Get Played - Games of 2024 Part 2

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick talk about the Wonderswan, Resident Evil 4 Separate Ways, and the Wordle archive before diving into the video game releases for the rest of 2024 and answering some of your questions in the Question Block!Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod.Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com.Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com.Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Woof! I am so excited about today's topic, guys. I have finally finished Lego Star Wars, the Skywalker Saga. And it has been such a good start to the year 2022 that I am really, I like like I can't wait to talk about The rest of the games we have to look forward to for this year Heather what you said it's 2022 Yeah, no no no great great year for games. We got Elden Ring God of War Ragnarok I played both of those horizon forbidden West

I mean it's been a great year for games. And I finally, finally beat Lego Star Wars, the Skywalker Saga. That's great. I'm happy you beat that game. Thank you. I beat that game the year that it came out in 2022. The hard thing about these games is so many games come out that you kind of like, you lose track and you really have to like keep that momentum going

in order to beat enough games to stay on that release calendar. So you know I blazed through stray, I blazed through Xenoblade Chronicles 3. In fact I bounced off it a little but I'm gonna go I'm gonna come back to it here in the second half of 2022. Yeah. But I just... What? The current is is 2024. What are you talking about? It's not 2022 anymore No, you've been playing this game two more years have happened two more years worth of games. Yeah have been released. Oh Don't fuck with me man, cuz that's not funny. No, I actually don't know funny. I'm not laughing I'm not laughing either like the idea that I am that far behind on games No, it's you know fucking throw up Okay, I'm also kind of concerned that it took you two years to finish Lego Star Wars the Skywalker

Stop it. No, I think it did I think what happened is that it had because Heather was playing through all of these games to completion This Lego Star Wars game, you know, when she finally got to it in her backlog, we were well into two years in the future. No, this is my now log. This is a current log. It is not a backlog. Let's not say now log or current log.

None of these sound okay. The games- If Nick's telling you that, he means it. The games in my backlog are things like WarioWare touched like shit from like 20 years ago that I haven't had a chance to play yet. That's a really good WarioWare game I do hope you get a chance to play it someday for the DS. It is it is April 6th 2022. No. That's the day. This game the Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga those games I love those games that's games for babies and it took you two years to play this baby game were

you telling me that like Elden Rings DLC already came out yeah it's been out Baldur's Gate 3 already came out I played through it twice these games came out already they all they already came out Heather yeah you had your fucking what you're playing Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga too much. You played all of it. You played it for too long. I feel like you're just harping on her for this. I think the larger issue is either on some Rip Van Winkle or Tenet shit. I don't know exactly what it is. It's some sort of weird sort of temporal pincer maneuver you've done on

yourself. You're right. We're mad about two different things. That's the issue here. You and I aren't on the same page. No, yeah, we gotta lock in, see what we got going on. There's something wrong going on here for sure. Well, let's just settle on it. I think it's insane that it would take so long to play a game like this, and I think you need to agree with me. Okay, so I should just be saying that. Heather, you spent too much time playing Lego Star Wars Saga. Guys, I don't know how this happened, but I got a lot of video games I got to play. And I hope you'll be supportive because I'm going to play a lot of video games.

Okay, of course. Whatever you need to do. That's fine. We like that. That's good. Better than you playing just one for a long time. Well, in order to, because I realize what I've done now, so I'm gonna have to play,

all right, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna start with a current release of Lego Star Wars Saga, Skywalker Saga. It's the same game, the same fucking game. You can't stop, you have to stop playing it. I get why you were mad, that makes sense, yeah. It's the same fucking game, Heather. It was like an eight out of 10, you gotta get over it.

I finished it. Well, you finished it. I did. I liked it a lot. What year do you think it is? 2004, right? What's happening? We add to our ever growing backlogs and A, some of your cues in the question block as we do a 2024 mid-yearar Check-In this week on Get Played.

-♪ -♪ -♪ -♪ -♪ -♪ -♪ 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 your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weigert. That's me, Nick Weigert. I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where we used to talk about bad games. We subjected ourselves to bad games.

We've slogged through bad games, and then we were like, I'm not going to take this any fucking more. I'm not going to do it. You can't make us. And so then we broadened our approach. And now we talk about games that we love, games that we hate, all kinds of games. Cause we're all fucking losers.

I don't know if I like where you landed there at the end. We are the lamest of the lame. The lowest of the low. Well yes, yeah. I mean, I got you out. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But if you're listening to this podcast,

you're not like us. You're a good person. You're you're a good person You're someone who can look down on us. Yeah and laugh. Yeah laugh at the worms beneath your feet I'm not gonna sign off on this either Video games What? What the hell? What? Are you okay? What? I'm just thinking about how normal our world is. Just a wave of reality hit you at once? Oh yeah. Video games.

Yeah, video games are good. Video games are good. Because they're an escape. They're a source of enjoyment. They can be a source of enjoyment. They can be a source of achievement and pride. I have such a treat for you guys today. I can't wait to share it.

Can I circle back to something next to it real quick? Oh yeah. He said they're an escape. Sometimes if you're lucky, they can be an ape escape. Yeah, you know what an ape escape is. I am glad you circled back. Did you ever see that? I have not been able to find it.

Maybe it's on Dailymotion or something. No one's put it on YouTube, but there's an old, there's Ape Escape, which is the PlayStation One platformer, which was a lot of fun. We were catching a bunch of monkeys. It's a hoot. Ape Escape 2000 was a semi-sequel, but the premise of Ape Escape 2000, which I think maybe was not released in the US, was that you found a bunch of monkeys with dirty pants, you stole their pants,

and then you cleaned them in a washing machine. What? Are you sure this is not just a dream? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick, after like a 24 hour session of playing panty party. It was like. Time to clean the monkey's pants. Yeah, President Nixon, like using the missions. It's you and Nixon and your third grade teacher. Anyway, so the, but there's a, I wish I could find the video. If anyone out there in the discord or whatever has,

has it, and knows what I'm talking about link me but there there was like a video that was like it was a Japanese only commercial where it was a Who's that the artist I'm thinking of why can't I think of the name the is like a Salvador Dali like okay? Salvador Dali big Salvador Dali Word for it as he gestured like a big mustache. He kind of has that sort of mustache and has like a, but he's like a French guy and he has a beret.

And then as he's watching these monkeys dancing, like these guys in mascot suits, he goes, bien, pants, tres bien. And then their pants like get whisked off, like some unseen force pulls the bread their pants out of frame It's like one of those fucking surreal ads I've ever seen I've not been able to find it I'd like to watch that so yeah, drop the link if you got it also This is I'm just thinking about this yeah

On get animate our other podcast on patreon.com slash get played one time We were talking about apes as we do, Nick says, Nick drops this bomb on us. He says, and I think I quote, man has always been fascinated by ape. I stand by that. I'm sitting here, I'm thinking we have ape escape. Yeah.

We have super monkey ball. We have donkey Kong. I think Nick's right. Yeah, of course. I don't think Nick is right I think Nick's right how big the fucking ape franchises are this year even two huge ape movies the people were like All right, I got these eight moon. They both come out. They're both hits. I did just see both of those eight movies Yeah, but I think you're a human being you're gonna be fascinated by a Seeing but that could have been anything it could have been leopards No, I would see that but that's like that I think there's just like a not a general

I think there's a human interest in our fellow primates. That's like kind of like you know I I think kingdom of the planet of the caps cats Cats, I'd see it that Kingdom of the Planet of the Cats. Cats. Cats! I'd see it. That sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it could be a little bit of a novelty. It sounds like a funnier die video. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a bunch of cats rolling around. Kingdom of the Planet of the Grapes. Did you like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes? When I see those movies, I'm just in awe that they exist. I love them. Both in terms of how they've resurrected a franchise

that nobody ever thought was going to make it for another go. Yeah. And then additionally, the technological marvel of watching a movie that is just apes. Yes. And if you watch the deleted scenes, you get to see the ping pong ball guys.

Oh yes. Acting out the scenes. Yeah, that's cool as hell. I love that, but I also love how it's a franchise the deleted scenes, you get to see the ping pong ball guys. Oh yes. Acting out the scenes. Yeah, that's cool as hell. I love that, but I also love how it's a franchise built on the idea, the first, the original movie, everybody knows it, it's like a pop culture, like, it's like everybody knows what the movie is.

Yeah. These movies build to that and then away from it and never really like give you the thing. They never really remake that moment in those movies. Right. Which I think is the right way to do that. Otherwise you end up with something like Abraham Lincoln in the Tim Burton one for example. Still good. Which is good.

Oh yeah, that sucks. That movie's bad. Okay, I may have found the ad and I haven't looked for a while to be, you know... Is there any way we could put something up on screen? Would that be possible? Or can I send it to you? He's furiously closing tabs as he sets up to screen share. I've never seen a man click faster. I'm just going to send this to Ranch because this will be the South Pole Museum.

Right, because then you don't have to even stop. Yeah, we don't have to worry about it. His iPad is like smoking from how many tabs he's closing. Okay, so I had the year wrong. It was Ape Escape 2001 was the name of the game. This did come out only in Japan, but yes, here is the ad that I have been thinking about for 20 years.

Let's watch this real quick. The PS2 logo, Elite. Yeah. merci beaucoup What the hell? You've vacuumed off monkeys' pants and washed them in a washing machine. This game would be localized in a post-Katamari world, but it just was not localized back in 2001. What's most bizarre about that ad you just showed us is the prominent placement of McDonald's in the background. There is McDonald's signage, like it's a branded tie-in,

and I don't know if that's just the location or if this was an actual cross-promotion thing. It's fucking weird as shit. Yeah, it's really weird. I don't remember McDonald's being that forwarded. Because you can't do that in the United States You can't put another brand in your commercial for something else. Yeah No, you can't you like you can't even wear a t-shirt with like a

Like it you can't have a tattoo in a commercial when I see like a commercial for like Pepsi Yeah, or something that like mentions coke I get like Scandalized like can they do that? Yeah, it's so crazy to me. I can do whatever they want. Well, yeah I'm getting Pepsi Pepsi the The tattoo thing is interest and there actually was a video game related court case I can't remember if we talked about it on the podcast that got settled this year where a tattoo artist Who had worked on some NBA players, most notably I believe

LeBron James, had sued because his tattoos were recreated in NBA 2K. He was like, that's my art. I should be getting royalties for that. But it ultimately was ruled that that is a part of... When you get a tattoo on your body, that is a part of an individual's likeness, if that likeness is recreated digitally, which is an interesting precedent. Huh. Yeah. Didn't the case for Mike Tyson in The Hangover go the opposite way?

I don't remember what that was. Was that a video game thing, though? No. Wasn't it that one of the characters in The Hangover got the same facial tattoo? And Helms gets it. Yes, yeah. And Helms gets it. Yeah. In, and Helms gets it. Yeah. And the hangover too.

And then, wasn't there a lawsuit for that too, and it was lost? I don't remember that, but I mean, also I guess if you think about it, that is a slightly different situation. And also we're just looking at 10 to 15 years later, we're looking at a much more conservative judiciary overall that's going to be a little bit more friendly to businesses and a little less so to artists.

I can't believe Mike Tyson would even be in the first one. Then they pay homage to him in the second one. How does he repay him? By taking him to court. Shame, shame, shame. But was it him or was it the artist? I think it was the tattoo artist. I don't think Mike Tyson was like, I think he was probably like, oh, that's my face.

I like it. He's like, these, that's my face. I like it. He's like, these are my best friends. These are my friends. Do you ever, my two tattooed co-hosts ever contemplated a face tattoo? No. That's a big step, right? No.

It makes you a different kind of person. Maybe damaged across my forehead? Yeah, how do we do that? Maybe a ha ha ha on my hands, you know? No, I, yeah, I'm, Yeah, how do we do that? Maybe a ha ha ha on my hands, you know? No, I Yeah, I'm Gosh, no, I know disrespect. Yeah hats off to you if you can you can just pull it off I I don't I all my tattoos are pretty

You can hide them pretty easily right? Um, you know, you no. I've thought about getting like a hand tattoo. Yeah. But no, I'm not gonna do it. Yeah, I didn't even go that far down on my arms so that I could roll up my sleeves. Right, okay, interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

What about you, Nick? You gonna get a face tattoo, the first one? Let's just say I'm happy you can get my tattoos hidden. What? What? Don't worry about it. he's just gonna get like a child's drawing of a penis Child's drawing Of an adult penis Version of that scenario. Oh no!

All right, let's change topics. Let's talk about some video games. We're playing right now. Ah video games Let me ask everybody. What are you playing? Matt I really was able to understand that a little bit better than normal Yeah, that that to me was like I don't know You know like when you hear a song without the music you just hear the vocals. Oh, okay All right. Yeah, this is really looking for me beautiful That's one of the features of fortnight is that you get to strip out everything but the vocals Yes, when you're when you're jamming with other players really fun

I'll tell you what I've been playing yeah Resident Evil merchant you feature actually really prominently in this. Oh, is that true? That's true. They're so... Yeah, that's true. Yeah, what is it? It's so. I've been...

You know, after Shadow of the Urge Tree, right now I was saying before the show, in a bit of a dry spell in the release calendar for video games. And so I've been kind of chipping away at a couple things. Nothing's really grabbing me right now. I've been playing the Thousand Year Door remake. And I'm enjoying it, but what I'm thinking is I just don't love Paper Mario. How dare you? Look, I think he's cute. I think he's cute. He's too flat.

He's a little too flat, is my main concern. He is really flat. I mean, look, I like that aesthetic. I will say, if Thousand Year Door isn't clicking for you, then yeah, maybe you just don't like Paper Mario, because that's the high point of the franchise. Yeah, and like, I'm enjoying it, but I don't feel the pull to it,

and the way where I was like, when I was really into Wonder, I was like going back to it all the time. I was like, when I was really into Wonder, I was like going back to it all the time with this, I'm always like, it's gonna be a little slower than I want it to be, and I kinda just wanna blast through this thing. So I probably will finish it at some point, I'm not playing it right now, I put it down,

because I remembered that sitting on my shelf has been a DLC in my backlog that I've been wanting to play. And it's the Resident Evil 4 Separate Ways DLC. Oh, wow. Okay. Featuring Ada Wong, who I don't know. This is the first time I've met Ada, other than the cut scenes in the game. Oh, she's that lady in the halter top, right? Yes.

Yeah, I see her in my shop. Yeah, well, you're in the Resident Evil Merchant, I guess you're not in it. But in the remake, the new merchant is there a lot. And every time I visit this- Oh yeah, maybe just like don't- Well, here's the thing. Maybe don't bring that up. Every time I encounter this guy, I'm always like, why isn't this my friend?

Exactly. Why would I mean like, there's a lot of reasons to fire me, but not from my flagship, my flagship production. fire me but not from my flagship my flagship production no yeah yeah you think the way things go you get fired for you know the things that you've done and then a couple years later you're just rehired and it's fine yeah yeah I got fired from a public park the other day did you get fired or did you get banned like were you employed there they just say like keep out of the park. I was playing that game everybody's been playing, Shatter of the Erd Tree. And they told me I had to leave. Yeah that's a video game.

So if you were like larping it, they probably just thought you were like some sort of specter haunting the screen. No, you just shit the, the, the screen. No, you just shit next to a tree. That doesn't shatter the air. Yeah. There are more rules. I'm not aware of.

Um, I just think you're playing a different game. Oh, it happens. Look, the present is a confusing place. Yeah. I'm trying to get an A to C sort of how you get from the Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Eared Tree to taking a shit next to a tree in a public park and thinking that was the game. Wait, what did you call it? Shadow? Yeah. Oh, I misheard the title.

That's your problem. Yeah, there you go. That's the main thing. Yeah. Yeah. Shat seems to be part of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah Chat seems to be a part of it. Yeah New merchant aside I gotta say the DLC is a lot of fun playing as Ada is very cool She has like a grappling hook that is like really fun to use To for traversal because you're basically just kind of going through the whole thing again, right? But her side of the story and For some reason when I was playing the, when we played it for the show,

I remember being a little more scared of it. But I think because I've had such a time in the lands between and in the land of shadow, these fucking La Plaga guys, I am not afraid of these guys. No, they're fine. It's comparatively goofy first off, just like tonally. It's like a little bit sillier, a little bit more

like horror genre, you know, campy, but also it has a little bit just like, there's just less menace to it because it's less threatening. Yeah. Like you're not, you don't feel like you're gonna be like one shot at all. Like, you don't wanna manage these guys.

Yeah. The times that I've died have been environmental reasons. Sure. Like there was these big blocks that come smash you, and you've heard of a Jill sandwich, I always ate a sandwich in this situation. Wow. And- Love it.

Been thinking about that for days. I'm glad you said it. It's pretty good. I almost wrote it down, but I didn't have to. I remembered it. I love the idea of having the same thought for a few days. It's all I've been thinking about. That's great. And you know, I will, but like, it does feel like this game allows you to sort of have like a bit of a power fantasy because I'm just fucking blasting through these guys.

Yeah. And you know, you get better weapons as it goes on obviously and so I have like sort of all the best- Does the grappling hook do damage to the enemies? It can with melee attacks. So if you're far enough away and you sort of stun, you stun lock one of the enemies, it'll, you know, pop up like X for melee. It'll zip or it'll, you know, it'll grapple them and pull you closer to them so then you can kick them in the face. That's pretty good. It's really good. Reverse get over here. Yes exactly. That's fun. I'm coming. You better stay right there.

I'm coming to you. Bit of a mouthful Scorpion. But I all right. Hey, hey, hey, you stay right there. But I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm on chapter six of seven chapters. I'll probably finish it up tonight, but that's it for me. That rocks. Yeah, I love it. Now, the thing, I have not played the DLC, but I have seen some of the video of some of the Ada death animations. Have you experienced any of those?

Like any of the really specific cinematic deaths? No, because, I mean, look. He's kicking ass. He's too good. Part of the reason why I'm doing so well and I'm not so afraid is that I am playing on easy. Like, I've not, there's no challenge here. But, I mean, I did watch her get crushed, like to death. Yeah.

Oh, right, right, right. You didn't mention that one. But otherwise, no. But I want nothing bad to ever happen to her. I love Ada Wong. There's one, I think it's from the DLC. I think that's the source where she gets like,

what's the movie I'm thinking of, cubed. She gets cubed. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Well, that's also a Resident Evil reference. It is a Resident Evil thing that happens as well, yeah. Well, you know, I was looking forward to that in this DLC to you because I know that in the original Resident Evil 4 There's like the laser room thing that's not in the remake and I was like oh, maybe it's in the DLC

It's just not in there. It's not there at all because they took out all QuickTime events and the merchant and the merchant does first of all Original merchant gone second worst offense. Yeah, no laser room Yeah, quick time events. I guess well, what are you gonna do while we're talking Resident Evil? I want to check in with our producer Rochelle Chan ranch because you were playing Resident Evil 2 you told us this the the remake a Few weeks ago. What is where you at right now with re2? this, the remake a few weeks ago. Where are you at right now with RE2? So I passed the... or I went underground to the lab, got past Mr. X at the police station. He showed up again in the underground lab.

He killed me and I quit immediately and uninstall this. I was so upset. I've not encountered Mr. X before. I've not played Resident Evil 2. I'm interested in maybe doing it after finishing the DLC, but it seems like he's a scary guy. He's very scary. He just he's like it follows. He just he just keeps coming Yeah, I played a yeah, I played re2 on on PlayStation 1 is I believe you did Heather by I did not play the remake No, and so I don't know but I heard the remake is is great I should all the remakes are good, but I have not played any of them. I played we played for for the podcast I mean, yeah, you did this was this was an episode you weren't't around, but that is the one that I played and I did love it. And I played, I don't know,

did I miss one with the Resident Evil 1 one? I did. It's hard for me to play a remake because the thrill of the game is the first time you play it. I dabbled in Demon's Souls. Yes. And I was like, oh wow, but ultimately I was like, I remember this.

And so much of the horror of a FromSoft game is what the fuck is going to happen? No, that's true and that's kind of true of horror generally. But I will say, one thing I do like is when the format of our show, when we commit to like, hey, we're going to cover a game and we're kind of forced to replay something. Because like, I probably would have not gone back to Shadow of the Colossus, an all-time game if we hadn't done it for the podcast. But playing through it all the way through again was just like, oh, that was a really cool experience.

This made me remember what I found so engaging about it and what aged well and what didn't. So I do like a really well-done remake from that Standpoint also like something like the final by the seven remake which maybe we'll touch on later in this episode is like Because it's just such a starkly different take that's something that that that I find really a really inert Yeah, like you like engrossing and and shatter of the Colossus is not is also Completely different sort of thing than what you're Gotta know you have to know the word shadow. Yeah, you have to know it. I mean like I know wait What what's the word you're saying?

Shadow shatter no no, what do you think shatter means? Oh? It's like the past tense of shit. I Just see a future which is also the best sense of shit. This is like Who's on first if they both had? TB eyes Traumatic brain injury oh Yeah, that would be me. Yeah. Okay, well.

Call it like I see it, I guess. I don't want to see a future where you're getting cuffed at the base of the Statue of Liberty because you've misunderstood again something. So, just don't be, that's not what Shadow of the Colossus is. I mean, I was cuffed at the Sega shop for playing Sh playing shatter the hedgehog But I now I can see clearly that there's been a miss a misunderstanding on my bird No, yeah, I won't be sitting in public. Okay, great. Yeah, this may be just so just a Vow a good mid-year resolution perhaps. Don't shit in public anymore. Don't do it in the toilet.

Not until 2025! Heather, what are you playing? All right, guys. I've brought in something for all of us to kind of play a little bit together. Oh. I've been squawking on our mutual text threads that this is my summer of swan.

That's right. And that means that I'm playing Wonder Swan. What are you laughing at? Squawking swan. I like the bird motif, it's fun. All right, so I've brought Wonder Swan here, which I don't think either of you have ever played before. I've never seen one.

Oh, great. Well, let me pull up a little history of it. So the Wonder Swan was the final system designed by Gunpei Yokoi, okay, who was the guy who designed the Gameboy and the Virtual Boy and when he created the Virtual Boy for Nintendo and then left the company in disgrace, he created another company, which is called Koto Laboratory.

And at Koto Laboratory, Bandai approached him and said, hey, can you make us a handheld game system? And so this system came out before the Game Boy Advance and was more advanced than the Game Boy Color. It was a 16-bit processor and it only used one AA battery. So it was also pretty ferocious in terms of like, wow, you can put a a battery in this thing and And it and it lasts for a very long time so here is a wonder swan color

Which was the second iteration of the wonder swan you'll notice that the system can be played horizontally Or vertically I didn't notice that until you showed me so you could play like top like horizontal Shooting games like playing games or whatever. I also have an example of a horizontal horror game Which reads like a story so the screen is is long instead of instead of wide The games are like kind of big. They're kind of- The carts, yeah.

Yeah, the carts themselves are kind of large. They are, they weren't, and they weren't like niche games because Bandai's a large company. So Squaresoft games came out for it. A lot of Shonen Jump style video games came out for it. So there was like One Piece games, Digimon games. Like it was a major system and ended up taking

almost 8% of the Japanese handheld market, which was a huge chunk for a third system until the Game Boy Advance came out and absolutely destroyed it. So yeah, this is a, and this is what the boxes for those games looked like. Wow. This is a dumb question, I should know this.

Did this receive a North American release? It did not. It did not, okay. It did not, so. And you got this in Japan on your trip. Yes, so there was a, there was a planned release by Mattel. They drew up a partnership and they were going to release it

and then by the time it was going to come out in North America, the market was just too flooded with handhelds and they were like, there's no way we're going to achieve the kind of market penetration we need to be able to call this a success. It is a lightweight, like feel the weight on that system. It's lightweight, it's super portable, super friendly,

and it feels like, I don't know, it feels sturdy, but also toy-like in a really nice way. I'm holding this thing. It is definitely lighter than my iPhone, which is for what it's worth. It's a good looking piece of hardware. I do love the way it looks.

And this is that kind of like that part that, you know, semi-translucent plastic where you can see the guts a little bit, which I always like in a handheld or controller. This guy's always talking about guts. The brains, if you will. And what I was going to say is, I've had a Neo, I've messed around with a Neo Geo pocket color with a Sega Nomad with an Atari Lynx, but this is the first time I've actually held a WonderSwan color. It's a cool piece of hardware.

So this screen on this particular WonderSan has been swapped out for an IPS screen so this screen is not it was the The kind of screen where you had to use the available light like the original Gameboy Advance, right? This is now a backlit screen cool. Some of the games I brought are Based on the anime that I love called X. I was having kind of an ex resurgent Resurgence when I was in Japan and rewatching that show. And there's only two ex-video games that are out, and one of them is for the WonderSwan,

so I picked that up for the very cheap price of 16 bucks. And then I have Hunter Hunter, one piece. Another Hunter Hunter game. Two different Digimon games. This game is, I don't know what that game is Final Fantasy one Final Fantasy two Conan and Terrors which is the aforementioned horror video game where you play horizontally

The Conan game is a detective Conan game not Conan the like barbarian. It's not a late-night TV is a late-night game. Yeah, right. It's not a late night TV. It's not a late night game. Yeah, right. It's not Conan O'Brien No, it's not that's not the case. Is there any particular game you guys wanted to try gosh I don't know I mean you can't jump right into Final Fantasy one or two Yeah, but look I think those are games that we're familiar with I'd say load one of them some bitches up Let's take let's take a look at what it looks like on that screen.'s what I would jump straight to of course, let's see and the so the The era of this the just before the Gameboy Advance. It was kind of like

You know, we still didn't have Handhelds were still feeling either very crude or extremely battery Inefficient and this one feels like it kind of struck a balance for, this wasn't gonna suck power like a Sega Game Gear, but it also wasn't gonna look like two generations before where home consoles were like a Game Boy. I mean, this is a great looking screen. I know this has been replaced, but.

Yeah, no, I mean, it was- This is really pretty. It's a 16-bit handheld color console. My complaints about the system are that the sound, in order to get headphones, you had to get an adapter that only came with this game, Terrors, which is the horror game. Oh, that's annoying.

And otherwise, yeah, there's no headphone jack on the system. Do you know how do you adjust volume? Is this, that's the power, is it? It's the slider on the side. I just wonder if we could crank the volume and hear the prelude into my mic a little bit, but it just doesn't get much audio out of it.

I don't know if that's being picked up at all. That is all the way up. I was frustrated with how quiet the system was. God, this looks cool. This looks really good. It does look really good. And there are, so there is one flash cart available called the Flash Master, but is out of print.

Yes. So it's very hard to track down. There are also translated carts that have been re-uploaded into the original cartridges. Wow. That you can pick up, say, like on Etsy or on third party websites. They are unfortunately quite pricey.

The other thing I like about that, it's form factor, because you talked about like you can go into like Tate mode, you can look at the screen vertically, but the it has like another set of controls. It has like D-pads on, you know, both the top and bottom of it so that it can accommodate that control wise. It's not like awkward to play if you do that. Yeah, it's not like awkward to play if you do that. Yeah, it's almost like the Switch controller took a sort of a hint from the Winter Swamp. Yeah.

Trying to load up. I'm also frustrated the, so it's an old system. It's more than 20 years old. It's almost a quarter century old now. The power button is extremely sensitive. Oh, that's, yeah. And sometimes this particular system, I have trouble turning it on and off.

But maybe I won't be able to again. And then that's it, that's. Did you get all of these games in Japan or did you have some of them in your library prior to this? I got all these in Japan. Oh wow, okay. They're all just a, I mean it was like a grab bag that came with the system itself.

Right. And... What are these retailing for in the, I know the retro market is out of control, but... So part of the reason that I got really excited about getting a WonderSwan while I was there was that there are a few games that are like retailing for a thousand bucks, right?

Sure. I think one of them is called like Drill Princess or something like that. But for the most part, I think that it's the Western market driving the huge price gouging on retro games. And since this is not a system that ever came out here, these games remain pretty inexpensive.

So I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 games plus the system for about 250 bucks. Yeah, it's not bad at all. That's pretty good. Which again, considering that like, you can't get four Game Boy advanced games for less than $50 Yeah anymore. It felt like a real bargain. Yeah, and with a new screen. I mean, it's it's a very yeah elegant thing down

It's so slick looking too. I really like I love the orange that you picked Did you pick orange out of necessity like did you like that color in particular or was that just the one that was? There was the one that was available. available okay so here's a here's terror okay you gave it to me so I can get really scared I know that Matt is Matt is scared of of scary games the oh I got so scared you know like lots of lots of reasons to miss physical media but one of them is just like box art like this and I know this is a this is the kind of thing I wish we had a video component because this X card of fate box art

is so, it's just so well realized. It's pleasant to look at. And also I kind of miss cardboard. I know this may not be a popular take because cardboard box holders have deteriorated over time and like Switch boxes, Saturn boxes, PlayStation boxes have all like retained their shape and thus their value. But there's something really like, I don't know,

nostalgic about a cardboard box. Yeah, sure. And cardboard boxes that somebody has taken care of, you're like, man, this feels like a little treasure might be inside here, like a Cracker Jack box. I'm realizing that there's no way this game can scare me because I cannot read what it says. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Here's a little of the horror game, Nick. This is awesome. So the art is black and white. And then, yeah, there's just a lot of text with, it's mostly hiragana, but there's enough kanji here where I can't really read this.

I've been playing this one by holding my, and I think I had an idea for an Etsy device that was a bracket, that you could mount onto an old Game Boy or a WonderSwan that would allow you to play the system with your hands, but have Google Translate Photo Mode up on your phone so you'd be able to get to see these old games translated if you're not quite adept enough at the language to be able to enjoy it

Yes, I think the reason that this game came with Headphones is because a lot of it is creepy audio. Oh cool. So you hear like a like a whisper on the train I'm gonna kill you also what just a different time where it's like Oh, yeah We got to release an adapter for this one game in case people want to use headphones with this device. I was thinking about that. That very specific use case where someone would want to have a headphones with their handheld.

I was thinking about the extra grip and like extra directional stick. For Monster Hunter? For the, yeah. Well, the one that I got, yeah, but I got it for Metal gear solid three The only thing that I ever used it for and now I have a 2ds that is flat that it doesn't fit on I just like looking at this thing. I gotta say yeah, it is really cool and it's also like that's I I do miss the it's probably part of the reason why I end up buying all these little devices like the

the What's camera what it's called now, but like the emulator SP that I got basically Is that the analog pocket well any analog pocket as well, but like the I? Missed the handheld experience, but I also missed the pocket ability of a handheld But like, I missed the handheld experience, but I also missed the pocketability of a handheld. That is like perfect pocket size. It's perfect pocket size. There is a WonderSwan Core available for the analog pocket,

and you can download and play the translated ROMs of these WonderSwan games on the analog pocket. But you miss Yeah, you miss like that that that y2k aesthetic of the device itself flipping it horizontal Yeah, you miss all of all of that like try like the reason of a boktai You know ROM with no solar panels where you press a button to make the solar panel work Yeah, is is less exciting than playing it on the Gameboy Yeah, the form factor of the device and it's kind of unique to that tactility like just those buttons have a very distinct feel to them

They're gonna shape differently. Yeah, that's that's a that's that's really awesome. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us Really cool. I love it. I guess I'll follow that by talking about the Wirtle Archive. Jesus Christ. I should have gone second. I'm just like, follow the fucking Wonder Swan. So I'm still playing Elden Ring. I'm playing a strength build and I'm still reading Jason Shrier's excellent book about Blizzard Play Nice, which people should pre-order. But the New York Times app opened up the Wirtle Archive. Wirtle is the game where you try to guess a five-letter word, you have six chances to do so, and then each time you guess certain letters are eliminated. It's one of those things where it's such an elegant, simple design like Tetris that you kind of wonder how it was not created earlier, but I'm very

glad it exists. It's a great little daily time sink that I was not playing for a while and I got back into playing as I mentioned a few weeks ago, largely because of social pressures as a group text I'm in. Anyway, it was just like here's a puzzle for today and then it's gone. And I kind of did like how ephemeral it is. But now they have all 1000 plus puzzles since the thing launched, since it was, you know, it came out in July of 2021. And I just went back to day one and started doing them.

And I gotta say, that's pretty fun. I mean, I'm just like, I had like, it's the early puzzles. And I think they maybe got away with this as they figured out the hooks of the game. And they figured out like it's intrinsic quality is why people are playing. Cause some of the very early ones feel like they're trying to set up traps for you.

They're trying to set you down a path or like they're trying to, you know, like present a word that's a very, this isn't one of them, but this is the kind of word that might be in there. This is too many letters, but like a word like gruntle, which is a proper word, but the only way you would ever hear gruntle is in the context of disgruntled. You know what I mean? It's like you would never hear it used in the affirmative form as just a, you know, like, like, like, and just it's, it's like, so like, it would have things like that.

And as it progresses, it starts to get more towards just like standard vocabulary. And then you just kind of realize how many words are kind of unique. How many words like swoon is just like, oh, there's just nothing, no other word that kind of shares some characteristics with it, even though it's a five letter word, it's kind of like you reach a certain point with its only possibility.

Well, that's the thing, swan is like close, but of A, that's four letters and then- How many do you need? Five. Swans. Swans could be in A, that's four letters, and then- How many do you need? Five. Swans. Swans could be in there. That's a possibility. Did I win?

Yeah, you won. Good job. Thank you very much. I feel gruntled. I guess it would come up in other scenarios. Anyway, like I've been enjoying playing the archive and also like I just like big projects as someone who committed to going back through

the entire all of One Piece. I'm like, I like that I, hey, I've got a thousand puzzles to tackle and I'm on month two of year one. So like, let me just keep going with this. That's really, I don't know, nice. Yeah, why not? That's a very adult game. It's also like I'm, I try, for the longest time, I had no keep going with this. That's really, I don't know, nice. Yeah, why not? That's a very adult game.

It's also like, I try, for the longest time, I had no games on my phone. This is the only thing that's like a game that I have on my phone, because I get too addicted to them. But why this one works is that I might be like, you know what, I have like three minutes in a line. And if I'm just gonna be looking at my text

or something anyway, this does not feel like this is a time sink. This is just like, I'm just doing something. And so I can rationalize it that way. You talking about this made me realize that I forgot to do mine today. And so while you were just saying that, I did do my wordle. And then, but you got me back into this actually, because you brought it up a couple weeks ago on the podcast.

I've been doing that, I've been doing connections, I've been doing strands, I really like strands. Strands is fun, strands is like a word search. Yeah, and then sometimes I'll do spelling bee, but then I've never gotten all the words. Sometimes I'm like, okay, ran it, I'll run out of them pretty easily. And I don't do the crossword because, too hard.

My wife and I do the crossword every night. Every night? Yeah, as many nights as we have free to do it. So, not every night, it's mandatory. But it is our group game. It'll be like, well, let's pull up the crossword and knock it out. And crossword puzzles have their own fucking language,

which Mary knew before I started playing crosswords, but so much of it is like learning the code of how they give clues. And then once you understand that, you're like, oh, okay, this one's a joke. This one's a pun. This one is abbreviation. But there's no place where you're taught that stuff.

No. Unless you're handed that knowledge by another person. Yeah, I would, my wife and I used to play the crossword together, and the issue is I was too fucking stupid, I couldn't help her. Like she just like did, like she just was like, I got this, like you know, it was just faster for her to do without me.

I am often very quickly humbled by the crossword because like first thing will be like something I don't know, I'll be like, what the fuck? Right. Well, so Mary and I have a great overlapping or a great, what do you call it, where there's two different skill sets, but they work in Congress, I don't know.

Anyway, so she knows and understands. You're asking the two wrong people. We both just said we were dumb. You have complementary skill sets. She knows all of the literary stuff. She knows all of the like like another way to say ashamed, another way to say puzzled. You know, she'll look at that and be like instantaneously.

But when it's like this scientist worked on the atomic bomb, I'm like, oh, it's Enrico Fermi, it's Fermi. And she'll be like, great. And that's like the only time I like pop up is it'll be like, oh, it's Enrico for me. It's for me. And she'll be like, great. And that's like the only time I like pop up is it'll be like, for example, the thing I complained about on a previous episode of our podcast, predecessor to the switch where it was we's instead of we you.

Yeah, that's annoying. But like anytime, anytime it's like a thing like that, she'll be like, what's this one? And I'll be like, oh, it's that. And that's my role. Yeah, maybe if there's like an NBA clue or something. There you go. Like, high flying Seattle Super Sonic.

Oh, Sean Kemp. I got it. There you go. If they have to, if there was like name a character from The Simpsons or something, I could do that. Get help out there too, yeah. That's, Mary and I both stare at The Simpsons' glutes and are like, I don't know.

Well, now you know who to ask. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. All right. Hey, let's get to this mid-year check-in, I guess we'll call it. So Matt, this is the thing you were talking about. And we're just sort of, this is perhaps vaguer than our general sort of topic, but it also kind of felt like a point where in the gaming year where we kind of talk about what's behind us and what's ahead of us. Because it's been maybe not as crammed of a calendar. I know that was a weird way to say it, but like not as jam packed of a gaming year

as last year I feel like so far, but there have been some high profile releases and certainly more stuff than I've been able to get to. Yeah, last year was like a regular like oops all bangers, like there's dropping huge games and they're all really good. And it was just like, you know, when you're in, when you're in the part of the year where

Zelda Tears of the King comes out, and then the next month Baldur's Gate 3 comes out, you're like, this is fucking, this is nuts, this is crazy. This year doesn't have that as much, but still some great games have come out, and I think there are some exciting games on the horizon that I'm really looking forward to. Boy, I wish I felt the same sort of excitement and optimism about the rest of the year

But I struggled when it when when you talked about this being the topic I was like looking through all the game releases and I was like fuck unless it's like an indie game that I literally don't know about yet That's gonna like pop up on my radar once everybody's like, holy shit, you have to play The Luminescence or whatever. That sounds pretty good. That sounds pretty good. There were only three or four titles left in the rest of the year that I was like,

I definitely wanna play this. So that to me says maybe I'll finally get around to playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? Rebirth, yeah. Gosh, that was rebirth rebirth rebirth yeah gosh that was on my you know It was on my list of games to play in this interim time what Final Fantasy 15 nice I might I might do it. I'm not sure but please do I love I love those boys so much I kind of just want to see the bull. They're good boys All your friends from Kingsglaive You know I mean just to shout out some some games that I loved from this year

Obviously hell divers 2 was a Is a lot of fun a strong contenderender. Could be game of the year depending on what else comes out this year. Bolatro is like a game that I'm like, that might be my game of the year. I fucking love Bolatro. Bolatro is a fucking blast. I love Bolatro.

The aforementioned Rebirth, Animal Well. That says Animal Well and Bolatro were two that for me I was just like, oh, this is what I love about, I mean, being a fan of anything. There's always something that comes out of nowhere that's not on your radar at all, and you're like, oh wait, this thing comes out and it's the best.

I love when that happens. Was Into the Prince of Persia the lost crown, but did not get back into it, fell off of it, would like to get back into it but is there Was there any highlights from the first half of the year that you guys want to shout out before we get into the second? Half yeah, you know you much. Oh go on either place. I'll tell you one thing that wasn't a highlight is fortnight Which as I've you know has appeared less and less frequently in my what are you playing? has the lowest concurrent player base count

of I think the last five years. Wow. People really hate the new season, myself included. Wow. Yeah. But they did leak maybe that John McClane was coming to Fortnite. I did see that.

And holy fucking shit. That'll change my relationship to the game no matter how bad the season is. I didn't realize how much you love Die Hard. Me? Yeah. I love Die Hard. I mean everybody loves it,

but I didn't know it was like, I'm getting the feeling that it's like one of your top things maybe. No, I wouldn't go that far, but it's, I mean if it was if I still watched TV And it was on TV. I would not change the channel Are you watched it this year it holds up. It's really really an excellent movie. He's such a they mean this is not the discussion Yeah, I just have to say Bruce Willis is an incredible movie star. Well, yeah, it's an incredible, you're absolutely right.

And it's just so profoundly human in that movie. And then also it's like, this has been discussed. But it's so funny that that movie began as like a subversion of action movies, and then ended up just being like, oh, now this is how a conventional action movie is set up. And then also John McClane's character in and of itself turned into what he was kind of originally, yeah, exactly.

Jumping off of falling freeways and stuff. Right, right, right, and holding onto the wing of a fighter jet. Anyway, you know, like you hit the ones I was gonna mention, Matt, which was Helldivers 2, Appalachiaia and Animal Well. But I am going to shout out a few things that are in early access that I've really enjoyed and that I'm going to continue to be tracking because that's the process of early access.

Deep Rock Galactic Survivor was actually out last year but has had some major updates and is really just like a really fun take on the survivor template, as is Death Must Die, another game I talked about a couple of weeks ago, and I just kind of want to see where those games go. Manor Lords, I feel like is going to be an early access maybe for a while, just because it's such an ambitious game, but what I best around with is like, I love how granular this is. This is probably too much for me, but I just kind of love that it exists, and I'm happy

to support it. But the big thing is Hades too. I mean, they'll take all the time they need to on that and God bless them. But that I was just so impressed by where it was, where it is at its current state and just to take it from there. I was going to bring something up, which is just me being kind of overwhelmed, but I wanted to talk about games that I miss, that I'm hoping to catch up with at some point, games that I've just added to my backlog in the past year.

They've already come out. Lost Crown, you mentioned the Prince of Persia game. Like a Dragon infinite wealth. I just like I still really just want to get into the new like a dragon. I really want to play that. I've not done it yet. And I just I just need to do this thing. You just have to do it at a certain point. You just have to be like, this is what I'm want to play that. I've not done it yet. I just need to do it. This is the thing.

You just have to do it at a certain point. You just have to be like, this is what I'm going to commit myself to. I'm going to just say I'm choosing to do this over some other things that it could be doing, but because I'm wanting to do this, I should just do it. I'd probably enjoy myself because I've liked all the time. I've spent with the Yakuza games, chiefly Yakuza Zero, Persona 3 Reload, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Again, love Persona 3 reload and a Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, you know, again love love persona 5

Royal led to finish that game. It's it's it's incredible. It's a masterpiece and then Final Fantasy 7 remake I really enjoyed but I just not get it did not get around to rebirth What you know, what that's that's the thing. There's just there's always there's way too much even in a so-called light year I know it is really something like I was thinking about this year as being like, not as packed, but then all these games came out and they're all really good. Yeah. And a lot of them are long.

Chunky boys. Yeah, that makes it harder to be like, oh, like you put in 50 more hours into Elden Ring. Yeah. You put in 200 hours in a fucking Final Fantasy VII? It was like, no, not quite 200 hours. It was because Elden Ring now is like, by most played game hours-wise on PlayStation by like, I think like 100 hours, 230 hours all told.

I do think maybe rebirth was around like 120 and then I think I think Final Fantasy 16 has like a hundred and fifty hours. I played so much Final Fantasy 16. I Mean a big part of why these early releases have been blocked out is because of something that you said that about the end of last Year, which was Baldur's Gate 3 came out. And I love that game. I can just call it my favorite game of all time now. And a big part of my first portion of the year was replaying it. And I don't know how I did it, but I always do it. Like my replay, I feel like I should know this game.

Yeah, I'm playing it on hard difficulty, so maybe there's some more obstacles there. But I know what to do. But somehow it takes me even longer. And like this game that took me like 130 hours for my first run I'm doing more stuff and I'm takes me like 150 hours. So like so much of my Gaming time was just reserved for one gigantic game But the the chunkiest of the chunky boys Well the extra time added to your Baldur's Gate 3 thing is because you kept safe scumming

so you can do the bear sex scene over and over again. Did not romance Halcyon. Daddy Halcyon. This is the thing with the romance in that game is I felt like I was so like, we shouldn't just be talking about Baldur's Gate 3, but I was just, I role play it where I'm like, well the characters I'm spending time with

who are in my party are who I should be romancing. Paulson's just setting up at camp. I don't wanna be doing my romance arc with him because it feels like it's not really, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's like, that's like somebody you see at work. Yeah, exactly. Instead of somebody that you're like out doing stuff with all the time, you know what I mean? Right'm out of here with Lazelle. We're going everywhere with Gale

Like these should be who I should be by my partner characters. I never met Should we just go like down let's look to let's look to the future Yes, let's look up up ahead at the upcoming, and maybe we can just kind of each trade off. I mean, I'll start real quick, because this is a game that we already mentioned. It's a game that I already played the demo of, and we did an episode with our friend Eva Anderson when Heather wasn't here on the case of the Golden Idol.

The sequel, the rise of the Golden Idol, is promised in 2024. It does not have a date yet, but I really like what they've done to the aesthetic. I really like that the puzzles seem to have a little bit more unity and cross-pollination across them, the way it's set up in the demo. And I also just like that it's got this new setting. It goes from kind of like this 19th century, 18th century, whatever it is, this vague sort of colonial era British empire to like more of of a 70s sort of feel and like 1970s sort

of feel much more contemporary and that I really like. So Rise of the Golden Idol is definitely one that I am looking forward to and will 100% make time for. There's a game that I've pitched for us to play on the podcast and I think we might actually tackle it and I'm looking forward to it. Can I talk about that game here? Sure. Nintendo World Championships NES edition for the Switch

is a, in the vein of like the Mario 100 or any of those like micro game versions of classic NES games that they've been releasing on the Switch, this is a speed run rehash of levels from the Legend of Zelda, levels from Super Mario 1, levels from, say, Kid Icarus, that are inspired by the experience of the Nintendo World Championships in the 1980s. And I'm looking forward to that because the other, like Mario 100 or whatever the fuck it was called. I don't even remember

Tetris 100 Tetris 99. I think it was I think it was weirdly though Mario 100. Let's get one more Mario Those experience have been so fun Yeah, and they really sink their teeth into me for a short amount of time And then they're usually taken off of the system. So the idea of having a tangible version of this that I can pick up and drop in, play a couple of times, and then kick out again, that's a kind of gaming experience that I need in my life.

I have a Nintendo World Championships sized void in my gaming life. I think based off of where, recording this one a little bit earlier, I think it might actually be out by the time this episode's out. It's slated for sometime in July, but I'm curious, did you ever play NES Remix for the Wii U?

No, I don't think I did. This is the game I was thinking of. I had that game and it was alright I it feels like this is going to be maybe a little bit more robust and maybe a little bit more what you thought that game was going to be it was kind of fun, but it was more like kind of like a It kind of felt like more like a like a warrior wear kind of approach and then it had a bunch of different games I mean I have the full list here

But you know it had like Balloon Fight, the Donkey Kongs, NES Donkey Kongs, Dr. Mario Excite Bike, Punch Out, Mario Bros. the original one, Kid Icarus, Ice Hockey, you know, Wrecking Crew. It had a bunch of different like classic NES games and then you just play small chunks of. Asking the question, did you play this on the Wii U is like an impossible question for some people to answer. I'll tell you guys one I'm excited about. I mean, so well, at least in August, there are two games coming out that I'm actually

pretty excited about. One's called Thank Goodness You're Here. It's a game from Panic and Coal Supper and it says, thank goodness you're here is an absurd comedy slap former set in the bizarre northern English town of Barnesworth as a traveling salesman take the time to see the sites and meet the locals who are very eager to give you a series of increasingly odd jobs. And I like the way it looks. I'm going to play it on my steam deck. It looks like it's pretty funny. I think Matt Barry has a voice in it Other English comedians as well. It seems kind of like a cozy little weird funny game

And yeah, I just like the way that looks and it's it's from the publishers of The Untitled Goose game. So that's kind of like a I don't know I don't know what the thing is it might be puzzles or something But it seems like it's it's pretty cool And then this other game coming out on the almost exact opposite end of the spectrum Star Wars outlaws, I think fucking I think Star Wars outlaws looks really good. I can't wait. I hope it's good Yeah, I hope all I've been hearing is I've been hearing uncharted comparisons And that bodes well to me That seems like it might be good. Here's the truth.

Yeah. Acolyte pulled me back in. I gotta watch the Acolyte. I talked a big game about being excited about it. I watched one and was kinda like, eh, I gotta watch it. The first couple of episodes, not so much. But I stuck with it and was very, very heavily rewarded.

Okay. I want to like it and I want to watch it. This is like literally the first positive thing I've heard about Star Wars Acolytes. Really? Yeah, yeah. Think about who you converse with. Acolytes fourth or fifth episode was shockingly good. I've been hearing that specifically.

And it felt like there was a pacing choice made where it's like, here's the show you think you're watching and then there's a turn and you're watching a different show. And I appreciate that. I wish it was longer because it would have been wild to see a season before that turn happened. But I'm digging the acolytes. Star Wars Outlaws is the Ubisoft game,

which gives me a little pause because it's, you know, I'm just the Ubisoft open world for me. I find it a little bit exhausting. However, it's from Massive Entertainment, which made the Avatar game, which was... Great! Pretty well received. I mean, like, I know that I've heard that it maybe massive entertainment which made the Avatar game which was great pretty well received I mean like I know that I've heard that it that maybe just has

doesn't have a ton to it but that could have been because of schedule or budget limitations or whatever and hopefully with a little bit more time and leeway with the Star Wars license that they can really we can really see what they can do. Avatar game was beautiful and confusing because it was so beautiful. I have it unopened. I've been wanting to play it so bad. This may be the time to do it.

The thing that excites me about Star Wars Outlaws is that I am curious because this is now the second major studio to be making a triple-A Star Wars game outside of the Jedi series. As far as as I know no Jedi in this game at least the protagonist isn't a Jedi But as you know with Star Wars if there's a character in Star Wars in something it's canon to the rest of Star Wars Yeah, so Can I anticipate seeing my boy Turgle the little frog guy in this game too, or is he just in that one?

Interesting I wonder I wonder if that's a possibility Is he proprietary to the EA Star Wars game? Yeah, or can he be in the other Star Wars games too because he's in Star Wars He probably won't be because of the time this game takes place, which is in between Empire and Jedi. Yes but this game takes place, which is in between Empire and Jedi. Yes. But they can't own any, like Vader has to be able to say, appear in the Jedi series and also in Outlaws, because he's, it's Vader.

Right, but if you create- I just hope he shows up and he just fucking mercs the main character and you're like, oh, the end. Just at least leave Turgle alone alone, leave Turgle out of it. I wonder what the licensing agreements actually say though, because like if a character you create, if that is like a thing that,

I would imagine first off that unless Lucasfilm said, or I guess Disney said, we wanna see Turgle in this game, that probably there wouldn't be much, you know, a reason for another developer to be like, let's poach a character from another developer's game. They'd be like, we wanna make our own Turgle, you know? So I don't know.

But I also like don't know if, I guess I don't know who owns Turgle, okay? I don't know who owns Turgle. Who owns Turgle? Disney owns Turgle? Disney owns Turgle. Cause I mean, they're not gonna put Cal Kestis in in this right? Because like he would be not the appropriate age. 60 years old or something.

But it's it's interesting to think about. But I mean that's I know there are other games coming out in August. It's two games for me. That's that's a light month. The other game that's coming out in August that I'm lightly excited about is called Gundam Breaker 4. Oh. It's been six years since the last Gundam breaker game, and I was not into Gundam six years ago so This is a game where you construct?

Gundam so it's like a gunpla game We're building the model kits and then they are transmuted into actual mobile suits to fight the model kits and then they are transmuted into actual mobile suits to fight. So you can like build and kit bash like, oh, I want the head from the Gundam 78, but I want the legs from Gundam aerial. And you will do that. Yeah, people do that. Because this because the systems all work together. Matt, you seem scandalized.

I just I just don't think you should be able to do that. I'm putting the fucking head of statue of David on the fucking Statue of Liberty or something. What the hell are you doing? You'd be very small. Do you now have you have you messed around with any Gundam games? Do you know the reputation of Gundam games as a franchise?

A lot of anime adaptations are not considered to be good games. So I have messed around with some Gundam games. I have not yet found a Gundam game that I love. Because what I want is, I want armored core, but Gundam. I want the Gundam universe and the Universal Century timeline,

but it is treated with the same sort of military seriousness that the series themselves treat Gundam. And it often will be like, more like Dynasty Warriors is what I've played, where it's like slashing through a bunch of dudes or I played a little bit of that first person or third person shooting game that was like the like Gundam online game.

And that was okay, but like all of them, none of them have been like the experience that I'm craving. But I'm hoping that this one is. I'm willing to give it a shot. I certainly, like one of the games I've purchased tangibly for Switch is a Gundam game that mashes together all of the characters

from all of the different Gundam property. People do that? They do that. But yeah, August is a light month in terms of titles, but probably a heavy month in terms of hours. Yes, yes. Moving on to September, I don't know if we're gonna keep at this pace, but.

No, let's, yeah, I would just say while you're talking about September, I do have one here. Okay, please. Which is, you know, one of the best games on the PlayStation 5, at least one of my favorite games Just say while you're talking about September. I do have one here. Okay, please which is You know one of the best games on the PlayStation 5 at least one of my favorite games on the PlayStation 5 Was a launch title Five years ago if you can imagine that four or five years ago. It's how long ago the fucking The PlayStation 5 came it kind of seems impossible It seems impossible, but 2020 was that long ago, that far in the past.

Anyway, in 2020 when it launched, one of the launch titles was in fact a pack-in game, Astro's Playroom. Here we go. Incredible platformer, just one of the best 3D platformers I've ever played. The issue is Astro's Playroom is a little bit slight, and I don't, hey, that's fine with me. I got, not like I have this abundance of time to play every game, but I got something I can get through in under five hours.

I'm into that, but it's also so good and so playable and such a pleasant aesthetic that I would love a full length game version of that. And you know what? We're going to get exactly that. We are going to have Astro Bot coming out in September. And I just think this is from Timosobi, same developer. I just love this character and I love the way these games play. I like the way they make use of the DualSense.

I will also say from the standpoint of someone who has been very excited to see all of these PlayStation games ported to the PC where I do most of my gaming, the prospect of this being on PC seems like it would be a really cool possibility. But I'll probably play it on PlayStation 5 when it comes out, especially if it does retain some of the DualSense specific gameplay that Astro's Playroom had. But I just, I'm just, this game just looks like

pure fun to me, and yeah, I mean, I just, I love this franchise. I have such a hunger for this type of game like a mascot platformer that is Love it. Going 100% level to level. Yes. Because in the the Sackboy platformer game, which I don't think either of you guys played. Too floaty. Oh, I loved it. I thought it was so great. I did hate hearing uptown funk every level. That was like an insane part of that game to me.

But I like Sackboy. I had not played a little big planet game before. I know those games are very different, but I liked the overall, like that, I just liked that that was like a return to basics with like, as far as like mascot platformers go, this looks like it's gonna be more of that, but with like fun sort of like meta PlayStation stuff,

which I think is really, really cool. And I did love that, the pack-in for the PS5. So I'm very, very excited about that and optimistic that it's gonna be very good. The other thing is because, and we saw this with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, which is still one of the best looking games I've ever played.

And it's like, you know, because the character designs games I've ever played. Because the character designs, I don't mean simple as a pejorative, but you're not trying to create a photorealistic human being because it's a little bit more stylized. It feels like a lot more resources can go into having these vibrant environments and a screen filled with a bunch of dazzling effects. You don't need to just put everything in into detail of character models, although those character models are very detailed.

And certainly with the character design is, again, relatively simple, not as a pejorative as Astrobots. This seems like a really lush environment that really takes advantage of the hardware and also just hopefully plays really fast and fluidly. that really takes advantage of the hardware and also just hopefully plays really fast and fluidly. I'm also looking forward to Astrobot. I'm not hugely hungry for a mascot platformer,

but I am really hungry for control. And I've been so frustrated with the sort of modern 2024 feeling in a game, where there's like a slipperiness to like, they've added way too much, too many frames of animation to a character turning around. So like you go to turn around and it feels like there's a huge amount of inertia and like pull and then they like kind of stumble step

and then they're going in the other direction. And what I like about Astro's playroom is that it just felt good. Yeah. Yes. And so that's the reason I'm looking forward to Astro Bot. Not because I particularly care about the character design, not because I'm particularly interested in the universe, but other than Fortnite,

there hasn't been a game that's just good feeling to play. Well, I think that's another thing where when you're trying to represent reality and you're trying to represent human locomotion, there's so much anticipation to a lot of movements. There's so much ancillary motion that you have to recreate that makes it feel less precise when lined up with a button press. If someone tells me to jump, I first off ask how high.

But then the other thing I do is that you squat down, because that's how you jump, right? You don't like go straight from, you don't immediately like go up above the earth. It takes a moment to go down. But like if you animate that, it feels sluggish. So if it's a design like Celeste, you can get away with like, hey, we're just not going to have any anticipation here We're just gonna take off immediately but it's harder to do that when something looks like a

Human being because it starts to feel uncanny Valley if it doesn't move like a human being agreed. Yeah, it's tough It's tricky, but it's a tricky balance. I mean, I don't envy these developers having to solve these problems I'm jealous of them kind of yeah, I mean I'm also jealous of them People like uh I'm jealous of them kind of. Yeah, I mean, I'm also jealous of them getting to make cool games, people like. If you have a hunger for control, I got a great game to recommend for you. Don't you say it, don't you say it. Alan Wake 2.

October is next on our list. Why is Nick is crying? Nick is loving. Because I knew the direction you were going. I knew what you were gonna do, but I didn't know exactly what you were going to do. It was just like a little bit of a swerve. I thought you were just going to say control instead of citing another game for the same

developer. Well, that's what he was going to say. Yeah, then I got in trouble. October is the next month on the calendar and there's a game that's going to be a high-profile release that I am really not excited about. And I had a thought, which is, I wish you could still rent video games, because I don't want to pass judgment on Silent Hill 2 without playing it, but I definitely don't wanna purchase it. No.

And while there are demos for some games, it's not universal. And it used to be that you would go to a video store and you'd rent a game and then you'd be like, holy shit, I love this. And then you would buy it, which is a great way for a game company to get five extra dollars out of you

over the retail price of a game. And I wish you could still do it. I'm sure there'd be people though, who would be smashing, they'd be smashing their way through that title so fast that they'd be able to rent it three times and then not spend all $60 on the game. I know that like Gameflyfly is still a thing,

but I've never known somebody that I know that plays video games to do it. I had Gamefly, but I don't think since in the 2010s. I think the last time I had it was in the aughts. It's been forever since I had that service. That might be a fun experiment for next year. Just restart Gamefly. Gamefly, not purchase any games

and see how far it can get you. I think the equivalent now, unfortunately, is you buy something in a digital store and then you just play it for a couple hours and then get a refund. But I mean, that's just like, you have to hope that it has a good refund policy. But it's just like, that's a pain in the ass.

It's another thing that just like, everything's gotten fucking worse and more annoying. That there's not an easy way. You't just reliably count on that demo existing can't rent something to try it out You just have because we're married to this digital, you know ecosystem There's just nothing you can do my sucks brother And I rented the Futurama video game eight times because we we should have just bought it Yeah, we were committed to finishing it and the thing about it was too, we knew it was bad, but we were like, we love Futurama.

We have to see this thing through. We were getting so frustrated. And one time we rented it, we were stuck on the same spot the whole time we had it. And we were just getting so mad. And finally we did beat it. And we were both so, so happy that it was over. My friend was, when I was in middle school that

Final Fantasy 3 slash Final 6 the final fantasy 6 Japan was out for sure Nintendo Nintendo because I'm very old The he was renting that game and because it was a cartridge your save was on that game So and it's also a JR a big-ass JRPG So like like, you know You invest a certain amount of time for it. And it's like, even if he was going to buy it at a certain point, he wants that specific cartridge, which you can't reliably get.

You can't just go to Blockbuster and be like, hey, I want to buy this specific game. They're not going to sell it to you. So he just kept renting the same cartridge and is accumulating late fees to reach the point where he spent like $90 on like a $60 game, but it was just all sunk cost fallacy. Yeah, the other thing that's coming out in October is...

Sonic X Shadow Generations. I don't know why. I am kind of excited about that. But maybe it's because it's like it's appealing to the 2003 me who was interested in Prince of Persia Warrior Within. It's sort of playing. This one's for the little emo kids. This is the Sonic for the emo generation. Is this an unspoken X? Is that one of those like a spy family? Or is this Sonic X like the Sonic X anime?

Oh, I'm pretty sure it's silent. It's silent, it is silent. I think it's Godzilla Kong. Got it, got it, it's one of those, yeah. Hunter, Hunter. I mean, yeah, you know, whatever. Maybe it could be all right. I just, it's so tough with Sonic games.

It's just they're so like, it's such a cool franchise and the games are so hit and miss. The Sonic that I've liked the second most after Sonic 2 was the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. A fun game. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, the Silent Hill 2 remake and that game are both kind of wait and sees for me. I mean, like, there's Romancing Saga 2, but I just want to play another romancing saga. I'm just not gonna have time for this. But the one I am gonna shout out is Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred. The Diablo expansion packs, you know, have always been good and they've always added a ton of new content and they've always rebalanced the game in a way that makes it more engaging and playable. I've heard good things about the recent Diablo 4 update and they're adding a new class,

which they do with – they've always done with these expansions, with these substantial expansions. So that's a reason for me to have optimism in that like this being a thing that brings me back in a little bit, because that's been the thing about Diablo 4, as much as I loved it, just a very fun single player campaign, playing it through once, it was not the sort of thing

that kept me coming back the way that Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 did for repeated playthroughs. But with Diablo, it's always like, they kind of seem to iterate on it and figure it out and iron out the kinks and publicly kind of play test it over a period of time and then figure out they drop something, they drop some new system, they add a new thing like rune words or just a new character class that completely rebalances everything and that brings some new life into it.

So I'm optimistic that's what's gonna happen with the vessel of hatred. I also, I forgot, I'll look up what the name of the class is. I forgot what it is, but it's kind of like a Beastmaster sort of class. It's like a very distinct thing beyond what they've done in the past. So it's like, oh, I like that they're trying something new

instead of just bringing back another iteration of like a paladin or whatever, you know. I'm gonna have to get back in there for that. And unfortunately, I must say, something new instead of just bringing back another iteration of like a paladin or whatever, you know. I'm gonna have to get back in there for that. And unfortunately, I must say, I am excited for Call of Duty Black Ops 6. And I've never been excited for one of those games, but I feel like I am gonna play that one for some reason. Spiritborn is the name of the character.

Spiritborn, apex predator of the jungle. So sorry, go. Why? Is it because it's the 9-11 one? I think it's because it's finally now based in a time that I've lived in. I know nothing about it other than the rumor that 9-11 was a playable level. I think, I know for sure Bill Clinton is in it,

and I think Saddam Hussein might be in it as well oh So that would mean that the end of the game would be 9-eleven. Oh yeah, that's a little yeah the post credits right? That's I probably I don't know if I'll actually play it if it's off on game past day one Maybe I will but uh I will watch any memes that come about from the cutscenes. That's what I'll be making. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll make sure that if I do play it, I send you some homemade ones. November, the thing that I'm looking forward,

well, there's actually a couple big ones in here, actually. Mario and Luigi Brothership. I don't know about these Mario and Luigi games, but the word brothership is funny. I'll say this. know I played some of the Mario and Luigi's back in the day if you did the paper Mario's aren't clicking for you I don't know I'm not gonna like Luigi it's the same sort of thing it's got a little bit of a different tone and a little bit of a

different gameplay but it is fundamentally a Mario RPG well then I honestly probably won't jump straight into that or I probably won't I'll probably skip that one But Dragon Quest 3 HD 2d yeah, maybe the most excited I am for a game this year. Yeah Yes, I'm so excited about that And it's gonna come out when we're like at our saddest It's gonna save us in the same way the Animal Crossing New Horizons saved us. Yeah.

We're gonna be so happy to like just disappear into Dragon Quest. Yeah, I'm excited about that. As I'm sadly dropping off my RFK Junior for President shirt at Goodwill. Oh well, maybe next time. You go to schedule your appointment to get your brain worm removed.

He ate a dog! It's so insane, well, I'm not gonna get into it. It's so funny that he's the third funniest one. And then also, Assassin's Creed Shadows looks pretty cool. And then also Assassin's Creed Shadows looks pretty cool. Yeah, what better time to play a game that has been lambasted as woke politics than to sit in on November's release of Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Who do you think you're gonna play as? Samurai or ninja? I really feel like I've gotten my fair share of the samurai playthrough with Ghost of Tsushima, and I know it'll be different. I'm kind of more interested in the stealth, you know, shinobi style of gameplay, because I miss the ten chus.

I miss the, you know, those types of games. I'm gonna get that samurai and axe and I'm gonna just hay make my way through that. You're just gonna play evil? A couple more I'll shout out just because I don't think this will actually come out in 2024, but Wolf Among Us 2 is a, I love the first Wolf Among Us

and if that one's anything like the first game, I mean, it'll be a. I adore whenever it ultimately launches another game is a this is one of those ones where I've had the original on my on my Wish list and now the sequels coming out enough time has passed so that one's just like you know lingered in my backlog but frostpunk 2 Just sort of like a strategy game about surviving in an apocalyptic frozen world besieged by the undead. That likely, it just looks like extremely my shit.

I just never got around to playing the first one. But maybe I'll play the sequel or maybe that will give me reason to play the first one. But the other one I wanted to shout out just because it's an interesting game to exist and we rarely talk about sports games on here, and I'm a bit of, I'm the resident sporto here. EA Sports College Football 25 is coming out this month. In fact, I think it might be out by the time this episode releases as well.

This is a franchise that has been on ice for over a decade. What happened with the college football franchise is there was a lawsuit against the NCAA that ultimately went all the way to the Supreme Court. This was again, was something that was based off of athlete licenses because NCAA athletes for the longest time were unpaid while the organization and all the schools made billions of dollars of revenue off of their labor. They were also monetizing it from the standpoint of licensing their likenesses for things like video games.

So all of these athletes were being digitally recreated in video games. Sometimes there was some plausible liability where they would be given different names or being given numbers instead of their names so that you couldn't actually say one-to-one, this is who this guy is. But if you check their stats and their character models, they were clearly meant to be an analog of a specific player. And so that ended up being decided ultimately in the player's favor. That has completely changed the economics of college athletics these days where now

players who are actively in school are making, thankfully, a substantial amount of money, oftentimes a very good living off of being able to play these sports while still in school. So because this has been resolved, this is now a thing because they figured out the financial side of it. Now they can make these video games again. This is the return of a beloved franchise. A lot of people liked it a lot better than the Madden games. And I think it's just great to have it back

and I'll be curious to see how it's received. You know, there was a time where I liked playing like football video games. Football video games can be very fun. They're really fun. Yeah, they're fun, yeah. The problem is Madden has such a stranglehold on the industry because they own the NFL license

and there hasn't really been a lot of innovation, unfortunately, so. I really liked. This game's gotten really stagnant and buggy. I liked NFL 2K. Yeah. 05 was the one that I had. And I really, really loved it.

I could be interested in playing the college football game. Why not? That'd be fun if that was a thing that you and I both got super into. We got so into it. Don't know, couldn't tell you right now if there was a gun to my head the name of a college football team.

Notre Dame. Ha ha ha ha. Click. Okay, okay. Click I Mean not that much coming out. I'm sure there's other ones who might be a surprise who knows But some interesting games coming out for the rest of year I think and I think some really cool stuff to look forward to yeah I can't wait to not play most of the games I mentioned yeah Which ones will I play I didn't even mention the the Zelda game. Yeah echoes of wisdom. I'm for sure gonna play echoes of wisdom

You might skip it to to woke for you. Yeah There's like an epic Mickey remake too, right? Yeah, that was a game that I was interested in and never played I wonder if it it's yeah, I mean, it's always a really cool looking game. So Mickey's back Mickey. Mickey might be back. He's back and of course, they keep saying that the Metal Gear Solid Delta snake eaters coming out this year, but There's simply no way that I don't think it's coming out. It's July my mice that you know We'll see but my my thought is it's it's we're already halfway through the year If a release date has not been announced that games not coming out this year know, we'll see. But my, my thought is it's, it's we're already halfway through the year. If a release date has not been announced, that game's not coming out this year, but we'll see.

Oh, hey, it's time for the question block. All right, these are all sourced from our Discord, discord.gg slash get played. Get in there. Here we go. This first one's from uberhorse753. Fuck yeah, what a name. Uberhorse.

Uberhorse. You get an Equestrian Uber service? Nick. You get an app to get a horse? Pick you up. Fuck dude. Pretty cool. Can you fucking imagine?

That would be really cool. Has anybody ridden a horse in the last like five years? I have not. No. I rode one within that amount of time and I felt like I was who I was always supposed to be. Wow. I loved being on a horse.

It was awesome. It was so great. They're fun but terrifying. They're very, very scary. They're too big. Yeah, they're way too big. They're too big. I had to work with a horse once.

I had to act with a horse. I don't really act much to begin with, but it was like a sort of thing. You were the back half, right? Yeah. It was a real horse. First of all, these things are big as shit. Yeah, they're huge. But then in the bit I had to like grab the horse's mouth

and like pull its face towards me. And I was like, I was certain I would be killed. It was so fucking terrifying. We shot a sketch with a horse, a live horse, and the bit hinged on the horse being inside of a house. And so we led this horse into a Los Angeles home and had it in the living room. And nothing makes a horse look even larger

than seeing it in the context of human-sized objects. Frightening. It's like Gandalf in the Shire. If a horse got into your house, you'd be so fucked. It would be a nightmare. Yeah. We gotta move. Ranch, have you ever ridden a horse?

Not that I can remember. With a name like Ranch. I think you remember that. Yeah. Two very good points. Yeah. I don't think I've written a word somewhere. I will say I did it when I was in Hawaii

a couple years ago and I really loved it. We went down to Waipio Valley and they took us on a tour of, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. It was unbelievable. They did pull me aside and they're like, okay, so your horse is more afraid

than all the other horses. And I was like, why would you tell me that and why am I doing this one I said I've never done this before the guy that led us was like the craziest man I've ever met and I loved him and I think about him constantly because he was just a real just like a lunatic this guy, but he was really great. Anyway, Uber Horse writes, you get to make a video game about a snack slash drink a la Pepsi Man and the Chex game. Which do you choose and what type of game is it?

This is a great question. I think, you know, a Chex quest comes to mind and we were talking mascot platformers earlier, and I think you wanted that the one thing that I always like in a mascot platformer is characters that control differently, like that have their own mechanics, like the Donkey Kong Country

or the Banjo-Kazooies of the world. I think if you centered something around Snap, Crackle, and Pop, some sort of Rice Krispies treat adventure a Rice Krispies adventure Yeah, that could be a lot of fun. You could live in the world of breakfast. They could eat each have their own unique attributes And I think there's just a lot of you know A lot of fun obstacles you could come up with involving giant bowls and rivers of milk. I got Really just those two things. I guess. Guy's always talking about rivers of milk.

He loves that as a phrase and like an idea. We've had to edit it out of so many episodes. He's always talking, he's always trying to get rivers of milk in there. I just think a flowing river of milk would be really like cool to see and swim through. I have an alt for your idea. Yeah.

But it's a broader idea. And I do think that we need to mail alt for your idea. Yeah. But it's a broader idea and I do think that we need to mail this episode to ourselves. Okay. Because I think this is a good idea. It's a serial racer. Serial mascot racer. That's good. That's fun. I think you could also make that into a party fighting game. Oh yeah. It's another way you're like a platform fighter. That's a whole, that's, and also I do, do I have been thinking about this I think maybe you've said something similar to that this too. Maybe you put this idea in my head Why are the M&Ms only in the commercials? Why aren't we doing more? We should be doing more with the M&Ms

I I want to I want to I want to expand the purview of this game that we're pitching Okay, and I want it to be a party fighting game. Yeah. But I don't want it to be limited to cereal mascots. I want it to be lit. I want it to be food mascots. Okay. So you can have a star kiss tuna guy Captain Crunch versus Ronald McDonald. Yeah. Versus like, but all of them. Chester Cheetah. Yeah. Yeah. The Pringles guy. Yeah. All of them. The Wolf from Cookies Crisp. Yeah.

Cookies? Cookies? The Wolf from Cookies Crisp. Count Chocula. Yeah, they're all there, but also the M&Ms are there. Because I do think there should be an M&M like it's there should be an M&Ms movie There should be an M&Ms video game a theme park. They they gotta be all over the place They should be everywhere. Have we seen in a commercial the M&Ms are people-sized, right? I think I mean they're at least half Santas

They're not okay, so so they are like and Santos like probably like 510. So then they're like Pokemon sized Yeah Depending on the Pokemon of course. I just didn't know if it was canonical that they were M&M size or if they're like Pokemon sized Yeah, I think that depending on the Pokemon of course I just didn't know if it was canonical that they were M&M sized or if they're like larger They're freaks Yeah, they're closer to people size They're like Sonic sized Oh, okay great

So there was a commercial now where one of them just like has a job I was like what? What is this world? See I like to see more of that what's going on? The polar bears from Coca-Cola I saw I saw an ad of one a still ad a photo of the purple M&M grilling a hot dog And I was like this M&M's gonna eat the fucking hot dog Yeah, so how does it stand so close to the grill without melting for that shell it only melts in your mouth not in your hand But grill is hotter than my mouth

We've maybe talked about this, but the packaging for the caramel M&Ms is downright disturbing when you think of the world that's been created. Yes. Because it's two M&Ms, two sentient-limbed M&Ms, and they are pulling apart a third M&M to reveal its caramel interior. Like they're fucking Homelander or something.

Yeah, they just dismembered like someone who betrayed the tribe or whatever. It was fucking horrifying. Or they're kind of saying like he's not a real one he's got caramel inside. Yeah, yeah. Um, tricks rabbit stealth game. This next one is from... Yeah, maybe Ronnie Paper Towel Mascot Assist Trophy. I don't know, you could figure it out. Uh, here's the thing the thing, all the best mascots are serial ones, because every serial has one, so there's just so many serial ones. It's true, yeah, you gotta have one

because you're appealing it to kids. Maybe a Paul Newman video game? I'd love to have Paul Newman in there, why not? He's for sure in there, he's the final boss. Yeah, there's definitely also a generation that's like, that guy's an actor? Yeah. Like it's like finding out that Quaker Oats guy

was like in silent films or something. He's like, what? He was your grandma's favorite actor? This next one is from Forest L. And Forest L writes, Metroid orvania? What? Is the question-

The phrase Metroidvania, right? Yeah, you got Castlevania or the Metroid franchise, is that the question? I'm guessing that's sort of what the question isvania? Yeah, you're too. Yeah Castlevania or or the Metroid franchise is that the question? I'm guessing that's sort of what the question is Castlevania Castlevania interesting I've go Metroid because I think they're still making good Metroids I don't feel I think it's been just such a long time since it's been a good proper Castlevania I've never played a Castlevania game really with any real seriousness I've like maybe dabbled with like level one or whatever some I think Metroid is is a top five franchise.

The other thing is that there isn't a great 3D Castlevania, but there are some really, really good 3D Metroids. But yeah, that's tough. I don't wanna get rid of either. I don't wanna do it either, but those are the rules. One's gotta go. One's gotta go. I guess they don't have to go. You're just stating our preference. Yeah. That's also like a tough portmanteau for Castlevania because you only get half of the

Castlevania be it all of the Metroid. Yeah. That is... It'd be fair if it was like Metvania. Well, not really because Vanania is a longer word. The whole thing is tough, and we hate to see it. This next one's from Level2Wizard. Love that. Great name. What's your favorite F tier character in any media? Like, who is the scrappy you enjoy?

Dan in Street Fighter. F tier character, one of the best. I think I'm gonna say this, and if you're gonna be mad about it, I think it's fine. Luigi? That's insane, I am mad about it. F tier? I agree with you, Matt.

I think Luigi is just- But I also don't like him. I like Luigi, but there's he's not Mario I guess he has he's a star. He's a star of his own games. Dan doesn't isn't the star of a spin-off game It's unfair That Dan doesn't have his own game I agree I'd say then in the Mario world F tier I like

What's the fucking guy? The wizard? Birdo, Birdo. Birdo's pretty good. Birdo's cool. Birdo's cool. If we're going there, I think of the Koopalings. I really like Morton Koopa Jr. Morton Koopa Jr. is really good.

Because he is based off of a talk show host that no one remembers. Yeah. That people don't even know who Morton Downey Jr. is. Do you mean Robert Downey Jr.? Like, no, there was a big guy, there was a dude in the 80s who had an obnoxious talk show where he smoked all the time.

I don't remember this. And he wasn't even like a top tier, he was like an F tier talk show host. And then he made a parody of him in a Mario game and he's continued to be canon for like 30 years. That's pretty good. Since it's been expanded to all media, I wonder if this is when you'll even, And then he made a parody of him in a Mario game and he's continued to be canon for like 30 years. That's pretty good. Since it's been expanded to all media,

I wonder if this is one you'll even know, Matt, but there's a Simpsons character I think of a lot who's in one character, is in one episode, Big Shirtless Ron. You're Big Shirtless Ron? It is not a shock to me that this one is not far from your mind. It's the hayseed. That wasn't a website, it's in his saved photos. It is not a shock to me that this one is not far from your mind

Wasn't a website it's in his safe As my lock screen It's it's just a big it's a shirtless guy stand in front of a hay sack with like a like You know like a garden hoe over his shoulder and the joke is that his name is big shirtless Ron They show up they point and they look at him. I like it here in all media. Yeah. You know what?

I wonder if this is still considered F-tier, but I always liked Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2, and he was a character that at the time that game came out, everyone was like, fuck this guy, this sucks, this game is a betrayal. We hate him, he's a whiny little bitch, but I always found like he was like an interesting character. I like him rock Lee from Naruto Arguably is an F tier character, but he is also an a tier character, so I'd throw Rock Lee in there He's the only ninja in the Naruto world that can't use ninjutsu But he's fucking amazing. How about the the psychiatrist from Terminator the Terminator franchise?

The weird creep who doesn't believe Linda Hamilton He's got the like Mike will not make well Drano Drano. Yeah, it's David s pumpkins is my answer. Any questions? See, I said it as a joke, but then you said it and now I'm laughing. That's the thing, I was like- It's pretty good. I just watched, I was just talking about David S. Pumpkins and we just like watched it a while back and it was like, we're laughing.

I was like, it's funny. It's funny, it's good. It's, see, the thing about it that sucks is that annoying people really love it. Exactly. But it is really good Yeah, so well, that's that's a problem with all like super successful comedy like you're the borats and Austin powers the world And finally this last one is from the odd tech and they write if you can only play one genre of games for the rest Of your lives. What would it be? I'd probably pick arcade style racers or metroidvanias

This came to me and my answer might shock you I don't know if it'll shock you it shocked me because it was the first thing I thought of JRPGs mad I'm shocked just knowing your gaming have yeah I feel like but I know I guess you do like those big beef I've become it's especially in the last year and a half or so I've become really really into them and There's just so much. There's just so much variety. There's they're long you could spend a lot of time with them the rest of your life would go by pretty quick I think you know my answer was the same really because if I could only play one kind of game for the rest of my life I don't

want it to be a battle royale game no because I would love to like stories and games are so important to me But also fortnight takes up so much of my time Yeah That if I could only play one kind of game it would force that game out of my ability to play Yeah, and so my my chosen Genre would be JRPG. This is tricky If we can't generalize it to RPG and I feel like since you both specifically gone to JRPG,

that would be a cheat to just say like I get all RPGs. So like of the RPGs, I would probably lean more towards the PC RPG Western style of RPG where you're more likely to have character creation. There tends to be a lot more consequential choices, it feels like there's a lot more replayability. As much as I do enjoy JRPGs, I just feel like if I'm playing one thing for the rest of my life, just the endless replayability of that style of RPG would really be something. But there's also part of me that thinks about all the hours I've sunk into, for instance, the civilization

franchise and just having strategy games. That's another thing. It can replay endlessly and just makes the hours melt away. So that's another possibility, but I think where I'm going to land is like a farming sim. I honestly think just like the idea of being able to, you know, if we're including things like an animal crossing, like a Stardew Valley, one of my favorite games ever, these are again games that I can play again and again.

I can play different ways. There's a soothing aspect to them. There's very often a social aspect to them, which is like huge. A lot of times they have a story, which is great. Sometimes it's a little threadbare, but it's enough to keep me going. And it has a bunch of different meditative aspects and calming aspects that I just kind of crave in a game. But I would miss having some challenges and some action.

So that's tough. Aaron Ross Powell Get in the starter, you get in those caves, that's a little action for you. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, there's some action there. I don't know. That's a tricky. That's a. Getting started, you get in those caves, that's a little action for you. There's a little bit of, yeah, there's some action there. I don't know. That's a tricky, that's a tough one. Limiting yourself to one genre. Do you have to answer the question?

This is a question block. Yeah, I think that's where I'd land. Farming Sim. Yeah, I think that's what it's like. Wow! That is not a choice I would make. Well, that's what makes us great. We picked the right ones and Nick picked wrong.

If I knew that Battle Royale games were going to exist for the rest of my life and have a player base, I might pick Battle Royale games. But I'd be worried that I'd be like, oh I'm gonna pick Fortnitenight Final Fantasy first soldier yeah apex Like overwatch all that shit. I guess overwatch isn't a battle royale game But like that that I'd be worried that in like ten years the genre would be dead And then I would have no games you'd be in a sort of time enough at last

Situation yeah the last player yeah I feel like one thing that one thing that I like about Farming Sims is that we've seen this genre iterated upon and we've seen like things like Cult of the Lamb or, you know, Dave the Diver even, which have added some like more like roguelite elements to it that make it just kind of feel a little bit, you know, more like extensive and remixed versus the ones that kind of follow the same template. So I feel like there's still like this, what the genre, what defines the genre is kind of widening a little bit. And I think if I commit to that, it's going to go in some really interesting directions.

So Dave the Diver is a farming sim? I think you can make the argument that it could be. Yeah, absolutely. You're farming the ocean for fish, aren't you? But I guess the questioner is probably the ultimate arbiter of what qualifies, so I don't know, maybe they don't get Dave the Diver in that situation.

The questioners are not allowed to tell us if we answered their question correctly. That is a rule. Do we get mods, is that part of it? Like game mods? Yeah, can I download, like if I commit to the genre but I can get mods? Yeah, you can do exposed hog mods.

Yeah, do whatever you want. Whatever's gonna make you play the game. All right, great, perfect. I can see Pierre's hog in Stardew Valley. That's it for the question block. Thanks for writing in. And I guess, Nick, that's this week's Get Played. That is this week's Get Played. That's it for the question block. Thanks for writing in. And I guess, Nick, that's this week's Get Played.

That is this week's Get Played. Matt, our producers Rochelle Chen, Ranch, yard underscore, underscore, sard. Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-Headgum back catalog plus ad-freefree main feed episodes, and our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated. Matt, what are we doing this week? Well, Nick, we're actually wrapping up

Mobile Suit Gundam, the 8th MS team. We're watching the final two episodes of that series, and then we'll be moving on to something else. And I got to tell you, I'm going to miss this show. It's a very, very good show if you haven't been watching along with us. I've really enjoyed this show. I mean, people will hear what we say about it, It's a very, very good show if you haven't been watching along with us. I've really enjoyed this show.

I mean, people will hear what we say about it, but I was pretty positive on the finale. I have not been fucking around for the last two years. No. I guess what I've learned so far is that I should listen to Heather. Gundam is good. I'm wearing a Gundam shirt right now.

You have a Gundam bag? I've got a Gundam bag. I've got two Gundam bags. I've got a Gundam bag inside of a Gundam bag right there. Wow. And I just, I love Gundam. And if you listen to Get Animated, you'll understand why. Patreon.com slash get played.

You can listen to that and our archive of Get Animated episodes we go. Hmm. Who got played this? I'll tell you who's getting played the upcoming releases of calendar year 2024 Hopefully right if we can if we can get them and play them if we have time to play the games Yeah, well, it's weird about that. Nick was that you said it to an imaginary audience that wasn't mad and I Well, it's cuz I didn't want to make eye contact with either Yeah, you're playing it to like the back of the room, but we're both sitting right next to you

of the room but we're both sitting right next to you. That was a hate gum podcast.