Castle Super Beast - CSB330: Super Kong God Super Kong feat. Gene Park

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

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["Sailor Moon Theme"] Hey! What's up? Good afternoon, gentlemen. How's it going? I haven't seen you guys since the race war. Oh yeah, again! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah again. Yeah, yeah Yeah, that all worked out. Yeah, there's a couple of more of those coming Wait hold on hold on Jack is in frame, but where's the Where's the there's a boost? Oh, yeah?

There you go. There we go. Beep alert. Five way podcast begins. Now we got everybody. Hold on. Let me grab my child. What do you got?

There. That's just you, man. I got my baby over here. It's all good. That's not the same. That's not the same, Woolly. No. I'm a little early for the real thing. My baby over here. It's all good the same That's no

I'm a little early for for for the real thing Yeah, all right, so Happy to get you on For a segment I cannot participate in for a segment I cannot participate in. Yeah, I gotta ask, how much of Death Stranding 2 have you put hands on? Is it nothing? No, no, no, nothing, nothing, nothing.

I've been way too busy. Okay, well then that works out, because yeah, no, I have way too much to say. And a lot of it is non-spoilery, but it's so mechanically specific that it would still just go right over your head. Yeah, and there's also there's a part There's a place where partial context is actually worse than zero context You know there's a time when you like if you start a game for like one session

And you're like oh, I kind of know enough to know what you're getting at That tells me more than just being like I have no idea so I'm Absolutely, I'm sitting over here. I feel like we could probably talk around it too, but that would be no fun. I mean, there's some stuff I definitely don't want to fucking talk around though. That's true, yeah. That would be no fun for Woolly too. I'd rather have Woolly just experience all that fresh. Exactly.

I'll mute my headphones and then y'all can just give me a thumbs up when it's safe and when the coast is clear. Hey, this makes up for the non-Death Stranding 1 spoiler cast that you guys never did except for the five minutes where you guys talked about the... Good game. Good game. Yeah. To be fair, I feel like our Death Stranding discussion was spread out over like eight or 10 episodes.

Yeah, that's how you would usually do it, right? We did very minor spoiler casts about like, are you trucking? Yeah, I'm trucking. That's it, you know, so we did get there in eventualities. But yeah, I mean, before we get to that, and I what I assume is going to be some, some, some congan it up. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's, let's see what's going on with the weeks at the very least. Well, first up, buddy, how you doing? Oh me?

Who, me? Yeah, how you doing, bud? Or Willie, yeah. Oh yeah, no. You're getting there, bud. Oh, it's getting there. Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Make no mistake.

I know way more about the crib and stroller game than I ever did before. The benefits of a light stroller that you can carry easily, but the lack of durability in the wheel, the wheels could get a little iffy. Yeah, no, it's that horrible triangle of, do you want it to be really sturdy? Mm-hmm. Well, it's gonna be heavy. Yep. Do you want it to be really sturdy? Mm-hmm. Well, it's gonna be heavy.

Yep. Do you want it to be sturdy, but kind of light? Well, it's gonna be really expensive. Yeah, there's that, you know, portability. And then another thing is, okay, can the bassinet attach straight in? And, or do you have to switch to the car seat? Or what can you do?

And the idea here for us is let's switch it to the car seat but then we want the bassinet to be able to come out so that you don't have to wake up baby to get her over to bed, you know? Yeah. I got a tip for you on that. Yeah. You want the shittiest, most unhelpful tip ever?

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Most of that depends on your baby. Right, right. And I your baby right right I just mean like their overall temperament because like my guy when he's asleep fucking no problem no problem getting him asleep oh my god but once he's out ah fuck it pick him up hold him upside down yeah yeah I can see and the thing is this is a whole lot of fuss for six months. You know what I mean There's a very specific criteria for the first six, you know, but like overall I think

What I see here is like in terms of what's rated for Canada as well There's a there's a limitation there's stuff that the strollers Americans can have that Canada is like, ah, we don't know about those. Yeah. Right. And we're like, damn, okay, what's going on? And in the end, we found that like, okay, the thing that suits all of our needs best for now until we actually hit reality and find out that it's not that at all, is a older version of a

travel stroller because the older version of the travel stroller fits the car seat we have, allows us to pull out the the main seat and put a bassinet in, and is lighter than the big heavy-duty ones. So those are what we're gonna go with. You know, getting the crib, looking at that, and seeing if we can get the drawer together and like, oh, this one's got a breathable mattress. So you don't have to worry about like, you know, the air getting cut off if baby is like facing down on it. But wait a minute, shouldn't they all be breathable

mattresses? Shouldn't this be a universal feature absolutely And it turns out it is but some more than others I guess and you know and then oh, but if you want the breathability Then you can't really put the the piss cover on it You know so if there's a blowout then you know you're gonna get a stain on your breathable mattress And that's gonna take forever to dry which means baby doesn't have an actual not yet no my mom called me up on the phone and be like make sure you get crib bumpers I'm like mom those kill kids yeah okay so no none of those none of those nothing nothing nothing to go in the crib goes in the crib nothing literally nothing baby goes in the crib

yeah nothing you know and and and so on but like it's a lot of it's arriving at Nothing. Literally nothing. The baby goes in the crib. Other than that, nothing. And so on. But a lot of it's arriving at the same time. I'm assembling, I'm piecing together, I'm figuring it out. There's a whole other game to the... There's bottles, and then there's the milk pumps, and then there's the side ones that you get so that you're not wasting any effort, and the preserve sacks for freezing. Oh yeah. And then the bottle sterilizer.

Oh yes! Which cannot be used with anything else. It must be its own thing and yeah, and then and then yeah so my guy is turning to this month and And I I'm starting to understand the way that the first child and the second child are because like he'll drop his thing on the ground And if he was like a year old, but oh, I got to sterilize this Fucking elite some dirt's good for me No You know now good for the immune system exactly. There's a whole lot of immune system Big stuff there where cuz yeah, I remember like even when I saw like what I saw like it's like

Oh kids are have their little teething keys and then like they'd like throw it on the ground and it's like well You're supposed to like wash that and not have them put that back in their mouth But then some folks were like, ah, no, let him experience some dirt. It'll strengthen the immune system We were walking in the park the other day. My feet walked by there shoes are on the ground. What are you talking about? We were walking in the park the other day and this kid literally kissed a trash can oh my god oh You know you had like a napkin put the napkin away, and he threw it away, and we're like yay He was on the trash can oh God how old was this kid Was it a tiny kid? Small kid. How old? How old? Small kid? Yeah. Turned into...

No, no, no. The kid that kissed the trash can. That's mine. Oh! That was... That was my child! Oh, that was... That was you! Oh! Oh, he went in. Okay. No, I'm not saying some other child! I thought you witnessed the child. Oh, shit! Oh, god. Oh, damn. Oh, no. Like, there's like, raccoon feet going on that thing. Yeah, and you can, like, hear, like, what are your options?

Are you gonna freak out and terrify them? Right? No, you just gotta hope. Hope that was the cleanest part of the trash can and then he goes in a kiss and you're like no get away from me You scar them forever Gotta always be available Hey, you know as someone who actually watched the my did you guys didn't watch the Minecraft movie? Did you I did not? Okay, if you watched a Minecraft movie during the whole Chicken Jockey craze, I'm sure you heard of that meme when the Jack Black says Chicken Jockey and everyone starts throwing food and everything in there.

Kids all had their fucking meltdowns, yeah. Yeah. I was at the Washington, D.C. theater and I thought like, oh, it's Washington, D.C. These are like some prim and proper people, you know, probably lobbyists or lawyer watching minecraft the movie or whatever and I know I went to see With a bunch of kids there and they started throwing food and then they started eating the food off the floor These aren't like chill like little baby children, too These are like like 19 20 year olds or whatever too, and they're like chicken jockey And then they just threw food all over the place

and started eating it. So that's what we're raising right now. Just trash children. This dog likes to try and steal some of the child's food off his little baby plate. But if the dog has gone, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, on the food and then I stop him,

baby doesn't care. So, aw, here it comes. Aw, here's my soggy dog Cheerios like there's nothing to be done That like they don't care. Yeah, it's everything The it's it the real the thought the real thought bomb is Thinking about where dogs tongue has been and then connecting that to the object. Yeah, well, what are you going to do?

One question. What are you going to do? I know you and I specifically, Pat, are always thinking about George Carlin throwing that rock as a kid into the fucking New York River and diving into the sewage and trying to avoid the goop and get back to shore and being like we never got sick a day in our lives. Immune system strong as hell. Now that's obviously not true.

That generation actually got sick and died constantly. But the idea, Betty put that out there, you go oh wow, immune system strong, okay. Now at what age are you okay to have Kid dive into the Hudson? You know? Never, bro. It's one thing for that story to be told, but then you're just like, okay, but if I can't see the number on that immune system percentage increase when this happens, get the fuck out of here. That's insane.

No, it's- I wish I could look and see it. No, here's the thing out of here. That's insane. I Wish I could look and see here's the thing. Here's where I'm at. I try and keep them away from everything gross, but I physically can't Sometimes you get like the kid just just leans down and grabs a handful of dirt out of nowhere and just goes on his body like, hey, what am I supposed to fucking do? Damn it, yeah, no. There's a line, there's a, not fine, it's a thick and pronounced line between just building up your immune system, building character, et cetera, and just, that's just gross, man, stop!

Yeah, this is gross. Aw man, don't do that, oh come on. Well anyway. And soon it'll happen to you. Yeah, it'll happen, I used to be with it once. Yeah. Okay, well, Gene, Gene, Gene, talk to us, talk to us. How has your- Talk to us about

your child-free life. Yeah, I was about to say, after all the lessons you guys learned about having a guest on the podcast Here you guys talking about the meta of a game that I don't play which is raising a human You're raising Jack and Jack's cute I am raising a child and the closest thing I have has to raising a child is all the visits I did to the fertility center of Anaheim during college How are we good?

For beer money. Oh, okay. Gosh. $50 a pop for twice a week max cap. So that's $100 a week for a college kid who just go in there to just do his business. A literal pop, that is. Yeah, a literal pop that is yeah a literal pop you know $100 a week I did that for about half half a year

So that's probably at least like probably like a hundred kids running around Southern, California That because I'd always like be worried that I'd be like my age Mm-hmm, and then run into like a 15 year old that looks like wildly suspiciously like me. Oh, yeah You have I have nightmares about it all the time. Yeah, you have that moment. You know, you're just looking a little too hard like oh You know, yeah, no, yeah, I could be the Genghis Khan of Southern California who knows I didn't know that by now, right? Like that would have like surfaced somehow. Oh boy. No, I signed papers so there was a no contact rule so nobody would ever contact me.

Okay, all right. Which I kind of regret actually, so I don't know. Maybe you don't. Like you regret it now kind of, but maybe you would have regretted it in the other direction, depending. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when like dozens of them start showing up at my door

Like oh wow 34 kids and 22 of them are psycho criminals. Oh goody. Yeah, you don't know Or one of them could be a doctor How many and then the question is how many of them will be named after spacecraft? Yeah, yeah anyway um So no, I think the game of life and child rearing aside, you have a whimsical, I guess, couple of things you've been up to. What's what's been what's on your plate? Yeah, yeah. Well, today, today actually I actually had some visitors at the Washington Post. I just came back from the newsroom and it was representatives from Sega themselves, actual, not the PR agency, just folks from Sega. They flew over all the way from LA to stop by and swing by and show me a

game that I can't talk about but isn't like a surprise or anything like that. It's not like, I wish it was Str than heaven you know the project century game you know but it wasn't it's it's a game that you know that that's being previewed right now in a drawer and bring it to PC oh my gosh I wish yeah exactly yeah you know Netflix had a copy of that game sitting in somebody's desk Like where it belongs made a PC That's crazy And then I think game fly got absorbed by Netflix and the Netflix had like a single copy of a PC port of Panzer Dragoon Saga, and then they just didn't fucking do anything with it. I forgot that game fly was absorbed by Netflix. Yeah

Again yeah And then they just didn't fucking do anything with it. I forgot that game fly was absorbed by Netflix. Yeah Again, yeah No, some Sega friends around you know cool, and I actually played some games in the newsroom That was that was a lot of fun I haven't played a video game in the newsroom in quite a long time So everybody got to watch me as like a little fishbowl playing PS 5. Is that stressful just a Little bit it's a little weird like it like people are just gawking and they're like, haha Look at gene. He's just playing video games and it's like yeah, that's it's my job, dude, you know Did you yeah, you know, did you yeah? Well, like I was like look at the TV critic

She's just watching TV all day, you know, it's a respected inter, you know artistic medium gene, yeah Okay, she's literally just at her desk and like watching like the latest episode of like whatever And you know, artistic medium, Gene. Yeah. Okay. She's literally just at her desk and like watching like the latest episode of like whatever that you can't like watch because she's got all the, you know, the embargoed stuff going on, you know? So but other than that though, play the absolute hell out of Donkey Kong Bonanza. I don't know if you can talk about that now,

but I completed it completely. A thousand bananas. Oh, it's a thousand? I thought it was 777. Wow. 777 is a max that you can find in the game, but then to get like the quote unquote 103% completion, it's that you can cap it off at a thousand because you can buy them, remember? Fuck. So I just bought all of them once they hit It's it's that you can you can cap it off at the thousand because you can buy them remember So I just bought all of them once they hit 777 and then also all 696 pieces of fossil Okay, so I can get every single piece of outfit

Yeah, okay, so what currency is what like what's the what's the star equivalent for a level versus like things. All right. Gene, you want to handle this? Sure, sure. Bananas are basically the moons or the stars of this game. 120 stars, right? So you want to get... But there is no minimum star requirement in this game. This game is completely objective-based. You go to a level and they'll tell you, oh my God, the first level is like, hey, the

water, the pipes are clogged, so why don't you unclog it and that's how you progress I think ideally you can or like you can actually go through a whole game without collecting a single banana You can just ignore them all Wow. Okay. All right, so there's multiple per stage. So it's like one banana per objective There are multiple Yeah, I mean like Pat said that he collected like 120 some just like the first two levels or whatever 118 banana, okay. Yeah, I mean like Pat said that he collected like 120 some just like the first two levels or whatever. The first level is about 118 banana. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So but you can collect none of that. I think I saw the world record speed run like beat it in under like 90 minutes or something, you know. So the game can be as long as you want. I spent 80 hours on it, you know. So there's bananas that are the moons and then there is gold that you can

get literally millions of and that's to buy items and you can fuse that with the banandium chips to buy bananas if you need to. So the bananas aren't necessary for progression. They're necessary for this progression through the skill tree. And if you want every single level in the skill tree, you would need literally about 950 bananas. I was like, oh, I need every single banana to hit every single mark on the skill tree. And then so now it's all completed too. So you're gonna have to. It's a good skill tree.

You have to buy some to complete the full collection then. Yes, you have to buy some if you want to max out the skill tree, absolutely. Like they will not rely on 777. Once I hit 777, I was like, wow, I still have an upgraded. Yeah, the skill tree's fantastic too. It's like stuff like punch harder or your slap the ground to see where hidden bananas are in the environment gets bigger or charging punches goes

faster or that surf turf where you slide around on like a piece of rubble like it disintegrates less fast like they're all fantastic like you buy a double jump. Okay. You can do it on water you can buy the double jump with the chunk jump there's a spin jump too where you just rotate the stick around and just press jump and he'll go like Mario Galaxy so yeah the skill tree is great and then also you can do like health upgrades so like whenever people say like oh the game is like really really easy I'm like how many health upgrades are you buying you know you can just because if you buy all the health upgrades, you can just literally just tank through the game easily.

So, I've been seeing this get compared to a lot of different games, of course, and how you run through a Breath of the Wild feels different from how you run through a Mario Odyssey or a Kirby game. But in this case, the vibes of Hulk ultimate destructioning through an environment seem to be what it's about. Like is that kind of the deal for like the whole thing? You're just like able to, the environment is kind of like incidental as a challenge and you can just like hit the objective and how whichever way you want under,

over, through, left, right, et cetera. Or is it kind of like you get locked in at certain points? I want to hear Pat first. Okay, so it depends. So like Paige and I were playing through it and parts of like, so you have two sections, right? You have your free floating bananas that are like just all over the fucking stage, right? Some of them are just straight up like 20 feet underneath the

dirt and you're finding them because you clap and you saw the radar ping or there was like a suspicious outcropping that like a Korok would be in Breath of the Wild and you're like, what if I dug right here? Or there maybe there was a little winding cave that ended in a flat wall that was behind it. So just free floating bananas. And those, man, yeah, no, just fuck the level. Just fucking bust your way through it. I can't reach that jump. Whatever. What if I just busted through the wall on the opposite side that made the jump closer? I don't know how to climb this. What if I just jumped over and over and over and just punched upwards and made like a diagonal slope upwards? I can't figure out the puzzle to get to Cranky Kong

who's hanging out in the sky. What if I do the roll, what is it? It's the roll double jump into the ground pound into the punch cancel into the roll to get maximum air time. Okay, okay. Shit like that. But there's also-

There's a lot of tech. Like very small little challenge levels that are like, you know, you fall through a portal and it's like, okay, this is the challenge level. This is like a pure platforming level. This is a pure smash the whole stage challenge. Stuff like that. Okay.

Yeah, there's a challenge where it's like, there's just a building and they're like destroy the building like rampage style. Just go, yeah, climb the building and destroy it in a limited amount of time. Have either of you tried out the little brother mode or a little sister mode? Yes. Okay. I have tried it out with Paige.

Yeah. And let me tell you, Paige was the wrong person tried out. As everybody knows, has the ADHD. So what we did was we blood borne it for a little bit, where I handed the you know, we would go banana to banana. And the ex the I'm going to smash everything and every single iota of dirt and it will flash fancy particle effects and I'll get golden coins out of them.

Made it so that Paige was like 15 minutes in like the first room of the game. Just like fuck, I'm gonna get every coin. And it's like okay. So we switched to little brother mode and little brother mode is hilariously over tuned for somebody who likes to hit buttons because when little brother mode hits the button Pauline yells out like an onomatopoeia in like a brick or rock form. But she yells them as fast as you can press the button.

And if the person you're playing with is really excitable and having a great time and they just mash that button like crazy, the screen becomes so flooded with shit that it becomes completely impossible to play. And on a number of occasions, 2P can fire those blocks and completely destroy the entire platform you're standing on and kill you. That you're supposed to be on, yeah, okay, okay.

And there's no cooldown whatsoever. No cooldown. No, it's just rapid fire, it's like a machine gun. It's like a contra machine gun. Children don't need cooldown. I'm gonna fight like the first big enemy the the crocoids or whatever they're called and Paige just like shot it to death in like a massive explosion of particle effects and I didn't know how it worked for another

hour because I didn't oh man yeah and then Paige wasn't with was gone and Pat was like oh my god I don't know how, I don't know how to fight these guys. I don't know how to do the mechanics. Because my wife beat the mechanics more than me with God mode. Okay, so not meant for your first run through. No. Okay, and you need to be a little more sparing. It needs to be a communicative effort instead of each player playing by themselves. Also, player two can control the camera. Oh

Shit, okay, okay, so this is if they want to like troll on you they can they can just Fuck on you. I mean little brother controller has always been the one that's not plugged in But it sounds like here like little brother has dominated and has full control The second player is stronger than the player control. Yeah Yeah, that's crazy. That's completely nuts down. Mm-hmm Okay Yeah, and the level design is interesting because there's a lot of bread crumbing so like if you remember like in like even DKC one or DKC to like you would like

Be you would see a single banana in like an area and then you'd be like what is that banana doing there? And you would go collect it and it turned out to be like a hidden barrel or something. Like this game does that a lot. It takes a lot of the Donkey Kong Country design philosophy of like breadcrumb things around to show you like hey you might want to check out this area because there might be a banana or something or the other here. Yeah so one of the examples is like there's like's a stage that's just a big open field.

It's literally just a big open field with a couple outcroppings and you hit select to see, well, how many bananas could a pot... It has 43 fucking bananas. Are you serious? There's fucking nothing out here. There's nothing. And so you're like, okay, well, you know what? I'll go into the big open field and oh, there's like, there's like a line of like gold that goes into this tiny cave and the cave leads to nothing but like a flat wall. Okay, punch through the flat wall banana behind

there. Right? Like it's just like, it's just trying to the level of expertise on display in this game at pointing the players head to where you want them to look is legitimately unbelievable. It is like a total master class of we actually got the player to look where we fucking wanted them to look. Well that is the thing that Nintendo was the most experienced at, right? Like that is their specialty. I would imagine, you know, just from, from, I get all the previous mentioned examples of the open world they've been doing. It's sick to see Donkey Kong finally get a, like, a new entry that's like a gameplay update of sorts, because ever since country, of course, it's been kind of like, kind of

like, when they went back with things like Trop freeze and stuff It was like perfecting the formula, you know, but like was 64 aside as a as an exception That we kind of you know, it was there Exists it exists. This is like a actual like oh shit new gameplay thing for Donkey Kong, which is cool How's the? Super Kong God Super Kong. It's awesome stuff It's so good. It's the super Kong God super Kong stuff? It's so good. That is where a lot of the gameplay flexibility happens and they showed us off in the trailers too. But there is one form that makes you really jump high and then you can quick transform into the ostrich form so you can high, and then you can quick transform into the ostrich form,

so you can get elevation, and then you can just fly over so many different solutions, honestly. The ostrich form can break the game, actually. Yeah, no, there's a lot of, even with base level DK, there's a lot of, ah, I'm gonna sequence break this, I don't give a shit. Oh, totally, yeah.

Ignore that. Yeah, everyone's using this movement. Everyone's doing that tech cancel jump tech to just leap across like an incredible like, like distances for no reason. What was, what was the sequence of moves? Uh, so I haven't gotten super good at it, but it's you roll off an edge because the rolling gives you a burst of speed and lets you like jump a little bit after the edge. Then you do a speed and lets you like jump a little bit after the the edge

Then you do a jump then you hold the down punch button for the ground slam Because the start of that pops you up just a little bit Then you punch Uh horizontally out of it because that makes a spin a little spin A little bit of vertical and then you hit roll again To push yourself forward. Damn. And this doesn't include the chunk jump that you can unlock for the double jump too.

Yeah, this doesn't include any of the other forms. This is like literally BXDK. Yeah. You'll love this, Willie, because like, the hit stop in this game is immaculate too. It's like, clack, clack, clack. Like, and you're like the punch god, you know? Hell yeah. No, No, I love this, because I mean, you know, old Donkey Kong Country would be like, yeah, you could run off the edge and get that little extra distance, but you're

basically describing Mirror's Edge speed run, jump kick air, tack, you know? This game has the best game feel of any Nintendo game I have ever played. Like jumping, punching, like hitting things, rolling, it is, it is, it is, every single thing feels perfect. All the sound effects are perfectly placed. Three punches to break up a banandium gem so that you can hear that, oh, banana every single time is delicious. Every time you hit the banana, it feels like you're slapping meat.

It feels so good every single time. Again, with that hit stop, which is so perfect. The controls are so perfect. Real quick, I think I'm probably biting somebody from the community here. I think I read this on the subreddit regarding Astrobot, but I can apply it here. Maybe, I don't know. With Astrobot and also with Donkey Kong Bonanza, it feels like the controller is giving your hands a blowjob Wow, okay like man this feels so goddamn good

There's like so one of the things like I what I do is I to always turn vibration off in every game because Primarily when I play a game the controller going primarily when I play a game, the controller going brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr into my disgusting meat sack, right? Donkey Kong does not do that. I keep that vibration on. That game is actually like I'm leaving my meat sack more by keeping Rumble on. Okay. It's the only game I can think of. That and Demon's Souls remake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which has like super peak vibration. The PS5 special stuff.

Yeah. Was there like a first or early boss that's like that culmination of what the design is trying to achieve You know that thesis statement boss kind of thing Where you kind of have a really cool fight against like something that shows you like what this game is doing that You know what I mean the fight a boss on my own yet page kind of kind of fuck those balls Yeah, okay. Brother mode. Those bosses do exist, but Pat has not run into them yet.

But there are absolutely a couple bosses where it's like, okay, this is going to test every single moveset you have, probably the different transformations, and you probably need to be... Eventually, you're going to need to be switching between God form, you know, Donkey Kong God form modes pretty quickly to be able to adapt to certain situations. And there are levels like that too where it's like this level is demanding you to think of your entire move set and applying it to that. I'm about four levels in and the game is like immaculate. The game is like a shining joy and like a total triumph.

But there's been something that's been really strange to me and I've put our chat into emote only mode in preparation of me talking to Gene about this. Because prior to the game's release, like right prior, people were like, be careful fucking spoilers. Careful fucking spoilers for Donkey Kong. And I went on to social media and was like, y'all are fucking stupid idiots, what's the fucking spoiler? He's going to get a banana and Rambi the Rhino is there.

But then as time has gone on, I'm seeing more and more people go, oh fuck fuck the YouTube thumbnails for Donkey Kong are full of fucking I can't believe this and like getting really intense and so I don't want no details I don't want no nothing, but like Art does this game actually have spoilers that fucking matter at all I was gonna ask about a plot related question next, yeah. Go ahead. Sure. I will say it in the clearest way possible. This game has a more surprising plot

than Kojima's Death Stranding 2. Oh my god. Oh my god. See, I know what half that means. Okay. Yeah. Pat knows exactly what that means, exactly. Because you're you're like oh I saw a lot of this coming or whatever Yeah, okay, because it wasn't because it wasn't surprising I guess Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay But there is a lot of surprise and like you know it's like wow

I did not know Nintendo had it is in them to like write like that like this is like the plot for For me is Donkey Kong's like me want banana? But but what are the lore implications of? young Pauline hanging out while cranky Kong represents the first Donkey Kong Yeah, no, I also had that thought And that should have been the Pauline that he knows from her age.

Don't worry about it. What are the implications? Mega64 asks. I'm glad I shut everybody up in the chat right now, because they- I won't say anything either, so, yeah. Gene is smiling and nodding and not answering, and that makes me think we are flying too close to the Sun

Let me just say there's a surprising amount of writing in this game Well, there's a lot of narrative designed in Donkey Kong bonanza That I did not expect either Right cuz like no like the canyon stage right? I mean you might have seen it by now, but I don't know Look, I didn't think anything of it There's a lot of there's a lot of storytelling in the environment actually like like you might actually have to put on your body video I had And are we gonna meet the nameless Kong? The forgotten one

Forgotten son You know is there is there some like it's like oh, yeah There's there's Diddy and Dixie and you know and then all of a sudden like the implication of lanky where did like he go What happened like you know? Or was lanky just forgotten about at the bottom of the pit I'm just god damn like the forgotten lord of bananas or some shit. Also, I gotta say it's so inspired to The the way that they treat Banandium in this game. It's it's like one of my favorite visual motifs I've ever seen in anything because they're mining banandium gems out of the dirt. But banandium gems have

like that sickly disgusting fluorescent yellow green to them. And when you get a banandium chip, which is like a coin, it's the fucking radiation symbol. But with bananas, nice. And like fucking eat it. And because bananas are rich in potassium, and potassium in high enough amounts are radioactive. And so, like Donkey Kong is just like, just chowing down on banana-themed enriched uranium a thousand times in a row. Okay, but Gene is implying that King K. Rool is gonna try to stop you from linking the flame.

He might, you know what? I wouldn't even be shocked. I will say one thing, the villain of this game gives off massive Zant energy. Yeah? Oh, Void Kong. Yeah? Yeah, Void Kong just fucking feels.

The CEO, right? The company, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Void Kong just fucking feels like Z Zant That villain group did look kind of cool Yeah, there's poppy Kong right? There's a girl one who I didn't think was that attractive at first But after I seen her I'm like and then there's grumpy Kong who I like Kong a lot he look like he looks like York your favorite characters red haired and big and Wolf her name is poppy Kong Poppy Kong yeah

We'll be putting them to search history Australian slang term of choice Kong Okay, so then can we get is there gonna be candy Kong and poppy Kong staring each other down like Mai and Chun Li you know Hmm having a Tifa slap fight, right? True. That game's unbelievable. That game's like absolutely incredible. It is giving the first...

You remember when you played about eight hours of Expedition 33 and you were like, brr, brr, brr, this one? That's the second game I played this year that feels like that. Okay, it's the one that Nintendo put all the juice into. They concentrated the juice. It's like, I really like Mario Odyssey a lot. I think Mario Odyssey is fucking great. And like, I say that this shit blows Mario Odyssey

out of the water, like immediately. Like it is a straight upgrade. There is a small tiny issue with it and that is the 119 CAD price point plus tax. It is the single most expensive let me check that maybe I'm wrong right donkey Kong bonanza switch to Well be It is it is like the the single most expensive game ever for purchased Without a 70 dollars shit on it Is that different from 70 dollars and for the US it's 7070 here in the US. Oh, sorry. I'm thinking of $109 after tax.

Okay. My mistake. Well... Yeah, no. It's fucking ridiculous. It's fucking absurd. At that price, PSA, do not paint your cartridge yellow in an attempt to recreate the Kong games of yesteryear. Lest you break your Switch 2. of yesteryear, lest you break your Switch 2.

Yeah, it's a 99 plus tax Canadian game, that's ridiculous. That is crazy. The fact that it's the best game I've played since maybe Expedition 33, makes it fucking weird to talk about. That's big words, that's crazy. Yeah, I will say uh, uh when I beat it It gave me the rare rare Uh, but give me the extremely rare feeling that I got after I beat the ancient feeling that I got after I beat

Super nintendo and i was like, holy shit Interesting that interesting. Okay, that was an incredible perfect video game and wow That was an incredible way to go out to let me ask you a question This is really important because you say there's like a thousand bananas, right? so I Was playing through the game and I got through about three and a half four levels ish in like one and a half sittings and I have like a hundred and eighteen bananas Which is like, you know a full sixth of the pre post game bananas I'm like man, I'm fucking flying through this shit. Oh, wow. This seems really short

I'm going to assume bananas get further apart The further I get into the game. Yes, it'll crawl It'll slow to a crawl once you get to like 300 or 400 for sure. I would say that the first 100 is like- Like two hours and I couldn't believe it. I would say those are like pity bananas for sure. Oh, pity bananas. Front loaded.

Pity bananas. Yeah, there you go. Feel good about it. Yeah. I just, if I could just say going back to that That fool who painted his cartridge yellow and and bricked his fuck and killed not brick, but fucked up his switch, too I can understand the sentiment that he was getting at the desire for that cartridge to be yellow. I do get Perhaps sanding perhaps sanding? No. No, that's stupid. I get the idea that you're like, oh the others were yellow, I wanted this one to be yellow too, but just painting it and sticking it

in there and rooting the thing is absolutely batshit. You know? Maybe? Liquid plus technology. Maybe. Plus technology, bad. Yeah, I mean, it would have been nice if Nintendo just made it yellow, certainly. But, you know. Sure, yeah. We even made the box yellow, at least, too. We should be talking shit about cartridges. Well, yeah, there's that part, too, right? Or just make the digital cartridge yellow. The cartridge is like the size of my thumbnail, man. This isn't a collectible N64 looking

like big cart either. It's a little bit of a shit. It's like when the Luigi Super Mario Super Luigi Wii came out and you're like, oh, it's a green box though, you know Yeah, it's like getting a micro SD SD card with a special branding on it And it's that you're never gonna look at the brand. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's it. Like yeah those Mario Bros SD cards or whatever Michael Yeah, the Mario micro micro SD cards, which are the only ones available for the express versions of the micro SD cards for switch 2 so I was like fuck it I'll buy it

Yeah, so I have a Mario star SD card in my switch 2 It's like the size of my pinky thumb my pinky nail and you jam it in you'll never see it again ever I'll never see it. I'll never see it again until I replace it with a terabyte or whatever. Yeah Okay, so yeah, this is unbelievable. Yeah. Okay. That game's unbelievable. Yeah, this is the one. This is the Nintendo. It's the one. Gene says it might be Game of the Year.

Now granted, this is the third game I've talked to him about this year that he says might be Game of the Year. It's been escalating. Kirby Air Riders is going to close out the year and it's going to make us throw up. Have you started KCD 2 yet? Oh, KCD 2. I need to start KCD 1. That's where I need to up. I'll be air riders. Have you started KCD 2 yet? Yeah. Oh, KCD 2, I need to start KCD 1. That's where I need to go.

KCD 1, Game of the Year 2025. There you go. So I guess just, well, just that, I mean, while we're hitting these notes, like how much did Expedition 33 rock Eugene? I'm just curious, like, cause that for me is a generational game. I can't say that.

I loved it, but I gave it three and a half out of four stars and I've always kind of been there. Okay. Gotcha. For me, Eldering was a generational game. Oh yeah, I mean it was. I understand. There's a lot of stuff about it that is very specifically tailored to me that I love you know and

And folks I know as well, but I hear you Everybody in the Xenoblade community played it who's played it where it was like oh, this is just Xenoblade with French people that's so that's where it comes from like a lot of the school plays You know played I'm still waiting for them to announce the the switch to They need to make switch switch to upgrade to get there, which I feel are coming that Sounds reductive, I guess but I wouldn't fully know Yeah Okay, okay

It's it's a trust me. It's a lot of very very much. It's a lot of same story Is this is from the intro to the ending? It's a lot of same story. From the intro to the ending, it's the same beats. It's the same thing, basically. From part one to part three. From the intro, I was like, oh, this is Xenoblade. What are we doing here? How's that Xenoblade parry?

There is no parry. But I like that. The reason why I love Xenoblade so much and the reason why I want Pat to play it so much is because it is single player FF14. I would love to play FF14 offline, but I can't ever, so that's why I'll never play it. So instead I got Xenoblade. Okay, I hear you on that the the the gameplay bits of expedition 33 are as loudly a part of my my You know an amour mint with this game that controller that controller blowjob analogy that I made earlier

It's the same thing when I did do like a group parry like in expedition Everyone goes like boom at the same time the expedition is like oh You're hitting the spot right there. Thank you. Okay, so if you don't mind jumping around a little bit, because I mean, I imagine we got quite a few things, and then y'all are gonna get to a death stranding to spoiler cast a little bit later.

Did either of you see Superman? I did not see I did I have okay I have yeah I would like to jump in I saw Superman have you seen Superman gene he said yeah I have all right Fucking okay, give me a thumbs up. Okay, okay, okay? All right? All right, Superman spoiler cast I guess yeah here. We go wait. Let me let me get ready Let me get that she's I didn't have a pop-up ready for that, but Sure Yes Superman fucking rules dude. I loved it. What a great movie

What a what a what a what a what a oh? I okay, let me let me just get a quick. Let me just get it here super man Spoiler cast is on I Really really enjoyed what James Gunn was doing coming back to this. The idea of him picking that to work on, it's like, okay, what are you cooking? You must have some ideas. There's a reason why you're picking that. And yeah, I thought it was phenomenal. In particular, the part that, I think it was kind of announced earlier on or so, and then you just feel here is,

it is just, it is sincere, right? It's whimsical, and it has that core idea in the line essentially, what if empathy is punk rock? What if caring about people could be considered punk rock, you know? God, I love that so much. It just really, like, it stuck that part of it in particular

because he's kind of a goober, you know? He's kind of this goofy dude, but you're like, yeah, that's a nice guy, and he's someone you wanna hang out with. He has a guy that'll call his opponent chum, like, hey chum, and is like, that's perfect. Yes, yes, and you know, the feeling of him being like, out of his time or so, I mean, overall, it's like,

I like that it kind of says, nah, fuck the cynical, right? Fuck the cynical, yeah, that's a part of says, nah, fuck the cynical. Fuck the cynical. Yeah, that's a part of it. And yes, the world sucks. But there is a part of it here where I'm like, when Lois Lane is taking him down a peg for his band choices, and you're like, oh, you're into pop punk and shit? You're into some radio garbage? That's not punk rock. What the fuck? And you're like, no punk and shit like you're into some radio garbage whatever that's not punk rock

What the fuck you know you're like no, that's not right, but you know what is like actually being somebody That's like yo fuck ethnic cleansing Like fuck authoritarian regimes and whatever the political climate says you're like yeah people were gonna die I don't give a shit right being anti-authoritarian in that way that is Definitionally what punk rock is I find that I find that to be really cool, and I love that part of the movie I love that it like carries that pretty loudly The most fucking petty

the most petty Luther has ever been Petty, the most petty Luther has ever been. Right? Like, he is Bezosing it up, and he knows how much of a little bitch he is. He's like, I know that Envy is controlling all my actions. I don't give a shit. I love that you even have him like crying, you know, in his failure as well.

Like, it was an awesome just like what a fuck. Nicholas Holt was amazing yeah I wasn't even on the like oh he's not that petty until I saw him invent a fucking pocket dimension of monkeys that is talking shit about Superman I'm just like okay well I don't know how much more petty you can get than that. That's crazy, you know? As an internet person as well, that was an extra fun thing of like, oh yeah, there's a bunch of monkeys here

talking shit about you, creating hashtags, you know? How about the part where Crypto is a bad dog for the whole fucking movie, right? That was cute, yeah. Crypto's a bad dog, you know? And then of course Supergirl, you meet disaster-ass Kesha Supergirl fucking drunkenly stumbling in and you go, of course he's a bad dog, that's why.

You know? Just great. I love the part where James Gunn is gonna grab Mr. Terrific, the obscure character, and make him a beloved one. He had the best action sequence. I have two minor gripes about the movie. One is that I think it could use two or three jokes less.

That bothers me about James Gunn is that he he can never like really let emotional or dramatic moment breathe You know, I know what you mean Yeah, yeah, but like I didn't mind the humor in this in this movie at all I thought like most of it was pretty well placed It's just like maybe like one or two or three jokes So like you could have just like edited that back and then the other thing is like the action sequence because I'm kind I'm kind of a Snyder, bro. I do I like the Snyder movies. I like them a lot. I love them for the action sequences mostly.

You like live action Dragon Ball, right? And I understand. I love, I need live action Dragon Ball. I love that about Man of Steel, right? No, make no mistake. That Kryptonian girl, like side shift flash stepping is the hottest shift. Specifically her.

That rule. Exactly. No, no, no. I'm not going to pretend that didn't rule. That was cool. The IHOP fight, the IHOP fight was sick. But I can't get over how garbage everything else fucking felt. Everything else is terrible. And I can't get over fucking this, this, put your hand up, right? Compare that Paw Kent to this Paw Kent.

Compare that Paw Kent to this Paw Kent. Right? The blubbering, just, he had a couple of lines, but he was full of character. Right? The blubbering, just, he had a couple of lines, but he was full of character. Right? The blubbering, just, he had a couple of lines, but he was full of character and Lois gets to establish like, oh, I get who this dude is from just meeting those parents, staring into the phone talking, hey there, Clark. You know, it was so charming and fun. The way they set him back on his like childhood bed, like in all the like the bedroom is like still like there and it's like, like all of that,

like I wish I had more of that, but that already communicated so much that it like moved me very, very well. You know, it was perfect. Yeah. And what I liked too is that it, it felt like it was moving Lois too, because initially with Lois, when she was like having that interview with him

and like coming down at him for the jar hand poor stuff, right? And I was like, is Lois being the enlightened centrist? You know what I mean? Like, is he? I was like, you're coming down on him for some of this stuff. And I understand you're asking the questions and kind of being like, you know, she's a journalist. Of course she has to. I think that's someone who has to be centrist. I get it. And that's the thing is I understand. And then it's like, okay, through actually kind of meeting and getting to see those,

get the answers to those questions close up, she's like, okay, yeah, I see what this is about, right? This is just really who he is. But I was initially like, hmm, all right, Lois, let's see where you're going with this. But no, that is the job, I do understand. Also fucking Guy Gardner, what a perfect job, Nathan Fillion, you know? Perfect James Gunn character, honestly. Also, fucking Guy Gardner. What a perfect job Nathan's filling on.

Perfect James Gunn character, honestly. James Gunn is really good at making snarky assholes and of course you have to have Guy Gardner as Green Lantern in your movie. That's perfect though, do that. He's a good, he's got the things like, Guy Gardner is a, he's a good guy. He's just an asshole. You need to get that, like, all right, he's a good guy. He's just an asshole.

You know, you need to get that like, all right, he's here to save the day, fine, but fuck, I hate that he's around. Like, he gets that energy perfectly with the fucking haircut and everything. You know, keepin' his guts together with his powers. I mean, yeah, he's great, and it's also nice whenever Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk

are in the same, you know, like project together, because they're like, ah, it's that little reunion. Yeah, that's it. That's all that I just, I thought it was fantastic. And I just love that the people of Metropolis got so used to the safety of Superman being that good that they're not even worried about anything. He's saving the squirrels out there.

Yeah, it's like me living in DC and there's just like protests with explosions outside. I'm just like, yeah, that's just another day in DC. That's right. Right, right. Sure. So just shout outs to James Gunn for that. I mean, and yeah, just kind of bringing a sense of like, yeah, you can just be a good person. You can just be, you know, hopeful. You could have whimsy. it doesn't have to be edgy. Being a good person isn't lame. And, you know, and just fully embracing that message, like having hope. I really liked that. Also Superman had a really good feat. He was able to blow himself away from the void. True. True. He got it. Which is like, yeah, that's massive. And I, and like I've heard people like that are like, nah, this sucks. It's corny. It's lame. He gets his ass beat a bunch. And it's like, nah's massive. And I've heard people that are like, nah, this sucks, it's corny, it's lame,

he gets his ass beat a bunch. And it's like, nah, man. The person who said his powers are the least important, the least interesting thing about him was right on point. Fuck all that. If you grew up with Christopher Reeve and you just started like, I want more, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah,

this is how you get this interesting. I fucking- Yeah, when you see that squirrel, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I want the scroll scene back in. And it's like, no, that's perfect. That's the perfect scene. Fuck that shit. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Market testing shit to homogenous bull crap is nonsense. And I'm so glad that he was brave enough to keep that in, because that was one of the best scenes.

It was refreshing. I liked that it wasn't a direct counter to this. It's not like the return or rise of the Skywalker to the last Jedi. It's not like some weird overcorrection of something in response to like the last movie or whatever, right? It's just like, no, we're gonna do our own thing. And yeah, Superman is gonna go out of his way

to like save these all of these buildings from falling on people and saving all these people. And it's not like a direct response to the Snyderverse. It's just, that's just what this version is. on people and saving all these people and it's not like a direct response to the Snyderverse. It's just, that's just what this version is. The complete opposite of like city destruction, a hundred percent. And look, Henry Cavill was a great casting choice, but I love what they did here. And like, again, you want to hang out with this dude, you know?

And there's just that element to of it where you're just like, oh, we're getting ballsy today because we're talking shit to Schmitt and Yahoo about Schmizzreal. You know, you're like, oh, word. Oh, we're going in then. Let's go in. Going in is kind kinda cool, actually. I saw the discourse about that, and I was like, it can't be like that. And I saw the movie, I was like, it's a little hard to not read it that way. I get it, I get it. Boravia and Jhar Hanpur are from the original comics.

In 1939, Boravia was introduced, and in 2002 in JLA, we learned about Jhar Hanpur. These are original countries. So yeah, anyway, Hawke Girl also was great and she didn't get that much, but I also feel like James Gunn was like, you all know her already. We don't have to establish too much about her. You already know who she is. Let's focus on- She was super strong. The ones you didn't know. The only thing that fucked me about her and it has nothing to do with the movie or no

issue at all. It's just that she's Dina from The Last of Us and I just watched God damn The Last of Us and now I see her. I'm just like, Dina, what are you doing here? That's literally it for me. Last bit I wanted to mention that was I think just kind of represents how much he kind of got what resonates with this character is there's no fucking kryptonite except for a kryptonite problem for a kryptonite problem that must be solved with empathy, right?

You wanna talk about fully understanding what makes this character interesting and what works here and his struggle, there is living kryptonite that you have to fucking solve with feelings and being a good person. That's how we get past the obstacle. Like, I love that part of it. The kryptonite is alive this time.

You have to talk to the source of this pain. You have to talk him down. I didn't even think about it that way. That's cool. Yeah. I love that. And that's his power. That's what makes him good.

That's the core of why he cares, you know? The twist of him basically being an invincible type setup and the, you know, Jor-El and all that is kind of wild. But I think it makes for a more interesting thing here. It's fine. And this being a thing where he's like, yeah, no, what makes him matter is what he learned from his parents here. And then of course, that ending with like seeing the visual of them, you know, and all that as the chosen parents, it makes that type of scene with the Kryptonite matter more. That's his power, that's what his strength is.

Not his ability to be fucking Goku, you know? All right. Yeah, and that's why he wasn't Goku. He's not the prince of Saiyans, which is what the Saiyans were supposed to do. Yeah. I saw some people complaining about the ending shot and I'm like, nah, man, it's just him and the dog chilling fuck. That's perfect. That was perfect off him and crypto are chilling

You know beautiful mood. All right, listen to music just just watching some some some old old vids, you know Oh, yeah. All right spoiler clack cast over The system works there you go you guys really enjoy talking about Superman it was a really good movie Yeah, that's it highly recommend. I love it. I want to see it again. I want to see it again. Yeah Oh, hey, let me ask you guys is Lex Luthor a big hater in that movie You love that hater energy that's that's how you got involved in the Kendrick Drake beef You got drawn to the to the hatred, you know, like a mock. Oh, yeah, Drake love Drake level petty Drake level petty beyond Okay, imagine if Drake was a Superman villain. It would just be like... He was a rap at Hawkeye or whatever instead.

I feel like the joke here would have just flowed a little bit better if he was a Batman villain because then he would just be the diddler. Sure, yep. Correct. There you go. With a big owl costume, you know? Oh yeah. That's right. The owl court. Yeah. Look at the court of owl. Way to ruin, way to ruin po- yeah anyways, alright. Um... Holy hoes. It's so funny that when I see your channel and I see like the not like us Kendrick Drake brief is like one of your top most viewed like videos podcast ever. I mean, the hate, the hate is too juicy. You know?

My favorite music journalism podcast, basically. Oh, that's us. Yeah. Um, so real quick I wanted to mention two other things that were kinda, that's us. Yeah. So real quick, I wanted to mention two other things that I watched. There was a Takashi Miki movie that came out that is at Fantasia Film Fest, has been happening in Montreal. It's where they do the, whatchamacallit, import films every year. And got a couple of those, including the new Gendy Tartakovsky movie, which is like this wild

About a dog that's like getting Clipped the fuck dude. It's crazy, and I didn't know I just bought the tickets because I saw the name gendy And I was like yep, I'm in I thought I didn't see it yet It's it's I'm gonna watch it later in August But like I bought tickets and then I saw the trailer later going what the fuck is happening. It's called Idris Elba's in it. It's called fixed and All I can tell is because it's just raunchy animal fucking R rated shit It seems to be like all I can tell is it seems to be like you wanted to make a John Kay

to be like all I can tell is it seems to be like he wanted to make a John Kay slash Ralph Bakshi sort of send up you know a Fritz the cat style animation thing that's that's what I'm guessing he was going for but apparently he wanted to make this movie for 11 years I have no fucking idea what's going on. I gotta tell you man there's this really awesome thing that happens when you like respect somebody this is this is like and like they put out something or they be like hey look I got my new thing coming out and you're like this looks like a pile of fucking shit I mean you're like I think they're trying something really yeah well he's in here because Gendi Tartakov ski earned respect with primal with Clone Wars with Dexter's lab I mean

Samurai Jack like he's earned He's earned the benefit of the doubt, but then you see a dog asshole puckering at you in fucking full 4k, and it's really well animated and you go Oh My magnum opus You know I don't know man We'll find out but the fact that I bought those tickets sight unseen and just said okay I trust the name and then saw the trailer That's that name is earned. It's earned some benefit of the doubt so we'll see what happens

You know getting that star-studded cast on it, but that's not even what I was gonna talk about There was a Takashi becameke movie called Blazing Fists and It's kind of a goofy like it's essentially Takashi Mikke's River City Ransom Street delinquent kids coming out of juvie and they have family and gang problems and they can only be solved with fists and they gotta you know, they gotta get over those and they can only be solved with fists. And they gotta get over those and they gotta make their way to the big MMA tournament breaking down. And you've got characters that look like kind of the scrappy little main character one.

You got the tough stoic sharp-eyebrowed one, you know, the gangster with the shaved head, all these little, like, GTO prequel dudes, you know, hanging out and being goofy and, like, the narrative is kind of all over the place, but it's fun to watch them fight and be these pretty boy MMA dudes. And then the villain of the movie walks in and it's gacked. Really? What? when the villain of the movie walks in and it's gacked really? what? and old man gacked walks in

and he is not in shape for this movie he is just old man body and he is not arakki you can see the makeup crust on his face and he's walking in Being the main villain churned off ready to fight and you're like What the fuck are you doing old man? You're gonna die Blazing fists aka blue fight with gacked as the leader of the Krishna gang. And these- I gotta see this now.

It's so goofy. It's wild, you know? You have a, like, hundred man battle going on with the main characters fighting their way through a Sifu level and Gact is on the couch, leaning back, watching, waiting for his time to enter. What, is he playing Mr. X? Yes! Yes! You know?

It's pure goofy shit, but like, if any of that sounds appealing to you, go watch it for some fun. That sounds amazing. I want to see Star of a beloved action game, Bujingai of Forgotten City, as Bujingai. Oh my god, he looks terrible. And also- Oh my god, he looks ter- Oh no.

He is not a timeless vampire. He is aging and doesn't give a fuck. Even in this short clip I'm watching, he is not putting out the energy that this character appears to be supposed to be putting out. This needs to be a young, dangerous, threatening, like, buff dude. And like, he's like, nah, me though. In the same way that he me-thoed his way into FF7, fucking Zeta Gundam, and Fist of the North Star.

Me though, now. Anyway, go see that. Go watch, you know, Blazing Fist as your Japanese Never Back Down, you know. And also because it's a Takashi Mike movie, he makes sure to emphasize no more, no fewer than three to four times that, hey man, if you get arrested and you're awaiting conviction, don't worry about it. You're as good as cooked because the conviction rate in Japan is 99%. That was the core message of the Phoenix Wright movie, of course, and Phoenix Wright too.

Well, I mean, that's the core message of Phoenix Wright. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Miki has taken that up as a thing, and he's like, yep, it's pretty fucked up how being accused of a crime in Japan means you did the crime. That's a part of it there, too. And then one last little one, very, very quick. But have you seen or heard of Pokemon concierge?

That's the one with the side, right? Yeah. It's a lie. It's a it's a it's a stop motion short that was on Netflix came out about two years ago, and it's really cool. It's great. It's just a short mini-series about this stressed out girl in her 30s who's, you know, got dumped and is just her brain is just flowing with like work and reports and bullshit, getting a job on an island where Pokemon are there And it's a little resorts and you just get to enjoy the vibes of a you know a Pokemon resort with beautiful stop-motion animation

What a great vibe the show loves side duck side duck is really cool side. I love side duck Oh side duck is there and to the point where I'm like anytime they try to move over to Pikachu I'm like fuck out of here rat More of that duck. I want to go my duck that suffers from permanent migraines dog like yeah Yeah, the the big Hollywood movie version had a lot of side duck in it, and I was like now this movie is good Let's go, so yeah, I heard it's getting a season two so I went yeah yesterday They know season two and that's how I even heard about it, so I was like oh now this movie is good. Let's go. So yeah, I heard it's getting a season two. So I went, yeah, yesterday they announced season two and that's how I even heard about it. So I was like, oh, what is this? Ooh, this looks great.

And it's just a short, you know, short thing, but it's a fun vibe. And it also, like, it has, like, so from what I've seen so far, there appears to be, like, no fighting in it, but it still understands the world of Pokemon and conveys that really well with just slice of life Pokemon hangouts. And yeah, the stressed out girl is filing reports to explain what she did on her vacation job and it's like, nah, nah, nah, nah, relax, chill out.

Just de-stress. It's wholesome and if that sounds like a good time, go check it out. Yeah, it's like really short episodes and I kind of, it kind of, I don't know if it quietly came out on Netflix a couple years ago or not, but like I missed it entirely. Really like it. I'll check it out. Yeah. Also, Gack looks pretty cool.

I think he looks pretty cool. You know what he looks like? Yeah. He looks like he's about to produce the next mainline Final Fantasy game. He looks like he's about to make a Final Fantasy game. He looks like a Tetsuya Nomura or a Yoshi-P. He's posing and carrying the shirtless energy of like a final boss But he does not look like it at all. It's it's wild how much like confidence and makeup is projecting

Anyway, but like what is gacked if not for that though, you know Anyways anyways That's pretty much all I was gonna bring up for for for my stuff, so hey, that's that's wooly Versus I am streaming fucking nothing nothing Leave me alone. I got baby shit to get ready for got baby stuff going on let me get the baby stuff yet But soon it's coming. It's coming coming. But I put the little video out. I let people know.

I eagerly, every day, await, every podcast day, I await a text message that just says, no podcast. There will be a range of time. No follow-up, no details, no messages back. There will be a range of time in which at any given moment I'm recording here and I might be, gotta go! And... that's it. You know?

So yeah, stay tuned for that. No podcast today, I'm busy. Alright. Baton pass. Yeah. Alright, so. Hey, Gene. My friend Gene, you played the Death Stranding 2. I

sure did. I would like to talk to you about Death Stranding 2, about stuff that Woolly can absolutely be here for. Okay. Which is the game's overall mechanical flow. Mm-hmm. Um, I think that this game The way it paces its challenges and the way that it paces its level structure and the way that it paces Your upgrade structure to be a significant step down from the first game. Would you agree with that? As one of the crazy people that you mentioned before that played Death Stranding 1 right after finishing Death Stranding 2 And I went back to the PC port of the base game. I didn't even play directors cut Not even the not even the directors cut because I already played the directors cut so I'll but but I wanted to start DS 1 and not like

Because in Death Stranding 1 you can't make multiple saves. It'll eventually filter out. And that drives me crazy. Thankfully in Death Stranding 2, one of the many mechanical upgrades is that you can have multiple save files. So I was like, but I never played the base version of DS1, but I bought it and you can't buy it on Steam anymore. It's delisted.

So I went back to that one. And I was like, I like the progression better here still. It is more natural. It is kind of more rewarding by the time you get to the end of it. And this is an old game that I already know well enough and I was like, I see it though. I do see that. So like this is so perfect because like I was talking to Gene in between like sessions that I that I was streaming it and I kept hitting them like am I crazy am I remembering this wrong? I don't remember trucks being able to go like up a 50 degree slope. I

don't oh oh like It's the vehicles unfortunately, you do not have the requisite video game knowledge to intrinsically understand the phrase that I'm about to say, but you can skyrim your way up mountains in vehicles in this game. You can diagonally pose your truck or trike and just get enough traction to just wiggle your ass up the most

Ridiculous of incline Vehicle okay, okay, um cuz the controls are better now the controls are way better for driving The controls for driving are much better as a result it allows you to take a truck to places to like Fucking ruin the fucking games progression to like, fucking ruin the fucking game's progression. Just fuck it up. But is it ruining it or is it kind of meant to be like, you fucking got there, you did it, why not? You know?

So, the game follows a really similar structure in terms of progression over like, environments. So it's like, flat plains, rocky plains, mountain, rocky, watery plains, Rocky Watery Plains, Big Ice Mountain, it's more or less like the same thing. Mud. The Ice Mountain, which is like your final navigable challenge. I took two trips on foot and the rest I just drove. Just straight over hills and mountains and just ignored it.

And you're talking about not road building, right? Like off terrain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, just like right over the edge. Yeah. Here's the difference in that when I was driving my truck to the snow mountain, right? But the truck would die in the middle of a snowstorm while I'm stuck in the mountain. So I would have to leave and then like all all of a sudden we we went back to DS one

but I think that might have been a consequence of the fact that I was playing it during a review period and Nobody was placing batteries in that area yet And and then nobody was nobody had plays zip lights like I saw your playthrough Yeah, and then like when you and you just had a fucking zipline network already there you know and a looty friend of the show Ludwig for so were in my stream quite a bit and one of the things that they both noticed so one of the upgrades you can get it like you have a skill tree now games have love skill trees now one of the skills that you can get is more bridges and ziplines from other people will show up in your game.

And there's two levels to that. So I don't know if you remember, but in the first Death Stranding, when you brought in other people's ziplines into your game, it would never, and I mean never, bring in two connected ziplines. It would bring in like zipline from Joey, and then nothing, and then then zip line from Timmy

And often they didn't really line up correctly. It's like place not just the interim one be at the place to interim ones. I Had people I had like zip line networks of three lines in a row Perfectly placed in the mountain as soon as I connected the network. Wow. I do think they over tuned it. So what I did is that I had like a mission where I had to go from like the bottom of the mountain to the absolute top and on the way there I pre-placed zip lines at like the tips of the network, right, just the absolute tips. And then once I ran out of network, I couldn't do that. And then I connected the network

and then somebody else's ziplines were close enough to the ones that I pre-placed that the whole thing was just completely finished one trip in. Like I didn't even have to go back out and reconnect them and move them around. That stretch was just done. It was done, it was done.

And I restarted DS2 and I got back to that point super fast just to see whether the Zipline network, well not just to see, I enjoyed the game too. But when I got back there, I was like, oh, this is a whole network already here. They over-tuned it, I think, to make it. The controls are way, way, way better, which means dealing with human enemies is much easier.

The vehicle controls are way, way better, and as a result, a lot of environmental challenges are just mitigated like I built roads everywhere And then at the end of the game I stopped because it was like well I don't have time and there's that's a different discussion. We'll have in a second I didn't need the roads the road the game is flat like the game is like overwhelmingly flat Do you remember in Death Stranding 1 near that mule base near the first mountain on the south side? There was this chasm that would go across the whole map

that was like 50 feet deep, that if you didn't hit like a jump right, you wouldn't be able to clear it, and you'd fall through and all your shit would fall. Literally never happened to me. Not even one time in the entirety of Death Stranding 2. Now part of that is that I am a better player because I beat Death Stranding 2. Now part of that is that I am a better player because I beat Death Stranding 1. Right? But it also gives you a million more

tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they don't give you any new challenges. The environment doesn't rise to the occasion of better controls, better tech, more connectivity, and all the other things you're getting. God I want to say like 50 new different like cool items but the enemy there's only like one new enemy type and you just shoot them you shoot their ass it's not a problem yep and there's no environmental challenges not really and in DS1 as I went back to Death Stranding 1 I was like oh Conan and Brian is actually a bitch to get to dude I like I used him as an example when I was beating the game I was like, oh Conan and Brian is actually a bitch to get to like I used him as an example When I was beating the game, I'm like there is not a single

Location in Death Stranding 2 that is as annoying to reach as Conan O'Brien in DS There is not not a see ya and the club and the collector who collects like PlayStation games Whatever like like you actually have to like like create like a weird ladder or one of the climb anchors to climb down to him. You can't just drive there. You can't just walk up there. Yeah, the social stuff is crazy over tuned. I used ladders in my first two sessions playing the game and then never again. Didn't need them. I think I used two climbing ropes the whole rest of the game after that. Okay, like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna drive my truck. I'm gonna drive my motorcycle

No, like laying flat across a tightrope type of thing Not much. I really know and or if you did need to don't worry someone already please preplaced it before you I would like open up the network and see like, you know a river formation. There's a Gene, you know the river formation. There's um Gene you know the river uh the the river highway that is to the east of the dunes the one that goes to to the the Fort Knot near the oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm I'm driving down the highway that I didn't all that river yeah yeah there were four community bridges across the river all next to each other because they all I built one of them I built one of them I got like 200,000 likes from from that

bridge like every time you link up the network like the the the community buildings just explode and just fill the whole game. But on the other hand, I kind of like that though, because I kind of like seeing the Australian landscape just filled with a lot of light up shit or whatever. Oh totally, I just wish it was like... I wish there was more to... Like mechanically, I think there was one moment in... Well, no, we'll talk about that. There were two things. One is, I was complaining about the truck.

I was really viciously complaining about the truck. I was complaining really hard about the truck. I'm like, I've been using the truck the whole game, and yes, I know I control the things that I do in the game. But the game says, hey, you need a truck for this mission. They literally say you have too much cargo, you need a truck. So they give you a truck, right? You gotta come all the way down from the mountain

with the truck and I'm like, okay. And I had like the most leisurely trip down the mountain, I could imagine. Like it was trivial, it was super easy. I didn't run into a single problem. I didn't even like come off, it didn't even tip the car, right? and I got to the bottom and I was like All right. Well, I was chill and then the reward they gave me was snow tires

That make the truck be able to climb like a 70 degree angle on the on the mountain and I was like Okay, what it was already too are you crazy? Mmm. Okay. What? It was already too s- are you crazy? So like if you were to like- like a lot of that stuff is like I would assume just hearing it that you'd be like, okay so Kojima deliberately decided to de-emphasize the navigation challenge in order to emphasize something else perhaps, you know? Yeah, so you do shoot a lot more guns in this game. Combat. You shoot way more. Like, way more.

Okay. Okay. But, and this is one of the other things that really bugged me. The whole game, I was like, when am I going to deal with more BTs? Because BTs are cool and scary. And the answer is never. I consider it an issue. Yeah.

Less BTs. Especially when I went back to DS1 and I was like, DS1 is kind of like a horror game. DS2 is not. And then when you think about the trajectory of our favorite horror games, Resident Evil, even Silent Hill, what did they do? They de-emphasized the horror and the spooks and the scariness and the spookiness to introduce more action, more shoot bang,

more shoot bang, right? Well, the end of, what we were talking about in previous weeks, Gene, was that how the end of DS1, or at least the halfway point, you're like, you don't give a fuck about BTs anymore, right? You're just like playing, you're Barry Sanders cutting them up on the field, you know? Left right fake, oh, touched out.

Like they become a mechanical obstacle more than an actual, you know, scary threat, which is also, to be fair, what zombies do become in your RE type games as well and stuff, you know? Yeah, so this is on the level designers, or I guess the terrain designer, because a lot of folks are like, well, Pat skipped so many BT areas. There's often no reason to ever travel through a BT area at all. And when I did travel through them, most of the time, I just kept driving in a straight line and the PTTs never were able

to catch up to me and I just rode right through it. There's a sequence in the end of the game during the game's final gauntlet when I'm on a trike and the game forces you to go through a BT area and I just drove through it. I did that a lot. I did do that a lot. I did do that quite a bit. I also ran into a lot of scenarios which irked poor Ludwig where he had built up this super cool combat music for a bunch of sequences and I either launched the motorcycle completely over the sequence or snuck through it completely and it just causes a cutscene to play and

just like completely like now through them would you want less freedom or would you want the the challenge of what you're facing Brought up, you know, so one of the things that that DS 1 I feel did is that like the way that they funneled me into BT areas was by making the... I remember there's a spot in the mountains in Death Stranding 1 near about the 80% mark where I chose to go through a BT area in the mountains because the mountainous terrains on the outside of that BT area were such a massive fucking pain in the ass to move through, that I said fuck it, I would rather deal with ghosts.

Here, because vehicles are so fast and strong, and you can throw a bunch of guns on them that shoot BTs, there was never a point where I was like, I was like, I'll just jive through the BT field, and if they fight me, I'll just take it out with all my rockets and machine guns in like five minutes like talk like like there was very little very little threat from them at all now I did play on normal and supposedly the combat difficulty is significantly higher on brutal which I

imagined and supposedly the penalties to like your car goes gravity on Brutal are also enhanced. So like cargo gets damaged easier. But unless someone is gonna tell me that the traction from your car's tires is different on a different difficulty, I cannot imagine any of my complaints would actually change. It's so interesting to compare this to like how when we talked about crushing Expedition 33 and breaking its system open, you know, through our style of play, because in this

case you're like there's a direct, this is a direct sequel to something which had a very different progression through it the first time around. So you can just right off mirror that instead of like essentially looking at this as a yeah your first time discovering Well like like like exploiting the lines right cuz like zip lines were unlocked like about halfway through ds1 right? But like you didn't really get a really good handle on exactly how you should you know fuck the game up with zip lines until Near the end right but zip lines unlock like maybe halfway through ds2 But like I already know how to fuck the game up with zip lines Because I did it in DS 1. There's no learning period here

Like and you cut that thing together And then there's like a really strange problem that I ran into at the end that made me convinced that I was playing the game super incorrectly like as close as I can feel, like, Kojima, like, taking me by the hand and be like, you have played the game wrong, I'm sorry. So, there's way more roads to build in Death Stranding 2. Like, it's like, just the actual, like, landmass is huge by comparison. So, roads become So roads become premium.

And there's also what's called a monorail. And a monorail lets you transmit resources from place to place. You can ride it, but you will ride it by hand. And you also get your Metal Gear Rex looking ship called the Magellan. And the Magellan is your fast travel system. So you can get in the Magellan and you can fast travel over to any distro center that you've unlocked. And if you put cargo in the Magellan or are wearing cargo and teleport, then your rating

is awful because you just cheated the destination. Right? Like if you grabbed something from the collector and then teleported to the government and then, well I just did it in five seconds, they're like, well this shit got fucked up in transit because you cheated, blah blah blah. Of course. But what the Magellan has is a more or less infinite storage space for materials. So by far the most optimal way to build roads is not to go to mule camps and pick up materials and bring them to the road builders

It's not To even go to the mines and use the game's monorail system to ship them to places that are convenient the most like by far efficient way to play is to Get like a distro center to like four stars take every single fucking material put it in your truck drive 15 feet to the Magellan and put it in the Magellan then fly the Magellan over to the closest spot that you want to build roads take your truck and do it like that and I did that for like 80% of the game. Right. And I was like there's no way Kojima expects me to drive a truck to the mine, fill up the truck, drive

the truck like 15 minutes real time over to the spot they want the paver to be at, dump it in, drive back to a different mine, and like spend like an hour to do what I did in four minutes with the Magellan, right? There's no way, right? So you get to the end of the game and they disable the Magellan. They turn off fast travel. And after they turn off fast travel,

for the first time in the game, you get a tutorial prompt that goes, maybe start building roads. Maybe you should go get materials to build roads. Oh wow. Wait. Wait. So when you got access to doing that, you wasn't, you weren't told to go do that? No, I was just like, well, this is obviously the fastest, most efficient way to do it.

And it turns out... You get to, you get, you get a, you get an early mission that tells you how to build roads. And then Pat just took that and ran with it. But completing the road network was not... That's the game goes into its like end game status. Your fast travel options become highly limited and Then the game goes what if you built a zip line or did some roads and I go But the way the the efficient fast and fun way to build roads has now been locked off to me

And also the game gives you like multiple like points of no return warnings, but the last one comes after they have locked off fast travel. The last point of no return warning comes after it's too late to fly around in fast travel. So then you're stuck doing it the slow way. So then I was like, well, I just got to be the story and you were so mad you were correct to do it the fast way first before the game told you What I should have done is actually the instant I got

I got fast travel back. I just bet it should have been like I'm gonna finish every road in the fucking game Yeah, yeah, yeah, which to me I feel like that's that's kind of like with with them with one, like when I had access to making a road, I would go for it, you know? Did you feel any of this at all, Gene? So Pat actually mentioned this on his show where he was like, I guess Gene might've had a better time because he might've played it like in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

where he just kind of like finished the quest and didn't do all the roads. And by the time he got to the end, which is true. That's exactly what happened Like I didn't do I didn't I didn't do trucking like Pat did I built some roads that wouldn't that might help me in some areas But I stopped like halfway through and I was like, alright, well, let me just let me just play the game So none of this really bothered me Because I played it in what might have been the optimal way the same way I played Final Fantasy 7 rebirth where Pat was doing every single goddamn side quest as he was going through the map and

What I did was I ignored every single side quest on the map including the mandatory Card game contest where you can decline to do it and I said I forfeit so I just lost I didn't see the cutscene at all We just got we just got out the boat and that was it Right, so I ends of this fucking spectrum. I think it's so exactly But you're all I finished if I may I finished rebirth in 35 hours and it was like perfect pacing I was like, oh, I love the pacing. This is great You are playing for review and you are playing for twitch right the

infrastructure stuff and here's here's the bigger difference is that the main missions and Death Stranding 2 like I found very dull to me the part that I really had a blast with was building up the infrastructure and seeing my model train kit fucking go around and be like, oh, look how pretty the road is. Ooh, it's so orderly and nice. So one of the things that, there was a YouTube comment that really nailed it, which was once the game like locked off, like Pat's infrastructure show, that put me in a really bad mood. Like really genuinely bad mood, which then set me up to be

like un kind to like the narrative moments that I now had to switch gears over. Okay. Whereas I guess so whereas what I beat the game and and so I had the game like three, four weeks in advance. Sony is really good about giving these, these like their big temple games in advance. Like Last of Us part two, I had like a whole goddamn month to, to talk about,

to think about how depressing that was, you know? Uh, whereas Death Stranding two, I beat the game in like five, six days. And then I spent the next two weeks trucking. So like my mood was like infinitely better because I was like playing I was leaving the game off you like the fun part which is the trucking and the Infrastructure building you know One of the things that drove me up the fucking wall like nuts Was at the end of the game they go look dude you connected all of Australia

And they show you a fucking map that has massive fucking gaps in it Because there's a bunch of zones that you probably can't get to until the time game So they're like you did it you linked up the whole network, and I'm like what about that fucking part? Is it is it is the network just like the southern coast where all the cities are? In real life? Yeah, okay. It's the whole continent. They're doing that thing that Death Stranding 1 did where Death Stranding 1 was like the whole of America.

Okay. Even though it was like 20 kilometers squared. Okay. Yeah, DS2 is the whole of Australia even though it has a big snowy mountain in the middle. Yeah, Australia doesn't have. Desert. It's interesting because yeah, as you guys had the complete opposite like approaches to the playthrough, it feels like you know the intended user path is to

hit a main mission, like take a little sampler plate of you know other things and then eventually get bored of it or decide you know I like these more than those and then keep going. You know, you're supposed to like mix and match and then go like, all right, now we progress and they wanted you, they would want you to kind of do a little bit of both in a generalized way. But there's always going to be people who mainline the thing they love the most. And yeah, you should be ready to accommodate that and not have it affect your enjoyment, you know?

Yeah. And people are calling Paddock Paddock Coward for avoiding the BT parts, but it's like, again, as someone who did play Death Stranding 1 extremely recently, like two weeks ago, the game does a really good job feeding you into those BT areas. Remember, the wind farm in the first area.

There is no other way to get past that area besides going through the BT farm if you want to complete the wind farm. I can imagine. There's no wind way to get past that area besides going through the BT farm if you want to complete the wind farm I can imagine there's no wind farm in DS2 I could see myself voluntarily like like subjecting Like hitting up those areas and going into them if there was like new wild world mystery attached to it You know the the craziness of the lore and the setting and trying to figure out what the fuck is happening is an incentive DS 2 does have the DS 2 does have side quests that that that expands stuff. So cool

one of the things that Really was brought to my attention Because Ludy was in the chat Which made me feel bad for him because he did a lot of really good music for him though I will say one of my all time favorite streaming moments in my entire career is listening to some really good, emotional storyline music,

and just like, this is killer, and looking over and seeing Forsl in the chat, and be like, wow, chat, this music's incredible. I think the composer that did this is named Wood Kid. Good job with him completely crash out in the in the chat and just be like, I will fight you. You said that's fucking beautiful. We did so good.

Got a man would Get his ass! Which is so funny for me because I've heard of Ludwig Forssall way before I've ever heard of Ludwig or Woodkid. The only thing I've heard of Woodkid was he did the Iron music video for Assassin's Creed of Revelation a long time ago. I mean, I'm picturing, what you picture is just, remember the reaction he re-uploaded when the title of, yeah, yeah, I remember.

Yeah, yeah, whatever, birth explosion, and he's just going, boom. Boom explosion, yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, just closing his eyes, and yep, yep, okay, all right, yep. One of the things that happened, and I'll talk around it a little bit, but it really puts a lot of perspective

when you have the composer there to talk about the music that you're listening to. And I'm not going to talk about what sequence, but the game has mandatory combat sequences, right? And in the mandatory combat sequences, the music is fucking great. Ludie, you did a great job, right? But there's a problem, and the problem is that if you know how to play video games those mandatory combat sequences are incredibly poorly paced

Because you will fly through that shit. Okay. This is this is everything though. This is like expedition This is all how many games are you like slow it down? You're not gonna hear the cool part of the song So you're gonna beat it too fast. The game has common problems skills and one of those skills is like a traditional third person lock like you hit the left trigger and if you're kind of looking at an enemy you'll kind of walk onto them right. The game also goes into slow down when you're discovered like MGS five and it also goes into slow down when you kill an enemy or knock them out really you're really knocking them out 99 times out of 10 right

Because lethal is bad right so what ended up happening is that there's these big action set piece moments and Enemies would come into view and the game would slow down So I would hit left trigger and I would lock on to them in the slowdown and then I would hold left trigger and I would lock onto them in the slow down and then I would hold the trigger to fire the third of a clip that it takes to kill them. The game would stop slowing down and go into like normal time.

Every bullet would hit them, they would die, and then it would go into slow down, which I would then use to aim at the guy next to them and blow through the entire encounter like that. You're playing super hot in the middle of fucking Death Stranding. I love that though. This is not like, this is not on brutal. On brutal, the game is, it's not going to be as intense because enemy combat is like

much more difficult, right? But like on normal, and like I'm playing a third person shooter, just like vaporize the entire encounter. And I look over in chat and I see him screaming in all caps. I worked yes I thought it was cool. I like slow down in my act in my shooting action games max pain is my favorite shooter of all time So like when death stranding 2 is doing the max pain I'm having fun even though I'm decimating the enemies to yeah I thought that maybe there was a little bit of moments robbed by their They're like so like this I played every Metal Gear game on their standard difficulties and this game is like trivially easy compared to any Metal Gear game Yeah, what again what you're describing is really just it's a widespread problem across multiple games and genres I spent a

massive amount of cyberpunk just being afraid to amount of cyberpunk just being afraid to walk forward to cut off the dialogue conversation right to hit the trigger point to make an aggro person who's yours if someone you're supposed to go meet is gonna be having an interesting conversation and if you get too close to them they go ah V you're here and they interrupt the thing that they're about to say or even just people talking while you're fighting and then you cut off the cool shit because you killed them too quickly like it's just a Constant problem so cyberpong had a huge problem before the patches because like you just be driving and like there'll be two phone calls

Happening at the same time or something The game is not able to process like you know like oh you're passing by the mission checkpoint So someone has to yap about this, but also you're also passing by the boss that does that so Regina has to call it back in too. That was really bad that was a huge mess. I'm seeing some folks saying that I hate Death Stranding. No I think Death Stranding 2 is a very very good game but Death Stranding 2 has a problem that I didn't feel one had quite as strongly which was the same problem that Witcher 3 has and it's the same problem that Expedition 33 has, and it's this game has a,

regardless of whatever difficulty you play on, it has a completely inverted difficulty scale. The first hour of the game is by far the hardest hour of the game. The second hour is the second hardest, and so on and so forth. By the time you get to the end, you are just like walking through it. Regardless of whatever difficulty you're on, if you made it there, the end of it is just... And that's a fairly common problem

that they're not correctly attributing for the increase in player skill. Donkey Kong Bonanza doesn't have that problem It has a perfect difficulty arc Expedition 33 also fucks it up too because like again, but I was doing like 1.8 billion damage by the end of the game So I was like there's nothing for me to do here you know, so there's a There's a partial version of this in obviously Devil May Cry games because as you unlock skills and abilities, you can do way more shit later than you can do at first.

But again, the occasion has to be met with an increase in difficulty and a rise to the challenge and new ways to fight things. You can do more shit so the enemies are harder to deal with is kind of how you have to play that. So that's all my like mechanical complaints I do have some narrative complaints. Yeah, and I there's one narrative complaint. I like to talk about before a gene before you leave wooly and I won't name any names This game features the stupidest fucking character that Kojima has ever written. Like the absolute fucking dumbest motherfucker that has ever been. I have fully surmised your feelings on the character.

Like, like, like, like, the character so stupid that after the reveal of how stupid they are I screamed at them shut up every time they talked afterwards. Gene do you feel this way about this character? I actually didn't learn the thing that piss Pat off so much that he just like like just blanked out on the character until after I beat the game. Oh wow Story sequence Because there's a lot of optional story sequences in the game which which I loved like I I was like Oh, this is not in DS 1 at all. There's so many ways to

Approach a story, but I did not see that until like after I finished the game and after I wrote my review And then I just finally decided to do it and I Was like oh That's weird. Okay, but that character's a fucking dumbass right like holy shit This is the dumbest shit ever holy fuck Was it Was that dude was that detailed discovery after the fact a a paradigm shift for the character uh

No, no well gene gene Oh, I don't I never really care about the character either way. I actually kind of wish that the character would be patched out honestly I kind of wish that the character would be patched out, honestly. I actually don't. I didn't feel that way until the reveal, but now I do. I feel that they should just be removed from the game entirely. Wow. Okay. I think it would make sense for you to hit the spoiler cast now, to be honest.

You're already talking about it, so let's just go right into it. So I'm going to hit that, bam. We're ready. We'll give you a bunch of thumbs ups.-hmm now. I can't I can't we'll text you yeah No, I can't mute the discord because I know it will hear you, but I'll just plug myself out and Go for it Okay, so this is the death stranding to spoiler cast featuring Jean Park. Hey Jean. How you doing? Hey? What's up, man? Let's yell about death stranding to dull man, Dullman's the dumbest bitch.

The dumbest bitch. He kills his kid. He kills his child! So here's where I am... It's funny that you mentioned earlier, like, oh, this person is so talented, so whatever bullshit they're doing, I have to kind of figure it out. That's kind of where I'm at with Kojima, right? Always, always with Kojima, right? So like by defense of like even like the doll man stupidity because it is stupid. It is objectively stupid, right?

Is that is that like I look at Death Stranding overall as like a parable, you know, like this is just like This is a stupid person like look at what they did and now they are being punished with eternal Damnation in this doll's body, you know And then we just get to live the rest of that life out basically Where was it going with this I think it's funny that because you kept talking about how Death Stranding 2 feels like it's a game made for stupid people. There's a sequence near the end, like during the final trip in Mexico, where Tar Man calls you on the phone twice to explain the cutscene you just saw, and he calls you twice.

Yeah. And I'm like, dude, I just saw that. And in the cutscene, it was like Kojima-style exposition where they were just like, what? Dude, I just saw that. And like in the cut scene, it was like Kojima style exposition where they were just like, here's what's going on with the tar currents and stuff like that. It like I felt talked down to the whole game, which I hadn't felt in the past. So here's here's the interesting that I think I've noticed about. And I've talked to you about this thing before about the Death Stranding 2 discourse, right? Death Stranding 2 is still a widely popular game.

People are loving it, right? But when I see the accounts that are praising it, I see that these people also typically love like your Red Dead Redemption and and your Ghost of Tsushima. I'm not saying these these are bad games These are all fucking awesome games, right? But these are like the games that like the triple a open world for lack of a better term slop I hate I hate that term to you, but you know what? Lovers got to it. I think so. So it's like I Think like this is again like my Kojima brain defense like like mechanisms going on Like this is the same brain that defended Kanye for

13 years until I had to stop right? Yeah, so like for Kojima I Think Kojima is so in tune with the audience that he is like in real time seeing how people how stupid people are because like I'm watching like Donkey Kong streams or like like or like YouTube comments and like people there can't even fucking follow What what the fuck is going on in Donkey Kong You know So what makes you think that they'll follow Death Stranding? So like I think Kojima is so tuned into the audience He think he actually probably does think that the audience is stupid

I actually totally agree with you because yeah, the Death Stranding 2 story is told a lot more effectively I just think it's a worse story. Yes, it's told way cleaner, right? It's much cleaner. There are some parts that I feel like, so like, there's some parts that I think fell really flat. There's like two or three that I'm like, I don't think it worked even for the average audience. I think, so Sam Bridges is an audience stand-in. He's like more than Snake ever was. Like he repeats things back to people. He's like anybody's man. He's the blood of the earth, right? And

so you're supposed to like embody Sam to a degree. And also Norman Reedus doesn't talk very much in this game. He doesn't have much dialogue at all, which I think led to that kind of conclusion. So when a massive third act part of the story relies on a disconnect between player knowledge and Sam knowledge, I was like totally baffled. Like the game and multiple characters state outright

that the BB pod is empty. Yep. And... Dollman says that to you at the beginning of the game. Like it's a real verse. But that thing is empty and then like, fragile's like covering his mouth, yeah. And like Sam, and like there's the part where like the doctor like scoops in the

camera just to read the serial number and you can clearly see that the pod is literally empty. And Sam watches that. And Sam doesn't actually interact with the pod enough for me to believe that he's like straight up hallucinating. Like you don't have tons of moments of him like talking to the pod and there's only the soothe the pod mechanic for when you fall down. And so when Sam was like baffled that the pod was empty, I was baffled that Sam was baffled, which seemed like a really, like I just, I feel like there wasn't enough of Sam being like, I love my baby. Who's a ghost in the box?

Like they never address it other than saying there's nothing in there. And then 60 hours later, they're like, no, there's still nothing in there dude. And then they that starts a trend that's really strange and I will actually say it's like total hack shit of the reason why the plot is happening is people who knew better just decided not to tell Sam. It's convenient that fragile like kind of memory loss right like that's like the writing there, you know Is probably the worst moment in the entire game where a character actually goes? Oh, right. I'm sorry I forgot that this person was alive. I knew the whole time not bad

and I think The more I think about it the more I think it's like oh you could have just written that another way because another issue That I also completely agree with you is the ethics of Lucy and Neil It's like that whole storyline Sucks and like doesn't need to exist at all. I Like the contours of it like having like the cock the cock being with the Baba Baba the Boopy, right? The Baba the Boopy is cucking you, right?

The cuck a boopy, yeah. Yeah, the cuck a boopy. Luca Marinelli is- The cuckathon, yeah. Neil is the other guy, right? Yeah. But you didn't have to write it in a way where he was also a patient of Lucy's. They could have just been co-workers- It makes Lucy the worst person in the fiction of Death Stranding it's crazy they could have just been a co-workers or

they just met at a bar or something like that like they could have met a lot more naturally other than Lucy also met him at work and that was what's going on in like a psychotic state like it's absolutely fucked yeah like what is wrong with that bitch holy shit in. I know dating options in the Death Stranding world are fucking like nil, right? That's what I kind of thought. It's like, you know, like, everyone at Expedition 33 is fucking because of the gomage. So it's like, oh, the Death Stranding. So like, Lucy is like, well, you know, Luca Marinelli is super hot. So I might as well fuck him too.

You know, I don't know. I'm not a big fan of how Neil's story is like a one-to-one like mechanical redo of Cliff's story. Like it has a different- I'm still trying to figure that out. But like, are we going to do Death Stranding 3 and there's going to be a third ghost military man that ties into Sam's past? Robert Pattinson, starring Robert Pattinson. I'm still trying to figure that out and I would love if the chat or like some people

on the subreddit would like have a discussion about like why he needed to be Snake. Like I keep like trying to like wrap my head around that. I have maybe, I have a thought on this that is so cynical. I'm kind of surprised by myself. In terms of like appealing to the average audience kind of thing, I genuinely believe that there are parts of this game that were put in because they remind people of Metal Gear and they could be put into trailers. Like I am absolutely convinced that Luca Babadabupi puts on Snake's

headband and looks like Solid Snake so that you could put it into a trailer and people would think it's Metal Gear. I absolutely, 100% believe that there is a cyborg ninja in this game that is the single most dropped plot thread possible. Yeah. He's Dead Man, but he's not dead man. He's actually Higgs the whole time, but dead man was able to control him that one time. No, it's dead man and it's dead man's body, but once dead man jumps into heart man to go to the final area, Higgs steals the suit. But Higgs said, I've been controlling this the whole time though.

So I'm just like, what are you talking about? So the thing about the the dead man is cyborg ninja reveal is it happened and I just went why? Why didn't he tell you? He could have been on the ship hanging out with us the whole game like there's like what like why? So that's why I don't think he was dead man a whole time But then it's like okay So was Higgs and was Higgs just fighting himself as the samurai and he was just putting on a fucking show for Sam at the weapons factory?

Well, no, because you see the big body that the ninja goes into in the Deadman death scene at the beginning of the game. So it was Deadman's plan. But also Deadman hides the fact that he's in Heartman, but then you catch him and he's like, hey, what's up? It's me, Deadman. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. He could have just let people know, by the way, I'm also LARPing as Heartman, but then you catch him and he's like hey, what's up? It's me dead man. Oh, that's right. Yeah Yeah, he could have just let people know by the way. I'm also larking his heart man for three minutes of a time you know Why?

Like why kill the character at all he could have just been with us on the ship like the whole time like there was absolutely nothing Yeah, but we got that great scene of doll man peeping up through the great when Sam looking to I think that Higgs being the one-note Joker loser, I thought I hated it. It was so weird. I started the game and I was like, this is great. I love that he's just a hater. And then as he kept coming up into cutscenes with absolutely no depth, I'm like, this sucks actually.

I hate him. kept coming up into cutscenes with absolutely no depth. I'm like, this sucks actually. But then when he sets Sam on fire and all that shit, I'm like, oh wait, I actually really appreciate how much of a fucking hater this is. This is crazy. This is really good. And for him to just go, actually, I'm exactly the same character I was at the end of Death Stranding 1. And the ending of this game is just going to be literally the post credits fight scene of Death Stranding 1 again. I was like, this is so boring. MGS4. Yeah, and I'm just going to do a MGS4 cosplay at the end, and I'm going to say, kept you

waiting, huh, so that you can be reminded of like, Metal Gear. Yeah, sadly you missed the best part of the fight though. I don't know why the prop didn't show up for you, but. So I played this game in a way that I was constantly told by you, by chat, by the game's own like, staff, dude, how did you even miss that part? How did you miss that fight? How did you miss that sequence?

How did you miss the guitar battle? I don't know. I checked your feed. I was like, did it was Paj's dumb and he just didn't see the the the the QTE? And he's like, no, it's just he wants but then I read it and died and then I did the fight again. It never showed up. It just never showed up. Yeah, and he's just like, and by that time you were kind of checked out of the game. So you're just kind of barreling through the fight basically Yeah But you missed it because it's basically the two bros just just j-j-o with a jail crystal together. Yeah. Yeah, I think a pass being built up the whole game as the evil AI only to

Get fucking wrecked in the same cutscene that they reveal themselves to be the big bad is, on the one hand it's kind of hilarious, on the other hand I'm like you could have just removed this entire plot line and it would have made no difference. You would have cut out Die Hard Man's cool dance scene, which was awesome. That was when the game was starting to turn you around, you were like okay well.

I was like okay is this shit gonna get really dumb? And then I was like no it's serious. You're like, okay, well. I was like, okay, is this shit going to get really dumb? And then I was like, no, it's serious again. But no, it's dumb. So it's weird because that second walk in the time stream with Lou on his chest and with the BBs theme playing, that was really emotive and moving. And I credit Lootie with a lot of that moment because BB's theme is fucking unbelievable The BB's name is the best is the greatest song ever and the fact that they they bring it back for the core thematic purpose of it is

Awesome. I think that This I think that the single largest plot point in the entire game largest plot point in the entire game being something that Wooly figured out on this podcast upon the game's announcement might have been a mistake. Now I know the people that are sitting in this digital studio, you, me, and Wooly, are Kojima-pilled to hell. Like absolutely massively fucking Kojumbo'd. But I don't think that you should be able to like see a character literally once and understand every single part of that character's story and plot twist, et cetera, for the whole

fucking game and for that to be your last, like dead last story revelation. Like there's a part where Higgs is like, she's your daughter, dumb dumb, and they stand around- God damn man, she's your daughter. About like Sam like giving up his sperm to the government and like maybe it's like an extra bit and I'm just like, you're all so stupid. You're all so dumb. Why are you treating me like I'm dumb? It's obviously, what the fuck? I think you are very valid for being frustrated with the other lack of plot twists and like how predictable they were because Kojima has

set a precedent his entire fucking career from game one, well not game one, but Metal Gear one, Metal Gear one on the MSX. Every single game was about plot twists. Hey, big boss is actually the bad guy. Hey, Liquid Snake was this person, but whatever, you know? Yeah. And every- And also, like the game is telling me that it's a big twist?

Like the game is acting like, oh, can you believe? I feel like the game wasn't acting that way. I didn't get that. But I was confused the whole time. I was like, why is Kojima suddenly writing the most anti-spoiler story I've ever seen. To the point where it's like, you know, Tomorrow had a bandage on her elbow, like when she got back out of the case, and it's like, what are you doing here? Like what is, yeah, like what is going on?

I was like, why is this so predictable? You know, there's like no twist or anything. So. Hey, L. Fanning, the L. Fanning baby face with the blonde hair and green eyes is here to play an unrelated mystery character immediately after the baby with blonde hair and green eyes gets sent to the shadow realm and dot like are you fucking stupid like like is everyone taking great and then One that the one that made me like like laugh because it was so like stupid

The one that made me like laugh because it was so like stupid was dead man being like now that tomorrow is on the ship I gave her all of Lou's vaccines because I mean who else is going to get them? And I'm just like shut up! Shut up! You're stupid! Don't talk down to me like this! I'm not sure why he wrote it. Because he's talking to the to the to the triple-a

Crowd he's trying to appeal to them. I do think that a lot of the game including the lack of BTs Or the lack of like, you know scary ghost people that you can't see, you know, that's very inaccessible to people the flutter land The more emphasis on action the story that insists on explaining itself. Not insists on itself, it insists on itself too. No, I would want it to insist on itself. Yeah, it should have insisted on itself more. But it's like all this stuff is, I think, Kojima realizing, fuck, I do have a fiduciary

responsibility to these employers that I hired. I should probably make some money and make a game that will appeal to more people. I'm not sure why he gave that interview or maybe Woodkid was trying to put that out there where it's like, oh, he's being divisive or whatever. It's like, no, this is actually- So I actually don't believe that statement at all. The game really feels like it's been made to make the maximum amount of players happy. Yeah, and it's sold number one.

It's for Kana on PlayStation. Only nine days on the market and it was number one on PlayStation. It's an excellent game. Folks at home listening, don't take my massive hour-long bitchfest about this game as proof that it is bad. No, this game fulfills the same spot in my heart that Dark Souls 2 does, which is a game that I will bitch about until I die. Really good game. Excellent game. Million things about it that drive me crazy compared to the first one, which I adore I feel Frustrated that the game that he decided to smooth out for normies was the super weird

delivery man ghost simulator like the the fucking weird one Like I think Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 already did too much of that and that was like modern military stuff. I do think it's, well here's another huge reason why I like the game so much. MGS5. Like, I adore MGS5. I played 700 hours of MGS5.

I played that game like it was a gut I played like a goddamn MMO so like the fact that DS 2 was so MGS 5 like I was like oh perfect this is hitting all the spots for me Oh, yeah, there are there's some moments in that that I was like I was playing it like it so I never actually I still never played Metal Gear Solid 5 because I the way that we did the LP just left a weird situation there That'd be that'd be a very fun stream for you weird situation there. That'd be a very fun stream for you. Death Stranding 2, there's parts where I was sneaking. I was doing a sneaking mission.

I was putting my backpack down. I was beating dudes up and I was tranquilizing them. I'm like, this is fucking great. There's actually fairly little of that though. In the total runtime, I think I did that to like four bases in like the whole game I Know but I'm a but I'm an MGS5 player. So I'm a sandbox player So I'm just like no I'm gonna keep doing this over and over again. I love this

So yeah good game. I'd give it a four out of five stars. You do a four star system, right? I do four stars. I gave it four stars, but I will say one about APAS. APAS is very dumb, right? I do think it's Kojima trying to be a little more hope-core about his view on technology and trying to revisit his view on what MGS2 was like. Where MGS2 was like, look at the internet, it's going to be terrible. And then the internet was terrible. Everything came true, right? And then the internet was terrible. Everything came true, right? Yeah, and then so like I think it's like the purpose of him a pass being so fucking stupid and idiotic And then die of Harbin coming in die Harbin Who is the kind of like the father figure he is replacing cliff?

He's all like the most overtly like human character Exactly. He's like the most human, the fleshed out character. He's out there dancing, being gay, like awesome. Literally comes out of the fucking shadow closet. Of all the characters except for Rainey? That's true. He's like touching Sam warmly and everything. And he disperse of Apas by coming in and singing

Beebees Dee, which is the song Which is a song that cliff was singing to to the Norman or Sam When he was a baby and then so now Dio Hardman the now adopted father or whatever is now coming to save Sam from this Evil technology and then so like he he says it on his face It's like well, you know we can use can use the magic of the Cairo network for good, not evil. So I feel like that's him saying like, maybe we could just like use the internet for good, which is not really saying anything new or interesting or cool. But like that's where I'm kind of landing it at.

Do you think it's weird that Kojima keeps casting like super big name Hollywood actors and giving them like 40 total lines of dialogue? I think it's great. I think that's the best part. Oh yeah? Is it? Because I think it's like Sam is Norman Reedus and I'm like I cannot think of like a single line of dialogue that Sam says in the entire game.

All I want is I want the behind the scenes footage of Troy Baker and Norman Reedus jacking each other off with the guitar necks and going like Troy Baker going. That got really homoerotic at the end there. Very. Like the facial motion capture on Troy's face is like crazy. I was like I feel like I'm there sweating with them. And it's weird because it got like homoerotic in a way that I don't think like Snake and Liquid were because Snake and Liquid were like 80s kind of machismo.

Whereas Higgs is like more slender. And like he takes Sam's shirt off. Yep. Like he teleports him in with no shirt because? Yep. I don't know. Are you sure you don't want a kiss? Are you sure you just don't want a kiss? Yeah. Apparently there's a line in there and this is why I'm actually playing Replay and Death Stranding 2 although Donkey Kong Bonanza completely fucking derailed that. Right? I want to get back to the save

file with that fight because apparently if you just watch Troy like fuck around during that fight he'll say how much he loves pizza but he doesn't love pizza as much as you Sam I want to hear that also there's the technical makeout scene that I'm not sure anyone really saw but there's that too so, I would say like this is a very good game But I don't think Like I my most disliked Kojima game is Metal Gear Solid 4 by like a country mile Like I fucking actually hate MGS 4. I was still right that this is the best written game But I was wrong about Death Stranding 1. I went back to Death Stranding 1 I was like no Death Stranding 1 is the best written game since MGS3 But this is still his second best written game, you know after

Well, MGS4 and MGS5 you think is better you think is worse than MGS5? I'm including like the MSX games No, no, no, since Snake Eater, like since Snake Eater, not ever, not ever. Oh yeah, then definitely. MGS4's a fucking mess. Yeah. Nanomachines, dude. People were right to make fun of that as like the catch-all solution to literally every single plot point in that entire series. Yeah, it sure was.

But yeah, I mean, look, this is a guy that wrote about the arm getting taken over by Liquid, you know? So for me... I almost expected that to come back here. I thought that something like that would happen. And I'm like, I'm along for the ride. Fuck it.

Whatever. I thought that was going to happen to Tarmann. Yeah. I'm already Sandy-brained anyway, so it doesn't matter, you know? That's the issue. I think I've said everything that I want. Oh, no, wait, there's one thing. I think Lou being his real daughter sucks.

I kind of like it. I like it. I was way more interested in that relationship as a sad lonely man with nothing, finding like love in his heart for a dumpster baby. I absolutely love that too. But again, I see this as a parable. I think Kojima is just writing fairy tales and not really like real stories, you know? So it's like, oh, well, after years of suffering, here is your daughter again. There is one tiny little thing. And this is my only complaint as a dad for the whole thing.

So like, regardless of all the story things, like there's still like a, there's an implicit like care for a BB 28 slash lose slash tomorrow, right? As like a child figure, the stinger of the game showing her smoking made me so pissed off because like it's cool for your character, but you would never ever ever want your child to smoke To put that out That's bad for you As a former smoker there is no other game worse triggering for me than the Death Stranding series. Yeah Because I still want to smoke every day. I have I got a

Yeah, because I still want to smoke every day. I have Fake fucking plastic cigarette here that I put into my mouth because I thought that it would help me But it doesn't it just makes it worse. I don't use it. So I would fucking think that would help you Because because I'm because I'm a fucking addict. That's why I need something. We gotta get wooly back I want his opinion on this nonsense Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah opinion on this nonsense. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. This, this is nonsense. Gene, tell this man what you just told me. Okay, so we were just talking about how death stranding can be triggering for a smoker or former smoker like me because Because Kojima makes smoking Kojima doesn't even fucking smoke himself. But for some reason he makes smoking looks so

Satisfying and good. Oh, you know, I Really goes to his mouth while posing with the other two actors Yeah, which which apparently Ludwig told a Pat in his chat that that was his idea. That was his idea. Oh! He's like, pretend you're smoking. Ludwig, the great composer, composed that incredible moment for all of us. Which is incredible.

We gave Kojima so much shit over that and that's Ludwig's fault? Yeah, absolutely. It's fucking Ludwig's fault. Oh my god, wow. Well, I'm still playing with it. But Kojima makes smoking look so satisfying. Like when I was playing DS1 and Cliff Unger is like, and then like Luca Marinelli is doing that and then like, you know, you see other characters smoking, Fragile smoking in DS2

and I'm like, it's so bad for me. Cause I spent eight years since I quit smoking and I still struggle every day. So that's why, and this is what Pat wants to hear, is that I bought fake cigarettes on Amazon for like a set. Cause I thought that it would help me with my oral fixation and that would help. But it it does not it actually makes you want to smoke a cigarette Yeah, so I don't use it. I just have in my drawer for no reason because for this bit basically I

Completely understand because back in the day ever since high school I always used to draw characters smoking, simply because secondary animation of smoke looks really cool, and anytime you're moving in a direction and the smoke trails with you, it looks awesome. There is a fetishization of smoking in Death Stranding 2 that borders on the absurd. You can do it. It's the effect of the lights on the back of the Akira bike. You know what I mean?

It looks awesome. It's a effect of the lights on the back of the Akira bike. You know what I mean? It looks awesome It's a great thing and when you see certain characters in a certain way like think of the end of tank when you see spike Spiegel like like Alright that one drag that goes all the way up is incredible. It looks so cool for art, but it's terrible for you Terrible for you. Let me tell you I literally fantasize about knowing that the day I will die So I can smoke and have a last oh, we just like big boss Don't do it literally just like big boss so I can say this is good. Isn't it and just fucking check out

That's it. Oh, I'm going going today Give him his give him his pack Yeah, basically I'm excited for the day. I die so I could just fucking smoke a cigarette again You know my grandfather my grandfather got My grandfather got a diagnosed with lung cancer at 87. He was like fuck it. I'm not quitting now. Yeah, yeah that attitude What are you gonna go through fucking chemo at you seven ah give me give my pack my puff guys you know that MGS for loading screen when these like they actually have the time to be like no put your cigarette away in a little container make don't put don't just drop it be be be polite be considerate about it but fucking oh get it in there yeah

that's nuts um I don't suppose You have the you guys don't have those Canadian pack style Like look at this lung exploding into into guck. Look at this baby. Look at this Yeah, our Canadian smoking packs have like nightmare fuel on them to be like this is what it causes and it's just like teeth falling out of mouths and Sally that wouldn't have worked on me so I remember when I was working with the grocery store people like the the anti smoking ads that would featured like diseased lungs and shit not only did they not work but like people would come in and ask for specific warning packs. They'd be like, I want the one with the lungs.

Yep, give me the baby. Yeah, so that's the thing, that's the only one that worked. The one with like a sick or dead baby or fetus on them, people didn't wanna smoke those ones. Even men didn't wanna smoke those ones. That was the one that worked. Oh, I've seen those yet.

One step further, I remember certain De Panneaux would have at the cash a cover that you could buy to put right over the pack, and it was literally just a big text box that was as large as the photo, and it said, surgeon general's warning, blah, blah, blah. Ha ha ha ha.

It was so crazy you're like oh oh we're going so far the other way it was nuts man yeah I get it but yeah well smoking does make you feel cool I used to do that all the time I used to have movement you know I leave I leave smoke trails man that shit was shit was awesome. Right, like punctuating your points when it's in your hands, you know, just lighten up in the cold. In fact, people going out for smoke breaks when you'd work, they're acceptable. They get more breaks.

They get more breaks and it's okay because everyone accepts it. Also, the boss is smoking, so you guys are getting buddy-buddy while you're going on break constantly throughout the day together. You don't get to make friends with the people who are not on smoke break and all the higher ups. It's garbage all the way around.

100%. Yeah, you know. And I would treat it like a yakuza, like Underling, when I would light my boss's cigarette for them. Don't worry boss, I got this. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

Well. Death Strand trending too is a good game I have some misgivings that's okay that's the summation of our thoughts okay really likes it cool cool cool cool I liked it more yeah but but I like this I do like that stranding one more though I was gonna say is the ultimate though that like do you feel that one is better? Do you both feel that way? Yeah? I feel a little more strongly But like a lot of it is that like Death Stranding 2 feels like Death Stranding 1 again, but not quite as interesting And do you have is right that it is the most iterative Kojima game

And I know I realize that immediately when I see those I started playing I was like this is just Death Stranding 1 again I was like I've never been a Kojima game like this, where Kojima is like, what if I just take the last game and just made it a little bit better? Right, right. Because I know we've had this conversation where you guys have, with Pat, where we've been talking about how it's like, oh, Metal Gear is Metal Gear is Metal Gear every time. But thematically on the broad strokes, there's wild changes. This is much more similar to Death Stranding 1 than any Metal Gear is to any Metal Gear.

Right. Exactly. Mechanically, even from 2 to 3, that was probably the most similar. And even then, as 3 introduced so much of the level design, the camouflage system, the fucking eating, the melee system. It's a vastly different game besides the camera angle, basically, right? And I guess, you know, the one last thing I'm wondering, do you, does that article about Kojima going, ah shit, too many people are enjoying this,

it's not divisive enough? I don't get it. We talked about that, we think he's lying. We think Woodkid is a liar. Well, I didn't say that, I like okay feels like smoothed out Yeah, the game the game feels like The friction like rubbed off Okay. Okay. So that mass audience that whole thing. Does it really track it makes no sense

It doesn't really exactly. Yeah, I'm not yeah as I was playing I was like I'm not sure what he's talking about here So okay all right. Yeah death stranding to spoiler cast over All right, how about we take a quick break guys yeah, I could use a break. I'm sure this dog. Hey you hungry Yeah, he's hungry I'm back here. You're big sounds good Hey stop fake smoking you're gonna. You're gonna do it to yourself you're gonna do it don't do it But he looks so cool though. He does what he will he looks so cool Look let's take a quick word from our sponsors

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On the short end, just kind of following off with some of the fun we enjoyed with the Xbox stories and layoffs and AI stuff. What a fun topic. A little chaser from last time around. Laid off King staff set to be replaced by the AI tools they helped build, says sources.

So after a ton of staff was cut, and we talked about them last time, about 50 people were leaving from the London based Farms Hero Saga team in particular getting cut in half there and a lot of people there are some basic leaks that the staff that is being cut will directly be replaced by AI and they were the stuff that they were forced to use that they were forced to train in particular obviously alongside that is also the morale is described as being in the gutter and yeah

I have been described to have that specific statement by an employee speaking to me directly last week there's morale about worrying if you're fired and then there's morale about people who don't know if they're actually fired, which is even worse. Okay, well, like when you, getting fired is one thing because you look next to you and there's an empty chair. Looking next to you and seeing a robot sitting there is a completely different thing. I foresee a really specific scenario occurring for Microsoft

with replacing a bunch of game developers and support staff with AI, in which the AI will probably do the job quite poorly, at which point they will hire contractors to shore it up and then eventually phase out the AI for just contractors. And because that's how they run every other part of their company, they're going to go, I don't know what's going on with the King purchase. They used to make good money, but now they don't make good money. But we're saving money on the contractors, like just how they ran Halo under the fucking ground. Microsoft seems wildly obsessed with not having full-time employees.

It seems to be their mandate at every single level of development for every branch. Like things like the monitor appearing on the wrong side of the screen in your artwork perhaps, things like that might start popping up. Oh yeah, oh my god, that LinkedIn post, yeah. No, I mean that's pretty much, yeah, that's your point at the stance for this whole thing, is the idea of the cost of hiring back contractors to fix the bad AI work is going to double blow it up on the back end. And making shit of your product on top of it. You know, but in the meantime, hey look, you can look at the earnings you get from downsizing

and just throw that on the quarterly and call it a day. So, yeah. That's the thing, right? If you ever tried to fix like a fucking idiot's work like not a I just like a they ever have a job And they're like yeah a dumber person than you got to it before you got here Yeah, not only didn't do it, but they fucked it up now you like that's that sucks. It's fucked the class project I have to start from scratch and do it myself Every time yeah, I'm way worse than starting from nothing.

So I use AI every day for my job, specifically transcription for my interviews. So I'm not reflexively anti-AI because I use AI. The AI I use is getting worse. I just did an interview, like a host of interviews with Tony Hawk, Kareem Campbell, and Bob Burnquist, like all the legendary skaters for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and 4 coming out. And I just fed all the audio recordings to the AI and it's just missing entire paragraphs. So I have to do the whole work again. Like I'm in the fucking like, the early 2000s and like just listen to Tony Hogg gab about whatever he's talking about and like just spend a whole time.

Like it's helpful for like a couple of lines, but it's like, how did you get worse? You were so helpful like two years ago. So it's kind of like Google AI, Google search getting worse also. Like it's like- It's becoming self-aware. No, it's not no This kind of loss leader a loss leader program like say uber right what uber supposed to do is come in as an excellent

Quasi legal service and totally destabilize the taxi industry in your local town Then once your taxi industry is destabilized in your local town. Then once your taxi industry is destabilized in your local town, you could then jack up your Uber prices to blah blah blah blah blah. Right? This is what Amazon does, this is what Walmart does, right? AI hasn't even gotten to the point where it's totally destabilized. It's like host service yet before becoming worse. It didn't get good enough to ruin the other thing yet. And I'm not and well, I mean, that particular example, I'm not anti destabilization because as somebody who was not able to get taxi rides simply by people looking at me and going, fuck you,

you're not getting in my car. I absolutely oh, you know, vibes. Did you tall failed the vibe check I absolutely welcomed the burning down of the taxi industry when when the ride apps show up mind you so you know There's that aspect yeah now what you get now what you get is like he showed up, and he's like damn it, but But hey man, 4.9 star rating. I'm doing good. Like you go, damn it. But then, hey, my rating is fine and I'm a generous tipper, you know? But yeah.

Yeah. And you know what? That's building bridges right there. Mm, mm, mm. Yeah, just, ooh, accountability, you know? Anyway, it's just this story just coming up as a little thing where, because you're like, hey, Microsoft, are you guys training and forcing people to use AI more so that you can literally replace them with it?

It's like, yeah, of course, that's what they just did at King. In any case, what else happened? Okay, so just a PSA on this one. Secondhand games on the Nintendo Switch 2, one particular owner bought a bunch of secondhand games and got banned because the person who sold those secondhand games, even though they were legitimate copies, had ripped them. And once they went online, Nintendo detected that two of the same copies of the same game were online together and banned both consoles. So that is something that could happen if somebody is

cloning their cartridges before they sell them. The person in question did contact Nintendo and they then were able to prove that their console had, they had the cartridge, because only one person does, the person with the copy doesn't, and then they unbanned them. But just PSA, secondhand, if somebody is cartridge ripping, you might have that initial moment of getting your console bad Bricked remotely because the person the rep that that they spoke to had all the info on like their their their memory card everything about

Their full you know a system pulled up, and they're like oh, yeah, okay? We can see you've got it, so you're fine. You know this reminds me of this reminds me of getting a used cartridge fine. You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of getting a used cartridge that has been used to like upload or use like hacked characters in like a Monster Hunter game. Like fucking your account, your online account up. Right? Like if you put down, if you bought like Monster Hunter for you and somebody had used like a game genie or something to massively fuck up all the stats on it and like create like Busted items and now you're attached to it. Yeah, oh, there's no way around this I don't think Nintendo should be able to break your fucking console though. That's bullshit

Yeah You can play dog offline Oh You can play don't come offline It's nice. It's it's nice that the person was able to say hey they contacted them, and they sorted it out You know within a couple hours, but it's yeah That is nice didn't but but somebody just buying a secondhand game and then getting their shit bricked is fucking sucks But that's scary why I that can't should be buying secondhand games anyway, you should be buying them straight from daddy, Nintendo Sore handsome for those of you who didn't catch that sarcasm

Also we had a this was just a little little quick one But the a second instance of an unlaunch has occurred oh that's right I saw this right we started split gate to has unlaunched let's make FPS games great again and yeah no shit damn guess Nooo! Shit. Damn. Guess that hat didn't really pull it off, did it? I think the funniest part about all that was like I saw an interview that was like I will not apologize and Directly on top of it was his apology. That was I think that was IGN. I think Within like a day. I think he told I think it was like an hour later I think he told IGN I will not apologize and then he went on Twitter here. I am here. I am to apologize

Incredible what a disaster. Yep hand-in-hand with a bunch of layoffs, of course, you know Much worse than the first one It's uh, it's it's yeah the the the new option that exists now after multiverses in the form of an unlaunch is Didn't see that would come in, you know Put it back in the tube and try again next year appears to be a new way to go Anyway, you know that that I will from now on when we talk about how things are going, should Concord have gotten

unlaunched? Is an unlaunch the way to go? I think that there's a game we're going to talk about today that will unlaunch to having the longest development cycle ever. That game is called 2xKO. Oh boy. So, you know, I, yeah, what did we get? We got a couple of announcements for that.

We saw the Vi gameplay trailer. And as much as, here's the thing, I'm just going to come out and say, I fucking love be a boxer, baby. And as much as she is doing all the weaves and bobbin that you would expect from your monk and DNF duel or your Akihiko's, I'm like, that's my main. That's my main right there. So guess what, Woolie? I totally agree with you. I loved Dauntless in Rising Thunder. I think Vi, aside from her level three super, I think her level three super looks like shit. I think that character looks great. I think the realization of that character is great. That should have been the first

character ever shown for 2XKO, not the last last or not the almost last the titular main character arcane box cover character and arcane yes you got it right the first time you got it right that is correct jinx and arc. Because this is like, this is like getting to like, I don't know how to describe it. This is getting to like year seven of Street Fighter V. And then going, Ryu is here! No, no, no, Ryu! Actually just Ryu! No shit, Vi is there, dude. No fucking shit.

Man, yeah, fires there, dude. No fucking shit. Man, yeah, so there's that. They there was obviously like these teases over the years, but all right, we're taking a look. That's one more character dropped. I did see that Tom Cannon, aka ProTom Cannon, did give, he gave some insight as to what was some of the timeline and what was happening with how long it took and why it got here. In particular, he more or less mentioned that the timeline is really weird for the project

and part of that is because everyone figured out exactly what was going to happen before the game got announced because Radiant was acquired by Riot. So the timeline begins in everyone's head the moment that acquisition occurs even though the project was not announced yet. Right? Yeah, he's completely right about that. Yeah, I don't know what the

gap is between the between the two so that was part of it was a couple of years so that that that made it feel a whole lot longer for sure however I will say I've never met Tom Cannon for all intents and purposes I've heard nothing but good things you've told me you hung out with yeah, that's got a guy. Good guy. Yeah, that is insane cope It's like grade a crazy ass cope because project L was announced in 2019 So like right timeline is obviously like significantly expanded because of the acquisition but like Okay, it's not ten years, it's six years. No, it is, regardless, again, the roster launch

for that type of game, that's insane how long it's taken, for sure. The other thing you mentioned was, yeah, so there's that part, and then they had a new team starting from scratch with their engine, timeline's weird, and that the, you know, with the And then they had a new team starting from scratch with their engine. Timeline's weird. And that the, you know, with the brand new engine and the new team, the... What was it?

Oh yeah, the 2v2 version of the game has been... That they've been working on it for four years. So what was it? What they were working on before that was like, you know, something like a 1v1, I guess, or like an entirely different version or so. Doesn't matter at the end of the day, because like when it launches, how it launches, like people will decide and they'll play it and be like,

yo, I want more characters. And I've said it before, I feel like the best way to change opinions on that is to ramp it the fuck up and get characters out there. Yeah. And I think, I don't know if this is indicative of speeding the process up because it looks like it's gonna be coming along.

They've announced the closed beta that's coming, new version and then the fact that it's gonna stay up after that. Yeah, so that's essentially the release date because that's how Riot puts out their games. They soft launch them. And you get in, if you were in the others, and then you'll get a friend invite, and it'll just propagate. So there's a thing here where in the Vige...

Love me a boxer, Vi looks sick, she's a main, day one. I'm locked in, I don't care because I love that style. When she lands her level three, she's kind of punching at nobody. And nobody does that, yeah. And then you see Yasuo at the last second kind of get hit and you're like, okay, that's a inexpensive way of kind of keeping the reaction of the person getting hit out of the shot there. And the animations of their level threes do look really good, but the fact that you don't see the person on the receiving end Compared to like Marissa fucking well

You know and all that type of shit is a time saver and you kind of go is this a way of speeding the process up? That we're seeing with this reveal. I'm not sure so Almost all the characters have a level 3 to that just vise just happens to be because it's punching it happens to feel a little It feels you're right, true. Right? Um, I absolutely believe that you're totally correct, that that is a way, like listen, if we make supers that are reaction agnostic,

we don't have to change the super every time we put a new character out, right? And that would make perfect fucking sense for a game with more characters than Street Fighter 2 Like like yeah, if I'm gonna see some cut corners You need the number faster. You need the numbers. You need the numbers. It needs it. It needs it. It needs it Dogs for lunch today, okay, and I got like a shitty hot dog with some cheese thrown on it You know how fast that guy got it out to me fucking fast as shit

And you know how much it cost like almost nothing So I was willing to eat that shitty hot dog because it was fast as fuck and cheap and hit that glizzy Oh is cheap as fuck. It's zero so already. That's a piece of advantage. Where's my fastest fuck video game hot dog You want to you want to be dipping these characters in water like Kobayashi and go in full full hog I'm just seeing the ultimate right now. Yeah, she's not punching anybody. What's going on there? Some of the other supers are like that too Where you don't see who's getting hit

slow This shit better be the most gourmet chicken hotdog I ever eaten so um I'm I'm I Really enjoy like how fun it is to play and I like the the systems and what it's doing. There's some details about smaller system changes that I get, I feel like, there's a lot of stuff, they made some changes that I thought are cool. We don't have to go into them because I don't think

anyone cares right now to go into the specifics. The version I played before was fun, we'll see how the version that we play in a couple of months is. Yeah, suffice to say that a couple of the changes they made were really good for Making the fight go faster and making sure in less timeouts happen they did a bunch of stuff to really fix the the the you start like

starting with one bar of super You don't carry meter between rounds gray health takes, you don't regenerate as much health overall. You can throw people while they're rolling. A bunch of stuff they did is gonna make the fight just go faster, more immediate. You're gonna die faster, consequences matter. And none of that like, oh shit, I have one character left. Why should I fight you?

This is a weird stalemate moment. They've fixed a lot of the incentive on that regard. So I'm pretty excited for that stuff and I'm still you know I'm looking forward to my team of Vi and Illaoi but I hope I have a lot more people to punch my team of Vi and Illaoi. Please give me more people to punch you know. I think we like that's something we talked about and I don't mean to belabor the point too much but like me and you've been playing fighting games both by ourselves and with each other on and off for decades now it sucks that we're gonna play the same team when we and we're not

yes we almost always find a way to find different preferences despite, we kind of, there's some stuff we overlap on. Like I play Darius too. I like Darius. Yeah, I like Darius as well, right? Shit! We do it- Fucker! That's my other... Like, you know, Illaoi Darius is my current team, so yeah.

Yeah, me too! Well, so that's the thing, right? And I think this is, yeah, you're right, that's the thing right and I think this is yeah, you're right That's a great example because for the all the overlap that like we don't have we don't share when we have it here You're like, oh, but our tastes and it's different. All we would need is one different fucking character Mm-hmm. I like a big character like a nagging Yuki. You like a big character like pot fine You should have a way to express that difference, you know I was about to say is it because there's like four people and It's a small it's that's the roster size is the issue you know

And the thing is is once we're going into this realm of like other tag fighters coming out to compete as well Like it's it is the reddest ocean I think the most damning thing that I saw is a comment that I retweeted was basically people are expecting there to be more characters in Marvel tokon in their next trailer Then there will be in 2x ko at launch now granted. They're won't be out So that's yeah, so prefer there were as many characters in the debut trailer, like, on screen. On fucking screen.

And we don't know what the timeline for Tokon is in terms of when it started development and, like, what the year per character development bit is, but the feeling of revealing... So development started three months ago in everyone's heart. In your heart! In your heart! That's it. Like, God, so much of this podcast and the games we talk about, so much of it just has to do with the feeling of an announcement and the time between that and getting it in your hands.

It's such an important part of the industry, and there's a science to it. Like a good HR department understands how to not be too early on something or put something out there where even if you have tons of goodwill and excitement, silk song, fucking skong, it can turn sour. I remember us talking, I think we did three of these, a podcast where we're like,

Elden Ring hasn't shown off a single goddamn thing ever. What the fuck is going on with Elden Ring? It makes me worry that the game is in some kind of development trouble. And I think at one point I said, I can't, I don't know what I should expect, but for this long to be in development with no news, this game better be the biggest fucking Dark Souls fucking game ever. And then it came out, and now I will never bitch about from software's development time ever again ever

I don't I look I Don't even remember that part that those those conversations anymore those are deleted from memory they got memory hold stupid Right yep. Yep. Yeah, yeahXK was in a different situation though because we played it. Yep. You know, the gameplay, characters, style, all of it, you got that, you just, you need more. Also. And when you have, yep. Also there's a second point against them on time. I wish I was still able to go online and play Rising Thunder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Community Edition exists. You know what I mean, though. You know what I mean.

I know what you mean. I know what you mean. No, no, the thing I always bring it up is just like when you play a game where you're picking more than one character every time you play it, you feel the roster much faster. Yeah. You know, so. They're also going, and this I really for for the cannons and I really feel for the the team I forget the name of the team The project l-team and the project l-team sure

I really feel bad for them because they are coming out not just like alongside the expectations of something like Marvel tokon but like somehow in fighting games Marvel rivals has entered and like how come you guys aren't putting out a character every six weeks like Marvel rivals which is like completely fucking different yep but the Marvel rivals characters look hot as shit but it's all vibes it's all feeling it's all just look at the new oh my god blade he woke up he's not sleeping anymore now look at him we're like eight billion costumes later with everybody at this point yeah that's it it's

just a feeling that's not the same but it feels the same but it's not the same but it feels the same it's it's the direct opposite where you're like the cosmetics are overflowing there you can't hold all these costumes for your favorite characters and Street Fighter puts out four characters a year and that's too too little but when you look at the Sagat trailer You're like they've spent a lot of fucking time on that fucking Sagat Saga looks hot a shit. Yeah, I was gonna go I was gonna jump into from there the the token has is going to be playable at EVO and we saw just a Sony put that's gonna be fucking a big line oh yeah there's a there's a

screenshot of the character select screen you got to six characters on it and it looks like yeah people started doing some math and they're like you think you could fit well no, but here's the thing, just because you could fit 35 into that space, it doesn't mean you're gonna get that, right? It doesn't mean that. There's a lot of games that came out that never fully filled up the space.

None of those games are by Arc System Works. Arc System Works fills up the space on their character select screen. No. No. Show me an Arc System Works character select screen that doesn't have every single fucking into that eventually over time I mean I feel like the the the other thing too that you see here is the fourth you have your leader and then you

saw the four slot the three slots right you saw shooter vertical and assault right and that was interesting because it looks like basically mechanically You saw shooter, vertical, and assault. And that was interesting because it looks like basically mechanically what that's going to be is assist wise, you will all, like I assume a shooter will always be a projectile assist. I assume vertical will always be a shoryuken. And assault will always be like a rushdown. So you kind of are, instead of picking a character and then picking your assist type, you're gonna always have them fulfill that role,

so your team will always be balanced for all three things. That's great. It's an interesting... It's a way different way to think about it, but that's cool. Yeah. You know, the function, quote-unquote, is filled no matter what your team is. You just... And if you bring in in Star Lord and you switch out Doom, that's okay, someone on your team will have a Shoryuken, regardless, done.

They should be making these characters like they did for Fighters, Fighter Z, where they're a little simpler than you would expect so that they can have more of them. I can see it. So this is you're gonna have four people on a team? I don't think we're getting an MVC three ultimate level depth on any individual character.

That's a lot. That's a lot for people to learn. I mean, it could go either way. I would like the idea of exactly not overwhelming people because you have the four, but if someone wants to stick to one one it should feel like a complete character the director on this is the battle director from Grand Blue Fantasy Versus and the planner on Exord, right? So

you know you got you got two completely different sides of the spectrum there like both anime games, but completely different sides of the spectrum there, like both anime games, but some Xrd characters got real complex with their move sets and lists and Grand Blue, you know, can definitely like simplifies it. So we'll see. We'll see. But yeah, the potential for that spot, that roster size to fill up is there't I don't think the promise is guaranteed but it would be smart if they did if they packed if they dropped characters in like you know groups of four so the fantastic four are like all the team ready to go you know I was just thinking you know what they could do they could do like what Tatsunoko did and there are certain characters that you just get

just them like Hulk is a team of four. Oh God. That was so busted in that game. It was the most unbalanced shit ever. It was so fucked. Those characters were way too good. Yup. That was my favorite thing about Capcom versus SNK too. That you can just have a three star character versus three one star characters. You know, that was my favorite part.

I love that mix and match. Yeah. I mean, you know, shout outs to Psycho Chr chronic from Toronto who won the Evo Tatsunoko Tournament just using the fucking PTX from lost planet like it's fucking wild that that became like a busted fighting game character Nobody gives a shit about that fucking robot I love that robot, but that that fucking nobody gives a shit about lost planet one I do I love that game that game made me care about the PTX about Soki from from dawn of dreams Oh, my ain't nobody care about Soki from I know right

Anyway that had fucking losers in it I Enjoy roll getting slap chopped by Alex. We got to move on getting slap-chopped by Alex. We gotta move on. Sagat looks fucking hot. I love it. I love the fact that, okay, he's not the beef Sagat anymore, but he's Street Fighter II Sagat. Yeah, a little lankier.

The lanky guy. He's been a while, and he's now... That's right. Beefy Sagat got introduced in Alpha, right, I think? Yeah. Everybody got beefy in Alpha. Yeah, Bison got super beefy Sagaga got introduced in alpha right I think. Yeah Yeah, yeah bison got super beefy But the old live, you know tiger that's the guy that's coming back, you know I also like that every time you see him. He's more Muay Thai and less Shoto. Yeah

And now it's super aggressive. It's just like five leg kicks in a row Yeah, and now it's super aggressive. Like it's super, it has just like five leg kicks in a row. Yeah, he's got four versions of a Muay Thai grapple and his throw is also like a very dedicated Muay Thai grapple With all these enders to it. Awesome stuff. The stage looks fantastic and Yeah, they've also Street Fighter 6'd him which means we don't have six fireballs plus two EX versions to deal with. You have his light punch fireball, he shoots it low, medium and high, he shoots them high. And then the OD version is both.

His EX fireball is better than other people's EX fireballs. And that's it. Because it's a Sagat. EX fireballs and that's it because It takes away Something from him to take away those extra fireballs, but I get it I get it And you know I guess modern mode is gonna. We can't live you know in a street with the system old Sagat world Tiger knee is gonna fly right over a fireball now. That's what you lost. So you're fine. He's he will be fine Plus a tiger uppercut that knees you to the wall and then you can have more normal than anybody on the cat Oh, he's he's gonna be fine

My only thing is design wise I I like I get the hobo energy, but I do feel like you know Like bison steal some of that thunder with the cloak, you know, I feel like Yeah, Bison looks like garbage in, like, complementary Well, Akuma, Ryu, and Bison all have that same wandering vagrant energy And they take something away from Sagat now because of that in a way, you know? Sagat wouldn't look right in a full-on outfit of any kind but the tattered thing is like it's it's fine It makes sense. It's just He should be the one with the cloak, you know, yeah

Good stuff there And What was? Worth mentioning. Okay the little bit with what was worth mentioning. Okay, the little bit with the Outer Worlds 2 getting announced at 70 bucks. Hey, everyone said fuck that and they went nevermind and dropped it back to 60. Or rather 80 to 70, excuse me, for American prices.

Let me tell you, as somebody who played Outer Worlds 1 and really liked it, but that game had very, very, very serious flaws and played a good deal of Avowed, and thought it was cool, but also has fairly serious flaws, and I haven't gone back to it. I think Avowed's much better than Outer Worlds, by the way. I think they were on fucking drugs to think that people would pay an increased price for Outer Worlds 2. I think they lost their fucking minds.

So I don't think this type of pressure is gonna work for every company in every game, but in this instance, yeah, it worked. And they went back to, they said, okay, we'll give you your refund on your pre-order if you put the extra in the 80 down. Yeah, so we've seen Borderlands bitch out, and we've seen Outer Worlds 2 bitch out. You know, you remember when I talked, when

we talked about Nintendo increasing their prices and then Microsoft said, you know what, we're going to do it too. And I said, you're not fucking Nintendo. Not even Nintendo is fucking Nintendo, but you're sure as fuck not Nintendo. Yeah, dude, you're not fucking Nintendo. You're fucking crazy. Like, I would be bitching super hard about the price of Donkey Kong Bonanza if it wasn't one of the best games I've ever played in my life. But it is! So, fuck me! Meanwhile, Outer Worlds 2, right? Or Avowed. I finished Avowed. And my god, like one thing that was mind-blowing about Expedition 3 was the campfire sequences.

Because they are so much better written than the ones in Avowed. I was like, oh my god. Oh, I forgot Avowed did have those. Yeah, Avowed tries to do a campfire sequence too where you get to know your party and like the party talks But they're like the party doesn't say anything interesting or emotive or like anything related to that to the adventure that's going on It's crazy See Pat I get your sentiment, but I just hate that it indirectly enables the GTA 6 price-hike asshole fucking investors out there. Oh dude no GTA 6 is gonna be the worst because hike asshole fucking investors out there. Oh dude, no, GTA 6 is going to be the worst because instead of Nintendo, it's going to

be like you're not Grand Theft Auto. You know who's not Grand Theft Auto? You know who's not GTA 5? GTA 6 isn't even fucking GTA 5. Okay? That was the fucking GTA game that had its online life lifecycle during the global motherfucking pandemic I mean I hope not actually It's good enough and everyone forgets yeah, yeah

Crazy crazy people They made a hamlet in GTA 5 and they made a movie out of that I reviewed it, it was kinda weird yeah I bet yeah anyway by the way everybody your PS5 controllers will finally be able to connect to multiple devices that fucking rules because I have two controllers, two fucking ps5 controllers right here

This one's for the computer. This one's for the PlayStation. I Wish I could just use one. That's that's it We're just thinking rethinking every time sucks. So now you're gonna be able to hold PS button and press one of the face buttons and then it'll pick a device so you can get up to four devices. That's great That's great. Wow, That's awesome. That's my favorite controller. I might switch to for PC. Yeah, no kidding. Awesome that that is a feature that can be software updated into the controller. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, would you like to complain about quick disconnects for fighting game tournaments and Bluetooth buttons

since we're talking about the PlayStation 5 controller. You know what Pat? I would. Oh fuck. Anyways. They could just do it. Yep now now I can use my controller at a tournament to Simultaneously interrupt four matches at the same time That's so good Anyways, hey shadow labyrinth the the the metroidvania pac-man game came out and The pac-man part of it looks awesome

Yeah, the pac-man part looks like a really good pac-man game. It looks super sick I just wanted to put that out there that video when you guys are talking about Superman. It looks really yeah that part looks really cool Um so I want to check that out sabers show with shadow labored and then the last thing as well a Brazilian fucking God Hand game called Forastero has shown up with Cowboy God Hand. It's just the same animations basically, oh my god. It's really fucking funny.

It's really funny. So this is a one person project and it's very blat blatant because they're like we want to make Godhand again Sure. Okay. Here's the thing as much as it's like yo Like and I think yeah, the name means like stranger right like an outsider It looks like it's this like, you know Godhand energy thing and we all kind of want more of that and I'm very I've been waiting I'm super down. The animations are actually lifted out of Godhand. Yeah, no, I recognize them. You need to change your homework enough to not have teacher notice.

Right? They're like, this is a one-man project, look at this thing, Godhand spiritual successor finally and it's like, you can't just take the animations right we learned this with um uh icons the melee the project m melee thing where they just took the same animations guys you can't you can't just do that stop you know game in progress you know not not final yes uh you gotta come on we we are all very excited for more Godhead, but yes, please same functions Everything can just be the same but the animations doesn't need to be exactly the same I think the roulette wheel being a revolver chamber is pretty inspired though. That's cute Yeah, more of that stealing an idea and painting over it I think that's really smart more of that just paint over it

Yeah, and the environments and indoors and outdoors still look just as goofy and unlit as always you know like the energy is right on point and the music was like very spaghetti Western anyway so you can just do do that same vibe again you know yeah god I miss that game the only game I have emulated on my Steam Deck nice all right let's take some letters. Hey, if you want to send a letter, send it to castlesuperbeastmail.gmail.com. I forgot. That's castlesuperbeastmail.gmail.com. Alright. Let's see. We got one coming in over here. Oh, did you see that that guy using my life as his update has as his background stories that that that story has escaped containment update and is like showing up on

like business practices websites. Oh wow. I didn't see that. That's amazing because I was like that person didn't post anymore but they were updating the main thread so I didn't realize it was like I was looking for you into like a like a dear Abby, but for like workplace practices and It's like it's getting out like you I've been hey dude. I know you're listening you need to fucking do something now I've been telling fucking cooked

I've been telling people in real life ability that someone listens to this show or reads it or whatever it increases dude is telling people in real life about this it's the craziest I've been telling people in real life about this too like it's becoming viral this is becoming manager org oh my god this is like a slow-rolling cold play concert moment. I see it. I see it. I see it sooner or later Everyone's gonna know about this child. Oh God, oh my god. Okay, so I mean I okay the fact that there's a professional answer to this seems like Okay, we got a professional answer is all of our advice was bad

but like The you can't you like they say you can't like don't invent a drug problem but you're never gonna tell you the truth out of out of the situation you're gonna get blacklisted you're you're you're cooked go to therapy maybe get a new job okay okay I mean my the at the coming clean Being bad advice. It's like alright well If you gotta get a new job, right? Well, then what's the difference at that point? You know comments all seem to agree that the actual way out is to say that your wife left you and

Took the kid and took the dog and you don't want to talk about it But the guy has an active girlfriend I can't I can't she doesn't know she's like oh look so that's gonna interact I don't live in a house of fucking cards and lies that I can't I can't function in this world of anxiety of the things the lies I built do it right that's it's tough that it's so stressful I can't even bring in to project myself Red subreddit asked advice about this I bet he's pretty fucking stressed and that's funny

All right, all right, all right, we got coming on coming in here the subject matter so he's pussy right? All right Okay subject matter so he's pussy right? Alright. Okay. Me and my brother like fighting games and we play shit like Dragon Ball FighterZ, Third Strike and Battle for the Grid. He often beats me but I really don't care about losing. Winning is not a requirement for me to have fun. Challenge is the reward by itself and I'll lose 0-15 and still have fun. I always run it back even with games even I've never played before I have no skill in I go For it as I go for it As bitch does not exist inside me however my homie got me into ninja storm and sparking zero

Which I do really enjoy I convinced my brother to play and he didn't even finish the set before he shut the Xbox off and started Talking about how the whole game is bullshit and shouldn't matter. This is pussy behavior, right? Or am I crazy? His character just cannot stand the loss and his ego crumbled, at least to my perspective. Y'all ever encountered this level of pussy in those with real bitch in their hearts and cowardice in their actions? Alright y'all, be good. Friend, this is 100% certified bitchmaid, cowardice. All right, y'all be good that is that your friend is a bitch pussy. This is 100% certified bitch made cowardice. It's made

inexcusable I Remember I was friends with a guy named Gabe in high school and we I would sometimes go to his house and we play rival schools and his brother James Would fucking talk the maddest shit at school about how good he was at rival schools. Not in his own house when I was there, but at school. And he was like, I could beat anybody at fucking rival schools. I'm the fucking best. I'm like, okay, well let's go. And so me and fucking James and Gabe and like two other people went and we're just gonna hang out after school play rival

schools and I double perfected him and this was in grade 9 and James never spoke to me again That's crazy really never spoke to me for three more years and then we lived high school. Wow. Man, the only thing sadder would be if he started telling people that he beat you in Wann afterwards.

That would be crazy. That would be nuts. That would be nuts. Especially in an era of new found social media connection in which the humility to call him out over every single person he knows in his entire life, it was newly possible. Newly possible! Did you know how many people you could tag in a Facebook post? I didn't.

A lot. That's crazy. We discovered things. Alright, let's take one over here. Alright, someone says, I'm not telling you guys to play the game, just please mention the name on the podcast to gauge Chatch reaction. Got it. AST Libra revision. Oh yeah, that game sucks. Do you know what that is? Yeah, ask Libra. Yeah, it, yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a, well, no, sorry. I hate that game. I don't think it sucks. Ask Libra is a, is a Metroidvania game made by one guy using entirely store-bought clip art assets. And it is a super gigantic Metroidvania game that is, according to everyone I've ever talked to who's played it, incredibly excellent.

And then I went to play it and was like, this shit is trash. I hate it. There is a demo. The demo is like an hour or more long. It's super, super large. you can go get ass Libras demo right now and decide whether or not I am trash Or it is trash I bet it's a coin flip. I bet there's like there's there's really a Type of interest in it that is like can move past its jank and be like this is okay I have I have a extra. I have a lot of bandwidth for Metroidvania games. I mean, you know, I played through Indivisible. It is extraordinarily well-reviewed on Steam.

I think it's very positive to overwhelmingly positive. Ask Libra. Yeah. I just don't like how the jump and the action actually feels. So like it's dead in the water to me. This ring a bell, Gene? Don't know anything. And I've actually started to kind of admit to myself, I think I might be done with Metroidvanias for a while because I have not finished the Prince of Persia one, which is really, really good.

I also didn't finish it even though it's absolutely incredible. It's fantastic. The platform is great. The combat is great. I'm like I don't want to finish it. I'm good. Do you know why I stopped playing it? Why? Because I had to load up the Ubisoft launcher to play it. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I got like eight, I got like 70% through and then when like, no, I hate the launcher too much. I don't even care. I'll play something else. Well well so I feel like I've had my itch for Metroidvania scratched by fucking Metroid dread was great now granted Jean you say this in a pre-skong So... I didn't like Hollow Knight that much. You get all of this podcast.

And that's when... You're gone. Nah. That's when I realized I don't think Metroidvanias are really doing it for me anymore. Because I was like, this is a great game. I'm not that into it. It's really the art style. It was the art style.

How did you feel about Hollow Knight 2 and 3 though? Sorry if it's funny. How did you feel about Hollow Knight 2 and 3 though? I Recently discovered that there's a lot of people whose opinions I really gel with on games that fucking hate Hollow Knight because they think it's Three times too long and meanwhile I got to the end of Hollow Knight and was like This is the only Metroid game that was as long as I wanted it to be interesting like this is the only Metroid game that was as long as I wanted it to be. Interesting. Like every Metroidvania game I had ever finished prior to that, I was like, that's it. I wanted to keep going for like 200% more. It's just, it's hitting that Okami place, that weird place of like, I love this, but please, but please. Exactly. Okami was way too long. Hollow Knight was way too long. I might revisit it

You know before Skong if that ever comes out so All right, Maria says dear wonder green and wonder pink I regularly go back to the 2010s demo trailer for Bioshock infinite and get frustrated at what could have been Kind of like I kind of like the final game. Sorry pat, but I genuinely have more fun watching the trailer than playing what we got So then my my feelings against that game are part of her sentiment of outrage because that 2010 version looked rad Mm-hmm a second email follows update actually I would like to partially amend my previous statement I just remembered Shen Lin section of the released by a shock infinite.

Fuck that game. Wait, what part is that? It's the part where they go to get the guns from the, from the Chinese guy. And then they get there and he's dead. So then they fucking zap to a world where the guns are still there, which isn't the world that needs the guns. And then they look at the guns and go, how the fuck are we going to get all these guns back? There's like 4,000 pounds of guns, and then they just leave.

Is that really what happened? Holy shit. And they're like, what the? Why? It doesn't even make sense on like a fucking if-then statement on a piece of paper The strength of the setting premise was there the floating city of Pretty crazy America that was racist That's a twist that's a twist.

That's a twist. You got me there first. The twist is a something. Oh wow, that's crazy. Did you guys know that that fucking CEO that made that Ocean Gate submarine wanted to make a real life rapture? Yeah, well he's obliterated now. I feel like that's kind of poetic.

Yeah. Have you watched those documentaries? Yeah, dude. Oh my God, dude. Hey, because that guy was rich. Everyone's search and rescue thing blew like a billion dollars, even though everybody knew they were fucking vaporized into pancakes. Yeah The kid that was just trying to like Reluctantly spend time with his dad fucking oh absolutely that but you that that means the dad gets double ire

Right the dad like asshole is double evil and it's just the clicking was like it's seasoning. don't worry, it's seasoning. Anyways. Oh my god. That's what he called it. Yeah. The question was, do you remember any pre-release builds, whether publicly playable or not, that you still think about? I don't think there's gonna be one that beats Bioshock Infinite,

cause every pre-release build of that game was a different build and didn't make it in. Everything that was ever shown of that game never made it in, which is crazy. The songbird drop off from Big Daddy. What could have been? I have one, and I say it every time, but it's not really like directly provable in

this way the early build of force unleashed I was didn't see that only you saw that so a couple people I believe Reggie as well too you know but I yeah I think he was he was testing at the time I was not early one of the strangest stupid wrong things I've ever said I was to say, I didn't know Reggie was around back then. Like, like, me knowing about him when he was born. Right, yes, exactly. Yes, he came into existence seconds before I recorded Katamari with him. Spawned. No, the early builds of the Force Unleashed were really, really loose and allowed you to air combo and go nuts on the combat system

and cancel everything into everything. So it played like one of those Twitter videos that you never, for games that are never coming out, you know, like those student projects where you can just kind of go crazy on everything. You could, it was, it was, it was nuts. You could force link things together and like dash up

to them and just, you know, and they just, they calmed it all down. They restricted stuff. They took it out. They took a bunch of it out, but it played, you know, like a prototype for some, like not an amazing character action game, but the ability to like string your shit together and unintentionally kind of do more stylish things

than the game wanted you to was there. It kind of reminds me of, we talked about Amalur the other day, right? Amalur. I'm literally looking at a video of Copernicus right now, cause I was just gonna say Copernicus. Yeah, Amalur was like, we tested that too. And I found myself doing these crazy like air combos and juggles in the system

That was like not meant for it. I was like, whoa what you know, that's a that's that's it's exactly that like that You know, I would have loved to actually see what Copernicus actually was the final version Mm-hmm. Well like cuz think it was building off of it was building off of Reckoning, you know, like kingdoms of Amalur. Reckoning was a completely different game than that company got bought and then got like the setting changed into something that would tie into the MMO. But the MMO never actually even got revealed before being canceled by shitbag criminal Kurt Schilling. But the GDDs and documentation from back then

that we got on the project all talked about Copernicus as a whole and then the Amler section of it. And gameplay-wise and stuff, it was like, yeah, you're getting a slice of what they want to expand into this bigger thing. And yeah, I just remember going into that and I didn't have any expectations for combat on it whatsoever, but QA'ing it, I was like, this is surprisingly robust.

For me, it's Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Well, I mean, when you play Kingdom Hearts 4, you'll probably get a taste of what the fuck that was supposed to be. Finally. But that whole sequence in the palace with Leviathan shooting in and out of the windows, he's doing cover, he's like moving from cover to cover and like Gladios just comes out and he's like, hey watch out Noctis, there's like all super cinematic. I mean that- Oh my god. It's just so weird because it's like no more I was clearly obsessed with that game

Like he keeps trying to make it And he's like I want to make it and Scranix is like well then fucking ship it then Do it on time is that impossible I Kind of still do think about The wall running in Metal Gear Rising, not Revengeance. Oh. Yeah. Lightning Bolt action? In the original Lightning Bolt action, Metal Gear Rising game.

One second shot of him. Of him running off the wall. Yeah, as a fan of Guns the Duel, I was like, ooh. But then they couldn't figure out how to make the watermelon slicing into a fun thing. I still think about the watermelon slicing. I'm like, that's still look pretty fun to me. I don't know, man. All right.

That will do it. Gene, thank you for hanging out with us. Thanks for having me again. You allowed us to talk at length about Superman and Death Stranding in a really cohesive way that was really helpful. Thanks, buddy. I know, both of you yelled spoilers at me.

It was interesting. Yeah, we got a double spoiler cast this week. It was great. Where can people find you? Gene.meme? Yeah, linktree.gene.meme. All my socials and websites and stuff are there so I am trying to play mind's eye right now

It is very very difficult in that I don't want to play mind's eye it's so bad, but I'm trying to Because it because I feel like I should write a bad review Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. No, you're doing God's work You're doing God. No, no, it's always fun to try to figure out a good pan, right? Right exactly. Yeah, my recently my recently bias right there, you know, who knows so Funny cuz me and Gina been talking like like over discord and like we're both like really desperately trying to fucking fight our recency bias But new things are so good though I

Have to say I I mean, I don't know much but everything I've seen about minds eye is just like oh, that's a fucking best friends ass LP Right to hell retribution ass piece of shit LP Right to hell retribution ass piece of shit LP The controls would even work like when you try to shoot a gun the gun doesn't even shoot like it doesn't it fails That like a very it fails at a fundamental level. It's crazy anyways All right, we're gonna get out of here. Take it easy folks. Thanks guys You