Get Played - Diablo IV with Jon Gabrus

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Nick and Matt are joined by Jon Gabrus to talk about all things Diablo IV! They talk about their histories with the franchise, their builds, controller vs mouse & keyboard, and more! This month's We Play, You Play: Street Fighter 6! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed or on Stitcher Premium. 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 [e-mail] 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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Let's do it. Okay. First up, you know the fishmonger's wife? Oh, word is that she has a little side piece. Isn't that wild? Yeah. No, I have... You can tell. You can tell.

You can tell. You see them together. You see the fishmonger. It's like, why is he with her? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Like, what's going on here? It doesn't make any sense uh let's see also uh oh i i heard that uh you know the the the like all the grain we got that that that storehouse where all the grain is in uh i hear the fishmonger's been going in there to fucking pound off. The fishmonger is...

He's like getting a jack shack. That's part of the reason there's the fission between the two of them. They would just talk about it. That's part of the reason they... Obviously... Exactly. Her needs aren't being met. That's why she has this side piece.

Meanwhile, he can't fulfill the needs because he's fucking pounding off in the shed. He's using all of his energy. And also in the grain shed, everyone uses that grain. That's where all the grain comes from. Oh, also Diablo's back? I was hoping that I was going to be able to get to tell you this,

but you know. I heard that Diablo's back. I heard that the reason the fishmonger has been pounding off in the grain shack is because Diablo is making him do it and that's kind of the fucked up thing that like it kind of like we're like kind of joking possessed by some sort

of demon we're like joking that he's back and that's like kind of funny that he's back but actually it's like really fucked up because you know these things you know shit rolls downhill right he's jacking off now so now his marriage is ruined it's a whole thing but you know maybe the wife is happier so it's like tough to say if actually it is worse she's getting real i just can't believe diablo's back i thought we got rid of him like 50 years ago i was like okay and now he's back yeah we're just starting to just finish rebuilding and now diablo's here to muck everything up what frustrates me about him, and I can say this to you because I think we're cool, you're not going to go ahead and say this to him. Oh yeah, 100%.

If you're just going to come back every time we get rid of you, just stay dude. Don't fucking come over here, get your fucking ass ripped apart, get walloped by us. We're always the ones having to do this. And then come back just stick

around yeah you think like the the archangel tyrael puts him back into his place like what like he'd just eventually be like i just give up just you know you don't need to look for the key to hell and try to unleash your minions back to scour a sanctuary just fucking let us embarrassing it's embarrassing he just wants attention. It's just, you know, it's tough to see. That's what it is. It's a compulsion. It's pathological. He needs the attention. And you know, I thought we had him.

You remember a few years ago when the county barrister had those charges of obstruction of justice he brought up on Diablo? And I was like, oh my god, we're gonna get him. Because remember, he stole all those scrolls. He was keeping all those scrolls in hell. It was a trial of this entry.

Do I remember? Yeah. I was like, oh my God, they're going to lock him up. He's fucking done. And no, he fucking wriggles his way out of it. I don't know how he does it. I'm just trying to think if there's any more gossip. Oh God.

The biggest thing is that Diablo's back. And that's sort of like the main thing. Diablo's back. Oh, my family got killed by skeletons what fucking skeletons came in with like uh crossbows just fucking murked them all

while we're talking my wife she left this big it's like big tree uh huh came in and kicked my ass It's like big tree. Uh-huh. Came in and kicked my ass. It's tough when you try.

You can't. It's just, you know, there's a reason there's weight classes in combat sports. Yeah, you can't. You just can't go up against one of those big tree creatures. Mono, mono. I tried hitting it. Yeah, no, you're just going to get a fistful of splinters. Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Cried right in front of him. Fuck my wife. Anyway, I'm going to town portal over to the graveyard to visit my family's tomb. I'm going to... Nice talking with you. Yeah, nice talking to you too. I'm going to go to the... I guess it's Grain Shack.

Okay, all right. We socket skulls into amulets and explode corpses to make more corpses as we discuss Diablo IV this week on Get Played. Bye. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone.

And welcome back to Get Played. Heather Ann Campbell is, I was out last week, she's out this week. She was passing in the night. But we'll all be back next week to discuss this month's We Play You Play Street Fighter VI that's coming a week from today on Monday, June 26th. And we also have a special guest for that, Matt. Yeah, a very special guest. And let's just say you're going to want to hear this one.

You're going to want to hear all of their... Our guest today is also special. I got to say. Hey, man, that's absolutely right. You fucking left. I do want to... Just as you said that, our guest turned off his camera. On special?

Fuck you. Turn his camera off because he's crying. I don't know how to handle compliments based on my childhood. For all our listeners out there, we do want to hear your thoughts on SF6.

Send them into our Discord. We'll read some of those next week. And Matt, I want to hear your thoughts before we intro our Send them into our Discord. We'll read some of those next week. And Matt, I want to hear your thoughts before we intro our guest on a game that you possibly talked about last week. I was going to listen to the episode, but then you and Heather both told me not to. Yeah, don't worry about it. Okay. But on last week's episode, I'm not sure if you talked about this or not,

but people think of Matt, they think of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, but there's another franchise on your Mount Rushmore, Prince of Persia. Dude. Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown was announced, and I think it looks pretty sick. You think I didn't fucking talk about that last week, dude? What the hell's the matter with you? Of course I talked about it. I said they fucking, because they announced it at Summer Game Fest.

Yes. They fucking, because they announced it at Summer Game Fest. Yes. And it's a new Prince of Persia style, or Prince of Persia game in the 2D platformer style. And I'm very excited about it. Every other announcement after that, I was not excited. I was just like, okay, whatever.

That was honestly a standout for me. I watched the trailer, and then I also watched a gameplay talkover video. I really like the aesthetic. I really like that sort of 2.5D engine they got there, and just that kind of gameplay. I mean, I play those sorts of games so much, just like a platformer, a Metroidvania, like a platform game that's 2D that also has a lot of, like, exploration

and light RPG elements. Like, I love that shit. So, that's a day one for me, especially coming in January 2024. First game of the year. First game of the year, why not? I'm very excited about that. I'm also, like, just that Ubisoft is like,

hey, let's make this. Let's do this with this IP because they seem so committed to doing one type of game. Yeah. And so for them to actually make this, I don't know. That looks 6L. I do think it's funny that they couldn't quite get their heads around the Sands of Time remake, but they're like, here's this other thing. We made a new game while we were working on the remake. Sorry.

We delayed that for the fourth time. Yeah. Anyway, I'm looking forward to that our guest today from his podcast High and Mighty in Action Boys returning to the show John Gabrus is here yo what up fam thanks for having me back I'm stoked

I've been wanting to come back on the show been feeling under um gamed personally, but I'm just like not getting, I'm not getting as, I'm like six months behind everyone, maybe nine months behind everyone, but this is a game I've been looking forward to.

It kind of surprised me that it's coming out. And then when you asked me to come on, I just like had an excuse to pump some hours in. It's been feeling fucking good, man. So thank you so much. This means a lot. Oh my God. Anytime you want to come on,

just tell us. Yeah, we'll have you on anytime. I'll tell somebody else that they have to fucking kick rocks. I don't care. He'll tell me. I'll be like, all right, I'll get the fuck out of here.

I'm like, can you retroactively go back nine months? I just beat God of War Ragnarok. Like Disney's doing with French Connection and just replace the entire episode, but don't tell listeners. Well, yeah. One, here's a new episode.

We didn't do a God of War specific one, and also it came out months ago. You missed it, actually. Gaslight the entire audience. This is our best episode. Gabriel, the game we're going to talk about today, I think kind of slots into an episode of your podcast, High and Mighty, I guessed it on,

back on your 420 special. Ostensibly, we were supposed to talk about like marijuana and video games, getting into that flow state while high, while gaming. I think like every time I guest on your podcast, we instead just end up talking about like having diarrhea all the time. Yeah, to be fair,

same when I guest on your podcast. And you know what? And don't you worry, listeners. You can play the Nintendo Switch with diarrhea, so get pumped. I'm curious, you could play the Nintendo switch with diarrhea. So get pumped. I'm curious. We'll talk about Diablo four in a little bit more depth in a second, but like,

is this like the kind of game that you play while high? Yes. The thing that's fun is almost all games are, uh, I will say like slow moving games to a lesser degree. Like, you know, I love a sieve and shit like that.

Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. A little less fun when stoned. Um, these like kind of active games and getting off the computer and onto the PlayStation for me, uh, cause I was mostly, uh, playing, uh, PC ported games or steam games on my iMac for so long. Right.

And then the pandemic got myself a PS five and that was a real I got in the in the pandemic I got myself a PS4 for the first time and I'd never been I hadn't been on PS since PS2 so I was really fucking into it and then upgraded to 5 so playing smoking weed and playing games not on your computer where you could easily open up a porn tab or start messaging someone or like realizing you got to draft like a work email or something. And for me, unfortunately, I'm apartment life. Both me and my partner work from home.

So my gaming system is about a foot and a half to the right of where I'm currently sitting. So it's not a huge separation, but going to the couch with the controller is just a vibe shift that, you know, pairs well with a volcano or a bong or something like that. 100%, no, I'm like, you can see my tableau on the webcam, but like I'm standing at my desk right now,

behind me is the couch that I sit on. And then on the wall there is my gaming TV. So I get the exact same setup. I just like move 90 degrees basically. Yeah, It's the exact same thing. It was right there. Yeah. But my second monitor for my, for when I'm working and watching something on my, my second monitor is my play, also my PlayStation monitor. It's amazing what a, what a, like a reset that does to you to just like change your orientation in the same room. Cause like I go from like stress to like relaxation

and I'm moving just about, you know, four feet. It's so crazy. Like the detachment you feel from work, especially since Zooming podcasts and stuff is all here. It does feel like that. And getting a break from, it's so funny where I'm like, I got to get off this screen and get onto a different one is like kind of like my entire vibe. I got to get

off my phone and put on a movie. Like that's constantly what, but in 2023 with my brain being broken like this, like a movie is the new book. Like, you know, I'll watch a full movie. That's like trying to read a book to me. Like it's like with phones and life stress and a high blood pressure, you know, all that shit. Oh, yeah. No, I keep my phone out of reach. And I try to do it both when I'm gaming and when I'm watching a movie. Just like I'm going to totally engage with this piece of media right now.

And like, I don't know, I find like I relax more and it's better for my brain. You mentioned movies and it's been a while since you've been on. And I did want to ask you about a movie because I know you've played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. You're like, you're like the, the, like one of the coolest guys I know, but you're also like, have a lot of like nerd culture in your background. And, and, and I know you played a lot of D and D did you like Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves? I enjoyed it thoroughly. I knew I was going into like a kid's movie, you know, like. Yeah. And it's funny how like that's like a refreshing take on IP for some reason, even though it's

practically Guardians of the Galaxy with like dungeons instead of outer space. But I love Chris Pine. And yes, the other thing that this movie did that no other movie does nowadays is not everyone was quippy just chris pine other funny stuff happened but it came from being like a frightened sorcerer or a stoic barbarian sure and so i i dug it for that reason i dug it for like the it got into some shit we met some halflings we saw a mimic we saw a fucking gelatinous cube a um a displacer beast like a lot of cool shit like that and in my head i'm picturing the eu being rather fucking cool because we don't necessarily have to follow these characters it's about like the land

that they all exist in instead like forgotten realms or whatever i think they're going off forgotten realms because they reference elminster so that puts it in forgotten realms, which is kind of a beautiful universe. And if we get more movies in that universe, but maybe we meet Chris Pine in some interaction or something like that, it's a, hopefully the next D and D movie, I guess is what I'm saying is not this cast in a different that'll bum me out. I hope that what they learned from this is like stealing from the campaign idea. Like this is a module. Let's do another module in the world. Yeah, it definitely felt like you were watching like a campaign come to life.

Like I would not be. I mean, I kind of fully expect them to make more movies with the same cast. But I hope that like you were saying, I hope they do expand it because, again, it's such a it's such a lush world that you can do whatever in. But also like a big part of what I liked about it is that it like, when you're talking about the quipping, like it wasn't taking the piss out of the IP. You know what I mean? It wasn't like making fun of Dungeons and Dragons. We didn't have, you know,

a bunch of fourth wall breaking jokes or stuff about like, you know, like all of them being nerds or something like that. Let's roll again, boys. Exactly. Yeah. No, it like, it like took the world, the reality they inhabited seriously. And I don't know.

I mean, I was just like, I think we talked after I saw it. I was like, I hope they make 10 of these. Yeah, I'm into it. Matt, you're a dork, but you're not really like a D&D dork. I'm not like a good one. Yeah, I'm kind of like a dumb dork.

No, you're like a young dork. Yeah. No paper and pencils for you. You're like all fucking digital. Get that shit away from me. I'll cut myself on the paper. No, I've played some D&D. I have yet to see the movie, though, and I don't know why.

Oh. I haven't seen it yet. It's on Paramount Plus now. I could watch it at home. Check it out. Oh, shit. I'm going to re-watch it for free. I wouldn't pay to re-watch it, but I will watch it for free.

No, no. You shouldn't pay for it. I guess it's not free. It's $6 a month or whatever. Well, if you have- Anything to see Mayor of Kingstown. Well, and you need to watch

all in the Family Stallone, too. You gotta watch it. Oh, yeah. There you go. I got FUBAR, the Family Stallone, and an Arnold doc all on streaming right now,

and I couldn't give a rat's ass. It's so funny. It's like what I begged for as a child, and now it's just like, ugh, I'm fine. I need to see the family dynamic of Sly Stallone. It's funny when you love someone you're like

I'll see anything they do and you're like wait never mind. Yeah I don't know if I need to see him not know how fucking remote works or something. But I should watch the movie. It's been on my list to watch. It's been on home video where you can watch it at home for a while. So it's next in the queue. But I'm glad it's good.

I would like to see them make more things like that because, you know, it is just like, you know, if there's like, it can be five Marvel movies a year. One of them can be a D&D movie. That's fine. Yeah, that's how I feel. It's like, throw that on the fucking, we got two Star Wars, two Marvels, and a D&D movie this year. Fuck it.

Just like, and that's so desperate. I'm not even begging for auteurs to make singular ideas. I'm just like, oh, cool, fresh IP. It's such a bummer. People like that, like Christopher Nolan's always going to make an Oppenheimer. He's always going to do something that's like his own sort of singular thing. Wes Anderson's always going to make something cute. Are those the two guys who can still do that?

I think they're truly, they're the two white guys that are allowed to make something on their own that aren't a property. But, you know, a couple of years from now, maybe Wes gets, you know, needs a couple is strapped for cash and he makes the Grand Budapest Hotel 2 or something. I saw like some headline that like WB is trying to woo Nolan back. Warner Brothers trying to woo Nolan back, get like movies again. And like a dozen of the comments and responses like, yes, we need another Dark Knight. I'm like, shut up.

No, you're asking for the wrong thing. Oh, we got legendary sushi chef back in. It's like, oh, sick. I want a fucking steak. It's like, no, you fucking idiot. That headline is also confusing to me because I guess I just don't understand the particulars, but they're like like they're wooing him back with this check this residual check for like seven figures or something and i was like well that's his money like that's like that's

not like a big like he got a little boned with his tenant residuals because it never it didn't do like it didn't do movie ticket numbers which is where like the real big back end sharing hits do movie ticket numbers which is where like the real big back-end sharing hits so by it going to streaming it kind of fucked them and he was like i'm working with warner brothers like the fucking wb and you guys are figured out a way to just uh not put this in the movies and he's like one of the few guys making theater movies anymore for sure yeah thank god for tom cruise that's all i'm gonna say tom cruise scorsese even thoughorsese, his last movie was, his newest movie is Apple and his last movie is Netflix. It does feel funny that he's like, give me $200 million.

I'll give you a three and a half hour movie for your service. Right. But you got to put it in the theater too. He's like found a way to like get Silicon Valley to finance him and fucking De Niro fucking around in old man makeup. He's done with the one for you, one for me. He's like, all for me. You make it, baby. to finance him and fucking De Niro fucking around in old man makeup. He's done with the one for you, one for me. He's like, all for me, you make it, baby.

Yeah, all for me. I tell you it's good. You get to put it on your dumb computer. Let's go. And I hate Marvel movies. Hey, everyone. You know, you want to eat healthy. You want to eat well, but you don't want it to be a pain to prepare. Well, let me tell you, We'll be right back. different options to choose from every week, including Calorie Smart, Protein Plus, and Keto. Also, there are more than 60 add-ons to help you stay fueled up and feeling good all day long. Fuel up fast with Factor's restaurant-quality meals that are ready to heat and eat wherever you are. No prep, no mess meals, so there's no prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed. Get as much

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which is, what are you playing? Oh, wow. Wow. Gabrus, you mentioned earlier you played some God of War Ragnarok. You're late to the party on that. I think we were also texting that you played some Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. Is that correct? That's correct.

The first one. I was going to jump off. After God of War, the next game I was going to kick was the uh jedi games but i guess there's two yeah someone told me you should play through the first one because the stories are connected and i was like oh that's just the nerd thing i need to hear to activate my completionist like spectrum mind i'm like of course i would never be able to enjoy the second one without playing the first one. And so I've been trying to get through that. But my buddy, my buddy reached out and was like, yo, for like an extra $30, you can have Diablo four now. And I was like, oh, and I just was like, didn't, I was waiting for whatever the date was, but they're like, as of the six, you can have it or whatever

day I got it. You can get it like early for a hundo instead of end. You know, if you're, if you're going to live in a tiny apartment and own nothing and have no savings and no retirement, what are you going to do with a few extra bucks? Get Diablo five days early. So I've been on that. And then I also, along the same lines, wanted to play the new Zelda,

but I gave up on Breath of the Wild five minutes in on my Switch. So I was like, oh, I'll do that. And so I downloaded Breath of the Wild again. I was going to start playing that on the Switch. But when I got on that, I went to go use it when I was traveling and it needed to be updated. Yeah, diarrhea on the plane. I didn't get up to go to the bathroom.

Comfort Plus, they just deal with it. People are, you know, I was wearing a mask. Didn't bother me too much. You're fine. But it couldn't get updated. So I was like, fuck. And then I just played this other game I love on the switch.

And then it got me accidentally hooked on it again. I've been playing monster train a lot. Oh, oh yeah. So I've heard a lot about monster train and I, I've had people recommended it to me because, um, cause you like slay the spire.

Exactly. Yeah. That's how I found it. Play this? Exactly. Yeah. That's how I found it. Play this. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly. Because I loved Slay the Spire and got really addicted and accidentally had it on like three

different platforms. Like I had it on Steam, on my Switch. And then I was like, I got to play this on PlayStation. You know, I was like getting it everywhere. Yeah. And someone was like, oh, you should try Monster Train. And Monster Train is fun in a similar way, just with like, uh, cooler art, I guess, cooler character design. I got to try it out at some point. Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm just

so overwhelmed because there've been so many new releases, but I'm sure it would be like extremely my shit. Uh, yeah, I, I think you can, boy, Tears of the Kingdom is, is a, is a good one. Uh, because what you were just talking about of like, I should play the first one before I play the second one. And I was like, cause I'll just go into, I've been playing Zelda tears of the kingdom in addition to Diablo four. And I played it all handheld, all on planes and trains while I was touring this past weekend. And which I don't normally love doing for a game of this kind of scope, but I'm, I, but it does work. I mean, clearly they've just put, they've, they've figured out how to make it work on, on handheld. And, and especially cause I get the

OLED switch. So the screen is really pretty. So it, you know, I, I have, I've been having a lot of fun with it. I'm not sure if like how I would, where I land, but yeah, Matt, maybe you have a take on this. Cause I know you've played more of this game than I have, but I, I'm not sure where I land on. Do you just jump into tears of the Kingdom or do you play Breath of the Wild first? Because it is in a lot of ways like such an iterative game. And I think it's like a much, you know, it's a more refined game by virtue of a lot more development by virtue of it being the second one. I think you're probably fine to just go straight to Tears of the Kingdom if you're intrigued. I would tend to agree with that, too, specifically because of

the tutorial part of the game, I think, is some of the best video game onboarding I've seen in years. You get every skill you could possibly need for the entire game in the first hour or something. From there, it's just like all right go nuts like go uh it's so it's in so you get to experience your abilities from very early on and it's not like you're going around the entire map or something you don't have one of the abilities yet you're like oh i gotta come back when I have that. You just have everything and you can just go. So I would definitely make a case for

starting with Tears if you want to, like, be in on the, I guess, The conversation. On the conversation, yeah, the zeitgeist.

But otherwise, you know, Breath of the Wild also really, really great. Would I enjoy Breath of the Wild if I beat, if I played Tears of the Kingdom for 80 hours or whatever and then I'm like, shit, I Would I enjoy Breath of the Wild if I play Tears of the Kingdom for 80 hours or whatever? And then I'm like, shit, I should go play Breath of the Wild.

Or would it feel like a little wonky or like not as rich? I don't know if it would feel wonky, but I think for me, I played Breath of the Wild. It took me three times to like latch on to Breath of the Wild. And then I finally went all the way through it. times to like latch on to Breath of the Wild and then I finally went all the way through it I think it would feel like a very slight step backwards

not a complete step maybe like because like some of the stuff you have different abilities and so it's just a little bit different the world feels a little more filled in in the second game so it might feel a little I don't know if it would feel dated necessarily but it would feel different I would feel a little, I don't know if it would feel dated necessarily,

but it would feel different, I would say, a little bit. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess what I would say is if you start playing Breath of the Wild and it hooks you, then just keep playing that. But if you're kind of like bounce off of it, I wouldn't say that's a reason to not play Tears of the Kingdom.

That's great advice. That's what I was wondering. Cool. Because I didn't get hooked by Breath of the Wild. I found it very difficult to like control or like I got like jammed up like a half hour into the game like I wasn't able to do almost anything and I was like this sucks and then I found it really frustrating and I was like uh I think what I need to do is get my I usually play handheld I should probably get it up on the screen and uh with it there. And I think a big difference that this might be the thing that brings you over to tears.

I felt like maybe comparatively. This might be the thing that brings you to tears. This might make you fucking sob right now. I think that some of the solutions to problems in Breath of the Wild, they're more limited. Wouldn't you say, Nick? And then in Tears, you can kind of solve anything any way you want

and they encourage that. They're like, go nuts. Think outside the box. Yeah, I feel, you know, I've probably said it too many times, but it's more of a problems, not puzzles approach where it's just like,

hey, you have to get from A to B and however you want to do it, figure it out. You have to get this, you know, this sphere into this receptacle, but you don't have to do it by a certain prescribed method. If you figure out some other way to do it, that's fine. So, yeah, I definitely have played this game. I definitely have played it in, like, I feel like kind of clumsy, shitty ways and still come out on top and still felt like a genius. And I think that's part of the fun of it. Part of the fun of the, you know, the building mechanics and then also the various like environmental manipulation mechanics, like rewinding time that you have at your disposal. Yeah. Oh, cool. We're like in

Breath of the Wild, you could sort of still do that, but you'd have to do it more intentionally, I think. Whereas in Tears, it's like you can kind of do stuff on accident sometimes to be like, oh, look at that. Like I did it. I didn't think that would work. Yeah, that definitely was not the right way to do it. Yeah. But fucking whatever. Yeah.

That's awesome. I'll say I rolled credits on Tears of the Kingdom. Wow. What an alpha. Congrats, bro. Thank you very much. No, it was. Next up, getting laid.

Yeah, I think I might try to give that a spin, see what that's like. I honestly couldn't believe that I did it. I put a lot of time into it. I'm somewhere in the 95 to 100 hours in that game already. And I just got really focused on doing the main quests and i was like i think i did for just my own peace of mind i need to just put an end to this like the story yeah so i can play like diablo and street fighter 6 uh and not feel bad about taking time away from zelda anymore and i also to get back into Jedi Survivor.

I was like halfway through that when Tears came out. But right now I'm still playing it. Like I beat the final boss and I was like, okay, it spits you back out to right before that basically. And I'm just like, okay, I'm going to go around and get a bunch of shrines, do a bunch of shrines and do all that stuff, do side quests. Are you a 100%er or a 3%er? Do you believe the government should stay out of your tax?

Yeah, I think. Are you a 1%er, you rich little fuck? No, certainly not a 1%er. As far as milk goes, 2% for sure. I'm not a 100 percenter at all um but this game i i'm not ready to be completely done with it i just needed it the um the urgency to finish the story to be off my back a little bit yeah i get what you're saying i was just like you're saying it's like it was just it was gnawing at me i would be playing it so much that i was like not really doing, I mean, I put 100 hours

in it. Like, I wasn't doing a lot of house. It's been out at this point for a couple of weeks. Yes, exactly. So I was like, I'm just, this is all, well, the first day that I had it, I lost a day to it. I just like went and played it until it got dark and my eyes hurt. So it's good it's good to have that sort of be done and i can

just kind of move on and and play different games it was nice to put in like i i returned to uh the ninja turtles uh shredders revenge game the other day oh hell yeah it was like oh i forgot that i loved this this is so good you know that's just a quick little like uh playing that a little bit so i got a lot of i got a lot of fingers and a lot of pies right now. I'm back at it. I'm back on my bullshit. Can I ask a spoiler free question about the end game? Did you think like it was first off?

Did you do like felt like you did? I'm not sure structurally. It's this it parallels what's in Breath of the Wild. But did you feel like you did all the main stuff before you got to the end game? And then also, what was it from a challenge perspective? So I did feel like I did that because there was a couple of things. There's honestly a few things on the way to my end game

that I wish I'd done differently. And it was basically just like, there's certain story points that you get throughout the map in one of the main quests that you can get out of order and i got a lot of those before i was getting ready for the end game so i had a lot of information early on about things that were happening that i was like i shouldn't know this yet because everybody else is, like, asking me, oh, I wonder what's going on with this. And I'm like, well, I fucking know. I'm just not saying anything, I guess.

In my game, Link knows everything. It's just like, I'll let you guys figure it out. I'm not telling you a goddamn thing. So that's sort of a regret of the playthrough, I would say. But I did feel by the time I was at the end that I was sufficiently prepared. You know, I had the Master Sword. I had all the main sort of story beats in my head ready to go,

and then when I saw the ending, I was like, this is, I mean, I need some distance from it, I think, but I think it's like an all-time, all-time game. Maybe somewhere in my top three. Wow. It was such a gorgeous experience. And it's definitely recency bias. I mean, ask me again in a year what I think about it,

but I've never done that. I couldn't believe it. Unbelievable. And which two Pokemon games fill out the rest of your top three? Pokemon Gold and Silver. Same generation. Wow. Okay.

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Remember, start the new year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash getplayed and use code getplayed to save $5 off. Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. Hey, let's talk a little bit about a game that, well, maybe a game from this franchise might be in my all-timers, the second iteration. We're on now, though, Diablo 4, which was released on June 6th of 2023 officially, though you could do the pre-release. I'll say this. I thankfully could afford the pre-release, and also I could justify it as being for work, And also I could justify it as being for work. And I still couldn't bring myself to spend an extra $20 or $30 to play the game for an extra weekend.

Even though it would have made my life a lot easier and I probably would have had fun doing it, I still was just like, I can't fucking do that. For like an extra, probably all told, an extra 10 hours of gameplay early. I personally couldn't bring myself to do that. Or two cups of coffee. I didn't have enough. Thank you, Matt. I didn't have enough time in hindsight to justify it. Like I put maybe four hours in before the actual release date came.

And I'm like, did I pay 30 extra dollars to get my, a rogue to level six? What a fucking idiot. I just got so giddy. I was like, oh, you can get it now. Why don't I have it? And I just blew it.

It probably would have made my life easier, though, for me to do what you did, because I was, as I mentioned earlier, I was out of town. Basically, I left town on June 6th when it officially released. So I was like, fuck, I'm not going to have enough time to actually play this game

I realized too late then I got back in town and you know when God closed the door he opens a window I got fucking sick and so I was like I don't have enough time to play this game but you know when I'm back in town and I'm sick I got nothing else to do but play

this game so I binged the shit out of it over the past couple of days and I got a character to do but play this game so I've binged the shit out of it over the past couple of days and I got a character to level 36 so I feel like I have a pretty decent I was kind of sort of watching your progress yesterday like because I was online for a little bit while you were playing on and off

and I like the two times that I checked I was like oh he's like level 23 he's probably not going to catch up to me and then later on in the day I was like oh Nick's like, oh, he's like level 23. He's probably not going to catch up to me. And then later on in the day, I was like, oh, Nick's been playing, playing like he's like. So, yeah, I've been kind of blazing through this and I've gotten a, you know, I feel like a good

sense of this game developed by Blizzard Team 3, which is a nerve iron with support from Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, who did the Diablo 2 Resurrected remaster that we all really like, directed by Joe Shelley, Sebastian Stepien, and Luis Borriga, who left the studio in 2021. And let's just talk Diablo generally first.

Matt, I know you got into the franchise with Diablo 3, and you're a big fan of that. And Gabrus, I know you played some Diablo 3 as well. But let's just give a baseline for everyone. I mean, I'll start. I started with Diablo 1 on PC. I played Diablo. I played them all.

This is probably one of my most played franchises, period. I will qualify that by saying that the bulk of those hours came with Diablo 2. That's the one I played the most. But I've always been a fan of this franchise. And even with its lulls, even with the Diablo 3 launch, I've always still kind of been a defender and a fanboy of just these games in general. Matt, how about you? Yeah, I was always interested in it.

I didn't grow up playing games on PC, so I just never had it. But when I had my Switch, I saw that you could play Diablo 3 on there. I was like, oh, okay, I'll check in on this. And I remember looking up if it was good on there. It was Diablo 3 good, and the consensus was it wasn't at first, and then it became good. So I jumped in when they fixed everything. And the Switch port of it is is fantastic it's so good

um i so i i really loved that i played through all of that um and i never squatted up with anybody though because i didn't know anybody well by also by the time i started playing it everybody was kind of done like everybody was kind of done with it and nobody was playing it on switch um so i never squatted up with anybody but then when the two uh remastered came out we squatted up a couple times that was really fun uh and i was like oh i see like the power of like doing this with somebody else it's great it's like a lot of fun yes um and then when immortal came out and i think we did the episode around then uh we did a previous episode where we talked about Diablo a little bit. I remember thinking, it sucks that I do sort of like this,

but it feels bad. It feels bad because of the microtransactions within the game and just the way they handled that whole thing in general. I remember putting that down, but feeling like it played well.

And then I was excited for this one, keeping up with the betas. And it's been fun. I'm bouncing back and forth between my PC and Steam Deck because I have it installed on my Steam Deck as well. And it's fantastic. Same game, installed two different places. Because of the compatibility, it's fantastic same game installed two different places because the compatibility it's your your same character right it's my same character yeah so

i'm not missing it's like it's like uh you know when i want to not be sitting at my desk like we were talking about earlier and i wanted to sit a foot away from where my desk is i can play on my steam deck instead i love like listeners who live anywhere but uh new york and la are like just fucking move and have a fucking like these guys like you know guys like people are like i make 84 grand a year and i have a entire room for gaming and yeah you don't have to be i live in columbus ohio and i have a fucking floor of my apartment for gaming. I have a five person family. Right. Three story house. Must be nice.

Sorry, I want to be a coastal elite. Okay. Sorry, I like to have seven Thai restaurants to choose from. Yeah. There you go. Honestly, that is pretty much the main reason to move to the city is like, okay, I want a different Thai restaurant tonight because they do this better. And not a worse one. An equally as good one or better than the one I was going to get.

They're all good. It's great. It's great out here. I fucking love it. It's SoCal. If the sun doesn't come out soon, I will blow my head off. We kind of have a stretch of June gloom all month long so far plus like the rainiest winter in

history we've been kind of which is great for us indoor kids but I'm a beach boy as well I've been saying 100% where do we live Tristram oh thank you Matt shit stay a while when did you hop in with Diablo D1 Mamacita Shit, stay a while.

Gabrus, when did you hop in with Diablo? D1, mamacita. Wow. I've been a Blizzard head from the jump. From W1 through D1 through WoW, I've played everything that came out by Blizzard. StarCraft 1 and 2, of course. I've loved all of their games since I was a kid. I grew up playing PC games.

I grew up playing Nintendo in my house. Then we got PlayStation. And then when I got to like sixth grade, I moved towns and made friends with these two nerdy kids. And I'll just shout them out now, JP and Sanford. And they were PC gamer guys. And they got me really into PC gaming first with like low, like sitting at one computer playing, like taking turns playing command to conquer or a TBS.

Like I've always talked about heroes of might and magic is maybe one of the games ever made. If I, if I was, if I come to that all time episode, I will be talking about heroes of might and magic. If they don't make that game for like iPad or something soon, I'm going to blow my, like, I guess stop threatening suicide on this podcast.

I know, it's getting close. Now there's two things working against me. We got to put a trigger warning on this episode and on the trigger of the gun on my desk. Yeah, you come back and we'll talk Heroes a might and magic sometime and and heather and matt will sit by uh mutely and just sulk no no and then i'll try to talk i feel like it'll be like trying to show my little brother like uh a phil hartman sketch too in that i'll be like no it's really cool and it's like wait it moves this slow and this is the animation and you're making monks that are your range warriors and it's like okay shut up kid leave me alone uh but i grew up

playing those games and jp and sanford we got really into uh warcraft when it first came out who you want me kill then we got really into uh starcraft uh alive and goliath online then we got into diablo sit stay a while then we got into world of warcraft uh that one didn't stick as much i did end up playing a lot of that uh when i uh when i was in my early 20s but all these games stuck and i've always loved yeah heroes of the storm i don't even like games that move that fast but i fell in love with that game because of the ip was all blizzard stuff and i love their art i love their and having like you know 20 years of history with that i would say i'm 41 now i probably have 29 years of history with the blizzard games or something fucking crazy wow like whenever

warcraft 1 came out um which is upsetting now that i said that out loud yeah i mean 1994 it looks like yeah yeah so yeah since i was 12 so about about almost 30 years. And then weirdly, all these, and I've loved them all. And Diablo, especially because like you said, Wygra, I'm a big fantasy head and a big D&D head. I read a lot of fantasy novels. So swords and sorcery, might and magic, all that shit always works on me. So more than even Starcraft two, which was a game I played thousands of hours of, I loved Diablo the most. And then Diablo two, I think was the one I played the most. Cause that was in my junior high years, like probably, you know, around the same time as you, Wags, I put hours into that game, but then I got into D3 a little bit, but it came out when I was like,

not in my gaming era. So I played it a little bit but it came out when I was like not in my gaming era so I played it a little bit but not too much but over the pandemic me and the aforementioned JP and Sanford our nickname is the nerd herd uh made by uh Joanne Gabrus my mom uh she named us that when we were 13 kind of stuck your mom's biggest bully yeah um you know I'm the way i am for a reason apodaca there's a reason i've given you a wedgie six out of the seven times i ran into you this year it's all me just recycling trauma bullshit rolls downhill but uh over the pandemic the nerd herd we got into d3 again and we started playing diablo it was like yo we should get on and play and we started playing Diablo. It was like, yo, we should get on and play. And we started playing Diablo 3 with our phones on FaceTime audio.

And so we like would have like two and a half hour gaming sessions. They're on the East Coast. So it's perfect for me to play after one of the guys has kids. Like they go to bed. I get on at like six-ish. I play until like eight-ish or nine-ish. And they're like going to sleep and all that. And then, so so i this is

just a year ago i put like another 60 hours into a diablo game so when diablo 4 was announced we were all on and my biggest concern and and this is like the one of the main things i want to talk about my biggest concern was moving off of mouse and keyboard i'm so adjusted to mouse and keyboard for gaming and especially diablo which feels built for it yeah i was so hesitant i was like this controller shit's gonna bum me out this controller shit's gonna be whack and boy am i here to tell you it is not controller yes works so much better than i imagined like almost improves upon the game in a way. 100% agree. I mean, let's talk about that right now because it's in my notes. And they, you know, controller support was added in Diablo 3 for consoles, you know, but by necessity, they refined

it a lot with the Reaper of Souls expansion came out that basically just fixed the game completely. It's a completely different game. It was a completely different game after that expansion. And that was where I got into, you know, I played on PC initially. I played the console version when Reaper of Souls came out, and I'd heard about some of this. And yeah, I actually preferred the controller version there. And here, I did the same thing. I played it when I played Diablo 4 in the open beta.

I played some with mouse and keyboard. I played with controller as I can control it feels a little better and with the retail release same feeling I prefer it with a controller and I'm playing a necromancer and that's a that's a class that requires like you know but in in theory it's like positioning your cursor to cast curses and uh right to uh, to send out debuffs and stuff. And like, there's like a lot of, but it works really well. Like, you know, if you're exploding corpses or whatever, you know, that's the sort of thing you do with mouse and keyboard, but it works really well with a controller.

And I just, I find it more like meditative and honestly just more fun. Matt, you've been playing on PC as well. Yeah. But have you fluctuated between the control schemes? Yeah, I have a little bit because when I was playing the beta, I was playing it exclusively on the PC and I had never done mouse and keyboard gaming before really.

Not since, I mean, Disco Elysium, which was like its own sort of thing. But never played a Diablo with mouse and keyboard. And so I didn't know. I had no idea that it was, that it felt that good even. I was like, oh, clicking is just fun. Like, I like to click.

It feels good. But then, since I've been playing on Steam Deck, I'm sort of used to the controller interface already because it's like, you know, it's an Xbox controller basically on a screen. So I've been playing like that. And yesterday when I was doing a bulk of my playing, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to connect my Xbox controller and see how that feels.

And that was incredible. It felt so good. It felt so great. I was like, oh, I don't know if i'll ever go back to uh uh the mouse and keyboard anymore i just i the controller i think is uh because i mean i played it on switch too so i'm also you know dabble 3 on switch so i'm used to controller interface anyway but it felt so much better this time around yeah i toggled back and forth a few times but i've largely landed on just playing exclusively with the controller you know it, there are situations like if you're like socketing items or something, it's maybe

that's a little easier to do something in your inventory screen with a mouse, but if you just have a mouse at the ready, you can just do that real quick. But I, once I figured out how to map my skills, cause this is part of the thing, you basically have five skills that you can use as hotkeys. That's, that's, that's what you're limited to. And once I figured out how to make those, you know, again, I'm playing a necromancer, so like decrepify, which is like a curse that, you know, that slows enemies. So like I have that on my L trigger and then I have corpse explosion, which, you know, does exactly what it says, deals damage to enemies by exploding the corpses of slain enemies. I have that on my right trigger,

and so I kind of get into that, and then I've got my other two attacks on my face buttons, along with the... It's not a roll, but there's a dodge that's built in, which is something that's kind of brought over from Diablo III. Once I figured out how to map everything out, I was like, this controls like a dream. And also just direct moving your character

in that isometric action RPG rpg like perspective it just feels right yes that is part of it and i couldn't believe and also i'll be honest like playstation makes uh communication while you're playing easier too like it like streamlined at all like it's really idiot proof like i'm just like talking into my controller to my two buddies on the east coast as we just fucking play games like uh it's fucking it's like so simple and rad and the uh i could not believe like what you i couldn't articulate it the way you just did wikes but what you're talking about like the moving around without having to click to run to something because the biggest thing i I used to play a rogue all the time. And we'll get into it when we talk D4.

I do have like a high 20s level rogue. And you have to hold shift so you don't accidentally click and move your person towards the thing. Right, right. This control kind of improves on it in a fucking way. And again, the separation of church and state of moving away from the device that I use for zooming and writing and, and responding to lame emails that of commercial auditions, like, uh, like getting off of this and getting, uh, getting over there and like getting on the controller. It feels so, it feels like you're gaming. And then it's, it's weirdly so easy to pick up items. I thought that would be weird. because a huge thing about Diablo, and that's why part of the thing that got me hooked originally,

was like the slightly improving your tune like with every item pickup where you're like, oh, this has 3% movement speed instead of 2.8. Sick. Swap it out. Like that sort of fine tuning like upgrades. And I thought that picking up items would be difficult, and it's just so fucking easy. It's so fucking, it's so smooth. I'm so proud of the people who ported this game

because I'm fucking, I've never played it on console until this one, and I'm truly impressed. Yeah, they, you know, the development team, the QA side, like everyone who just figured figured out how to make this like as much a controller game as it is like a mouse and keyboard game. I mean, it's huge and it makes it so much more approachable. I think that what you're just talking about loot, because that's like the whole the whole gameplay loop of these games is just like you kill things, you find items, you pick them up. There's a few things they did here that, you know, first off the, the inventory, which they simplified for Diablo three, you used to have to like, you know, and, and Gabrus, you know, this from the first two, you had to kind of Tetris block in, you know, oh, I I've got this, this bow. This is going to take

up eight slots. I got to figure out how to move. It's too long. I don't need to pick it up. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to move a bunch of rings and I guess stash something inside my Heradric Cube, you know, like, like there, like a lot of that was just inventory management here. It's completely been streamlined every, like even more so than Diablo three, which Diablo three had some half slots for smaller items here. Like everything just goes in the same size. Like it doesn't matter. An amulet is the same size as a tower shield. That's one thing I, you know thing. You know, there's an element that I kind of miss that stuff, but also I know that it's just like,

that's just nostalgia, and actually it makes this a much easier game to pick up and play down. Exactly, a smoother experience. Another thing they do is they have just a stat that's just item power,

which I think is great for people who want to play this game casually, because if I don't want to pay attention to all the different, you know, plus the stats that we have, and like you were casually, because like, if I don't want to pay attention to all the different, you know, plus the stats that we have. And like you were saying, an increase,

a percentage increase to movement speed and a critical chance increase. I can just see if this, this has greater item power than the thing I currently have equipped. And if so, if I swap it out, at least on the, the default difficulties, you're probably going to be fine.

Yeah. Like for your first 30 levels before you're specializing anything too before you're like building around rapid fire or whatever building around corpse explosion like you could just that's such an improvement like oh that's better like the thing you love about diablo is like oh blue is better than white yellow is better than blue and then 100 we get to level 30 then you got to start reading it like you're like okay let's let's let me find out what each of these things and then oh it's like oh an orange is better than yellow sick okay let's see what and uh i've been i've been fucking you're right that item power thing is very helpful when

you're just like especially because usually you wait to town portal to like fuck your to your items this you can kind of do it on the fly you're like oh these are better boots throw them on like i can i'll fight harder now yeah Yeah. And on that note, what they've done with item identification, and I don't know if this is a thing that got borrowed from Torchlight or Path of Exile, some of these other big action RPG franchises. I played a little bit of them, but none of them have quite hooked me in the same way that the Diablo franchise has. But the way item identification works, which is just you see the item on the play field

and it just says what the item type is and a color. And then when you put it in your inventory, it's automatically identified. But it still kind of has that feeling of discovery that you got back in Diablo 2 and you used to have a tome of item identification scrolls that you would use to identify something in the field. They just cleverly like kind of remove two steps there,

but still give you the same sort of feedback. Still gives you the like, oh, shit, an amulet. You're like, please let this be good. Please let this, and you just have to open your inventory rather than waiting for wah. Yeah. It's cool. And it's such a simple thing.

And it like, I was playing, I was like, oh, I can't believe this kind of, this is all believe this is so simple, but this works in the same way. Yeah, it's just so fun to see bow. You're like, shit, yes, I use a bow. Oh, it's not much better than my bow. Yeah. You're right. I didn't even think about that.

Losing the identify scroll is huge. Yeah, because there was a, like Diablo 3, I'm trying to remember, you played it more recently than me, but there is, like, still an identify items thing you do in your inventory, right? I think so. There's a scroll of identify. There's still an extra step. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you just have an infinite supply. So, yeah, I mean, I love that

and I also like the other thing they tweaked is the, well, they've tweaked a lot, but, like, the way potions work now, which is that basically you have a limited number of charges that you can refill based off of, you know, in certain situations, you'll get a refill of a potion will appear in the field. And then you can use that to replenish your stock. But it's not like you have an inventory or a belt that's full of a bunch of different potions or the Diablo 3 approach. We've got a bunch of like health orbs that spawn. It's kind of a happy medium

that I think works pretty well. And then the other thing about potions that I'm sure the two of you have stumbled upon is that as you do more like side quests and optional dungeons and explore more of the map, you get what I think it's called renown. I forget whatever the fuck it is,

but there's something you get in your map. Eventually that gives you like bonus skill points that apply to all your characters and bonus potion charges that apply to all your characters. So it's just a way of like, hey, once you've seen everything with one character, you kind of can shorten some steps with the next characters that you roll.

I don't know, all that stuff just, I know it's all intensely thought out. I know there's so many decisions that have been made in the development process, but that they did so many tweaks to the core formula while still retaining its essence. I don't know. I mean, I'm just really impressed by it.

Yeah, the shit you're talking about with the renown, they pulled in some more like classic RPG stuff of like, you get points for opening a waypoint. Like as you discover, you get some renown points as you do a thing like as you discover you get some renowned points as you do a thing as you complete quests in addition to experience like and i think that's a really fun because it changes the grinding yeah it's not just like go to a dungeon and and run you can just keep doing dungeons these dungeons give you aspects now so like there's like a new way to grind and like side quest grinding and i think

they're not the shrines but the little like you know sort of like prevent these guys from making the blood orb happen or whatever those little like yeah those little like accidental instances you could like stumble upon and the sellers like yeah events like that's all such a fun way to add to like to have like narrative grinding in a way. Like, it's like, okay, I,

I, I'm getting murked on this by this fucking boss. Let me just go wander around, discover, Oh, help so-and-so find their husband. Oh, go clear out this basement.

Yeah. Oh, do this. And like do a few things. You get some experience, maybe get a cool item. You learn a new skill or whatever you, and even the, I think the skill tree is a very fun improvement and is and it's it's it's

interesting it's like stressful in a way because it used to just be like maximize this get to this game over you know get to the big r2 attack or whatever and you're ready to fucking go i enjoy this skill tree a lot and i'm like like i feel like i've respect like seven times with my care and i love that it costs a little cost money which keeps because money loses gold loses power in diablo eventually because you're just like for sure i can sell items for 18 grand instead of uh salvaging them or whatever but i like that money like it leaves money to be kind of like have some skill like Like, oh shit, this ring. Like I just got a ring that makes rapid fire ricochet 33% of the time or something.

And that's fucking awesome. An orange ring socketed too. I don't want to get too into it, but I'm super stoked about it. So getting that, I'm like, oh, I didn't have rapid fire. I'm like, let me drop several hundred gold, nuke all these stats, juice all these stats. And then you're like oh this is a fun i'm playing like a different game now normally you just like build your items around your uh loadout like you build your loadout around your skills now it's kind of fun where it's like

i'll just respec all this to try this item like oh cool let me and then in the tree are like random passive stuff too i i will just cop to one thing I said with this game was I'm not going to allow myself to like read about it a bunch until I've played many hours. So as I'm talking to you now, I have like two high level 20 characters because I have one guy that I only play with those friends. Like that's our rule. And then I have a level 10 barbarian to mess with and then i have a level like 28 rogue that i play solo with and um i don't know what overpower means i don't know what crowd control means i don't know what lucky shot is i

don't know what i don't know what like nine things are in the game and i'm not letting it stop me at all i'm not i'm just like not building around it. I'm just like, okay, I just like sorted out vulnerable. Like, okay, got it. Like, yeah, like I, my building is kind of, you know, has a lot to do with like slowing enemies and then making them vulnerable. But that's basically all I know. Like, like, and I'm playing,

but I'm playing on world tier two veteran, which is like the one step up difficulty. I think finish the game once and I'm still doing fine so I think I think part of it is like yeah a lot of that stuff starts to feel pretty granular when you're talking about like I whatever like a topaz give you socket

a topaz it gives a percentage increase to critical strike for enemies that are in you know that are vulnerable yeah yeah yeah I don't know what any of that means yeah this is this is this is like too much going on. But like, same approach as you was like, I don't need to investigate that stuff until I have one playthrough under my belt

and then I can see what I've been doing wrong in terms of building and outfitting my character. You said something there that we're playing World Tier 2 and it's not impossible. No, not at all. I think they got level scaling really right in this game right now it feels like even when you're like someone who's like four levels below you rolls up the bad guys like you know what i mean like the baddies become they're always been like a little

manageable and oh sorry and then fighting bosses is a little bit more like stick and move than ever before it used to just be like stand there hit one hit two hit three hit four uh keep clicking keep clicking and then when right click right click oh and then as soon as your skills reprock drop them all again but like yeah it 100 yeah it's just sometimes clear the fuck out because they got a big area to attack and that was basically the extent of the strategy you're basically just trying to just jam as much dps on them as possible uh yeah i agree that there's a, there's some more, you know, these, these fights are, it's not like a souls game, but there's some,

there's a little bit more tactical, tactically, you need to account for these fights. I just did a boss fight shortly before we started recording that involved a, you had an NPC character who was there, who was fighting alongside you, who did a shield within a shield. Yeah. I was like, this is so satisfying. It's so, it's just, just that little element of like, I got to hide inside this guy's shield. So I don't get like, uh, uh, you know, uh, nuked by this guy's a huge attack is like, I don't know. Just, it just made it feel a little bit less. Like I was just a click, click, clicking for a bit. In addition to other new shit I like, I shouted out like the kind of RPG elements

that they pull in with the renown that you spoke to. I also like amongst the character differentials, the class differentials is like the barbarian has weapon expertise. The rogue has like specialization. Does, you know, like the little minor things that each class gets. What, does the necromancer have something special like that?cromancer gabrus i'm glad you asked necromancer

is the book of the dead wow which is that which is really cool and i messed around with this a little bit but it's like it's basically so you have skeletons you have skeletal mages and you have golems that you can all summon and for each of them you can choose basically what class you want them to be, or if you want to sacrifice them entirely, meaning you can't summon them, but you get some sort of buff to your character by virtue of excluding them. So like right now, I've like sacrificed golems. I don't have golems at all, and I just have skeletons and skeletal mages, and that's partly just for fun factor.

I think it's fun to have like an army of like, you know, seven warriors, just seven skeletons that I'm leading around in a parade. Like that's just like a fun way to play the game. I don't know if it's the most effective or whatever. But like, you know, you can you can choose if you want to outfit them with with swords or with shields or with or with reapers. You can choose to. Yeah. The mages, you can choose to, yeah, the mages, you can choose to have them be Shadow Mages

or Cold Mages or like Bone Mages. So, you know, there's some, and then Golem, you can have a Flesh Golem, you can have a, you can have a Blood, or I'm sorry, the Blood Golem is the Flesh Golem. You can have a, or a Bone Golem or an Iron Golem. So yeah, there's all these decision points you get to make.

And they're specific to the class beyond just the skill tree. So I do like that quite a bit. them so that yeah there's all these decision points you get to you you get to make and and they're specific to the class beyond just the skill tree so i do like that quite a bit i don't know i mean like it shakes up the gameplay if you like make a new character you're like it's not just like let me get the barbarian's best skill and play that it's like oh weapon expertise it's like i'm dual wielding one mace and one axe and they're both slowly gaining levels. It's like there's a lot of like variation amongst, in a game that famously was fun even though it was just like a stand and deliver or a point and click and a DPS kind of monster game.

But I think that the cool little tweaks they're doing in between is a lot of fun, like for a huge improvement from on D4, I think. Yeah, it's, you know, I heard someone years ago told me that playing Diablo 2 is just constant rewards, which was kind of what you were saying earlier. And I think what they've done here is you're still getting constant rewards, but you've got all these different buckets the rewards are going into. So there's just a bunch of different things you're trying to improve at once. Matt, I feel like we went bulldozing you a little bit.

But I want to get your take on what class you've been playing and how you feel about the game as you've been progressing through it. So I, look, it's no secret, I love beams, right? I love beams. Yes. So I'm playing a sorcerer because in Diablo 3, my sorcerer had a killer beam, just an all-time great beam. There's no beam in this one.

I don't got a beam. Toss it. I'm going to fucking just throw my computer out the dang window. But I'm still playing a sorcerer, and I'm really liking it. I'm liking the skills that I have. My unique mechanic is enchantment. So I can put a skill in either a skill tree slot or in an ability slot, or I can put it in a passive slot.

So if I have Blizzard or something as one of my skills, it'll just do it automatically in the passive slot, which is pretty cool. You mean, sorry, I just never played the sorcerer yet on your skill bar like it'll just be like whenever blizzard's ready it'll just drop it in a fight without you controlling it in addition to whatever else you have there oh that's i could have it i could have it in both too i think you can get like you can get it like reprocking like two different cooldowns going at once oh that's cool so like that rocks but i'm playing a of mixed magic uh sorcerer right now um so he's got a little bit of everything uh but my favorite my favorite um ability right now

is called inferno and i thought that that was just going to be like a big fire it's not it's a fucking huge fire snake and the the snake wraps around whoever's nearby and just burns the shit out of them. It rocks. That's pretty fucking cool. It's really cool. But I was also interested in, because I played the sorcerer in the beta and stuff,

I didn't really mess with any of the characters. I've never really done multiple characters in a Diablo game before, but I got curious about the druid class the other day because I've played druids in D&D, and they're complicated characters to play. There's just a lot of... I felt like everybody that I would play with was like,

maybe you shouldn't do that because you don't really understand the rules. I was the one in the party that would just always be like, so wait, how many dice do I roll? Which dice? What are you talking about? I shapeshift. You have to wait a day and re-memorize.

Yeah, you can't even do that yet, dude. But if there was time to make jokes, I was doing that, certainly. But I wanted to try the druid class, so I started a druid character yesterday and immediately was like, do I just fucking leave my sorcerer and just keep with this guy because he rocks. I have a level 25 druid as well. My first ability is like a ground quake thing where you just make the ground

shoot up from under an enemy and attack them i was like well this feels incredible i loved i loved that uh so do you get wait to get to level 15 and get get like the wolves you get like uh like two ghost wolves that follow you around that you could sick on they do like man they do manual damage on their own but then you can hit the fucking try and then they jump on someone and start shredding them. Okay, I might have to put some more time in with the druid, because I was also just liking the vibe of the character. He looked really cool.

I was like, okay, he's got this fucking fur. He's rocking a fur or something. I was like, this guy is my guy. And I know you can be like, I've seen people in the hub world, not in the hub world, but when you're walking around in the in the play area i'll call it um like changing to bears and stuff and i was like that seems like it could be a lot of fun yeah the wear shit's pretty rad yeah i made i have a high level uh level 20 something rogue and a level 20 something uh druid and they look like me and Tiffany. And I posted on Instagram, like, uh, yeah. When, when the characters start to look familiar and

everyone thought it was the dough boys. And I was like, Oh yeah. One of them has like shoulder length, blonde hair and a mask on. And the other one is a giant bearded guy and like antlers. And I'm like, everyone's like, no, the dough dough boys and I was like oh shit and then I got like weirded out about oh yeah I guess me and Tiff do look like Nick and Mitch which is upsetting it's weird for us too I can talk to Mitch about this yeah I did I did make me and Natalie helped me make me in the character creator for my necro and it's you know you've got like you can't only do so much you've only got like eight prefab faces that you can choose from

or something like that for per body type but you know it's pretty flexible she did as we were going through and like we're looking at tattoos and and piercings and stuff you could pick she was like a lot of these feel like cultural appropriation I don't think you should be wearing it so having any of these.

Was it easy for you because, in general, you're default? Yeah. You just hit the randomizer, I'm good to go. Yeah, NBA 2K just gives you Weiger to start with. You're like, okay, this fucking vanilla boy, I'll figure some shit out here. I don't really like to mess with character creation that much. Cause like,

I'll try to think what, you know, approximate how I look. And then my girlfriend was like, I did this in street fighter. And I was like, I made this like fucking big, huge guy.

And I sort of like gave him like brown skin. And like, that was it kind of. And it was like, it doesn't look anything like you. I was like, yeah, I know.

He's like a fighter guy. It's like funny. like me if i was a street fighter and she's like i don't i don't think so no so she was not as helpful as natalie was in that regard yeah sometimes when your partner's around you're like doesn't this look like me and they're like no your neck is grosser or something and you he fucking stinks. I don't need to analyze myself that much. But it is, like, that does bring me to, like, you know, because this game does have in-game purchases. The shop is, like, I think, you know, it's kind of hidden slash ignorable.

Not hidden. I mean, they want you to go to the shop and buy platinum and buy you know buy buy uh aesthetic upgrades but it is as opposed to diablo immortal it is purely cosmetic it isn't anything that affects your character stats like diablo immortal you could buy stuff from the store that just made your character broken and there's nothing like that it's just i haven't bought anything but i just looked around a little bit it's basically just armor sets and and you know mount right upgrades and stuff exactly yeah yeah purely cosmetic which is something you could also get from salvaging you and transmogs right stuff like that so which i think that's cool too that it's like a shortcut rather than like a leap to the

finish like like you could grind out and get all the looks you want to just by like you know fighting and fighting for yellow items and shit yeah i mean that that look that shit's just going to be in every game pretty much from now on so there's that what are we going to do but as integrated i think it's it's whatever it's as unobjectionable as this can this can be and i do think the game looks fucking great bro that was going to be the next point i wanted to present i think the art is on fucking fire this game makes me want to get a bigger monitor it's hurting my eyes because uh the the writing and stuff is so small and like i need a big i think i need a bigger screen because uh the art

is so rich the backgrounds have like movement and the load speed that the the i keep calling them boards i know i'm 41 sorry uh the stages the instances load in such a great way where i do get some lag every once in a while uh obviously you uh your producer is familiar with my shitty wi-fi uh i live in west hollywood where everyone's wi-fi sucks for some reason um but the art is fucking awesome and i never really been a fan of like the diablo the world that exists in like the kind of like christian hell kind of stuff or like medieval hell uh aesthetic but i think it's coming alive in this one i think it's i think it's really rich it gets a little redundant previously but i think these boards like i just the one i did uh i did

that excuse me that cave with the guy who protects you in the fucking shield that you were just talking about weiger that had like the fucking tentacles moving outside of the fucking path and stuff like that yeah and i love and just like corpses of giants yeah they're just like strewn about yeah so much rad shit bad guys look cool they're like their their articulation on the bad guys looks fucking awesome the bosses of course look great have you guys gotten murked by the butcher yet no i didn't fight i didn't face the butcher yet i've heard he's scary as shit he just pops up he you don't like he's like randomly in the world he'll the butcher will appear and fucking kill you just for like nostalgia it's pretty fun oh that he like is still out there and i guess you're

supposed to it's like a diablo one boss yeah from way there. And I guess you're supposed to hope. It's like a Diablo one boss. Yeah. From way back. Yeah. And I think you're supposed to like get your level up to the point where when the butcher comes, you get to kill him and get some probably some dope item. You're just like, hope he comes. There's like a guy in that.

You remember who that guy was from from Yakuza zero who just appears. He's it's it's a name like something like Mr. Showtime or something like that. Oh, he's just a it's a name like something like mr showtime or something like that but he's just a big guy who chases you around and beats you up and then at a certain point you reach a point where you could beat him up and like take but he just takes all your money yeah mr shake mr shakedown yeah yeah it's the same it seems like the same sort of approach to mr shakedown uh yeah i i like like what you're just talking about so we finished the same dungeon and i was a higher level but like you talked about the level scaling earlier.

I'm normally kind of lukewarm about level scaling because I like to feel like you're making progress as you're going through the world. But for this particular game, it works really well because you can go in different directions. And like, I just finished act one after having done the bulk of act two already. You can go very, very out of sequence here.

It's not like there's these discrete act breaks like in past Diablos. And so when you're going back to the early areas, but then all of a sudden, all of the ghouls that you're fighting are your level, your character level, it makes that still engaging. It's not just encounters you want to sprint past as you might in past games. Yeah, I think it's all really, really well implemented. And what you were just talking about with the art, it's a much grimier direction than Diablo 3. Maybe some people have criticized

kind of an overreaction to Diablo 3, but I like it. I've always liked the Diablo aesthetic, but that just takes me back to like, you know, liking metal in middle school and liking like a Puss Head album cover and being like, hell yeah, you know, that's what Diablo reminds me of.

And so like it's a it's the it's like I like that grime. I like how how how it's bloody and gory and kind of Christian-esque. But you talked about having like a bigger monitor. I have a widescreen monitor. I have like a 5120 by 1440 display. It's a big wide boy. And this like a 5120 by 1440 display. It's a big wide boy. And this, you know,

it supports that resolution. It looks fucking great. So, you know, not to tempt you to another big purchase, but like I love having a widescreen monitor for this game in particular. All I need to do is respond

to one of these commercial audition emails and nail it. And then I'll be ready to get a fucking big monitor, baby. You gotta just do one email. I just need Athletic Greens to fucking double up their fucking ads on High and Mighty.

And then I'm made in the shade. We're kind of just raving about this game, but I think, I don't know. My expectations were a little mid. I was a little wary because the Diablo 3 launch was spotty and I thought like oh the K this might be another one where it takes some a few patches and some DLC

to figure out how this game actually works Diablo Immortal was obviously a huge whiff and the other big one is Vampire Survivors which I can't remember if you've played that Gabrus I should have mentioned that in like what I've been playing lately I fucking played the hell out of Vampire Survivors, this pandy. I love Vampire Survivors, and I was worried it was going to ruin me for Diablo

because it's basically like a more passive Diablo that you can just sort of chill out and just walk around in, basically. And I was like, is this like kind of reductionist approach to the formula made it so that like i just kind of can see the seams and i don't even need to play the actual game but playing this i've been like no this is still fucking great i can enjoy both uh yeah i'm just really impressed by it overall i love the diablo cliche that anytime you're talking to someone there they can drop to their knees and go oh no oh no and just become like a demon like it's such a go-to.

It's like whoever you're talking to, they're just like, oh no, not now. And it gets the ellipses in the writing of like, and then it's just that like bubble sound effect that it makes as he converts to like a, what must be a 26 foot pig man with a big scythe or whatever, fucking rules. There's an early-ish,

I think I'll just, I'll just set my spoiler because there's a side quest and it's early-ish, but I'm not sure if either of you got to this where there's a guy, there's a shackled prisoner and he's like, my eyes, they took my eyes.

And he's talking about that there's like a demon who took his eyes, but he can see what his eyes see and he sees that like she's over, like tormenting a whole village. So you go over there and you, you know, you go through this whole quest. You have to like take over one of the, I can't remember what it's called, like siege sites or something like that. There's some, there's strongholds.

There's strongholds. Yeah. You take over the stronghold and then you come back to him and you bring him his eyes back and he says like, oh, I'll put him back in my head. And he puts him back in my head. He's just like, he's just like ah it burns it burns then runs away and like explodes it's like jesus christ fucking horrible this guy was better off before i helped uh there's another one where it's like it's and that this is again it's just such a diablo thing of just it's so fucking grim that even when you, when you finish a quest,

a lot of times, all you've given someone is closure. Right. Just like, you know, like help, help me find my husband. And you find them and they've like been crucified and like been pecked apart by crows. And you're like, well, at least now I can, uh, I can bury their dead, you know, it's like, Jesus Christ day in a second way. Yeah. Along those lines of quest I just did was really funny it was like

you like helped her find her husband her husband was just like shackled with a fucking dagger in his chest dead like help me and dies and then she's like she's like i don't think you expect payment you can have the dagger and then you pull it out and he's like you're like i didn't want it that bad. Stiger sucks. I'm going to salvage it. I think, I think, uh,

and just the one thing we haven't talked about, uh, I've always played a little multiplayer. This one is, you're always online in this, which is kind of interesting. A new take. I never played.

Is D three always online? I feel like you can. Yeah. Diablo three. That was like a, there was a, it's, it came out long enough where there was a huge backlash to that before launch it was like i

can't believe i have to be always online to play this game and now that's like you know most given yeah like uh but i i would say the multiplayer really enriches the game a lot too it like the game is built for it obviously because like with the skills like slow and vulnerable that's like you could be focused on that and be a great addition to a party you know like and and i think i think it really is conducive to fun in that way and it's super easy communicating i've never been a talking while playing guy like that's like that's something that's new i've always just been playing rtss with like pinging and shit like that and that was always enough i didn't want dialogue because i don't want stranger dialogue for sure no but with like fucking like hopefully i'll get

to fucking party up squad up with you freaks oh hell yeah and then we could all be fucking talking and i i i've just been we've just been me and my buddies have just been on chat gushing about the fucking game just being like shit i can't believe this mechanic works oh the gems are and like all the stuff the dumb stuff you love about the game like they've just kept it enough of like the gem and like keep the and then sharing a stash across your characters that's a really fun fucking mechanic too of like shit i'll drop this ring for my rogue when my rogue gets higher level like there's like a little bit of like you can, it promotes playing other characters for like the first time in a way too. I feel like I've like,

oh shit. Yeah. I'll throw another guy on there. Leave the ax in there. I'll make a barbarian just to fucking play with this ax eventually. But that's like kind of the best thing about it too. Like a game like this where you could spend hours and hours and hours in it like playing just different characters because like the campaigns aren't like terribly long

like they're not like it's I mean it's not like tears of the kingdom like I'm not gonna be playing this for a hundred hours probably but like I could be playing multiple characters like I'm playing the game for the same amount of time but like I'm doing a completely different thing every time that's like that's so incredible I recommend people if they have friends to fuck if if you have friends if listeners in this podcast have friends all right never mind uh they probably yeah but if you have friends it's fun to be like oh i play this character with this group i play this tune with these like oh we can all be like level five and only grow together and be like all right this druid like i have a druid that's just and only grow together and be like all right this

druid like i have a druid that's just for with my friends and that's like kind of fun that i can you can and then maybe i'll do that with some of my comedy friends who are on d4 and some of my other friends are on d4 have a different and then you get to play like a multiple different types of gameplay uh and i think that's like a fun way to go about it yeah 100 that that that's great advice uh to segment like that. Yeah, I've only played solo so far. I got to play some, I wish I could speak

to the multiplayer component a little bit more. You do see a lot of just randos that you run around, particularly in some of the instanced world events, but which I don't know, I'm kind of,

I think I overall like it. I think it making the world feel more populated, even though it doesn't really make sense of the context of the quest you're doing. I'm kind of, I think I overall like it. I think it making the world feel more populated, even though it doesn't really make sense in the context of the quest you're doing. I still kind of like it. It's really funny when you're like getting absolutely murked by a bunch of fucking baddies and there's like a dude standing there with like ice armor on, not helping at all. You're like, come on, man.

Just fucking throw one lightning bolt over here or some shit. I was going to say, yeah, I like, I like seeing a stranger sort of doing the same thing I'm doing and being like, we're friends now. I'm playing with this guy. I've squatted up with some of the Get Played listeners in our Discord, and I loved it. A couple of us took down a boss together, and I was like, this is everything. It was so fun. It was just so great.

And then getting in the chat being like, that was awesome. We did great. Everyone's doing good. I loved it. Yeah, I'm having a blast with this game so far. We'll see where I am after I finish this playthrough. If I roll more characters,

if I do any of the kind of post-game content, we'll see. But as of right now, it's doing exactly what I wanted from it, from a Diablo game released in this year. Hell yeah. Good game. Great fun.

What a dang hoot. Yeah, my wife has dinner plans tonight. I have a show at 10. I feel like that's a perfect gap to kill a couple hours fucking stamping on skeletons and killing Moon Clan goat men and whatever the fuck else they throw at me. Well, on that note, hey, how about we do a segment? I'm going to see if Nick and Gabrus can determine

which of these monsters is real or fake. It's time to find out in the bestiary. Ooh. These are monsters. These are Diablo-specific monsters. These are Diablo-specificiary. Ooh. These are monsters. These are Diablo-specific monsters. These are Diablo-specific monsters. Some of them are real. Got it.

And some of them are fake. Let's see if y'all know your stuff. Here we go. Frog demon. Frog demon? Can you say it again? Did you say brog or frog demon? Frog.

Frog. Like the amphibian. Fake. Wait, what's the choices? Fake or real? Fake or real. They're all real, but in the game Diablo 4, there is no frog demons. But there are frog demons in my sleep.

I would say, yeah, I'm trying to think of, I'm going to say fake. I think this one does this. It's real. I'm not, it's in, I think they're in Diablo 3. These are from all of Diablo. Oh, okay. I would have gotten that then. Sorry. I'm just kidding. Now you tell me. Okay, great. So no points there. Next one. Giant Mosquito.

That's real. That's real. Great foley on those boys. Okay, that is a real one. How about this? Skeleton King. There's so many skeletons. I think there is a Skeleton King boss in two or three. I'm going to say real. Nick says real.

Gabrus? We both have to vote. I thought he to say real. Nick says real. Gabrus? Oh, we both have to vote. I thought he like buzzed in. Real also. You're both wrong. It's fake. I made that shit up. No way.

There's no Skeleton King. There's no Skeleton King. Skeletal Archer, Skeletal Captain. There's like a skeleton everything. There's Jack Skeleton and he's a tattoo on like this goth chick's

butt. Rules. Sorry. Skeleton King is a boss on Diablo 3 what are you talking about he turns out to King Leoric I just looked it up he's the he's the first boss at the end of act one that's what I that's why I remembered it I thought I made it up the fix I mean go if you if that was the fuck if that's the length you went for creativity it's like oh i gotta come up with a monster they'll never hear of skeleton something well i wanted it to sound real okay that's the challenge i i'll i'll say that it's well it's a boss not a not a minion not a monster in the world so i think i'll still give you both the point because guess what i fucked up.

Yeah, agreed. Thank you. How about the next one? I'll take that point. I need it. Sasquatch. I don't think there's a Sasquatch in the Diablos. Fake.

Fake. Now I'm Googling these. It's real! Where's their Sasquatch? He's in Act 5 in Diablo 3, he's in there, yeah that's right Wow, okay Yeah, it's named Silverback in the game It's a variant of Yet of the Yeti

Encountered only on Grey Hollow Island Zone of Adventure Mode in Act 5 Now I'm going to close the Diablo wiki so I can keep playing Yeah, it's interesting that you also have Google over there I'm trying to remember what Act 5 of Diablo 3 was I can keep playing. Yeah, it's interesting that you also have Google over there. I'm trying to remember what Act 5 of Diablo 3 was. I have no recollection.

Is that the one where you go into heaven? Or is that Act 4? The thing about these games, any of it, any story point, couldn't tell you. I'm just clicking. I'm just there clicking and picking stuff up. I just remember like biome so i there's a point where you go into like the the set like not the sanctuary but like the the pandemonium whatever yeah yeah you go into like alternate dimension with all the fallen

angels yeah yeah yeah oh yeah it's a game that you can play with exclusively skipping cut scenes and still enjoy yeah but i i will play i will play it through and we'll watch them all in honor of the designers because it is the art and voice work is fantastic we didn't talk about the cinematics here but i think the the you know the the major cinematics the the pre-rendered ones are all really well done but also all the in-game stuff i mean they did a lot more work in terms of making these the in-game cut scenes the in-game cut scenes, the in-engine cut scenes feel cinematic, changing the camera angle from isometric. There's like

look at points you can get to, or like the, you go to like a low angle and you see more of the world that like all that stuff I think is, you know, it's, I think it was maybe like, okay, let's see how this works the first time I encountered it. But as I was going, as I was going, it was like, oh yeah, this makes this feel like it has has kind of a AAA game presentation in terms of the story side of it. Can we get back to my game now? Oh, yeah. We have room for tangents, right? Yes.

Okay. Lightly Google two words and we'll say fake or real. Sick fucking game. Okay, here we go. Mitochondria. Those are real. Sick fucking game. Okay, here we go. Mitochondria. Those are real. Bone fetish. I think it's real.

I know it's real. My doctor says I have it. Okay, that one is real. This game's tied up. The Skeleton King gave me a bone fetish, if you know what I mean. Swamp Demon. Fake. I'm going to say that's fake.

Okay, you guys are really good at this game. It's tied up. That's fake. Frozen Ghoul. That's real. I think there is a Frozen Ghoul. That's real. That one's fake.

Wow, he got us. Thank you. All right, is that all you were trying to do? We're done now? I just wanted to make you guys look like fucking idiots. There's so many ice enemies. There's so many, because you start in an ice biome in this game.

Yeah, right. And then there's the Act 5 of Diablo 2 is all ice. So much of Diablo 3 is ice. There's just so much ice. I was like, I feel like there was an ice ghoul in there somewhere. Yeah, there's a classic variation. You get like, you start getting ghoul then you get like shadow ghoul, fire ghoul like, you know, like they do like

tinted red and it's a fire ghoul tinted blue and it's that. I do think that's another cool element like when a bad guy becomes vulnerable, they get like a little purple light. Like there's like some light art changes that never previously existed, which is kind of fun. Just a couple more here. Ghastly Gravedigger.

Ooh. That's the monster truck that runs over Deckard Cain and you have to get revenge. Gravedigger. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Only in Haradrim I remember Bigfoot was like the like it was kind of the equivalent of like there was Hulk Hogan

and then like the ultimate warrior came about I feel like it was the same thing with Bigfoot and the grave and grave digger it was like grave digger came about and it was like that's the cool one. When I went to Gen Con this past year, they had Bigfoot in the convention because there's like a Bigfoot board game.

And I'm sure there's like nine Bigfoots that are traveling around the world. But it was pretty rad. And I guess there was dozens of 40-something-year-old men there who were like, whoa, Bigfoot. Like, everyone just taking, like, the Mitch thumbs-up photo in front of it. It's real to me. All right, so what was the name of it again?

Ghastly Gravedigger. Ghastly Gravedigger. Fake. I'll guess real. Nick's right, so now it's five toigger. I'll guess real. Nick's right. So now it's five to four. Do you have which game that's from? I don't.

Not in front of me. I just wrote down a bunch. Ghastly. I'm going to say it's from... Actually, I think it's from this new one. I think. From Diablo 4. Oh, wow.

I got a mix going in here. The final one. Dark Magician. I got a mix going in here. Final one. Dark magician. I think you're supposed to call them just magicians, dude. Like, I don't think their complexion should come into it at all. That's me personally. Big ally over here. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know about you, but I'm an ally. I don't know about you, but I've been conflicted. I got the woke mind. I'm sick too, bro. I got the woke mind virus, dog. Doctor said it's terminal.

Doctor said, I said, Doc, I got the woke mind virus. What does that mean? It's like, you just give a shit about other people. Yeah. I was like, whoa. And I got the woke mind virus. What does that mean? It's like, you just give a shit about other people. Yeah.

And I was like, whoa. And I know what you're thinking. The doctor was a woman. I'm going to guess the dark magician is fake. I'm going to go with fake as well. It is fake. I made it up. But Nick's our winner of the bestiary.

Wow. Greatest honor of my fucking life. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Links to our social media in the episode description. Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, dead air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram. Also check out Get Animated

where we're continuing the melancholy of Harui Suzumiya, which is on Stitcher Premium or at patreon.com slash getplayed. John Gabrus, such a treat to have you on everyone should listen to high and mighty everyone should check out action boys on patreon patreon with a z i don't know if i fucking i have a patreon i should know how to say it i think action boys on patreon action boys with a z i i've said this before when you've been on the pot i've said this

in other contexts i just i just was was touring with our mutual friend and mutual janitor tammy sager uh who's also an action boys fan uh it's it's just like i just think it's the funniest podcast so like if you want to if you want to listen to a funny show check it out it's it's it's so great it's a podcaster's podcast really yeah i appreciate you iger you always gas us up and when funny people find our show funny it means a lot uh like that's all we're going for we're talking about stuff we love and trying to be funny like trying really hard to be funny uh too hard it's embarrassing uh but i i appreciate you giving us a shout out yeah and we have some free episodes action boys you can hunt them down uh there's like a free feed called unlocked and loaded if you're like want to just get a sniff and get hooked you know like we'll

give you the first taste for free baby hell yeah and and high and mighty i've guessed it on a few times matt you've guessed it that's right about weezer and so and heather heather has been on heather was a guest way back in the day and we talked video games and i didn't even really know her then i was just a fan like i wasn't really friends with her I just reached out and had Heather Ann Campbell over my house you know like yeah yeah come to my apartment and talk about video games with me a guy you met at backstage at UCB in all fairness I don't know if Matt and I know Heather all that well either yeah well that's what I was about to say I thought you guys would find it funny that she was in my house like Weiger I've traveled the country with and I'm still not,

never seen the inside of his fucking house. I'm not trying to. Gabrus, anything else you want to plug? Yeah. Check out 101 Places to Party Before You Die now on Max. And if you're an Emmy voter, it is up for nomination. So for your consideration, you know, I don't think TruTV or Zaslav

or anyone in that fucked up conglomerate of cluster fucks is going to be putting any marketing money behind it because I don't think we're going to get

a second season via them. So I do love all this like anti-Zaslav shit that's out in the, like coming out in the press. Like that's exciting for a guy who personally blamed him for losing a second season of the dream job yeah so uh like i'm stoked that

people are on to this fuck i'm glad he made 200 million dollars last year and the job that uh was the hardest i've ever worked on anything and creatively input my life is just you know toast but i'm glad he got his 200 million dollars in a BU speech or whatever. Rock and roll, brother. The funniest thing on earth was watching him get booed. It's so funny. Oh, my God. I love it. It's so gratifying. Should have thrown Zaslav into that quiz.

Oh, yeah. He's the level four blob boss. That one's real. He drops 200 million gold pieces when you kill him. Yeah, he's the fucking treasure goblin. God, we've only run into one treasure goblin, but he escaped me. I haven't killed a treasure goblin yet. Every time I see the treasure goblin, I love him.

But, oh, Gabrus, I have to say, I watched that show. I watched 101 Places to Party Before You Die. It's incredible. I loved it so much. Super funny. Oh, thanks, guys. I recommended it to people who don't know my comedy friends either, and they're just big fans of it also.

So it's such a great, such a cool, unique show, first of all, and also cool to see your funny friends on TV be funny the way that they're funny and not watered down in a TV way, which was incredible. I appreciate that. You and Adam Pally. Yeah, me and Adam Pally, we wanted to bring like podcast energy to TV. We were like raw. It's the most authentic on camera I've ever been. I think like we're, we're so ourselves in like such a way that is either for good or for bad, depending on what you think about it. You might not like us, which is completely reasonable, but if you like us at all, it is us.

Like, and if you dislike us, that's it too. Like that, we're not, you know, I feel good about it. No imposter syndrome

for the first time in my life. Hell yeah. It feels good. Wow. Thanks so much for making time for us, Gabrus. And I won't say it to you.

I'll say it to Zaslav. Zaslav, you, sir, got played. Yeah! Shit!