Get Played - Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick watched and discuss the new documentary Hideo Kojima: Connected Worlds. They talk about how all the celebrity interviews, how nice it is to Kojima, and play another round of Would You Blathers! 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.

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Yeah, we're rolling. Okay, awesome. Before we get started, I just have this little... Y'all don't know about this, but I have this little side project I've been working on and I want everyone to be a part of it. Oh, wow. So I actually, I sent you all, if you check your email, I sent you all some VO, uh, that I just want to record and then I'll just edit this into, you know, this project.

But, um, yeah, we can just grab these lines right now while we're in studio. Okay. So, uh, I'll go, I'll go first. Okay. Awesome. Great. Among podcasters, he's like michael jordan combined with shakespeare multiplied by einstein perfect great oh you just okay just do it loose yeah just do yeah we could just go one at one and one at a time so matt that was great

heather you've got a line too sorry he Sorry. He's the funniest, smartest, coolest guy I've ever met. And he's ripped. I wish he was my dad. I love that one. And then, Rochelle, if you don't mind, there's actually a line for you here. Oh, me too? Yeah. He's not just my boss.

He's also my hero. Awesome. Those are great. We got that one. Okay, moving on. What is this? It's just a little thing I'm working on. You know, I'd love to share it with you when we're finished.

Nick, are these lines about you? Is that what these are? I mean, yeah. I thought these were just like loose lines or like ad reads or something. Are these supposed to be about you? Well, yeah, they're wild lines. You know, that's what the term would be for just a random line of VO you're grabbing. But yeah, they're about lines. You know, that's what the term would be for just a random line of VO you're grabbing. But yeah, they're about me.

The subject is me. You wouldn't rather us like say how we actually how we actually like feel about you. You had to like write down these like sort of. I figured I'd save everyone some time and some headache and just sort of like write down what you would say. And then I don't wish you were my dad. Yeah, I don't. I don't. If so, like, we don't need to roll on this. We don't need to record this one thing. I just I mean, like, I don't know you were my dad. Yeah. I don't want, I don't, if, so like, We don't need to roll on this.

We don't need to record this part. One thing, I just, I mean, like, I don't know if you're ripped. I never want to know. But like, I don't want to imply that I wish you were my dad. I don't want that. No, and you know, I think it's, you know, I think you're a great podcaster,

but Michael Jordan, Shakespeare, Einstein. Are you making a documentary or is there one being made about you? What is the context for this? there one being made about you what is the context for this it's being made about me are you by me you're making it yeah it's what the self-author was against the law what do we live in china no no no no it's not against the law okay and we know we live in the land of the freehold with a brave uh the united states of amer. You can do whatever you want, but... Sure can. I just think it's a little... What's the word?

Crass? Gauche? Sus? Sus? It's certainly sus. Okay. To say the least, it's sus. It gives me the gibbies.

I'm getting major ick from this. Who is going to watch this, Nick? Who is the intended audience? Because I think that as a friend and a light fan of yours, if I saw this, I'd be put off. I'd be upset. Yeah, yeah. I'd want to take a shower and change my clothes if I saw this footage.

Yeah, I know. It doesn't feel really good. And, you know, I know Rochelle is like sort of newer to the operation, and I don't want to speak for her, but I don't think you're her hero. Yeah. Sorry, Nick. Okay. All right.

Fine. Fair enough. Hold on. I actually misread mine. Uh-huh. Can I just take it again? Yeah, please. It originally said Einstein.

That's what I said. Uh-huh. But I actually misread it. Among podcasters, he's like Michael Jordan combined with Shakespeare and multiplied by Epstein. I misspoke. I misspoke. No, you actually, no, you misspoke the first time.

No, this is, that's the line. Yeah, the first time I got it wrong. This time was correct. Okay, I actually have no problem with mine now. I think that's okay. What does it mean released directly to toilet? We animate our childhoods and hear extensively from Woodkid as we discuss Hulu documentary Hideo Kojima, Connecting Worlds, 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 Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we are talking about a documentary available on Hulu about podcast favorite subject Hideo Kojima in a documentary entitled Hideo Kojima Connecting Worlds. Normally we cover video games. Sometimes we cover video game adjacent stuff. I'd say this fits right in the middle because it is kind of a documentary about the making of Death Stranding, but also kind of a documentary about the man. So we are certainly fans of this O'Toole game maker. But yeah,

this, this doc, I have certainly my own thoughts on. And Hey, if you want to check out some of those older episodes, all of those are available ad free on our get played. Patreon, patreon.com slash get played.

Also our entire back catalog. Plus our mainline episodes, our new episodes are now available ad free day of release. So you can hear this episode and all subsequent episodes ad free Patreon dot com slash get played.

You can either get that bundled with get animated or on its own if you just want the video game content. I love. Can I just say, yeah, I love business up top.

This was all good stuff. It was a natural fit for it. This was great. We thought it right in there. We're doing really, we're doing really, really good. Yeah, sure.

If somebody was making a documentary about us, people would say they did a really, really good job doing the episode of this podcast. Should we,

here's a question for everybody because we are recording this particular episode right before the release of Rebirth, so we haven't gotten a chance to play it yet, but I think we are all planning on playing it. Should we slot in another WePlayYouPlay for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the end of March? Does that sound like a thing we want to do, or do we not want to commit to that fully? Does that sound like a thing we want to do or do we not want to commit to that fully? Look, I'm going to be playing it. And my job ends in like, I think literally two weeks from today. So there has never been a better time for me to play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. But I have all of April off.

So it could be also the end of april and that would give people time to play it without cramming in all 500 hours of content into a single few weeks is it 500 hours that can't be right i think it will be if you walk everywhere which is what i'm gonna do i'm gonna walk everywhere very slowly well, why don't we, we'll table it. We'll come back to it and we'll decide when we're going to do the timing of that. But I think we are going to do an episode about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at some point TBD.

And we'll certainly be talking about it, touching on it as we get some time with it. But unfortunately, the Monday after the game's release, we don't have any thoughts for it because recording just in advance. I played the demo a little bit. Yeah. What'd you think of the game's release. We don't have any thoughts for it because we're recording just in advance. I played the demo a little bit. Yeah. What'd you think of the demo? Good. The demo section, they released two sections.

They released the Nibelheim section where it's the flashback sequence in the original game. And if you play the demo version of it before Rebirth comes out, your progress transfers to that so you don't have to replay that section

again right and it looked cool it was awesome like having just played it recently the original it's interesting to see the game represented in this way now because you do recognize the things that are you know obviously very similar and then the things that are are you know maybe a little different or a little different but uh then they released the desert area. What was that called? Ju-on or something? But your progress there doesn't track because they blocked some stuff off

to keep it for the demo only because they don't want to spoil anything in the demo, I guess. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm very, very excited. I have tomorrow off. Wow. And as of recording, it comes out tomorrow. Launch day.

I got some things to do. 9 p.m. tonight, PST, as of recording, it comes out tomorrow. Launch day. Yeah. I got some things to do. 9 p.m. tonight, PST, as of record. I'm picking up a physical copy from a local retailer. You could start playing. But that's all I have to say about it for now. Wow. I want to talk about the, as of this week, controversial decision to change the ending of Remake when it was updated.

They changed it from what I played. Yes. Interesting. They changed it from what I played. Yes. Interesting. They changed it from what I played, too. Wow. They must have changed it from what I played because I finished it before this update. Yeah.

So this update came out this week and they changed Aerith's final line, which has a lot of the community up in arms because their original line was, I miss it, the steel sky. I miss it, the steel sky. About looking up and seeing Midgar above you. And now she says, this sky, I don't like it.

Interesting. Do we know, was just the translation changed or was the original Japanese dialogue altered? It's the translation. Got it. The dialogue was not changed. And some people have said, well, it's more accurate. But other people are like, but it loses the flavor.

Yeah, it's a little less artful. Yeah. It's like it's that that's the whole thing with localization. It's like, how do you. Yeah. So, yeah, sometimes the most direct thing doesn't actually reflect they should have changed it to the idea is this guy this guy fucking sucks bad sky shoot a gun at the sky i don't have any feelings about it when I hear about that change, but people, I guess, people are so obsessed with the minutia of a thing. Versus the original manga release, manga being the distribution company, where they changed it to I'm so fucked up, which people were upset about because Shinji shouldn't be saying fucked up.

I'm so fucked up. But yeah, I don't have any feelings about that. I also don't have any feelings about the mimetic quality of Tifa's swimsuit that has been going viral on X.com. She got big old boobies and they're in a bikini. I haven't seen this. Yeah, let me, Matt and I are going to take a look on this real quick, just like. Just so I can know whether or not to be mad. It was posted by the Italian government. I'm sure it's, you guys, it's made the news. This is our new president.

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Let's talk about some video games we've been playing. What are you playing? What are you playing? Nick, why don't you go first? I'm happy to go first, although I do want to check in because I'm going to talk about Baldur's Gate 3 a little bit, even though we talked about it. But I want to check in with our producer, Rochelle, because Rochelle, you weren't here for our record. You did edit that behemoth of an episode. Has it gotten you, has it provoked you to return to your BG3 playthrough? It has. Wow.

I have been playing for the last two evenings. Wow. Wow. Where are you at right now in the game? You're in Act 3, right? I just met Laroquen.

Okay, okay. Or I actually just killed Laroquen. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. All right. With the Eight of the Night song. There you go.

I just did that. Wow. I don't know. Did any of you have to do that one i did yes and i it's it's actually like i think the i'm that's what that's it's one of those things where even if you do like the like good option quote unquote good option it still makes you feel like a little weird right like it's kind of it's pretty gristly yeah um and then what i liked about that uh laroican section is that there's like the the

arcane vault that you get into that's part of it too yes did you find the genie i didn't know i didn't find a genie there's a this is i did not find this on my first playthrough it's like talked about in like one of the texts someplace that there is a there's a hidden wall behind a chest it looks like it's that there's just a chest there, but you can just phase through the wall. You can just walk through it, and then that leads you to a lamp, and if you talk to the lamp, you can get sucked inside of it,

and there's a genie you can talk to. But what's crazy about it is just like, yeah, first off, it's completely buried, and it's got all this dialogue, and it's so just totally a secret, but also there's a remix of the main theme as like a waltz that I think only plays within the genie's

lamp. Wow. So it's like that in and of itself is like it's own secret. Yeah. It's just so layered. I love a genie. I love it too. They're a lot of fun. They're fun. And they're fun in the game. There's a couple of them. But the genie in this is actually the Will Smith genie and he does slap you. Yeah.

He slaps the shit out of you. Are you having fun with it? Are you back in the swing of it? I am. I'm back in now. I'm back in. Are you going to see it through to the end? I have to. I love that. I have to. I know it's probably another hundred hours for me, but I have to. I think you're in the final stretch. I'm glad that editing

a three hour podcast didn't ruin the joy of the game for you. So as far as what I've been playing, I'll be brief here because I've shared so many thoughts about this game. But I spent like an hour just looking at Game Pass and looking at my Steam library last week. I consciously took basically a week off from when i stopped playing balder's gate for the like i finished that last playthrough and i just like i'm just gonna walk away from this game for a little bit and do something else with my life and then i was looking at like you know a game pass and looking at my steam library for like an hour just browsing

just having like you know decision fatigue and analysis paralysis, whatever your idiom you want to use, trying to pick what to play. And I was just like, what am I doing? I want to play more Baldur's Gate 3. So I loaded up Baldur's Gate 3 and I started an honor mode dark urge playthrough. And here's what I'll say. I really like the dark urge. I feel like it's like a really interesting way to play for people who aren't familiar with it, what it basically is. And it's another thing that just like everything in this game is like they did not have to do this. But they added another origin character who it's you can customize their look however you like. But the idea is that this character basically has an inner monologue that is compelling them to do psychopathic acts.

basically has an inner monologue that is compelling them to do psychopathic acts. And throughout it, you have you can choose whether to go go along with it or to, you know, find yourself like denying it. I did. Those are both options. But it is stuff that's like really harshly violent and like pretty much immediately insane. Like within that first like prologue area you're getting dark urge uh you know specific content like there's a part where you go to there's there's a few passengers that are like hooked up to the mind flayer pods and they're just basically comatose and while

you're uh while you're next to them if you examine one of them you get a line about like uh you see yourself lying on an operating table, innards spilled everywhere. Like you don't remember your name, but like you just know that you could like it's so like it's so it's such a specific like amnesiac with a haunted past sort of playthrough that also like leads you to do really, really violent acts. Some of them involving party members who you've maybe gotten to know over the course of a playthrough. So all that said, the character I made was a halfling abjuration wizard named Meryl Buttonwillow, a little cutie. And I wanted to play, you know, one of the dark urge content, just like the visual that I picked for my character. And then also just like the halfling specific dialogue, which is also presented to you, you know, because there's still there's darker specific stuff, but there's still like race specific stuff, class specific stuff um so you know like uh like the dark urge is telling me to like rip off the wings of a wounded bird uh and then the halfling side of me is saying like uh well gee can't we sit down with a pot of tea and talk this out you know it's like both these things are happening and i'm going

there i was like this just feels like a like a tough thing to role play i just like i can't i don't feel like these elements are quite coexisting so i played through it i did like the honor mode part a lot i love that you're you're committed to one save i love that you can fail a role and feel like fuck well i'm stuck with that yeah and i love the uh the tension of combat like it's just like like i had to flee combat for the first time just to survive wow because i was i was like i not that i had that i was like i'm gonna have a total party wipe and this will be the end of my playthrough unless I just literally run away. I love that feeling of tension. But I think just the specific character I picked, I decided to re-roll. So, you know, I played that for under 10 hours and then I'm just starting anew with another character.

But a darker genre mode playthrough is next on the list um with another with another fresh start uh so yeah kind of a false start there but still loved what i experienced um that's what i've been playing uh heather matt what about you so i haven't gone back to balder's gate now that the mandate is up uh it what it's just funny to be called a. And I do, having listened to the episode, you did say, I'm going to continue playing this even when we're finished. Yeah. But it's been a short week. It's been a week.

And I've started the final stage of treatment. So I've been really busy for the last week. But I'm now in radiation treatment which is a you know the final zone before i am cleared for takeoff again uh and so yeah i haven't i've i've uh played some fortnight um the season is coming to an end that's all i've been able to play uh for the last week and I don't want to belabor my, my experience with Fortnite this week because, you know, there's gotta be other things to talk about.

So I'm super excited about playing Final Fantasy VII, but also fearful for what I will be talking about during the, what are we playing segments for the month? Should we decide to do Final Fantasy VII as our WePlayYouPlay? That's all I've been playing. How about you, Matt? Well, I had a busy weekend. And a busy video gaming weekend, not that I had a lot of things to do.

I had nothing to do. I had a very light weekend. So I stayed indoors all weekend. Made a dent in my couch. There you go. And I finished up Final Fantasy VII Remake. fantasy 7 remake loved it rolled credits on that immediately went straight into uh the intermission dlc where you play as yuffie finished that loved that how long is that dlc i didn't play it it's like four or five hours it's not very i should play it's really long, and it fucking rocks. The Yuffie gameplay is so much fun.

Really, really great. And then I went, like I said earlier, I did the demo for Rebirth. And so now I'm all caught up to the present, Final Fantasy VII-wise. I guess I haven't played Dirge of Cerberus, and I guess I haven't played Crisis Core. But, you know, those will be for another day.

That's ancillary content. I don't think you need to worry about that. No, no, no. Well, be careful. Somebody might say, you absolutely need to, but I'm not. Look, I'm just like a- You're not being a completionist. I'm just being a chill guy about this.

I think it's, Matt, I think it's remarkable that you went back and played vanilla Final Fantasy VII, like the original game, all the way through in its entirety. I mean, that's above and beyond. This is, yeah, I mean... And by the way, I say vanilla there, complimentary, because vanilla is a flavor, of course. It's an exotic bean. Exotic bean, yes, thank you.

And... LAUGHTER and uh no i just i have to stop and say that i do also love vanilla vanilla it's so good great flavor it's perfect it's the default for a reason it's a flavor it's so good um vanilla is delicious it's so good um rochelle vanilla vanilla hey let's fucking go. Four vanillas in the chat. We love to see it. But so, yeah, I mean, I felt like, because I was interested in Rebirth, and I was initially interested in Remake, but fell off of it.

But there were things in Remake that if I had not played the original vanilla Final Fantasy VII, I would have been very confused. Yeah, 100%. And been like, what is this? So I'm really happy I would have been very confused. Yeah, 100%. And been like, what is this? So I'm really happy I caught up to the present. Earlier this week, there was a Pokemon Presents on Pokemon Day. And it was like the 25th anniversary of red and green in Japan when this little Presents came out.

It was a little 12-minute presentation, a lot of mobile game stuff, a lot of updates coming to Pokemon Sleep, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Cafe Mix, that type of stuff. One new game announced, Pokemon Legends Z-A. I don't know what the official,

what they're going with, but that's what it is. And just a couple weeks ago with Ashley Esqueda here, I said we were talking about sequels we want. Yes. I was clamoring for another edition in the Pokemon Legends franchise, and

just a short few weeks later, it's announced, and I'm getting it. Dreams can come true. I'm on, like, Hideo Kojima shit, I guess. Yeah. Just sort of willing things into... A soothsayer. A half-prophet. Yeah, I'm on like Hideo Kojima shit, I guess. Yeah. Just sort of willing things into... A soothsayer, a half prophet. Yeah, I'm sort of a...

I'm like Nostradamus with Pokemon games. I'm glad that worked out for you. Yeah, really exciting about that, but it's not coming until 2025. So this year might be a year without a Pokemon release. Wow. A major Pokemon release. And that's remarkable.

That's really something because that means the people working on this game are going to have time to work on it and make sure it's good. I wonder if at all that's reactive to Pal World.

Maybe. I wonder if there was any, like they saw the success of that game and were like, okay, we need to scale this up a little bit. It's that or they just,

I mean, I can't imagine why they wouldn't have announced it at their presents. Because so far, people are saying there's not a major Nintendo release around the holidays, unless there's like a surprise thing later. Right. But who knows? But I'm very, very excited about that. So excited.

It's a sequel, or, you know, it has to do with the area, one of the areas from Pokemon X from the 3DS. And so I dusted off my 2ds booted up pokemon x last night and started a new game on that and i'm already having a blast you can have a nickname you can have your friends give you a nickname and there's like little matt big matt or something or you could pick something yeah so of course i went with m daddy so now every time i see one of my friends in the game, they call me M daddy and it makes me laugh every, it's so funny.

Yeah, that is good. And then I sort of was like, ah, I wish I didn't save. Cause I was like, I wish I could see what I could get away with. Yeah.

But I bet you it's like, you can't put like a swear or something, but that's, that's, that's it for me. So I'm playing in the interim until tomorrow probably. I mean, it's such a classic little kid move. It's like making your initials in the arcade high score or be poo or ass.

It's like just having a funny name for your character. It just really puts a smile on my face. I really loved to see the characters in the world of this game call me M-Daddy. Really, really fun. But yeah, that's it for me until truly tomorrow when I get my hands on my physical copy of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Did you guys go digital or tangible

for your Final Fantasy VII Rebirth orders? I've been doing all tangible for PS5. Every PS5 game I've bought on disc. I PS5 Like every PS5 game I've bought on disc Yeah this generation I'm going physical Because it's probably the last gasp of that I feel like Playstation 6

Xbox Series whatever whatever they're going to call the next generation If there even is a next hardware generation Which is it's own thing I feel like that's all going to be digital only. I don't think there's going to be a Blu-ray drive. You going physical? You downloading it tonight, Heather?

I was going to do something controversial, which is play it digital, because I have more than one PS5 in the house now, because Mary wanted her own PS5. So there's my PS5 in one area and then Mary's PS5 in a different area. And sometimes I like to play on Mary's PS5. And if you have a digital game, it's available on all your accounts across the board. Whereas if you have a tangible game, you have to cart it around with you. you also have to make sure that it's

in the system if you're going to play on the portal can't you know stream without that disc in the system but i also have been thinking about the resale ability and replay ability of tangible goods so i'm wondering if i should get it digitally and then purchase it tangibly and then keep it in, keep it sealed and just put it aside for a future day when either I can't play it digitally because the PS5 is, you know, I'm 80 years old and the systems allowing you to play digital games can't be authenticated or, or, you know, like if there's's like a a world post internet when the emp comes and for some reason my system still works i don't know i'm just i've been i think you're allowed to do that i've been musing on the possibility of purchasing digitally and tangibly but i also

can't justify that cost so i don't know i have done the reverse tangibly i've done like the bought it physically and then purchased digitally like on like i mean on like deeper discount so that way like if i'm playing if i want to play it again i'll have to dig out the disc i could just load up jedi the first jedi one not jedi survivor the other one and fallen kingdom fall yeah jedi fallen order yes yes yes yes because i've got it i got it on digital for like nine dollars or something i was like oh that's just like a that's a no-brainer to me when it's on deep discount is fallen fallen kingdom the jurassic park subtitle is that what fallen kingdom yes yeah yeah man fallen is a

really it's a really it's a really good uh prefix for like fallen empire fallen kingdom yes yeah yeah man fallen is a really it's a really it's a really good uh prefix for like fallen empire fallen kingdom fallen jedi it sounds intense all the time yeah it's good it's a great word i pre-ordered this would have been like in 2011 2012 whenever that game came out i pre-ordered the diablo 3 collectorector's Edition, which is a big boy. It's a big war chest. Actually, when I was ever on video, the times when I've streamed from my home office, it's a part of my tableau in the background. It's a big honking war chest that I never opened. And I did that.

I wasn't planning on reselling it. I was just like, I don't mind buying a Diablo game twice because this is a game I'm going to put a ton of hours into. And then I could just have the, what you were saying, Heather, I could just have this nice like display piece. And I'm planning on doing the same thing with, with the Baldur's Gate three collectors edition. Like I ordered that and I don't think I'm, I'm actually going to play the version of the game that comes with, cause I already own it digitally.

Right. But, but I might open it up just to mess around with that stuff. There's some stickers. A lot of cool stuff in there. Yeah. It's like an art book and whatever. Yeah. But I did look up on eBay how much a brand new rare Diablo 3 Collector's Edition PC Windows version is going for.

Anyone want to guess? $1,300 Retailed for $80 I think that's what I paid for it back in 2012 Nick's not like jumping for Joy that he's sitting on a gold mine So but For the exercise I think He knows better than to do that I'm

Gonna guess it retails For like a hundred and Thirty dollars maybe on the lower end but heather gotta guess one thousand three hundred dollars matt you both lose by prices right role rules but matt is is closer 119.99 wow so you know not much appreciation for sitting on something for a decade if you're thinking of it purely as an investment. I wonder if that's because people didn't love Diablo 3 at want. I think so. I think also it's just like, you know,

once we reached a certain point where people began, like all the stuff that's really actually valuable in games are things that predated the idea of collecting games, right? Like it's like shit from like the NES, Famicom, Sega Master System era and before. Yeah, everybody who got one of those, or everybody who wanted one of those got one. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're like, okay, like, nobody missed out on the chest. Yeah.

Like, it's like, I need that in my collection. Like, if you wanted it so bad, you probably did get it, yeah. But if your dad owned, you know, an an electronic store and for some reason you inherited a still sealed copy of Super Mario Brothers three, you know, that's an extremely rare possession these days. And so that's the kind of thing that goes for six figures or whatever. Whatever the fuck. Yeah, there was a sale of the Legend of Zelda sealedaled this week for the NES for $288,000. And that's a lot of money. And thanks to all of our patrons for letting me make that purchase.

I really appreciate your support. I guess Nick has some secret get played Patreon that we don't know about. Oh, I got a secret Patreon. Oh God. You know my New Year's resolution is to cut back on sugar and add more protein to my

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You can also watch it on Disney+. This is an hour-long film that just came out, I mean, in the past couple weeks, right? It's pretty new. I think on the 23rd. Yeah. And it was not really on my radar, but something with Kojima. And I'm going to give it a look. I will say, going in, I talked with our buddy Chef Kevin.

Yes. And Chef Kevin had seen it, and he had an observation. And I apologize to Kevin, who listens to the show. Hey, buddy, how you doing out there? I hope I characterized what your thoughts were correctly. But I think he's like, he's all like, duh, I saw it. Uh-oh, my hand's stuck in the pickle jar. Classic Chef Kevin.

So let go of the pickle, you fucking maniac. Oh, but then how am I going to put it in my mouth? Oh, Chef Kevin. Sometimes I think it's worse to be a friend of you guys. Because I feel like you wouldn't talk like this about your enemies. You wouldn't spare a moment of just like dragging

them through the mud for no reason. You probably wouldn't say anything. Love you, Kevin. But he kind of, it was like it's kind of it being an hour is kind of an odd length, right? Like it's not quite a like it feels more like episode one of a documentary miniseries that doesn't come about. And maybe that's what it was.

Maybe it was meant to be the pilot of they were going to do like this into a three or six part or something like this. Or it feels like a short movie. But it's also like the information in it isn't almost kind of isn't enough to justify its hour length it's kind of like i feel like you can compress this down to a 20 minute youtube video yeah it's like you either want and this was a thing he did say you want like the psych odyssey version of this like basically we're watching this and like what you're spoiled by psych odyssey because you want just death stranding psych odyssey and this is this is not nearly as comprehensive yeah and then you also sort of like you want like when it when a documentary

is about a living figure right and they maybe have some hand in it i want them to be like like almost like not like like i want them to have no hand in it really at all like uh the tony hawk documentary that came out on hbo like last year or something yeah like he's tony hawk he could have been like hey make me seem like a really good like normal guy in this and that documentary is about like how intense and like how much of a workaholic he is to his detriment like uh at the cost of like relationships in his life with like his kids and stuff but that's a more interesting documentary and yeah we're kind of in this era of documentaries because they need the subject's approval. And, you know, there's so much more. I feel like just like, you know, publicists and agents and executives involved in these sorts of things.

And because they do so well on streaming that now to involve like to get like to get Lionel Richie to sign off on the Netflix documentary about We Are the World. It kind of needs to be Lionel Richie hagiography. It needs to be this thing. We're just going to make this guy look good. And yeah, it's it's that is a that is a bummer about it. You wanted to to interrogate the subject a little bit more because at least that's what that's where like the meat is. That's where the juice is at. Like, I want the juice.

Because at least that's where the meat is. That's where the juice is at. I want the juice. I watched this movie with my wife, who has a sort of satellite interest in Kojima because of me being in her life. And then our mutual friend who doesn't play video games at all. I think that the length was targeting people who don't... It's weird because why would you watch a kojima documentary if you didn't know who kojima was but also it was such a cursory review of like kojima's life and his like you know his execution on ideas that for us the people who know his work there wasn't any revelation in this in this documentary at all

so it was targeted to because my the friend who doesn't play the non-gaming friend shelby shelby was like whoa i this is insane i don't want to play video games this is incredible right and i gotta look this guy up so that that was seemed to be the target for this and and as such the length is perfect too because you don't want to exhaust somebody with a bunch of minutiae that they don't they don't have any interest in it felt like i don't know like on vh1 when you see like who were the beatles like that's that's like a documentary that's not for somebody who loves the band but the beatles is so big that like everybody kind of knows them and it felt like this kojima documentary was made under the assumption that everybody knew who kojima was and it was sort of a light a light novel approach

to a documentary about him it It was a very weird window. That's what it was. I think also, and to what you were just talking about in terms of the purpose of this, I do think you're right about that. Like, it felt like an ad the more I was watching it. And this is something that PlayStation Studios produced this, right?

Yeah. Like, it felt like it was just sort of like a, this is essentially branded content to kind of talk up Kojima Productions and our collaborations with them and, you know, get you hyped about the Death Stranding franchise and see all these celebrities are involved in it. out for this guy's work death stranding 2 is on the way we're making a death stranding movie like it like a lot of it does kind of feel like it's just a it's just a uh like a documentary but it's it's a it's a cloaking device for product placement um and and also i i think that that ties in with how they treat kojima which is just i i do think auteur theory is a little bit annoying and overplayed like it's like that's a thing that kind of like like these things are all collaborative in film and television and and uh you know and video games especially with the size of teams these days like there is not like one unitary authorial voice but if we are going to apply a tour theory to any game maker kojima qualifies

yes he's the fucking weirdest uh you know most specific guy and he has achieved all this huge mainstream success while also remaining completely himself uh so but this one it's it's so just like complimentary toward him and and flatters him repeatedly and almost to it. It feels like almost cartoonish in terms of how much they're talking up his genius and don't say a negative thing about him really at any point in the film. Not even like he were like you were saying that it's not even like he works long hours. So he sometimes, you know, loses touch with friends. Something like that could still be framed as a positive. But talking about, you know, just how this actually affects his life.

Yeah, because even like some of the guys that like had been with him for like a long time, they can't sit there and be like, every single day we've worked with them has been nice and good. Like, you just kind of know that it hasn't. Like, there's like, that's just any working relationship, especially like in making video games where crunch is present like in every in every scenario almost like there's not there's almost not a game made on under crunch that that's a great thing to point out because yes they they like basically just montage over or i think just time jump over crunch entirely yeah like they go from like you know like all right that's a wrap on all the motion capture and they cut to the game going gold yeah it's like wait wait a minute so like a year's worth of like intensive labor of people working like 12 to 14 hour days to try to ship this game we're just not like not going to acknowledge it's also like like there's a part in

it where he's like you know he talks about uh all his games open like with a hideo kojima game he's like what that means is that there's like no compromises and there's nothing like getting in the way of my vision or whatever but then you see him and he's like in this office and he's sort of like it's like an open office he kind of like works where everybody else is working too which is sort of like a I don't know I feel like I've seen bosses do that it's like I'm like you guys it's like No you're not like My car doesn't work and you Have a nice you know what I mean so it's like I don't know how that's Really working in his favor but then he's also

Standing over guys and being like That doesn't look that doesn't look good And it's like yeah I guess it's like I mean That's interesting to see how the process is made but Like I don't know that they didn't It's about the development of this game that's Like this interesting weird thing And it's also like it doesn't give any insight really into how games are made really at all, I think. audience, not an enthusiast gamer. Can I talk about this just as a documentary a little bit? Because I overall, like, after I finished

this, I think I kind of just landed on like, that sucked. I think it's just a bad movie. And part of that is way too reliant on talking heads, particularly celebrities that don't have any real connection to Kojima. And then the other part, and

again, it's the sort of thing of just like, Hey, this is for a random person browsing Hulu, like who baby doesn't know who this is or Disney plus, but also as, as a piece of documentary filmmaking, like there's all of this, like over overplayed B roll of like police riots or telephone operators or the,

the sped up Kiana, Scotty style highway footage which is like like what is this doing in this movie this is just like this feels like ai generated uh you know like like documentary footage and and then the same sort of thing like even there are even moments when he feel when kojima is like kind of like offering some personal insight but it's undercut by the visuals like i hated the anime of his childhood yes like i was like this is like he's talking i want to see him talk about this or i want to see actual pictures of him and his family you know or i want to see his childhood home i don't need to see this like kind of dream like anime interpretation of what he's saying

and the same sort of thing when he's talking about how like all his games are anti-war and he doesn't love combat he loves ways to make players avoid combat or force players to deal with the consequences of combat and so much of that comes from growing up with the the son of two people who survived world war ii and we're always telling these stories it's like he's doing that but while it's happening they're like showing like you know b-roll of bombers flying overhead that you'd see in just like any history channel documentary is like what is this doing here yeah yeah and like there is like interesting like there's like little nuggets of stuff that like on its own are interesting but deserved more

airtime like one of the developers was like he makes games he wants his games to like be about something and about like not just like he doesn't want to make a game just to make a video game he wants to like to make a statement and i'm like that's in that is interesting but like you can't just say that and then be like now we're on to the next thing like i want to know what he was thinking about when they were making police knots like what's like what was on his mind at the time like uh and you know what was going a lot going around like or you know what was going on like at the time? Like, uh, and you know, what was going on, going around, like, or,

you know, what was going on like culturally in that moment when he, like that specific moment when he was like, I have to make this game about police astronauts. Well, they don't. Okay. So this is another thing.

This, this documentary is basically exclusively focused on death strand. And I think that also just comes from it being a collaboration with Kojima productions and PlayStation studios, because it is wild to spend an hour talking about Hideo Kojima and not mention Konami. Like that is like they talk about Metal Gear Solid and they do mention Policenauts in the context of Yoji Shinkawa, his longtime art director, who we do hear from the documentary and honestly some of the most interesting stuff yes a few times we get to hear um from yoji shinkawa uh and then we cut to grimes um but it's like it's really like i i wish we had more of that shit but this is almost exclusively focused on his post konami career and like what heather was saying earlier about like this is like a document like meet the beatles the documentary but it kind of is like a documentary about Paul McCartney

that doesn't mention the Beatles. You know what I mean? It's like all like Paul McCartney, the genius behind Wings. And, you know, and the orchestral piece Standing Stone, you know, it's just talking about all this stuff. And he was on The Simpsons, too, you know? It's like, well, yeah, but like the main thing, the thing that defined his career, the reason he is who he is,

needs to be like emphasized. Paul does that in interviews too sometimes he like undercuts like being in the beatles right right right like he's sort of like we were just full lads from liverpool like no you kind of weren't actually you kind of the four biggest geniuses on earth like well that's why i think you can't you can't just can't offer a subject too much control over their own documentary but you know whatever that's what that's what this medium has turned into. It should have just been on the director's cut, like, disc. As, like, a featurette. I agree.

I would have liked it more in that context. I agree with you. Here's my what-if-we're-wrong take, which is there are few documentaries that I can imagine being more emblematic and thematically relevant to Kojima's use of celebrity than this documentary. So like when Guillermo del Toro or Nick Ruffin show up in Death Stranding, it's like almost like a parade, you know, like, look, this guy's in it. Conan O'Brien, he's in a he's in a bunker. And this felt like what it felt like a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork to be like, we love Kojima. We think he's a genius. And they're not being much more to their presence in the documentary, which feels kind of like how they are utilized within the game

itself. So I don't know. I didn't have the same disdain for it that you guys did. And it might have been because of my viewing experience with two people who didn't know Kojima as much and found it riveting and cool. And they loved that his childhood was made like an anime because that's kind of what documentaries do now is that tropey sort of like I was I was on the streets of New York City and then you cut like it's never like B-roll. It's never like somebody acting that it's always some, you know, watercolor rotoscoped fucking cg version of redoing somebody's story uh and i think that's because that's palatable to a lot of people so i didn't hate this i didn't think it sucked but i also didn't feel like it was made for me yeah i mean i can definitely agree i don't

think it was made for us uh by by the way in terms of the the avalanche of celebrities, I mean, I do like hearing from George Miller, Guillermo del Toro, you know, like that's interesting. People who are in a similar role as Kojima, but work in film and talking from their perspective. And Norman Reed is telling the story of Guillermo del Toro saying about Kojima, hey, this guy's going to call you and whatever he asks, you just say yes. And Norman Reed is like, OK. And that's how he call you, and whatever he asks you, just say yes. And Norman Reedus would be like, okay. And that's how he got involved with Death Stranding. Like, that's really interesting. There are nuggets in this. There's like, that whole thing, I absolutely loved.

And my main takeaway was, if Guillermo del Toro said anything nice about me, I would feel like a million bucks. Because the way he was talking about it, I was like, he feels this with his whole chest. he like yeah of the people talking about it i was like he gets he gets kojima in a way that kojima wants to be understood right and that rocks like that like really really like i don't know i love that i could have seen more of that um i love george

miller and his like cool glasses yeah Yeah, he looks cool as hell. He has these like sort of red tinted glasses and like a chain like hanging them like around his ears or whatever. And I was like, he's this guy's awesome. It makes you realize to be one of those guys. You have to have a look like that as part of just like you're, you know, you're curated. The image or whatever is like, I look like this guy. And these are guys that he wants respect from. Right, and they respect him immensely.

And so that's really interesting. He talks about how his own comparison for himself is like Cronenberg or Lynch, someone who can make something that's edgy and specific and their own, but also has mainstream appeal. That's what he's trying to go for and succeeds at. I like when Guillermo del Toro is like, Death Stranding is the first game where I got to the end of it and I felt like a better person.

Like, it's like, oh, that's that is a good observation. I like that. I thought it was wild when Kojima was like, you know, somebody like Cronenberg, who is an indie director, but also has mainstream success. And I was like, Cronenberg? I guess like the Jeff Goldblum The Fly you know was a big hit I'm trying to think of what else. He's

had some hits. I can't think of a worse the biggest nightmare blunt rotation I could think of would be Kojima and David Lynch that'd be a fucking disaster I need them to work on something together immediately and then to never see it that's gonna be a nightmare.

But he's working with I know he's working with Jordan Peele on on something. I do think he's befriending these directors with the intention of learning how to direct himself. Like, I think he's like, you know, because he's obviously like there is it's a transferable skill. I do think of him as a director when he's making these games because he's in there with the motion capture actors and things like that and directing them in scenes.

But I think he's trying to hone that muscle by working with these directors that are excellent and that he really respects so that he can take what they do in his observations from them and apply it to further game making which i think is good because a lot of his games are cut scene heavy let's say yeah for sure so you want those directed you want those directed well uh i yeah i i don't know i i guess like i'll i i'll concede what to what

heather's saying just in terms of like, this is just not for me. I just kind of like I just found it to be a frustrating watch that I don't I feel like if you already know anything about this guy, you already found this. This maybe isn't worth your time to commit to watching the whole thing. there are a few clip few interview clips that uh are are worth seeing but but hope to wait for someone to curate those in a youtube video or a like as as a twitter post or something like that um because i think watching as a whole it's just like it's a little bit formless i also there's like things that you want them to interrogate more because like when he talks about he's like when he talks about his i wouldn't be making games if my dad was still alive uh my father was a very scary man yeah it's just like and then they don't explore that they just

kind of move on from it yeah it's just like there's that that's an intense thing to say and especially for a guy who made an entire game about being a single parent yeah you know it's just like what like what is going on in that noggin of yours There's that and then in the very beginning Someone's describing him as As always fighting Like every day when he's working he's always fighting Yeah and then they're like Then they have this observation that they're like

And we don't know like who knows What maybe he's fighting against himself And it's like a shot of Kojima and I was like Okay we're gonna like get into this guy's fucking brain We're gonna like really figure some stuff Out about this guy and then it just sort of like cuts to like you know grimes and she's just like yeah he's a genius and it's like okay like okay yeah we we know this yeah we figured we figured out kojima he's great he's good and we like him it's like he's the president of a nation where he must be worshipped. Yeah, it feels like propaganda.

As a side note, every time Grimes was on camera, I kept being like, that woman has had sex with Elon Musk. Yeah, that's like a bummer to know. And it really bummed me out. Like, it gave me like a sadness. bum me out. Like it gave me like a sadness, uh, not to judge anybody's, you know,

interest in other people, but he is so transparently a bad person, like so aggressively a bad person that, uh, it was, yeah, it was a real, it was a real bummer thinking about,

I mean, I couldn't not think about it. Yeah. Not in like a rent free way, but just in a like, uh, well, whatever. For me, it's rent free. It's about it. Yeah. Not in like a rent free way, but just in a like, Oh, well, whatever.

For me, it's rent free. It's just there. Yeah. I just can't stop thinking about, um, then, but there was the musicians,

uh, gosh, what was it? Oh, churches. Yes. I do like hearing from churches because there's a huge part of the soundtrack.

There's a huge part of the soundtrack. And, um, I like, wait, does now I'm one of, does Grimes have a song in the Death Stranding soundtrack we forgot about? I think she must. That must be it. Maybe she sang about all the goo everywhere. Speaking of Grime.

Thanks, Rochelle. I was happy to see I was happy to see churches In the documentary Only because I I met them one time And they were all really really nice That's it Oh that's cool that you met them They're really nice

Nice folks Nice I can't see anyone I can't see anything about Death Stranding Wait is it Did she do a song? Grimes? No she didn't do a song? Grimes?

No, she didn't do a song. That's what I was. I was just looking for. I was just binging it. And it looks like all I can see is that. She met Kojima. So they're perhaps mutual fans that happened in 2018. And there's speculation that she'd be involved.

Yeah. And then this game rant story that Grimes and Elon Musk are having a baby and everyone's making Death Stranding jokes, which I don't remember, but... Yeah, I don't remember that either. And then, you know,

his best friend on Earth, Jeff Kiley, is in the documentary and kind of just says the same things that always come up when Kojima comes up, that he's, you know,

like, considered, like, the first auteur game developer and that, uh, like just that he's good. Like everybody was like, he's good at games. I like the games he made. His presence in particular. Cause he's a,

he's basically a professional Kojima friend. It seems like his, his presence in it kind of tells you that like what this is going to be about. Yeah. I really liked the set dressing for everybody's interviews that told you so much about what image they wanted to give across, like what they were trying to convey. So like there's a stack of books that you can't see the bindings on next to kojima because you know you want to he wants to say i'm well read but he also you can't because of like rights or whatever you're not going to

list every book on your thing so every book is turned away and they did the same thing with the um it's all interview with the recoil manga they did the same thing with the actors where they'd have like a few books on a nice table and they were turned away from the camera uh and then uh nick ruffin's table had a few loose legos and like a like a sketch of like some some like diagram on on a whiteboard yeah it felt to me like somebody trying to be like i'm really creative like i'm oh i'm i'm that kind of creative and i was like i love i love these little stories that everybody's trying to tell because it's the same for me like when i when i do like bts stuff for rick and

morty i'll put like a char helmet in the background so that somebody who's watching it might be like oh she likes gundam you know like yeah it's it's always unless you're in like a you know a rental home or something and you can't you have no control over it i just yeah i love the idea of like the crew coming to somebody's house and being like what if we just dump these legos out on your table right right what if they tracked what if they trapped nick ruffin in there and uh we're like you get three legos and something to draw on until you say what we want you to say and then it's like okay okay i'm done with my squiggle please uh oh i can i i just i'm dead i know

we're about wrapped up but i just like had a couple other things that i i did want to talk about which is that i do think the all the stuff that we're seeing about Kojima, where we're seeing Kojima direct the actors during the motion caption sections and then also the VO, like that was like all cool stuff. And that was stuff that made me feel more like, again, we just can we focus this on Death Stranding specifically? Yes. Or even more so than it is because it's mostly like here's an overview of Kojima's life and then the the one game that he made Death Stranding. But it's like like something that really got into the weeds of production a bit more because i love seeing like you know the actors being like well you don't really know what's happening in this scene but you know we're just going to go for it they're

all kind of confused because they're kept in the dark about certain details and uh they feel like kojima is kind of drip feeding them all the information they can handle at a given moment because this stuff is so dense. But then also just they're talking with – they're like he's talking in Japanese. It's being translated to French, and the actor is speaking in English. It's like all these sorts of things. It's like, man, this is such an interesting workflow. And the woman who's directing the VO sessions, the English VO sessions, like I'd love to know how she communicates with Kojima and how all that shit works.

Yeah. But we just don't get any detail on that. And then even like the stuff with like there's a scene where Norman Reedus and Troy Baker are at a table and things are being explained to them about Death Stranding. And Norman is like obviously like obviously not really a video game guy and just doesn't really know, was not familiar with Kojima before, does not really understand it. But Troy is really taking it in,

because he's worked in video games and obviously has a familiarity with Kojima. And so he's taking it in as like, this is what I do. So I think there's like an interesting thing there too, where like they're both actors, but they both work in different like mediums. And to have them come together in like a certain way

is like kind of interesting. And like, like they end up having to do the same thing that they normally do, but it's for a different reason. But like, it was just interesting to see that like Troy had this like

understanding of it or like was trying to understand it more and Norman was just like mouth agape like huh yeah there's this there's this combination of kind of old hands at this sort of acting and then people are completely new to video games by the way does Mads Mikkelsen does Mads Mikkelsen

just casually toss out a huge endgame spoiler? Did you catch that? Oh, I think so. I think he does. I think he reveals essentially the last scene of the game, which all three of us were shocked by. Having seen interviews with him

though, and just kind of like a fan of his I'll call it chaotic vibe. That is exactly the type of thing. Yeah. Like doesn't give a shit about. He kind of he rocks. He's so funny and weird. There's an energy that Norman Reedus gives off in Death Stranding that now that I've seen this documentary makes me wonder if that was his energy in the project.

There's a sort of like, Sam is very reserved. And I know that that's part of the character is that Sam doesn't like being touched and everything. But like, he's so reserved that he, like the way he drinks a monster energy drink or like the way he goes over to look at the mirror feels like a person who has never gone over to a mirror before

if that makes sense yeah right no like he'd like the way he would like sit or adjust in the like in the little room that he had the little bedroom always felt strangely artificial to me uh and now i'm like oh was that because he's being directed and he doesn't understand the context of anything? Or is that like the character that they wanted him to play? Because there's so much artifice in his performance, which I found extremely endearing when I was playing the game but now i'm like oh is that is that sam or is that norman or is that like the the sort of blurring of that venn diagram part of the project itself because like obviously you have ads for his you know amc show on the shower so it's it is reminding you that the actor is the character but yeah i don't know watching him

watching him perform stuff and then be like i don't know what i'm talking about made me feel like like him being like what do you mean bridges was like maybe just literally him yeah it is that is interesting because he seems genuinely overwhelmed by the process and is saying things he thinks are indecipherable uh and you know that that seems hey if you want to attribute it to to kojima then like you know maybe that's part of his genius is that he's he knows that this is what he wants from and from the character character so that he knows if he, if he gives the actor, uh, this limited amount of context for what they're doing,

that's what we'll come across to the performance. Um, but yeah, I, I don't know whatever it is. It is, it is, that is an interesting observation and that is the thing you get from some of

this BTS footage. But yeah, I, I don't, I don't regret watching it. I just kind of wish it was something else. Yeah. I,

I would love a more like investigative piece but i know that he's also like it's interesting for somebody that's like so i'm the brand yeah he is like a private guy like in like a like you don't really know much about like his family or like anything like that like that thing that nugget about my dad is a scary guy is like the most I've ever heard or read or anything about his family. Yeah. I mean,

that's what, what makes it, it's one of the reasons like he's, he's both very forthright and also kind of inscrutable. And that's like kind of why you want to dig in a little deeper on him. Maybe we'll get that someday. I feel like this won't be the last Kojima documentary ever made. No,

hopefully it's not made by like the news or something. Any other thoughts on this? I had problems with it. I don't know if I I don't think I hated it, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but if you out there listening watched it and enjoyed it, let us know what you liked about it. There you go.

Hey, how about a segment? Hell yeah, dog. Uh about it. There you go. Hey, how about a segment? Hell yeah, dog. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, no uh-oh needed, because this will be a lot of fun. Uh-oh. It's our video game version of Would You Rather. It's Would You Blathers?

And this is Would You Blathers Kojima edition? Oh, so I'll give you a scenario. You tell me which outcome you would prefer. Rochelle, you're welcome to play along if you like. First up, would you blathers have the prefix for your name be solid, liquid or punished? So solid Matt, liquid Matt, or punished Matt. What do you think? Well, I feel like punished Matt sitting so close to you.

No, that's not true at all. I really quite enjoy your company, Nick. God bless you. Right back at you, buddy. I think, I feel like This isn't this isn't canon To the game yeah but Liquid Matt makes me sound Like um

Like you can't depend on me in some way Solid Matt People are like Okay that's that's a solid guy Yeah that's a good nickname solid Matt What do you like better solid Matt or M daddy You know what M daddy honestly Solid Guy. Yeah, that's a good nickname. Solid Matt. What do you like better, Solid Matt or M. Daddy? Hmm.

You know what? M. Daddy, honestly. Yeah, that's good. It has a nice little ring to it. But for this exercise, I think I'd go Solid. Solid is good. Wow. Liquid for me.

Oh. Wow. Okay, but Liquid Heather works for Heather for some reason. That does sound cool, yeah. It is fitting. Heather is too much of a, like, it's a liquidy name. So I think Solid Heather just doesn't have the right bite. But Liquid Heather feels like, oh, I'm a Kojima character.

Yeah. Like, Fragile Heather or something. Like, it works. Yeah. So, yeah, I'd go with Liquid. I certainly wouldn't go with Punished. Even though, you know know sometimes on the pod sometimes on the pod period

well punish snake is also venom snake but i didn't give you venom snake that's too that's that one's too cool um uh rachel uh what do you get you get a thought on this one um my nickname is ranch so i feel like Solid Ranch is funny. That is really good. Hold on, hold on. Your nickname is Ranch? Hold on. Rochelle, what the hell are you talking about?

Your nickname is Ranch? You know my other podcast. How are you withholding this from me? Oh, yeah. Most of my friends call me Ranch. Most of your friends call you Ranch. Most of your friends call you Ranch. A big chunk. Am I hearing this correctly?

Is she saying Ranch? Ranch. Like the dressing? Yeah. Okay, I'll ask, Rochelle. Why did they call you that? One of my roommates said one day that in his dream, my name was Ranch. And then everyone just started calling me Ranch.

Rochelle is interesting. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. I loved every second of hearing that. That's amazing. Oh, that rocks. Would you like us to call you Ranch?

You guys can call me Ranch. Wow. Wow. Interchangeable. I love it. Okay. That's amazing. Oh, that rocks. Would you like us to call you Ranch? You guys can call me Ranch. Wow. Wow. Interchangeable. I love it. Okay. Ranch it is. At least for now. At least for this episode. Thanks, Ranch. As for me, punished wiger is just too fitting. Alright, next up. Would you blathers have a functional

codec implanted in your inner ear but it interrupts you constantly or see and hear the exclamation point codec implanted in your inner ear but it interrupts you constantly or see and hear the exclamation point alert sound every time someone spots you in public. Oh. So this can work like a friend

sees me. Yeah, and then you get like, oh, a friend sees me. I'll turn around and see where my friend's at. But it's interrupting you in the physical space. Do I have an exclamation point above me? Yeah. Yeah, you do.

Because then it's like, if it's visual for them to, if the person that spots me sees that, that's confirmation. No, they're not seeing it. This is for you. Okay. This is your reality. I think I'm going to go Kodak. Because both are interruptions. Yeah.

Sometimes I don't want to be seen or know that I've been seen. You know what I mean? And I'd rather just like get like some interruption of somebody being like, have you ever seen this movie called Godzilla? Yeah, it's about this or whatever. Then it's like just somebody giving me an info dump about a movie they saw. I'm like, all right, thanks. That's fine to me. That's like how I prefer to interact. Wow. Heatherather kodak or exclamation point exclamation point wow but that's i think

it would be handy because then you could like you could be like at a coffee shop and you see somebody that you know but you kind of don't want to talk to them like you can know for certain whether or not they know that you're there. Yes. Right. No, that is how. So so like for for an introvert like myself, being able to like in a binary system have been seen or have not been seen to to know when i can walk away from one of those moments like coast is clear nobody's any the wiser like just walk away would be extreme extremely beneficial but like the idea of being interrupted by a kodak all the time sounds like a fucking nightmare yeah i think of how how frequently i get like text messages especially when a group thread is like really going it's like man if that was happening if i was gonna get

if i was getting that in my ear constantly i'd be going nuts i should change my text sound to that actually i did do that for a while and it was awesome yeah honestly i loved it that's really good if you but the exclamation point what if it's your birthday And you go somewhere where everybody's at already And they all see you at one time Is it going off like a million times? Yeah it is, it's like when that whole room of soldiers Spots you when you're trying to That is fun

I do like that Oh I'm being seen by this many people Okay that's fine, Rochelle what about you, what do you think? Yeah, exclamation point Okay, alright Hey look, there's Ranch. Solid Ranch.

Ranch, we need you to take down, we need you to construct a weapon to destroy Metal Gear. Metal Gear? What was it called in part three? We need you to destroy the plants so the shagahod

will not be functional oh yes yeah yeah uh okay next up would you blathers have a face covered with welts from hornet stings like the pain or have to always have exposed skin because that's how you breathe, like quiet. This is tough. So cold day, you got to have like a tank top on because you breathe through your skin. Or you have like a face that's kind of just, you know, the Hornets are your friends, but they've stung you a shitload. So I have dominion over the Hornets. Yeah, you still have the powers of them. Okay.

But we're focusing on the negatives here. Yeah, no, no, no. And, you know, I just love showing my body. I love that. That always feels good. So I'm having such a hard time. Yeah. You know, I think I'm going to go hornets

because I think that's a more interesting power. Like, I can breathe normally. Yeah. I'm always afraid of not being able to breathe. I have asthma. I have asthma, too. And it's like the idea of having to respirate through my skin. That's really panicky.

Yeah. So, yeah, I have all these welts, but nobody can see my rolls. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I have all these welts, but nobody can see my rolls. You know what I mean? Like, they're like my normal clothes. And, like, have hornets. Yeah.

And I'll train them to be nice to my friends. I'm not going to have them stinging my friends. Right. I can still do all my normal stuff. And your friends will still like you with some welts on the face. Yeah. They might not like me if they see what I'm working with i think both of these are horrible yeah can i ask a question please about the way quiet breathed which is she breathes through her skin if she gets in water she she dies yes i well i forget exactly how it works um sonic rules huh can't get in water

but i mean i think it's functionally the same as like holding your head underwater you know you can't get oxygen into your eyes you know there's some like weird kojima logic to if she can survive in water like yeah but if she like you know burps when she's underwater or something then it's fine i think i'm gonna have to go with welts there's there's too much there's too many weaknesses to to having to breathe through your skin yeah and and and those weaknesses are yeah that's what's what I'm sort of weighing. Yes, right. How vulnerable it would make you to have to breathe through your skin.

So, yeah, that's my feeling. I don't remember what Liquid, or what was her name? Quiet? Quiet. I don't remember what she looks like. I haven't played 5. Apparently, I actually never played 5 either. It's one of those games I've always meant to play,

and I just had such a fucking 50-hour commitment. But then complaining about a 50-hour game now after I've played through Baldur's Gate 3 in its entirety twice feels absolutely trivial. I found a Reddit thread that's talking about whether Wyatt can breathe underwater. And it's basically, it's just the idea is like, here's the top reply.

Think of her skin like a mouth. She can use it to breathe and to drink, but only one at a time. And so it's effectively don't have gills that can filter the oxygen out of water. That, for some reason, was one of the most horrific things I've ever heard. Rochelle, hornet sting face or uh breathe through your skin well how much skin needs to be covered i think it's a i i mean like it's like a so i'm wearing these shorts now and they don't leave a lot to the imagination i think i also need to take off my sweatshirt so i think you have to like i think it's like short sleeves and shorts. To give you an idea,

Quiet wears like a bra and underwear and like nylon. Quiet is very, very skimpy, but I don't know if you have to go that far in this hypothetical. That's a choice. Yeah, I think I got to go well, because I'm just notoriously cold. Yeah, you know what?

I'll just, just to mix it up, I'll say breathe through my skin Yeah, I you know what? I'll just just to mix it up. I'll say breathe through my skin. But I feel like that just makes me a completely different type of guy. That one's like circled a lot on you for some reason. Are you like underlined it? All right. Next one. Would you blathers sword fight to the death your father who's the president or be forced to incinerate the corpse of your mother, who's also the president.

Okay. I feel like we were hard on the documentary. I do have to say Kojima rocks. He does rock. No, he's the fucking best. He's simultaneously a big freak And also the funniest person alive He's so funny God I don't wanna

You know I was about to say something really dark I'm not gonna say that I think I'm gonna go with Yeah I can't wrap my head around Incinerating My actual mother I can't do it I have to abstract this one a little bit.

If I try to think about it as my actual parents, it starts to feel a little weird. Yeah. And I also would not want her to be the president. Because if I'm in trouble, then the president's mad at me? That sucks. Gosh. I think it's tough because

Both endings are so like Both things in Metal Gear Solid 2 And Death Stranding Are so like Iconic but the I gotta go I think I'm gonna go with my dad the president That one

Just beat him to death I mean you incinerate the corpse Yes that one. Just beat him to death. I mean, you incinerate the corpse. Yes. Whereas the other one, you kill the person. Right. So I would incinerate a corpse. Yeah. Yeah, following that logic, I would fight

my dad. And now, Rochelle, what about you? I think I could definitely win against my dad. I can't do that. It was no contest against your mom, but you could beat your dad, so I'm going with my dad. Ranch is on one. Ranch is being crazy. Classic Ranch.

All right, final. Final one. Last one. Would you blathers find out your boss is an A.I. or have a rival break the fourth wall of your own life? Oh, my God. What does that mean? Breaks the fourth wall of my own life.

You all of a sudden realize your reality is just a game that you have been playing the game of your whole your own life this entire time. I can answer that immediately. And it would be that. That would be a relief. Oh, good. None of this was even true.

Oh, great. We know he's watching. So leveling. Yeah. Oh gosh. You know, that would just fuck with me too hard.

Yeah. I have to go with... What was the first option? Find out your boss is an AI, like the Colonel. Okay, yeah. No, I'll go with that one

because, I mean, I work with you two, so it wouldn't shock me that... It wouldn't shock me that hard. It wouldn't be that crazy to me if somebody else I knew was AI. And you know what?

One day, the way things are going, all of our bosses are going to be AI. And you know what? One day, the way things are going, all of our bosses are going to be AI. Tell them, Matt. Ranch, AI boss, or find out your life is a game. So all three of you would be AI. That'd be crazy. It'd be a little crazy wouldn't it

yeah we'll go with that I think I also have to go with AI just because I think that's just I don't know to me that's funny I don't know who my boss would be in this situation but just thinking of other jobs I've had it would be you this situation, but just thinking of other jobs I've had. You. It would be you.

So I find out I'm. You're your own boss. I'm my own boss. So you would find out you're AI. Because I'm self-implied. I'm AI. You just broke the fourth wall of my own life. That was Would You Blathers.

That's this week. Get played. Our producer is Ranch, Rochelle Chen. Yard underscore underscore sard on social media. Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our paywalled show, Get Animated. Matt, what are we watching this week?

We're watching Tech in the Motion Picture, and we're actually watching it on the episode, doing a live commentary on it. That's right. So you can queue it up with us. We'll tell you when. Why? And watch it along with us and have the time of your freaking little life.

Why are we doing this? I'm sure we'll be completely clear on what happens in the movie. Yeah, no one's going to be mad at us. That's, again, you can get that with our entire pre-HeadGum back catalog and ad-free mainline episodes at patreon.com slash getplayed. Well, there you go. Another episode in the can. Nick.

Yeah. Nick. Yeah. Nick, you got played. Well, that's me. I got played, I guess. The delight in Heather's face on that really sold it. You didn't see it at home.

But Heather was so happy to get played in it. That was a HeadGum Podcast.