Get Played - Console Aesthetics Tier List Part 2

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is a HeadGum Podcast. Alright, you guys listen here and you listen good, okay? We just did over two hours on a tier list episode ranking the rest of the consoles we didn't do. We're not doing our normal, we're not doing our little skits at the top, okay? We're not doing it. And you know what, if you've got a problem with it, who gives a shit, I don't care. Sorry I'm late.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Ah, did we, did I miss the, did I miss my segment or where we, what are you playing? Can we just pick that up? We don't have time to do that. We just did a big long episode about this, right? Hey guys, you know, I haven't been here in a while and I thought maybe I'd do a drop in. No Ash, there's simply no time for it.

Starting point is 00:00:47 We don't have time for an extra thing. Are you sure? No, cause- It's me, Ash Ketchum from the world of Pokemon. Ash, I know who you are, you're introduced, that's great. We don't have time to do extra stuff like that. Should I just stand over here? You want me to stand on the I'll just

Starting point is 00:01:05 stand in the corner I get the sense that you haven't started to show yet no we're about to do like over two hours on hurry we're in a hurry we don't have time where's Nick hey hey is that Matt Appadocka or should I say cat a pod DACA it's me bubzy Bob Bobcat! Your favorite cartoon video game cat. If you knew how close to death you were right now... What? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours! Honestly, I'm kind of back on board. It's working for me.

Starting point is 00:01:36 But we don't have time. Hey, how come I didn't get invited to the Garfield premiere? I saw Heathcliff was there. I don't know why they didn't invite all the other famous cats. They fucking Top Cat was there? What was Top Cat doing there? What was Bubsy? I heard Fritz was invited but he didn't go. Yeah, Fritz is kind of an edgelord. TechnoCop!

Starting point is 00:01:57 TechnoCop, we don't have time, we have to start the show. TechnoCop! Stay a while and listen, it's me, Deckard Kane from Diablo. The listeners are going to stay a while. Are we doing a skit? I can help out. We're going to stay a while and listen to the episode because there's a lot of it we have to get to.

Starting point is 00:02:14 Hey, it's me, Doug Gett, and I'm wondering if you guys want to do a fast intro, then you should maybe you could do like a slip and slide and cover it in oil and you like run at the intro and you jump on it and maybe like you go past the mics real fast. I've never issued this type of warning before the show before, but I'm just gonna go ahead and say right now, go ahead and play this episode

Starting point is 00:02:41 in its entirety at 1.5x speed. And before we get going, I think this is one of them comic books that Ellie likes to read hey it's Nick sorry I'm late we're doing the console aesthetics tier list cuz I got a lot of thoughts we're gonna be here a while we debate blocky versus curvy and Grey, again, as we finish our console aesthetic tier list in part two this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.

Starting point is 00:03:40 I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where we are talking console aesthetics for the second week in a row. Yeah, this was intended to be a one episode, and then we got going, and we were recording kind of late,

Starting point is 00:04:02 and Rochelle wasn't here, and we had a guest engineer who we felt like we were recording kind of late and Rochelle wasn't here and we had a guest engineer who we felt like we were keeping pretty late. And so we just, we split into a part two instead of going for another hour. If Rochelle was here, we would have forced Rochelle to stay. We absolutely would have had ranch stay late. Rochelle is back by the way.

Starting point is 00:04:17 How are you feeling, Ranch? I'm doing great. You completely dodged the COVID. Completely dodged the COVID. Excellent work. But I did fall down the stairs this morning. What the fuck? What happened?

Starting point is 00:04:27 What the hell, Ranch? Are you OK? I was on my phone and I fell down the staircase again. I tried my ankle. Oh my god. You all right? Yeah, I'm good. How many stairs did you tumble down?

Starting point is 00:04:36 At least seven. Jesus Christ. That's when I caught myself. God damn it. I fell up three stairs the other day. What? How did that happen? Well, you know, you show Silverstein I missed the first step. That's for the I missed the first step and then all I just collapsed over

Starting point is 00:04:54 Three stairs up Wow Wow, and you were in an MC Escher drawing at the time Let's walk and go. Hell. Yeah, dude that rocks. That's my shit. I'm glad you're okay, I assume. Yeah, we're both okay. Glad you're both okay. Do you know the Family Guy MC Escher joke? I heard my pr... What? The Family Guy MC Escher joke. No, what is it?

Starting point is 00:05:14 He says something like, this is worse than that rap song by MC Escher. And he's like, I'm on some stairs, now I'm on some different stairs. I'll have to watch this one. You'll have to watch it cause I'm not doing it. Look, I'm not giving it the sauce it deserves. I saw a clue this the other day. I was crying laughing It's this is the thing family guy that I inadvertently well built for for YouTube or for any sort of like video sharing platform

Starting point is 00:05:37 Yeah, it's like so much so much of that show the jokes are just sketches They're like almost self-contained like here's a little flashback joke And it's just like a 90 second bit that works on its own branches your ankle like is it completely borked is it okay? Oh, it's okay. I've been walking on it. Okay Was this at your home? Yeah, this was on my way here. Oh my gosh. Sorry about that Cuz you had to come record a podcast. Yeah the noblest way to get injured Speaking of noble, I think it would be noble to include a console last week that we missed. Well, wait, I mean, we could do it.

Starting point is 00:06:13 I think let's do it at the top of the... I think we'll have time to do it. All right, because I think there's one that we missed. Okay, that pertains to a prior generation. Yeah, I saw it shouted out in the Discord and I was like, oh shit. Oh, I don't have that one then. We can do that for sure. Okay, generation. I saw it shouted out in the discord and I was like, oh shit Oh, I don't have that one then we can do that. Okay entirely possible

Starting point is 00:06:29 We missed something in our attempt to be comprehensive as we step through the console generations Chronologically First up before we get to that. I do want to tell everyone that we have a we play you play a month A monthly a semi-monthly episode where we talk about one game at length. This month, the game is Chrono Trigger, the JRPG classic we are finally gonna discuss. Monday, August 26th, we'll have a full episode

Starting point is 00:06:55 if you wanna play along or watch a play through or whatever, just re-familiarize yourself with this classic game. And if you're looking for where to find Chrono Trigger here in the year 2024, it is not on Switch, but it is on mobile. You can play it on, say, your Apple TV if you have Apple devices. And it's on Steam as well.

Starting point is 00:07:15 And it is also on Steam. So there's ways to play Chrono Trigger. My understanding is, and I don't know if recent updates have messed up some of these mods, but my understanding is that there's a slate of mods you can get for the Steam version to make it feel like the SNES version. Or of course, you can play it on an emulator if you want. It's kind of like that. That's what I'm kind of doing. I'm playing it on a man-on-one pocket. I have the Trinitron filter on. So Chrono Trigger coming Monday, August 26. Right now though,

Starting point is 00:07:47 we've been playing some other video games. It's time for the question at the top of every episode. What are you playing? What are you playing? Hey, it's me the Resident Evil Merchant and I'm here to ask my friends on the best podcast in the world. Oh wow. What are they playing? Wow, what a nice thing to say, Resident Evil Merchant. Really nice. You're welcome. You're welcome. I guess it's a little bit of a self compliment because you're also a part of the podcast. I am a part of it. I am a part of the show.

Starting point is 00:08:14 And I just wanna say that I'm honored that you consider me a part of the greatest podcast on earth. I mean, that's not my self assessment. I don't think this is the greatest podcast on earth. No. I certainly don't listen to this shit. Don't be humble.

Starting point is 00:08:26 That's in the top 10 probably, but not like, Don't be humble. It's like not number one, you know? It's number one. Wow, okay. I found that guy from Serial, and I made him say it. You, wait. A non-Syed?

Starting point is 00:08:40 The guy who's freed from prison? You found him? You found him? Yeah. And you made him say it? Yeah, I made him say which podcast was number one. I see. I was worried about what you made him say, because I think some of that was part of the

Starting point is 00:08:53 problem. What? Wait, what? Wait, what would I make him say? I don't know. I was thinking about when people are maybe... Like a coerced confession? Right, yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:05 I didn't, no, no, no, no. That's what I thought. That's why I was like, I know that you wouldn't do that, but I was worried that that's what you were saying. I mean, I'm an intimidating guy. Very much so. And I was wearing a Get Blade shirt.

Starting point is 00:09:15 So I was like, which podcast is the best? And I pointed to my shirt. Hold on, you have other wardrobe? Yeah. You sometimes ditch the trench coat for like a t-shirt? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, out and about because I do not want you representing the show outside of your duties with the show. You know anybody can wear that shirt. I know anybody could wear it but I'm in particular concerned that you're wearing it. Do you think it would be good or bad if JD Vance wore a Get Blayed shirt? I think it would probably be a net negative for the show at this point. Yeah I would hate it. I would be really excited if I saw him in this shirt. But anyway, I... If Trump wore one, it would be fine.

Starting point is 00:10:06 I... I... It would be fun. That would be funny. I would... That would like that. That would make me laugh. I'm a gamer.

Starting point is 00:10:14 I love games. That would be the most... Who can get on and play Rocket League with each other. Can you imagine your phone in the morning if that happened? If we found out that he plays like CSGO or... No, no. If he wore a GED blade shirt. Oh, no, yeah, I would, we would just, I mean, I'm being honest right now, I'm never doing

Starting point is 00:10:30 this show again. Has that man ever, has he ever worn anything other than a suit or a polo? I don't think he wears t-shirts. I cannot imagine that man in a t-shirt. There's people like that, that I'm like, what are they like when they're at home sick? And one of my go-to thoughts- Robe. Like robe, obviously, right.

Starting point is 00:10:47 Oh yeah, sure, probably a robe guy. A long shirt with a little floppy hat. Like classic pajamas. I was like, what does Prince wear to sleep? What does Prince wear, or what did Prince wear when he was just like, I'm just chilling at home today, I'm not doing all that Prince stuff. Do you think he has jeans?

Starting point is 00:11:03 I think he had fancy pajamas. You think he just like fancies like silk purple pajamas probably? Yeah, yeah. I think about that, but anyway. Anyway, I'm here to ask you a question. And it's what are you playing? Metapodaga, what are you playing?

Starting point is 00:11:19 All right, so I did something. I had an experience this weekend. I went to, I had my bachelor party was very fun Hey, how about that? I'd love to hear a big group of boys you send the invite to my old email, maybe I Was there can I say I? Couldn't make it I knew I had you didn't get your invitation. I didn't know I didn't know I didn't be able to spam I had it. I thought you didn't get your invitation. I didn't know I didn't know I had two thoughts about Me bringing this up. I was like one Nick's for sure gonna say that

Starting point is 00:11:51 To he's gonna say that knowing that if he was invited he wouldn't go I would not have gone Yeah, it sounds like it I sort of did was like would Nick go and I was like I would feel like then I would There's something weird about like the the quote-unquote like rules. I was like I would love everybody to have been there Yeah, yeah, what are the rules? I can't have chicks. I guess That's true. I guess you can I was I was I was at a chicks. Wait, what do you call the other kind? Bachelorette party. Yeah, I was at that kind. Oh, you got to go to that. Yeah, yeah. It's one of these things where like,

Starting point is 00:12:27 in the entertainment. Oh, yikes. So they get you, you got a bunch of, they got a bunch of layers on everyone's like, you know, a bunch of excited women drinking a bunch of rose, be like, oh, what's underneath that trench coat? Yeah, you can't imagine how fast you can get out of

Starting point is 00:12:40 all those layers though. Covering up the pee on your shirt and be like, how about we change this t-shirt says from get played to something else get laid that's right No, yeah, you're describing a thing that happened uh, but anyway, I was you know, I went to a bachelor party I should have just invited you guys you hated it. No, it's sorry. I would have loved it, except I don't drink anymore. I went to a- Yeah, that's the part where you would have been

Starting point is 00:13:07 miserable watching me fight for my life by the end of the night. I went to a bachelor party and we fired guns. This was something that was floated after I had booked the stuff that we were gonna do. And as it occurred to me, I was like, you know what? I kind of wish I had done that instead. Yeah, shooting guns is very fun.

Starting point is 00:13:25 It kind of seemed like it would have been fun. It's a hoot. But what we did do was we went to World of Racing in Pasadena, which has come up on the show Back when Casey and Marika from the Formula One podcast were on the show and what it is is it's like a I don't know. It's like a what do you call it? It's like a, it's basically like a storefront in a strip mall that has 13 PC and like,

Starting point is 00:13:53 like racing rig systems in them. Some of them have three monitors for just the one thing. Wait, so this isn't a go-kart place? It's like a virtual place? It's sim racing, so it's all sim racing rigs. And is it all, is it F1 specifically, or is it got a slated thing? It's like, it seems like it's just F1.

Starting point is 00:14:12 Got it. And it's only one track, and that was honestly our only complaint, was that, well, that it was only one track, and also that I felt so sick after I was doing it. My brother too, very delicate. Constitution? Constitution when it comes to car sickness and things like that, and I could hear him.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Like, he was just doing louder, deeper breathing than he normally would do. And I was like, he's gonna throw up, I think. And we haven't even drank anything yet. Was this the image you sent us of like the three monitors next to each other? Yes, and so there's like a full HUD in front of you

Starting point is 00:14:50 and also there's what's called a stream deck that has buttons that like have PC, like hot keys attached to them basically. So like, oh, if you need to reset your car, you just press this button instead of a control out, yeah, keyboard, something like that, keyboard input. Did it have motion? Yes, it had motion, it had very severe motion.

Starting point is 00:15:09 So some of the rigs are more intense than other ones. They have some that are fully built, like they all have seats and wheels and pedals and stuff, but some of them just have more shit going on there. And I got in one of the more intense ones and it was like kind of scary kind of because it's like, you know that you're not doing it, but you just have the mind had these huge monitors and you're just looking at it. And it kind of does feel

Starting point is 00:15:35 like you're just like in a car. Yeah. And you know that you're not in a car. Also, by the way, the most dangerous thing we did that night was get in a car after doing that. It was like it was just oh like, it was just, it was just, cause it's like, you have an hour and then hours up and then there's nowhere for you to like hang out or do anything. So you just leaving, like we were on our way to somewhere else anyways,

Starting point is 00:15:53 we all just got in cars afterwards. And we're like, this feels incorrect. We should have built in another thing to do right now. Cause it feels like this is dangerous. Yes, right. But it, the, you can crash. other thing to do right now because it feels like this is dangerous. Yes, right. But it will. The you can crash.

Starting point is 00:16:08 It has this cool feature where it has like driving lines on it and it tells you like, oh, if the line is green, that's when like you're really like really like haul ass and like put your foot down on the brake or on the on the gas. When it starts to turn yellow or red, that's when you start to break, but like nobody was breaking like at first So we were all just like crashing into each other and like and then oh the cool thing was you're wearing headphones with? Mike that you could we were all talking shit to each other and stuff and they didn't wipe them down from the previous um Group that was in there, which I was like,

Starting point is 00:16:45 I'm gonna probably wipe these down a little bit. Or at least swap them out for new ones, but it's fine, it was fine. There was a little kid in the group ahead of us that was way better than all of us were. We were so bad at it. It's not just like driving a car. You have to really respect the lines

Starting point is 00:17:02 and it's not like Daytona USA or whatever it is because like there are like legit like consequences you can like lose your time in a lap if you go outside of the lines and things like that and when you crash your your steering wheel is going around really crazy and they tell you to hands off the wheel and just push your brake because you could like, like break your wrists trying to like hold on to the steering wheel while it's going crazy. But it was, the review was that everybody just kind of didn't know what to expect except if he, if he was there

Starting point is 00:17:37 and it was just, if he got there late and didn't see the tutorial and still kicked all our asses. It was so, so funny. Every part of this track. Yeah, a hundred, he outfitted us. and didn't see the tutorial and still kicked all our asses. It was so, so funny. Every part of this trash. Yeah, he outfitted us. It was amazing. And also he was not really talking shit

Starting point is 00:17:52 in the microphone at all. He was just like locked in. And all the losers that were doing a bad job were just like roasting each other. You crashed, oh fuck, I crashed now. But it was, I honestly recommend it if it's like, there's something like that in your area. Because it was like, it was just kind of interesting to see.

Starting point is 00:18:11 And then we were looking up how much the rigs cost. Yeah. Because they have a plan there that's like, you could get a monthly subscription to go whenever, you can go 20 times a month. It's $500 a month. And so we were like, how much, like, how much does it cost to build one of these? Because we're like, if you just had this kind of seems a little crazy to spend $500 a month so we were like how much like how much does it cost to build one of these because we're like if you just Had this kind of seems a little crazy to spend five hundred dollars a month when you a lot when you could buy the thing

Starting point is 00:18:31 you can buy a Honda Civic and still have money left over for how much it costs for the fucking rig $20,000 it's 30,000 my god wild That's so much more than I expected. Yeah, I was expecting like that's like probably like for what they had It was like I don't know it was me like five thousand bucks me most of it's the computer between five and ten grand I would have been yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right thirty thousand dollars exorbitant Yeah, so maybe the five hundred is actually not such a bad deal buying a robot though like a massive

Starting point is 00:19:03 You're buying a car with no wheels You're buying like a full-ass car. Yeah and So I'm just trying to get rid of that thing too when you like it you get sick of it and like yeah exactly You gotta move At least you could put shit in the Honda Civic you need And it's so we were all like do we just like all buy Honda Civics instead We're gonna spend $30,000.

Starting point is 00:19:25 That ain't going to go places. Take us in the track. Yeah, just go wreck it. But it was a lot of fun. I do recommend it. Even some of my friends who aren't like huge into games or not gamers at all were like, that was absolutely worth doing. And so I highly recommend it.

Starting point is 00:19:42 I have a question, a follow-up question, because you talked about the playing, the experience of playing it. Do you know what the platform was? Like, do you know what the, was it iRacing? You know, I don't know what it actually, I actually don't know what it was. I know it was running on Windows, because I saw the-

Starting point is 00:20:03 Yeah, it was probably just had the high-end gaming rigs in there. Yeah. Because I remember when you mentioned, you know, we had Casey and Marika on from the Pit Wall podcast, with the... Casey specifically is an enthusiast for this sort of thing and has something of... Not a $30,000 rig, but something like... Yeah, probably $25,000.

Starting point is 00:20:22 Exactly, yeah. You spend a little less. He's got something like that at home, but I. Yeah, you just spent a little less He's got something like that at home, but I think he's plays on iRacing Okay, that's like yeah, I kind of like the hardcore sim racing platform of choice I don't know maybe some of the people in the discord have a sense of what this might have been yeah It was it was so cool. I I honestly don't know if I would personally do it again Unless it was like unless we were like gonna go do it and like make content out of it or something. Or if you guys wanted to just go kick my ass in a different way.

Starting point is 00:20:49 But I did love doing it. It was very, very fun. Wow. Yeah. That rocks. Yeah, that's awesome. [♪ music playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, Hey buddy, one in five of us has learn a new language on our bucket lists. Not sure what's up with the other four, but if you're that one, make this your year to finally learn a new language with Babbel. Hit it with the sound effect, ranch. Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that

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Starting point is 00:23:27 at the highest levels. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. Help Alienware make a slash DEALS! Purchase any PC or monitor between $715.24 and $911.24 and Dell will donate $1.75 for each eligible product within your purchase to computer aid capped at $1.2 million total! For details and restrictions go to Alienware.com slash Deedles! ["Deadles Theme Song"] Heather, what are you playing? Well, to report on it this week, I've been playing a lot of this month's We Play, You Play.

Starting point is 00:24:24 I've been playing a lot of this month's We Play, You Play. I've been playing it on analog pocket in the FPGA, FGPA, whatever that subset of the analog pocket is, on a Super NES emulator, and then I've been docking that in the analog dock to play it on my big screen. Wow. But I saw some commentary in our Discord after I said that it looked like shit on the DS

Starting point is 00:24:53 and people were like, she's out of her fucking mind. I would say on the- What an insane take. On the episode, I was a little taken aback by that take, but I was also like, maybe I'm misremembering it. I remember- So I'm gonna provide photographic proof. Okay. I'm gonna take a photo of these three formats.

Starting point is 00:25:09 I'm gonna take a photo of it running on a CRT on the original fucking Super NES. I'm gonna take a photo of it running on the DS, and I'm gonna take a photo of it running on the analog pocket. And I'll let you guys be the judge, because I'm not wrong. You guys just don't remember that it looks like shit. So yeah, that's my week in review.

Starting point is 00:25:33 That's the only gaming I've done. But I've really, really, really loved, I haven't done retro gaming in a moment. And it's so comforting. It is so easy to just like, before you're gonna go to bed, you play like 45 minutes, or you got a break in the middle of the day

Starting point is 00:25:51 and you don't wanna play something antagonistic. And so you just sit down with it and it's just a good feeling. Well, especially with the modern conveniences afforded by emulators and remasters and the like, of just like, you know, cause it used to be like, oh shit, I gotta play until I can find a save point.

Starting point is 00:26:09 Well, that's how I'm playing. Oh, so you are just playing. Yeah, there's no save states on the Pocket. You do have to find a new, like a new save point, but ultimately those save points are really well paced. Yes, yeah. The Pocket supports save states for some cores, but not all cores. Like the Super Nintendo one doesn't support it for some reason.

Starting point is 00:26:30 But I have a million things to say about this already, and I'll save it for the main show from when we talk about it. Because I've only played for a few hours, but I feel like now I can talk about this game for hours probably. I just want to say right now that Frog is my guy. Yeah, Frog is a lot of people's guys. I do understand you have an kinship with Frog. He feels like a very Matt sort of character.

Starting point is 00:26:51 As soon as I saw him, I was like, this is my fucking guy and I'll die for him. I love this guy. I said fuck yes out loud. I didn't know there was a frog in the game. Yeah. I love it. There is a frog.

Starting point is 00:27:01 So yeah, we'll talk about when we get there, but it is a game that starts very strong. I remember having a similar feeling when I played it for the first time on Super Nintendo, like, holy shit, this game hits hooks on me immediately. It's not a slow start. It just starts. It's just like, okay, here's all this crazy stuff.

Starting point is 00:27:17 Yeah, good game. I'm excited to talk about it. I'm really enjoying replaying it again. I love that. And I guess, Nick, what are you playing? Heather, thank you for asking. I am going to give a little bit of an Elden Ring update, just a progress update real quick,

Starting point is 00:27:34 and then I'll give some additional thoughts. I'm through Lindell capital and the sewers underneath the subterranean shunning grounds. Since our last record, I beat Godfrey, first Elden Lord, the Golden Shade version, Morgoth the Omen King, and Mogh the Omen. So I've made some progress. I, look, I just, I've already loved it so much. I'm loving it even more playing it now.

Starting point is 00:27:58 The thing that I can, that staggers me, and I don't know how, and if I've talked about this in any depth, but when I worked in game design, primarily I did level design. And so it's a thing I'm always conscious of. The level design in Souls games, but in particularly Elden Ring,

Starting point is 00:28:11 given its open world nature is so impressive. I mean, how the environments fold back in on themselves via shortcuts, every time it happens, it feels like a magic trick. And especially as I was going through the subterranean shunning grounds, I was like, this is the way this is structured and the geometry of this, the way things are stacked on top of the, you're going through this maze.

Starting point is 00:28:32 Then all of a sudden you come up on a door and the door opens up to an area you were at two hours ago. And there's the fucking, you know, that grace you started at. It's just like, this is so fucking spectacularly put together. And I know at this point, we're talking about a two-year-old game that's universally acclaimed, that just to heap more praise upon it is not the most interesting thing in the world. But it's just my feeling as I'm playing through it.

Starting point is 00:28:54 I'm just like, this is so fucking masterfully done for a game that's so much of the emphasis it feels like is on, when people are talking about its design strength, they're talking about its combat and its system design. The level design is also just absolute top tier. I had an Elden Ring thought this week, which is that, you know, before the internet,

Starting point is 00:29:15 you would share these things that you found and ask your friends if they had found those things. Yes. And then your friends would be like, oh no, I haven't found that, that sounds awesome, I'll look for that, right? The internet took that from us. Now you have walkthroughs or you have like, there's no true secrets,

Starting point is 00:29:37 except Elden Ring's lore is so like secretive and hidden in the details of the world, that it has allowed us that exchange of information experience again, because people are on YouTube and they don't have all the answers, but they have thoughts about it. They have conjecture.

Starting point is 00:29:58 So because they've made it so obfuscated, the story and the world and like, oh, did you see that this pot in the corner of this, like this last update that they updated Elden Rings DLC, they added a throne, like a big chair, in one of the arenas where you're fighting one of the bosses. And people are like, this is here for a reason. And now they have to like deconstruct the implication

Starting point is 00:30:28 of why that chair is there. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, like it's, I think a lot of that, I mean, comes from Hidetaka Miyazaki when he's talked in interviews about like how he would like read fantasy novels and stuff, but he didn't have like the greatest grasp of the language. I don't know if he's reading them in translation or whatever, but he like had trouble like understanding everything,

Starting point is 00:30:50 but he liked knowing like little pieces of the lore. He liked being able to put together like small elements of it and how hiding things from the user or from, you know, whatever, like the reader or the viewer, whatever the media is, like hiding things from someone makes everything feel bigger. When you give someone all the answers, they're just like, okay, well, that's all this is.

Starting point is 00:31:08 But if you're like kind of like a little bit, you know, coy with it, and you produce something that's relatively inscrutable, it feels like, oh, there's so many layers to this, and there's so much expanse here. Interestingly, I read, this is unrelated, but I read some of a Miyazaki interview I hadn't read previously because I know he's talked a lot about like, hey, I'm actually bad at games.

Starting point is 00:31:30 That's where this comes from. But this one, he was like, felt like he was really laying it on thick. He was like, no, I'm really, really like dog shit at games. I'm fucking terrible at games. I die all the time. I'm a really poor player. Like it wasn't in the sense of like, I'm just trying to make people, sometimes those can feel like, oh, I'm trying to make people feel better about failing at this game. But you know, he was

Starting point is 00:31:47 actually saying like, No, this actually comes from a real place of my own frustration of my inadequacies as a gamer. And so as such, these games were designed, by paraphrasing what he was saying, to have like so many options and so many things that you can use to work to tilt the balance in your favor. And it did make me more conscious of like, you know what, I've been using more consumables on this playthrough. I've really just been like, hey, you know, I got this fireproof liver. Hey, I got this fucking poison pot.

Starting point is 00:32:14 I'm just going to lob this at a guy, you know, just like fucking using these things that I would normally hoard in a game. And when you start to do that, the game feels a lot smoother, a lot easier. Like when you're really just actively using that stuff. I'm not being precious with my rune arcs. I'm in a tough encounter, I'm gonna use a rune arc. I'm not gonna worry about the fact

Starting point is 00:32:30 that I have a limited supply of these. I haven't run out yet, you know? And I'm being a lot less precious about hoarding my golden runes and just like, oh, I can almost get a level here if I burst these. All right, let me go ahead and do this. And that's actually like, again, made things just smoother sailing

Starting point is 00:32:45 And but I think the game is trying to coax you to do that It's trying to counteract your instincts in other games Which is just a whore to all your consumables and get to the final boss and I've got 99 of everything and that well Why do I have all these high potions? What right you know I mean why did I make this tougher on myself just to save these things for a rainy day that never came I do really like a Everything the loathsome dung eater. Love that guy. Love him threatening to defile my corpse.

Starting point is 00:33:12 Genuinely scary. I have a question for every, I just open it up a little bit. You both finished the game. I did not finish the game in my previous playthrough. I'm gonna finish it on this playthrough. I'm determined to do so. Matt, you finished the DLC.

Starting point is 00:33:26 Yes. How do y'all feel about the Mimic tier, just in general? And for anyone who hasn't played this game, the Mimic tier is basically a summonable creature who is an AI version of your character, has all of their abilities and equipment. I think that the Mimic Tier is great for balancing aggro. I think that if you use it the way I think it's supposed

Starting point is 00:33:55 to be used, it's just to give you more opportunities to heal or to, like it's not good enough to do anything on its own. Like you can't just unleash it and have it beat something for you. It's like a dumb version of you. But if it can hit the thing just like three times so it turns around so you can drink your flask, then like, that's great.

Starting point is 00:34:21 And it's designed to do that. I'd be nothing without the Mimic Tear. I needed it so much, and it was just such a... It's helpful, because it was obviously... It has the moves that you... It has my most powerful moves, which is pretty sick. But like Heather said, it is dumb, and the first... It takes too long to get like to wake up kind of to you because like you'll use it and it's like

Starting point is 00:34:51 it takes a second to form and yeah it's a prolonged summoning period to basically turning from a blob of gelatin into a simulacrum of the player character so like it does it's only helpful until it is like because like it's first like almost it feels like because like it's first like almost it feels like forever like its first like 10 seconds out it is worthless it is not doing anything but then when you do use him or you know if you get to use the tear and then he starts attacking like yeah thank god it's going to draw aggro for a second there's also I read a thing that people were doing to really, really draw aggro, because there's like a talisman that you can have

Starting point is 00:35:28 to always draw aggro. If you go into a battle with that on, and then summon the mimic tier, and then remove it from your thing, it'll still have it. And then it'll just like, the boss will only focus on the mimic tier, but you do need him to get some attacks in, because I feel like sometimes some of those attacks are going to be the attacks that aren't going to take him down,

Starting point is 00:35:52 but are going to be the one that will enable you to do it. Right. I'm feeling conflicted about it, because I feel like I'm kind of, maybe it's my build and because I'm also I'm not good at the game. I'm competent, you know, and I kind of know how to play this game. I play these kind of games, but like I'm like, not like excelling at this game. But I feel like I'm like, my mimic tier is so effective at drawing aggro that I'm really a no threat in these like like I'd rather say the opposite. My character is in no danger during these encounters. Like I have the leeway to kind of step away and heal at will. And some of these encounters,

Starting point is 00:36:34 I don't feel like I have like really experienced because I just kind of walked in and kind of stomped some of these bosses. And I check my level, I'm not like over leveled. I think just like, so what I'm basically saying is that I feel like I might, and this is by no means a judgment on how anyone plays any game.

Starting point is 00:36:50 I don't give a shit. I'm talking about me personally and my own experience. I kind of feel like I'm gonna stop using it. Wow. And I'm gonna, not that I'm gonna stop using Spirit Ashes entirely, but I think I'm gonna switch to something else. Cause I just kind of feel like he's,

Starting point is 00:37:03 with my strength build and with my lion's claw ash of war he is so good at drawing aggro and also inflicting like enough damage where these fights are relatively are a lot easier than I feel like they should be you know I mean and like I like part of the fun for me I never summon other players in boss fights I just want to take them on myself but part of is I do want to feel like I've learned how to do the fight. I've kind of mastered its moveset. And to me, that's part of the experience.

Starting point is 00:37:31 It was more fun for me to lose a bunch to Radon and then fucking beat Radon versus going in. And more got, or I'm sorry, Mogh the Omen, I almost beat by accident. I kind of walked in and was like, oh, here we go. And I just like, fuck, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't even all that much for me. So I maybe also need to switch out my Ash of War

Starting point is 00:37:51 or something like that. But yeah, I think I do need to swap that son of a bitch out of there. Yeah, go on. I beat Radon first try and was just confused by it. Cause it felt like I didn't understand what was happening and still ended up beating him. And I was like, wait, what was this?

Starting point is 00:38:11 That was my experience with both Godfrey, First Elden Lord, Golden Shade and Mogh the Omen. Both of them, I was like, I just walked in and I beat him on my first try. And again, I don't really feel like I, I wasn't even necessarily prepared for it. I didn't even know what was happening really. And then, yeah, so it feels like

Starting point is 00:38:29 a much less rewarding experience. But I also think that Elden Ring does something to you where your first try is, if you can get through it without, I think that you don't have fear on your first try. Right, I go in there expecting to lose. I'm like, oh, here's a boss fight, okay. And then you go into a crater of like, I can't beat this dude.

Starting point is 00:38:51 And there are so many attempts after that where you aren't nearly as close as you were on your first one. Interesting. And then finally you learn, cause it's just like, you're not, you're just like, you're kind of like in a place of flow and like, you're just like, you're kind of like in a place of flow and bliss where you're just like watching them

Starting point is 00:39:08 attack and like kind of doing stuff naturally, and then you enter into like an overthinking phase. I will be interested to see how your commitment to no mimic tier treats you during the Millennia fight. Oh, I will completely, like if I feel like I need it, I'll, like, fucking pull that reserve shoot. You know, I'm just like, but I'm just saying, like, I'm gonna try this approach for a little bit,

Starting point is 00:39:33 and I feel like, oh, wait, I actually need this for different, you know, because for certain encounters, then I will. I get the feeling like you didn't really do it, like, with, like like with summoned players. Yeah. Well, again, I'm not judging anyone on that. I don't give a shit.

Starting point is 00:39:49 I'm just talking about my own experience. I will say that like a lot of the times, like sometimes there were bosses where I'd, you know, not hire, I'd summon two players and then it was just kind of like, okay, like we actually, I didn't even really get to do it. But then sometimes I was like, we barely did did. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, we worry Us are bad

Starting point is 00:40:13 We almost died right now, but we did do it I It's possible Nick that you're just good at the game and you're giving you're not giving yourself enough credit we're sure not gonna get I'm I'm bad at the game and You're giving you're not giving yourself enough credit. We're sure not gonna get I'm I'm bad at the game and If that mimic tear wasn't in the game, there's like no way I would have finished it there's just like no way and I say that now but like Cuz there's also a phase that Heather I feel like maybe didn't highlight. There's the phase where Maybe you did there's a phase in every sort of like Elden Ring or like Souls like boss fight

Starting point is 00:40:50 that's like now I know I can do it. And like it's there's like a like I know that I can do this. I just have to wait for it to happen. It's not going to be right now. It's not going to be the next one. But it might be the one after that. And if it's not that one, you just know that you can do it. Because like there was a Just a nameless night in an ever jail in the DLC that was fucking me up

Starting point is 00:41:14 So fucking hard and I was like how is this boss harder than the bosses? I've killed What's his fucking deal and then I started to just like you know really really watch him and he has like a predictable set of movements he has like some like like attacks that has to like, he has to like not charge up, but like attacks where he can't move. And I was like, that's my zone. That's when I'm drinking a flask. That's when I'm charging up my attacks.

Starting point is 00:41:34 So then by the time he gets over to me, it's hitting him. But like there's that sweet spot. I think I can do this is a, that's a nice zone. Yeah, I love that. Like I had that feeling all the time in sec or I was like, okay, I have this figured out. I am just going to like lose a few more times, but I can get their health bar to, you know,

Starting point is 00:41:53 what have three quarters of the way down or seven eighths of the way down. And then you can like, I could, I could tell, I could diagnose each time when I fucked up. I was like, I got too greedy there. I got too tentative there or like, you know, I I jumped instead of rolling or whatever the fuck You know, I mean like I did I did one one dumb thing and like yeah We can diagnose that that is a satisfying in of itself knowing that the end is in sight and you just gotta

Starting point is 00:42:15 Just hammer away at a little bit. Yes anyway, I just think the game is a the game is and and Just absolutely Unparalleled masterpiece it. It is so fucking good. I have so much appreciation for it with this play through. Three strength builds in the room here? Yeah, that might be the other thing. Maybe I'll try a different build,

Starting point is 00:42:33 but I like the strength build. It's very fun. I'm using the fucking, I'm using the, I'm cursing too much. I get riled up, I start cursing. Like I should get random fuckings in there. I don't need to be doing that. Did Natalie watch about that one so recently?

Starting point is 00:42:47 I'm using the berserk sword or the cloud strife sword. It's a colossal sword called the great sword. And I'm using that and it's so fun to use. It's such an awesome weapon to hand. It's so powerful. And then also I'm running around wearing like Fia's dress. And what's that guy's name? Is it G? Is it D?

Starting point is 00:43:13 Who's the guy? The one letter guy. I'm wearing D's mask. And yeah, just absolutely look unhinged. Look like if I sat next to you on the bus, you would move seats. But that's sort of so fun to use. I'm really enjoying it. unhinged look like if I sat next to you on the bus you would move seats. But that sword is so fun to use. I'm really enjoying it.

Starting point is 00:43:28 And I know they had your own clothes in the game. Can I touch on something else real quick, something on non-Elden Ring related? So there's an article on Polygon that was out this week, this past week, that was about Christopher Tinn and how he, the Christopher Tinn is a composer who was the first game composer to win a Grammy. And it was for his composition that was Baba Yetu, that is the main title music in Civilization IV. It's a story by Nicole Carpenter,

Starting point is 00:44:11 and there's an interview with Christopher. And it's interesting, it gives some good context for it, but it also just wanted to be to, we'll put a link in the show notes. So I more want an excuse to play this track again. This is the title track for the game, and it is, I mean, I'll just play it and then we'll talk about its connection to the game itself. I'm going to sing my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word

Starting point is 00:45:08 I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word

Starting point is 00:45:24 I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I'm a man of my word, I'm a man of my word I Want to play all of it we can only play so much of it. It's it's so fucking good I mean, this is Liz is like my favorite. I think I played this when we did our You know our Triforce of Main Title themes. This is one of my favorite Main Title themes ever. I think it's just such a great composition. It's such a, what apparently Christopher Tin was asked to do, this is from the interview, Fire Exus actually asked me to come up with something

Starting point is 00:45:57 that was a fusion between African gospel vocals, orchestra, and big cinematic percussion. So the overall sound world was already established from the start. I decided I wanted the music to take a. So the overall sound world was already established from the start. I decided I wanted the music to take a more joyous tone, as that was already more idiomatic to African choral music.

Starting point is 00:46:11 The lyrics are actually a translation of the Lord's Prayer. So which is also a cool layer to this, but also speaks to kind of like the games sort of, you know, the idea of just like universality and cultures combining, and then also just kind of like the idea of just like universality and cultures combining and then also just kind of like the mess of colonialism, which is an inescapable part of a simulation about world history.

Starting point is 00:46:33 And I don't know, I think it's just such a beautiful composition. This was just a nice read. And it was also interesting to talk about him, to hear him talk about rather the progression of games gradually getting respect from, you know, the media at large and how in 2005, there would have been no idea note like when the game came out, there would have been no way that that any that this would be on the map for Grammy voters. But you know, but and then in 2011, when he when he wins the ad the Grammy for putting it on his own album,

Starting point is 00:47:06 the culture was in a completely different place. And now there are concerts where you can see orchestras playing game soundtracks. And Tar is so mad to be a part of that. Lydia Tar, the character is, understandably, that for her is low art. It's an incredible ending, incredible movie. We just spoiled the ending of Tar,

Starting point is 00:47:25 but it's a masterpiece everyone should see. I don't think knowing the ending of Tar like ruins the movie. There's crazier things. It's an incredible ending. It's such an amazing last shot. No, I agree. I think that is like one of the most perfect movies

Starting point is 00:47:39 that's come out in the last like 10 years probably. I think it's amazing. I don't feel that way at all. I love it, I could not love it more. But I'm saying like the end, it's not like a movie like that has such a crazy third act twist or something that like, it's not gonna hinder your enjoyment of the movie. I think it's a great movie to put on.

Starting point is 00:47:58 One thing I wish was in the interview that isn't touched on, and yet, you know, I mentioned with the interviewer only had so much time but I was like how did Christopher Tinn get this job apparently was lead designer Soren Johnson's college roommate so that was like hey man you want to make this track like I don't know sure whatever and then he wins a Grammy. Life's wild. I imagine being like a guy who could just do something like that and be like, oh, is this what you're hoping for?

Starting point is 00:48:28 And it's like the best shit they've ever heard. It's so crazy. All right. Thanks for indulging me with that. Hey, it's time to get back to tears of the kingdom console aesthetics. Part two. Again, we are judging purely the aesthetic qualities of the console hardware, the console itself, not had not the controllers. and we're not talking about handhelds.

Starting point is 00:48:47 Last week we got up through the fifth console generation, which is PlayStation 1 and 64 and Saturn, and we're picking up with generation six right at the start of the 20th century. But before we do that, Heather, you had a late ad. Yeah, so in the Discord, somebody was complaining or questioning where the Phillips CDI would have ranked. Phillips CDI is an interesting one.

Starting point is 00:49:10 We should talk about it. I think it is enough of a console. It's a major company, it's Phillips. Yeah. It's a major attempt to break into the market that Sony had just established. Hey, it can be more than Sega and Nintendo. Like, it can be more than Sega, Nintendo, and Atari.

Starting point is 00:49:30 It can be more than this, because Sony stepped in and got an immediate footprint in the industry. And I think everybody, like, 3DO and Phillips, like, after that were, like, trying to do the same thing, and I think it's worth looking at the CDI and deciding what tier it would be in. Let's bring that sun bitch up. Let's get a look at it.

Starting point is 00:49:52 Let's just look at the Phillip's CDI for a moment. Was the CDI one of those ones, by the way, Matt has so many browser tabs open, it is giving me anxiety. They're for the show. I believe you, I'm just saying it's a lot of tabs. Look, one of them is like Lola Bunny. Just leave it alone.

Starting point is 00:50:08 I don't know that I've ever seen this system. Like actually looked at. I mean, I've seen it, but I don't know that I've looked at it. Here's my question. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does make sense. Here's my question for the Phillips CDI. Was this one where there was one unit

Starting point is 00:50:23 or was this like a, some of these get these had a Licensable hardware that went into a bunch of different set-top boxes And I don't know if there were I believe the 3dl was an actual dedicated console But I'm not sure if the CDI was that I guess it was a car just a console. Well, these look different though Yeah, I mean there were other variants But I think that there was the initial release CDI. Got it.

Starting point is 00:50:50 So we'll go off of this one. This is the front loader, not the top loader. I'm astonished at how fucking pedestrian this looks. It just, again, it just looks like dad's VCR. It just looks like a plain CD player. Yeah. It looks like a plain CD player. Dad's special CD. Yeah. It looks like a plain CD player from 1995. It for sure did.

Starting point is 00:51:09 Like nothing. Yeah. Not even where the vents are on this box evokes game system. This doesn't evoke anything. I mean, I think that was probably partly by design. Sure. They were kind of like, we want to make this thing feel innocuous, like it is just like,

Starting point is 00:51:28 hey, you don't have to tell your guests at your fancy party that you have a game console, you know, God forbid. Yeah, there's just a VCR in the house that we watch porno on. It's not some gaming console for kids. We jack off and we put this thing out. This is plain. I think it's so boring.

Starting point is 00:51:49 I just, I just, I, is this above a D tier? It's just like, it's nothing. It's a D tier. It's yeah, aesthetically, is it better than, well, it's not as good as, yeah, it's, it's 3DO size. Maybe it's an F from an aesthetic standpoint. No, no, it's not an F. All right, well, that is just kind of nothing.

Starting point is 00:52:07 It's just kind of inert. And I almost want to give it like not even a grade, but I think that that belongs in D. It certainly is not up there. If we have Nintendo 64 in C tier, it's not going up D tier. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's a D tier thing.

Starting point is 00:52:19 Okay. But it is not Jaguar. Yes, no, it's not Jaguar. It can be right next to the 3DO. Jaguar is aggressively ugly. The 3DO where it belongs. Yeah, that's great. That makes a lot of sense.

Starting point is 00:52:26 Did we do Neo Geo while we're re-hatching this? We also didn't do Neo Geo. We gotta talk about Neo Geo. We do have to talk. We're not gonna get to the rest. Just so we're gonna be, there's gonna be part three. We're just going backwards? There's gonna be a part three.

Starting point is 00:52:37 No, no, we're finishing this, god damn it. Okay. Uh, Neo Geo's a good looking system. It is really good looking. It does look kinda good. It's really cool. So just to, this kind of has a rounded sort of like skate ramp sort of quality to it. Yeah. It's like a little bit of a swoosh. It looks like it has the profile of a door jam. Yes, very much so.

Starting point is 00:52:50 The top of a door jam. Yeah. It's like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit

Starting point is 00:52:58 of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a, like a little bit of a swoosh. It looks like it has the profile of a door jam. Yes, very much so. The top of a fax machine kind of.

Starting point is 00:53:11 And we're not judging cartridges, but the thing I did like, the console, the cartridge slot is so fat because it basically we're taking whole arcade boards and just plugging them in there. So it's so big, it's like the size of a VHS input. It was also astonishingly expensive at the time. Yes, so expensive.

Starting point is 00:53:30 That was like, that was my idea of a luxury item was a Neo Geo, an SNK Neo Geo. Like didn't it retail for 799 as like the opener? Right. And the games were expensive too. The games were like over $100 in the 90s. This, but I, you know, I guess I've, again, I've seen a Neo Geo, but I've never really stared at it.

Starting point is 00:53:53 And I think this is a sleek minimalist system in the vein of Sega systems. Like it seems to have that same aesthetic quality. Yeah. And I think this is a B tier console. I would put it in B, that feels about right for me. You know, all my Neo Geo reps, basically all of them are on the arcade cabinet.

Starting point is 00:54:21 I've messed around with the console a little bit, but you know, not in like, never owned one. Maybe I should just get one. The only experience I have with Neo Geo at all is somebody, a kid that I knew had a Neo Geo pocket color. Oh yeah. And I was like, what the, like a lot of us were like, what the fuck is that? Why do you have that? We all have Game Boy colors. What are you doing? The Neo Geo Pocket was kind of a big system, right? It looked big.

Starting point is 00:54:49 It was. Yeah. So where we landed on this one? B. That's a B tier. We'll put this in the B tier, okay. So that's all we missed from last week. Yeah, so the window is closed for further suggestions. If we did miss one.

Starting point is 00:55:04 We never figured out what the fuck a Virtual Boy was. I don't think Virtual Boy belongs here. It's not a handheld. I know it's not a handheld, but it's also not a console. How is it not a console? It has exclusive games for it. If I may, if the Vectrex is a console, which is a standalone display unit

Starting point is 00:55:27 that you put the games in, and the Virtual Boy is a standalone display unit that you put the games in and you can't fucking walk around with it, what else could it be? Let's talk about the Virtual Boy. Let me ask you something Heather. Yes!

Starting point is 00:55:43 You're arguing to include this? Are you doing so so we can put it in the fucking F tier? And then just move on immediately? It goes in F. It sucks. It sucks, no one likes it. We were mad at you for showing it to us. Why did they do this?

Starting point is 00:56:01 What an insane system. If you haven't, if you're like a listener who hasn't ever looked at a Virtual Boy. God bless you. Look at a Virtual Boy. It is a headset that you can't put on your head, attached to War of the World style legs. And it stands on your table. The instruction menu tells you to hunch over

Starting point is 00:56:21 and stare into it. Like you can't put it at head level. You can't just, like, put your head into it and stare at it at head level. You have to bend your own back and stoop over like an old crone in a Rumpelstiltskin story. It is bright red, and it is an F-tier design. The controller sucks, not part of it, but the controller absolutely sucks. It is bright red and it is an F tier design.

Starting point is 00:56:48 The controller sucks, not part of it, but the controller absolutely sucks. It is baffling. Yeah. The games look like shit. The only thing I like about it is I do like the bright red. Look at that child, look at the child and the way the child has to play this. He's in distress.

Starting point is 00:56:59 He's really. Oh, that's a man. This is a full grown man. But his posture has shrunk him to a child's proportions. It is a F tier system. Yeah, I think that's an F tier. I kind of do like the red, but I think it's an F. I like the red too, but only.

Starting point is 00:57:17 I do like, I like the red. I'd rather look at, if I'm being honest, I'd rather look at this than a CDI. Like it was gonna have like something on my shelf. Look at it, look at it climbing the charts. Look at the Virtual Boy. You kicked it all the way to the end of the mud and it stood up and it said, I don't give up.

Starting point is 00:57:35 Maybe we could put the CDI down to F and put the Virtual Boy in D. No, slam the Virtual Boy in F. It doesn't deserve to be any higher, but it is. It sucks. Yeah, it's at least interesting, which is more than I can say for some of those in the D tier. What about the Neo Geo CD?

Starting point is 00:57:53 Ooh. Cause we talked about Neo Geo. Now I don't know if there was a proper standalone CD or if this was an add-on. I think it was a standalone system, right? Am I wrong about that? By the way, I looked it up, Neo Geo games cost retail for $200 in 1997.

Starting point is 00:58:09 Oh my God. Which is $391 in today's dollars for a game. For one game. For one game, you're paying the price of a console. I wanna say, I know that we're trying not to go backwards, right? But I do wanna say, if we're including the Neo Geo CD, it seems strange that we wouldn't include the Sega CDX. All right, we should do that, too

Starting point is 00:58:30 Because the Sega CDX. Yeah is a diff is a standalone Genesis and CD system and while we're talking X's Should we talk about the PSX? Oh god. I love love the fucking PSX. The PSX is my number one aesthetic console. Look, let's just do this quickly. We'll do these three and then we'll move on. I feel how you two must feel about me all the time. I want to strangle both of you. Wait, wait, wait, hold on.

Starting point is 00:59:01 Hold on. So three editions. Three editions. OK, that will move on. Technically, five, on. Three, so three editions. Three editions. Okay, there's technically five, can we just add two before that? The Neo Geo CD, the Sega CDX, and the PSX. Let's do this real fast. But wasn't the PSX, wasn't that PlayStation 2 era?

Starting point is 00:59:17 Was it PS2 or was that a PS1? PlayStation 2 era. Yeah. Okay, then we'll do it when we, the next one. So it's only two editions. Great. The Neo Geo CD, I don't think is as pleasing as the... It looks like an N64.

Starting point is 00:59:27 Yeah, it does look very much so. I'm not impressed. I think this is a C. Yeah, it's a C. Just kind of boring. Yeah, the thing that I like about it, I like the little bridge. I do like the bridge.

Starting point is 00:59:38 It's kind of got this... That's where the game goes. This arc in the top, yeah. For the top loading CD. All right, it's a C tier system. All right, there we go. Great. Flushing out the C tier a little bit.

Starting point is 00:59:51 Okay. Now look at this fucking thing. This does look cool. It does look really cool. I also wanna say that you should see it sized. The Sega CDX, of course. Yeah. The Sega CDX, you should see it sized,

Starting point is 01:00:06 because it doesn't, this was portable CD size. Yeah, it looks like about the size of a Sony Discman. Like look at, no, I don't know what that is. Well, that's it with a 32X jammed in top of it. So if you can see a Sega CDX compared to other systems at the time, it was, it's small, it almost looks like a portable CDX compared to other systems at the time. It was, it's small, it almost looks like a portable CD player from the 90s, and it is, it's aesthetically, it's sleek.

Starting point is 01:00:37 Yeah, it's not much bigger, and you know, it looks like two DVD cases stacked on top of each other. It's about the size of a PS2 Slim. Really cool sizing. I love the sizing on the machine, and I love the way it looks. Nobody I know, not even myself, I didn't even own one of these fucking things.

Starting point is 01:00:56 Like this is not a thing that I own, but it's a good looking system. It's really cool. I like the curvature at the front. I do too. It kinda, if I can just get in my spooky goth bag for a second. Please.

Starting point is 01:01:12 Turn it upside down. You might mistake this thing for a damn tombstone. Oh yeah. It does look like an inverted tombstone. Yeah, all right. Not to get too spooky over here. No, I don't think so. I think this might be an A tier.

Starting point is 01:01:22 This is, I think the Japanese or European version of the CDX. I think the American one had a, yeah, a slightly different logo at the top. That logo's a little bit less pleasing on the American one. I just wanted to give it, like, since Famicom and Nintendo are slightly different,

Starting point is 01:01:41 I just wanted to say, I think the CDX logo is slightly different. No, the logo here, that looks like a generic piece of, you know, consumer electronics. But the- It's like a Sorny or whatever. Yeah, with the Sega logo on the top, it's a fucking good looking system.

Starting point is 01:01:57 I concur. I think that that might be an A tier, maybe a B tier. Whoa, I'll give it a B. Yeah, let's put it in a B. What do you think, Matt? If I'm being honest, it doesn't move me. It's not really doing anything for me, but I don't dislike it.

Starting point is 01:02:14 Well, it's definitely not going in A then. No, I think it's fine in B. I'm happy with it in B. That feels like if you're a little lukewarm, I'm a little bit more enthused. Heather lends it in B. That's pretty good in there. All right, great. Okay, so now we're done with the new editions, I'm a little bit more enthused. Heather, Lensit and Bea, let's bring them in there. Great. All right, great.

Starting point is 01:02:25 Okay, so now we're done with the new editions and we simply cannot go back. All right, great. So we're almost at the hour mark. Let's get to this week's episode. Okay, the first one up actually is the PSX. Wow, okay, we're starting with that, not the PS2. God damn, God damn.

Starting point is 01:02:43 It's really cool looking. That is a fucking S tier system. Do you wanna describe what the looks of this are for audio listeners? Me? Yeah. The most expensive white plastic you have ever seen. It looks like, it looks like even now,

Starting point is 01:03:04 it looks like something from the future. Yeah, it's a little too tall, which is part of what's intriguing about it. It looks like a desktop computer. I don't mean like the ones that were like, not the tower case, but there used to be a form factor where it was a desktop, which was a thing you would sit on top of your desk

Starting point is 01:03:20 and you put a monitor on top of. That's what it looks like. Or like a fax machine. It is wide. it is shiny, it's like a highly reflective white plastic. It was both the PlayStation 2 and a DVR. So back in the early 2000s, if you wanted to record something off cable

Starting point is 01:03:46 You could use either a VCR or a digital video recorder which had a hard drive on it And then you could watch that content later That of course is not something we have to worry about anymore Yeah, but the but Sony was like what if we made a PlayStation that could be the centerpiece of your made a PlayStation that could be the centerpiece of your living room entertainment, and it could record your cable shows. It came with a fucking remote, which was also wild for a game system at the time.

Starting point is 01:04:14 And I know we're not including it, but the white controller that's paired with it is gorgeous. Yeah, it is an audacious system that looks extremely adult for the era that it was released. And if you saw it in person, it also looked really, really, really expensive. This was like mythical to me when I-

Starting point is 01:04:36 The PSX? Yeah, because it wasn't released here, right? No. No, and it was only released in Japan. And it wasn't too long after, I guess it was a few years after the PS2 proper. So it was kind of mid through its generation. But also I think it was one of the first,

Starting point is 01:04:54 maybe the Xbox was already, like it had, the main thing is it had like a built-in hard drive, which is pretty huge. I also want to say that as a Sony fan, this was also one of the very first devices, if not the first device to use the cross-media bar operating system, which was something that Bravia TVs used

Starting point is 01:05:16 and then PlayStation 3 ended up using that sort of like you swipe left and right through all of your available options or content or gaming or photos or whatever. But yeah, this had the cross media bar on it, which also was on the PSP. The photos tab on any of those things is always like, who's putting stuff on here?

Starting point is 01:05:40 I did. You did? Because I was like, I have to see what happens. Interesting. And much like the news channel on the Wii like it had like a bunch of music and like fade like cross fade things that was like specific to The PlayStation 3 I just like I'd never I never used the the novel

Starting point is 01:06:02 I will say the novelty because like the PSP, I didn't have a digital camera, the PSP was the first portable device I had that you could put photographs on. The novelty of, oh, I can put a photo on here was kind of something. Interesting. Same thing as UMDs, it was like, oh wow, I can watch a movie on this thing.

Starting point is 01:06:18 I think we should bring UMDs back. UMDs are rad. Oh, look at that. Wikipedia says it was the first device to use the cross-media bar. Wow, there you go. Yeah. I think just purely from the aesthetics of the console, I love how clean this looks,

Starting point is 01:06:29 I wish more things looked like this, and I think this, I agree with Heather, this is an S tier. It's a fucking S tier, man, it's so good. I agree, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous, and it was something that when I was a kid, when I had heard about this, I was like, wait, is it, like, I truly just wasn't even sure

Starting point is 01:06:45 if it was real. Yeah. It looked so crazy to me. Yeah. So it's up there, an S tier in the top tier with what we had from last week. It's the Genesis slash Mega Drive, the Super Famicom, not the Super NES, the PlayStation One,

Starting point is 01:06:59 and now the PSX. I think it's funny that we talked about the PSX before we talked about the PlayStation 2. Yeah, we kind of went out of sequence there. Yeah, I forgot. Well, I kind of had the tab in the wrong spot. It'd be funny if we didn't do PS2. We'll save it for last. Yeah, we'll save it for last.

Starting point is 01:07:13 PS2 looks great. I do think it's a really cool looking console. It's the best looking console of all time. I don't know if it's my favorite looking console of all time. I think it is the best looking console of all time. I don't feel the same way. In fact, I like how the PlayStation 1 looks more than the PlayStation 2, but I do think the PlayStation 2 looks cool. I do think the PS2 logo, the blocky logo is cool.

Starting point is 01:07:34 I like that it has the proper PlayStation logo on the front as well. That was retained. Very functional design. When I saw the PlayStation 2 standing up on its little stand, I was like, holy shit. Like, it was the first time that I, like, also, this was the first time that I ever did a midnight, like a stay overnight in a parking garage, waiting for, I think it was Sears to open,

Starting point is 01:08:02 because everywhere else was like, sold out. But Sears was going to get a few, and nobody thought was Sears to open because everywhere else was like sold out. But Sears was going to get a few. And nobody thought of Sears. And I got to the Sears and there were already like five people in line at like 8 p.m. the night before. And it was like, people were like, yeah, they're definitely getting a few.

Starting point is 01:08:22 We don't know how many. Because this was also a console that, when it was released, was an extremely short supply. Like you couldn't find a PlayStation 2 anywhere. It was the first mass-produced home console that looked like it was for adults. I think this is the transition moment for gaming. Well, the other element of that beyond its aesthetic is,

Starting point is 01:08:47 of course, it played DVDs and so many people, the big part of why DVDs became so omnipresent is because people were like, well, I can watch them on this game console that I own. And that was a huge part of it. It's not S tier for me, but I will defer to the judgment of the room with the triumph rate. I would put it probably in A tier if it was just me.

Starting point is 01:09:11 When we started this, I said there's only one console that belongs in S tier on the episode last week, and I was like, it's the PlayStation 2. And then, you know, as time has gone on, I've allowed other things into S tier. If there's an S plus, it's PlayStation 2. And then, you know, as time has gone on, I've allowed other things into S tier. If there's an S plus, it's PlayStation 2. Wow. I mean, I do love the way it looks. I love it's very nostalgic to me.

Starting point is 01:09:33 It's like the PlayStation 2 is very, very important in my house. It was used for several hours every single day by my brothers and I to the point where it stopped working. Like we used it so much and then had to get a Slim. The Slim is the one that I still have. Love the Slim. Are you evaluating the Slim as a different thing? Great question.

Starting point is 01:09:55 Are they two things or one thing? We haven't done any other console revisions. Yeah, it's true. But is the PlayStation 2 Slim a revision or is it like its own thing? I think it's very much a revision. Okay. Yeah, it's true. But is the PlayStation 2 Slim a revision or is it like its own thing? I think it's very much a revision. OK, yeah. OK, then we don't have to include it.

Starting point is 01:10:12 But but it is like one of the cooler revisions ever because they made it so small. Yeah, beautiful. To me, it doesn't it doesn't make it doesn't make sense. Yeah, because the the PlayStation 2 is like it's not

Starting point is 01:10:23 like monstrously thick or whatever. But imagine like the well, the because the PlayStation 2 is like it's not like monstrously thick or whatever but imagine like the will the because the PlayStation 5 slim is out now and it's Not that much smaller than the PlayStation 5. But right so it's like Not that crazy to me. But like imagine if the PlayStation 5 slim was as thin as the PlayStation 2 slim Yeah, no the PlayStation 2 slim, you'd be like, what the fuck? How'd they do that? Yeah, yeah. No, the PlayStation 2 Slim is wild. And it's like the thickness of a DVD case. Yes. It's crazy.

Starting point is 01:10:53 It's as thick as a Switch, practically. It's like if you took your phone and turned it to the size of a Cheez-It, you'd be like, I don't quite understand how they were able to get this engineering working. And then the next thing I'm going to say is, oops, I ate my phone. I wanna look at the camera roll on that thing. Yeah, see my lower intestines.

Starting point is 01:11:13 I'm happy with it. I'm letting it go in S tier from S plus. I vote A and I will defer to the room. My God. Do you guys not remember what game consoles look like when the PlayStation 2 came out? I do remember what they look like. Yeah, I remember the PlayStation 1.

Starting point is 01:11:28 I had one. I thought it looked better than the PS2. I was kind of, I thought it was a little bit of a downgrade. If the PlayStation 1 is in S tier, PlayStation 2 to me looks better than the PlayStation 1 and has to then be included in S. But then I am sorry to say, this is the final Sony console in the S tier.

Starting point is 01:11:48 What? Interesting. Oh yeah, you know what? Maybe I'll agree. I might agree too. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there too.

Starting point is 01:11:55 Next week and the week after. PlayStation 2, PSX and the original PlayStation, we salute you. Yeah, excellent looking systems. Really cool design. That was the thing, like we salute you. Yeah, excellent looking systems. Really cool design, that was the thing. Like Sony, you know, they sometimes had shit that was very quirky or just didn't fucking work, but it always looked awesome.

Starting point is 01:12:13 Yes, unbelievable. This next one here is then, oh, do we wanna do the GameCube? Yeah, we should talk GameCube. Well, GameCube and Xbox. GameCube and Xbox, yes. We've gotta talk Dreamcast though, Dreamcast predates.

Starting point is 01:12:25 Oh yeah, let's go back to the Dreamcast actually, cause you know what? I got a spicy take about this one. Wait, Dreamcast didn't come out before. Oh yeah, it did. It did, yeah, yeah, 9999. Oh yeah, it did. You wanna hear my spicy take?

Starting point is 01:12:38 Yeah, please. What is it? I think the Sega Dreamcast is one of the most gorgeous looking systems we have. I love this. I love this. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear it. I love it. Look at it. It's perfect looking. Yeah, jam it up in S tier. Let's move on with our lives. There's no way, right? It's in the S. It's so cool looking.

Starting point is 01:12:53 It's so, it's just, it's, it's, it's beautiful. I'm not even gonna expound. I have my issues with the controller, but we're not evaluating the controller. I quit. The controller is separate. We're talking about the console itself. And the console is, it's, it's, it's what the PS2 is to black, the Dreamcast is to white I just want to say again. Yeah one more time as the dreamcast person. Yes. Can you imagine? Sega putting out this system and being like we fucking did it guys We fucking nailed it across the board one of the best launch launch slates ever

Starting point is 01:13:23 I got a dreamcast at launch with four games. They were all fucking good. You could plug a fucking ethernet cable into this thing. In 1999, people were like, Sega was like, there's not a box we have not checked with this thing. I have a meme homework assignment for somebody who's listening to the show,

Starting point is 01:13:41 because I'm not going to do this. I want you to take the clip from the end of Uncut Gems, where it seems like everything worked out. I want you to put Sega over Adam Sandler, and then figure out the rest of it, because I won't spoil it, but you get it. But for that, for the system to be hacked almost immediately, and for Sony to be like,

Starting point is 01:14:03 fuck it, we're making it a DVD player. Like those two things back to back, it's like, oh my God. But DVDs. Like getting shot in the stomach. Yeah. And then Sony walks over to you and also shoots you in the head. I think they'd also lost so much brand equity

Starting point is 01:14:18 in SEG at this point. I think they had lost a lot of consumer goodwill because of the Saturn, which I know is a system you like, but it just did not have the software support that the PlayStation did. In America. In America. And I think there was that,

Starting point is 01:14:33 the other thing is that they really were cucked by Sony in North America releasing Final Fantasy VIII on the same day. Like that was like a huge part of them taking the wind out of the sails of this of the launch And but all that said at the time I'm playing Soul caliber on the sum bitch and I'm like this is gonna rule the earth Like I can't believe that a whole a home console game can look this fucking good and play this well

Starting point is 01:14:58 This really feels like the next generation. This feels like a totally different thing And then the ps2 comes out like, you know, about a year later and completely eats its lunch. Yeah. I had fond memories of playing Dreamcast as a kid. I didn't own one myself. I now have one, of course, because of Heather Ann Campbell. I wish I had it plugged in.

Starting point is 01:15:19 I should just plug that fucker in. Yeah, why not? You wanna hear a conspiracy theory? Please. I wonder if Sony was the one that cracked the Dreamcast. Sure, I'd buy that. I love the, I mean, I keep talking about the controllers. I don't like the controller,

Starting point is 01:15:33 but I love the color of the buttons, can I say? Four ports, love the ports, love the power and the open button on opposite sides. I love these, like the little, like weird, like beveled sort of like angular quality of the lid. the open button on opposite sides. I love these, like the little, like weird, like beveled sort of like angular quality of the lid. I like the triangle that disappears into a circle and then comes out the other side of the triangle.

Starting point is 01:15:55 Yes, that's exactly. And then of course the Dreamcast logo, the little spiral. How fun is that? Really, really great. Very Junji Ito. S-tier, S-tier, yeah. It's in the S-tier. Let's go to, do you wanna do GameCube first

Starting point is 01:16:07 or do you wanna do the Xbox? Xbox canonically comes in next. I guess let's do the Xbox. I think it's real fucking ugly. This is the thing. It's also so huge. Like what you remember of getting, or like what you know now of the PlayStation 5,

Starting point is 01:16:21 like I can't believe how beefy this boy is. That was the feeling of the Xbox back in the day, the original Xbox. It was so huge and so heavy. It's like, it's the size of a full grown man's torso. Enormous. The font sucks also. The font is so ugly.

Starting point is 01:16:37 I hate the black and green. I hate it. This might be, I don't think it's quite F. I do think the big X on top kind of works. It looks shitty. I don't know. I maybe it's I don't think I can go above D on this. I aggressively don't like looking at.

Starting point is 01:16:53 I just want us to think about the time of I don't because I'm not here to defend this. Yeah. This was released in 2001. Let's think of the era for a second. Right. This was sort of like, what if like this was the most powerful thing in your fucking house. I didn't have one of these I was envious of the Xbox because of some of the games that I would see my friends playing and talking about we're not talking about The games are not talking about the library reading up purely on the aesthetic

Starting point is 01:17:18 if some of the buttons are black Why aren't all the buttons fucking black? You know what I mean? Like, why is the, uh, fucking the eject button and the power button that's silver? Why isn't it green? If it's going to be a different color, it should just be green. Let's keep that going. I agree the silver buttons are, they don't quite sit in. I think that's a good call. You know, my memory of the Xbox, I did get an Xbox shortly after launch and loved playing Halo. Like the Halo one is just like, you know,

Starting point is 01:17:52 I've talked before about how I played through the whole campaign co-op with my then roommate and it was one of my favorite gaming experiences. I got the Xbox. So I dropped out of college. I was working an IT job at that college. I'd got, just got hired back there. Awkward.

Starting point is 01:18:10 It was a little awkward. And no, it was fine, no one cared. And then I got fired. And the day I got fired, I took the bus to Toys R Us and I bought an Xbox. Hell yes, dude. That fucking rocks. I love that.

Starting point is 01:18:24 And also I feel like that's how I mean When I got my series s which will get to yeah, I didn't intend to buy one Yeah They just didn't have PlayStation 5 day of and I couldn't wait for it to get to my house went to a target They had him because they had a bunch of them, and I walked out with one. Wow. So easy. I want to say, if you cover up the Xbox logo on this thing, right, if you're-

Starting point is 01:18:50 The one on top or the one on front? Both. If you like put your thumb over both of those logos, and you're just looking at this fucking machine, it looks like something you buy on Alibaba. Yes, you're right, you're absolutely right. It is an atrocious system. It looks like a glue trap for rats.

Starting point is 01:19:11 Yeah, it is. This is an F tier console. Yeah, it's a cheap piece of mail order shit. And I don't know if I'd put it in, well, but am I gonna fight for it and to go into D? I don't care, put it in F. But to me, it doesn't look too much different than the 3DO or even the CDI.

Starting point is 01:19:29 Those are like boring though, this is like ugly. Yeah, okay, that's an interesting distinction. I could be happy with it in the F. And what do we have in, is that the Magnavox Odyssey in D? What's the one that's with the two knobs? Or that's a Colecovision. That's Pong right there. That's Pong and then we got like the Colecovision.

Starting point is 01:19:44 Colecovision and television. Like those to me are more aesthetically pleasing than the original Xbox. Yeah. I can hear some of the comments, they hate Xbox. They never talk about Xbox. It's not true. We don't hate it actually. We actually like it, but we hate the way it looks.

Starting point is 01:19:58 And there's a system coming up that I would put much higher, that's an Xbox system, that I put much, much higher on the design aesthetics list, but the original Xbox looks like shit. Can we get, Matt, maybe you can, I don't know if the Bing search is like Xbox, GameCube, PS2 size comparison, just so we can see them next to each other,

Starting point is 01:20:23 because again, if you had all three of these or some combination on your on your entertainment center, it was kind of crazy how big that looked. Look at how big that was. Look at how massive it is. It's it's absurd. That's not the PS2 Slim. That's a regular PS2. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:20:41 It dwarfs it. It sucks. It sucks to look at. It's the size of three GameCues. Also, now that you can see it from... Now that you can see it from above, you can also see that it's rounded. It's not square.

Starting point is 01:20:52 No, the rounded aspect is really unpleasant. It doesn't even look rounded. It looks like a bloated battery. Like, it looks like incorrect. That doesn't look right. It ate a big dinner. It ate a big dinner. What do we mean a little bit? God, the PlayStation 2 is gorgeous.

Starting point is 01:21:06 Fuck, that font is gorgeous. I never had this little stand here. I didn't have that. I had that stand. Oh my God, that stand made it look so fucking sleek. I was always afraid that the disc was going to fall out and then be trapped inside. Legitimate fear. I don't think that ever happened.

Starting point is 01:21:24 I was like, what if the little disc tray was, you know, a little shaky on the way in or for some reason maybe there's an earthquake and it shook the disc out of the tray. Right, because you're just setting it down on the tray. It didn't have like a thing. It locked in. Yeah. I get your concern. It didn't happen, but like...

Starting point is 01:21:41 It was a slot loader. I'm scared thinking about it now. Okay. All right, we got to move on. That's the first generation we I'm scared thinking about it now. Okay. All right, we gotta move on. That's the first generation we covered. We gotta keep going. Okay. We're not even done.

Starting point is 01:21:49 GameCube, GameCube is gorgeous. I love how it looks. I think it's so cool. Oh, boy. I love it. I love that it's approaching a cube. You know, it's not quite a cube, but it's approaching a cube's proportions.

Starting point is 01:22:02 I think that's really pleasing. I like that it's small, it's's compact people have different opinions about the handle I like the handle on the back even though I think it's ultimately non-functional, but I like the idea behind it. Can you imagine? Walking down the street seeing somebody holding a fucking game cube by the handle Like what for? Hey man, what'd you bring for lunch? Oh, no, this is my console Yeah, I'm taking it to another location for some reason Mario Mario Party 3 today dog. I think that so my pet theory is that Nintendo takes some design cues from Apple and The original Macintosh has a handle on it like the 85 Mac has a like a place where you can pick it up and put it down

Starting point is 01:22:44 And then the Steve Jobs after he leaves The G5 Mac has a place where you can pick it up and put it down. And then Steve Jobs, after he leaves Apple, he starts Next Computer, or Next, and he makes a cube. And I think that Nintendo, my theory is that Nintendo was like, we should make a cube like the Next Cube. Oh, that's interesting What can we pull up the next cube? Which is just called next any xt oh Next not this no yet. No not the next cube. We're going to evaluate here. This is a different piece of hardware

Starting point is 01:23:21 Yeah, so oh this sucks. Yeah, my theory is that they were like, what if we made this, but a game console? I can buy that, yeah. Actually, now that I'm looking at it for a little bit longer, I kinda like it. It's kinda cool. Heather, do you like the movie Steve Jobs, the Danny Boyle movie?

Starting point is 01:23:39 Dude, I saw that movie so many times in the theater, you would be astonished. I probably wouldn't knowing you. I'm gonna say right now, if it was more than one time, you're a maniac. I wanna say it was at least in theater seven times. Seven times, it tracks. I do like it.

Starting point is 01:24:00 I think it's great, I love it. But also the next logo is the next logo on a cube and the GameCube logo is a GameCube it's the G that it's a cube. Yeah, I think that the next the next box Inspired the GameCube box. I like this. That's my pet theory. Yeah, that's really cool looking All right. So what where do we want to rank the GameCube box. I like this. That's my pet theory. Yeah, that's really cool looking. All right, so where do we wanna rank the GameCube on our tier list? Heather doesn't seem to be so stoked on it. I think, were you saying that this is S?

Starting point is 01:24:37 I like, look, I like it as much as the PlayStation 2, but, you know, this is not a dictatorship, I'm not a despot. I do like the color ways. That's another fun part of it. The different colors is so fun. And at launch you had purple, black and orange. Also I think apple inspired.

Starting point is 01:24:53 They released a bunch more. That makes, that makes sense. I think if I'm being honest, I just like the shape of cube. I think. Goes a long way. I think it's good shape. Yeah, cube is a great shape. I just like the shape of a cube. I think it's good. It goes a long way. I think it's good shape. Yeah, cube is a great shape. It's good.

Starting point is 01:25:10 I like that it's, I don't know. There's something about it that's fun. The discs being small, not being the thing we're really talking about, but I kind of liked that as part of this generation as well. Didn't really own one of these myself. I could see it in the A tier. I could see it in the A tier.

Starting point is 01:25:32 I could be talked down and I could see it in the B tier even. I could live with it in the A tier. I just wanna say as, this is my home. That's right, this was a, your game was a Nintendo GameCube exclusive. It was an exclusive. This is where I was born. Where Shinji Mikami wanted to live.

Starting point is 01:25:49 And when I look at it, I get a little emotional. Oh. Because this is where I was born. That's really sweet, Resident Evil Merchant. That's wet. I wish mine wasn't so wet, but it is an important machine in my history. Just a grotesque image.

Starting point is 01:26:05 Yeah, so you were born on the day, not the day the GameCube came out, but the day that the Resident Evil 4 game for GameCube came out. You would say that's your canonical birthday? I was born before that. Okay. Like I'm an old man in that game.

Starting point is 01:26:22 Right. Yeah, I guess that's true. I guess then I'm wondering, how come you're always acting like you're today years old? What? Matt. What have I ever gotten wrong? Oh, talk to me like I'm a child. That was just a classic rib between friends.

Starting point is 01:26:43 Oh, oh, oh, right. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, oh, you got me. The dude thing, you sometimes say an insult you don't really mean to someone you like. Yeah, sometimes. Like, I hope a bee gets in your dick. Okay, we'll work on it.

Starting point is 01:27:04 Pretty good. God, the nightmare that that would be. Whoa! Let's put it in the A tier. Alright. Unless Heather is like, I hate it so much. No, you know, I want to like it more and I don't. But I think A tier is totally fair.

Starting point is 01:27:22 Look at it, look what you got, it's company. You got the master system there. I mean, it the, look what you got, it's company. You got the master system there. I mean, it just, it kind of feels like that's at the same sort of level for it versus like what's below it, which is like the Famicom and the Super Nintendo. It is an aesthetically pleasing device. And think about the bloated Xbox we just saw a second ago.

Starting point is 01:27:42 Yeah. Yeah, no. There's such fine edges on the GameCube that I really, really like it. Yeah, I mean, what's nice about it is that in an era when its competitors were increasingly trying to say adult, the GameCube was not afraid to be like, hey, kids can play this too.

Starting point is 01:28:03 Yes. By the way, you mentioned the GD-R the way, you mentioned the GD-ROM, the, wait, it wasn't the GD-ROM, right? The GD-ROM was the streamcast one, right? That was the, what the hell was the name of the GameCube? Disks? Disks, yeah. I can't remember.

Starting point is 01:28:16 Anyway, when I was working in game development, I worked on some GameCube games, maybe just one, and it was a port of a PlayStation 2 game, and one of my tasks I had to do was just batch compress a whole bunch of audio assets to get it to fit on that tiny disc. And it was like one of those things of just like, you don't think it's that big of a deal, like having like a little bit,

Starting point is 01:28:40 wait, it would add like 2.5 gigs versus like 6.4 gigs or whatever the DVD thing was, but it was so much less space if you're trying to just like cram all that stuff in there. So the GameCube I remember being a huge pain in the ass to develop for. Matt has pulled up a GameCube variant that might be worth talking about.

Starting point is 01:28:58 Yes, this was a Phillips, or no, this was a Panasonic collab. This was not a Phillips thing. This was the Panasonic GameCube. This was a Phillips, or no, this was a Panasonic collab. This was not a Phillips thing. This was the Panasonic GameCube. This was the Q. This machine sucks. Yeah, I hate the way this looks. So this one has a, it basically is like a GameCube,

Starting point is 01:29:17 but it's got that sort of silvery sort of like, like a vintage stereo sort of reflection quality. And then it's got a domed sort of top with a LCD screen. It also has feet. Yeah, it has little feet. It has feet on it. Little stools. Which elevate it's, it's just, it sucks.

Starting point is 01:29:40 It's just an LED screen actually, I said LCD. Yeah, and that was just like a digital readout because it was also a DVD player. So that was their big thing, came with a remote. This was like their answer to the PlayStation 2. It has eight buttons on its front. Yes. Eight. Too much going on.

Starting point is 01:29:56 This is really, they just really uglified the GameCube. This is the like, we have GameCube at home meme, basically. Like this is, this just, even though it's just dysfunctional, it's so much ugly. Yeah, the wish.com GameCube. Right. It has visible screws. This might be another F. I maybe might say D. Yeah, but think of the, that's the valley between the regular GameCube and then this one.

Starting point is 01:30:26 Well, that's also the thing of aesthetics of just like, hey, we have this essentially the same design, but you start changing enough things and all of a sudden it looks like complete shit. It's over-designed. It's also- Yeah, too much going on. It's unfair that we've included it because it is sort of in the family of revisions,

Starting point is 01:30:43 but I think because it's so ugly, it's worth remarking. Well, if we have the PSX on, I think the Q makes sense, because that's kind of its counterpart. Okay, okay, okay. Now we're up to the next generation. So we're looking at the Xbox 360. I really like how the Xbox 360 looks. I think it's really, really clean.

Starting point is 01:30:58 I think they fixed every issue with the original, the OG Xbox. I really like it. I like the white one quite a bit, but I think the other colorways work too. I think that the, because this is the launch version. Yes, yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:12 I think that the Xbox 360 is fucking sleek as shit. And I also think that the changeable faceplates allowed you to customize the way it looked on your shelf. And one of the ways they advertise that when it first premiered was that you could get a wood paneled front as a throwback to the like old electronics of the 1970s. I think it is an excellent looking system.

Starting point is 01:31:46 And this is the system that I, this and another system, I was like, we don't hate, we don't hate the Xbox and we don't hate Microsoft. Look at that, look at that wood-toned face plate. The wood panel one does look cool. Ha ha ha. I think it's an A tier,

Starting point is 01:32:04 I think the 360 is an A tier machine. Yeah, it's really, really pretty. And it's also, so much of it seems like a response to the first console. Cause it's like, it's concave instead of convex. Like it's sort of, you know, kind of, it goes in at the middle a little bit, kind of a trim at the mid section.

Starting point is 01:32:21 It's white instead of black. It's largely just clean and sleek as opposed to having all these grommets and rivets on it. That big power button in the front. Yes, yeah. Like it's a gorgeous I love the button.

Starting point is 01:32:35 I love the huge button. And it was a nice button to press. The hard drive on the top looks sleek and futuristic. The button though, could be the harbinger of death now, couldn't it, the red ring of death. Red ring of death. That's true, no one wants to see that, but you know, I don't think that's part of the aesthetics evaluation.

Starting point is 01:32:54 I think A tier is correct. Matt, did you close the tab? No, my, my, my, my Chrome crashed. Too many tabs. Yeah, you'd think it was a tab issue. I don't know, it might've been. This might've just fucked me. I hope we didn't lose all of our progress in this tier list.

Starting point is 01:33:09 Thank God, okay. It did, yeah. Okay, we're starting from scratch. I have all the images. Wait, why do you have two Chroms? Magna Box Odyssey, so. Why do you have two Chroms at the bottom of your screen? What is playing? Oh boy.

Starting point is 01:33:22 What the hell is going on? Oh my God. I can't believe we lost all of our tiers. We lost all of it. Did you screen, we must have screen capped the previous one. I screen capped the previous one. Okay, and we can rebuild what we did so far pretty easily. So we'll just start from here.

Starting point is 01:33:37 So I think A tier for the Xbox 360 makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's an A tier system. It's a gorgeous system. They did a great job And I'm I'm I'm shocked that they pulled it off. It looks like an entirely different Design team for sure and it maybe was ranch What was the first home console or video game console you remember playing or having it at your house? I think it was in Nintendo with

Starting point is 01:34:05 All right, so maybe an N64 It was a Nintendo with the cartridges. All right, so maybe an N64 and an N64. Yeah, I think it was an N64. There was like Mario Party and GoldenEye. Did you ever think about how it looked? Like just how the system actually looked or was it just purely a thing to play games on? I thought it was really cute. Cause like we also had the controllers

Starting point is 01:34:22 that were see-through. Oh, you had those. I really liked that. Yeah, cause the N64 had a bunch of different variants in terms of its various looks. How are we doing here, Matt? Matt's rebuilding the tier. I'm rebuilding the original one. Okay, great.

Starting point is 01:34:34 I have the memory of a goldfish, so I think. The 360 is an A tier system, I think is what we were just discussing. But the 360 in A, I think the GameCube from today was also in A. The PS2 was in S, I think the GameCube from today was also in A. Yep. The PS2 was in S as was the- PSX. The PSX.

Starting point is 01:34:51 And then we had the OG Xbox in F tier. There was a pop-up about an hour ago that said Chrome will close in an hour. And I was like, that's a weird thing to tell us. And I'm not kidding. in an hour and I was like, that's a weird thing to tell us. And I'm not kidding. All right, we had a brief stop down on our end. Matt's browser crashed.

Starting point is 01:35:12 It was a whole thing. We had to rebuild the entire tier list from scratch in tier maker. So it's all right, we're fine, we're back. We had a screenshot to work from, so we're picking it up from just putting the Xbox 360 into A tier, along with a GameCube today. What's up next?

Starting point is 01:35:34 Next, why don't we go straight to the big boy, the PlayStation 3. All right, hold on. Big bulky boy. I can hear the feelings, I can hear the vibes. I think that it is, I think this is a bad photo of the PlayStation 3. I think that the PlayStation 3 needs to be seen

Starting point is 01:35:51 standing up as it was designed to be. And I think that standing up in, at E3, the E3 like on the floor demo. Yeah, it looks cool standing on end. It looks better standing on. I don't think it's an unpleasant to look at console. And I like the glossy finish. It's a little too big, which I think is a factor.

Starting point is 01:36:14 It's incredibly large and incredibly heavy. It is also extremely premium. Like it was made out of premium materials and had ports that nobody wanted that Sony was like, we're gonna make this fucking thing the centerpiece of your living room. Yes.

Starting point is 01:36:32 Like, there was, there are ports on the original PlayStation 3, 4, like, you could take photos and then take out your memory card from your regular camera. Not like Sony proprietary stuff, but like an SD card or whatever they were called at the time, compact flash. I don't even know.

Starting point is 01:36:50 And you could slot like the the bottom panel on the PlayStation 3 opens up to reveal multiple ports that they were smart enough to hide underneath a plastic hinged door. This system screams hubris. It is, it is, when they announced its price and they showed off the size of it, I went, oh no, like out loud. Yeah, it is really something to look at. I had not seen one really in person before until I was at my friend's apartment recently and they got one.

Starting point is 01:37:30 Yeah. And I was like, this, you just got this? And they're like, yeah, somebody was like basically giving it away at a thrift store. Well, you can also play PlayStation 1 games on HDMI via the PlayStation 3. Yeah. on HDMI via the PlayStation 3. And that's part of why I keep mine around is because it's fully backwards compatible with PlayStation games, not with PS2 games, but with PlayStation 1 games.

Starting point is 01:37:59 I do not think this is an S tier system. I don't think so either. Just to go back to that, it's launched real quick, because the PS2 was, I think, still is the most successful console in history. It'll be beaten by the Switch at some point, but it just absolutely dominated the marketplace. And so everyone's like, oh, PlayStation 3. Well, that thing is going to be enormous.

Starting point is 01:38:19 And then, you know, the Xbox was whatever. It was an attempt that and the GameCube didn't really make a dent didn't make too much of a dent in its market share so everyone's like yeah this is Sony's battle to lose and they did everything they could to lose it with the PlayStation 3. That launch was disastrous and I remember that E3 press conference with Kaz Hirai where he was like you know the big thing is he was like, it's Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer. He introduced Ridge Racer as like their killer app and everyone was like, okay, well,

Starting point is 01:38:48 I like Ridge Racer, all right. And then he talked about, and then all anyone centered on was that when he announced the price, it was that it would retail for 599 US dollars. And that was a thing that got memed in like, you know, the early 2000s. The PlayStation, the little PlayStation logo, Matt, I don't know if you know this,

Starting point is 01:39:07 if you have it seated horizontally like this, you turn the logo so that it faces up and down. Yes, that is so cool. It's an awesome detail. If you stand it up on its side, you turn the logo so that it faces up and down. That is rad, I love that. The PlayStation logo is the only thing on here that is rad. I love that. The PlayStation, the PlayStation logo

Starting point is 01:39:25 is the only thing on here that I like. Like it's like the, I don't dislike the shape or the sheen or whatever. I don't like the Spider-Man 3 font, for example. Yeah, the font blows. So I'm just pushing that. But like the PlayStation logo to me is like it fighting for

Starting point is 01:39:47 Its identity it should have had Nothing on the top of it except the Sony logo small Yeah centered and then the PlayStation logo underneath the disk drive. Yeah, it looks like a George Foreman grill. It does It In person looks a lot better. This I think is a B tier system. I don't hate the Spider-Man font. I know that's maybe a heretical opinion. It doesn't bother me that much.

Starting point is 01:40:16 It does have some characteristics that became, you know, that set where everything was going, just not just for consoles, but for, you but for consumer electronics at large, which is the touch buttons, which I fucking hate. I like physical buttons. I wanna be able to know when something is on and off

Starting point is 01:40:33 at a glance and like, tactily, what's the word I'm looking for? Tactile? Tactily, but I'm trying to find the adjective version of it. Whatever the fuck, doesn't matter. I applaud. I do the adjective version of it. Whatever the fuck, doesn't matter. I applaud. I do like the slot loader. I applaud the hubris.

Starting point is 01:40:51 Yes. I applaud the walk into a room. I think this is a thing that like, is like a thing that guys say. You walk into your room and you flip, throw your dick on the table. Yeah, sure. Right? It's like they did it, but had a small dick,

Starting point is 01:41:07 but like stood there with the confidence of somebody. Either that or it was so big that it's upsetting. Right. The defoe. Small dick dick on the table is a very funny image. One of the things that I also like... I can hear the listener, your dick size is five. And if you're complaining about it, never mind.

Starting point is 01:41:40 One of the things I really like about the PlayStation 3 original design is the tiny tiny logos all along the seam on the top like all of the like DVD logo all of the all of those like DTS HDMI Bluetooth all of those logos are really thin Yeah, the business logo. Yeah, it's really cool. It's so gorgeous. It's such a elegant I Mean they must have been so excited. I can't believe that thing cost $599. It's really crazy.

Starting point is 01:42:12 Really insane, and also had this unique architecture that was impossible to develop for, and yeah, every aspect, the messiness of the outside matches the messiness of the outside matches the messiness of the inside. Kind of amazing that they were able to steady the ship after this, but. That being said, this generation across the board,

Starting point is 01:42:35 the 360, the PS3, and the Wii was like such a core era. Yes. It's like PlayStation 3 has like the last of us, right? It has like one of the blockbuster games of that era. There were so many great games on the 360 that I lose track of how many great games there were. And then the Wii is like iconic. Yes.

Starting point is 01:43:00 Well, and the Xbox, I think the Xbox 360 is made and it's just Xbox Live and Xbox live arcade in particular Like what that did along with steam for the indie scene? So many games just would not have existed. I mean huge huge games like Super Meat Boy and and What's the other one? I'm thinking of? Braid like like so much of like that got their prominence because of their presence on the Xbox Live Arcade. Such an era. Yeah, really cool era.

Starting point is 01:43:27 Really important era. I saw a quote by Jonathan Blow where he was talking about how the braid re-release sold like dog shit and it kind of made me laugh. Oh my God. Maybe I shouldn't have been such an asshole. Yeah. Such dumb shit.

Starting point is 01:43:41 PS3 V-Tier. I think it's a B-Tier, I think that's fair. Let's put it in the B-Tier. I think it's a B-Tier, I think that's fair. Let's put it in the B-Tier. And then let's move on to? The Wii. The Wii. S-Tier. The Wii is really, really cool looking.

Starting point is 01:43:55 It's very clean. I like that it's smaller, like the size of the PS2 Slim. And, you know, obviously it was such a huge console, as Heather was just saying, in terms of its impact on the industry. Purely aesthetically, I think it's just so clean. Yeah, I think it's maybe an A. It's also clearly another device

Starting point is 01:44:14 that took influence from Apple design. For sure. My argument against it being an S is the thing that I think it misses versus the rest of the S tier is I think it's just kind of bland is I think it's just kind of bland. I think it's just kind of boring. Interesting.

Starting point is 01:44:28 And for me, it's more of a piece with the Xbox 360, which is just like, which I also find more aesthetically pleasing, and that one's an A tier of just like, it's a very cleanly designed thing, but it doesn't necessarily have like the pizzazz of something. And I think if, you know. Like the Mega Drive.

Starting point is 01:44:45 I don't want to make up a new rule. Uh huh. But like, Okay, Bill Maher. New rule. It's not consistent with the language of Nintendo. Hmm. Where,

Starting point is 01:45:00 Hmm. Nintendo, if some of these consoles, cause like, PlayStation's like, okay, we have to be bigger, we have to be better. They're always improving in that direction. Nintendo's main thing is, does this look fun? The Wii, when paired with the Wii Mote, looks fun. The Wii, on its own, looks like nothing, kind of. So that, to me, is my only argument for it being out of ass. Man, I really liked the light up drive

Starting point is 01:45:27 that would tell you when something had arrived. That is really cool. That's a great point. I like, if you think about this, the console itself also being something that lit up in your room and gave you an alert. I like, I thought that was classy and also exciting.

Starting point is 01:45:47 It was like, oh, what Christmas present is here? Yeah, that glowing blue DVD slot was really cool when it hit. It still doesn't push the S for me, but I can be persuaded. Put it in A. Let's put it in A. I don't think, you know what? I agree, A tier.

Starting point is 01:46:05 What's next? I mean, A tier. What's next? I mean, do we wanna stay on Wii and go straight to the Wii U? Are we judging the, I mean, I feel like it's hard not to judge the controller here, although that's not a functional piece of hardware on its own, so it's not a good switch. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:46:23 It's just kind of like a blander switch. Is the Wii U the controller or is it the system or is it both? It's right. Either one, the answer is not good. Well, here's the thing. You don't need to play it on the controller. Like you can get a dedicated controller

Starting point is 01:46:42 and use that to play games on your TV. And from that standpoint, the controller is, with its built-in screen, kind of the proto switch, is a controller and the console is what we think of as a console. I don't know, I think it's a blander we. It is invisible. And also because of the failure of the of the system like I think that

Starting point is 01:47:07 Virtual boy fails right, but if you create a silhouette of the virtual boy And you have any knowledge of gaming you're like is that a virtual boy if you create just a silhouette of the Wii U Console nobody's gonna be able to identify. Yeah, that would be really challenging I'm keen to put it in the C tier. Okay put it. C feels about right. Put it. I can't believe we thought this was gonna be one episode originally.

Starting point is 01:47:32 We're almost at the two hour mark of part two. I know. This is fucking absurd. Why do we do this? We're crazy. We thought this was gonna be an easy thing to do. Yeah, we're like oh this is easy stuff. It's gonna be an easy one.

Starting point is 01:47:42 You know what, we're just crazy. No prep. PlayStation 4. I was like the Walter White in the car meme for this. Like I was fucking screaming at you guys. Don't do it! Hank, don't! So this is the PlayStation 4,

Starting point is 01:47:59 a refined version of the design vocabulary of the design vocabulary of the last two systems. It is the PlayStation 2 kind of angled. It is the PlayStation 3 in terms of materials. Like it has a glossy finish. It is a sleek angled refrigerator. Do we have a horizontal version of the sun, bitch? Let me see.

Starting point is 01:48:35 Cause you know, standing on its end is one representation. The thing I do like is that it basically operates in different shades of black. Like it's like, you know, it's different intensities of black. And I just like, I feel that very aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, so it's kind of glossy and then kind of also got a matte finish that's coexisting.

Starting point is 01:48:58 I like the way the PlayStation logo is. You sure are. I like the way the PlayStation logo is positioned. Yes. I think the PS4 logo at being kind of like, as opposed to the big fat PlayStation 3 written in block letters all the way across its spine, that it's just kind of an innocuous little PS4

Starting point is 01:49:16 in the corner, feels like kind of a return to form. The PS4 feels like a room full of guys being like, okay, let's not fuck up again. It feels like safe, slightly futuristic stylings. It doesn't necessarily say anything confident. It also doesn't say anything scared. It is a very, very plain system compared both to the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 5.

Starting point is 01:49:48 This was Sony being like, we cannot fuck up again or we'll lose it all. It's just a medium-sized dick on the table and everyone's like, hey, how about that? Yeah, I'll tell you where they fucked up majorly though with this. Yeah. You're looking at it right here. Take the color out?

Starting point is 01:50:03 Taking the color out of the PlayStation logo. It kind of works with this, but I get what you're saying. I would almost then rather it be black. That's an interesting idea. Have you seen the PlayStation anniversary edition of the PS4? I loved that, yeah. It's one of the best looking. It's so gorgeous.

Starting point is 01:50:22 It is a shame that that was not the system that launched because people would have gotten so excited. Yeah, it's so full-looking. They would have been like, oh man, PlayStation is back. Yes. It's the force awakens of visual design. Like we're gonna save Sony.

Starting point is 01:50:40 Yeah. So I mean, based on what it could be, I'm not, we're not ranking this one of course the the anniversary edition Yeah, based on more of a gray sort of silver sort of like The other anniversary that was like the semi transparent blue with the gold. Oh, yeah, fuck. That's a gorgeous system um, I think the PlayStation 4 is Maybe in the B tier. Yeah, it's plain B.

Starting point is 01:51:06 Yeah, it doesn't attempt the big swings that the PS3 does. It's a much more conservative take, but it kind of lands at the same place, ultimately, just because it's not trying to step on any toes. Yep. It honestly, I mean, I like it. Should we do another one of these,

Starting point is 01:51:23 like, that doesn't have to be a part three, but at some point in the future. That's all like Revisions or specialty releases of these like you know like the transparent you know and 64 whatever yeah We could turn this into yeah, potentially five episodes With revisions that sounds like the rest of our show Okay this week we're doing the Orange Gamecube. We're doing the Hello Kitty limited release, Sanrio tie-in, PlayStation 2.

Starting point is 01:51:54 Here's the Hey You Pikachu from Blockbuster. That was real cool. Do we have the, have you seen the top loading that wasn't really released, but the top loading NES? It was one of the revisions. It's so weird looking. I hate the top loading that wasn't really released but the top loading NES that was one of the revisions? It's so weird looking. I hate the top loading NES and it was released. Yeah, no I know it wasn't but it wasn't like,

Starting point is 01:52:12 it didn't make like a lot of a bunch of a dent in the market because it came out by the time the Super Nintendo was already out. Yeah. It's so toy like. It's so weird. It looks fake. Yeah, it looks like shit.

Starting point is 01:52:22 There's a top loading PS3 that we didn't really get to, but that one is insane too. Yeah, because the PS3 revisions were momentous. Yeah, the PS3, doesn't the PS3, no, I'm thinking of the PlayStation 4 Pro that looks like three slots. Yeah, the Pro is very nice. Should we evaluate the Pro,

Starting point is 01:52:40 or does that count as a revision? That's a revision, right? But it's a totally different system because it's the same chipset No, I think this I think the pro maybe counts Yeah, we might have to do another one of these I Were so close to finishing. I'm just saying we probably have to do another one at some point Oh, yeah at some point the ps4 Pro is

Starting point is 01:53:01 Better looking than the PlayStation 4. Yeah It says more, the logo is better. I like that it's a little angular. I like that it's like just kind of three stacks of tile. Is it better enough to justify pushing it up to A tier when all of these, when the PS4 vanilla is down in B? I think so. You think it down in B? I think so. You think it is, okay.

Starting point is 01:53:26 I think it is as good looking as the Wii. I think it's maybe like a B plus, but I think A is, we don't have a B plus tier, so maybe A is where it lives. It looks like an art piece, kind of. Yeah, it is cool looking. It's very gorgeous. I never had one of these.

Starting point is 01:53:39 I was very envious of it. Yeah, I had one. Me too. Okay, go off, King. You dropped this, King. I only put this on. Take this out. Doink! This is the Xbox One, if you couldn't tell.

Starting point is 01:53:58 I couldn't really. Yeah. I was like, which Xbox is this? Well, and this one has a lot of revisions that I don't think we should cover, honestly. Was that the launch Xbox One? That one, that's that. This was the Xbox One S right here. Okay.

Starting point is 01:54:11 This is the Xbox One console shown with controller and Kinect. Let me type in. This is 11 years ago already. God, slow decay of time is crushing. Just on a conveyor belt to the grave. Yeah, so the Xbox One, which comes with Kinect, is released in black and looks extremely similar to the PlayStation 4. Like both of these consoles have a very similar design vocabulary where it's like two different

Starting point is 01:54:48 versions of black, one textured, one glossy, minimalist logos, minimalist buttons. It is a system that says a lot less than the Xbox 360 did. Is this just the cycle of console generations is that you get one generation right and then you kind of miscalculate or overstep things or get hubristic to use your word, Heather, on the next generation? Because that's exactly what happened here.

Starting point is 01:55:22 And they completely, almost completely fucked themselves with the Xbox One. It was just a total debacle versus the Xbox 360, which despite some of its hardware failures was just such a resounding success. Yeah, both Nintendo and Microsoft tripped so hard on entering this generation that it allows the PS4 to become ubiquitous.

Starting point is 01:55:44 Because like the Wii U is a joke. And the Xbox One was largely forgettable. And they bet so big on Kinect, which was a total misfire. But that was also a response to the Wii. It's true. They were like, what do we do to steal Nintendo's motion controlled thunder? What if we make your body the controller? Right. And what if we make it suck?

Starting point is 01:56:11 Okay, so just looking at this thing, I think it's maybe C tier. It's C or B. Yeah, I was thinking C tier. It's just a plain... It's nothing. Yeah. It is, what if the PlayStation 4 didn't even have an angle? Like that's what it is. That's a good way to put it, yeah. Yeah, I really, it's like, it's not doing anything. It's just a black box. Fucking thing sucks. What are we doing here?

Starting point is 01:56:36 That thing sucks. All right, are we a Switch next? Yeah, cause. Wow. It's a dual generation system, basically. I think the Switch is really cool looking. And I think the It with the dock. Yeah, I think we have to look at a docked,

Starting point is 01:56:54 otherwise it's a handheld. Yeah, I think It with the dock though, is just a really nice presence under your TV. I will say that I do feel like the, it's hard to talk about it because the Joy-Cons are controllers, but I do feel like the graphite versus the red and blue, and the red and blue is what they were pushing,

Starting point is 01:57:18 like makes it look a lot cleaner. And I think the red and blue looks so much more, again, intentionally toy-like. But- I have the white OLED one now, and that looks so much more, again, intentionally toy-like, but. I have the white OLED one now, and that's a revision, of course, but I do think that the white OLED model is very nice. Very, very pretty.

Starting point is 01:57:31 I have one of those as well. I don't remember if you were still in our improv show, Nick, when the Switch was announced. I don't know. But we did a scene that night in the improv show at UCB where we were just screaming about how excited we were about the Switch and throwing chairs. And that was the scene.

Starting point is 01:57:56 Like the whole scene. And the audience was laughing and cheering. And that's all the content of the scene. I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing I would be involved in, but I don't have any memory of it. I think the Switch is a great, is an extremely well-designed system. It is the most exciting thing

Starting point is 01:58:15 that has happened in gaming for generations. Yes. Like, since the Wii controller, it is the most exciting thing to happen. And you could, you look at it, Like since the Wii controller, it is the most exciting thing to happen. And you look at it and you immediately understand something about it. Invited a bunch of people either to try gaming

Starting point is 01:58:34 or to return to gaming and also was a big boon for the indie space. Cause a lot of indie games got ports to this and a lot of people wouldn't normally play indie games and end up playing them on the Switch. I don't know how Sony is going to respond to the... Like if the Switch overtakes the PlayStation 2, which I think it's going to do,

Starting point is 01:58:55 Sony has to do some dumb bullshit with the PlayStation 6 where they make it either like a fucking portable that snaps into a thing Except it also can snap on your head. Yeah, they're gonna do some dumb shit But it's gonna be so ugly Switches an A There's a banner ad for a BJ's brew house half off pizza Should I click it? I've man. I want it so bad

Starting point is 01:59:24 Unfortunately, this is for your other podcast. The last BJ's I went to I was like this place is in decline. I would not be surprised. It was a bummer. It was a bummer because that place used to hit and it used to get hard. We have that as our as our in-room lunch because we have to order ahead of time so it's coming up and I'm sad to hear that. Maybe you got a good one. No, I doubt it. Are we putting this at A tier?

Starting point is 01:59:47 Where does it go? Let's put it in the A, because I think the console is S tier. Yeah, sure. But for the aesthetic, it is an A tier. Yeah, sure. Then the next one here is, could it be the PS5? Wow. I can't believe we're almost done.

Starting point is 02:00:04 I know. I think the PS5 is cool looking. can't believe we're almost done. I know. I think the PS5 is cool looking. We're gonna stop here though. We're gonna do an Xbox series one and that's on a different episode. It's too fucking big. That's the big issue. It's just too big.

Starting point is 02:00:13 It's massive. It's so big and that does docket a tier or two. I think the PlayStation, here's what I think. I think that with the PlayStation 3, Sony tried some kind of visual look, right? They were trying something that maybe was going to define their entire tech aesthetic across all devices

Starting point is 02:00:37 if it had succeeded. With the PlayStation 5, they tried that again, and I think they largely succeeded because the PlayStation VR 2 uses the same visual language. The headphones use the same visual language. I love those headphones, by the way. It is a black device wrapped in white plastic. It's like the concept for all this shit.

Starting point is 02:01:01 The Portal uses the same design aesthetic. The small thing, but the dock for charging controllers, which I have, which is really, it sits next to it really nicely. It's like a taco. It's like a black piece of plastic with white taco around it. As such, they have created,

Starting point is 02:01:19 this was not a look that existed previous. Like the PlayStation 5 is not something you'd be like, oh, it looks like a blank, right? I think it is an S tier system because of it, even though it is absurdly large. Well, look. We're not talking about size, we're talking about aesthetic. But to me, the size is part of the aesthetic consideration

Starting point is 02:01:44 because this thing is going to fit into a physical space and we're doing a lot of that last week We were looking at these in a room Like if you look at for a PlayStation 5 in a room Which I do every time I to play a video game every to every day of my fucking life you're in one of those the location of your ps5 where it is the The aesthetics in there are there match the PS5 also. So it is on, I mean, I won't describe your setup too much, but it sits in well because your space is designed

Starting point is 02:02:15 for it to sit in well. Well, yeah, because all of my cabinetry is glossy white. Yes. And so it looks like it is part of, yeah, it looks like shit when it's on its side. This is what it's looking like in my house. Barely fitting into the largest input in an entertainment center.

Starting point is 02:02:36 But look at it on the, look at it next to the, look at it standing up next to the monitor on that top thing. Look at that setup. That's the monitor on that top thing. Look at that setup. That's, yeah, that's immaculate. It's fucking gorgeous. That's a 77 inch TV. Yeah, it goes up in rules.

Starting point is 02:02:54 It's really cool. I love it. It's too big. I don't think it can, I can put it in S tier because of the size. I think that's an, honestly honestly a deal breaker for me. It's an A tier system? I mean, I'm not as enthused about it as you are, but I do think it is really cool looking.

Starting point is 02:03:11 You know what? Wait up, wait up. Looking at these systems, you're right, it's A. Yeah, I think A is where it's wonderful. It's A. It is not as good looking as the PSX. Yes. Okay, now we're in, this is a tough one because this is a dual entry.

Starting point is 02:03:26 Yeah, we get the Xbox Series X and then the Series S. Do we have a Series S picture? Yeah, and I have a take about this. Yes. I think that the Xbox Series X is ugly and looks like dog shit. Wait, no, the X is the big one. The big one looks like dog shit, is ugly no, the X is the big one. The big one looks like dog shit is ugly, I don't like it. The S is gorgeous and I think is an S tier.

Starting point is 02:03:53 I can't go with S tier on the S. But I will say that I agree with you, the X is pretty unpleasant to look at. I had one of those on my, and it was on the same unit as a PlayStation 5. I had it there for a while. It just was not like, next to it, it just, the PlayStation 5 looks so much better.

Starting point is 02:04:16 Yeah, especially the top of it with the little bit of green shining through. It just, it's kind of... I don't like this system. I don't like the way it looks. It's kind of vomitous honestly. It looks like it's something else The thing I like is that it is designed only for the tower form factor like it does not go on its side It's only on its end. Yes, that's my understanding. I've never tried to put it on its end I don't think you can put it on its end. It doesn't it's it's not seated the right way. Yeah

Starting point is 02:04:43 I don't think it I don't think it works that way. I like it a lot less now. I could be wrong. Cause if I had one, I would want it on its side, I think. I believe it's only a tower. I could be wrong about that. Either way, the end of it, what is facing up, which you see a lot of if you're looking at

Starting point is 02:05:00 the direction of your TV, because it's gonna be below your TV, is, I just, I don't like that green circle. It's concave. Yeah, it is. You're right. It looks like it's already melted a little. Yeah, it does.

Starting point is 02:05:13 To me, this is going in the D tier. Wow. I think, so are we evaluating these differently, that series X goes in D? Yeah. Okay, I am fine with that. And then, it can't be an S, I think the Series S is at least an A tier. I don't know. Wait, can I ask, having never seen the system in person, what is the black

Starting point is 02:05:35 circle? What is it? Is it like a vent or is it? I think it's just on there. Is it texture? What is it? It's texture. It's not like a, it looks like a speaker. It's not. I've never touched it before. I don't love the black circle. I haven't touched it. What is it? To me, well, I like,

Starting point is 02:05:54 can I just sell you on the black circle for just a second? Yeah, sure. Think of the white Xbox Series S, think of the body of it as a canvas. Okay. And you're seeing it upright and now you see this black circle on it, and now you're kind of thinking, oh, this is kind of like a piece of art. It's kind of really nice to look at.

Starting point is 02:06:12 It kind of looks like art, kind of. Uh-huh. But what is... That's it. That was your Don Draper. Yeah. Can you zoom... Don Draper on day five of a Bender, and he's like, oh, fuck, I don't know.

Starting point is 02:06:23 Can you zoom in on the black circle? No. Oh, oh. It's got little holes. Oh wow, it's the face of God. It's got holes. Yeah, it's got holes. Yeah, that's what makes it look so much like a speaker.

Starting point is 02:06:38 What is it? It doesn't do anything? I don't think it does anything. It's not a vent? It might be a vent, but like, you know, it's big, but I don't think it does anything. It's not a vent? I don't, it might be a vent, but like a, you know, it's big, but I don't know how much air's getting through there, because the air comes, there's a vent on the back where the air comes out of.

Starting point is 02:06:52 And that can be on its side. Because imagine this thing top, it'd be toppling over if you walked past it. I'm so confused by the S. Do you have another angle of it? Just another photo? So for people who aren't familiar with this, yeah, the body of it is mostly white

Starting point is 02:07:09 and then it has this black circle on it. And it has kind of, the circle has a little bit of a, you know, a tessellated series of holes. I cannot, I cannot abide a world where the PlayStation 5 is in A tier and this is in S tier. I don't think this should be even in the A tier. I think it's kind of okay, but I don't think it's anything particularly

Starting point is 02:07:35 pleasant to look at. I do think the circle actually is a distraction. I think it's such an eye draw. What is it? That I think is a such an eye draw. What is it? That I think is a big part of it. You're looking at it, trying to figure out what it is. Great, yeah. Look up what is the circle on an Xbox Series S.

Starting point is 02:07:55 The AI overview says, the Xbox Series S is a white gaming console with a black circle in the middle. We asked it what it was. Yeah, the first, the people are just trying to figure out what it is. Oh. Reddit post about it. It is a fan vent for good air circulation.

Starting point is 02:08:13 It's probably black to make it more eye-catching. Huh. I don't like, but the eye-catching aspect, I don't like that. I don't like that it's an eye draw. This guy hates art, he said. I don't, I- Wait, look at the black version.

Starting point is 02:08:25 With the all black version, right on the CNN article. See there, that's better. This is a revision. Can you look at- Oh yeah, here. So, I'm shocked. When it's a all black S, the circle is also black

Starting point is 02:08:45 and it is more visibly a vent. They fucked up, the circle should be white. I don't like it. I don't like it either. I think this thing, I think the launch version of this console, we gotta wrap this up, I think the launch version of this is, I mean I'd honestly slam it in C tier.

Starting point is 02:09:04 Matt seems to really like it, we can push it up a little bit. I'll tell I mean, I'd honestly slam it in C tier. Matt seems to really like it. We can push it up a little bit. I will, what do you think, Heather? I don't like it enough to haven't played it at this calendar year, I think. Okay, put it in C tier. Let's put it in C. That's not aesthetics, though.

Starting point is 02:09:18 No. I don't think it is as good looking as the Saturn, so I really need it to be in C tier. Yeah, it's okay. Boy, Microsoft really just fucking just whipped on this console generation, right? I mean, they're just fucking up left and right, I think. They went so heavy on Game Pass.

Starting point is 02:09:40 I predict it'll be a software company. You think they're gonna get out of the hardware business, as it turns out? You think they're gonna get out of the hardware business? I think they're gonna get out of the hardware. They fucked up too many times. My Xbox Series X, which I bought and was using as a Game Pass machine, I no longer have because I just let a friend borrow it indefinitely because I'm like, I don't like using this thing. Yeah, I disconnected mine from my television and I put it in a drawer mine is Where it always is plugged in ready to go at any time? and I cancelled game pass probably a

Starting point is 02:10:14 Year and a half too late. I still use PC game baths I just I have no no reason for a dedicated I use my PlayStation 5 every single day. That's my that's my main for sure for a dedicated console. I use my PlayStation 5 every single day. That's my main for sure. Well guys, I'm happy to say that our national nightmare is over. We've done it, we've ranked all the consoles by their aesthetic.

Starting point is 02:10:34 It's just such a mistake. Let's just go down the list real quick and name them off real quick, just kidding. We can do it, we can do it with what we covered today. We can recap that real quick. Up in the S tier, we have the Sony PlayStation 2, the Sony PSX, the Sega Dreamcast. Yeah, those are the new additions.

Starting point is 02:10:53 In the A tier, we have the Nintendo GameCube, the Xbox 360, the Nintendo Switch, and wait, what did I miss? We have the Wii, the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 5. Yes. In the B tier, we have the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4 are new additions.

Starting point is 02:11:16 In the C tier, we have the Xbox One, the Wii U and the Xbox Series S. the Wii U and the Xbox Series S. In D tier, we have added the Xbox. Series X. The Series X. I was like, which one is that one? And then I think our one new F tier is the OG Xbox. That's right.

Starting point is 02:11:38 The Microsoft Xbox. We gave an F to. On aesthetics. Well, I can't believe that was longer than part one. I can't believe it either. It's a fucking we should not have done this format This is horrible. This is no I want to go home I do think the first one was good, and I think this would this ultimately will have proven to be good as well You think the first one was good. I think the first one was good, okay? People people the discussion in the discourse going crazy, so I can only imagine that the

Starting point is 02:12:07 people listening to this one now, in the future, when we've healed from doing this. Do I get overtime for hanging around her? Quick segment, it's time for the question block. A segment? Jesus Christ! This one's from Ghost Pumpkin. What would you want in an instruction manual to explain for your favorite modern games? I didn't wait.

Starting point is 02:12:37 Oh, thank you. What do you want in an instruction manual for the what? To explain for your favorite modern games. In the, wait, what do you want in the instruction manual for the what? To explain for your favorite modern games. In the, wait, what do I want? I guess this is a theoretical, imagine we're back to physical boxes. You get it and it's got a hefty instruction manual that the developers are assuming you're reading

Starting point is 02:12:56 before you start playing this thing. As games were back in the day, what information do you want in the instruction manual? Maps. Maps are awesome. Maps are really, really good. I want big maps and I want stickers. 100% stickers.

Starting point is 02:13:12 Yes. Stickers are great. I like a bestiary. Oh yeah. And especially the bestiary includes maybe just some silhouettes with some question marks. I'm like, oh man, what do you get later? I'm gonna encounter whatever this guy is. Here's what I want.

Starting point is 02:13:25 I want, like say imagine you get an Elden Ring map, right? And it's big. And it comes with stickers that are not permanent stick. So you in person put points of interest that you wanna come back to. Oh. That's cool. That is really cool. I like that a lot.

Starting point is 02:13:42 One of the things I'm thinking about, cause I know they don't always do this for even the actual credits in the games. I'm gonna a lot one of the things I'm thinking about because I know they don't always do this for even The actual credits in the games. I'm gonna list everybody that worked on those fuckers. What do you say? Yeah credits would be great. Yeah, I love you have some credits in there Um, I would I would I also loved when they were like they'd like localized like an NES game And then clearly they just got some guy some copywriter to like write the instruction manual and they took a huge artistic liberties with a story and just made shit up that's not in the game. Yeah, in this game, in this version he's a vampire for some reason.

Starting point is 02:14:12 Wait, this boss in Castlevania is named Paula Abghul? That's canon? Because it's in the manual. That's so funny. This one's from Daisuke Danny. Hi Daisuke. Hi Danny. Daisuke... What food item would heal you most if you punched a trash can on the street

Starting point is 02:14:34 and it fell out? This is a great question, kind of a follow up from our Would You Blathers last week, or discussion of wall meat. What would heal you the most? Meat personally? Yeah, you probably, you just, yeah. Oh, this is a personal thing, okay. Like what food would you want it to be, like?

Starting point is 02:14:49 I punch a trash can and something falls out and it's brand new. Yeah, it's brand new. Chicago pizza. Oh. That's a heavy meal, but that is a filling meal. I will say I went to the gym this morning and then I went straight to Jersey Mike's.

Starting point is 02:15:04 So that's right, he could kick your ass. Yeah, because my approach to health and wellness is two steps forward, three steps back. But let me tell you, that Jersey Mike sub brought me back. What was the sub? I got the number seven turkey. I do extra meat on the turkey because I think the proportions are better.

Starting point is 02:15:23 I did a Mike's way and then I threw on some mayo and some some pickles. I didn't make too many alterations because they were pretty busy with the lunch rush. Here's the thing here's a complaint I have about Jersey Mike's by the way I fawn over this this concept a lot. Careful dude. Always out of iced tea. Oh mine's always practically overflowing with this stuff. I gotta go to your location because the two Jersey mics I go to, they're always like, yeah, sorry, we're at IST. Are you bring more?

Starting point is 02:15:49 It's like, no, we're done. They're working so fucking hard at my location. The workers are doing a great job there. They can't help it if they're overstretched for their IST supply. My favorite part about this conversation is one, we've had it before, and two, you prefaced it by saying,

Starting point is 02:16:06 we've gone so long, I wanna go home. All laugh. The first food that I thought of for some reason, and I don't know if it's just that I want this, but I kinda want some soup dumplings. Ooh. Yeah, that's a great answer. Kind of a dubious food, like a wet food finding from a trash can doesn't sound great,

Starting point is 02:16:26 but like a soup dumpling, just like a ginger pork soup dumpling, which would be so fucking good. That's really nutritious. I feel healed when I eat them. That's awesome. That's like my favorite, I love that. Ranch, you got a healing food, a food you like

Starting point is 02:16:37 that kind of just makes you feel better, something that would restore your health bar. Minestrone soup. Oh, that's a great answer. Ooh, that's nice. Hell yeah, ranch. Soup is the right way to be thinking, I think. Just both of y'all having a soup answer. I'm thinking soup because like you eat that

Starting point is 02:16:52 when you're sick, you know? And I just do love it. Mine's obviously a different delivery system, but soup nonetheless. This next one, well, this is a no. This next one is from you, you agent, and they write, have you ever, have you had an episode where you recorded it and felt, man, I can't wait for everyone to hear this?

Starting point is 02:17:10 I honestly think it might be this one. I'd be interested in the reaction to this one. Yeah, my answer is this one. I was really excited at one time, then I got to do an episode. I was really excited. Yeah, that was pretty exciting. What are people going to say? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:17:24 And finally- That reminds me, I gotta get back on Twitter. Ugh! I was, I gotta go back, I was, when we went for three hours talking about Baldur's Gate 3, I was kind of interested if people would like that episode or not. That was really sweet. Yeah, that was fun. That was a really good time.

Starting point is 02:17:40 Probably not as much fun as this, but the- Yeah, can we, should we try to break the record with this one? Let's fucking go! I'm not fucking leaving! Three hours on console list 2! Finally, from Geek Points. What's up, Geek Points? What, if anything, is stopping you from trying to rank up in Street Fighter 6 or any other fight game? I'll tell you what's stopping me.

Starting point is 02:18:04 I liked it. We liked it on the show a little bit. I don't like it that much. I liked it fine, but I wasn't gonna try to get good at it. If I were trying to get good at one, it would be Super Street Fighter 4. That's my Street Fighter. My answer is that I feel like I'm gonna hit a skill ceiling pretty high,

Starting point is 02:18:20 because I'm old and I'm not inherently good at fighting games, and because of my age, my reflexes aren't what they once were. But I honestly, part of what's stopping me is I'm just like playing other games. But every time I think about it, like I went on at length when I was talking about watching Evo a couple of weeks ago,

Starting point is 02:18:43 I had a great time with that. I mean, I love fighting games in theory. Every time I mess around with them, I did have a great time playing Street Fighter VI. So it was one of the best games that came out last year and it was a blast. I look at something like Guilty Gear Strive and I see that it's on Game Pass and I'm like, well, what if I loaded this thumb bitch up

Starting point is 02:19:00 and played it a little bit? So I guess the thing that's probably stopping me is that I know it'll be a commitment and also I have other things that I'm playing. But I am really intrigued by the prospect. I think number one right now is heat. It is physically very hot where I normally play video games in Los Angeles.

Starting point is 02:19:21 The other thing is that when I was playing a certain struck game, I was dedicated to getting better and ranking up in that. And it was not a kind of game that I had played previously. So it felt like I had more to grow. But right now, the thing that's preventing me from ranking up in Street Fighter VI is physically impossible.

Starting point is 02:19:54 It's so fucking hot. There you have it, folks. That's this week's Get Played. You can always chime in on the question block threads over at discord.gg slash getplayed. And then also, if you don't feel like contributing there, you can leave us a voicemail that's on our website or that on our website on on one of the social media sites and I don't have it offhand but you can you leave us a voicemail. You

Starting point is 02:20:15 can email email us at get played pod at gmail.com do all that kind of crazy stuff. Our producers Rochelle Chen ranch, yard underscore underscore sard. Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And over at our Patreon, patreon.com, slash get played. We have our entire pre-Headgum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes. You know, I'm realizing as part of that pre-Headgum back catalog, we have our old premium DLC episodes

Starting point is 02:20:45 One of those is our three part Tier-list for all Mario power-ups. Yeah, I think people can check out you want us to hear us lose our minds like four years ago Also our patreon exclusive show get animated Matt. What are we watching this week? We're watching violet ever garden in folks It's an interesting type of show because we haven't really watched a show like this before, and it's kind of just a different vibe. Yeah. Different zone completely. It's got some vibes.

Starting point is 02:21:12 And you know, one of my favorite parts about watching that show is that Matt is newer to anime than Nick and I. Yes. And so this is his first experience of this kind of show. And that's kind of exciting. I kind of feel like I kind of like Violet in that way. I'm like. And so this is his first experience of this kind of show. And that's kind of exciting. I kind of feel like, I kind of like Violet in that way. I'm like, what is this? I guess I'm about to learn.

Starting point is 02:21:31 Yeah. Metal arms under there? I did an eyebrow wiggle. That was just for me. Yeah. Everyone else got played. Yeah. That was a hate gum podcast.

Get Played - Console Aesthetics Tier List Part 2

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