Castle Super Beast - CSB358: Jeff Epstein The NY Financier That Invented Microtransactions? What Happened?

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

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Hello. Oh, my God. Are you fucking dead? I come to you from heaven. Hello. Oh, my God. Did you bust out the camera in that lighting setup and just be like, holy shit, I can't believe it.

I mean, basically, the deal, that's what it is. You know, we're making do. We're making do. Holy Order, Woolley has arrived. Hello. I am out here in a different location. Do you have like a really complicated instant, kill combination you have to do in order to get it?

Here, let's fix that. There we go. Now I'm truly... No, don't fix it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, no, like leaning in from the afterlife. That's what it is. That is so goddamn funny. And as the sun sets on the side over here, we'll see what becomes a bit. But from now... So you're not at home, obviously. Yeah, no. This is, this is, I'm just, I'm here to warn you, you know? Do you warn me? Yeah, I'm, I'm the ghost of the, of Super Beast future.

here to warn you about what happens when you play Shenmu 3. So I assume this is what you were referring to just the other day. What's the deal with Shenmoo 3, bro? Patrick Bois. Is that game good? Patrick Bois. Yeah, what's up? Before I even...

Oh, weird! You like it. I... I might have been wrong about Shenmu. Is that true? I believe so. Oh, yeah. What about it?

I played Shenmu 3 on versus Wolves, and that game is so bad that it made me think back on the past about Shenmu 1 and 2. and I think I don't I don't know that they were ever good and I'm looking back on what I liked about them and what brought me joy and looking at it in the current context of like how bad Shenmu 3 is and what how faithful it is and how what it does and doesn't do and I'm kind of like there's enough of this here that the bones are similar enough to what you did walking around in Shenmu 1 and 2 and that might have been bad from the jump, but the fact that it was the first time you are walking around a big old Japanese town and doing, looking at items up close in detail and just having this big old open, realistic day life simulation thing was like, wow, video games. And that was it. That might have been it the whole time. Also, every once in a while, a little bit of kung fu if you fancy, but not enough to make it worth it. Yeah, I, I, I feel fucking so vindicated. I never liked Shenmoo. I never liked it. But you got, you landed on Yakusa before Shenmoo. You even looked at it at all, right?

Like you saw. I, I had been to people's houses and played a little bit of Shenmoo. Okay. And I was like, the, like, the concept is cool, right? Like, like the idea is like rad. But like the game itself is like, trash like the voice acting and the environment and like the gameplay and what you're actually doing and how it had a real time and you had to be home at a certain time to do certain things so fucking

trash but like okay so you think about the premise of like playing a game where you can walk at race it's the first time you're playing a game like this where you get to walk around and like yeah like live day to day life in this simulated way and so many games have done it better since then but it also like forces this really stilted awkward like just no one really feels a live version of reality on you that sucks it just sucks the conversation pacing sucks the silent like five seconds between every line feel awful everyone has these weird spained expressions that don't it's just super odd and like um i saw something i brought up was that like i saw something i brought up was that like I saw someone once ask a question that was like is Rio is this is real autistic

coded and that's why like some of the way he didn't have that back in the day bro that is kind of flat and it's like no no no no that's not what's going on everyone in in this game is just the game they didn't make it in a way where they prioritized dialogue being delivered do you speak the language of Chinese you know in a way that like flows back and forth like It's, um, and then the, the pacing of like events and the way pat time passes and you go play your lucky hit. And then some of the times the critical gaming, the critical moments of the game involve walking into a room, opening shelves and looking at objects and just, oh, yeah. That's a cup. That's a cup.

Is that the cup I'm looking for? It's not. Okay. Back in the shelf it goes. And that's like five minutes of game time being spent just looking at the, and what you're supposed to feel. is wow, they've modeled a fully realized Chinese cup with the amazing details on it. And it's so the textures are incredible. And you're supposed to be like, wow, video games have made a cup.

But like now that cups, yeah, yeah, okay, it's an object in a game. Who the fuck cares? Outside of its historical technological context of, wow, woo, a cup, wow, crazy. Outside of that, like nothing in it holds up at all. because the actual things that you do and see and play in that game are trash. Like, I'm a big fan of Like a Dragon, right? Let's talk about Yakuza 1 or Like a Dragon 1, right? That game also has a bunch of shit in it that's really bad.

It has crazy shit load times. Every side quest is the same, et cetera. But the difference between those is one's a fan game of Shenmu, right? Like, Yakuza 1 is a little shit of it, like, I want to make shit. move for me. But like things happen in Yakuza 1 and it has a story and the story goes somewhere and then it ends and the story ends and then on the trip to that story, you do things. You fight with things and you talk to people and you have gameplay.

Like I didn't even get to that part because I'm just like like before you even get to gameplay, it's like on the surface level, everything about the way Shen feels as a video game is it's the gaming equivalent of 3D glasses movies where it's like, whoa, let me take a sip of this drink right here. Wow, that guru looks so close. Watch out for that snake. Oh, it's the snake in Captain Eo. I'm on the ride at Disney and, you know, it's about to get you.

Or the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie. Oh, my goodness, honey I'm on the ride. Oh, wow, we're all getting big. and now we're small. And it's like the goofiness of 3D glasses movies where you watch them without the glasses and just see weird things being held up to the camera. And suddenly you're like, this is garbage.

This is not made to be watched or like it doesn't matter. It's just the novelty of, oh my God, look at it. So Shenmo's doing that. And then the actual gameplay, this is the one, this is the thing, right? You're on a quest to get revenge because dude walked in your house and killed your dad someday. All right, cool. martial arts quest landi go let's get it and the absolutely if only you could land these hits

the fucking loser and like you're learning moves and you're getting you're doing martial arts and you're learning the like elbow the palm and the and all and all that to build up to like a 70 man battle that's going to happen at the end of the game and you're what you're like can i fight anything in the way there's like i think there's a total of four you know um Anyway, and then you, Landy, I don't even think he's in the first game besides the first because I don't even remember him showing up in the first game at all. And then you play through the entirety of the second and then he's on a helicopter and like flying away. And you're just like, what, why would you make the string or whatever the breadcrumbs of this character, the only thing interesting about the story so far? you know well okay some of the characters you meet in Hong Kong were like or in in Hong Kong were like more fun but like the one guy that that matters to the story they're bread coming him in this way and then you find out it's because you Suzuki wanted the game to be 16 parts long and you're like you're out of your goddamn mind go fuck yourself historically good idea one of the best ever but I really just I thought it felt like at the time but at the time Oh, look, it's cool.

We're walking through the city and we're playing lucky hit. We're looking for the sailors and the four Wu-Doh, you know? And now you just play- There is a more cohesive, internally consistent narrative between the beginning of Yakuza 1 and the end of Yakuza 1 chapter 2 than there is for the entirety of the Shenmu series. So that's the thing is eventually Yakuza becomes what we see today and know, which is it sounds like it's a series of,

that like there's the one major reinvention with like Ichigo but uh itchibon sorry but um but like it became other things between one and two and then two and three and all

it reinvented itself so many times right it became all things to all peoples of all cultures and so this is what made me this is what made it hit was when I'm looking at Shenmoo 3 and I'm like this is so boring and slow and garbage and terrible and It's sapping the life out of me.

And the way you, like, it's doing that thing where they're walking down the road. And because the game has to load all the events you did, it's like, I'm going to go talk to this guy today. Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Rio. And then it fades away and then it fades back in. And then it's like, I'm going to find that special thing today. Oh, yeah, we should do that too. Okay. And then it fades out and it fades it and it loads the next quest description.

And it's just doing all of this in this awkward, stilted, horrible way. And you kind of realize, as the game is like, Like, okay, you've played three games a lucky hit. You asked an old lady a question about where to find some stone workers. And you play tag with some kids. That's a full day's work. Time to go to bed. And you're like, you could have made this flow way more naturally and faster.

Making this game in 2018 or whenever it came out, you could have done so much to make this better and make this a better experience. But you chose not to. And ultimately, the part of me that was like, well, they probably thought, no, this needs to be true to what Shenmu is. and to make it true to what Shenmu is, it needs to be as stilted and as awkward and as weird about this stuff. And then you're like, oh, you and that's what made me go,

oh, maybe this was never good, you know? Because the opportunity to reinvent Shenmu 3 here and make it a good version of what it was and have everyone feel real and be a living world and all that stuff with everything we learned about walking and doing day-to-day tasks from persona games,

with everything learned from obviously the Yakkazah series. And like every other thing that has passage of time. You know, there's so many lessons that you could have been learned in the meantime, and they just, they choose to throw all of that out

to just be like, nope, we're going to pick this up as if we made this game the year after Shenmu 2 was done. And we got like a glow up on our textures. Oh, by the way, we're... You get this. Yeah.

You get this feeling that it's like when you're playing... I remember when Shemu 1 came out. And there was this feeling of like, wow, they're really pushing the envelope with a bunch of weird shit. Super excited to see what they're going to do next. And that's not what they were doing.

They had a weirdly, insanely specific, idiosyncratic view of what they wanted the game to be exactly. And just made it that way. And then they were going to be making it that way. Never veered from it. Never veered from it. Yep. It is. It feels accurate to the world.

And that's the problem. And then sidebar. There's a little bit of weird shit in there. it's not the biggest deal, but like one of the main characters you meet at the end of Shenmu 2 that like is what the whole series is kind of about, like Shenhua, who is next to the Shenmu tree. They just kind of did a weird thing where they're like, yeah, she might have looked a little too Chinese for our tastes. So let's make her look more like an anime Japanese character and her face and the whole design changed.

And you're like, what? Why? Why is that a thing? You know? And then the interviews are apparently, like, apparently it's like there's, uh, there was a desire to soften the girl's features or whatever. You're like, all right. Okay. Okay, cool.

Yeah, this is the one thing you're changed. It's just, this is what really matters. Sure. Sure, man. Whatever you say. Anyways. Um, yeah, that, that, that was a, that was a brutal time warp experience of me. sitting in front of my dreamcast in the year 2000, just kind of,

I thought, I thought I was having fun and it turns out I was having nothing. Well, I mean, you did have fun, but you were, you were, you were being bamboozled. But my fun, no, but Pat, my fun was wrong. Listen, listen, listen, listen. My fun was, that's like a desperate, like, mind trap that can get all really toxic. But, like, sometimes it's true. Sometimes it did happen Like you were wrong

You were so obsessed With the idea of having You got to go back in time And just tell young wooley Like no no I know you're enjoying yourself But your fun Your fun is wrong

It's gonna get you This is a mistake Anyways Yeah I know So It's so fucking funny all right there off my chest and uh oh yeah look that's that's like terrifying

because like there's all sorts of things where you're like something new comes out and you're like oh i'm gonna be so excited because i loved it what it was before and then you play it or watch it or whatever and you're like oh it doesn't really hit for me and then you you hit the mental problem of like is it not hitting for me because it's different or because it's not different at all and if it's not different at all and it's actually super faithful, then you have to start going like, oh, wait, wait a second, wait, did, was the, was the

old stuff good? Okay. No, there are, just like a child. There's a selection of media that I enjoyed from the past that I have not reexamined that might not be worth reexamining because let's be real. Don't do it. Yeah, right? And I'm kind of like, I, there's a point obviously where we all are out where you're like,

You were nowhere near as critical about the media you were consuming, you know, however many years ago. But it was cool. You enjoyed it and that is what it is. And not everything needs to be. I beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which was the first game I ever saw credits on. And I was sitting next to my dad. And I was like, Dad, what's wrong with all these people's names? Wow.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that took a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're from Japan, Pat. Yeah. People have different names over there. I'm like, oh, okay.

Right? Like, that's the level of, like, child ignorance we're talking about with Shenmu. You just, it's just every once in a while, something comes back up from the past and you're kind of just like, you see it. You're like, wait, did this hold up? And it does or a movie? And you're like, yes, okay. It wasn't garbage the whole time.

You know, but that's not everything. And, like, I'm, I'm content to probably go to my grave, not looking at some of these things, you know, just let it. Let some of them we can let sit for a minute. But, you know, and the thing is too is unfortunately, like anything from the like fourth generation or so from the Super Nintendo Genesis era, you're like, ah, you know, it was a bunch of sprites and people were figuring out how to make games good for like, you know, the first times. No, no, because some of that shit's so good even now. Right, but then some of it's terrible, right? Yeah, some of it's like complete trash, dude.

But like the... Justice is not that good, but I love it. But the games that... No, but think about the games that are the most trash from the Super Nintendo Genesis era. They don't make you anywhere near as upset as the bad games from the PS2 era, which make you nowhere near as upset as the games from the 360 era. And current bad games are like life-ruiting, right? As the generations go on, you get more and more mad about how bad they are,

because they have less and less excuse, ultimately. And the tech is, you know... We had this feeling PlayStation 1 onward. And it got stronger for a while. We're like, man, this shit's the future. Isn't that crazy? And like that totally blinded everybody to like a bunch of like, oh wow, this thing actually sucks, though. It, it, it, sometimes it takes years.

Sometimes it takes a sequel coming out, you know. And then every once in a while you'll see the kind of thing where like a sequel will come out and then keep enough of the idea. It'll do the shovel night, right? It'll keep the spirit of what you remember. but then just make it better, you know? I feel like, you know, like a Metal Gear Solid One was doing that, right? If anyone loved the Metal Gear games, like this was taking enough of what you remember, but just actually throwing out a bunch and making a lot of that go smoothly

and adding in a bunch of really cool shit and references and music and all that getting better. Anyway, whatever. Choose carefully to re-examine your, you know, form. media or at the very least to proceed into the sequels. You know? Like I went back like last year or the year before I went back and was like, all right, I'm going to do Bioshock one and two. I'm going to Arcum, Asylum and Arkham City. And like three of those games held up really well.

And one fucking did not. And it was Bioshock 1. Oh man. That thing aged like shit. Yeah. You know what? Coming off of City as well and being like, oh yeah, I can appreciate what you were going for here. Yeah. I, I, I,

Biashok 1 is definitely a case of like me being thoroughly, thoroughly entertained by Baby's first libertarian, dystopian, dyn Rand story. Dude, James can mean something and then you later find out. Actually, it didn't mean anything at all. But like, I'm sitting there going, is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? Yeah, that was a, you know, when you see a topic or just, yeah, the novelty of doing it first carries a lot of fucking impact on release, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a thing to, you're the first open world game, even if the open world is garbage and

it's empty and hollow and there's no reason to ever go explore this full map. But look how big the map is. You know, and then you have, you have to watch that evolve into Just Cause 2, where it's a giant island that you can do fun parachute stunts on, but there's nothing in between this location and that location, but a generated forest of trees that has, like, it's empty, you know, just like, what the fuck is the point? Anyway, um, all right, there. I am yes so as to why I am in heaven well apparently that what's up with being dead I'm in New Brunswick I'm out here even further away I went towards the the other side of the coast so this is a truly trans-Canadian experience right now and yeah just out of town had some family business to take care of, had a funeral to attend and stuff is going on.

So while I'm out here, I decided to, you know, like we're also enjoying our first trip with baby. Isn't that fun? Yeah. I mean. Overnight trip with baby, that is to say, yeah. And look, we have been told certainly that like while the baby is a potato is the best time to travel. Did you fly?

Yes. Okay, then yes, you're correct. Because she's not going anywhere, right? Can't really get away from you. Yeah. Let me increase the heaven meter. There we go. And so, yeah, we got, we got a little punch kid on the plane and, you know, got to learn the ins and outs of like, wait a minute, does a stroller count as a check-in?

but can I use it to walk up to the gate? Yes. And it depends on what kind of stroller, right? Because some of them are like the super heavy duty all in one rolling cars that are strollers are like no. But the ones that you can carry them in where we have like the car seat attached. It's like, yeah, you can use that for example. Carrying the, carrying baby luggage stroller car. seat is like the hardest

like traversal experience I've ever had in my life. Turns out you just don't have enough arms, but too bad you need to bring all these things. I turned into sand bridges, basically. It's crazy. Yeah, I turned into sand bridges. I also found that like, um, I'm usually over prepared when I travel with stuff. I found ways to like pack too many things into smaller suitcases and be like, oh, I don't need any need that much.

And now I'm like, between this podcast set up and like a couple of T-shirts were like all I got. And I don't have enough, but the check-in was just all dedicated to the baby, you know. But no, I mean, honestly, like for all the preparation of like how much of a nightmare it would be, thankfully it was quite chill. Oh, yeah. The potato baby? Easy to handle. And I'm extra, I know that you can afford parents' grace in this type of situation, but I'm still just being like, I don't want to be the one who's ruining everyone's flight.

And I'm just thinking about it. I'm like, I'm just, I know. If so, if people are cool with it, that's cool. If they're not, I can't do anything about it. But in the meantime, I'm going to do my best to just make sure baby can be quiet and calm. And we can have a nice one. But you can't do much because, hey, that's how it goes, right? If it's going crazy, I'm going to practice my look back and shrug.

It's like, eh, you know. Let me tell you. Traveling with one and a half year old, don't. That's not the same thing. Just fucking don't. That's a moving little person. We're kind of out of the woods now because we're like on the right side of two and a half. And we have a person who can talk to us and we can read them books.

And they're like, oh, I like this book. And, you know, you can hold hands and wander out. But the one and a half year old only knows how to run to danger and freak out. Mm-hmm. Like, it's, it's the, between one and two is the absolute worst time to fly possible. So, I mean, I will say that, like, you know, at this age, it is, you don't get much control except for just like, okay, she's going to be going down for a nap on this rough time or so. fortunately it turns out one the sound of an airplane cabin is one big white noise machine yeah I love it I love the sound that is great I love it right this that the everything

going that just that high pitched air going through the cabin thing whatever really solid mute you know if baby's going to cry out to make noises a lot of that gets muted out and so that's that's a cool byproduct and then between that and uh i think i talked about it a little bit before but the little spinning light ball toy right just the little like bzz it's like when the one that that's that analog brain rot yep yep when when bart and lisa blow into their power rings their decoder rings it's just that and that shit just turns the cry off at least temporarily um you know and you're like especially because i i also remember during take off and landing. When I was a kid, I had huge problems with my ears popping.

Oh, I said my ears still pop pretty bad. Thank you. They don't anymore, you know, but it was, it was rough for me a lot of the time. You know, I particularly remember having a bad one with the Grenada flights, you know. But yeah, no, with her, it was cool. And we just, we used the little light thing to just distract and eyes were like, uh, you know. And then the problem, though, is that like the distracting light, eventually she can get used to that. So you have to keep like rotating it and keeping it interesting and like turning it off and on because the moment she goes, okay, I get it now. It's lights moving. Anyways, what's next? We're cooked. You know, but that toy kind of is just like, yeah, doing the heavy lifting there.

Can't do much about, you know, there's a car ride after that once we landed. So we had to go even further out there. And that's what, and it was, it was, you know, she struggled and had a rough go of that. But overall, you know, not too bad. It is one thing that's nice about like, I guess, yeah, the whole, I guess, traveling with a potato thing is like every room is new, every face is new, everything else is new. So she's kind of like super stimulated. She's in that like, whoa, whoa, whoa kind of phase, you know. Big eyes like, oh, like, poking. Taking, she's pogging all day, you know, which means you're like, okay, as long as we can get her down for her naps, we don't have to worry too much about like her getting.

fussy ahead of time or whatever. It's like, no, no, she's predictably overstimulated this entire time and we can like use that data, you know? Yeah, that's cool. What else is going on? I took advantage

coming out here. One of the things, I think I mentioned last time, I don't know if anyone will ever find themselves out in the on the east coast of Canada. And by that, I mean like the actual coastline area. But Dixie Lee is a brand of fried chicken out here that is fucking phenomenal. And it's particular, it seems like it's a particular hit with the Acadian people.

And I just want to co-sign and just underline like, you know, it's a bit of that thing where you're like, yo, I hear the like, you're like, okay, I like fried chicken. Fried chicken is good. Nice, original, you know, southern fried chicken is fantastic. And you're like, wait, Korean people are doing what with fried chicken? And then it's like, they're doing good things with that fried chicken. And you try it out. You're like, oh, fuck. Okay, Korea.

I see you. You know. And then Japan's got the Karagi going and you're like, okay, okay. I see what you're up to. You're going a little bit lighter on it. You get smaller pieces. But yeah, you know. And all of that.

And like I feel like this is another version where you're like, okay, you're doing fried chicken. You got the batter being like, it's not, it's like, it's not fully hard, like, crispy battered or so. There's a little bit of that like barbecue slickness to it. So it's somewhere in between and it's quite nice. So I'm going to co-sign a brand of chicken you can only get if you find yourself out here in the frozen wilderness for any reason. And the other thing you can do if you find yourself out here in the cold is so the heaven that you see behind me is actually.

a frozen lake. Cool. Right? And that is a lake that is very thick. And you can walk out onto it and people are grabbing their snowmobiles and doing their thing and join the... Wully? I do not want to get a phone call from your wife explaining that you are currently a Flintstones-style ice cube man. Under the lake.

I had many questions about the frozen lake, and I asked them. And as I was asking them, my discovery was that not only are snowmobiles going by on the frozen lake, but trucks, full trucks are driving out onto that lake is the level of frozen thickness we're talking about here. So I was like, oh, shit, okay, fine. I think I've been putting on a little bit of weight, but I think I'll be okay. All right, all right. If the truck is able to do it. And no, and sure enough, like what's set up out here, you know, shoutouts to dad-in-law who's got the, you know, that thing where the white people set up the tent and then they drill a hole and then they cut a hole out and then they go dip in the foot. That's not just white people, but yeah, I get it.

Ice fishing is for, yeah. Not fishing. Not fish, not ice fishing. That, that goes to many cultures to have done ice fishing. No, I'm talking about the one where you cut the fishing hole, but then you get in the hole. That's the polar plunge thing. Oh, that's the white people thing. That is, that is.

It's not like no one else can do it. Everyone's just like the white people doing this. That activity is hard limited to the Caucasus. okay until today right until I went to go

check it out and just see and look at see what's going on in the tent and I was like and it sucks and I was like

you know what fuck it fine right he actually had the heating going and extra towels

and everything set up and I was like whatever we'll get a story out of it I hope

the I hope the fucking podcast bits worth it. You know? And then, yeah, stripped out. Both of our minds are ruined by this concept. We're like, I don't want to watch this.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to go. Ah, fuck it, Monday. Oh. God damn. Yes. Yes. It is Monday and we need something to talk about.

And let me see if I can get the audio going. Oh, yeah. That's it. Breathe. Breathe. Slow it down. Oh, son of a bitch. But you're good, man.

You got 15 seconds. 20. All right. That's impressive, boy. I got, you in there, bro. I got a solid 30 seconds. You stupid motherfucker. I got a solid 30 seconds and then I got out.

Yeah, how was it? How was it? It sucks shit. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that. Okay, okay, okay. No, no. That is, hey, hey, hey, you, okay, first of all, everyone that you're hearing, boy, that's not in the boy, that's not a, not in the, not in the, not in the, that's second language, fucking francophone, anglophone, ah, come on.

The American Southern boy is not the same as the, the, the, the, up here, that's not, it's not, God, it's not, it's not, Jesus Christ. It's that, that's that's a boy, G. Boy, gosh. Don't you get it? All right. Anyway, moving on. Moving on. I got a good 30 seconds out of that. And, oh, wait, stop it, phone.

Thank you. That's not good for you, man. Apparently, it's, apparently the benefits are super incredible for you, actually. Yeah, I can pull up a tech talk for you right now about the benefits of drinking your aged piss. Sure, sure. And then, you know, Oscar de La Jolla or whatever. And then you get Wimhoff with the breathing and the dude that's like out on the mountain going and sitting in the ice and stuff. And it's like, to be fair, yeah, that dude can do it.

And the monks can do it. But who the fuck are you, Canadian, Jamaican, Canadian kid? Like, what the fuck you got? You know. You weren't set up like biologically or culturally for this nonsense. Not built, not built. But here's what I can. say though is that like yeah what okay you do it and then you fuck I I do feel I'm like I could have

pushed it further I don't know if it would have been at damage or detriment but like I think that there's a upper limit you can hit with it where it's like after three minutes there's no real benefits to doing it so if you can get up to that point minutes minutes minutes people do up to minutes. And that is where the maximum benefits you come from, at which point then you can, you know, the rest is just fucking achievement points, you know, on the leaderboard. And then you get out and then you walk back outside into the winter. And I'm like, oh, this isn't cold at all, which is cool.

But also like, if I was outside for a while, that would be the worrying thing where you're like, wait a minute. You don't want to be out in the cold with your body being like, I'm kind of hot. I'm kind of hot, actually. Your skin is fucked up and your whole shit is fucked up. It's like, have you ever, have you ever fallen asleep in the bath?

No, that's wild. I've felt like up the bath once, and it fucked up my shit for like a month. Sorry, false alarm. Don't worry about it. There's a, there's a, there's a fucking sidefell episode about this, but it also happened to me, falling asleep in

a hot bath and then it getting cold while you're in it, fucks your shit up so bad. Hold on. Do you take baths that like involve enough downtime that's falling asleep as possible? No, not anymore. But when I was much younger, yeah, I was like 10 years old. Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah, we just, I was a shower kid the whole, my whole life. Like that was it. Yeah, I took baths until I was like an adult and I switched showers. Okay. No, never, never did that. I mean, I have the classic of being like, if you just, if you're in the ocean or you're in the water too long, like your temperature gets fucked up, you know,

when you come out feeling weird. And then, yeah, for sure. For sure, once you get back inside after that, your body does that thing where you're like, oh, like, I feel like I'm high or I feel like there's like a natural something going on in a way. Yeah, it's because a bunch of your cells are dying. They're like, yo, yo, can you not kill me, please? Can you not? Hey, hey, I'll make you feel good if you don't do that again.

How about that? Yeah. No, it's the type of thing too where like you, like each day you do it and stuff, it gets a little bit easier and your body gets a little more used to it and stuff. So there's a whole bit, you know. I was so good in the morning after my game of Russian roulette with my pistol. I, ready to greet the day. I mean, as much as, you know, the expectation would be like this is a frostbite activation device. It turns out that, no, you know, it can.

be, it can be well controlled and if you, if you do it in a certain way, and you go through all the things, and you have a nice heating thing waiting for you on the other side of it. But yeah, I, I did not plan for that at all. I was just looking at it and I'm like, you're here, whatever, let's go, you know. And I mean, to be fair, like the person who got in right before me did five minutes, right? That's like. So, and again, every bit, after three, it's like, just extra, you know? So it was like, okay, like, put those points on the leaderboard. You're standing there and there's somebody who's in there for five minutes and like you, like you said, the aim is three.

Sorry about that. So like even if you wanted to back out now you're like, well, I can fucking get in for a little bit. This guy just did five minutes. There's a little bit of that in the air as well where you're just kind of like, okay pussy, get the fuck in the water. I'm old enough now that I look back. I'm like enormous parts of my life that were just ruled by like, you don't want anyone to think you're a fucking pussy. And now the thing is too is like I have done cold like the Scandinavian circuits, you know,

or whatever, where you do like a, whatever, a cold plunge and then like a hot thing, right? Like there'll be like a steam room or a sauna or whatever. or like a hot bath, a hot tub, and you go from one into the other and stuff. And like, I've done that before, you know, fun little, fun little activity if you want to have a little anniversary night or something. And your body does go from hot to cold and, or no, yeah, no, from hot to cold from cold to cold is what it is. That's what it is. And like, it feels really like, whoa, like, it feels really nice. And it opens your pores and those, all these things are whatever.

But nonetheless, with all of that understood, I continue to decree that this is an activity that is 100% exclusively locked to the Caucasus. And that has not changed. Those mountains are cold. Yeah. I saw, I mean, Jesus Christ, I mean, the shit they're doing out there, you know, they have, I saw things where they're like, oh, you want to talk about like babies and how comfortable there are in different temperatures. check out these Scandinavian countries where they put the baby outside in the winter and they just have the baby wrapped up in like a ton of layers and they put the little you know fuzzy thing out here so the wind is not really cracking in

and then they just put them outside in the blizzard and it's like yeah no they're chilling they're loving it and you're just like what what like what do you why like is that uh yeah i don't know you know is maybe that that's how you form the Scandinavian personality you know that's how you that's how you form this the stoic attitude

oh shit yeah anyways I mean yeah that that that that that shit would like I saw like there's a video where they're like they just they go out in a blizzard

to like a little like box and through the they pull out from the snow this package and then they open the package and then it's just a baby like hey what's up I'm chilling looking just in the with under like yeah we put the baby outside like like like like recycling you know anyway um I think uh I think punch girl will will have her time to get used to uh Canadian winters but but for now we're we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna forego our steps it's that's it um

Beyond that, not much else except, yeah, just, you know, played a little bit, got a little bit further into Cull to the Lamb. And fucking just, that just is a really solid loop, man. So fascinating how talking to you, I hate those fucking villagers. I hate them so much, dude. Like, I'm actively angry at them every time they do literally anything. That's funny. It's fucking crazy. I've decided to, I actually like got caught up and I spent way more time in the village for a while instead of going back out.

That happens like in between one and two and two and three where you spend like multiple days building shit up. So I took like I took out two bosses and then, you know, which is like minimum eight runs or so. And then, you know, they give you the couple of the extra locations to go visit. And I did some of those. and like that there's enough possibilities of new things to open up by just spending time in the village that I more or less pushed my cult up to cult level four yeah like that's exactly exactly what I just did interesting okay okay yeah and it the third the third bosses dungeon is way harder than the first two and you start hitting like you have like 20 guys and it's like hey they need a lot of food and they also don't lock the doors behind numbers that are that high. So it's like the first one's like five and then, or three or I forget what the first one is.

But like whatever the number is, the second one was like seven. And then I think the third one's like 12. So you really don't need that many villagers. You can get, you can open all four doors almost right away. And I feel like if they wanted to like stagger this to be like, no,

your cult level four only comes when you, you're far in, you know, they would have been like, yeah, get 20 before you can open this next door. or whatever, you know. Well, it starts getting harder and harder to get more and more, right?

Like the jump from like five to ten, no problem. The jump from 10 to 15, it's a little tough. When I got up to like 22 villagers, I ran into the issue is that they were like dying. Yeah. Faster than I was replacing them. Right, right, right. And what can you do about that? Right?

Well, there's some options. You also get to, you also like, I don't know, are you like, what, for, at, For a while, I was using the missionaries to go out and get like, I'm like, oh, fuck, I'm really low on wood. Oh, fuck, I'm really low on gold or whatever. The first two missionaries I sent out fucking died. Yeah, yeah. No more of that. Oh, really?

Okay. I've been doing it because I had good luck with the first couple. And I have resurrection, so I am not too concerned about it. But they came back and now my resources are like overstocked. I'm like super good on all of that. So I'm just kind of like, can you go get more members, you know? And those are like the highest requirement ones, like the percentage of chance of failure is the highest. But, you know, if you set up the, if you set up a resurrection cult, right?

Or one where they don't particularly mind like you fucking, if you have, if you have things where it's like, what was it? you can choose marriage or sacrificial fight pit. And I'm like, guess I'll have to find out what marriage is like on my second run through the game. You know, because here you go. Oh, are you an old member of the cult that is no longer useful in any way, shape, or form? And actually, everyone gets bummed out when you die of natural causes because they want you to be sacrificed. get in the ring. God bless the ring.

Right. So that that kind of like little sequence is a lot of fun. So like those things are not balanced at all and sometimes I regret the ones that I picked. But once you get into the post game, you can get an unlock material to eventually get all doctrines.

Oh nice. Okay. Okay. Because yeah, the either or on some of them is like, I'm like, you know, I'm like, do I want a bonus when people eat like food or would I rather just be able to feed them grass? Yeah, and I'm like, I'll just do the grass thing just in case it gets bad, you know, or whatever. Or there's that one. It really seems to be the difference between a strong active option and a very mitigated passive option that just makes it like not as bad. Yeah.

Um, because I mean like even the stuff now where it's like, oh, do you want to brainwash them and, um, make them, put them on a fast, you know, or whatever where they're just like immune for a couple days. Okay, that's cool. The last one is really, really fucking strong. Yeah. So, no, but, but like, it's way better than the banquet one. But I haven't been struggling with feeding them in a minute now, you know? So I'm like, only if they, when they ask for it, I'll turn it on. but I've been able to go out for a while and come back and like, you know, there's enough between the level two farms and stuff for them to, for the cooking and stuff.

Like, it's not that bad, you know. Anyways, yeah, I, last time we were talking about how it was like 50-50 farming and, you know, exploring and fighting and stuff. And I feel like I just threw my own volition, turned that into like 80-20, you know. Yeah, because it is 50-50. It's just sometimes I sat down and I did five runs. Like, because I did the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I did, like, five days of runs in a row. Mm-hmm. And then I went back and did, like, nothing but cult slash village shit for the entire rest of the evening, because I had all these resources I needed to build.

Um, um, yeah, and then, like, getting the return to home buff, getting the start with four random cards and that's all you get, but that's fine, buff. And then just. That the, the, the, the, the, that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. All the places that are like, spend $100 to buy cards or decorations and, you know, all those, all the extra locations. I'm like, I'm broke. I'm always broke. Really? It's like by far the most limiting factor.

I should probably just sell some things. So that's what I was going to say. So literally, just go fish, get some swordfish and sell them. They sell for $20. And also, you get $20 for every swordfish you sell. and if you do the runs where you know you go into the church with the lady who gives you your your L2 power up, your L1 power up or whatever, you're super. Yeah.

So if you smash the bodies in that room, you get cult meet, you get follower meat, and follower meets a sense for 10 bucks a pop. Ah, I see. So literally every time you do one of those rooms, destroy everything in it and you get a ton of money in addition to in addition to getting fishing money as well plus plus if you got the

did you do the bounty of the sea ritual I haven't finished it now okay so if you do the food rituals there's one where you can choose between like harvesting the land or whatever or like bounty of the sea and the sea one which is a big deal is like it makes you catch

twice as many fish a multiple variety of fish and the fish you catch are higher value and you can cook better things with them or sell the rare ones for tons of money. So that solves your money problems. You know, so I go into every... I should probably just tax them more.

I haven't put it... Oh, individually doing the rotation. I don't even bother with that anymore. I just do this, you know? And walking into a room and having the 50 bucks to just reclaim the last item I cleared with every time, worth it. I want my hammer.

My hammer is stupid strong. Like, I am, I'm hitting, I'm using that buffed up hammer, like level 14 or whatever it's at, where you hit a boss and it disappears into phase two immediately. And then it comes back and you hit it and it disappears into phase three. Like, it's a joke, you know? So, yeah, fun game again. And I can feel too as well that I'm like, okay, at this, unless they really throw like massive difficulty spikes into the works here, it's like, I'm coming around the bend a little bit. So I wouldn't mind slowing it down and like maxing out this this cult and seeing like if you can push past it and break it. Now there is postgame stuff.

So now that you beat the, you know, two guys, you can go back and run their dungeons again. And then there's a there's like a set of modifiers. And basically your postgame rogue like of you would expect after you beat the one who waits below. And the main thing is that that will rotate in its own post game loop. But then separately from that is Woolhaven, which is the expansion. Which is two new areas and also has its own post-game loop. Okay. Which has new stuff for the cult stuff as well.

You saw there's a tab for Woolhaven items. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that includes like animal breeding and stuff like that. Oh my God, I can't believe you fight the wall. who waits below. Iced, man. Like they have a spot on the, on the level left. You load your save and it shows you the five icons.

It literally shows you, yeah. So that's it. I'm enjoying that. That's good shit. And yeah, this week, obviously, I will not be around tomorrow, but I will be back on. Wednesday and we're going to be doing a special stream. It's going to be, I think, I think I can say at this point.

I'm going to be playing the new platform fighter combo devils, which is going to, we're going to be joined by one of the devs on that. And my friend, Reggie's friend that introduced me to Ned as well, who came to help me with Rivals of Aeth. is going to come back on the couch too. And yeah, we're going to check out this new platform fighter. It's one that has a lot of bones from, you know, traditional fighting games in addition to the smash stuff going on. So from taking a look at it seems pretty cool.

I would say this has some smash bones on it. Yeah. One of those bones being like if you, you don't, like if you beat your opponent up long enough, they just die. Even if you don't knock them off. the stage. Yeah. Just fight.

Seeing a wolf that just did a motherfucking shore you can. Sure. Shane. Exactly. So the fact that there is a life bar period is already like, oh, okay. Cool. Interesting. Having both of those in my mind is now like, oh, wait, why didn't they do that?

Why didn't they ever have both HB and smash? Like Soul Calibur did, you know? There's a ring out. Virtual fighter. God, remember just PlayStation All-Stars? you can only die from a super like just the absolute

dumbest possible design decision because now your ability to play and win at all is locked behind how good your super is like what if your super is just garbage I was literally about to just say this like everybody had three supers and like the entirety of that game's tier list

everything about it was boiled down to three moot like everything about your character was just boiled down irrelevant there was nothing other, nothing else at all other than three moves. It's crazy. Some people had good supers at level one and they were the best characters by

a country fucking mile. You know, it's like, yeah, you have amazing buttons. You can do all the damage. You're fastest. You're incredible. Whatever. All your super's are, your super suck. Okay, guess you'll never, you will never win. You will literally never win the game. It is impossible. Horrible design.

So that's going to be, yeah, that's going to be the plan for this week. And I think some other stuff after that, but I'll announce it on my socials. So got to see how things are going in the meantime. But stay tuned for that, at least on Wednesday. I'm going to be playing some combo devils and break it down what's going on as that game is going to be, you know, you're going to be hearing about it a little bit more in the future.

That's it. Wully versus on Twitch and YouTube. What's going on? So I'm continuing on with Star Dew Valley. I'm almost at the end of the first year. And that game just has way more going on than I thought it did. Like I thought it was a cute little farm game. And then like every session that I sit down,

I encounter like a new mechanic. Are you just encountering the updates made over the course of a decade? Not yet, I don't think. There's just a lot. It's just like, it's ridiculous. That's one of the best games for me. Jesus Christ. It's so, it's so amazing.

It's unbelievable. Wow. Okay. It's what you needed at your life in this moment right now. Yeah. Right? Because that's what these games are for. They're for scratching a particular itch at a particular moment in time.

It's not always Star Doe Valley time. But when it is, yeah, that hits. I get it. I can easily see how people can blow like 300 hours on a safe file. and then turn around and go, I'd like to start a new farm, but this time I'll start the fishing layout farm and just take a slightly different path there.

Like the day-to-day loop and satisfaction is so high. It's unbelievable. Like, it's, like I look at all the games that have stolen from it and like the entire automation and farming genre that has sprung from it. And I'm like, man, I like a lot of parts still.

But are you just... Still trying to catch up. But like when you say that, are you just, the previous sentence, are you just describing that like, the particular like ball tickle it gives you when you, you know, collect all the things and take care of your crop and,

you know, do a round thing is just like, oh, it just feels nice in the particular way. So it's a number of things. One, the, there's three parts to it.

One is the actual, like, appropriate of like the sound effect, the timing, a thousand dollar word. The sound effect, the timing,

the music, the presentation, the inventory, the item stacks, the noise it makes when you pick up items. Like the act of chopping a tree in Stardue Valley

feels about as good as like fighting an enemy in like most normal. Right? On top of that is it's hooks into progression in which like, yes,

I've been tending this this this pumpkin crop for 13 fucking days and oh it's harvest day oh and then you dump it all to the bin and then at the end of the day when you save your game then it gives you the ticker but then you take all that money and you just immediately reinvest it in like more sprinklers more fruit like better tools etc and it has just this excellent progression through its own meta system and on top of that is the day-to-day loop is the perfect amount of time days take 10 to 15 minutes every day. And so there is always a tangible benefit to, you go through a full gameplay loop

in 10 to 15 minutes over and over and over and over and over again. And each loop has something of value to its progression and has a good presentation and a good gameplay feel and has an excellent aesthetic and musical accompaniment. It's like he just nailed like multiple parts of the formula right away on try one. It's kind of amazing how it's remarkable that we'll like sit here and like shit on games that are just like not barely games that play themselves for you that are just a complete, you know, waste of your time. But if you make a game where you have to do it all manually and then slowly turn it into a game that plays itself for you, that makes all the difference in the world. You earn the auto play. It comes late.

Like automating any particular part of the process comes really, really, really, really, really late. You have enough money to make massive crop fields, and you can have dinkly little sprinklers. Right? By the time you get decent sprinklers, you're dealing with like the fucking whole stress your farm and you're still watering it. It's a long, long. time before I like I am about to make good sprinklers like like next stream and Star Doe Valley has 43 hours on it okay like in the automating watering the crops will be next stream at hour 44 and 45 so it makes it very easy to expand horizontally but vertical is really, really steep. Yeah.

And the way that I got the materials for those sprinklers is that I found the desert dungeon and then got really lucky on a given day and fucking fought my ass off getting down to the caves to get a bunch of the mineral that I can only get because I spent a ton of

time in the other mines getting gold bars to level up my pickax. And so like each of the different pieces feeds into all the different other pieces. It's just incredible. Oh, God. It's like, like the easiest recommend of a game I think I can make because it's also not hard and there's no actual pressure.

I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think you have to recommend Stardu fucking Valley to people. I think they know. It's good though. It's good though. It's out there. It's like, oh, whatever baby little farming game. It's like it's, it's kind of the best.

But it will be a little farming game that you've been playing pieces of in everything else, everything that's doing any kind of like farmsteading, you know, section. Yeah, it is definitely one of those things. It is, it is more than some of its parts. Like it is a very basic dungeon crawler. It is a, like the actual tending of your farm and the crops is fairly simple. The items that you get are clear. and easy to understand and not crazy. But the way that they all loop into each other

and the rates at which they unlock and progress is just perfectly tuned. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, like, again, even the fact that like a game like Ball X Pitt, you know, is like, hey, we'll just throw a version of this in there. And, you know, I found myself spending a lot of time on it, you know. I don't need it to exist because, like, games like Hades, for example,

where going back to base, there's a couple things to do, but it's really just prep for going back out and doing the next run. Right? Like, spending money on the decorations and shit is like, who the fuck? Personally, I spent nothing on any of those cosmetics.

You know what? Yeah, Stardu is Hades in reverse. The only reason you're going out to do a dungeon run is so you can get the materials and shit in order to actually build them. better. Yeah, yeah, you know, the little you can do with Hades is just like, why even bother? You can use that same currency to get some real cool shit that's actually going to affect your game, you know?

And also, like the decorations slash building and slash landscaping stuff makes a lot more sense than something like Stardu, where it has no like practical purpose whatsoever. Very similar to there's no practical purpose in like Holt of the Lamb to put decorations for most reasons. Sometimes people have tests to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? But like I got like livestock. I got like goats. I sorry, I got goats and cows and chickens and and ducks, right? And like, I could just let them roam around for wherever. And I'm like, this looks like fucking shit. So I built them a fence. They don't need a fucking fence. I could just let them fucking go wherever. But it looks like shit having the fucking cows just wander around through my crops and all that bullshit. So you guys get fenced in. Also, like in Cult of the Lamb, three out of four things you unlock inside of a check. are just texture patterns for the floor. Like, there's so fucking many of them that they're like, no, no, no, we really want you to care about the cosmetics on this.

I don't care about the cosmetics. I really don't. I mean, I like, I bring them back to life as I can kill them again later. You know, there's the one, there's the games where it's like, oh, like, you get like a cosmetic that lets you see,

um, your stats on your last run or something or whatever. Like, stuff like that in like, Katie's or whatever. It's like, yeah, okay, that's, that's fine. That serves a function.

Although it is pretty sick. I do have to say, when you get a item, a cosmetic totem that is like, uh, um, after you kill a boss, you,

you can put like, basically like their head on like a, you know, you know, yeah, because that's straight up some jingus con shit where it's like, I've put like paintings of me conquering my enemies in the room before you come meet me. So like,

you walk into the church and you have to look at all my bounty before you come see me. It's like, okay, okay, I get that. Um, Cool. Yep. So, Sardu's kind of the best still. I played some back-a-lock games.

Let's see. The only one I really want to talk about is Karimara beneath the forlorn limbs. Words, words, things. I'm going to, just Karimara, C-A-R-I-M-A. That's with a C-A-W-A. Yeah. I would go with a Japanese. he's spelling on a guess.

Interesting. Yeah. Karimar beneath the Forlorn Limbs. It is a grimy-ass old PlayStation 1 aesthetic, short Ace Attorney game in like a haunted woods. It's like 90 minutes long. I accidentally beat it on Beat the Backlog. Okay. It's fucking awesome.

that's it there's not there's not enough in it to talk about it more other than like just giving the whole game away and it's quite short but it's it's fantastic interesting okay are you like going to Steam and clicking

the PS1 aesthetic like tag? No okay no no these are all user submissions okay true we are about 70% set of them are user submissions. Sure, true.

One that was not a user submission was that I've been playing the Neo3 demo. So I played Neo 1, got a little bit in, bounced off. I played Neo 2, got much further in and bounced off. And now Neo 3 is here. And Neo 3 is the one for me. Okay. I mean, the quality of life has surely hit the absolute zenith. So Neo 3 is significantly different in a number of ways.

And the number one way is that is the Eldon Ring of Neo games. It is finally, the thing I've wanted from Neo for a long, long time, which is I want an open, explorable space that's interconnected instead of multiple loaded areas. The super, super strict levels. Also, the feature creep slash quality of life creep has hit like anxiety inducing proportions. There was one of the streams that I did of it where every 10 minutes I got like a splash page of like a new mechanic. And I just started like yelling like, stop. Stop!

Is Neo the most, like, not successful, but I guess, like, advanced alternate souls. Easily. Series, right? It is significantly more advanced than. It started, it started as a Soulslike. It started as a Soulslike, and then it just branched on its own path and just fucking kept going and has not stopped since. Yeah. I don't think anything else has come close.

you start up Neo3 and the first thing that they hit you with is their brand new primary mechanic is there are now samurai and ninja modes and you switch between samurai and ninja by tapping R2 samurai includes

Samurai sword Odachi X, spear switchglave fists and tonfa's I think Ninja is Kasari Gamma Dual swords Ninja katana

All the little shit Yeah Et cetera etc Right And I'm imagining Projectiles and archery As well Yeah

So you have samurai mode And ninja mode Samurai mode is Neo 1 and 2 Where you have your three stances And you have your key pulse And all the stuff That you expect playing from those games Ninja mode is a completely

different character that doesn't have stances. Instead, it does more damage hitting enemies from behind. They jump hard. So first of all, there's a jump and a double jump. They jump higher. They sneak faster.

And on top of that, instead of key pulsing, they have a dash that has invincibility and leaves an after image of you so that the monster attacks it for a second so you can hit them in the back. And doing damage

with anything builds up your ninjitsu items for free, which you can just now use instead of your stances. Oh, do you sacrifice the other scrolls that you used? I forgot what they're called, but because there's ninjitsu. Yeah, yeah, can you still use those? Okay. No, if you're about to say, do you still have, yes. Wow.

Whatever you think about Neo and ask, do you still have it? Yes. It's just a different character. Okay. So you just tap R2 and you go from Samurai to Ninja and back instantly. It's like 40 frames. It's instantaneous. They both have completely different equipment sets.

You are now running double the equipment. Wait, you switch to a second set you're wearing? Yes, you're switching to the ninja equipment. Whoa. Okay. Well, yeah, okay. A different build is. You have two builds.

crazy. Lute vomit is nuts. Um, right? So do, okay. Now, does this imply that there are sections where you must be in one or the other? No. No, the game is overwhelmingly just fucking do whatever, man. All bosses and scenarios can be done one or the other. Yeah. There's only one thing that really, really, really, really strongly suggests it. When you hit R2, your character does like a little spin to change.

from Samurai to Ninja and back. You know those gigantic red attacks from Neo2? Like the unblockable. Unblockables, yeah. Yeah. So instead of the, there was like a yoki burst thing where you had a special counter, it was like either an armored hit or like a parry in the second game. Using your spirit.

Yeah, now it's a pure yoka. Now it's a pure peri. And if you switch to your other class when the red attack hits you, you will do a guaranteed counterattack and fully level up your stamina and be empowered for a second. So you'll be fighting the boss and then the boss will hit you with a big red attack. And if you parry, you're like, well, I'm fighting him as a ninja now. Style switch parrises. And you can switch back if you feel like it at any time.

But the switch over is now buffed. Yeah. Also, when you're doing any damage, you build up your ninja items for free. and if you're doing any damage also you build up your samurai meter for free which gives you a huge amount of damage on your triangle attack so switching between the two

is the intended experience but if you hate that and you're like no I want to play samurai the whole way through you can go in the options and make it so that that doesn't automatically switch you it's just the parry if to hold it down to switch you Jesus Christ okay

but weapons are still limited to their modes. So the weapons are now split in half. Some weapons are samurai mode and keep all their stances. Some weapons are ninja mechanics and have lost their stances, but have gained entirely new movesets for this game, which many of them include jumping because they can jump and double jump, which means like, for example, the dual swords, or maybe it's the regular ninja sword, has a launcher.

Okay. Didn't have a fucking launcher before. Now it has a launcher. So you lose your stances in ninja mode, but you gain access to completely new movesets. Because I'm a big on Kasari Gamma. Love that shit. Dope as hell. I was using that for a while.

Yeah. And range doesn't hurt. But not having, I guess, the three stances of it would be, it feels like a little more limiting. Plus, I kind of would still want heavier spells for other stuff. So, like a samurai using that weapon was not. bad for me but I guess if this is like do more stealth play

it's used to it's a different like move set like it's a unified kisurigami move set that it has all of the abilities that it used to have the special ones

integrated into its basic one but it also has weird ninja shit so for example the ninja move set has enemy step okay which is not something

you can add in the yeah yeah yeah Okay, because I was going to say like, I guess this is a bit like, you know, rocking a great sword or doing a decks build, you know, but like going further. Now you have access to, like, say I was running Odachi and Kassarigama. I now have Odachi with high, medium, and low stance and all of its moves and Kusari Gamma with all of the unique ninja moves and ninja skills like Shuriken and bombs and Kaltro. and shit like that.

And you now also get to equip Soul cores that drop from monsters in the Yin or Yang area. And if you equip them in the Ying, they become the old Omniospells, which are like fucking buff your attack or shoot shockwaves out of your goddamn swords or cure poison.

And if you equip them on the Yang equipment, they become summons like goddamn Eldon. ring. Oh shit. Okay. Spirit ashes. So they're not around for long. They only do like one or two attacks, but you can use them a bunch of times. Wow. So you have all these and you might think, wow, what with all this goddamn shit? The equipment nightmare must be completely out of fucking control. No. So you click in right, you click in R3 on Samurai and it goes, what agility, what role do you want? And you go, I want the B level roll.

And it goes, okay. And it auto-equips every single item in your inventory to hit the B-roll. And it factors in set bonuses. So I was looking at a weapon, and I'm like, why is it equipping this weapon, even though this weapon is weaker than the other Odachi? And it's because the set bonus it has with the other model system automatically equipped. Fucking amazing.

So until like new game plus. Okay. ...it is whatever. Just keep using it. Okay, so hold up. I also have auto item pickup on, and then you go to the options and have auto dismantle or auto sell everything that's white or yellow or white, so you only keep blues. And then I went to the hub and walked up and walked up to the full transmog.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. just said, and it wasn't like, hey, do you want to transmog this, this, you know, sword onto this sword? It's like, you have picked up this sword. You can now choose to make every sort. Anything look like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you picked up this helmet? You can now just automatically just have that be your cosmetic helmet forever.

Okay. If you're doing this and you have two sets of moves and armor and weapons and everything, though, when you're building your stats, when you're leveling up, if I'm building a strength build for like my heavy sword, but then my ninja weapon is something else completely different. It uses different stats. That's such a good point that you're making. That's such a good point. Then what do you do?

So when you're, what you remember back in Neo wanted to on like heart? We would say like good for Odachis or whatever, right? Yes. But it was right. So now there's a, there's a picture of every weapon in the game in a little box underneath your stats. And the ones you have equipped are.

highlighted in red and when you are on a stat, all the weapons that benefit from that stat are yellow. So you can look at the little red highlights and then go, oh, these are the stats that I should use. But you know what, Wully, if you fucked up, that's fine. Click in R3 on the stat page and it just instantly refunds every stat point you've used in the game to be used at any time from literally the very first shrine in the game. Same thing with all of the skill points. Respec is completely free. It's completely instantaneous and free. Jesus Christ.

And you know what, Woolly? You know what, Willie? Wow. Let's say you have your whole build built up for like double swords, but you found like an Odachi you really want, but you don't want to change your build. Well, if you find an Odachi that's plus one, you can use materials you have from dismantling stuff

and just go in and just change the three stats that scales with the drop-down menu. Just say, I wanted to scale with magic and skill and heart. So every time you sit at a bonfire, basically, you can just build another character. You just redo the whole fucking thing. Fuck. Wow, these games are nuts.

Oh, my God. Wow. They just do it. Okay. And like, it's also like it's everything that those are, other games had and now they are also adding in like a full extra ring of skills on every single weapon and yada yada but like more important than all of that and like this is this really matter to me a lot when you start the game they give you hey what weapon do you want and you pick a weapon right

and they go what ninja weapon do you want and you pick a weapon right and then they don't let you unlock the stances for hours like you're stuck on medium stance for multiple hours and you have to choose to unlock it out of the skill tree. And that change alone meant I could focus on learning how to fucking play Neo for hours. Instead of the move set being like too much to take in. Well, because like flux, which is switch stances on on key pulse is one of the first things that are unlocked in those other games. And it just adds like a lot of mental pressure. So, okay, I didn't mind it.

But what I ended up doing was I would basically. like get the three stands like I'd lab the move set and go all right I'm gonna probably stick with this one with this weapon most of the time you know and and like and I like occasionally you might be like oh this is good for this situation but I would just kind of like go this this sword this dance and then I'm forgetting the others you know but yeah okay that's that's that satisfies it when you're unarmed are you unarmed samurai or unarmed ninja there's There's a fist weapon, but there's no unarmed. And the fist weapon is a part of the samurai? Yeah, the fist weapon is the samurai. Keeps all the three stances. Yeah, okay. On top of that, so I've been playing the demo.

I have, let's see, one hour, two, three and a half, five and a half, seven and a half hours on the Neo3 demo. I beat it at like 1.30 in the morning last night. Oh yeah, you were playing a demo. So this is all like not even full game. Yeah, okay. So it's one of those demos that is like the first bit of the full game, right? And the demo is to like I did all the activities on it. I did all of that stuff.

Took me about eight hours, which is pretty extreme. I also missed things. there's some collectibles that I missed out on, as well as there's a type of weapon you... Okay, so the map structure is open, like Eldon Ring, right? Mm-hmm.

And it includes little areas that you would, like, you know, just wander around in monsters and hidden caves and shit like that, right? So what they do is, remember how annoying finding Kodamas and collectibles in Nia were? Like, it was kind of a nightmare a lot of the time.

So say you find a Kodomah, You find it, and then it says exploration level increased. And the map is designated into these smaller zones. And as you find hidden bosses, as you find little challenge gauntlets, as you find the Kodama guys to get more health at the shrines, your exploration level goes up and goes up and goes up. And at level one, it's nothing. At level two, it shows you the terrain of the whole map.

At level three, it shows you all of the activities. on the whole map. And at level four, it shows you all the collectibles on the whole map. So the first entrance into any given area is I'm wandering around and just doing whatever. And then I'll wander around and do whatever. And then I'll unlock

the full terrain. And then I'll see, there's a town there, there's a tower there, there's this. And then I'll do that. And then it'll go, oh, there's a gauntlet you missed over here. And there's a spirit vein you missed over there. And then I do that and do that. And then by the end of that process, I will have gotten 60, 70,

percent of the zone and then it pops and goes okay there's a Kadama you missed here there's a boss you missed here that's that and it just flows really well and then you go into your Neo's legacy dungeon equivalent which is called a crucible

and it is it is a the dungeons have unique mechanics associated with them which is enemies do permanent life damage on hit in the legacy dungeon equivalent.

Wow. Okay. They are much more complicated. And on top of that, there's weapons you can only get out of them, which are called crucible weapons. I'll get to that in a second. Which are unique weapons that have moves.

You can only learn off the weapons. The specific. Yeah. So like the same, regular ass, Samurai Samurai Sword has a move called severing spin where you do a bunch of sword moves and then sheath it and the judgment cut comes out all around your character and you can only learn that by using that weapon

until familiarity is maxed and then it will be unlocked for everything forever. Which might have been a random drop weapon? Yeah, they're random drops, yeah. Oh my, oh, geez, okay, that does not sound good actually. That sounds kind of terrifying. Oh, it's awesome. I got like 30 of them from one run of the dungeon. engine. And then once you

But they're RNG. Yeah. I mean, because we're talking about the part of the game you hated as much was just picking up all the different, basically dealing with the equipment. No, the dealing with the equipment is the part that always bothered me was not getting

cool items. The problem I always have with the equipment is going into the equipment screen and loading up your entire build per piece, per weight, per passive. It's infuriating. Okay. Right. But when you're talking about a weapon

that drops has a giant red icon next to it that says this has a new move you haven't learned. Yeah, that's cool. Okay. I mean, I'm just thinking of well, in most cases, like, you know, even playing fucking Transformers platinum where it's like, here's the

purple Optimus Prime gun and sit. And I'm like, yeah, I, So in one run of that dungeon, I got like almost, I want to say it's 15 to 30. I didn't count them of these things that covered like dozens of different moves. And that was in like the natural trip to the dungeon. Okay. Because I didn't, I've never had any, like I said, when we're talking about Neo and previously

and stuff like, I'm like, I'm totally fine with most of those systems. I just was able to not give a fuck about a bunch of the extra features. But as soon as I know there's a unique move on a unique weapon that you have a chance of finding, but you might not. It puts all the little wrong goblins into activated mode where I go, oh, come on now. I know multiple of each weapon and each of them had a different move associated with them. Okay. And actually learning and locking those moves would probably take a while. Okay.

Because I'm thinking, like, if I'm someone who, like I said, I like my Garragama, and if there's a particularly cool Kasari Gama's move I want to pick. Do I have to go farm for that, you know? Or is it... No, no, it's the opposite. It's the opposite thing is you go through the dungeon and you end up with a massive glut of new moves you can learn. Okay.

You're like, cool. Which one? Okay. As long as you don't look up what are all the crucible moves for Kasari Gama, right? Okay. I want that one. You're completely fine because you'll just get a bunch of them as the game goes on. But if you look up on the wiki, what are all the crucible moves for Krasarigama and go,

oh man, I desperately want hook and catch or whatever the fuck it would be called, and then be upset that you don't get it for the whole game? That would be disastrous. Okay, because I'm thinking of like Eldon Ring ashes essentially, but just, what if you didn't always find the one in the place that you're, you know what I mean? Because like sometimes, sometimes you, yeah, you get a good drop a good enemy or whatever, but a lot of the time you're like, no, well, I found fucking bloodhound step here and did this or whatever the cases. So, okay. Hmm.

So the game story is nonsense. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like crazy nonsense. And you're playing as your own character again, right? Like, we're done with, we're done with William fully forever. You're done with the Oni guy. Now you're playing the air to the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Tokunawa. Okay. Your brother betrays you and goes to kill you, and for some reason you travel like 50 years back into the past, and then different open worlds will be different time periods. Okay, look, I know I was given explicit permission by chat and everybody to just skip from where I was in Neo1 to the future. And I kind of was like,

but I just want to know one, what the, what is even going on with the rest of the story? And two, if there's any cool bosses towards the end of the game. I was like, I was kind of like, what if there's some cool bosses towards? So I was really riding through Neo1

and I ended up putting it down for about a year now. And I'm like, yeah, throw that shit away. Played me. Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter. Each game doesn't require the last game.

All of them feature time travel to some degree. No, wait, two and three have time travel. Bro, here's what. happened in Neo3, okay? Your brother betrays you and tries to kill you because he wants to be the Shogun and you travel back in time and your little cat guy says huh weird, we must have traveled back in time.

And then I went on social media after I beat the demo and was like, why did we travel back in time? And no one has an answer for me. Okay. It's not clear from the entire demo area as to why you would even travel back in time. It doesn't matter. It's to

see a bunch of historical Japanese figures be cool boss fights. Yeah. No, and I kind of, that's it. Like, you know, I was kind of like, just, I'm like, okay, let me just hang on. Let me see. Eventually I'll see some cool Yaske shit, you know, get that bear out and so on. And I was, I was chipping away at it in the background, you know, like, I wouldn't always bring it up to talk about. But I was kind of like going back, just giving it a little bit.

But like, I mean, I might blow, I'm going. Just play this one if you want to. Am I going right past two straight here? I mean, like. Yeah, why not? Why not? These are, no, seriously. These are very iterative games.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. I know. And I love everything about... Kind of suck ass. What I've touched. Hmm.

Also had a wonderful experience playing the demo. And then I'm like playing the demo and I look over and CoA Tecmo America is in the chat. And I'm like, yo. And I'm like, yo. And they're like sent you a code. Check your DMs. Oh. Okay.

And I'm like, yo. Okay, okay. So tonight and tomorrow and Wednesday, I'm going to be playing the full game past the demo Before the game comes out. Save file. Save file continues. Preserved, yeah, okay.

Good shit. Make sure to go down to twitch.tv. com slash Pat Stairs at and YouTube.com slash Pat Stairs at. It's going to be 9 p.m. Pacific tonight. It's going to be tomorrow afternoon before fallout. And it's going to be Thursday.

The day the game launches, we'll be going forward and playing the full game of Neo 3. Yo. So thank you. Co-A. Techmo America. Yo! More like you.

Someone says, isn't that just spoiling it for anybody who wants to buy it? I mean, you don't have to watch it if you don't want to. Also, I have a... It's fucking Neo, though. Men? I have a really, I'm going to look into the camera. So I have my embargo details about how far I can play up to, right, before the full launch of the game. I have a sneaking suspicion.

That game is disgustingly massive. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And most of that is based off of the eight-hour demo they put out. That's fucking huge. Hey, you jumping on a horse or anything for that open world? No, you just run faster. You unlock the ability to Narato run.

Okay. Like you run and then after a little bit you start running really fast in your Narato running. Oh, um, night rain. Just puffing it. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, so the demo is available now if you want to play it. The demo is super weird.

The demo's progress carries over to the full game. And if you beat the final boss of the demo, you get a guaranteed item. in the full game that would otherwise be a rare drop. I beat the final boss of the demo on my first try because I'm fucking awesome and I need to go make fun of KZ about it actually. They said that people who said that boss was easier insane. And I beat it on my first fucking try. So, ha. I guess I'm nuts.

So progress carries over. The demo will go away on February 15th, 10 days after the game's launch. And if you boot the real game and it reads your same. file once the demo will lock itself out for you forever forever yeah which is super fucking weird that's funny super strange that's funny okay

not gone fuck you um but the demo's huge it is it is like a full like it's a short full game okay awesome and you can go back and farm your shit to your heart's content for like crucible weapons or new moves or whatever the fuck you want okay Okay, so I can lay down my fomo of everything I wanted to know about the, you know, the ride up to this point. But what will still suck, I guess, is if there are really fucking sick boss fights that are at the end of one or during two, you know, to not get to experience those, right?

Your, your, your, your particular encounters. So there's two things. One is they have a strong tendency to reintegrate boss fights from the old. games into new games. I was going to say Eldon... Similar to how fraud from software goes. Yes, yes. Eldon gives you the latest iteration of this type of boss fight. Here's the 2v1.

The second of which, specifically for 2, is that 2, because of the way the stances got like cut down in Neo 3, Neo 2 actually gets to continue to exist as still totally worth it. if you want to play full-blown like double swords or Krasarigama or whatever because

like that that move set no longer exists in Neo3. On top of that while there are really cool sick bosses that are unique to each game for example in Neo 1 you fight

I forget his name but something Hayabusa and then Neo 2 you fight I believe it's his son something Hayabusa and I have a sneaking suspicion that in

three you will be fighting another Hayabusa and they have the move set that you think they will fucking have and you can learn that move set like on the ninja sword thing in Neo3

yeah yeah yeah yeah swallow and you've got Izuna drop the ninja guide in Izuna drop. It's the same animation. I think the dude's name was Yiba, actually. No, not that guy. Okay.

Wow. Just like genuinely, man, skip straight to three. Okay, okay, okay. And if you're like, we need more, go back to two. Nobody is ever telling you to go back to one. One has god-awful enemy variety. Just terrible. Yeah, yeah, you know, again, I was, it was having fun.

It was, it was, but at this point, the age is going to show for sure. But yeah, 2003 is cool. I also got it for free, so take that into account, but my positive opinions were from before I got it for free. Very important to note. And join me tonight in seven hours on Twitch. .com pet stairs at and YouTube.com slash pet stairs at. I will be playing past the demo into the full game

until I hit the embargo stopping point. And then there will be a sole stopping point. at some point in the full game where you're like, okay, and you can put that down for a bit because that's how Neo does it, really. Yeah, a little bit. But hey,

that's it for me. Cool, the answer to Eldon Ring. That's, that's, that's, that's, it's, it's Eldon Ring for sicko freaks. And it really feels like, sicko freak. Like, just every single screen is just exploding with text and information.

And I just, want them to make another stranger of paradise like this fucking game. That'd be awesome. Going down this alt-path souls IP, and like no one gives a fuck about the story or what's happening or why, and item descriptions couldn't get any further from, like, like,

from analyzing every little paragraph on every sword you pick up to just throw all that out, I just want a sheet of numbers. I want to fight this motherfucker. Yeah, you pick up, pick up a stick and look at the stats on it. Is that when I time traveled in Neo 3, your little dude sees an army, like Takeda's army, and he goes, oh, that's weird. That's Takeda's army, but they were defeated long ago. And because I'm not a warring state's massive nerd, I didn't understand that he meant that this specific army and guy were killed long ago. I thought he meant, oh, this regional army had lost a battle in the past.

And it was like a while before I realized that we had actually traveled back in time. Oh. I don't know who any of these famous characters are. Okay. So these games are not all just different angles of Hideyoshi, Nobunaga, and so on and so forth. They are a little bit. Okay. A little bit.

Okay. Like in Neo 2, you end up cross-sectioning parts of Neo 1. It's Mitsuhide. There he is. You're like dancing around the Neo 1 and 2 timelines by going to different time periods. Okay. Okay. This is the perfect place to start the new franchise.

Yes. And you're in Zipangu the whole time? Yes, you're in Zipangu the whole time? the whole time. Absolutely. So what I need to talk about is the dub. The dub is the best dub I've ever heard in my life. I would never change it off to Japanese in must-day English. They're all very British.

Like we got Irish, Welsh, all sorts of things. No one has been briefed on how to say even a single word in Japanese. Many of them have not been briefed on how to say words in English. Hell yeah. There's a location called a crucible, and the characters pronounce it, pronounce it crucible. And there's a material called cruciation or something. It's fucking terrible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, strong, strong. It's, it is God awful. Finally, some good fucking food. Let's go. It's so good. it's so good awful Crucianite

Crucianite That's it Yeah the Crucianite from the crucible To upgrade your crucible weapons These are words said by actors It's like awesome Okay I gotta take a quick break

This guy needs some food BRB Talk about Caboos obviously Yeah I'm gonna see if I can adjust my lighting for Now that the sun has gone down Maybe I can make it hell in here. We'll find out. I can see the back of your head, dude.

Yeah, it's like, hello. It's just weird. Whatever. It's fine. Later. Yeah. Bye-bye. For now.

All right. Quick word from our sponsors. I love sponsor. Sponsor this week. The podcast is sponsored by Raycon. And yeah, that's just some good everyday earbuds. You can making their way over to you. What do you got in particular?

With the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics this month, no time to get, no better time to get inspired. Okay, we're going to go with the getting inspired by seeing people who are world class athletes. And then I guess you're supposed to see them and think I can do that too. I mean, I don't know about you, but when I watch the Olympics, I'm like, nah, bro. Not even in a million. Except, hold on. That's not true. No, okay, okay.

The one, I'm like, I don't think I, I don't have it, but it'd be really cool to get good at like javelin throwing. I feel like getting super sick at one like that feels possible, you know, getting that, just getting a nice, like, yeah, yeetting it. Or, or you see that dude with his hand in his pocket with the gun, just kind of doing this. One, that's a lady. You know? No, no, no, there was a dude. There was a dude that's doing it. And like, and you're just kind of like, you got a sick gun, and you're just kind of winging it and just going like, yeah.

Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, balsai, bullseye, bullseye, you know. That feels like you can, you can just grind that out a little bit and learn how to breathe in and not twitcher and get your hands really, really, really specific. and then win a gold medal. The Turkish guy, I think it's a Turkish guy. I was thinking of the Korean lady. The point, I would like to point out, Wully, in our sponsor segment, that the things that are happening at the Olympics

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All righty. what is going on this week. Couple of things. Couple of things. No big deal. But a relatively slow week for news worldwide. Yeah, not much happening. You know, um,

2026, State of the Game Industry report finds that, according to a GDC survey, 33% of the respondents were laid off over the last two years. That's cool. That's cool. a solid third. I talked about this in the

in the Reddit thread that was on the subreddit about this where Pete, like, when's the crash and video game's going to happen? I'm like, we covered it. We talked about layoffs for like 70 podcasts in a row. Friend, friend,

I would like you to stand up where you are as you listen to this. Look outside and just look around. That's the crash. You are standing in it. It is in the room with you right now. You are breathing in the video game industry crash as we speak, actually. Little did you know.

Yeah, so I admittedly, the headline is, the headline is like a bit not misleading, but it does imply that like this is speaking of the whole thing. But it's more like the people that answered the survey that were 23, thousand people that they asked. Of the 23, excuse me, sorry, 2300 people that they asked, a third of them were laid off over the last two years. So that's the state of affairs.

It's barely large as a sample size, I have to actually say. It is, and this is like, again, just people attending GDC, right? Including people in the industry that are currently not employed, that are still showing up. So if that's people attending GDC, that means

the actual number is significantly high. because many people who have been laid off cannot go to GDC because they are broke. In fact, most of the time when I know people that do go to GDC, that is something that is afforded by the company that they work for. But yes, that is one of the things they were able to get from that survey. So, hey, guess what? As we describe it every week, the least just a slow, boring, burning implosion of the, industry. A third of the folks are, yeah, laid off in the past few years. And then the second piece of information that came from this survey was the change in how the discussion on AI,

of course, feels to people in the industry. So everyone's favorite, favorite technological innovation. They asked people working in the video game industry a couple years ago last year and then this year, how do you feel about AI? And hey, guess what? Over 50% of game developers think it's a bad idea. And... Just way up over last year. And the sentiment, I'd rather quit the industry than use generative AI on the rise. So when you just want to talk about the numbers, what do we got here? We can get higher. So high. We can't fully AI more. Yep.

It's a robot. It doesn't have feelings. And neither do the CEOs behind it. It's funny enough. What percentage were currently using Gen. AI in their work? 33%. The exact percentage of people that were laid off in the last two years.

Interesting on that. That's short-sighted. 52% of the 2300 respondents said they think it has a negative impact on the industry. Compared to two years ago, that number was 18%, and last year it was 30%. So the mood is clearly moving in a direction. And then, in the opposite opinion, those that believe Gen A.I. is good for the industry.

Last year, it was 13%. This year, it's 7%. And then when it comes to, to the people, the roles of the, of the people and devs that are responding here, the people least likely to approve are who you'd expect. So artists, designers, writers, programmers, you know, aka the people who make the video game. And the people who are more likely to use it are the upper management at 47% using tools more

than the lower decks, etc. So, hey, would you look at that the CEOs and the management are much, much, much more likely to be approving of and to use AI than the employees they hire and literally everyone that actually makes the things that you play? If only there was an incredibly clear concrete reason. documentation, if you would, for why we should not listen to anyone high up in a managerial position of any company. You mean just like in general? In general? Like broad strokes? Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah, that's a bummer. Well, in unrelated news, hey, did you know that the financier, Jeff Epstein? You know that? You know that. Oh, the New York financier? Yeah, that guy. You know what's up with him?

You'll never guess what he's been up to. What? What's he been up to? He got banned from Xbox Live. He got banned for Xbox Live? He got banned from Xbox Live. For what? Initially, it said harassment, but then it turns out it's because he was on the no-no list.

And once you're on the no-no list, that gets you banned from Xbox Live. Oh, okay. Yeah. the financier You know what's weird You know what's really strange I don't know if you knew this In fact I tested your knowledge about this before we started the podcast

And I know you don't know this But did you know that Jeffrey, I've seen the New York Financier. Yeah Actually had a friend High up in a bunch of game companies And he could have probably gotten unbanned if he felt like it Really

He could have just He could have just called a friend It turns out He was buddies with Friend of the show, Bobby Cotic No shot And

In 2013 He was the one Who convinced Bobby Codick To go super hard On Activision's Microtransactions You don't

Don't say. That's financier. New York financier. I'm all into making an economy for children. You know, yeah. I did not think there would be a legitimate, like one-to-one podcast topic that would be appropriate for this subject. But turns out, Jeffrey Epstein invented.

the micro-transaction economy for video games. I mean... That Mona Lisa painting of all the DLC cutout? Yeah, yeah. That's an Epstein original! I, uh... We tend to stick to video game evil, you know? Um...

Whoa, this is some pretty big video game evil. I just, like, everything. That's crazy. That's crazy. Wow, it's a lot, huh? Boy, video games, I mean. I just... there's so much that straight that like I wow that is one subject that I never would have thought

would point all the way back to Jeff Epstein the financier um the New York financier yeah that that's that subject in particular that one topic I never would have imagined that he was the mastermind behind that that's crazy so at this point honestly woolly if there's something that bothers you just just tip a tapah and it's probably Well, um Yeah I That's incredible

That's that's quite That's wild We are It's on the nose for the show, isn't it? It's a little bit on the nose A little bit Um

In 2013 when video games Just started to get like Worse and worse And more fucked up With the microchial Wow! It's crazy It was good old

Jeffie Eppies I wonder how many other things can be tracked right back to that same source, you know? It's, it's, uh, I think that's a, that's a topic for a completely different podcast. Oh, boy. Yeah. I mean, who knows? I don't.

Anyway, let me just, um, move the fucking string cork board from out of the shot and onto the floor over here. Oh, I mean, you don't really need a cork board anymore. You just need one big red string. You need a browser. In fact, yes, you can kind of do that. Punch Mom is getting exhausted, dude. Like getting tired of just hearing about it.

Just tired of hearing about it. Yeah, I bet. I bet. Like, like some mornings in the middle of breakfast, it'll just be like, okay, what was it this time? Just go. Just spit it out. Just go.

Bitcoin, really? Bitcoin, wow! Oh, man. All right. Anyway, anyway, moot. Anyway. Oh, no. What?

I say that point is moot, hey. That point is moot. That's what I was getting at. It's a completely moot point. Listen, video games are happening, And sometimes instead of, you know, while your company is being burnt to the ground, it's really easy. It would be nice if, let's say you had about, you know, a couple employees and you're trying to fire them. But the place that you, you know, are set up makes it difficult to do that.

you can Darn How about a quit fire yourself employment contract everybody to How about how about If Ubisoft can get about 200

employees at the Paris HQ To agree to a negotiated termination contract They don't have to then lay them off the traditional way And it makes it a lot easier On fucking strike there in Paris No, but if you, listen, on a voluntary basis, you let yourself out. You, you, you self, you know, terminate from Ubisoft. And then, you know, for redundant, for economic reasons.

I literally just clicked on. I just searched Ubisoft Paris Strike. Call goes out for massive international strike at Ubisoft due to five separate unions in France, ratcheting up the pressure. Yeah, no, you can't tell. I mean, again, for every time we've talked about like the labor laws in Europe and how that fucks up what a company like Ubisoft would love to do, as they do over here in North America, you get these types of weird stories where Ubi begs employees to please quit. Actually, if you wouldn't mind. Sill you play, you know.

If it would please you. I think I'll rest here now. All right. If it would please you, could you please maybe leave? Please. No, I'm not. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's, the funny part is that let's say you're like, you're like, many that would be like, fuck that, right? I'm getting, because they're trying to make the incentive, obviously. just imagine the motivation being at a company that was like, hey, could you please quit? And you're like, nah, fuck that. And then just the vibe, you know, of like, okay, so let's be real. You're going to be grabbing your resume anyways as you watch the flames around you. But in the meantime, get your fucking benefits.

Get what you are entitled to. You know. Please quit. How about you, please suck my ass. Fuck you, bitch. What if we gave you, what if we gave you a limited edition copy of Beyond Good and Evil 2 if you quit? Is that what you quit? I gave you one of these.

For those of you at home, we're not watching. I'm holding up my middle finger outstretched. This is just a lot. God damn. Um, yeah, man, it's, it's getting desperate out there. It's getting pretty rough. Yeah. But, uh, anyways, whatever, moving on with that.

There's some, there's some other, you know, like when you want to talk about the ebbs and flows of the industry. Uh, you can just do it the classic KG Unafune style and just have your entire company. You get fucking fired. Well, concept has dissolved like KG. Itafune did at the end of that Kickstarter for Mighty Number 9. It has faded away, full opacity. In fact, that concept died two weeks ago, and we just found out about it. Yeah.

So there's something a little appropriate to that because instead of exploding into a bunch of blue balls going, it just kind of... That's too much dignity for him. It just faded to 0%. he doesn't have the he doesn't have the right to die like a hero like Mega Man and really like are you gonna try

like what power do you get from from dying concept oh no Mega Man's in jail oh no I took credit for things I didn't do did it did it did it did it da da da da

chinch um anyways there you go on that one. It seems like, it seems like, meanwhile, on the other side over here, the guard nutters have been listening.

Oh, have they? They have been listening, and they heard, those on high have heard the cries of the guard nutters, and they have released, they have released a 5V5 mode, for high guard

limited time it's limited time limited time the game was not designed for five players it was designed for 3 v 3 3 definitely definitely limited time

but four days after launch people were like what the fuck and they're like yeah yeah we know here you go and there's a 5B5 mode I'm curious to note does it make it make any more sense does it help

I fucking bet it's better. I would love to know if it makes a difference. It feels like a more populated map would help, certainly. If you're on board with the concept

and you want to have more fights regularly and you want those modes to just be a little less dry, you know, two extra people could certainly help. I'm not a developer. I have not made a video game. I feel like

kicking the roster of a multiplayer game up by four people, up, up like 40% in like five days means that they were ready to do this beforehand just in case I would put money down on a table that someone on the inside was like, this needs to be fucking five and got outvoted

or out authority. I will, I will say, I'll take that good money and I will raise it and say somebody on Wednesday walked into the office and before they even got their coffee, when I fucking told you so.

They walked right in. They kicked the snow off their boots. They walked right in to an office in a glass room, shut the glass door and went, I fucking told you so. And then Yeah, the thing that was already here,

that the switch, they flipped the switch, and then they said, let's see what happens. I bet it's, I bet it's better. I also, I bet it has its own database of bugs because it's not the intended mode. It wasn't tested. Like someone in the chat right now says the introduction screen doesn't work properly

for 5V5. Because it only shows you three of the five players. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Exactly. You know. But they had that flipped switch. They just, that was so fast. It was crazy.

And time limited because what you're doing is you're cueing the feature. Yeah. Well, that's, I think, I think putting out modes and calling them time limited and then seeing how they work is like the funniest, outrageous, frustrating lie.

Remember when zero build for Fortnite was like, it's a limited mode? Limited time. Limited time. Limited time. This season. You've got to get in right now. It's like,

okay, well, no, that's just a mode. Meanwhile, Apex says, hey, we've heard you guys say that you want Solo Q. Here's Solo Q is a limited mode. And, you know, maybe. No, it is limited. We've decided that the only way you want to play this game is wrong.

I have to imagine. Fuck, Apex. I have to imagine that basically there's like, hey, we're going to see if everyone shift. Is the server cost for, like, doing a parallel thing? is there enough people on this? Is it popular enough? If so, then fuck it, make it permanent, et cetera. But yeah, you know what? I'm going to fucking, I'm going to throw a wild prediction out there and say that if I roll a D20, like 14 of those sides are going to say that this game shuts the fuck down.

But if it doesn't, if it doesn't, the six remaining. sides say that this game gets iterated to be a lot better in a year and a half's time through just trying shit out and warping the entire design of the game as like live. Yeah. Okay. So I have my own dice. Okay. And my dice similarly says it's a 14 sides out of 20 is that it'll shut down.

And the remaining six say it will be shut down next year. Okay, shut down now versus shut down in a bit. Okay, I see, I see. Yeah, that's a slightly different die, but, you know, all right. Slightly different. Speaking of time-limited gaming, you know, you want to talk about games that you only had a particular window of time to play. Final Fantasy 11 in the news this week because that thing, which just keeps on trucking, kind of never die.

Kind of incredible. There is an awesome bug that has happened where, okay, so let me try to get these details right. Did you hear about this? the Limbus region notorious monsters So Yeah, they won't die Yeah, so there are chests in

In an area of the game That they populate In a way that is That gets better drops for everybody If the notorious monsters In the area Are killed by the players You know, on the server

And there has been a Weird bug that has resulted in some notorious monsters repopulating before the month that they're supposed to be gone for is up. And as a result, the loot in said chests is getting worse for everybody. And it's not their player's fault because they did the job. They killed the monster, et cetera. But the communal loot economy is getting fucked up because the monsters are considered alive when it comes time to check. So they have put in a fix to address the issue in the next month.

But in the meantime, in order to ensure that the loot chests don't get fucked up, they're dispatching all the GMs, the judges in the game, to personally go to the notorious monsters and kill them to make sure they stay dead. In a like almost lore-like quest, the GMs have to go to each one and kill them themselves. personally. What a fucking cool piece of like lore bug fixing. It's my favorite shit. Yeah, it's MMO strange behavior is always super fun. Like 14 had that rock that people would pilgrimage to because the texture was bad. And there was recently like an unnamed antelope in a forest, sorry, in a frozen zone that people started making fan art. Awesome.

Because they were clearly broken and weren't supposed to be there. like I'll write in right in reply to like the announcement of like this happening on the FF11 account. Just a quote tweet of like the judge from the back walking towards a bunch of notorious monsters to fucking clean them out. You know, gut style. That's cool as hell. And you kind of want to be like, yo, can you say when you're going to be there so that people can go watch? and also can it not just be you pressing the kill button, but actually having a fight?

Because that'd be fucking sick. Because if it's actually just like, okay, teleport, dead, teleport. Then it's how many GMs are. Depends how many of these there are. Depends how much time they have. Yeah. And look, you're doing your job and you got a lot of servers to get through. I understand if it's just like, all right,

let me see if I can clear five of these in like 10 minutes or whatever. But, you know, like just that. Just make it a moment, man. Go in and fucking fight it for a second. Have people watch that shit and do cool stuff that only the judges can do. Anyway, that's cool. I love those stories. You know, and speaking of a good old, wholesome MMO story,

other, you know, like FF11 has been around for a long time. other old MMOs that have been around for a long time include things like Ashes of Creation. Nope. What happened? Dead. Why? They didn't work very hard on it. They just kept taking money.

So full disclosure, I had no idea what this was until I heard about it being dead. And that's the whole story, by the way. Yeah. And what I just told you, the whole thing. But like the background is, that like it was around for years as a fucking MLM scheme game where you gave money for a long time ahead of time, decade of development. And now it's a few days out of being, I guess, officially, whatever, it was released and then immediately just shut the fuck down after being a Kickstarter MMO for a decade. and it's like, and people that have been tracking it are talking about how like not only was it like a scam from the jump and it wasn't barely playable, but they like squeezed like the last bit of cash out of everybody that they could right before taking the money and ran, you know.

Like I have a problem with this model in that there's a version of this that exists in that. There's a version of this that exists in the, the, in fighting games, right? There's a couple of fighting games out there that you... Scams? So, the perpetually funded indie project, right? There's a couple of fighting games out there that you see some cool videos from time to time. And some of them are legit, like, interesting-looking fighting games. But what the deal is, is that they are projects that are being made by usually like one person or so.

but they've been in development for about 10 years sometimes, you know, 8 to 10 years. They've been Patreon projects that people have had to pay monthly to get access to play. And the development has essentially been going on for so long that the person creating it has no incentive to ever finish the project. It's a paycheck that they can pay their rent with and live off of if they ever end up release. the game, they make sales off of that, but it's way more lucrative in the moment to just keep the project going and have people pay every month for it. So this game that you'd pay your 30 bucks for or whatever becomes a game you pay 300 for over the course of many years. You know, and it's like, I know, like some of them are, you know, some people have good

standing with the community and others are a little more sketch or so. I look into a bunch of these things whenever I want to play a game for, you know, get into fighting games or back is the way for Fistakuffs as well. And it was just like, so if you subscribe to this, like, in fucking 2014 and you were giving it like $3 a month or $5 a month to get access to the game, now you've got like a couple more characters, but it's nowhere near close to being finished than you've paid how much money for this game? It's so crazy. And then of course you lose access if you're not an active subscriber to it, you know? I'm like, yeah, this is the MMO equivalent of that. it's just like yeah anyway um m mOs are the single worst potential game to kickstarter

they require like the most massive amount of labor and resource possible and they have like the longest tail for return on investment it's it's the it's the craziest craziest shot i can only think of one crowdfunded MMO that I've ever heard anyone talk nice about let me just check to make sure it's Kickstarter

sure like yeah you're going to kickstart the ongoing server costs of multiple servers for fucking years on end really is Atlas a Kickstarter game I can't figure it out

or is it just a or is it just an early access game? Hmm. Can't find. Either way, man. Anything that just refuses to have an end point, you know, is like... No, it's not. Okay, then I don't know of any that are their Kickstarter MMOs that work.

And like, and the things too is like, okay, if the, what I was describing was like a Patreon scheme. So it's kind of like, that's a dark pattern in the sense that you're like, okay, you subscribe. And maybe you forgot about this. Maybe whatever. But it's been just deducting automatically. or a Kickstarter scheme like this, you have to come back and give an update and go, hey, guys, we hit our goal, but we ran out of money. Can you give us some more, please? You know, we have some new stretch goals or whatever the fuck, right?

Yeah, that's just fucking, that's crazy. There was an aspect of this too where, yeah, like, yeah, content creators got a cut or so or something like that. when you got people to sign up as affiliates or so so like you also like we're propagating an MLM in the meantime you know um

explain some things oh oh oh oh yeah our pieces pieces are clicking together a little bit I see I remember seeing people that I thought would know better like shilling this game super hard and now oh you got a cut out

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, there you go. There you go. Take the money and run. Good stuff. All right. The only other thing of note there. Just, yeah, no, shout-outs to it, actually.

So Fox Cave just put out the fucking The Devil May Cry anime video. and it's a solid two and a half hour chunk breaking it all down and it's a good one. Solid first part of that is just reviewing the anime thoroughly, including quotes from yours truly and yourself. You know, there's a couple of clips here and there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're up. We're in there. We're in there.

Oh yeah, I like, do I look smart? Yeah, actually, you're the opening salvo. You know? I haven't watched it yet because I need a proper three hour took a time. Yes, yeah. And hit it? No, like the opening montage, it just fucking cuts to us and like you yelling at Gene, you know, when we had the DMC talk. It's not good.

No, good shit. first hour breaking down just the anime thoroughly. And then the second part just breaking down what the fuck a producer actually is, you know? A producer stands around while people do real work or they micromanage all parts of the project to make sure they have enough money to do everything. One of the two. Exactly. Congratulations. You've nailed it.

The Red and Stimpy explanation or the holy shit this needed a producer. or this needed fucking limits on it for or it's never coming out. And then my favorite part of every video essay is when I hear the line. I technically now have a production credit on Fox Cades Devil May Cry. Oh, you're a producer? Wow. I have a production credit. Yeah.

She just found out that I was in it. So I have a production credit. There's a clip from Red Letter Media where they're counting the number of executive producers in the intro to some movie, and they're at like 23, you know, at a certain point. Shit's hilarious. It's literally just called the Netflix Devil May Cry video from the visionary mind of Adi Shankar. But no, my favorite part of any video essay is when there's a pause, a fade to black, and then a, okay, so when I originally started writing this video. You know, the classic, this is.

where the ending should have been, but, you know, so yeah, go check that out. I'd say it's the definitive edition of everything. The last word on that anime series and the last word on anything, Addie Shancar. Until the next season. Until the next season. Until the next season. So I don't need to watch Trash that I know is going to be. trash to know, to understand. I have better uses of my time. And I'm going to say that the week before it on the podcast. Then I'm going to come back having watched the whole thing because I literally

won't be able to help myself because I need to complain. You need to know. I have a genetic disability and it's called I love complaining. Okay. Well, look, let me let me fucking hear that and and reinforce your ground, sir. You and I are uniquely positioned on this internet to speak on it. All right. There are times. Weird. When did that happen?

I'm not being that good at the games. There are times. You listen, in the culture, there are times when you got to speak on it. That's weird. And when it comes to Devil May Cry, Castle Super Beast is uniquely positioned.

to speak on it. Like an authority on Devil May Cry. I feel like that seems like a weird thing to say, right? Like I don't feel like we're important to the culture of Devil May Cry. But then I keep, like, then I see that the subreddit is the second most popular subreddit

for talking about Devil May Cry. Lotta. The only one that actually goes into a depth on like a bunch of things. We had a bunch of friends who were all super into that shit when it was popping off back in the day when it first came out and we're like, yo, these games are great. But they're not super popular, but they're fucking cool. If you know, then you know. And then as time has gone on, that group has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller until like the people that do fucking know or did find out a lot found out through this through line.

Right. and then the franchise came back and was awesome and exploded and then people were like oh fuck oh shit and then we're going back to be let to find places where it was talked about in the past and guess what guess who never shut the fuck up about those games tie it's us we're the problem hi you know so yeah how i felt when i was going through sign of the hill f and i did all the Seahill F, and I kept getting comments being like, you're the only person I can find that did all of the endings.

Like, how am I the only person that did all the endings? That's it. It's just, it's just like 45 hours of Silent Hill. Dude, I told you the other day, like, I have no mouth and I'm a scream, popped off for no reason on the internet all of a

sudden. Because the digital circus. Because of the digital circus. The Amazing Circus just fucking and, you know, and then everyone's like, what is this? And all of a sudden, that becomes relevant. Like, yeah, it's just one of those things. So, yes, when season two drops, don't worry, you don't have to make excuses for not holding yourself back or whatever.

Because people need to know. And not to mention to, you have a duty to report. Especially since, and I will not be convinced. on this that I believe that there are characters that appear to reference two best friends play in that initial first season. I feel like it's there. There is a there is a... I thought that you were crazy when you said that and I have come to maybe, maybe think you were not as crazy with the guy that looks just like Max and the guy that has Matt's hat on. There's a guy that looks like my old art.

There's a black dude named Pat, and there's a dude with a Punisher skull headband on in that Captain Commando team. I don't know. It's a little self-important. It's a little self-important, but then you see the references to other influencers and other YouTube people and you go, hmm, you know, you can press X to doubt. I don't blame you if you do. I also don't want it.

Right? Like. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Right, right, right. But it's actually like, hmm.

Like that, that changes it. True. Okay. I understand. And therein, that's why you've got the reasonable doubt because now Addy can just be like, who the fuck are they? I don't know them. What? Get out of here. You know, but if you went, yo, that shit ruled it was awesome. It was like, yeah, did you see what I did? You know, it's, yeah. I had a production credit on that show. I don't know if you know that.

Schrodinger's cameo. It's Schrodinger's cameo, you know? Absolutely. All right. Let's take some emails. Hey, if you want to send an email, send it to Castle Super Beast at, uh, almost, Almost. Castle Super Beast Mail. Sundowning. That's Castle Superbeastmail at gmail.com. Leaking out the years.

We'll only one last thing about Neo3. Uh, that game assumes you don't know what the fuck Neo one and two even are. Oh. That shit just fucking has nothing to do with shit. Mm. Okay. So, like, it really is like a jump in, fuck it, whatever. Oh yeah, sorry, the new Tekken season.

That's, yeah, they announced Kunimitsu, Roger Jr. and Bob. I like those characters. That's cool. Yeah, but they fixed all that shit from before. You know what's kind of fucked up is there was a video of a modded version of the game where Heat wasn't in it and the UI was simplified. And it was just people sidestepping and throwing buttons out. and like the people were crying. They were crying watching the footage. It was just, it was Tech and 8 without heat and with people just doing, just pressing buttons and not locking into 50-50s.

And holy fuck, the tears were flowing. Fighting gamers cry out for Virtua Fighter, yet they do not know it. What Virtue Fighter is. Yeah? Yeah. Like, they yearn. the children yearn for the retro fighter that they don't yet know. They do.

They, oh, man. It's, uh, anyways, Roger Jr. is a fun pick. Bob's a fun pick. Cunymitsu, sure, sure. I like Kunimitsu a lot. Mm-hmm. She's great. And she specifically doesn't have Tekken lady face.

She has a mask, but underneath the mask, she has extremely distinctive makeup. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, true. She looks different. You could not swap her hair out and confuse her with somebody else. Um, and, uh, they say there's a rumor that the fourth character is an original

character and I'm like, good. I would like, that's cool to have a new character. Yeah, you have three returning. Have something new in there for sure. The original character of Gile. Ah, look, Bob, you got to have a fine. fucking Chowyan fat reference, Fat Fighter, man, that shit's awesome.

I feel like, you know, um, Bob is the, the correct Rufus timeline, you know? The, if you handed me a gun and two bullets, I would shoot Rufus

spice and be Bob below. Okay. Yeah. I like, I like Bob. I think you're, you need a big fat guy. Like,

and then mention Rufus. I think you're insane. I think Rufus is, the exception that proves the rule. Rufus sucks so bad. I hate him. I hate the way he plays. I hate the way he sounds. I hate playing against him.

Yeah, tell that to the Saturday night slam-dutters, okay? You mean, oh, no? Okay, I'm not fucking tell her right now. Duked, oh, no, good job getting fucking kicked out of the company, you fucking loser. I also enjoy the concept of a slam-dutter. Um, Anyway, America sheds a tear.

Feels like gilding the lily, you know? Like, it's too obvious twice. Um, yeah, Bobb's cool. That's cool. That's, that's, that's all fine. And as, and Miguel, uh, never, because while Miguel should be in the game, uh, he cannot because that he reminds

everyone how fucking evil gin is. And that's not, that goes against the narrative that we're trying to push right now. Bro, they should just make Jin evil. Jin was more fun when he was evil. Unless you dedicate a whole new chapter of story DLC to Miguel showing up

to the nice little ending that a bow that you've tied and having Miguel untie that bow and going, fuck you, fuck you, you piece of shit. How fucking dare you? You murdered my family. I don't care if the game thinks you're a protagonist. I'm going to fuck you up.

His existence undoes the entire plotline for the May for the protagonist. He has a lot of, um, is morality genetic because like Jin Pachi was like, okay, but he was possessed by a demon and Hachi's evil and Kazi is evil. And Jin was evil for a bit. And like, I think it's actually really strange that it would be more interesting for Jin to also just be evil and Raina to also just be evil. Everyone's just... Like just the

evil world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's genetic. It's interesting. It's absolutely genetic and Akuma was right. He's actually the nicest guy.

Um. Acuma was doing a favor for a nice lady. Because I can see, I can envision this like third chapter story mode of like, Jin being like, Hey, Miguel, you deserve to kill me. So if you want to, go ahead. And then Miguel does his fucking taunt punch and fucking wrecks gin shit.

And then he goes, oh, wait, no, fuck, I don't want to die. Oh, shit, let's fight. You know, and then it turns into a battle somehow. But like, the levels of like, what are you going to say, I'm sorry? My bad. Oops. I have, I have protagonist light behind me now. So whoopsie doodle, your family's kaput.

You know? Anyway. We'll see. You don't get it. I had to beat up an ice dragon for my own personal benefit. And that's why I had to do a world war. And also it didn't work. See, that would be the genesis of like a really, really amazing storyline of like all those people died for Jin to do a plan that didn't work.

You got to round up all the heroes, all the protagonists to have to launch an attack. on Hay Hatchy's balls. The true source of the evil. That's what all leads back. What? All the protagonists going, it's the top logo where they stop and go, but both fists are flying towards Hayhatchy's balls.

It's the only way. It's the only way to stop this evil. All right. Castle Super Beast Mail at gmail.com. Let's take one from Isaac. A2 dudes with the toads. Isaac here, long-time listener, first-time questioner. What's your favorite type of world building in games?

For example, I like it when you find a journal or an audio tape or something that talks about how your character is doing in the game. Like in the files of the Citadel D.L.C. Where Anderson's talking to someone about Shepard. To me, that stuff kind of makes it feels alive outside of your character. Keep on. I'll keep it on. I think the best world building ever was actually in Mass Effect 2

and it was reading the secret docks on your party and finding out what they were doing on their fucking computers games Legion was playing that was great what they were Googling like yeah

Xbox Live Legion and Tally with the fucking nerve stem that was fantastic big big on that also, I mean, and I, you know what, and Mass Effect also with the, with the Ashley retcon, just on the over, you know, hey, we're all animals anyway. Am I right? Ah, yeah. Some of the strong stuff I think is like the coolest shit ever is. And this is also, I love the type of world building that is only possible with video games as a medium.

So, like, I love Misan Sen shit in movies. You know, Children of Men is my favorite film. In video games, stuff like you fucking kill the Yarnum giant boar in the sewers and you get a red ribbon. And the only context that can make sense in is it's halfway located between the child in the window and Father Gascoigne. and she was sneaking from this location down to avoid the bullshit on the bridge up here, went down this way and hit a fucking pig, and that was the end of that. And it's like, oh. I got to agree that's like the best.

I think I- Holy fuck, that's amazing. Like the item you find in the enemy you find it in, in the location it's placed in, making perfect sense of the scenario and adding all this context you didn't have is the best. Um, and a smaller version of that, uh, is, um, you know, expedition, uh, uh, uh, in, uh, Claire obscure. Like the, the expedition. Right, right.

Um, yeah. The ones who are like, hey, you know those fucking things you've been just absentmindedly climbing on? We died to put those in place. This little yellow pink everywhere. We put them everywhere. We put them everywhere. We got all of them. Dude? After all the shit we talked,

could you imagine finding out about the fucking yellow paint brigade that died to get the yellow paint in place? Basically, that's what they are. The Alex Honnold's of the world free soloing every location, putting it in place. And when they reach the limit of their abilities,

they're like, well, we're going to die now, but I hope those who come after us can make use of this. please save the world fucking oh love that that's great

yeah let's see I don't know why it's not it's not it's not actually related to the question but I'm just thinking about spending the whole game in slow motion

in vanquish and then during the final moment they just fucking cranking all the limiter's off and it felt like you were like Millhouse playing fucking phone store.

All I did was enter my name. It would only work if you had gotten really good at it over the whole game because if you gave that to somebody at the start, it would be unplayable. Okay, so I know this doesn't happen because we played it on the channel the other day and I

confirmed it. But in my heart and in my brain, I feel like the FOV got more extreme on the boosts when it happens at the end? Like, it doesn't, but I feel like I remember the FOV getting crazier for your boosts at that point as you're zipping around fighting both bogeys, you know? Like, it just, if that, if, and if it doesn't, then it should. Um, because you go, you go fast as fucked. Yeah. I, I don't think, I don't

think it happens, but it feels like it done. Uh, in the meantime, I hate the internet I just loaded up a video of like I want to see the final boss fight of vanquish and I see a guy walking around playing it like a cover shooter uh

yeah they're just doing the slow motion to shoot a rocket like the tutorial shows you what's pop I lost my database. I hate you for so many reasons. The tutorial shows you what's possible, but it doesn't really emphasize that, like,

this is how you ought to do it, which is why that game was misunderstood, you know? It was a minor Godhand situation on launch there. All right, and let's take one here from Mogdillon, who says, not really a question. Dear Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan,

just something I find mind-boggling and I wanted to share. started playing Eve online a couple weeks ago. And I've been having a... I've been having a pretty fun time. For those who don't know, it's a 23-year-old at MMO where you fly around space and do space stuff. No, but every time there's stories from it, they're the best, though.

Space trucking, space mining, space guns, space hacking, mini-games, etc., the works. Free to play to an extent, but you can only... Space spreadsheets! You can only do 30% of what's available unless you pay 20 bucks a month for the subscription. Now, listen, if you're telling people not to play... play it? I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to, but I want the stories to keep happening. I want to hear about the bank heist that took fucking eight years. I don't know anyone new to play it. All the people that are already in have to be locked in.

Okay. Shut down the new registration. Well, that was FF11 for a minute there. The thing I find so crazy is a that I saw about how a particular group of players destroyed the equivalent of 316 billion isk, the in-game currency, over the course of a month via PVP. Using the in-game currency is called Plex, and this loss has calculable real money-dollar value. A fraction of what's destroyed may or may not be recovered as loot from someone's wrecked ship. These are noteworthy things, but one thing to note is that PVP is enabled at all times. Some zones in space are safer than others when your shit gets blown up.

You lose all your items and everything. It's attached to you of monetary value on death. And so, yeah, it goes on to explain a bunch of more things about it. But essentially, the stat above, the $316 billion ISK that were destroyed via PVP, that can be used as currency to purchase premium currency that you use to buy subtime. So it's money. It's real money. It's real money that you use to actually buy extended time playing the game.

If you grind hard enough, you can make enough. you can make enough for a monthly subscription without paying real money dollars. So when they fought their war, they destroyed 11.7 years or 140 months worth of sub time in the process. And it was destroyed by one group of active players. So this is... Yeah, this has been known. They're burning laundered cash, essentially.

So the note there, I suppose, though, that I would point out is that like, this is time for the players, whereas the devs, CCP games, they already have the money. You paid them for... Yeah, they're like sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, they... Burn it. Their money.

Their cash money is in the bank in the real world. So have fun burning it all in your, you know, your giant heists or whatever, but they're fine. it's the players that can't cash in on it you know um darn they'll just have to buy more they'll just have to buy more for me it's fucking sick i i want to hear more of these stories and i never want to play um

all right and lastly let's take one over here uh good evening underhanded super secret Korean woolly and monsieur pat bram until last year the word mod was banned on the steam deck subreddit this made searching for people who had posted mod tutorials for the Steam deck really difficult, leading to many wordplay workarounds. This was caused due to criticism of the subreddit's head moderator, who in turn banned

the word despite its specific relevance to the subreddit. What are some other decisions made by owners, mods, executives, etc., that hurt the community despite a specific characterization of said community, aka specifically insane executive decisions. For me, I feel the one that I never forget that we talked about on the show. There's a couple. There's a couple. The one that I'll come up lately. The one that comes to mind that I remember covering was just the haze I felt my brain go into,

watching as Nintendo told you to pull your phone out and plug your headset. into your phone to do voice chat with your friends to connect to your switch but then you have to get the app and put the voice chat so make sure your phone's connected to your switch but then and your headphones are plugged so you just use a phone call actually with your friends

and the phone call will be like Splatoon themed and that's how you do voice chat that like just so call your friends is what you're telling me to do Nintendo? What?

I'm going to give a shout out to that guy on the Silent Hill 4 Wiki who moderated it for forever to constantly rewrite entries to be about circumcision. I remember this one. Justin Wang has a great video on it. That dude was super nuts. Sometimes, you know, you're moderating a subreddit because you're holding this other part of, your life back. And sometimes you can't hold it back any longer. Do you think he had something going on? I'm just, sometimes the, the thing that you're, you're holding back breaks containment and

seeps into the other thing. You know, and you, just feels, you know, sometimes you just, people get weirdly precise with their, with their, um, requests and terms and, and shit like that, you know. Um, yeah. I, I, I, I, I think. the other day there was a person who was just weirdly asking everywhere about pictures. They had pictures

of a pregnant cat and they were like what should I do? My cat's pregnant and da-da-da-da-da-da-all, whatever. And then some brave soul clicked on the account to just see what else this person was up to. And it seems like posting about

just pretending to be pregnant and going through the motion on every possible subreddit they can find is how they pass their time. You know? And specifically not going to the places where other people are looking for that, but going to the places where people are really

like genuinely asking questions and pretending to... Why do you curse me with this knowledge? Like, have we all harmed you in some way that you felt the need to put this in our minds? You were born. What did we ever do to you? Asked Jubilee.

Oh, that was so intense. Never. Never forgot it. Fucking stuck with me, bro. You were bork. All right, that'll do. You're such an asshole. Yep, and I'll leave you on that note.

Bye-bye.