

54:29

each shell, as well as different

54:31

upgrades and boosts that attach to

54:33

your shell that you can continue

54:35

to get. And there are

54:37

just a lot of different elements that continue to

54:40

grow to make you more and more powerful so

54:42

that you can handle things. It

54:44

is a lot more Sekiro than a Dark

54:46

Souls. So you are trying to

54:49

break the stance of the other

54:51

person. And when you get into that groove,

54:53

you feel really powerful. I

54:56

think the shining star of this game

54:58

is its narrative, is its characters, is

55:01

the heart and personality that's in it.

55:03

Because it goes from making

55:06

cute crab underwater puns

55:09

to really looking into depression

55:12

and anger and

55:14

having depression and anger because you

55:16

are in a world

55:18

that is unfair and kicking you when you are

55:20

down. And it is so,

55:22

so relatable. And then it'll

55:25

go back to making a little SpongeBob

55:28

joke or something and then

55:30

jump into how we

55:32

as a society deal with big

55:36

scary things on the horizon that might

55:38

not be fixable and how we might put our

55:40

heads in the sand or

55:43

how we might focus on getting ours

55:45

and not worrying about if anyone else is

55:47

getting theirs. And by

55:50

the end, it is a

55:52

very satisfying and very perfect

55:56

sort of ending for the game

55:58

itself. Yeah,

56:01

and it's just it is funny. It is.

56:03

And it's funny not in

56:05

like the. Kind

56:08

of like quippy, oh, I'm a cute little crab

56:10

group kind of way, but it is just like

56:13

they know how silly some of this is. And sometimes

56:15

they really lean into it like, yeah, we know this

56:17

is silly and it's great. And if you get a

56:19

chance to like read some of the

56:21

fake brands on the game, like the game

56:24

is littered with trash because it is some

56:26

of the commentary they're talking about the environment.

56:28

And so if you're

56:30

looking at things, like there's

56:32

even like apparently there's a QR code

56:35

that will send you to like maybe

56:37

getting Rick rolled or something like that.

56:40

So I mean, there

56:42

are jokes within jokes of this humor

56:44

and the game design. The levels are

56:46

so clever and fun and each one

56:48

is different and each biome is a

56:51

kind of different thing. I don't think

56:53

we needed a poison swamp. Thanks, Agorrap.

56:57

But yeah, it's just

56:59

by the end, you are really rooting for Krill,

57:01

who is our main character to get

57:06

his like, like

57:08

to get his stuff together and to become

57:10

a hero instead of just caring about getting

57:13

his stuff back, but also feeling really bad

57:15

that nothing he can do. He

57:17

can't win no matter what. Like even though he's winning

57:19

all these battles, he can't win. And it's

57:22

so much deeper and more serious than the

57:25

original cartoony vibrant

57:28

look to the game would suggest.

57:31

Yeah, excellent

57:35

review and you have certainly played, you know,

57:37

it's a completion. I have not. I

57:41

jumped into this because I am somebody

57:43

that has had a hard time finding

57:45

the love for souls likes. I'm

57:48

just not drawn to them that Perry

57:50

and Dodge Roll and managing stamina

57:53

and stuff. None of that just

57:55

mechanically has ever gotten its hooks

57:57

in me. I've never found. the

58:00

joy in it. But

58:03

it occurred to me that a

58:05

lot of that sort of oppressive feeling

58:07

that people associate with souls like and

58:09

I certainly do, could

58:13

be attributed to the setting. One

58:16

of the trappings of souls likes and this is

58:18

because you know dark souls and demon souls and

58:21

literally every FromSoft game

58:23

after it has had this

58:25

sort of doer oppressive

58:29

dark dreary kind of setting.

58:31

You know it is demons

58:35

and ghoulies and ghosties and baddies

58:37

and you know you're

58:39

in a sad scary place and

58:42

that's cool but it's also been the thing

58:44

that people have felt

58:46

sort of goes hand in hand

58:48

with the mechanics of what these

58:50

games have innovated. And so

58:53

you even you'll get you know you'll

58:55

get souls likes all stripes

58:58

changing up lots of things but always sort

59:00

of keeping that very dark

59:02

tone. And I

59:05

thought hey maybe a

59:07

game that it could not be

59:09

farther away from that tone. I mean you

59:12

touched on it a bit in what you were

59:14

saying but you know it really is a vibrant

59:17

fun undersea you know

59:19

it's a cartoon. It's

59:22

a Saturday morning cartoon with a

59:24

adorable hermit crab and

59:26

his goofy friends in you know

59:28

on the bright sunny undersea

59:31

beach that you know the

59:33

sun is streaming through the

59:35

beautiful water above and everything

59:38

that you encounter is sort of discarded

59:40

human size things and you're a little

59:43

hermit crab size thing. And the

59:47

real innovation mechanically which

59:49

you also sort of touched on but I

59:51

want to kind of underscore is that as

59:54

a hermit crab you can have different shells.

59:56

You can adopt a shell and

59:58

invariably the shells that you can find

1:00:02

and use as your little back,

1:00:05

you know, your armor in this

1:00:07

game, are discarded garbage

1:00:09

from human beings. And

1:00:12

there's 69 different ones that you can

1:00:15

find and collect in this game. And

1:00:18

each of them gives you

1:00:20

a new ability or power or

1:00:22

feature. And so there is

1:00:24

incentive to find them, collect them and decide how

1:00:26

you sort of want to build out

1:00:29

your character and building them out is, do

1:00:31

I want to have a soda can on my back

1:00:33

or a shot glass or a,

1:00:35

you know, who a tennis ball,

1:00:37

you know, all kinds of these crazy things.

1:00:39

And I'll end up those, of

1:00:42

those examples, we'll say the

1:00:44

soda can gives you a power that

1:00:47

has homing missiles. The

1:00:49

shot glass is more defensive that it

1:00:51

will spike up and make shards out

1:00:53

of the shot glass. And if anything

1:00:55

attacks you, it gets attacked. And then

1:00:57

the tennis ball has called rollout. It

1:00:59

will let you like kind

1:01:02

of Sonic, like turn into a

1:01:04

ball and roll into something very quickly. So

1:01:06

like each of these has a very different

1:01:09

build and gameplay design sort of in

1:01:11

mind. And it really changes

1:01:13

how you play the game. Yeah, I

1:01:15

can't imagine. Yeah,

1:01:18

that's it. There's tons

1:01:20

of depth there. And so you

1:01:22

can really figure out the kind of

1:01:24

build that you want to want to have. I'm

1:01:28

still not in love with the combat. It's

1:01:30

a simplified version of a secure, you know,

1:01:32

a securro or a, you know, bloodborne or

1:01:35

something like that. But still,

1:01:37

you know, it's I didn't love it. It's

1:01:39

just such a joy to sort of be

1:01:41

in that world. And the game also has

1:01:43

some sort of light platforming stuff that I

1:01:46

was really enjoying that you don't really see

1:01:48

typically in those kinds of games. I

1:01:51

will say to for anybody who's not into

1:01:53

the combat or

1:01:55

that kind of harsh, like,

1:01:57

because this game can get really intense and

1:01:59

very. challenging. If you're

1:02:01

not a part of, if you're not, if

1:02:04

that is not what you are there for, this

1:02:07

game has an amazing assist mode with a

1:02:09

ton of different options. If you go into

1:02:11

the assist mode you can do things like

1:02:14

make sure that the other characters have

1:02:17

less life so that you don't have to do

1:02:19

as much damage or that you don't take as

1:02:21

much damage or you can do

1:02:23

things like the the

1:02:25

parry system window is so much wider

1:02:27

so that basically if you're hitting shield

1:02:30

at all you are parrying them. But

1:02:33

the best one, literally the best one,

1:02:36

is that you can

1:02:38

give Kril a gun. It's

1:02:40

just a giant gun and

1:02:42

you can one-shot anything in

1:02:44

your way. So if you're ever getting like upset

1:02:47

that you're not killing a boss, the

1:02:50

developers are very clear. They do not, they want

1:02:52

you to have fun in whatever way this is

1:02:54

fun. If the narrative is the thing that is

1:02:56

the juice for you, give them

1:02:59

the gun, whatever you

1:03:01

need to and go through because it's

1:03:04

worth seeing this to the end. Yeah

1:03:06

it really is a very charming and very

1:03:08

funny and fun and clever

1:03:11

and it does have some interesting things to say.

1:03:14

Like you mentioned the you know the sort of

1:03:16

currency of the world is microplastics that are all

1:03:18

you know just sort of the

1:03:20

detritus of human beings and

1:03:23

everything you know you're finding the little

1:03:27

things that you put on the end of the

1:03:29

twist of a bread bag you know

1:03:31

you're finding that it's you

1:03:33

know it's not without its commentary

1:03:36

as well. So yeah I

1:03:38

was pretty taken with this and as I

1:03:40

mentioned at the top it's on Game Pass. So

1:03:42

you know folks that are subscribed to Game Pass

1:03:45

there's no impediment to giving this a try.

1:03:47

It's called Another Crab's Treasure. What

1:03:50

else is on your playlist Jill?

1:03:54

I will do a quick shout-outs for two

1:03:56

games that I am so in love with

1:03:59

and it's not fair that that these all came out in

1:04:01

like the same week. I had to

1:04:03

really get through them. But Sucker for Love, Date

1:04:05

to Die For, looks like a game that I

1:04:07

would not initially have tried out. And I know

1:04:09

a lot of people look at it and say,

1:04:12

it's sort of if you have played Doki

1:04:15

Doki Literature Club, sort of in that vein.

1:04:19

It is such a love letter

1:04:21

to the 90s experience of anime. Like

1:04:27

when you go into the menu,

1:04:29

the menu itself is a shelf

1:04:32

with VHS tapes of series of

1:04:37

this anime called Sucker for Love. And

1:04:40

you take the physical thing out and

1:04:42

you put it in and it's got

1:04:44

the like, and last time, Sucker

1:04:47

for Love. And it's got like the

1:04:49

watermark for like syndication. And it's just

1:04:51

like, oh, this is hitting me so

1:04:53

hard. And I

1:04:56

love when games do this, where

1:04:58

it makes you the player, a

1:05:01

participant in what is going on.

1:05:03

And it is sort of the first clue

1:05:06

of what I love more about this game

1:05:08

as it goes on. It

1:05:10

gets really meta and

1:05:13

it gets really weird. And it

1:05:15

is, like

1:05:18

I don't wanna spoil anything. But

1:05:21

like- That doesn't sound like Doki Doki. That sounds like

1:05:23

it has that kind of crazy meta layer. Yes,

1:05:25

it's got that. The game

1:05:27

itself works on,

1:05:30

you are playing essentially the

1:05:32

series, the series one, series

1:05:34

two, series 999, and

1:05:37

series, like it's all scratched out. You can't

1:05:39

see what it is. In order

1:05:41

to unlock the second half of the

1:05:43

game, essentially, you have to get the

1:05:45

true endings. So each

1:05:48

game series has a

1:05:51

branching narrative. And

1:05:54

it has a really fun, like when you

1:05:56

finish a game, you can see the

1:05:58

sort of branching narrative, like you chose. this way

1:06:00

instead of this way, you can go back

1:06:02

and just jump right into just

1:06:04

before the fork and make a different decision and

1:06:07

get different results and see what

1:06:09

happens. But like, you're

1:06:12

sort of influencing things as you do

1:06:15

this and you will recognize the influence

1:06:17

as you go throughout the game and

1:06:19

as things are happening. I

1:06:23

will shout out that this is a game with

1:06:26

anyone who's who looks at the picture

1:06:28

of it. It's got sexual content. It's got

1:06:31

violent content. The cool thing

1:06:33

that I really appreciate the developer has put

1:06:36

into this game a spray

1:06:38

bottle. It's one of the first

1:06:40

items you get in the game.

1:06:42

So if you are getting to

1:06:44

a section that is overly sexual

1:06:46

or violent, the game will give

1:06:49

you a heads up and like with the spray

1:06:51

bottle icon so that you

1:06:53

can click it and just skip to the necessary

1:06:57

elements that you need to know. So

1:07:00

if you like have someone walk into the room at the

1:07:02

wrong time, yeah,

1:07:07

so it is so good and

1:07:10

it is. It's

1:07:12

so worth getting to the end because at first I

1:07:14

was like, Oh, okay, I get what this is about.

1:07:17

I don't I don't know if I'm going

1:07:19

to finish all of the like the true

1:07:21

endings or whatever. But I'm so glad I

1:07:23

did. And the only thing I'll say about

1:07:25

the second half is like, I've never been

1:07:28

so happy to see like a Lovecraftian horse.

1:07:30

And I'm like, Oh, I'm so happy that I'm

1:07:32

here in my life. Wow. Yeah, crazy. So

1:07:34

go check that out sucker for love date to

1:07:36

die for it is out. It just came out

1:07:38

I think last week. And then

1:07:40

something that just came out on Friday, which

1:07:43

is getting a lot of buzz and doesn't

1:07:45

really need me to talk it up is

1:07:47

Mariner Lords and oh my gosh. Yeah,

1:07:50

this game is like crushing right

1:07:52

now. Yeah, I'm so in I am sucked in so

1:07:54

bad to this game. It's it's a problem because I have other

1:07:56

games that are like, oh, I'm not going to be able to

1:07:58

get that. games to play.

1:08:00

And every time I boot up my computer,

1:08:02

I'm just like, maybe I'll just check on

1:08:05

my sheep, you know, man, my

1:08:09

poor partners had to hear so many tales

1:08:11

about what's happening in my little

1:08:14

world. Essentially,

1:08:16

manner Lords is a game

1:08:18

of risk. You

1:08:20

have like 10 or so territories on

1:08:25

a map, you control one of them.

1:08:28

And it's a random what

1:08:30

territory you control and what resources

1:08:34

are strong in that area.

1:08:37

You start basically with nothing, you've got

1:08:39

a little tent with like three

1:08:41

or two families who are homeless. So you need

1:08:43

to build up their houses so they can do

1:08:45

stuff. And then you need to make

1:08:47

a hunting camp so that they can hunt so

1:08:50

that they don't starve through the

1:08:52

winter. And it

1:08:54

grows and grows because everybody, you know, the more

1:08:56

you have the more you need, but you also

1:08:58

need to keep in mind that the

1:09:01

other rulers of other places

1:09:04

are starting to go from their one section

1:09:06

that they rule to taking slowly over

1:09:09

all of the other things around you.

1:09:11

So you have to start like, Oh, gosh, I better

1:09:13

start getting money so I can build up my army

1:09:15

so I can buy weapons so I can buy like

1:09:19

shields and start putting stuff together. But

1:09:21

I just started trade. So I have

1:09:24

to keep my mining operations going and

1:09:27

like, I just bought sheep. So I

1:09:29

want to be able to make them

1:09:33

produce as sheep. So

1:09:37

I am trying to level

1:09:39

up my civilization

1:09:41

by adding more

1:09:44

types of food or more

1:09:47

allowance, more different types of clothing so that

1:09:49

I can get civilization

1:09:53

points. I can't remember exactly what it's called,

1:09:56

but it's like a skill tree for okay,

1:09:58

now I've unlocked a heavy plant. and I

1:10:00

can make sure that my oxen are actually doing the plow

1:10:03

and I can make the fields grow

1:10:05

faster so I can feed my people and not have to

1:10:07

worry about the winter and everything is

1:10:09

the clock is always ticking so

1:10:12

your months are just kind of flying by and

1:10:15

when you get to winter you no longer have

1:10:17

access to berries the fields

1:10:19

are not going to produce your

1:10:22

animals that you've been hunting kind of

1:10:24

can migrate or to lessen they don't

1:10:26

reproduce as much so like I I've

1:10:29

had a couple of winters where I'm really like

1:10:31

skating by like please please please just eat eat

1:10:33

the berries don't worry about the fact you have

1:10:35

no meat and

1:10:37

you really care so when the first time I

1:10:39

had like bandits come in I wasn't

1:10:42

built up enough to have had any sort of

1:10:44

fortification so my people just had to go out

1:10:46

and attack them and I lost people and that

1:10:48

sucks because it's not just like oh these are

1:10:51

the people in my army they're the people in

1:10:53

my village who were like maybe he was like

1:10:55

a herd a sheep herder who

1:10:58

got called up to spear now he's

1:11:01

dead so now I'm like I need to replenish

1:11:03

my sheep herder somehow but I don't have enough

1:11:05

people to run the mines and

1:11:07

so it's just like a continuing like

1:11:09

I have to continually get better and get better

1:11:11

for this and I just want to play this

1:11:13

and I just want to I want five more

1:11:15

minutes to make sure that this happens correctly and

1:11:18

it you literally can't stop

1:11:20

playing once you start so be

1:11:22

prepared for that I love it I

1:11:24

this is I've heard the same thing

1:11:26

from so many people saying man our

1:11:29

Lord is very special

1:11:31

it has that whatever that

1:11:34

ineffable hook that that

1:11:36

addiction thing where like you said five

1:11:38

more minutes five more minutes and it's

1:11:40

doing stuff that a lot of other

1:11:42

games do but is doing it so

1:11:44

much better and and so

1:11:46

much more refined you know

1:11:48

these kind of city builders management sims

1:11:51

yeah it's just kind of focused and

1:11:53

doing it in a on a level

1:11:55

that we haven't seen in a while

1:11:58

it's getting a huge amount of buzz right now Sounds

1:12:02

like you you're among

1:12:04

those voices. Yeah. Well,

1:12:06

I'm a... Manderlords is also on Game

1:12:08

Pass. I almost downloaded it this week and

1:12:10

I was like, I don't know if I

1:12:12

did this in my life, but now I'm

1:12:14

gonna have to do that. Awesome. That

1:12:17

is a really wonderful playlist. We're

1:12:20

gonna go to Christian, but first we're gonna take a quick break

1:12:22

for a sponsor. All

1:12:25

right Christian Spicer, you have been playing another

1:12:27

huge release this week that a lot of

1:12:29

people are talking about. Tell us about

1:12:32

Stellar Blade. So

1:12:35

I was provided a code for the game by Sony

1:12:38

and so there are two things

1:12:41

I need to stay at the beginning

1:12:43

of this discussion about Stellar Blade that

1:12:45

I think are both

1:12:47

truths and can be

1:12:50

held at the same time that

1:12:53

maybe seem in disagreement with each other, but so

1:12:56

one. I really,

1:12:58

really, really like Stellar

1:13:00

Blade. I really

1:13:03

like Stellar Blade. One. Two.

1:13:07

I really dislike

1:13:10

the way this game presents

1:13:13

every single

1:13:16

female character.

1:13:20

It is, I

1:13:23

mean in my opinion, no expert on this,

1:13:25

but it's just disgusting. It's

1:13:27

misogynistic and grotesque, not in

1:13:29

a grotesque like cool scary

1:13:31

monster design. It

1:13:37

sets the industry back several decades. It's

1:13:41

in poor taste and in

1:13:44

no way makes the game better. Your

1:13:47

character has a suit that is called a

1:13:50

skin suit and I know a lot of

1:13:52

Souls games have like your naked and you

1:13:54

have like your debuff because of

1:13:56

that and this one gets rid of your shield. look

1:14:00

like a naked, hips-y,

1:14:02

busty woman, oohing

1:14:05

and ahing and Catherine Zeta

1:14:07

Jones through the laser tripwire

1:14:10

with Sean Connery, movements everywhere

1:14:12

you go. And

1:14:15

her other costumes aren't much better.

1:14:17

And every other, you meet these female

1:14:19

guards in the games who are like

1:14:21

these badass warriors

1:14:23

who have just huge

1:14:26

breasts that are barely covered by

1:14:28

like French lace, you know, like

1:14:30

at the areola

1:14:32

level. And it's full of

1:14:36

jiggle physics. I mean, unrealistic

1:14:40

jiggle physics. Like you turn the camera and

1:14:42

it's like a jello

1:14:44

jiggler, you know, just constant. And

1:14:46

the camera, it has some

1:14:49

really awesome cinematic God of War-esque camera

1:14:52

moments, slow-mo kills, stealth attacks, and

1:14:54

stuff like that. But

1:14:56

then it also has ones that are like, you're

1:14:58

in a skirt and you slide under the door and

1:15:00

the camera's like, wouldn't it be dope if we zoomed

1:15:03

in at the front of her? And it's like, no,

1:15:06

no part of that is dope. No

1:15:08

part of that makes this game a

1:15:11

better game. If I want titillation, I

1:15:14

can find that easily. It

1:15:16

doesn't make the game better. So

1:15:20

those are the two like independent truths

1:15:23

I hold equally about this game. And

1:15:26

so when I discuss other parts about the

1:15:28

game, when I discuss its graphics or whatever,

1:15:31

please know I am not talking about the

1:15:33

female character designs. That's

1:15:36

not what I'm talking about. I'm going to say it looks incredible. I love it.

1:15:39

I'm not talking about that aspect of the game. Kind

1:15:41

of related to those first two truths.

1:15:45

I think this game, I think a lot

1:15:47

of folks are kind of questioning how it

1:15:49

might compare or contrast to Bayonetta. And

1:15:52

to me, again, not an expert on

1:15:54

sexuality or feminism or women's studies by

1:15:57

any stretch of the imagination, but to

1:16:00

To me, I think there is a

1:16:02

very big difference between these two games

1:16:04

and franchises and their portrayal of women.

1:16:07

In that Bayonetta, her

1:16:10

character is sexual.

1:16:13

Her character is in on it,

1:16:15

both created by men, and I

1:16:17

think problematic for reasons. But Bayonetta,

1:16:19

as a character, seems

1:16:21

aware of what she's doing, who she

1:16:24

is, and it's part of that story.

1:16:26

She's posing. She's... It's

1:16:28

cheesy. It's cheeky. It's engaging

1:16:30

with other characters in the world where she's

1:16:32

flirting with the bartender in hell. She's flirting

1:16:35

with the demon that's trying to kill her.

1:16:37

She uses it to distract an

1:16:39

enemy. It is part of that game, for

1:16:41

better or worse. In

1:16:43

Stellar Blade, there's

1:16:46

nothing. There's no acknowledgement. There's not even like,

1:16:48

you know, an anime version of like the

1:16:50

guy who gets distracted by looking at these

1:16:52

women that walk by and then, whoa, slips

1:16:54

in a puddle and whatever. It just doesn't...

1:16:57

She doesn't talk about it. Eve is the

1:16:59

character's name. None of the characters address it.

1:17:02

All of the male characters... I

1:17:04

mean, some of them have like armor on armor. You know? It's

1:17:07

like, oh, no skin showing. No

1:17:09

male gaze. Male

1:17:14

hot dude portrayed in the

1:17:16

game. And so it feels like it's literally

1:17:18

there just to be like, hee

1:17:21

hee hee hee hee hee hee. You know? Game

1:17:24

from the early 90s. And I think that

1:17:26

is a very big difference about how games

1:17:28

address a sexualized

1:17:31

character. Where one is

1:17:33

aware of it, part of it, it is part of

1:17:35

her character, and the other is like, this is just

1:17:37

frosting we put on this thing to now

1:17:39

send it out into the world. I

1:17:42

think for my money, the Bayonetta approach

1:17:44

is better. It seems like it's at

1:17:46

least part of that story versus the

1:17:48

Stellar Blade approach, which is... It

1:17:51

adds nothing. And for me, it detracts from

1:17:53

the game. I would much rather enjoy this

1:17:55

game if my

1:17:57

character was dressed like Solid Snake. fatigues

1:18:00

are dressed like Wonder

1:18:02

Woman in the first Wonder Woman film,

1:18:04

you know, like, oh, that's real armor.

1:18:07

That works. So I

1:18:09

needed to say that at the at the outset, because

1:18:11

I think it's important. And it bums

1:18:13

me out that the game

1:18:16

portrays women the way it does

1:18:18

physically, it bums me out. What

1:18:20

I really love about this game

1:18:23

is that it is a modern

1:18:26

throwback to a third person

1:18:28

action game that does

1:18:31

so many of those things that I

1:18:33

love so very, very well. It

1:18:35

is souls adjacent, whereas that when you sit

1:18:37

down to rest, like it says, like some

1:18:40

of the enemies may reappear. But that doesn't

1:18:42

really matter because you're not exploring the way

1:18:44

you will in the Souls game, we're needing

1:18:46

to backtrack on things. Stellar Blade very much

1:18:48

when you get into the main chunks of

1:18:50

the game, is very linear,

1:18:52

but a wide linear where there's

1:18:55

areas to explore, to find secrets,

1:18:57

to find weapon upgrades, we could

1:18:59

get things that build out your skill tree.

1:19:01

So it still feels like you're poking around in

1:19:03

this environment. But it also very

1:19:05

much feels like a bayonetta one or two, where

1:19:08

like, this is the path I'm taking, I'm

1:19:10

going to take down these enemies with this

1:19:12

awesome, fast, excuse

1:19:15

me, visceral combat of

1:19:18

light attack, a heavy attack, a parry

1:19:20

and a dodge. And the

1:19:22

upgrades to that feel constant

1:19:25

and important as your character is leveling up.

1:19:27

It feels good, you get a, oh, do

1:19:29

I want to use this, it gives me

1:19:32

an extra attack after a perfect parry, because

1:19:34

that's the way I want to play or

1:19:36

I want to prioritize leveling up to get

1:19:38

this move that allows me to reposition after

1:19:41

a dodge that gives me an advantage around

1:19:43

some of these bigger enemies. It does a

1:19:45

lot of that combat stuff

1:19:47

in a way that I find very satisfying

1:19:49

that I think Rise

1:19:52

of the Ronin was missing. Like Rise

1:19:54

of the Ronin from Team Ninja

1:19:57

I was hoping was going to that combat was going

1:19:59

to click for me in that way. And for whatever

1:20:01

reason, it didn't I felt claustrophobic in the indoor environment,

1:20:04

I never kind of got into that rhythm. I liked

1:20:06

the combat, I think it was the best part of

1:20:08

Rise of the Ronin, but it didn't grab me the

1:20:10

way Stellar Blades did. Stellar

1:20:12

Blades grabbed me in a way that, you

1:20:15

know, feels reminiscent of those early Ninja Gaiden

1:20:17

games, but iterated on now and

1:20:19

not quite as fast or jumping

1:20:21

around as much, but it very much is I'm going

1:20:23

to go in here, I'm going to figure out

1:20:25

how to take down this big enemy while I'm

1:20:28

doing it, which for me is

1:20:30

not how I approach enemies in Souls games. It's like

1:20:32

I'm gonna, okay,

1:20:34

I'm gonna go in here and die 10 times as

1:20:37

I try to watch to figure out and now I

1:20:39

have understanding. I will now

1:20:41

try to play it, you know,

1:20:43

and the Stellar Blade very much felt

1:20:45

improvisational where I was putting the pieces

1:20:47

together as they were happening. And

1:20:50

it didn't require a lot of that. Oh, I

1:20:52

turned right and now I'm at an Overpower boss.

1:20:54

I shouldn't be here. It very much presents its

1:20:56

story as you meet it. Pretty

1:20:59

linearly. Linear, linearly? I feel

1:21:02

weird when I say it. Linear. Linearly.

1:21:04

Lin- like linear. Linoleum,

1:21:08

got it. New kitchen

1:21:10

floors. And I really,

1:21:13

really liked that. It was super fun

1:21:15

and engaging and it kept doing interesting

1:21:17

things along the way. It has

1:21:20

a few open world or open

1:21:23

hub areas that allow for

1:21:25

extra side content inside

1:21:27

stories. I did some of them, not

1:21:29

all of them. I didn't

1:21:32

find them to be necessary

1:21:35

in a way like, oh, I'm learning more about this

1:21:37

world. Because I kind of didn't

1:21:39

care about the world. Like the story that

1:21:42

it's presenting is like a fallen earth and

1:21:44

you come back to save it and twists

1:21:47

and turns and what's really happening and

1:21:49

what really led to the enemies that

1:21:51

you're battling. And that felt very forgettable.

1:21:55

But that also kind of felt like a

1:21:57

throwback to the action combat genre for

1:22:00

me of like, I don't know why we're doing this

1:22:02

stuff, we're gonna go do it. And it's gonna look

1:22:04

cool along the way. And this

1:22:06

game from a debut, a

1:22:09

console debut for the studio, technically,

1:22:12

again, leaving out the stuff I talked about the beginning. Technically,

1:22:15

I am blown

1:22:17

away by Stellar Blade.

1:22:19

It is gorgeous. I

1:22:22

don't know if it's, you know,

1:22:24

real time ray tracing or not. I was

1:22:26

playing in the balanced mode, just like the

1:22:28

40 frames per second mode for Digital Foundry

1:22:30

said where they got their best experience. And

1:22:32

I had an incredible, smooth frame

1:22:34

rate experience there reflections, you're in these, you

1:22:37

know, space station environments, you're in dark

1:22:40

tunnels. Excuse

1:22:42

me, hold up. Low

1:22:45

times felt very short and fast. You're

1:22:49

constantly in new environments, the enemy design

1:22:51

is grotesque in a good way, like

1:22:53

these kind

1:22:55

of disgusting creatures with interesting body

1:22:57

parts like a shield or a

1:23:00

big weapon. And what they

1:23:02

do with it to signal their movements are fun. There

1:23:04

are some misdirects where it's kind of like a Popeye

1:23:06

wind up and then they punch you with the other

1:23:08

hand. The first few times it happens, like that's not

1:23:10

how that's supposed to work. Really,

1:23:12

really cool. And just technically

1:23:14

stunning in a day and age where

1:23:17

so many big AAA games come out.

1:23:20

And Jeff, you and I sit here and say, well,

1:23:22

wait a few weeks. You know, we really like the

1:23:24

game, but let's wait for these

1:23:26

patches to come in. I mean, from day

1:23:28

one, this game played flawlessly. I had zero

1:23:30

bugs. I never lost progress.

1:23:33

I never had hard crashes,

1:23:35

just a very solid, awesome

1:23:39

gameplay experience. My other only nits

1:23:41

about it from

1:23:43

a gameplay wise would be there are times

1:23:45

where bosses which are difficult. You

1:23:48

you when you die, you respawn like

1:23:51

half a click away, you know, so

1:23:53

you have to like, walk to

1:23:55

the thing and then you can skip the

1:23:58

intro animation for the boss again. But

1:24:00

it's like, just put me back in. You know,

1:24:02

I'm going to be here 12 times game. You

1:24:05

and I both know I'm going to be here 12 times.

1:24:07

Just like, get me back in. So I found that a

1:24:09

little frustrating toward the end. I did

1:24:11

turn it down too easy for

1:24:13

the last two bosses, I think, because

1:24:15

I was missing my parries

1:24:18

real bad. And at that point, I think it was like

1:24:20

25 hours into the game. And I was like, I

1:24:22

know I'm close. I think this is

1:24:24

the last boss. Okay. There's more bosses. I'm close enough. So

1:24:27

I did click it down there. But I

1:24:30

think there's a whole lot to like in

1:24:32

it. And I think it shows what this

1:24:35

genre can be. And not everything needs

1:24:37

to be a Souls game. You know,

1:24:39

this definitely has trappings of that, but

1:24:42

it very much more feels like the action

1:24:45

combat, everything's quick. I have my first hour

1:24:47

with it. Jeff is up on our Patreon

1:24:49

for people to see the VOD. And I

1:24:51

kind of talk about there of like, Oh,

1:24:54

weird. I kind of want to just dash at

1:24:56

this enemy. But the Souls

1:24:58

player in me tells me, No, I

1:25:01

need to wait to see what it does. So I learned how

1:25:03

to counter it. And it's like, No, no, no, you dash at

1:25:05

it. It is quick. It is meant to be fast and get

1:25:07

in there. And my only other knit, it

1:25:09

has a few to break

1:25:11

up the pacing, a few like

1:25:13

platforming style sections. And

1:25:15

I think it kind of locks into animations in

1:25:17

a way that makes that more frustrating than fun,

1:25:20

where like the jump, you then step

1:25:22

four times and maybe fall off a cliff versus

1:25:25

no, you're supposed to land there, Eve,

1:25:27

you're supposed to land there. And

1:25:29

so it's, I played the whole thing.

1:25:32

You know, hypocrite, whatever you want to say, put my money

1:25:35

where my mouth is. I played the whole thing and I

1:25:37

really enjoyed my time with it. But

1:25:40

there is no world in which I think this wouldn't

1:25:42

have been a better game with

1:25:45

better female character design. If it did make you

1:25:47

feel so icky. Yeah,

1:25:49

yeah. I mean, not even icky. It's just

1:25:51

not, it's just bad. It's there's,

1:25:53

for me, there's, there's zero value

1:25:55

add in that there's zero

1:25:57

value add in those characters looking in the way.

1:26:00

they did. And they're not part of

1:26:02

the story. And even just a throwaway line, I would

1:26:04

have like, explain it if

1:26:06

you're going to do it, but they don't. It's literally

1:26:08

just there to be titillating. And

1:26:10

I think it sets the industry back

1:26:12

and it's a real bummer. The combat

1:26:15

and this kind of old school approach

1:26:17

to third person action combat,

1:26:20

I think is exquisite. So I

1:26:22

don't want to recommend or not recommend the games to

1:26:24

folk the game to folks. I think it depends on

1:26:26

which side of that line

1:26:29

they find themselves on, whether or not

1:26:31

they can tolerate it or not. But

1:26:33

I'm excited for what the studio does

1:26:35

next, hopefully learning from this

1:26:38

game and making some character design

1:26:40

corrections going forward. That's

1:26:43

Stellar Blade on PlayStation.

1:26:45

You're playing on PlayStation 5, right?

1:26:47

It's exclusive to five? It's PlayStation 5.

1:26:50

Yeah. Rarity,

1:26:52

honestly. What else is on

1:26:55

your playlist, Christian? One

1:26:57

game that I can recommend wholeheartedly. Uh

1:27:01

oh, Jeff, look what I dug

1:27:03

out of my garage. Look at

1:27:06

that. They have plastic

1:27:08

instrument. It is a

1:27:10

rock band for plastic instrument. They

1:27:13

Fortnite Epic, they promised that

1:27:15

instrument support was important to

1:27:17

them when they launched Fortnite

1:27:19

Festival here months, weeks

1:27:22

ago, months ago. And that day has

1:27:24

arrived. Your old rock band guitars work

1:27:26

in Fortnite Festival. To get them on

1:27:28

PC, there's a few hoops you have

1:27:30

to jump through. But if this is

1:27:32

the PlayStation 4 fender for Rock Band

1:27:34

4, it works on PlayStation 5. Same

1:27:37

if you have the Xbox one, it works on Xbox. There's

1:27:40

a new guitar you can buy that also

1:27:42

just works. Jill

1:27:45

and Jeff, these games are

1:27:47

awesome. I know we got sick of them.

1:27:50

It's I didn't. It's so

1:27:52

what the market got sick of them. It's

1:27:56

real fun. I've

1:27:59

always preferred the guitar. Hero clickier strum than

1:28:01

the rock band guitar, which is a

1:28:03

little bit of a mushier strum. So

1:28:05

I've had to relearn the rock

1:28:08

band strum, but I

1:28:10

know Epic has all the money so they can do all

1:28:12

the things, but when they bought harmonics, this is kind of

1:28:14

what I was hoping for and they

1:28:16

knocked it out of the park. It's

1:28:19

real good. I get to

1:28:21

play Blink 182 as

1:28:23

RoboCop or Alan Wake. Are you kidding

1:28:25

me? You

1:28:28

can fine tune your timing. It does

1:28:30

the thing where you get to dial in your screen

1:28:33

to fine tune to make sure your clicks are accurate.

1:28:36

It has all the things. All the things. I think

1:28:38

it's hard to get to put your pinky on the

1:28:40

orange, the too many frets

1:28:43

that you don't have fingers for, the bar

1:28:45

chords, the double, the tilt to

1:28:47

go into power mode. So you're

1:28:50

saying is rock band is alive and

1:28:52

well and living in Fortnite. Fortnite. Yeah.

1:28:56

And it's better than it's ever been

1:28:58

in some ways where it doesn't, it

1:29:00

defaults to no fail mode before you

1:29:02

had to turn that on and out.

1:29:04

It just keeps going, but the challenge,

1:29:06

it's genius. It's genius. The

1:29:08

challenge is in the battle pass, which

1:29:11

is where so many people look to for their

1:29:13

challenges now instead of going into the old Activision

1:29:15

style menu for rock band, like progressing the

1:29:17

story and like, oh, do this on hard

1:29:19

to unlock this. Like this is this week's

1:29:21

or whatever this long's battle path to unlock,

1:29:24

to do the play this song, to do

1:29:26

that at this song, to do this or

1:29:28

group with these people to do that. And

1:29:30

it's stuff that we've all been trained to

1:29:32

do by Epic and Fortnite for so long

1:29:34

now. And it's, I know that

1:29:36

it's been in Fortnite festival since its launch, but now

1:29:38

that it has the guitar implementation. Oh,

1:29:41

it's good. Songs are five bucks and I've spent,

1:29:44

I have some money.

1:29:46

First song. That's funny.

1:29:48

I think there were two bucks in rock bands.

1:29:50

They've gone up a little bit, but

1:29:53

as someone with a problem, how

1:29:57

many songs does it start with?

1:30:00

Well, so that it's kind of has the

1:30:02

guitar hero live approach. It's as the shop

1:30:04

updates you get new There's

1:30:07

always free songs to play and they're rotating them

1:30:09

in and out and sometimes songs stay in the

1:30:11

store refresh But other

1:30:14

times it's like oh, we're gonna have the like Billy Eilish is The

1:30:17

new thing right now and a lot of those

1:30:19

songs are in there to free to play So

1:30:21

you don't have to spend anything to

1:30:23

have a really fun experience But if you want

1:30:25

to own make damn sure by taking back Sunday

1:30:27

like I did You bought

1:30:29

that for five dollars because then you're

1:30:31

saying your library There's only one way

1:30:33

to make damn sure that you own

1:30:35

it Yes Yes,

1:30:38

there is and that's the five dollars Okay,

1:30:41

it's it's really well done. You can play with friends.

1:30:43

They say they're gonna bring drums into it as well

1:30:46

Which I also got my old guys. I'm

1:30:48

set right over there. It's it's real

1:30:50

good. It's dig out your guitars y'all Yeah,

1:30:53

I'm doing that. I'm doing that tomorrow. That's what

1:30:55

I did a really good job with it. It's

1:30:57

really good So easy to recommend urge so hard

1:31:00

Fortnight is so unfair. I've

1:31:02

got so much that is coming up. May

1:31:05

the 9th is gonna kill any of any any

1:31:07

fan out there So

1:31:09

like you are trying so hard to

1:31:11

get me to go into my garage

1:31:13

and drag stuff out I think

1:31:16

fortnight just said that they were doing Star

1:31:18

Wars coming May 3rd if

1:31:20

I remember correctly Yeah,

1:31:23

I'm like I can't I don't have time for

1:31:25

this fortnight. Why are you doing this to me?

1:31:27

Think of it this way? it's Finally

1:31:31

given us all a reason to have

1:31:33

hung on to those instruments this long

1:31:36

You know, I knew I wasn't supposed to

1:31:38

throw this in the garbage and I now I've

1:31:40

been proven, right? Hey

1:31:42

someone that came to our shows that UCB

1:31:44

Jeff is a very happy camper right now

1:31:46

for holding on to the gear We gave

1:31:48

away all those we do give away a

1:31:50

lot of that all those years Really guitar

1:31:52

I do think it's an Xbox one though,

1:31:54

unfortunately, please. I believe it needs to

1:31:56

be rock band for I don't think like for a While

1:31:58

you could carry over you here, guitars worked in

1:32:01

rock band. I think right now it's

1:32:03

just rock band four or these new guitars that

1:32:06

they've made that are pretty hard to find. And

1:32:08

Jill, to your point, I think it's

1:32:11

really, you know, epic

1:32:13

genius of keeping folks in the

1:32:15

Fortnite ecosystem where there's cross progression

1:32:17

across battle passes for doing all

1:32:19

of these things, or there's something

1:32:21

to do within this rapper that

1:32:23

I get to bring my Robocop

1:32:25

in from my Alan Wake, my

1:32:27

Nathan Drake, you know, Master Chief,

1:32:30

all of these characters into this

1:32:32

other modes. And Jeff, we did

1:32:34

a story a few weeks ago about like, oh, everybody's playing

1:32:36

these six year old games still isn't that such a bummer.

1:32:39

And I thought about that since we did that episode. But

1:32:42

also 10 years before that we were all

1:32:44

on We Can Confirm saying, I wish these

1:32:46

sports games would just send

1:32:48

out an update instead of making me buy a full

1:32:50

copy every year. And now that's what we're getting. And

1:32:52

it's great. Well, not in sports games. But yes, no,

1:32:55

of course not. They're too they make too much money.

1:32:57

But the other games. Yeah, there

1:32:59

you go. Right. That's Fortnite

1:33:01

festival with guitar. I

1:33:05

don't have to talk too long about my

1:33:07

playlist. We already talked about another crabs treasure,

1:33:09

but I wanted to mention another game that's

1:33:11

really, really got its hooks into me. And I

1:33:13

will probably be talking about it next week as

1:33:15

well. So I don't have to spend too much

1:33:17

time on it. But it's the new game from

1:33:19

clay, which is

1:33:21

rottwood clay, of course, the studio behind

1:33:24

don't starve, and grist

1:33:27

lands, which is a game I really dug, I

1:33:29

don't think got enough attention. So

1:33:32

I pay attention when clay does anything I talked

1:33:34

about this one. During one of the steam

1:33:37

next fest. I played the

1:33:39

demo, it's called rottwood. It's

1:33:42

very much my jam. It is a it

1:33:45

is a rogue light, sort

1:33:49

of, you know,

1:33:51

a brawler, a 2d

1:33:53

brawler in the in the

1:33:56

vein of a like of a golden axe or

1:33:58

a final fight or a, you know, castle. Crass

1:34:00

or casual can't

1:34:02

speak crashes linoleum

1:34:04

linoleum. Yeah And

1:34:09

Rottwood I don't understand how

1:34:11

this game is sitting at mixed reviews on

1:34:13

Steam. It makes no sense to me. I

1:34:16

love it I think it's awesome

1:34:18

They're already addressing a lot of the issues

1:34:20

people have which is sort of weird difficulty

1:34:22

spikes and some some

1:34:25

some Some very persnickety

1:34:27

I think complaints this game is $10

1:34:31

It's $10 the amount of

1:34:33

game you get for $10 I

1:34:36

got it on sale for $8 and

1:34:39

like the fact that people like ah this game. I

1:34:42

Don't understand it. I think Rottwood is

1:34:45

awesome for $10. It's a no-brainer like it's

1:34:47

also early access still, right? It's also early

1:34:49

access. Yeah, I think that's gonna be a

1:34:51

lot about last week with No

1:34:54

rest of the way the rest of the way it's

1:34:56

not finished. Yeah, which by the way Attention

1:35:00

but no rest of the wicked has

1:35:02

like had six updates in a week

1:35:04

They've done an update almost every day

1:35:06

that has addressed major things like completely

1:35:09

changing the cost for Repairs and like

1:35:11

they added super ultra wide support 32

1:35:15

nines like oh dude, I'm very

1:35:17

happy with moon studios for that

1:35:19

anyway Back to

1:35:22

Rottwood and clay This

1:35:24

game is beautiful Beautiful

1:35:27

and all plays games are their art team is

1:35:29

just Incredible and it

1:35:32

looks like a cartoon

1:35:34

like a like a Don Bluth movie

1:35:36

or just a beautiful Animated

1:35:39

feature. It's so gorgeous

1:35:43

Anthropomorphized animals and

1:35:45

you are you know, it's very much a standard rogue

1:35:48

light in the in the style of a Hades or Oh

1:35:53

What's the game about being a cult leader?

1:35:56

Cult of the lamb cult of the lamb very much if

1:35:58

you played cult of the lamb very

1:36:01

similar, you know, you've got your home

1:36:03

base that you're upgrading by in various

1:36:05

ways, getting new resources

1:36:09

to be able to invest in your home base, at finding

1:36:12

people in the world that you can bring back that

1:36:14

will let you have new things in your home base.

1:36:16

But most of the game is you're venturing

1:36:19

out, you're going into these screens

1:36:22

that are connected, you have to defeat everything

1:36:24

on the screen in order for the exits

1:36:26

to open up, you get some sense

1:36:28

of choice as to which exit you want

1:36:30

to go to, and then

1:36:32

it will indicate what kind of reward you'll

1:36:35

get in the next room so you can

1:36:37

sort of decide how you want to keep

1:36:39

going. And you'll get really

1:36:41

cool rule-breaking upgrades. So

1:36:43

you'll get an upgrade that lets you do something

1:36:45

that you wouldn't normally be able to do, and

1:36:48

you can compound those risk of rain

1:36:50

style where you can just have this

1:36:52

like wonderful list of

1:36:55

accrued, you

1:36:58

know, upgrades that you get that, you know,

1:37:00

like for example, you'll get, you know, your

1:37:03

dash will be way better every

1:37:05

time you dash, the projectile will shoot

1:37:07

off of your body, or you

1:37:09

know, just wild things that

1:37:12

like that, that can you can compound

1:37:14

and stack and chain all these cool

1:37:17

features to your character as you're moving

1:37:19

through a run. Also, the combat

1:37:24

system I find to be very fun, the weapon,

1:37:28

you'll, there's all kinds of cool button

1:37:30

combinations and combos to be discovered that

1:37:34

result in focused attacks, like you can chain

1:37:37

together different kinds of combos, and

1:37:39

a lot of them are hidden, you have to figure them out, and

1:37:42

each weapon has its own built-in

1:37:45

combos and button

1:37:47

combinations. And so, you

1:37:49

know, finding a new weapon, purchasing a new

1:37:52

weapon will change up

1:37:54

the way you're playing the game considerably. And

1:37:56

it's really fun, and there's, you know, armor,

1:37:58

there's a lot of RPG elements It's almost

1:38:00

Diablo style, where you really

1:38:02

do have to be out in the world

1:38:05

discovering the loot that you can then bring

1:38:07

back and upgrade at your blacksmith or whatever

1:38:09

in your town. I'm

1:38:11

having a blast with Rotwood. I'll talk more about

1:38:13

it. It's got multiplayer. I haven't tried that yet.

1:38:15

I want to. I think it would

1:38:18

be even more fun teamed up. A lot of people's

1:38:20

complaints about the game are that the solo is

1:38:22

not balanced well. I

1:38:25

don't think I've gotten deep enough into it to have hit

1:38:27

that kind of difficulty spike, but it's

1:38:29

also a roguelite. If I die

1:38:31

on a run, I'm having a good time launching into

1:38:33

another run. The enemies are

1:38:35

awesome. It's so beautiful. It's so wonderful

1:38:38

to be in the game that I

1:38:40

don't mind repeating the same levels over

1:38:42

and over again. I find the combat

1:38:45

just fun, and I find the upgrade

1:38:47

path to be really exhilarating. It's exactly

1:38:49

what I love about roguelites. Rotwood

1:38:52

at $10, it just seems like a no-brainer.

1:38:55

If you like these kinds of games, this is

1:38:57

an excellent version of it. I

1:38:59

don't understand the mixed rating on Steam right now. It just blows

1:39:02

me away. All

1:39:04

right. That's my playlist,

1:39:06

and that is our

1:39:08

episode of DLC this week. We do have

1:39:11

parting gifts coming up, so stick around for

1:39:13

those. But

1:39:15

you'll grow. It's been so much fun hanging out

1:39:17

with you, as it always is. Thank you for being here. Thank

1:39:19

you so much for having me. I'm glad that we were able

1:39:21

to make all of this work. I am, too.

1:39:24

I am, too. Tell folks where they can keep up with

1:39:26

you and the cool stuff that you do online. Yeah,

1:39:28

you can find all my stuff at theindieinformer.com.

1:39:32

Go check that out if you are interested

1:39:34

in following me on social medias. Me

1:39:36

personally is on Twitter at

1:39:38

Finroon, F-I-N-R-U-I-N. Or

1:39:41

you could follow The Indie Informer at Indie

1:39:44

underscore Informer, because of course, The Indie

1:39:46

Informer is just one letter too long

1:39:48

to fit on Twitter. And

1:39:51

you can also check me out on The Indie Council.

1:39:54

It is a group of indie-minded

1:39:57

people coming together to talk about all things

1:39:59

indie. problems, fun things that we're

1:40:01

having. So, go

1:40:03

check that out too. Awesome, very cool. Christian

1:40:05

Spicer, what about you? What do you got going on this

1:40:07

week? Well, the folks are

1:40:10

listening to this show and they're curious what

1:40:12

our beautiful faces look like. We put up

1:40:14

audio, audio. We put up the audio. You'll

1:40:17

never know. Too bad. And we

1:40:19

only put up audio. You can imagine, baby.

1:40:22

We put up video segments of the

1:40:24

show. Anyone can check out at our

1:40:26

YouTube, which is at DLCpod. The full

1:40:29

video version is available for folks on

1:40:31

demand, as you mentioned at the top

1:40:33

of the show, Jeff, for our patrons

1:40:35

at patreon.com/DLCpod. And this show is

1:40:38

on social media, on threads,

1:40:40

and Instagram as

1:40:43

DLChypeTrain. And then I

1:40:45

have a newsletter that people can subscribe to, casual

1:40:48

conversational pieces about video

1:40:50

games you can find

1:40:52

at christianspicer.substack.com, where

1:40:56

the next one I'm going to be talking about

1:40:58

is pronouncing a word that describes a game

1:41:00

that kind of takes you from point A

1:41:02

to point B directly. It's going to

1:41:04

be all about linoleum floors, and I think folks are

1:41:06

going to love it. Very cool.

1:41:10

You can follow me on socials, at Jeff Canata, which is

1:41:12

spelled with two N's and one T. I

1:41:15

have other shows. Why not check them out?

1:41:17

You can hear me talk about movies and

1:41:19

TV shows on the Filmcast. You

1:41:21

can hear me talk sports on the

1:41:23

Fan Controlled Show. And I do a

1:41:26

comedy science show called We Have Concerns,

1:41:28

all of which available wherever you get

1:41:30

fine podcasts like this one. So check

1:41:33

them out. Let's

1:41:35

wrap things up now with our

1:41:37

parking gifts. Oh,

1:41:41

this is fantastic. I'm

1:41:43

going to sit in the back. This is

1:41:45

my new home. My

1:41:47

old home. Jill,

1:41:50