Get Played - Console Draft: PlayStation 2

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss some more Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core VI, Heather's trip to the National Video Game Museum in Zoetermeer in the Netherlands and draft some of their favorite P...layStation 2 games. Check out Heather's photos from the National Video Game Museum on our Instagram @getplayedpod. This month's We Play, You Play: You Say! Go to https://discord.gg/getplayed and help us decide what game we will play this month! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at getplayedpod@gmail.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:01:27 He's in the new PlayStation 2. Yeah, that's why we're over at his house. I can't wait to play this thing. Okay, guys. I'm really excited you guys are here. I have a pretty extensive game collection. Already? Yeah, I have a bunch of games.
Starting point is 00:01:42 Wow, this thing just came out. I can't fucking wait. Yeah, do you guys want to games. Wow, this thing just came out. I can't fucking wait. Yeah. Do you guys want to play The Mask? That's a Genesis game, right? I didn't know it came out for PS2. Yeah, it's so crazy too. It looks so good on the PlayStation 2.
Starting point is 00:02:03 It almost looks live action. It's awesome. I haven't heard of this game, but the current date is November of 2000, so the system is still new, and so I don't know its full library. Yeah, it's so crazy. Jim Carrey's in the game.
Starting point is 00:02:22 Is this just a DVD? Let me see that. Yeah, this is just a DVD of the mask. No, dude, it plays on the PlayStation 2. It's in the game. Is this just a... Let me see that. Yeah, this is just a DVD of the mask. Dude, it plays on the PlayStation 2. It's a video game. Well, let's set it aside for now. Let's see what else you got. It's like maybe a Dragon's Lair situation
Starting point is 00:02:34 where he just thought he was playing. I don't know. No, it's... All my games run on the PlayStation 2, okay? They don't work on anything else. Okay, great. What do you got? I want to play. Yeah, I want to play something. Do you guys want to
Starting point is 00:02:48 play A Time to Kill? Is that like an action game? It's sort of like a, like, I think it's like a murder mystery game actually. It's pretty good. I've played it a couple of times already.
Starting point is 00:03:03 It's pretty quick. They got Matthew McConaughey to be in the game, and it's like good. I've played it a couple of times already. It's pretty quick. They got Matthew McConaughey to be in the game, and it's kind of like a breakout sort of role for him in this game. Let me look at the box for this game. All right, this box art looks like a movie poster. It's got Sandra Bullock, Sam Jackson, my favorite actor Kevin
Starting point is 00:03:25 Spacey this is this is the DVD for the movie A Time to Kill I keep saying this word DVD and it's making me fucking furious okay cause these are games they play on the PlayStation 2 a video game console you understand
Starting point is 00:03:41 look do you have like a like SSX or something or madden you know i have twister my dude dark cloud twister twister they made a game out of twister yeah and it's not what you're thinking it's not the board game it's uh it's this video game where you play as these tornadoes and you suck up the cows and stuff okay you, you play as them? You can control the tornado? Or is this the movie with Bill Paxton? It's sort of like the implication is that you're doing it. It's another DVD movie.
Starting point is 00:04:13 What about Unforgiven? Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, is that who we're dealing with? It's crazy that they're in a video game. Who even knew that they know what this is? Deconstruction of a Western. I think...
Starting point is 00:04:27 Yeah, this is... No. Matt's dumb. That's the issue. I'm not dumb. You guys made up this DVD thing. I don't even know what that is. Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:36 Fine. Okay. Why don't we play The Road Warrior? Where did you go to buy these games? Did you go... That's a place that only sells movies. They sell movies. They're in every ball in America right now.
Starting point is 00:04:52 They do not sell video games. I'm going to ask you guys to leave unless you guys want to play the bridges of Madison County with me. Honestly, I do want to play that. Yeah, I feel like we're all up for a good sensitive time. Great, let's pop it in.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Here we go. The first level, the credits. This game's hard. We plug in our DualShock 2s and clear space on our memory cards as we draft PlayStation 2 games 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. I'm your host, Heather Ann Gamble, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.
Starting point is 00:06:14 That's me, Nick Weiger, and I am here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back, Bucket, to the best. Oh, shit. Wow. The lead video game podcast on the internet. Nothing supersedes Get Played. No, and this came out this week, actually.
Starting point is 00:06:34 That's true. If you're listening to this, don't worry about where it was said or what publication said it, but it's in print. It may have been said on this podcast, and the print was a transcript of this podcast. what publication said it, but that is that it's in print. It may have been said on this podcast and the print was a transcript of this podcast. Don't worry about that. I think we can say Time Magazine, Life Magazine,
Starting point is 00:06:56 the New York Times, and what? I said the failing New York Times? The failing New York Times the failing New York Times and President Joe Biden all called Get Played the premium video game podcast
Starting point is 00:07:11 this week I mean Biden said it and everybody else had to quote him yeah well yeah sure Biden's a day one listener so this is huge it's about time he said something I think I should be up front with the listener This is huge. And yeah, it's about time. It's about time he said something.
Starting point is 00:07:26 I think I should. I think I should be up front with the listener. Wow. We record at different time zones. That's right. I'm at the nighttime. The boys are in the daytime. We're in the morning.
Starting point is 00:07:44 These are completely like we're like 13 hours apart. It's 8 a.m. Pacific when our record session starts. And that is the equivalent to 5 p.m. for you. Yeah, it's nighttime. It's not nighttime, nighttime. It's not like I'm going to bed nighttime, but it's nighttime. And I want to say. You're wearing a sleeping cap.
Starting point is 00:08:02 I'm going to bed in the middle of the podcast. That's what I'm doing today. No, I just I feel like I've got to admit that I've had, for the first time during our records, a couple of drinks. Hell yeah. Yeah. Nick, anything you want to come clean with? I'm also hammered. I actually, that's great.
Starting point is 00:08:24 I love it. I love it. I love it. I think this is awesome. This is a great energy for us. Yeah. Also, I might laugh at you guys today. I won't count on it,
Starting point is 00:08:33 but that's huge. That sounds like a challenge to me. Yeah. Yeah. You texted, by the way, you texted us ahead of time that you'd had a few drinks. And so when the record started,
Starting point is 00:08:43 I, you know, you're, you're very cogent and you seem like normal Heather without, even if you, you know, if you,. And so when the record started, I, you know, you're very cogent and you seem like normal Heather without, even if you, you know, if you hadn't made that disclaimer, I wouldn't know anything was different.
Starting point is 00:08:51 But I was expecting you to be like, let's do a podcast. Pick up. You're going to be a sleepy cartoon drunk. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I'm a loose, I'm a loosey goose. That's what I am. I'm just a little loose a little
Starting point is 00:09:06 goose a little loose but it's gonna be a good show we're really excited about today's topic i'm excited about um the future of video gaming as a medium uh before we get we get into that while you're talking alcohol i have a related story uh which is that matt i ran into our mutual friend tyler moss at the farmer's market okay yeah and he tells me he said i saw matt apodaca at a bar yeah he was by himself playing boulders gate three on a steam deck yeah yes yeah i uh the other night I ran into it well this is the funny thing holy shit so alpha there's a fire right by my house
Starting point is 00:09:53 I had to leave my home for just like an hour my girlfriend had to do something and I was like you know what I'm just gonna get out of here she had an appointment on the phone and I was like I'll just get out just to give you some space. I'll go have a drink at a local spot, and I'll bring my Steam Deck because I wanted to play Baldur's Gate anyway.
Starting point is 00:10:14 And I was like, I'll just take this with me. And I had been there for approximately an hour, and I was literally getting ready to leave. And I know Tyler. This is the funny thing, too, is um you've told stories about tyler before me uh this cool guy that you know from the farmer's market and i was like wow i hope i ever get to meet tyler someday i already know this motherfucker yeah i didn't realize it was the same tyler for a while yeah uh so then now so seeing him there we chatted a little bit about, about games and stuff
Starting point is 00:10:47 and I was showing him that I was, yeah, playing Baldur's Gate 3. But, let me tell you something about this bar. There's like a mosquito
Starting point is 00:10:55 problem there right now and two times in a row, two weeks in a row I've been there and I got mosquito bites and I, from inside. That's a nightmare.
Starting point is 00:11:05 What's going on over there? I don't know. But, you know, it's a local spot, so I don't want to. This bar is called Stagnant Water, right? It's called the Mosquito Den. But, yeah, it was a big thrill to see Tyler out in the wild. And I had a brew dog with me. Hell yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:28 I was sipping on a brew dog. Hell yeah. It's cold. I have gone to a bar with my switch. Like when the first Zelda came out, I went to a bar with my switch and I felt pretty people were like, oh, you're playing because one. Early Zelda switch was in high demand not a lot of Switches around so people
Starting point is 00:11:49 were coming up and saying wow is that the Nintendo and then also is that the Zelda and it felt pretty pretty hype did you have anybody come up to you and say is that Baldur's Gate 3 on the Steam deck, Matt?
Starting point is 00:12:05 Most people completely ignored me for the most part, or they looked at me, saw that I was doing something that they didn't understand and just kind of kept kept going. There were some people next to me that I think were on possibly a second date. They were having a great time. Laughing, telling stories. And I was like, shut the fuck up. I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3. Did you have headphones or were you playing on mute?
Starting point is 00:12:36 I had my AirPods. God damn. So you were disconnected from the world. You were fully in Baldur's Gate 3 three the music was too loud at the bar so like that was the problem i was running into or i was like okay i can't really i can hear a little bit but i'm blasting yeah you know but yeah i was trying not to uh talk to anybody but then i saw tyler i put the whole thing down had a nice chat there you go because i'm not
Starting point is 00:13:03 rude no when they we know you're not rude. You're a lovely man. I'm sick of people saying I'm rude. Next time if somebody comes up to you in the middle of a BG3 session, you should just say, This is not going to happen again. You should just say, Excuse.
Starting point is 00:13:21 Excuse. Just like that. Excuse is good. What about this? Until they leave. Finger up. Single finger up. Up, that. Excuse is good. What about this? Until they leave. Finger up. Single finger up. Up, up, up, up.
Starting point is 00:13:29 That's pretty good. Very good. Very good. Very good. Up, up, up. As soon as they keep trying to talk. Or I hit him with the zip it. Like the Dr. Evil.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The Austin Powers zip it. You could also do like a confounding time travel bit where you like say oh no no no we don't have this conversation we don't no this doesn't this we can't have it because we don't we had we didn't have it yeah and we can't throw off the line i'm gonna tell you right now so confused i'm not smart enough to pull that off i think i can't i. I can't do it. I think you could. That's a fun thing for you to do because you have your mind. I have done it.
Starting point is 00:14:09 I believe you. I did it at birds. Oh, God. Oh, I don't even. Never mind. We should discuss, by the way, birds is the name of a bar.
Starting point is 00:14:23 Heather didn't do that to birds. No, no birds no no no and i stalked myself from uh so okay we should talk a little bit about before we get into what are you playing we should talk a little bit about this month's we play you play because we have not settled it i we may not settle it today but i wanted to at least open the conversation because we usually have a disclaimer about what that game what game we're going to cover at length final episode of every month for new listeners is always an extended discussion about one particular game that all of us are playing and uh you know last month we did dredge
Starting point is 00:14:55 the indie horror fishing game uh this month there's okay so there's just like kind of like a bunch of big releases right now and some of them are kind of daunting in their scope. The aforementioned Baldur's Gate 3, which we thought about covering last month, and we kind of all were, you know, Heather's still on Mac, so she only has the early access build. intrepid discord users have taught me how to play on the mac on the release client so that i can so that i can start a full new fresh game and play it essentially live stream it to myself oh there you go so i could play boulders gate but i i'm not certain look i got 10 days left as of this record 10 days left in Holland and then I'm returning to the United States of shame America where you belong where I belong it's just like an ashamed anyway um so so I will be able to play more uh aggressively when I'm home but these 10 days
Starting point is 00:16:01 I'm gonna lose yes I I will also say part of my concern with doing a BG3 episode at the end of September is that I could see the discourse being exhausted by that point. Like, will we have anything novel to say? Right. You know, because I'm already seeing not that I've gotten to the end game or anything, but I've already seen so many like YouTube breakdowns of story and characters and shit that have been uploaded. I haven't watched them, but, you know, I know that stuff is out there. There's also Armored Core 6, which I know both of you are
Starting point is 00:16:34 playing. I wasn't planning on playing right away, but, you know, I'm I'm open to the possibility, although jumping into a from game right now to me seems daunting. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Save it. Save it, Matt. Save it, Matt. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:51 There's Starfield, which is going to, we're recording this still in August, but will be coming out and on Game Pass, so widely available in the next couple weeks. It's not, wait, it is available on Game Pass? Mm-hmm. Day one Game Pass, couple weeks. Wait, it is available on Game Pass? Day one Game Pass, Starfield. Yeah, 100%. A week away
Starting point is 00:17:10 as of this record. That says a lot to me about what their perceived quality of that game is internally. I disagree. I think that says that they think that this is a fucking AAA game that is going to get people on Game Pass. This might be a mic drop. They might be flopping their dick to get people on game pass. Yeah. But you know,
Starting point is 00:17:26 a mic drop, they might be flopping their dick out on the table or something. Cause yeah. Cause this all has to do with, you know, there you hold your mic with your dick. Don't worry about it. If I saw a stand up, hold the mic with his penis.
Starting point is 00:17:42 First of all, I think. Yeah. If no comic has done this, i think they should do this if you could take a microphone and pretend it's your dick i would laugh my ass off probably for the rest of my life would be very funny that's so funny it's so funny and like try to fuck stuff with the mic that's very funny i'm about to like cry laughing right now that is so funny well you can do other dick stuff too like you know jack it off or like suck it off or whatever all that stuff these are all possibilities no one's done it it's too funny i agree i i'm laughing thinking about it
Starting point is 00:18:15 see the thing that sucks is i am laughing i think we're thinking of different things, though. I'm thinking of a human person coming out on stage. Mm hmm. With a microphone duct taped to their penis. Got it. OK, yeah, that is. I was not thinking like a like a like a T a T structure. And then they try and do the entire set leaning over.
Starting point is 00:18:42 You're trying to suck themselves off. No, I mean, I, no. Nick, not everybody's trying to do that all the time. You know, my New Year's resolution is to cut back on sugar and add more protein to my diet and stay on track with my fitness goals. And Magic Spoon makes that easier and more delicious than ever. Growing up, cereal is one of the best parts of being a kid. But as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs.
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Starting point is 00:22:17 So we got Armored Core 6, we got Starfield, and then, you know, another game. So we could, again, these are all big boys the including bg3 these are all big boys these are all these are all massive games or or you know games that are large in scope um and uh and another game we've talked about which is a throwback but you know we've been trying to find a spot for it and you know one approach is like this is just the month to do it and we're all playing whatever big new releases we want to play on our own and we can talk about them. But if we finally did Killer7...
Starting point is 00:22:52 Do we finally do Killer7? Five years into the podcast. Has it been five years? I think it has. That doesn't sound right. It's been four and a half. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:23:14 It's been four and a half because I think the first time that Nick said, what about a podcast like this? I replied with, I've just been diagnosed with breast cancer. That's right. Yeah. Good job, Nick. So it's almost exactly five years ago. Our first episode was recorded in December of 2018, and it wouldn't release until June, the following June in 2019. Well, then no.
Starting point is 00:23:34 No, it precedes it. It precedes it. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It took a long time for something to... I'm not trying to be a downer. I'm fine. People, the downer. I'm fine. The listeners know.
Starting point is 00:23:48 I don't know if they all know. Why did it take so long? To get breast cancer? No, no, no. I don't think... Take your time with that. I don't think anybody should rush to that. I was thinking about...
Starting point is 00:24:02 I'm trying to remember why the first episode took so long, but I think there was, you had a lot of things going on. I think we did have to sort of take a break. Yeah. I think, I think it was,
Starting point is 00:24:09 yeah, I had to have surgery and treatment and then, and then we, we rolled right in to the premier video game podcast, mid 2019. That's right. So, so kill it.
Starting point is 00:24:24 So yes, it has been a while since we've talked about doing this game killer seven it is on steam it is a you know it's it's a it's a well-reviewed port so i think we can we we could have a good representation of it yeah i it's of the of the options the shortest one and it's still only it's still 14 hours to finish but but but yeah that's that's more yeah but but i'm i'm also like we don't have to sell it now we could also just there there's other stuff that may come up we could also put this to a poll which we did in the past which worked out great for us so you know i have a big pitch okay Okay, go for it. I think we could, because we just played a modern game,
Starting point is 00:25:08 we could pick a game based on today's draft. That's a fun idea. We could pick one of these games that not everybody has played, and we could lean in hard on a classic. Fuck, I have some I'd want to do. That's a fun idea. And we could like lean in hard on a classic. Fuck. I have some I'd want to do. That's a fun idea. Okay.
Starting point is 00:25:28 Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that topic. And we'll see if that informs what we're going to do. This is the kind of fun you get from me after I've had a couple of drinks. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a really good idea. I hope y'all are ready to play whatever I say. Don't spoil it.
Starting point is 00:25:45 But okay. That's for the future. As for now, everyone, what are you playing? I'm hoping he doesn't show up. I think he'd be out of control. Oh, okay. You're keeping him at bay. Right.
Starting point is 00:26:01 Staying out of the moonlight. Well, I want to go third here and because I want to talk a little bit about a place that I went on my world warrior journey here here in Holland so Nick what are you playing
Starting point is 00:26:19 well as of this recording a game I'd had my eye on sea of stars released yesterday uh sea of stars is a throwback uh it's it's a it's a throwback jrpg styled game uh with a bunch of streamlining and modern quality of life improvements and it is getting rave reviews it's also on game pass a few months back maybe maybe a year back, I can't remember. It was a while back. I discussed the demo, which I was really impressed by. And I was worried that the first few hours of gameplay would just be a retread of the demo,
Starting point is 00:26:58 but it's actually a different chunk of the game. So it felt like mostly new stuff. Also, I've discussed at some point in the in what are you playing? I've talked about the developer Sabotage Studios previous game, The Messenger, which is a platformer that turns into a Metroidvania midway through. And it's, you know, it's a cool design that I kind of fell off of. But I really I really appreciated the craft. This game is rad. It is so fun.
Starting point is 00:27:24 I've just again it came out yet like yesterday so i just started playing it last night so i have like two hours of gameplay but it is it has you know talking about the quality of life improvements it's just like things like the map is the maps of the individual areas and the world map are like just a little bit more compact than they might be in in a classic design just so you have a little bit more compact than they might be in a classic design, just so you have a little bit less like it's still fun to explore, but it's just like a little bit less like ground to cover. And your run cycle is super duper fast.
Starting point is 00:27:54 You're just sprinting all over the map. So you don't have to like, you know, waste a bunch of time backtracking. Also, like if you finish an area, you'll unlock like a shortcut that will lead back to so you can sprint through it again if you need to go back to it. And speaking of the traversal, there's all sorts of environmental traversal that just makes it a little bit more dynamic. You know, there's all these different levels you can ascend and descend to via, you know, jumps and climbing and ladders and what have you. There's all sorts of, you know caverns that you can uh across and then also you know like areas like tightropes you can walk and um uh you
Starting point is 00:28:32 know little ledges you can uh you can edge along uh all this sort of stuff just to make it feel a little bit more like you're just running around uh so it's it and then that leads into the combat uh which you see the enemies on screen which which I, which I really like. It all feels very, very Chrono Trigger. I mean, it feels like a direct spiritual air, uh, right down to having some music by Yasunori Mitsuda, theo trigger between your different party members uh but then the combat is is so fun because it has those elements that are you know that have been added to a lot of uh that that became a part of a lot of rpgs which is just like some a little bit of timed attacks and and timed parries so you can parry attacks from enemies uh you can uh you can enhance your individual attacks when you land them. And for instance, there's two protagonists. You choose which one you control or you choose which one is your main.
Starting point is 00:29:37 One is like more of a magic user, is like a sun magic. And the other is more of a moon magic user. And that one's a little bit more of a more direct damage focused but like the the the moon magic user has a spell that uh you you're shooting a a like a a crescent blast towards your enemy and then it ricochets back at you and then you can kind of boomerang strike it back and forth until it hits a max threshold uh and it accelerates as you do so uh kind of like you're just ponging it back and forth until it hits a max threshold uh and it accelerates as you do so uh kind of like you're just ponging it back and forth at the enemy and it does more damage as a
Starting point is 00:30:10 result and that's it's just super active and it's super fun and it just keeps the combat from just being like toggling through menus um and that ties into the boss fights which are super which the the the couple i've got i've been through have been like, you know, these huge models of these of these characters, these huge like I don't know if they're sprites or I don't know what they don't know what the engine is doing exactly. I don't know if they're 3D models that are, you know, kind of cel shaded and made to look like pixel art, but they are like really well animated and like fuck just fucking big. Like, I just like seeing a big old big old boss especially in this sort of throwback game and and those have been super fun and had their own
Starting point is 00:30:52 mechanics also there is a great party member girl the warrior cook what a class hell warrior cook that sounds like um Final Fantasy nine right quick quina quina What a class. Hell. Warrior cook. That sounds like Final Fantasy IX. Right. Quina?
Starting point is 00:31:07 Quina? Quina, yeah. With a big tongue. As an aside, I just wanted to say, I love this segment because it's like I'm on the playground as a kid. And somebody has a game, and I don't have that game. And they're telling me all about that game. And I'm just, I'm fucking riveted. What is the art style like, Nick?
Starting point is 00:31:29 Let me get, I mean, I should just bring some up. Because it's, you know, it's like, it looks like a Super Nintendo. It looks like a Super Nintendo JRPG with really good art direction. It also has, like, kind of like a, kind of like a, the random me of, like, Lunar Silver Star Saga, or, like, some of the a um uh the random me of like lunar silver star saga or like some of these games where it would like it will throw to like a full screen animation like for like a 2d style animation for some of the cinematics for some key ones um hold on let me just share it can i share my screen uh there just this sort of look to it um see if i can get through some more
Starting point is 00:32:06 yeah just this sort this sort of really lush palette it's beautiful yeah it's it's a gorgeous game it really gives you uh i mean the art feels a little the art feels like Western, but anime inspired. And I don't know if that's the case, but it really evokes Saturn game to me. Yeah, no, that's a good call. It's it's like when they really perfected like 2D design and art. Yeah. So maybe it is or like a yeah or like a playstation you know what the
Starting point is 00:32:46 rare like playstation 2d game yeah it's it's I think it is a western developer actually where the hell are they actually from but it's a it's a really impressive game so far they're in they're in Quebec yeah so a western developer creating this chrono
Starting point is 00:33:02 trigger ask lunar silver star story astral it's giving me astral from Sega Saturn that's sort of like big beautiful sprite work it's a pretty game and I'm
Starting point is 00:33:17 interested in that soundtrack too hey could be we play you play candidate oh it could be regardless we don't have to settle that now but regardless Hey, could be we play you play candidate. Oh, it could be. Regardless, we don't have to settle that now. But regardless, I think this is if you're if you're into these sort of games, it's on Game Pass. It's also on everything. As far as I know, I think it's definitely on Switch. I think it's on.
Starting point is 00:33:36 I think there's a PlayStation port. If you're into this sort of thing, definitely check it out. I'm having I'm having a hoot with it. Matt, what are you playing? Yeah, Matt, what are you playing yeah matt what are you playing well i'm still playing balder's gate 3 right and at a bar at a bar currently right now yeah they won't let me in um i'm playing i've been i've still been playing that and i'm finally like. For the last like two weeks of me playing the game, I've been doing kind of the same stuff.
Starting point is 00:34:15 Like I've been dying, trying to go a different way, dying, trying to go a different way. And then sometimes I'm playing. And I'm just walking around and seeing what i find and like i found like some side quests and stuff i found some very interesting side quests some interesting characters along the way and i'm finally now i feel like progressing the story which i think is uh i'm excited about because I was getting kind of sick of. What I was doing, like losing a lot and sure, I'm still losing on occasion, but I'm losing to different things now, which is good, but I'm really just trying to level up. but I'm really just trying to level up because I'm level four right now for those playing along at home and I'm in the under dark and I just met
Starting point is 00:35:12 these really interesting like mushroom creatures. Oh, okay. And I'm just fascinated by them. I don't know what's going on with them yet, but I'm just like i think this is the thing about dnd and uh and i guess these games the world is so interesting anything they show me i want to know everything about it i'm just like right this is so cool uh this like these this race
Starting point is 00:35:42 of mushroom people, they have this own, and everybody's got their own fucking thing going on, their own battle that they're like, hey, could you help me with this? And you could either be like, ah, fuck off, or okay, I'll help, but I'm just helping everybody.
Starting point is 00:35:59 I know that there's a way to play this game where you can be bad or whatever, but I'm just kind of helping everybody along the way. And I just, I think I'll be, I mean, or whatever, but I'm just kind of helping everybody along the way. And I just, I think I'll be, I mean, I'm not even out of Act 1. I'm still in Act 1. I've played 20 hours so far. I'm still very
Starting point is 00:36:15 much in, I think, early Act 1. So, I'll be playing this game possibly for the rest of my life. But I, but I'm, I'm really enjoying it.
Starting point is 00:36:30 I, I, I said this, I said this before, but I just really can't believe like, I just can't believe this game. Every, every time I play it,
Starting point is 00:36:40 even for just a little bit, I'm just like, wow, that was so fun. I could have done nothing. And I was like, this is a, this was so fun. I could have done nothing, and I was like, this was a blast. I love this. But all that to say,
Starting point is 00:36:57 I also started Armored Core 6, which I didn't think I was going to do, but then Heather was talking about it a little bit. Our pal Zig. Zig was really in my ear i gotta say wow i think i partially i wasn't really gonna maybe do this but i think i pulled the trigger because zig was like you just have to get in here man you just minutes and immediately was like this is a video game this is it
Starting point is 00:37:30 this is it right here this is what everybody's trying to do everybody making a video game is trying to make this it's fucking robots man it's robots it's big guns, it's big jumping it's big hitting it's very good It's big guns. It's big jumping. It's big hitting. It's very good.
Starting point is 00:37:46 It's, it's, it's so good. And, and, you know, it's, it's from soft,
Starting point is 00:37:54 but it's different, right? It's a different type of game. It's not what I would consider. Like, I feel like when people talk about from soft games, they're talking about like the souls of it all, right? Like those types of games.
Starting point is 00:38:08 Yes. The first boss in this fucker, in the fucking tutorial level, stomped my ass like 20 times. So it is a FromSoft game. So it is. Yeah, what's your point? I guess, yeah. I didn't know this one was like that too like i don't think they typically are but like it's not like the same
Starting point is 00:38:32 way we're like i mean i can't parry there's not a lot of like i mean i guess there are i have a sword i have a gun and i have like missiles and what i had to really figure out was when it was appropriate to use what attack. Right. And that had a different strategy for this boss. Could you just went in and attacked? I'm sure. Yeah. My strategy on this first boss was I lost twice and I was like, oh, this sucks.
Starting point is 00:39:00 What the fuck is happening? Why am I losing? I know what I'm supposed to be doing. Dodge around, use a buildings, use a cover, zip around in the sky. I was like,
Starting point is 00:39:11 this isn't me. I know who I am. And so I, I did a different strategy, but Matt, talk about your, talk about your experience. I,
Starting point is 00:39:20 well, I'm bad at games. So of course you took to it pretty you know, you took to it like water. I reject that assessment. Yeah, I reject that too. I reject that assessment. You finished some big boy games. I finished big boy games and you know
Starting point is 00:39:35 I don't play the same way I guess is what I'm saying. The learning curve is steeper for me with games games like this and i had never played played an armored core game before but i when i took this fucker down this like helicopter or whatever it was i felt i felt amazing i felt so good yeah i because i i learned it was it it it felt like live die repeat kind of or you know uh all you need is kill for that matter sure i'm getting smoked i don't know why
Starting point is 00:40:17 i'm watching this helicopter okay it's staying stationary that's a good time to use my missiles. Okay, those take, because you have to stagger them to then get up close and use your big blade on them, and that does a lot of damage. So you stagger them. You're shooting regular blasts at them the whole time.
Starting point is 00:40:39 They stop. You got to be dodging too. You got to be dodging a lot. They stop, shoot some missiles, start running around again, shooting at them a lot. Missiles, they're staggered. Then you fucking get up there and use your big blade on them, take out like half their life.
Starting point is 00:40:59 And it's like, okay, now I'm feeling good. You kind of just repeat, you know, rinse and repeat that situation. And then you take them down. And I know that that's not going to work for everybody, but it worked for this guy. And I was like, okay, now,
Starting point is 00:41:11 now I understand the game. Now I know that you have to play, you have to watch what they're doing, figure out when's a good time to use your attacks and, and then get in there. But then I guess now there's also like a building component that I haven't done yet. There's like, you can design haven't done yet. You can design
Starting point is 00:41:26 your own mechs. You can use different kinds. There are different kinds? There are different kinds! There are different kinds! It's not just one type of robot in there. You can have a tank. You can have... That's the only other kind that I've seen.
Starting point is 00:41:43 But that's a different one! it's a different kind than what I thought so I'm gonna be playing this a lot too and uh you know the looks fucking cool it's fucking great man it's so good and the thing that you know I just
Starting point is 00:41:59 I can't I just can't address the backlog I've made a lot of promises to myself this year that I've just really let go. Um, yeah, I, I've got a,
Starting point is 00:42:11 you know, like just on that note, I've kind of had to take the approach of games are books. If you were like, I'm going to read the entire library, that's a life's work. You will not achieve. No,
Starting point is 00:42:20 you just have to, you know what? Like I'm going to, I'm going to play some games. I'm going to not play some others. Playing a game is a decision to not play another game and i can't play everything i was introduced i was introduced to a new phrase perhaps from tiktok through my wife wow and it's dnf do you nuke them forever no uh nick holy shit you're sick really fast it's disgusting you're sick
Starting point is 00:42:46 um dnf damn i'm looking good my piss is thick watch me fuck a horse why vote for me for president of the United States. Okay, I will. My vice president is going to be the shit I'm about to take. I have one long ball. and somehow all these lines are from john carpenter movies just stolen um dnf means did not finish and it is a uh it is like a book talk i think it's a book this is my assumption here but uh mary Mary used it in conversation the other day.
Starting point is 00:43:47 And I was like, oh, okay, DNF. And I think that, like you said, it applies to games. I have a DNF on my list of games that I played this week that I probably won't return to. Wow. Is it my turn? It's your turn. Yeah, go for it. All right. First off, I want to to say I'll tell you what I'm playing
Starting point is 00:44:07 and then I got a little talk about the World Warrior journey I'm on one I played Armored Core 6 fought that boss a couple of times and I was like, this sucks what is happening I never have this kind of issue like
Starting point is 00:44:25 what is going on uh and then i was like oh i'm not i'm not being true to myself what would i do if i was in a mech and this thing was facing me down and it was never fire missiles never fire your gun rush that motherfucker and use your sword only so i flew it arrives and I flew directly at it, jammed my mech into its wing so that it could not free me and just sorted it over and over again until it was dead. And I was like, okay, that's, this feels like Heather's armored core. And then you immediately get access to the garage where you can change up your mech. And I painted mine bright red, just like Char, my hero. You know Char now, Nick.
Starting point is 00:45:11 Oh, yeah. Char Abagnale from Gundam. Yeah. So what did you call him? Aznable. Aznable? Abagnale? Look, I've only watched the one series. So I painted my
Starting point is 00:45:25 I knew it started with an A and had three syllables I painted my my mech boy red and I'm ready to go but that was one of three games I played this week wow and that's not including the segment I'm gonna I'll tell you guys about
Starting point is 00:45:41 the other was I you know I've still got Viking madness from our sister podcast My Exposure to Vinland Saga has reignited my love for the Viking reading a Viking book and talked about Vikings last week and so I was like, I gotta play a Viking game.
Starting point is 00:46:00 So I tried Hellblade Senoa's Sacrifice. I think I called it satsuna's sacrifice it doesn't fucking matter um which was recommended to me by the discord people on the pod um this game you play as i think a like a a celtic warrior who's got to go to the viking afterlife for, I think, to free the soul of your husband or something. Lots of lore early on in the game can go
Starting point is 00:46:32 up to these monoliths and hear about Viking lore. And I was like, oh yes, this is fucking good. This is the chunky meat that I want. Fucking, this is a puzzle game. It's a fucking puzzle game you the instructions show combat but then you get into it and you've got a and the puzzles also as i didn't get very far in the game
Starting point is 00:46:54 because i was like i'm not doing this uh we're like here are two runes on a gate you look at the runes and then you have to look around until you can find them. And how do you find them in the environment? You have to like line up tree branches so that they make a rune by like moving your body around and moving the camera around. And I was like, I do not. I can. The idea of I stopped when I could see the rune and could not get it to activate. By lining it up because I wasn't properly aligned. I'm like, I'm looking at the fucking giant R.
Starting point is 00:47:29 You know that I'm looking at the R. Give me the fucking R so I can lock it into the gate and I can progress to the next area. Very frustrating gameplay. So I gave that up. Then I started God of War Ragnarok, finally. Years after Matt has told us that this game is fantastic. And you know what? Matt was right.
Starting point is 00:47:54 Wow. That's huge for me that I was so nervous. Matt's fucking right. It's fucking great so far. It's giving me what I need which is you know them talking about the uh mythology of Ragnarok the concept which I just want I like I wish I could just go to Viking school and just hear this shit all the time um fantastic game so far really enjoying it really excited to play it I I think I'm going to play that. I'm going to lean into that before I play more of Armored Core 6.
Starting point is 00:48:30 Or maybe I'll swing back and forth. Who knows? But the most exciting thing of the last week for me, guys, was that I went to the National Video Game Museum in the Netherlands. Wow. Amsterdam! game museum in the netherlands wow which how the what the fuck aren't their national video game museums everywhere because we have all this precious art that we stole that we have to show off here i'm gonna what I'm gonna read uh the history of the National Video Game Museum which is in Zutomir a garage in the Hague is the place where the adventure began in 2008 with two friends
Starting point is 00:49:16 Hassan Tastamir and Pascal Rapiles or Rapies I don't know how to say it the garage soon became too small after which they moved to a shed in an industrial area. Unfortunately, the shed was not heated and everything had to be transferred to. And this is a translated website. So if I'm doing this wrong, I'm sorry. But they moved to a shed in the Ministry of Agriculture in the middle of the winter when this building had to be emptied. The collection of 10 arcade video games and some spare
Starting point is 00:49:46 parts was stored in an old showroom for classic cars because there was no room to renovate or play the cabinets they were looking forward to a suitable space it was founded in it was the space was found in 2011 on kolbat strata and zutomir there hasan decided to rent the location with four friends, and the adventure could grow into a meeting place of their own to practice their hobby and relax with a game. So, this starts as a personal collection.
Starting point is 00:50:15 By the time Heather visits this place in 2023, it is among the coolest buildings I have ever been in in my entire fucking life. Wow. It is a full functioning, pristine arcade and museum with contextually accurate rooms that you could play the games in. So, for example, if you wanted to play an Atari 2600, there was a sectioned off area that was a 1970s living room with a 1970s television so that you could sit in the room and be like, this is what it was like to play the Atari when it was released.
Starting point is 00:51:00 I'm going to share my screen with you guys so that you can see a little bit of what I saw at the museum. As you enter into the museum, there's like a hallway full of like accessories and like video game themed stuff. So the first thing I took a photo of is a Street Fighter 2 Rock'em Sock'em Robots like a handheld tabletop game. Like, fucking great. I was like, oh, I'm in good hands. Skylar and Ryu facing off. You round the corner and you see an original Pong.
Starting point is 00:51:35 Like, an original Pong machine with the original dial paddles in order to play. Wow. As you guys can see from this photo, the quality of this machine was as if it came out of the past and was dropped
Starting point is 00:51:49 here in the present. I don't know if this has been restored or what, but it is pristine. It's pristine. Every machine in there was pristine. They had Just real quick, because I don't think I've ever seen an original, an OG Pong cabinet in the wild. Had you encountered this? I'd never seen it. I'd never seen an original, an OG Pong cabinet in the wild. Had you had you encountered this?
Starting point is 00:52:06 I'd never seen it. I'd never seen it before. Looks cool as hell. To the left of this, this photo, and we're going to put a lot of these up on social media, is the 1970s living room where you could play Atari 2600 or the Vectrex, both in pristine condition. Unfathomable. pristine condition, unfathomable. You can see a glass case that has all of the accessories for these old 70s video games. Also, all just like each one had like its own card with like the history of the accessory and how they came into possession of it. They had candy cabinets from the 1990s that like every joystick was in perfect working order every button wasn't sticky the
Starting point is 00:52:46 cabinets themselves were like clean and precise i've got a photo here of street fighter 3 third strike yeah on a astro city which is my personal dream cabinet um there were neo geo machines wolves too um they had uh you've the background, they had an entire section of racing games. So you could play Daytona USA or Initial D and everything was all linked and everything worked and everything was free to play. You enter the museum and you pay to get in, but then every machine you can play
Starting point is 00:53:23 for the two hours that your ticket is good for. Wow. They had Guitar Hero. What an awesome bit of curation and preservation. Yeah. That's so cool. It's incredible. They had Guitar Hero Arcade, Matt,
Starting point is 00:53:33 which I'm sure you would have loved. Let's fucking go. I was actually, I do like that. I was always hesitant to play Guitar Hero out because I was just very aware of how much you were touching the buttons. Oh, sure. to play Guitar Hero out because I was just very aware of how much you were touching the buttons. Oh, sure.
Starting point is 00:53:48 They had cabinets for Mario and Sonic at the Olympics 2020, which I didn't know there were cabinets for. And these are interactive, like Wii Fit style. You run, you jump. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:00 And that's how you interact with your character on the screen. They had my favorite cabinet of all time, which I've talked about on the show. Baby Pac-Man. This is wild. Where you play Pac-Man on the top screen and then you can you send him through a like a gate at the bottom and then it becomes a pinball machine. And it was I've never seen this machine pristine before.
Starting point is 00:54:26 Wow. And it is perfect. There aren't scratches on the art. There's no graffiti anywhere on the machine and all the buttons are clicky. They had an entire retrospective of Pac-Man and they had every handheld video game that has ever fucking been released.
Starting point is 00:54:44 Each of them with rare variant copies of the handheld machine. I've zoomed in here on a cabinet that also had, I mean, I haven't even, I've never heard of this fucking Game Gear. They had a GG White, which is a Game Gear
Starting point is 00:55:01 that had the TV tuner built into the Game Gear. I've never fucking seen or heard of this machine. And it was there. The rad colorway too. In Zutomir. Wow. They had rare variants of like mainstream consoles. They had one of the 6,500 gold PS4s
Starting point is 00:55:23 happened to be at this fucking Zutomir museum. They had the PlayStation Taco Bell edition. Wow. Which you can see here in this photo I took. PlayStation and Taco Bell started an interesting collaboration in 2014. If customers bought a big box menu, They could win this golden PlayStation 4. The collaboration was not a big success and multiple giveaway actions were necessary.
Starting point is 00:55:49 This is a fucking machine that you couldn't get unless you won it from Taco Bell. They have one of the PlayStation 4 20th anniversary colorways, which is, I think, there's only like... Oh, yes. There's only 12,000 of these were made. They have Nintendo 64 and all the Nintendo 64, like Donkey Kongas. They have rooms set up so they had a section dedicated to computer gaming with era specific computers that you could play Windows 95 games on mid 2000s games on late 2000s games on.
Starting point is 00:56:38 There's some this this this looks like a I'm trying to is this Warcraft three? What do they have on? I don't know. It looks like a Warcraft'm trying to... Is this Warcraft 3? What do they have on the... I don't fucking know. This looks like a Warcraft. I don't know. But I can't quite tell the era from the screenshot. They had an entire section of gun games, like Terminator 2 Judgment Day or Time Crisis.
Starting point is 00:56:59 That was the American section. They had the evolution of virtual reality, starting with a virtual boy and going all the way to the PSVR too. They had all of the accessories for the original NES, including a robot controller that I've never seen. Mary got to play a game called Starblade, which had a huge wraparound cabinet and like flat shaded polygons. They had a 1980s section that was Burger Time, Asteroids, Galaga, Ladybug, Tron, and all
Starting point is 00:57:37 of them, all of them were in perfect condition. I don't know if I don't know how this this this place exists he's blazed past a shot of mary in a fucking cabinet with her tongue out like look at this i've got a photo here of this like 1970s room with a rotary phone a working vet vectrix that you could just pick up like you just can like sit in this room and like play these old games and they are they're perfect it was that that that like commitment to the this this era specificity and the aesthetic of the playrooms is really cool that that room looks like where uh where bob crane was murdered it's like it's the perfect encapsulation of the 1970s. I have a photo here of a Commodore 64 that was set up at a desk.
Starting point is 00:58:30 And you could, there's a huge thick instruction manual next to the keyboard in case you didn't know what you were doing. But you could also, it had a cabinet of floppy disks. And you could just choose which game to play on a commodore 64 which is so cool i can't imagine that level of trust existing at an american museum like i can't imagine people going with steel shit or fucking rip it up yeah write their names on it just to be assholes um here's a photo of m playing Space Invaders. Look at how fucking clean this cabinet is. It looks like it was made yesterday.
Starting point is 00:59:10 I can't stress enough here's a 1980s room I can't stress enough how also they had a cabinet that was only Kojima and I was like that's fucking great. Oh look at that. That's fucking cool.
Starting point is 00:59:27 Um, wow. It was, it was, it was almost a religious experience. I've never, there's a game that I'm showing you guys here called denture to go, which is a Japanese train simulator from the,
Starting point is 00:59:44 from the fucking, I think early 2000s or late 90s, which is built into a full-sized train car. And they had the entire cabinet at this place. Yeah. Nick's going to Howard Hughes himself in there. The final piece I have up is the rarest thing for me personally,
Starting point is 01:00:08 which is the Game Boy Color sewing machine, where you could play a game to make patterns, and then you slot your Game Boy Color into the sewing machine and you could sew it onto a fabric. What?
Starting point is 01:00:22 What? You can... It's like like a it was a game it what would it so patterns that you made on the game boy i don't know why this of all the things was like the most shocking that's wild because it's so elaborate and unnecessary it's not it's to the point of like i can't believe someone thought of that and then made it. Well, I think the idea is, you know, because there's always, especially with a new platform, there's always like, how can we expand this beyond the existing demographic that's already buying it? It's like, I don't know, sewing enthusiasts.
Starting point is 01:00:59 Let's make a sewing game. And some of that shit worked. You know, it was things like brain training or Wii Fit. Right. But, you know, like, I don't know. That's a sewing game. And some of that shit worked, you know, it was, it was things like brain training or we fit. Right. But you know, like I, I don't know. That's a cool swing.
Starting point is 01:01:10 Um, this, this place was in a mall. So when I got there, I was a little confused. First, first off, nobody like Zootomir is not like a big city.
Starting point is 01:01:20 Like we took a train there. We brought our bikes so that afterwards we could bike to the Hague and have like lunch or something. Right. Watch a war crime trial. Yeah. Visit the grave of Slobodan Milosevic. So we go there and we bike into the center of the city. And I was like, oh, no, this is this is going to be rough.
Starting point is 01:01:41 This is like I'm going to a mall. I've been duped like the website's flashy, but they're not going to be rough. This is like I'm going to a mall. I've been duped. Like the website's flashy, but they're not going to have anything. I cannot sing the praises of this place enough. If you are ever in the Netherlands, visit the National Video Game Museum and pay respects to the entire history of video gaming.
Starting point is 01:02:01 It's remarkable. What an amazing slideshow that was. Yeah, thanks Heather. Yeah. Thanks Heather. We'll put it up on social media if you're listening. Go to our our zitter or our Instagram and you can see you can see those
Starting point is 01:02:17 shitty photos. I just took photos with my phone. I didn't bring my camera. I didn't expect to need it. Fucking amazing. A lot of cool shit. Hey, you know, speaking of video game history, still the biggest selling, or is it number two? Console of all time.
Starting point is 01:02:36 What are you playing? Okay, no, it's too late. No, you're like an hour late. I don't know what your excuse is, but at this point, we don't need you. I'll be in the den. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine.
Starting point is 01:02:56 Is everything okay? I'm fine. I took a taxi. Send us a text next time, because then we can just say like, hey, you don't need to show up, you know, because you come in all this way and we're already done with the segment. It's just kind of a waste of everyone's time. You're going to give me your numbers.
Starting point is 01:03:14 Nick. Yeah. Can I talk to you for a second? Yeah. Yeah. What's up? I don't think we should do that. OK.
Starting point is 01:03:22 I think this is kind of what happens is that, like, you know, he shows up and we're like, oh, great. But then we should do that. Okay. And I think this is kind of what happens is that like, you know, he shows up and we're like, Oh great. But then we engage with it. We've sort of enabled this behavior. And I think it's like kind of like a, you know,
Starting point is 01:03:32 I think, Hey, thanks for, you didn't have to be, you don't have to be here. The segment's over. That's it. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:03:39 We can just leave it at that. We can just leave it at that. New listeners, I'm the Resident Evil 4 merchant. And I'm here to ask you, what are you playing? Okay, we'll just actually, you know what we'll do? We'll take this part, and we'll just put it earlier, and then that way he can give you some money,
Starting point is 01:03:56 and that's just kind of how we'll just do it. We'll just do it like that. We'll do it like that, yeah, that makes sense. It won't make any sense, though, because it'll be like, how did he lose his fingers? We didn't even like that. Yeah, that makes sense. It won't make any sense, though, because it'll be like, how did he lose his fingers? We didn't even know that part. Yeah, I didn't see. I didn't notice.
Starting point is 01:04:11 I'm not taking inventory of people's digits when they come in, all right? Frankly, I just assumed those fingers were always missing. I jumped it. I was water skiing. Okay. Sure, tell us the story. I jumped it. I was water skiing. Okay. Sure. Tell us the story. And I was going to jump.
Starting point is 01:04:30 I jumped off the back of the boat to get into the water to ski. Mm-hmm. The water skiing rope got tangled up in it and so I was dragged face into the water legs on the boat and the engine which you guys
Starting point is 01:04:56 know from dredge can be a dangerous machine that's right yeah you be careful with that thing ground up my hands willy nilly and I lost my fingers That's right. Yeah, you gotta be careful with that thing. Ground up my hands willy-nilly, and I lost my fingers. I'm having trouble even envisioning you,
Starting point is 01:05:14 Resident Evil merchant, water skiing. Like, do you have a trench coat full of stun grenades you're still wearing? Or do you put on a swimsuit? Yeah, swimming costume is the English word. Because that's almost weirder, picturing you in a Speedo. No no full shorts didn't have to be a speedo i don't know get up i wear my full get up got it trench coat mask hat water skis to take the backpack off at least. That might have been part of your issue.
Starting point is 01:05:46 That's tougher to balance. You might be, what do they call it in Diablo when you have too much stuff? Encumbered. You're encumbered. Yeah. All right, I'll let you guys go. Yeah, sorry about your fingers. Yeah, sorry about that.
Starting point is 01:06:02 Me too. Yeah. yeah sorry about your fingers yeah sorry about that me too yeah but anyway yeah just we can just use what you said earlier what are you playing we can just use that for the next few weeks so don't worry about you got it
Starting point is 01:06:14 alright take care I'm a virgin okay didn't want to know that that's fine that's okay I'll be in the den Didn't want to know that. That's fine. That's fine. That's okay. I'll be in the den. Okay.
Starting point is 01:06:29 The den? I thought... Do we have a den? Here's the thing. Do you have a den? I thought this podcast only hired people that fucked, okay? I'm curious. I agree. All right. The PlayStation 2 is, in fact,
Starting point is 01:07:07 still the biggest selling game console of all time. Wow. It is. Switch is closing in on it. And I think Switch is on a trajectory to surpass it. But as of now, PlayStation 2 has 155 million units sold. The successor to the PlayStation 1, which was itself a massive success. And yeah, just one of the big boy consoles with just perhaps the most impressive library of any console i think that you can make that argument it uh it just occurred to me why the switch 2 hasn't been announced or released yet and it's
Starting point is 01:07:39 because nintendo wants that record they want to top the PS2. I think they could see that. I think they also could just have the calculation of like, we will just keep selling these fucking things. Right, because nobody's getting the Switch because it's a powerhouse. You're getting the Switch because you can play kind of everything Switch level or below on the Switch. Yeah. You don't like, I don't know that anybody who has a switch wants
Starting point is 01:08:07 to play starfield on it when you can you can you can play disco elysium on it yeah you can play skyrim yeah matt you're playing red dead redemption on yeah i didn't talk about it, but yeah, I'm playing it there and it fucking rocks. It's so good. It plays perfectly. Well, the PS2 was still in the era where of big exclusives. I mean, those still exist. Sony still has its big exclusives and then just has this big exclusive. But I think it was a much more, you know, consoles, I think, had much more exclusive libraries. There was a lot less overlap, although that was starting to I think this was the generation where that was starting to also dissolve.
Starting point is 01:08:54 So it's kind of like a little bit of a transitional period where you'd see big games that would maybe launch on PS2 and then get Xbox and GameCube ports and what have you or vice versa. I do think there are a lot of big quality PS2 games, like well-known games that are multi-platform games, and we'll see if some of those get picked here, but yeah, this is across our old DLC format
Starting point is 01:09:20 and our current format, we've drafted so far the Nintendo DS, another massive selling console, the PS1 and the current format, we've drafted so far the Nintendo DS, another massive selling console, the PS1 and the Nintendo 64 and now we are here in the most current of these drafts doing PS2. So who wants to go first?
Starting point is 01:09:36 We talked about this a little bit off pod before we started. I'm not worried about any of mine. I think it's going to be you two. Not about any of mine right got it I think it's going to be you to not about any of the any I'm not worried about any of them I I have a couple
Starting point is 01:09:52 that might be on your list I think here's what I think because I was considering this also and I was like I'm not worried about any of mine I think the PS2 library is so huge that to choose 15 games which is what we're going gonna do 15 total five a piece five a piece uh i also wonder if we're gonna have any overlap or if there are 15 solid like a plus for
Starting point is 01:10:19 each of us titles that not let that that everybody will be like god that's a good game that's a good game but none of us are going to be super jealous of but we'll see i think we'll also get to the end of this and we will 100 be be getting feedback like how could they possibly have left this on the board how could they not have picked this and the the the issue is there's just like such a breadth of the to your point heather of the library there's just like so many fucking good games for this particular console that, you know, you may not get to the deeper cut. So you may not even get to some of the well-known AAA titles. Since we've said that, don't say it to us. No, we made the disclaimer.
Starting point is 01:11:02 We're anticipating it. Sign up for our discord, which is Discord.gg slash get played. Heather. And say it to us. Say it to us. Do you know what the way to do it is? I think just say what your five would be. Right.
Starting point is 01:11:14 I think that's the way. Because then you can just sort of. Oh, they're five. No, they, yeah. If you want to have feedback, like, hey, here's what I would have picked. You know, like, I think that's the way to do it. As opposed to, you fucking idiots. Yeah. How the fuck could you have forgotten this game? I don't mind it. You know, like, I think that's that's the way to do it. Join as opposed to you fucking idiots. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:11:25 How the fuck could you forgotten this game? I don't mind it. You can tag me and say you fucking idiot. Don't do it. It's going to make me sad to see it. I just don't do that. I got a ring. I got a ring at a jewelry store that declares war on the world.
Starting point is 01:11:40 I'm really excited to live. Yeah. I'm ready. Heather. Heather has really uh upped terrifying her her own personal game who wants to go first of having terrifying items i'll just knock this one out go ahead matt one one at a time though right one at a time yeah we'll go one at a time are nick do you want to go second or third okay i mean are we doing snake style or are we just going 1, 2, 3? Snake style
Starting point is 01:12:05 Okay we're not doing snake style I say that I'm not worried Uh huh Let's just do 1, 2, 3 I think this will be fine we'll just each take turns But who's 2? You know what I I'll go third.
Starting point is 01:12:25 I don't give a shit. Holy shit. All right, here we go. Matt Apodaca. All right, first one on the board. No one's going to take this one. And is it a waste? Perhaps.
Starting point is 01:12:35 I'm going with my first pick, Kingdom Hearts 2, player. You got to get what you want. Yeah. That's just how I think that's the best drafting strategy in sports is like, you know, there's a there's a thing that they'll say in a draft that'll be like that guy's a reach in terms of I drafted him at number one, but he'd be available at number four. But historically, it works out if a team really has their eye on somebody that they take what they want. So, yeah, I don't think Heather and I would have taken Kingdom Hearts, too. No, but obviously it's an important part of your, the construction of your roster.
Starting point is 01:13:07 So I think you're right to do it. The thing about it too is, if I only had one pick, it's probably the game I would pick. I love it. I've played it. That's great. I've played it so many times.
Starting point is 01:13:17 And the only way that either of you would take it would be to spite me. So I just thought, I'll get it first. I know that they're not going to do that anyway, but I just got to get it out of the way because everybody knows I'm going to pick it anyway. Number two.
Starting point is 01:13:29 Let's move along. Wow. In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent hill. You promised you'd take me there again someday, but you never did. Well, I'm alone there now
Starting point is 01:13:46 in our special place waiting for Silent Hill 2 one of the greatest PS2 games of all time and one of the greatest games of all time got my boy Pyramid Head it's got my I mean like
Starting point is 01:14:01 it's got the hole it's got the fucking hole in's got the fucking hole in it. There was a hole here. It's gone now. Scariest thing I've ever read in my life. Yeah, it's such a perfect short story. Holy shit. Also, these two picks, I think, are iterative of their first entries and improve upon uh what made those first ones good to begin
Starting point is 01:14:27 with and present a perfect package yeah silent hill 2 was the first silent hill on playstation 2 but silent hill 1 was on the playstation 1 excellent game silent hill 2 fucking masterpiece that's my that's my first pick nick Weiger you're up you know this isn't the direction I was going to go but while we're drafting sequels that were improvements upon the original and this is a game that I played through a bunch and I think
Starting point is 01:14:58 it is one of the defining games of this console even though it's not necessarily my favorite in this individual series, it is just such an important game. Oh no. And so... Eee, I'm nervous. I have to say...
Starting point is 01:15:13 Don't do it! An anemone or clematis plant's juice can cause a rash. When pruning them, it's a good idea to wear gloves. To quote the Colonel from Metal Gear Solid 2. Wow. Wow. I can't tell if Matt's upset. I know that's not his favorite in the series,
Starting point is 01:15:33 but I can't tell if Matt's upset because he does have, he does have a finger on the button of Metal Gear. Metal Gear. Metal Gear. Yeah. No, I like you guys. Yeah, you could always sort of... She is drunk.
Starting point is 01:15:51 ...rely on us doing the same thing that we always do and never improving upon it. But Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty is such a cool game, and it also is one thing when we revisited it for the podcast and I played it through in its entirety, was like this fucking holds up and of course i had the same feeling about its sequel metal go solid 3 which i think is maybe a better game but there's something about that as a again as a second entry in the franchise and it's kind of like a defining game in terms of like holy shit this is a whole new generation. This is amazing what this hardware can do.
Starting point is 01:16:26 I think it deserves a spot on someone's roster. And that someone is me. I think you can have it. That's yours. Wow. Yeah. So is it back to me? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:38 It's back to you. Okay. This is now tough, right? Because I have plenty of options in front of me but i'm trying to make a i'm trying to make a fucking roster here uh and i only got four more spots and you know i think fuck uh this is not a sequel but it is not the first game in the series
Starting point is 01:17:09 either in you know ongoing series there's many different types of what am I trying to say there are a lot of games in this genre okay and there's a particular
Starting point is 01:17:24 man at the head of this genre okay and there's a particular man at the head of this genre and there's sequels to games okay now i know what you're different there's different there's like uh different types of uh games with sequels in this series but i'm gonna go with this entry tony hawk's underground wow tony hawk's underground takes everything you love about the tony hawk's pro skater franchise and makes it grand theft auto kind of like it gives it like There's story missions and stuff and things you have to accomplish. You can get off the board. It's a rags to riches story where you're a local skater trying to make it pro. And it's great.
Starting point is 01:18:17 It's such a great game. It plays really well. I revisited it pretty recently when I got my steam deck uh installed it on there and it rips it is so fucking good so tony hawk's underground is my second pick i figured you'd take a tony hawk and i just for my own curiosity i just looked up what the highest rated one was on the platform it is tony hawk's pro skater 3 yes is in fact the highest rated PS2 game overall. Tied with Grand Theft Auto 3. A big ol' 97 on Metacritic. I do love
Starting point is 01:18:50 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. That one is probably my favorite after... Well, it's probably tied for favorite for the first one. But Underground... Underground is just great because the fact that you can get off the board
Starting point is 01:19:05 adds an interesting element and there's just a lot more you can do. They really refined the combo system in Underground, I thought. I think it's a great pick. Really great. So far, we've got four games on the board and this is looking like
Starting point is 01:19:21 one of the best systems of all time. Yeah, there's an argument. There's a case for it. one of the best systems of all time. Yeah, there's an argument. There's a case for it. One of the best. Matt, I've shared a song in the chat here that I'd love to play for my second pick. A work of genius. A towering beast of a game that pushed the PS2 to its very limits. This wasn't just an exceptional title.
Starting point is 01:20:03 Indeed, this itself is a Colossus and we are but in its shadow shadow of the Colossus 2005 Playstation 2 fucking masterpiece that's all I got that's what I mean that's my second pick
Starting point is 01:20:18 if I had done that it would have been like a no effects song or something I was pretty confident you were gonna pick that If I had done that, it would have been like a no FX song or something. I was pretty confident you were going to pick that. I know that that's a that's a game that you really love. It's a it's an all timer. It's a great game. And and there you go.
Starting point is 01:20:37 It's incredible. I still have never played it. What? There's a remaster. Is it? Hey, you know what? That could be our we play. That could be the we play you play. could be it oh my god i would just fucking break down crying it's such a fucking
Starting point is 01:20:51 good game it's it's one of my favorite games can you just play that on a on a ps5 yeah i don't know i assume so i think it is i think the remake is so it's a PS4 remake. Okay. So you can play it on PS5. Oh. Fuck. What if we did that, guys? What if we played. It's not super long either. It's not super long. It's fucking awesome game.
Starting point is 01:21:15 Heartbreaking. Brilliant. Also, Adam Sandler plays it in Rain Over Me. We could watch that. For an episode. We could watch Rain Over Me. Maybe we could just. A replay you play could be the movie Rain Over Me. The Adam Sandler 9-11 movie.
Starting point is 01:21:31 Nick, you're up. You know, while we're sharing music, I mean, I wasn't expecting this to be on the board. But how can I not pick it at this point? Oh, no. Matt, if you want to not pick it at this point? Oh, no. Matt, if you want to go ahead and play this track. Oh, no. What's it going to be? I'm nervous.
Starting point is 01:21:48 Go fuck yourself. Oh, shit. Okay. I don't know what it is. Wait. Nick, are you just choosing Metal Gears? I wasn't planning on it. I thought I'd take...
Starting point is 01:22:13 I was going to take three with my number one pick, but then everyone was taking number two, so I was like, ah, well... It'll be better if I just take another, you know... It would be better, huh? ...direct sequel. Yeah, but then I was like, but then three is still here, so I was like, fuck it. I'll take three, you know, it would be better. Huh? Sequel. Yeah. But then I was like,
Starting point is 01:22:27 but then three is still here. So I was like, fuck it. I'll take three with my number two. Do you remember? Do you remember just a couple of picks ago when you said Metal Gear Solid 2? And I said, you can have that. You fucked me.
Starting point is 01:22:48 Another game. That's just like you know we hey we we tackled them both I think in different different versions of Kojember where we played through a bunch of Kojima games and I think the three which we tackled with do we have Gene Park on to talk about Metal Gear Solid 3?
Starting point is 01:23:04 Gene's the best uh we had and and i think where all of us were just like wow this is fucking this game a holds up and b just has like a bunch of like big ideas that had that helped define um you know how stealth plays and in video games and it's also like as a at the time like as a follow up to Metal Gear Solid 2 which had certainly some strong reactions to it certainly was kind of a polarizing game because of the
Starting point is 01:23:34 misdirect of who the protagonist ended up being like was both a course correction but also something that satisfied people who actually liked MGS2 like me so yeah a great game. And it fills out my roster. Matt, back to you.
Starting point is 01:23:51 That was ice cold, buddy. Ice cold. I'm absolutely fucked over here. Well, Matt's out here fucking saying no one else is going to pick any of my games with that level of confidence. He had two picks to take this game. It wasn't a... It was...
Starting point is 01:24:09 You were supposed to hear what I'm saying and then not do... Uh-huh. You're supposed to sort of be like, okay, Matt says no one's going to pick my game. I better not pick... You made an enemy, Weiger. Okay, well, okay.
Starting point is 01:24:23 So now I'm worried because I think my number the game I was going to take I feel pretty confident Heather is going to take do you want to do a trade I'm just kidding when we do the 3DS draft I'll draft it
Starting point is 01:24:39 for the 3DS which is where I did play it on when we did the episode. And it's great on there. And in many ways, improved. My third pick. So now I'm going to zag a little bit. He's zagging.
Starting point is 01:24:57 Because I have some ones that I know that are safe. But there are some on here that I don't know. Just pick Nick's favorite game. I don't think they had Panty Party on Big Fish 2. Game we covered on here with If You Want to Wait.
Starting point is 01:25:21 So I can't pick Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, but I'm going to pick a game that I think I've talked about a little bit that might be a surprise pick for me from you guys, because I don't really engage with sports at all in this way. It's just going to pick Madden. I'm going to pick Madden 04. Which I did play a lot as a teenager with my uncle.
Starting point is 01:25:52 This game, I would play non-stop and have been chasing this high for years. I think it's an excellent sports video game. I think it's a fun game to play at a party with friends. This is an all-timer for me nba street volume two this was on my list and i'm glad it got picked uh it's this these nba street games were a lot of fun i'm not quite sure why they fell off because it felt like they they kind of figured out how to iterate on nba jam yeah i thought that franchise was gonna stick around but those were both really, really fun. And they like... They made a third one that I didn't play
Starting point is 01:26:28 because I think by that point I was kind of done with that, but I thought they could just bring it back, and all I actually want is a port of 2 to the Switch. That's it. They don't have to do anything to it. I'll take a port. And that's fine.
Starting point is 01:26:43 I just want a way to play it again uh because it's i thought that game was so much fun and so great and it's a it's a home run i think well or a slam dunk i should say all right no home run is right it's a home run uh heather you're up i put another uh a song in the chat why don't she's gonna fucking do it what do you what could I possibly do yeah I'm looking this is the exact same URL of the song that I was gonna put in the chat yes yes I
Starting point is 01:27:14 did it I got I got revenge she didn't you she dude okay I shit I didn't do shit. I didn't do a goddamn thing. Also, I didn't Weiger him.
Starting point is 01:27:36 Like, he could have chosen. It doesn't matter. Play the fucking song. You Weigered him. Here we go. The PlayStation 2 was an opportunity for many developers to create new singular gaming experiences that have never been experienced before. Experience experience? I'm a little drunk, it's okay. Among these was second to none, ball rolling Earth simulator, Katamari Damacy, with one of the best soundtracks of all time.
Starting point is 01:28:14 You can't fucking beat this game. It's been my ringtone for, what, 20 fucking years? Because, like, no matter who calls you, if this goes off when you're when when you're you're like oh okay i'll answer that um my my third pick katamari damacy fucking perfect crazy game absolute delight i'm there was a time there was a time when games like this wouldn't have come out in the west like you would have like seen it in a magazine and you would have been like, whoa, what's that? And I'm really glad that our overlords at Bandai Namco released Katamari Damacy to us. Nick, you're up.
Starting point is 01:29:02 Great game. Great pick. Was on my list. Was going to be my pick here I'll pivot though Heather you picked a game Shadow of the Colossus from Team Eco and you know what
Starting point is 01:29:13 Team Eco is named after a game that they released previously that is an awesome experience less heralded less impactful but I do think it's one of the better games on ps2 and a game that i played at a time when i was like holy shit this is expanding what a video game can be artistically that is the game eco where you are a boy with horns with a princess in some sort of castle. You don't speak the same language. The combat is, you know,
Starting point is 01:29:47 mostly is, is limited to you protecting, uh, your charge in this, this game length escort mission. Uh, and, uh, you know, it's, it's a game where you're really in peril most of the time where you're not powerful. It's not a power fantasy, uh, rather it's a game about just like surviving uh and it's artistic and it's beautiful and it has an uh just an amazing story and an amazing uh coda uh and uh it's it's a it's it's a one of the you know the game the games i think of when i think of the playstation 2 uh so i'm gonna pick eco for my number three that's a great pick um i'm only familiar with it when we've talked about um how they fucked up the box art here in the west uh the box art is extremely funny yeah it looked the the uh the the the the japanese box art is like a work of art
Starting point is 01:30:42 on the same level as the game itself and then the american box art is like the uh american box art is like a work of art on the same level as the game itself and then the American box art is like the American box art for Mega Man it's just like some like gnarled like who's that guy that's not the fucking protagonist very strange Eco's a great game it wasn't on my
Starting point is 01:31:00 list but it's an excellent game and I'm glad somebody I'm glad somebody gave it the love it deserves. Now, the danger I risk is that the next game on my list is going to also be picked by Heather, and I'm pretty certain it will be.
Starting point is 01:31:16 That's okay. There's lots of options here. Matt, your turn. How to behave in the way he's responding to it. Is Matt frozen, or is he just... Matt's frozen, but it looks like he's just furious at you. Yes.
Starting point is 01:31:31 And I hope we keep this part of the podcast in. Oh, I froze. He's like frozen in contemplation. Anger. I was saying... Yeah. Enraged contemplation. I was saying here, I'm learning from Nick
Starting point is 01:31:45 in these moments because Nick the way Nick is responding to maybe getting picked getting his things picked has made me re-evaluate maybe how I reacted and you know
Starting point is 01:32:03 all I can say is, I'm sorry. Wow. Okay. I shouldn't have blown up like that. You're fine, buddy. No, no, no. You deserved it. Okay, wait, no. Heather's on to something.
Starting point is 01:32:23 Maybe Heather's right. I wear a ring of war now I'm ready for combat take it to him Apodaca take the fight to him well this is the thing I don't know which ones Nick would pick and I'm not a spite picker I'm not going to do that
Starting point is 01:32:38 but what I am going to do Heather just mentioned combat this game is non-stop combat But what I am going to do, Heather just mentioned combat. This game is non-stop combat. You are a man. You are a singular man. You're a man. On the quest
Starting point is 01:33:00 to destroy the gods and kill them and end their reign of terror once and for all because they have too much power and they shouldn't be fucking around the way they're fucking around so my pick is the playstation 2 video game god of war The first one. Nice. The first one, they're all great. But I'm picking the first one because somehow this game didn't even come out at the end of the PS2's life cycle. And it like...
Starting point is 01:33:39 It like pushed the PS2 for everything it got. I'm shocked that God of War 2 even came out on PlayStation 2. I don't know what they were doing over there. But I got God of War on my original PlayStation 2, and it didn't work. Because my PlayStation 2 had been used so much. Because I had brothers also playing it. That thing was probably running eight hours a day every single day.
Starting point is 01:34:10 By the time I got God of War, it couldn't handle it. I had to get the Slim. And then I was in business. But boy, oh boy. I've played that game a lot. I think I played that game earlier this year. Replayed it. And it rips.
Starting point is 01:34:25 It's so it's fantastic. It's so good. That's my fourth pick. Those those those games that come out towards the very end of a console generation, very often first party games, big budget that just like really just push the hardware as hard as they can are really like, you know, that's that's that's just a fucking showpiece. And that game also, you know, I played the shit out of that when it came out. So fun. So, so gorgeous. The combat really, you know, kind of on a different level from a lot of the other that definitely May Cry also was out at the time, so that's not completely fair. But it was like, for that sort of game,
Starting point is 01:35:08 to have that level of depth to the combat was really something. Yeah, they're really super fun. And then what it did with fixed camera angles, which was a big part of how it was able to push the PlayStation 2, the aging PlayStation 2 hardware so hard. Yeah, really, really, really impressive game. Great pick.
Starting point is 01:35:26 Yep. And a mat pick. A very mat pick. An excellent pick. One of my all-time games. I don't think you have to worry about anything, Nick, because I think I'm on my own trajectory over here except for Katamari Damacy, which you
Starting point is 01:35:41 had no right to. Well, I also had Silent Hill 2 at the top of my fucking list. I wasn't going to take Shadow of the Colossus. I knew you'd want that one. For a short minute, for a long minute, for maybe even years, this Final Fantasy game was my favorite Final Fantasy game. And that is Final Fantasy XII. favorite Final Fantasy game and that is Final
Starting point is 01:36:05 Fantasy 12 this is exactly what I thought you were going to pick that I was going to pick it's okay Final Fantasy 12 not 10 is the most capable Final Fantasy on the PlayStation 2
Starting point is 01:36:22 it is a fully lived in world it was delayed and delayed and delayed. And when it finally released, it felt like nobody but me was playing it. But I love Final Fantasy 12. It has an excellent script. It has great voice acting. And it has the most unique combat system,
Starting point is 01:36:43 I think, of the entire lineage, which is the Gambit system, where you basically program your heroes to take certain actions given certain circumstances. And then you create a flow chart for each of them so that if you have a healer,
Starting point is 01:36:59 you set a parameter that's like, if your ally falls below 30% of their health, then cast cure. It's an excellent game with a unique story. You don't quite play the protagonist. You kind of play a guy who's along with the protagonist in this incredible world of Ivalice. Final Fantasy XII is my, was it the fourth pick?
Starting point is 01:37:25 My fourth pick. Yeah, it's my fourth pick? My fourth pick. Yeah, it's your fourth pick, yeah. Nick Weiger, you're up. Well, I was going to pick Final Fantasy 12. It's okay. I did have something to worry about. Contra Heather's assessment. But you know what? Final Fantasy 12 is
Starting point is 01:37:41 taken. You know how I respond to that? I say, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Holy shit. Because there's another Final Fantasy game. Cursed energy right there. I'm like, I am scared. There's another Final Fantasy game
Starting point is 01:38:01 for the PlayStation 2 that I also love and for a time was my favorite entry in the franchise. Final Fantasy 10. Wow. I'm taking Final Fantasy 10. Talk about a world. I mean, like, look, just sort of the
Starting point is 01:38:16 archipelago that you're inhabiting, the sort of beachy Okinawa-inspired fantasy world was so novel to me at the time. The sin is such an amazing presence. This just ominous force that follows you at all times. I think the storyline like has some, you know, it has its goofiness.
Starting point is 01:38:37 It has its issues with some of the voice acting like the the reference laughing scene. But I think it is just like such a such a great narrative that and then also the sphere grid system, the way that you build your characters just gives you a lot of customization and feels very active in the same way that like the materia system did.
Starting point is 01:39:02 So yeah, Final Fantasy 10 is going to be my number four. A good pick. I feel pretty good about it. Now it's... Now it's back to Matt, your final pick. My final pick. There's a lot I could say.
Starting point is 01:39:18 There's a lot left on the table for me. You know. And I'm looking at some options and I sort of I have I have my RPG. I have my skateboarding game. I have my basketball game and I have my story. Combat game. What else do I need? Right.
Starting point is 01:39:45 I kind of have I kind of have the whole thing. I'd be remiss to not have a game with a specific peripheral. So, my final pick. Guitar Hero
Starting point is 01:40:03 2. Nice. Wow. Nice. Guitar Hero 2. Nice. Wow. Nice. Guitar Hero 2. Wow. It's, you know, Guitar Hero 1, great. Guitar Hero 2, really, they upped the ante.
Starting point is 01:40:18 The songs are better. There are more songs. They refined some of the gameplay a little bit. And boy, I just love shredding, baby. That's it. That's it for me.
Starting point is 01:40:34 Whether it's on a board or with a guitar, Matt loves to show me fucking shredder. Surprise. You didn't take SSX tricky. It was on my list. Shred down the slopes. I almost picked that over Tony Hawk's Underground, but Underground's it for me. But I loved SSX Tricky as well. But that brings my list to Kingdom Hearts 2, Tony Hawk's Underground, NBA Street Vol. 2, God of War, and Guitar Hero 2.
Starting point is 01:40:57 Anyone surprised? Absolutely not. I'm just surprised that Metal Gear Solid 3 wasn't on your list. Yeah, me too. Me too. Could have picked it first or second. You had two opportunities. Yeah, but I went with the ones that nobody would pick first
Starting point is 01:41:14 because I'm a fucking idiot, I guess. Heather, your final pick. Look, there is a behemoth that is still on the board. A game changer. A behemoth that is still on the board. A game changer. A behemoth. A game changer that changed games. From a sequel to games that barely made a splash. From a UK developer to one of the most titanic game franchises of all time right that's not the game i'm gonna choose wow i'm going with god hand as my final pick god hand which i've talked about on this podcast before
Starting point is 01:42:01 is non-stop fun an incredible combat system, and is made by one of the fucking master geniuses of video game design. God Hand is my final pick for the PlayStation 2. I don't think a lot of people are going to be knocking down my door trying to get my copy of God Hand, but I've got one. And if I was in the United States and I was staring at my shelf of PlayStation 2 games, they're shining in all its glory would be every single game that I've just listed. Wow. Ending with God Hand. Also, what a fucking name for a fucking video game like a great what says video game more
Starting point is 01:42:48 than god hand nick you're up i think people listening to this will will be because you were you're obviously talking about grand theft auto 3 and i think people will probably be shocked to see these lists of playstation 2 games and there's no Grand Theft Auto on it because I'm not going to take one, although I do appreciate those games, Vice City in particular. I know a lot of people really love San Andreas, and I did play the shit out of three. And also Resident Evil 4.
Starting point is 01:43:16 To me, that's a GameCube game. I know it's got a PlayStation 4, but I just don't think of it that way. You know, the Devil May Cry franchise, I appreciate. DMC 3 was on my list. I'm not going to pick it. Okami, a game that people love.
Starting point is 01:43:31 I'm not going to pick it. It's down to two games for me. And these are both, you know, not the deepest of cuts. I wish I had something super duper indie, you know, super duper, like a little bit more obscure to sort of show some cred here but for me it's down to has also dragon quest 8 on this on ps2 for me it's down to uh a clonoa 2 lunatea's veil wow or hey you know what fucking great platformers yeah and and clonoa door to phantom isle uh on on playstation one was one of my favorite playstation one games but i'm not going
Starting point is 01:44:12 to pick that because although there were a lot of great character action games and there were a lot of great great platformers 2d and 3d on the playstation 2 uh but i'm uh you know the the jack and daxters and ratchet and clanks, the Jack and Daxter's and Ratchet and Clank's of the world and the, although those are both more combat-y. But I'm not going to pick that game. Instead, I'm going to pick a game that I played the shit out of and that had a great co-op experience
Starting point is 01:44:38 and to me, couch co-op is such a big part of this generation. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. Baldur's Gate back in the zeitgeist this was the action rpg version of it uh it was so fucking fun especially you could play through the entire campaign two player one screen going around hacking and slashing your way collecting exp collecting treasure now here's the thing you look at all five of my games metal gear solid two sons of liberty metal solid three snake eater eco final fantasy 10 balder's gate dark alliance you know i this is this is this is
Starting point is 01:45:11 darker more adult stuff um but and and i like hey i'm i i like it i like a cute game i like a you know i like a fucking uh i like a fucking rayman game i like a fucking mario game but they just didn't end up on my list the way things were drafted. I think that's maybe where Katamari would have slotted in. As such, I'm pretty happy with my roster. I think I got some bangers on here. Let's recap
Starting point is 01:45:35 our list real quick. One more time, mine is Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake Eater, Ico, Final Fantasy X, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. I chose Silent Hill 2, Katamari Damacy, Final Fantasy X, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. I chose Silent Hill 2, Katamari Damacy, Final Fantasy XII, God Hand, and
Starting point is 01:45:51 what was the other one? Shadow of the Colossus. Oh, Shadow of the Colossus. And my picks were Kingdom Hearts 2, Tony Hawk's Underground, NBA Street Vol. 2, God of War, and Guitar Hero 2. and my picks were kingdom hearts 2 tony hawks underground nba street volume 2 god of war and guitar hero 2 i had dvd remote on my list which i was a lot of my stuff was gonna be maniac but i was like but here's the thing like part of why i bought a ps2 was as a dvd player that was a
Starting point is 01:46:19 big part of why that just absolutely dominated that console generation because it was the dawn of dvds and people like well hey this is a DVD player that also plays video games I'll get that one that's probably why too my first PlayStation 2 burned out the way that it did because we also it was the family DVD player so we were just constantly using it
Starting point is 01:46:37 it was always on always watching Austin Powers the Spy Who Shagged Me over and over again yes I feel like that and The Matrix were like the two most played DVDs always watching Austin Powers the Spy Who Shagged Me over and over again. Yes. I feel like that and The Matrix were like the two most played DVDs. And then the first X-Men 2 was like one of our first DVDs too.
Starting point is 01:46:54 But yeah, those were like I mean Austin Powers was on anyway. We were always watching that. But like when we had the DVD forget about it how about a segment you guys
Starting point is 01:47:07 okay let's do it alright can Nick and Heather guess how long it takes to beat a game without going over it's game over time PlayStation 2 edition
Starting point is 01:47:16 nice wow game over time so these are all games from PlayStation 2, some of which we've talked about today. Beep, beep, beep. What's that?
Starting point is 01:47:33 17 hours. Okay, well, just wait. I have to say a game first. Well, I think that should count as our first guess, I think. Okay. I don't think you want it to. I'm just going to say that right now so I'm gonna give Heather another chance but when I I'll say
Starting point is 01:47:50 some games we're talking main story here how long does it take to beat the main story of these video games starting with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas so this is on like of the there's like main story is the lowest threshold on how long to be right and then there's main and extra so like you's like main story is the lowest threshold on how long
Starting point is 01:48:06 to be right and then there's main and extra so like you do the main story and then I guess a little bit more I really don't know what that is and then some side quest dabbling of side quest and then a little bit more completionist is all of it everything that you can do got it yeah 100%
Starting point is 01:48:21 okay main story Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas. I'll say, hmm, main story only. It's a beefy game. I'm ready to go. I'm locked and loaded. Go ahead, Heather. 61 hours.
Starting point is 01:48:38 Okay, Heather says 61 hours. Are we doing Price is Right rules? Yeah, closes without going over. Oh, okay. Then I'll say 30 hours nick is correct the answer is 30 and a half hours wow i almost said 31 hours you you are fucked up what a different different fate that would be for me so nick's on the board with one point. Hell yeah. Final Fantasy X. How long does it take to beat the main story in Final Fantasy X?
Starting point is 01:49:12 Oh boy. Main story only. Heather. 25 hours. Heather says 25 hours. I'm not just going to go over one because i don't think that's fair um i'm gonna say but i i do think it's a little longer than that in my memory i'm gonna say 34
Starting point is 01:49:32 hours nick is the closest the answer 46 hours wow for main story only this is a substantial game yeah i i don't play these games that way like I don't play RPGs just like mainlining them so it is kind of like amazing to hear that even just mainlining it it's still I must have taken 60-70 hours to play that game even just mainlining it it's still that bulky big boy you know
Starting point is 01:49:58 wow there's not a metric for Blitzball only but I assume that'd be pretty high as well. The next one. Katamari Damacy. I'll go first here. Main story only,
Starting point is 01:50:15 I'm going to say seven hours. Nick said seven hours. Heather's going to say two hours. The rules are, it's closest without going over nick you went over damn the answer six hours wow so heather's on the board it's two to one right now let's keep going the next game jack and and Daxter, the Precursor Legacy. I don't fucking know. 12 hours. Is this the first one?
Starting point is 01:50:51 Precursor Legacy is the first one. The second one is just called Jak 2? 12 hours. Heather says 12 hours. Or did Jak 2 have a subtitle? It was just Jak 2 and then Jak 3. And then Jak X Combat Racing. Got it.
Starting point is 01:51:06 Heather says 12 hours. And then Daxter the PSP game. And that's the franchise. Yeah, Heather says 12 hours. I'm thinking back on Jack 1. Was it longer than that? I'm going to take the under. I'm going to say nine hours. Nick's got it.
Starting point is 01:51:28 Ten hours for the main story. Nice. Moving right along. We're in the PlayStation. Which one's our mascot era? Ratchet and Clank, the original. OG Ratchet and Clank. I'm going to stick with nine hours.
Starting point is 01:51:55 It was the same ballpark. Nick says nine. 12 hours. Heather with a bullet. 12 hours. Wow. Bam. Bam. An appropriate bullet given the ratchet and clank franchise exactly um next to conclude the which one's our mascot era sly cooper and the thievius raccooness i should have picked a sly cooper game. I know. Sly Cooper.
Starting point is 01:52:26 Let's see. Fuck it. I'll run it back. Nine hours. Twelve hours. Nobody gets a point. You both went over. Oh.
Starting point is 01:52:41 It's seven hours. The shortest one of the three. But who else was in that mascot running? Spyro? Crash Bandicoot? Yeah. And then they were like, oh, I guess it's Kratos. I guess it's him.
Starting point is 01:52:56 This is the grieving father. Yeah, the guy that killed his family. Okay, just two more here. We talked about this one. Ico. How long does it take to complete the main story of Ico? I'm going to say this is a pretty modest game. I think
Starting point is 01:53:15 this is, I'm going to say four hours. Nick says four hours. Just to mainline it. Six. Six hours. Heather gets it six and a half hours six Wow so now we're at an interesting point because the game is
Starting point is 01:53:32 tied up and we have one more pick so the winner takes it I love it such high stakes although we can tie if neither if we both this is true it can tie if you both go over got it prince of persia the sands of time a game i didn't how did you not pick this one yeah don't you love that franchise but i think it's just tough like i don't know it's i just didn't pick it it's because it's multi-platform
Starting point is 01:54:07 it's kind of not a ps2 game i mean i played it on ps2 i really should have just picked it but yeah why didn't i just didn't uh prince of bros just stands the time nine hours heather says nine hours Heather says nine hours which direction do I want to go do I want to take the over or do I want to take the under fuck I feel like it's I feel like it's less than nine hours but that seems wrong because I can prices write it
Starting point is 01:54:44 in either direction. I'll be a little stinker and say one hour. Well, Nick, even the dagger of time couldn't save you here because Heather got it exactly right. Nine hours. Wow. Heather is our winner. Do we get a bonus point for getting it exactly right? No.
Starting point is 01:55:07 Yeah. I don't need that. Okay. Well, then Heather has five points then. She's the only one that did it. Twice. I got one at six. Okay. Yeah, you did. Fine. What does it change?
Starting point is 01:55:22 Heather wins still. I don't know it's just fun it's a fun little design element I'll add it to the notes for future iterations of the game extra point for getting it right getting it spot on
Starting point is 01:55:37 but Heather's our winner and that's this week's Get Played wow a lot of fun our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram. You can check out our paywalled show, Get Animated. Heather, we're wrapping up the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Yeah. Mid-2000s mega hit, Haruhi Suzumiya, the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is what we're watching over on Get Animated.
Starting point is 01:56:01 We're finishing up season two in broadcast order, which thankfully has been very linear. And then we're going to be watching the movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. So if you like anime or if you just like listening to us talk to each other, come check us out at
Starting point is 01:56:17 patreon.com slash getplayed for our sister show, Get Animated. Y'all want to hear an impression of one of our listeners listening to this episode? Yeah. Sure. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's somehow accurate, but worse when you do it.

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