Get Played - Mascot Draft with Craig Lee Thomas

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Craig Lee Thomas (Helldivers 2, DC Dark Legion) returns to the show to talk voicing Superman, donning the Helldivers 2 armor and to draft his favorite video game mascots with Heather, Nick and Matt. Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpodMusic by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue includingHow Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Elfen Lied go to 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.fmAll of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee 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. Oh no. Have you guys seen the latest numbers? No. The listener numbers are down. No. They're down, guys. We need to sell this show in a way we've never sold it before. Our numbers are down so much that headgum had to lay off a bunch of its employees.

Isn't that crazy that we're single-handedly responsible for that? I feel so guilty. It's solely on our backs and our backs alone. It's just like we got the official explanation. Get Play's performance is why headgum laid off a substantial amount of its staff. And this is true. They didn't punish us. They took it out.

No, we didn't get punished. What? They didn't punish us. We're stars. We're stars. We've lost over 260,000 subscribers in the last two months alone. And the numbers are just dropping. We're now in the low 500.

Yeah, we're really, really feeling it. Last I saw it was 501. Fuck. That's about as low as you can get in the 500. It's pretty much as the bottom of the barrel, you know. So I've been thinking what we need is a showcase personality. We need something that you can put on a t-shirt, something that can draw the listeners in. We need a mascot.

Oh, that's a great idea. Get played mascot. Yeah, that's really good. Good idea. Get played mascot. I got a name pitch. Getty. Getty is good.

That's good. That's good. Like, it's adjacent to Gotti, which is, you know, dangerous and threatening. John Gotti, the mob boss, but also John Paul Getty, who's the oil magnate, who became a great philanthropist. Some great images I've seen. Yeah. So great, absolutely. The stock images are huge.

Getty, Getty. Getty. Is it going to be hard to, is it going to be hard to Google him? Yeah. Yeah. We'll spell it with an umlaught over the E. That's good. Okay.

So it'll be distinct that way. So it's Getty. I have an idea just off of the name alone I know you probably had maybe an image in my I don't want to step in the judge anything I hear getty I'm thinking yety

yeah yeah like he's like a kind of a grabby sort of yety yeah he's like grabby like I'm gonna get you I'll fucking get you I'll fucking get you I'll fucking get you and he's covered in for except for his dick like he's just like the whole thing he's very very furry but like

has a pristine and like shiny penis he has a beautiful penis just a beautiful uncut pink dick just gleaming yeah no this is good this is good yeah yeah and we can put this on the shirt does he have shoes he has shoes um the shoes he's wearing crocs he's wearing crocs he's wearing crocs but uh but uh he's his catchphrase is uh my crocs smell bad yeah he's like he's got his dick out he's wearing crocs and he's saying my crocs smell bad. My crocs smell bad.

And underneath it says, Getty. It says Getty, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is good. No, this is good. And he'll be on a t-shirt. But he has to have like a, he has to have a power.

Like Sonic is fast. Mario's got like a punch through a brick. Maybe he takes like big shits or something. I think he takes huge shits. All right. And you can tell before he even does it that he's done big ones before. Okay. Okay.

So he's got crocs. He's got his catchphrase. The implication that his crocs smell bad because he's stepped in his own shit. Yeah. He's outside like a fucking. The design of a crock, they have a bunch of holes. Yeah. So the shit came out like Plato hair.

Okay. Yes, he did use the top of his foot. He got inside the shoe. Yeah. So he takes his shoes off the shit. Yes. Yeah. He's not an animal.

Yeah, he's not an animal. He's an animal, but yeah. Well, yeah, I take my shoes off the shit. He kicks off the crocs to shit, looks for a place kind of like a dog. Yeah. Shits in his own shoes and then stuffs his feet back in and he comes out like Plato hair. Says my shoes smell bad. His shoes are not.

sport mode they're in the more casual mode so the little flap yeah it's more of a slide than it is a shoe at this point yeah yeah what color are they well they should be something other than brown so that bright yellow bright yellow is good bright yellow that's really yeah it also vokes pee which is a poop's friend yeah poop is pee's friend they're friends for sure all right getty the yetie yes gety the yety shits in his own shoes um so this croc smell bad um and uncut perfect pink penis yeah we just lost a bunch more subscribers. We are hemorrhaging. Okay, what if we made him like 5'4? Yeah, he should be a short king. Like he's a little Yeti. That's got to give us something. Yeah, he's a modest

Yeti. Yeah. All right. I think we got it, guys. Now, does he have any association with the podcast whatsoever? He hates the podcast. We talk talking for a living and list guys from games as we draft video game mascots with Craig Lee Thomas this week on Get Played. Hello, everyone back to the premier video game podcast, where this week, we've done it again. We have welcomed somebody into our hive of villainy, our disgusting little pit, our gross, what? Our little hole. Yeah, our little gross hole. Yeah.

Our little, our little bucket in a backyard. Our little stew pot. Our little, our little. That's not so bad. We all on the record of liking stew. Our little poison stew pot. Okay, okay, okay. Yikes, I'm getting away from that one.

Our little diarrhea pond. No. You know, I pride myself on my podcasting pipes, but I'm going to be put to shame today by today's guest because he is a pro, an actor from Hell Divers 2, Dynasty Warriors and D.C. Dark Legion. Craig, thanks so much for being here. I'm fumbling, just having you next to me. What a treat to be in your disgusting little cause. Just to be in the duodenum of scum that this podcast is just sliding through. It's a real treat. We record ankle deep, but also face down. Facedown ankle deep, that's the way I like to talk about the S&S, I guess. Craig, we were honored to have you the first time, and it was just one of those things where Hell Divers 2 had launched, and we're doing an episode, and we found out in that process

that you were a fan of the show. Huge fan of the show. And so it was, what a great way to welcome you into our guest pool, and so thrilled to have you back. As far as since the last time you're on the show, you were cast

in D.C. Dark Legion as Superman himself. Indeed. They let me put on the cape. Wow. They let you put on a cape? Oh, I mean, I wore a cape. I mean, I was wearing...

This is the year the cape for me. Hell divers is all capes. I'm pretty much exclusively playing cape and cape adjacent parts now. So I'm hoping for like a, I don't know, a count of Monty Cristo video game coming up. That'd be great. If Ubisoft is listening, you know,

Assassin's Creed. Who is the best cape? Superman? Superman's cape is pretty... You don't think it's Dracula? Dracula's got a great cape. Batman's got a good cape. I have a take about this.

Does Dr. Strange have a cape or is that a shawl? Is that a cape? It's a cape. It's a cape. It's a cape. I kind of think that, well, Dracula, to me, that's more cloak. And cloak and cape is different.

Yeah. What about Darkwing Duck? Is that more of a trench coat? That's a trench coat. Man, but Darkwing Duck is really good. He looks cool. Let's get dangerous. Oh, man.

It's the jam. I remember that, like, watching that and, like, having, like, adjacent, like, tailspin-shared universe. Oh, sure. Yeah. My mind. Launchpad McQuack. Yes, exactly. Man, that's good shit.

There was a time when Disney was really building something. And then I think the Telecommunications Act of 1996 destroys it. And then none of it continues. It all perishes in the flames of government. I met this during the WGA strike. I met this guy on the picket line, an older writer. and he had a custom sign he'd made that was like, this is my fifth strike

enlisting the years of all the entertainment strikes he'd been through. But he was, he had written like something like 109 episodes of tailspin. Wow. It was crazy. And like, how much do you make for those? Like, nothing.

That cloud kicker money is not coming in the mouth. Yeah, I've never heard the phrase, this is my mansion I bought with all my tailspin money. Wow. Which they should be They should be the wealthiest people They wrote a Casablanca cartoon About animals

That is an achievement unparalleled They should have been rewarded But no That's not the way it works No that's not how it works And all those little Those good juicy day gigs That people used to have in between other jobs

Those are all gone now Yeah That's all been replaced with like Podcasting Podcasting and Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, still here. I'm looking forward to your guys' vertical coming up. Oh, yeah, got to do that.

Oh, man, just wait until people get their eyes on the vertical. It's going to be so good. It's going to be incredible. The keyword is synchronicity. Synchronicity. Real quick, while we're on this, everyone, what's your favorite vertical? Oh, God. How to choose.

Yeah, there's too many I love. I can't pick. Yeah, I love all of them. I'd say all of them. That's a kind of tight for first place. Yeah. I like the one that's shotally shot in an obvious Airbnb in a hurry.

Yeah. I like that one. I like the one where the actors are performing like they're about to cry because they don't remember what they're about to say. Yes. I remember like because like anytime there's some new thing and you work anywhere in the entertainment industry like I guess should I know what this new thing is?

I remember that with Snapchat. First I was like, what the fuck is Snapchat when that came on the scene? Yeah. And you know, I remember watching a YouTube tutorial on what, how to like start a Snapchat account I was like that level of like just completely

Abundice about it was all teenagers and you were like in Yeah I was there I was there Power user Wait These videos disappear Whoa Wagi likey like But there were like people were making content for Snapchat

At least that was like a time when people were going to pay to do that I imagine that's completely gone away Vertical is the same sort of thing It's like like I'm not going to learn what verticals are I'm just going to like let that gloss over I just don't need to know this Just step out of the pool that's fine What am we going to do with that knowledge?

We're going to make a fucking vertical? No. I say this and I get out of this and I turn on my phone. I'm like, oh, I have to learn these signs of this vertical tomorrow because it's the only audition that I will have in my inbox. I've done that with music recently. There's like just some new music that I'm like, you know what? I just don't need to know. I don't need to know who that is.

That's fine. It's okay. I love that Fortnite keeps me up on music. Yeah. That is kind of nice. Because I like, I'll hear something in Fortnite and I'll be like, oh, that must be the new song. And it often is, or they'll highlight an artist, and I'll be like, ah, that must be the new artist. That's a nice little curation for you, like secondary.

I like that. It's usually like Jonathan XD. 25. And you're like, all right. And like he's got his own avatar and the guy's got like a jacket and a mascot. And you're like, okay, this Jonathan must be big. Sure. He must be a big dude. Rochelle Chen, our producer, Ranch.

Are you up on verticals? Are you watching any verticals? I do have friends who direct vertical Oh so verticals are great No I mean it's the last resort kind of thing Wow Totally fucked up industry I have to imagine

Worse than you can even imagine What so my mom's gonna be listening to this How do we describe verticals to my mom They're what In my understanding could be incorrect Are there like little shows Can you please direct this directly to Gail Campbell.

Gail, if you're listening, hi, I hope we're doing well. Next time you're in town, we'd love to see you. Yeah, we'd love to have you on the show. But you know how your phone, mom, is held vertically? Yes, yeah. So that's a great jumping off point. So this is like a show that's, like, trapped in your phone.

Yeah. And it's not watchable anywhere else, and it's formatted to be shaped like your phone. And it's like, it's a show from your phone. Yeah, it's a phone show. It's a phone show. It would be too scrutable? Vertical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now, I heard your, and you just heard a lot of crazy things right now, quibby, scrutable. It's all okay, it's all okay. And just remember, just everybody, anybody listening, don't give your banking information to anybody on the phone. No, don't do that. I remember, I, like, I had, unless it's Heather. Heather is not in trouble.

That is an AI synthetic version. I had a scripted e-sports series. I made with my friend Maddie Smith for Go-90 defunct Verizon service. I remember Go 90. Go 90's whole thing was it was the opposite of verticals because you would hold your phone vertically and then you would go 90 to watch it, meaning turn it horizontally so you could watch it

the correct aspect ratio. But it was like the dumbest thing because you had to have like a Verizon phone to watch any of their content. And all of it I think is just like completely invisible and I have no idea how you'd even find it. I think my new mantra for when I'm thinking that when I'm getting bogged down with the reality

that everything is stupid and sucks now is just true. My new mantra is going to be, it's always been this way Sure, everything's always a bad And that is a comfort Yeah, it's like, well, it's not It's worse, but it's always been like this

I thought you were going to say your mantra is going to be Dude, just go 90 Yeah, honestly Works for the freeway, works for We went on a capes tangent And then a bunch of other tangents So we didn't even talk about you playing Superman What was that like?

It was, yeah, I mean, you know Every job is exciting But I was about to teach a class and I was checking my phone and I got that email and I mean in the email because I have the same agent as him I mean it was literally

da da da da da da da da da send me reveals Roger Craig Smith Batman Craig Lee Thomas Superman and I burst into tears and had to like excuse myself and like get myself

and this is two years ago the double Craig production it was yeah the Welsh were strongly that's it which is good but yeah unbelievable and the guy who directs the game is a guy named

Calell, whose dad, John drew a lot of the seminal Superman comics. Wow. That's ridiculous. And his name is Cali. So he's the guy who directs that game and he's a genius. He's one of the best Vio directors in the game. He directs Hell Divers as well. Oh, hell yeah. So yeah, I got told how to sound like Superman by a guy named Calell.

So pretty amazing. You get this like good this great news, this great exciting news right before you teach a class. Do you get to be like, hey, students, guess what? I actually just got this really good gig, and so you should actually really be listening to me. I'm a really good teacher, actually. Let me tell you. The previous class, my chair was facing the correct direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That class, that motherfather turned around.

Hell yeah. They went 180. Yeah, I went 180. Exactly. I took Verizon's address twice. But yeah, I just had to sort of collect myself and not. Yeah. Yeah. That's your wife. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

But hugely gratifying, crazy voice cast. It's the first video game my wife has ever played in her adult life to like a high degree and she's like so far ahead of me otherwise she's like loving it so it's very cute she like didn't want to stop until she unlocked me which was like

amazing and now she's like oh my god kicking ass at this game that's great rocks that's exciting that's really sweet and since you've been here last two uh hell divers two has been released on Xbox which is huge we ended the console wars is what I like to say yeah yeah okay take responsibility for that nice why not it was you I think I think you broke it to be.

Yeah, yeah, let's just say it with me. Why not? Yeah, that's fine. It still has the best theme song of the last three years. Yeah. Non-stop. It, like, it plays in my head when I'm about to do something good. Banana, no, no, yep, that sting every time.

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Oh, yes. And you were telling us that it was the same costume designer as who did Erica Ishii's Yote cosplay. Yes, I was so excited that you guys had Erica. I love Erica. They're amazing. We had a couple of games together. They played a very cool, like, undercut, non-binary butcher in a dating sim.

that we're in together where I played like a coded Scientologist former actor cult leader and the studio would troll me because it was like it was like 11 different romancible options and I never cracked

double digits and the studio would just post about hey guess who's last again Frank live like thanks guys I appreciate Erica was it was Erica and Ray Chase at the top Ray Chase played a sexy werewolf librarian Yes Erica was a non-bun

binary cool as fuck butcher yeah how the fuck am i gonna compete with that yeah this is unbelievable yeah but uh yeah i believe at like linda is they're at i think um i believe they're from italy but they're an amazing cosplayer they made erika's yote cost and they made my tunic and like my gloves and my utility belts they had a friend like forge the skull belt yes for the game awards and then a guy here uh lancer studios 3d printed all the armor amazing yeah and got to Go do the game wards. I saw Kojima. It was, I was going to say.

I have, I have Googled them. They are from Italy. They have 12 years on Etsy with over 1,500 sales. I'm not lying when I say that I want to wear everything. Every one of them. Every single thing that is on their splash page, I want to own and wear around. Like, holsters and belts and buckles. You might need to soon.

Fair Just the way things are going But you said So you got to see Kojima Were you wearing the armor when you saw him? Oh yeah I was 100% wearing the armor I mean like you know

It was a secret appearance So like I wasn't allowed to talk about it obviously And then like I was kind of sequestered So like I put the armor on it It was like okay I can hang out in my dressing room Or the kind of foyer until I went upstairs But Gary Barth Who's I think like the second

longest tenured employee at Sony he kind of like he did the E3 last of a subway station he kind of is like the contractor when they make stuff for people so he like helped contract the guitar the Death Stranding 2 guitar and a BB and stuff so he was down in L.A. from San Fran

where he lives and he had worked with Kajima son before and I was like shitting bricks that he was there so Gary very kind of kind of keep the armor on after we kind of hang out outside we see what happens and I was just like standing there bouncing around hoping against hope and I got to meet him for a second

and take a picture which I just died Yeah. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. The aura on that man is gravitational. What was it like wearing the armor? I never wanted to take it off. I mean every power fantasy you've ever

had to have your life. They made me wide get up. I had to shave my head. Oh hell yeah. Which also, I mean you you felt a certain way. Yeah, for sure. stomping around in that thing taking up even more space than I do normally it was pretty wild

I bumped in deployed to Chicago I was like I don't have to change out of this I bumped into Aaron Paul twice backstage because he was presenting for his God I'm blanking on the name the game where he's going to be like the superhero I think dispatch is what it's called I can't wait for that I bumped into him in the armor

hey looking good man I was like you're amazing oh my god and then like two hours later I was I changed it to my tux and I bumped into him again. He's like, this guy always looks fucking better than me. This guy's problem. He's in armor before, now he's wearing a jacket and I just, I was like, you're Aaron Paul and are beautiful and perfect.

That's so funny. It was a wild experience. Wow. For sure. Another thing we were talking about before we started recording, and I did apologies if this is something, if this is something you were going to step on for a question I'm going to ask soon, let me know.

But you've been talking about playing. You know, walk about minigolf VR. Yeah. So, embarrassingly enough, as I admitted to Ranch, she's like, hey, like, what have you been playing? What is somebody? I'm like, honestly, what is the game that has given me the most pleasure in the region of future?

Yeah. Walk about minigolf VR on my meta quest. It's incredible. What is it about this game? It's kind of two games in one. It's a mini golf simulator. Right. Yeah.

But also, every time you sort of like unlock a course, there is a scavenger hunt component, and they're all themed. So you go on to a course and the music is perfect and it's fully immersive. The sound of the ball and the putter is just like absolutely perfect.

So you had that experience. And then it's like, oh, you played the pirate course. Here's a 14 clue really nicely written scavenger hunt to find and you are moving around in 3D space trying to find the pirate hat, trying to find the coins and stuff.

And I just find myself like standing in my living room and the hours just melting by as I dissociate on like a Mars space station or whatever. It's crazy. How do you do in that type of movement? I always get so sick when there's like movement in a 3D space in VR

because I'm standing completely still so I'm not like walking. Your inner ear is going crazy. I get so, so ill. I think the reason it works like you can move exclusively sort of like fade to white fade to white

you just sort of bounce place to place so there is no movement or you could fly around but you don't have to okay you can do all the components

of the game you sort of click and it's like oh I put ball goes over there you click the trigger you're just sort of softly teleported there

there's no traversal that's not so bad so that helps with the motion sickness for sure but yeah yeah because it feels like they've been

iterating on that because I've definitely played VR games where you've had like a click to move and you just kind of teleport but like the fade to white feels like a nice little bit of yeah i'm in asgard's wrath too okay which is another like meta quest game but that's like very actiony triple a

it's so much fun but it is more like you're moving around and i got about yeah i have like a virtual boys length of time on that my tummy is just like you gotta stop playing this for a little bit so i just remember when we did uh the blair witch game it wasn't it wasn't that i was just very scared of the game i had i would that game laid me out. Like I was so sick. Legitimately super nausea. Yeah. I mean, well, that game specifically was bad. Yeah. And also was bad at the, because I've done traversal in VR that doesn't suck. And in that one, I felt like I was going to puke. Yeah. I think part of that was a, and I think I like that game more than you, but like the, because it was a port, I think they had like kind of not done the, you know,

there was, I think, a click to move option in that. But that was a teleport. but yeah I do it was originally just for PC and so like like I think the the VR version just like didn't have like all of the uh you know a customization for that that particular platform have any of you guys ever played the Sega 360 arcade sphere yeah I remember that thing um it was a it was a like a after burner style uh airplane game but it was in a full 360 degree rotation sphere like it looked like the thing from contact they used to have one I believe with the Disneyland Arcade the one

in future what the Tomorrowland it was like yeah what the hell is it called the arcade area I don't remember it's because it's a name for it it's line extension now right right but they simulate it I think a lot about like how would you solve the problem

of VR movement and I think it would involve like a Da Vinci's man sort of thing Where you're position in a sphere and when you're moving forward, the thing maybe tips backwards so that your brain has the sense of movement or something. Yeah, that it would fuck with your gyroscope.

Because all it would do in the flying game is when you were like taking off at full speed, the sphere would just drop you like flat on your back. For me, in VR, the best experience is like on rails. like you're in a boat there's yeah in a boat that's fine uh any where where you're moving it's moving you basically and you're sort of stationary that's like that's completely fine to me but i even did the um the resident evil four uh VR before the remake VR came out which I would have probably preferred to see but um it was still such a I think maybe also like the environments in the Blair Witch game and in Resident Evil

for so ugly. It's sickening anyway. That, like, being there, you can't comprehend the horrors. Yeah, you're just like, oh, this fucking sucks. I told the anecdote on the show when I used to play, because I had, like, half of my garage dedicated to a VR space.

And I used to play the medieval combat game where you were just in an arena and you can, like, grab any weapon and kill anybody that came through the door and got so into it that I punched my concrete floor as hard as I could. God. Like, didn't, like, because you can also, like, you could knock people down, and it was full body tracking.

So I got on top of the guy and just started punching his face. Yeah. And at one point, connected with my floor as far as I could. Wow. Mary walks in on you, just, like, pummeling somebody to death on the ground, screaming. So they got to fix that problem, too. Yeah, that is well. Yeah, you should be able to do it and not hurt your hand.

There needs to be, like, just a jelly suit. Yeah. You're in jelly. and you're in a sphere. That's what I'll help the nauseating experience. Just a lot of goo. If you could get in a sort of like wipeout style like hamster ball that is that is

stationary but moves on the inside. That's fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's a blast. Maybe people are commenting on you and the rest of your family is totally fun with that sitting in the room. That's a welcome addition to that. Maybe you kick your parents out of the ADU or whatever and you put it in there.

Sorry, Mom and Dad. Yeah. What is, I mean, there are, if you look online, there are people who are solving this problem constantly in VR. There's, like, some kind of a thing that's, like, basically ball bearings in, like, a conical shape. And you can, like, walk on that and, and, and stay in place. Yeah.

There's also that Microsoft floor. Did you guys see the video for the Microsoft floor? Oh, I think I have. Like, you, like, you, like, walk in it, and it just moves you backwards while, like, all. It's made of, like, a bunch of little bay, like, the thing. from Big Hero 6 things that turned I just saw that movie

for the first time this year and I loved it It's good I've never seen before I love Baymax You know about Baymax? I know about Baymax He's good

Yeah He's in Fortnite No complaints with Baymax Baymax is in Fortnite Yeah everybody's in Fortnite That's a hell of a hitbox on that Yeah He's a big boy

Yeah he's a big boy How do they scale that down? Well in theory What they tell you Is that all the hitboxes are the same No matter what Because like Optimus Prime

is in the game Also person sized But there are tests online that maybe the hitboxes are slightly different on the big boys pay to lose

well they should make Optimus Prime full size they shouldn't make him person size he should be the size of a fucking

semi truck yeah it'd be interesting what the balance did if everyone every character was to scale yeah it'd be so funny

you get a build no build and scale yeah just be a game type so fucking cool yeah I was with my neck because Godzilla's in it too

oh my god I did not I did not understand the whole that Fortnite has on the under 12 set until a recent trip back home absolutely insane

and they were making fun of how bad I was pretty vociferous They said I was butt cheeks They said I was butt cheeks I didn't know they were getting Butt cheeks I was like I'm good at video games I didn't realize they were trying to kill you

Yeah she killed me dead I'm a ghost Ghost of Yote Ghost of Craig fucking cooked by a nine year old Unbelievable. Sony's next sequel, Ghost of Cray.

The game everyone would want to play. I would play an ancient Japan simulator with a guy like this. Like a triple A game where a guy was going up, couldn't understand anybody. What the fuck is this? He's sick and upset. Doesn't speak Japanese. he's tired But also trying to call people on his cell phone

He's like, what's the hell? He's like, what's the hell? Right Stick to de-teer hamstring. I can't walk anymore. Your likeness. Yeah, that's just my life. That's just it. Comic Con the Cruise is the ultimate vacation for fans of comics, gaming, and popular arts.

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What are you playing? Hi, it's me the residency room, and I'm here with guest after guest on the show. Is it a hint? What do you mean? Are you guys replacing me? No. We're not going to, what? Because we have guests in the studio? No, you have a different role

than the guests. Yeah, but they got good voices. You have a great voice too. It's inimitable. And it's inevitable. All right, don't be fucking roast. me over here. I couldn't say it. I couldn't say it. It's a tricky word in my life.

Inimitable. Inimitable. Yeah. An inimitable. It's a little tricky. Yeah. I shouldn't have done it to myself. Murch, give me a quick, like,

when all you could fried chicken is think about, Postmates. Just give me a read. When all you could fried chicken is think about Purrish. Pretty good. That's a hell of a read. Yeah.

That is a hell of a lot of punch. Yeah. Voice of an Asian. Hi, Rich. Hi. I don't like that. this, I don't like this. You don't need them to the ranch.

No, no. That's in the lines that Matt does not need. Two agents of chaos. Wow. For some reason, I was okay but uncomfortable with the merch saying hi to ranch. Ranch's response threw me over the edge. Can't allow it. I can't allow it.

Matt, what are you playing? I'll tell you. I thought I'd be here today being like a really exciting kind of guy. Yeah. Oh. Because as of today, as of record, a new Pokemon game has come out. Pokemon Z-A. And, you know, I pre-ordered it from, directly from the Pokemon Center.

Those are your guys. Those are my guys. The Pokemon's are my guys. They're your guys. I pre-ordered it straight from them because they had, to me, the most appealing pre-order incentive. Which is a random plush of one of the starters. Incredible. Love that.

And so I was thinking, I'm going to get this. And the plush will dictate my starter in the game. I have a choice of chikarita, which don't want. I think chikarita's cute. I think chikarita's cute. Not my favorite. Toto Dile, my number one. I love Toto Dile, of the bunch.

Of this bunch, I love Toto Dio. I was like, you're number one. Toto Diole. No, I mean, because, like, Sindaquil from the second generation is my favorite. Sure. But Toto Dile, I love Toto Dio. I think he's a funny looking guy. He looks great.

And then the fire starter, and this one is Tepig, which I don't have a connection to because I did not play Pokemon black or white. So I just am not, I'm not familiar with his game. But I'd be excited to pick him. But the, you know, the plush will dictate. I thought, okay, the package is going to come today. We're recording today. I'll bring it to the studio, unbox. And we'll all get to learn.

which starter I get. And so Ranch has pulled up the starters from Pokemon Z.A. And here's the thing. They're all really cute. They're so cute. Yeah, I guess I'm probably partial to Chikorita, but that's also because a lot of my Pokemon interaction comes from via Smash Brothers.

And Chikarita was an assist trophy. Yeah. And we did play gold silver on the show in the past. But this specific, the 3D character design reminds me of Smash Brothers implementation. Matt, Matt, can I ask you a question? Yeah, please. How do you weigh in on a controversy that they took out the three-dimensional rendered balconies in the city environments? You know, to me, it's, I mean, obviously, historically, the games look and run bad.

Yes. I think they did this because they must have not made the game run good. Wow. because they've they flattened the cities and took out all the detailing on the on the sort of storefronts and everything else but early renders of the game

had those balconies yes what do you think is going on with them I think it must have made the game chug I think it's just like right but why well because they because they're just they're not good at making games they're just like bad games

or they make games poorly but the reception on this game is good. It's hovering it around like sort of like mid to low 80s, which is sort of like... About all you can ask for. Yeah, it's about all you can ask for, but it's about what they do with this. They never really get higher than that. So it's right now it's second to Legends Archaeus, which I really love.

So I'm excited to give it a try. Hopefully it's there when I get home. But I'm still chipping away at Silk Song still. Ranch, I need a Silk Song update from you. I'm in some areas that. that I'm very surprised by. I'm in this cog area. I took down an optional boss called The Phantom.

How if you found The Phantom? I'm on that today. The Phantom is an insanely fun boss fight. Wow. It is completely optional, missable, don't need to do it. He's kind of like the Phantom of the Opera. He's playing an organ in there. He's got like a little like half mask.

He's here inside your mind. He's here inside my mind. I wish, you know, the only time I've seen the musical, I was up for 24 hours because the UCB Del Close Marathon was here in Los Angeles, and I had an improv show at 11.30 p.m. and 4 a.m., so I just stayed up all night, and then went to go. How did you get scheduled that way? Because nobody does a good job and nobody gives a shit about me. The Pokemon company of scheduling I mean honestly, truly But I had plans to see the musical At the Pantages with my

Then-Girlfriend, now wife and my in-laws And I was like, I'll stick it out Hopefully I don't fall asleep And let me tell you something about Phantom That thing keeps your attention That's a good show Yeah, it is a killer show Yeah, great little show

Candlear comes down Yep Oh man, when the chandelier came down I was fucking scared Also, I've been up for 24 hours. Music at the night just ringing. Yeah, but so I'm doing this, but I, I'm still having a blast. I'm really, really enjoying the show.

I need more stuff. I got a new ability that's like you throw your needle and it pulls you to where you throw your needle kind of thing, which is clutch. Clutch for a traversal. So I think I'm finding little pockets of areas now where I'm basically in the second, I feel like I'm in the true second part of the game where there's a second fast travel mechanism that is not like the Bell Beast and that is sort of taking me to different areas and then the new modes of traversal that I have are getting me to different

areas and it's just like I I kind of am worried about the guy I'm going to become when I finish this game yeah because as it stands right now I'm like this could be I know everybody sort of jokes because I do say this a lot that this is going to be like an all timer for me this is like this is potentially reaching like number one territory it's so fucking good holy shit it's insane to me I'm just really really loving it ranch give us an update on silk song what are you doing where are you at why are you allowed to talk to her and I'm not

because I don't talk to her the way you did and I didn't like it I said hi hi no stop stop I actually have not played since we last talk oh my god I was surrounded by children and had no time for anything. Yeah, there's probably no reason around here you've been super busy. Surrounded by children, meaning she was producing get played.

Well, I can't wait to hear when you get a little further along because there's some really great stuff coming along that I got to talk to somebody about. But that's it for me. Wow. Craig, what are you playing? Yeah, Silk Song.

Wow. Wow. Okay. So good. Yeah. It's amazing. I feel I feel like I cheated a little bit because I played Hollow Night for the first time this year. I just never came around to it. So like all these people, oh, I waited all this time. I'm like, oh, I kind of finished and then pretty shortly after. So that, an embarrassment of riches to have two great games like that. I've had, I've been through all of the stages of grief with Silk Song. I think it's hard. Yeah. And it's opaque in so many ways

and I was talking to ranch before just like when you reach that cog Citadel portion there was there was a good two days where I felt like all of my video game time was playing Silk Song and I was just literally running around in circles not even metaphorically just like I don't know what to do and I was trying so hard to not look stuff up

because I want to be a good I want to be a good little gamer and I was able to get most of Act 2 through without looking stuff up I am beginning to road now when I butt my head up against a wall for an hour I'm like what the fuck is this? Yeah, because at this point there are guides now because nobody had

like review copies or anything so there was like no like there was no guides at the time that the game came out but I was stuck on something the other day and I looked something up and even something like maybe just poor reading comprehension but I'll look something up in this game and be like what the fuck are they talking about?

And then I'll have to go back further and be like oh it's because I didn't do this so then I have to go and like figure There's like an old thing that I hadn't done yet. It's interesting with guides because I try to avoid them. Sometimes, you know, again, if I'm just banging my head against a wall, I've got to just resort to using them. But I certainly am enjoying a game more if I'm discovering things on my own. But I'm thinking of the, you know, the research I read about chat GPT and using it to write essays, compose, you know, a piece of writing, is that it actually,

takes longer than just writing it but it uses less mental power to like do it so people will use it because they're just like like this is more time consuming but it's easier and I wonder if there's a similar sort of thing with like guides of just like you just reach a point of frustration where you're just like

well I'm just going to look this thing up but I wonder if it actually is it a shortcut or you know I don't know right because I got to like get my computer I got to look for the thing I got to sort of decipher the information maybe watch a YouTube video where I could just be actually doing the thing that it's trying to show them.

And they're trying so hard to implement like streamlined versions of that. Like I know that like PlayStation hints are built into my television. Like not even like the PlayStation. They're built into my TV. And somehow the TV knows when I'm playing a game that hints are available for that game.

So it'll pop up like a thing and it'll be like consult your PlayStation menu for hints and walkthroughs on this game or press this button on your Bravia. And I'm like, what, I can just play the game. Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck is Sony doing?

Evergreen question. Yeah. Fucking television. Exactly. You fucking robot bastard. I'll tell you what Sony's doing. They're making the most beautiful television I've ever seen in my life. Bravies is a good looking panel.

God damn it. But built in PlayStation hints, come on. That's anarchy. Also, it has built in PlayStation streaming. So if you have a Bravia somewhere else in your house, it has remote play built into the actual panel. Yeah. But you need to connect a viola. laptop.

And it plugs into an IV drip. Yeah. I remember my brother got a Sony Vio laptop like years ago. He might have been working for Sony at the time

and I was like, how was this thing? He's like, it fucking sucks. Immediately. It's awful. I still have a Vio because it's the only way

I can get, I can make mini disc records. So I had to get an entire Sony system so that I could go functionally from today's iTunes or

Apple music through a chain of events that outputs the music onto my minidisc with track information and it involves a vio that I got off eBay for like $25 that doesn't have a battery and like the only thing on it is the minidisc program because I was like I can't do anything else on this computer it'll destroy itself it only runs from a cigarette letter to car when the cyber attack comes and the internet is erased you are going to be like the Library of Congress because you will have the only isolated system

people people will come to me for music and I will deal like drugs and they will be so bummed at my selection you got any tracks I'll be like

great more oasis yeah more oasis I'm going to interest you in the library oh good the later stuff Heather what are you playing well

I haven't had a lot lot of time for video games in my life, but I figured out a solution, and that's waking up at five in the morning. So for the last week, I've woken up at five in the fucking morning, and I've been playing Ghost of Yote. I've been able to put in 20 hours on the game this way because I've been playing before anybody gets up. As the sun rises in Los Angeles, so does the sunrise over Yote. I did bump up the difficulty. I didn't bump it up to lethal. I tried lethal, but it made it unenjoyable. Hard difficulty makes it

soul-esque. And I beat one of my first of the Yote 6. I went after Oni, only, who's like the big dude. And I had to fight him for 35 minutes. Wow. Because I don't, again. Is this

one continuous session, or were you losing and having to retry? Losing, losing, losing over and over and over again. I don't know what I've done wrong. It's probably that wherever wherever I see a red flag, I run at the red flag and kill everybody at the red flag. So much so that I actually had a cutscene that made me laugh out loud. I killed a bounty.

And the bounty said, did that farmer send you? And the game is programmed if you haven't spoken to anybody for the ghost of Yote to say, what farmer? And he goes, what? That's extremely good. It's so good. You confused an NPC. Yeah.

Yeah. Why are you here? I really, really love that there. There's been a few conversations I've had with NPCs where they're referencing stuff and she goes like, I don't know what you're talking about. And it has to be covering for the fact that I have avoided sections of the map to just kill people. From their perspective, you just walked into their town and killed a guy. Yeah.

And this guy was like, well, obviously, like, the farmer hated this guy. So, like, I'll ask about it. And he was like, uh-huh. Yeah, there was a, there was like a guy that I killed and, uh, and afterwards, she found a bounty flyer and was like, oh, there's a bounty. Because I hadn't stopped at any of the signs. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, it took me about 35 minutes to beat only because, uh, he could one hit kill me. So I had to learn every, and he had, like, spoilers for the ony.

Spoilers for the ony. He had two stages of battle. So I got through the first stage of battle and I was like, oh, fucking, like, great. You know, I killed the boss. And then he powers up. And I was like, oh, no. My reset point is I've now expensed everything that I had on the first version. All of my arrows are gone.

all of my bombs are gone everything is gone it's just me and this dude who won hit kills me every single time so I had to learn my only option was a perfect parry session because he also could kill me on block oh

so I had to learn all of his fucking moves and perfect parry my way through the entire fight which took me so fucking long that like I would press pause and I would sit on my couch and I'd be like, I know that the way this works is that you take a breath and you walk away

and then you come back and it's easy and I would force myself to do it and I'd sit back down and that and it was not. It would be harder because I had forgotten. You're always so close to tilt. But I did beat him. Well, it took you 35 minutes total?

Yeah. That's not much of a struggle. What? For a regular 35 minutes to figure out how to perfect parry this guy? I was stuck on a boss in Silk Song for three days. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, 100%. Echin's sword saying that at end of Sakerow took me three fucking days.

Yeah. Well, I had never gotten a prompt that said, would you like to abandon this? Oh. And it started giving me the prompt. Oh, wow. Because, like, also, when I would lose, it was like this. So it was 35 minutes of like 20 seconds at a time.

Got it, got it, got, got it. Ah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. So I took him on, I took him on at least 150 times. Like so many fucking times That is crazy I find it interesting though That you did this

And yet The game is so pleasurable and enjoyable That it didn't deter you from From playing this way I don't like you using the word pleasurable Yeah I know it's like It's kind of like

Almost erotic Oh boy I'm glad I'm on this couch Like a December chat GPT Yeah No, but I'm super, super enjoying it But I had like an adjacent to gaming thing that I've been doing And I wanted to talk about it because I had a really huge success today

So I've been metal detecting Hell yes Hell yes, that's simply hell yes I mean completely on brand What's that? What the fuck does that mean? I just feels like the kind of thing you would do Yeah, I've been metal detecting I wouldn't you in six months' time

We're going to find out Heather got into digging for oil and I've been digging exclusively in my own yard like nothing you know I'm not going out I did dig at Griffith Park once but then I was like I don't know the legality of this and up until today

I had only found a 1949 penny was the coolest thing I had found cool that's very cool tons of nails and hooks and fucking like apparently everybody in Los Angeles just has for hundreds of years just thrown everything in their own yard.

He's nails out of here. But, you know, we've got a hell diver on our show. So today's find was pretty spectacular. A relic of super earth? And I want to show it, which is that today I found a World War I

led soldier. Whoa. Look at that. Uh, in, and, and, and it was, uh, in my, in my, in my, in my, in my yard. And it's like a legit, uh, a legit, like 1920s world war one soldier that I found. How did you get it identified? What, well, so I thought it was a World War II soldier. Yeah. Um, but my wife's father was like, no, that uniform is World War I. I know it's led because of how fucking heavy it is. even though it's like the size of the palm of your hand, it's lead. So you can zero in on when were they giving children lead toys?

Yes. Yeah. Up until very recently. So you zoom in to like. It's resuming. You zoom in on 20, like 1920s to 1940s is when they're making these toys. And then based on the uniform, you can find out what war it is. And they weren't making World War I toys during World War II.

They're making World War II guys for everybody. So this particular uniform with the high-wasted belt and the sword at its side is a World War I uniform. So this is a 1920s lead toy that I found in my yard. You know, the American soldiers in World War I had a nickname, Do Boys. How about that? How? Yeah, fun fact. Stolen Valor.

Motherfuckers didn't you need a Taco Bell? Yeah. I love about that's the direction of Ball was stolen. Great. There's a breaking chews from those assholes. It would have fucking killed their little soft asses, pussy's. Feeding a cheesy gordita crunch. There's someone on a depression-era diet instead of that.

They swell, the edema is immediate. They couldn't comprehend diet Dr. Pepper. Well, well, well, what's all this about? Oh, my God! Yeah, being in the same room as a. fucking hot Cheeto. Dearest Victoria, the Baja Blast you sent were a hit with the rest of the regiment.

They're dead. Please don't leave me. I'm coming back. So anyway, I feel like I've gamified because I'm trying to clean up my yard and like digging nails out of the dirt and like cleaning it up is like a kind of long-term project and I feel like I gamified it by getting a metal detector.

And sure enough, it did give me two treasures, a 1949 penny and that little soldier. Waker, what are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. It's a pit renaissance lately. Last week I was talking Clover Pit. This week, it's Ball Pit.

There's an X in between that if you're searching for it. Ball X pit, although I believe it's not vocalized. It's on Game Pass, which I guess is Microsoft's only gaming product anymore besides the floor. It is a roguelite brick-smashing game that feels part vampire survivors, part Pagel. So, Heather, I know when we're... were playing when we were covering vampire survivors you felt like the game was like pretty passive because like really it's a auto shooter that's part of what i like about it's just pure gameplay um but this is one where it's like a little bit of an iteration on it where you've got

active cursor control so you've got was to movement to kind of move your uh your your player character around on screen and then you were aiming your cursor and the process of doing that you fire a ball that ricochets off of these advancing enemies uh like you're playing you know one of those old those block smashing games I can think of the name as an Arkenoid right that's the main one of the big ones

but you know it's it's super fun it's just this absorbing experience that's like all dopamine hits it reminds me this old PC engine game called Devil's Crush which was a pinball game with bad guys and it was just basically pinball but it was just like it was taking advantage

of it being a video game and so you'd see you know all these like it's minions marching around also just really cool character designs these upgrade mechanics that really change how the play space feels. For instance, there's an early one that gives you like your own sort of troop, your own sort of advancing

a stone soldier that comes up against the marching legions. And it's just got this fun feeling of, I guess I should describe it more, it's like a vertical stretch of screen, and the enemies are coming from top to bottom. So, and the player character is on the

bottom, and then you were just basically shooting this peggle like a ricocheting projectile to knock them out and so there's like also the strategy of trying to aim it where it was will maximize the number of things it's bouncing against sometimes it's like oh you've got this this enemy you're trying to blockade

who's higher up on the screen so you don't want to destroy the smaller less threatening minions in front of it to spare yourself some grief and yeah just it's it's just really really such a such a creative clever design with just like a really nice aesthetic to it. I'd heard a lot of hype about this game, and I'm glad it's on Game Pass because I think that'll lead to a lot more people trying it out, but it is, it's just really, really fun,

and anyone who's playing it can attest to the same thing. Yeah, it's the same sort of feeling I had when I was playing vampire survivors or deep rock galactic, you just getting into that sort of zen-like flow state. and, yeah, just really enjoying myself. I really want to check it out. We were texting about this. Yes, yeah. And it seems like I'm going to love it.

I really, really can't wait to try it. There's another one that's like a 3D vampire survivors type thing called Mega. Megabonk, I think it's called. Yes, I've seen Megabonk. I've not messed around with it yet. It's just interesting now that this is like a genre. Maybe Vampire Survivors didn't invent it. But I feel like since then there's like,

just a bunch of games like this that are just you know number go up type thing I love it I mean I love just like anything that exposes just how I'm just kind of the same thing I was saying about Clover Pit just how like what dumb animals we are it's really really fun just reducing a video game to its essence but also like feeling maximalist in its presentation I just checked our text exchange to see what it was and it was you text to me

why is you play in ball pit yet yeah and I was like not yet but but I'm going to it's reminding me of and then I played the shit of it. It's reminding me of like when we were talking about balacho. I remember when that first came out. I think you were like, why can you play balatro yet? And I was like, not yet. I'm downloading it.

And then my next text was I played seven hours of blotro. What year is this? So in some ways I've done this to you twice. First one's free ones. I can always sniff out a Weigerass game. I think that this is a mat game too. Mr. Games will love this. So that's what we've been playing.

That's it. That's what we're playing. That's what we've been playing. Should we get to this draft? Yeah. Yeah, let's get to a draft. Yeah. So this came about because I asked Craig,

Craig, what's your favorite types of games in general? Craig gave me an answer that honestly shocked me. Not shocked because it was like, it's a bad, it's a bad game. But I just like, it's, you know, it's rare that people are uttering his name, I think, in the year of our Lord 2025. Craig, big crash guy. Oh, Crash Bandicoot, okay. Love Crash Bandicoot.

Sure. And that got me... Pretty good. Man, Crash. There you go. This guy's good. Don't tell Scott Weddick. He'll kick my ass.

He'll stolen valid for me. Just spin around really fast. Yeah. I don't have wampa fruit. So that got me thinking. I was like, okay, okay, there's like so many, there's so many mascots that I feel like we talk about a lot of the ones that we love, but we haven't really dug in on a bunch of them.

So I thought, why don't we draft some of our favorites who's kind of just, go, you know, we can do it snake style, we could do it, however we, you know, how we see fit. Snake style. Heather's migraine begins. Or we could do, we can't believe we've never done this before. Snake style.

A draft. A draft. It can't be. That's right, Snake. The draft began during the Civil War. Talking for 30 minutes. Exactly. The sociopolitical ramifications of the draft were at the height of the 60s.

And all of us just sitting back being like, ooh, cool. This is gaming. Yeah, I figured it's just, you know, just a classic draft episode. Everybody's got their favorite mascots. Which side of the couch we want to start on? You want to start on that side of the couch, Nick? Or do you want to on our side of the couch? I think it would be, I think we should give our esteemed guest the first pick.

Great. I mean, it feels derivative of me to say this, but it would be disingenuous of me not to say I got to, if I have the first pick, I got to get Crash. All right. I mean, very good choice. Crash, too, I think, it is on my Mount Rushmore of games. Great game. I think.

Played the shit out of it. Yeah. I think it was the perfect time, like, 95 or 96, I think. It was a perfect time of like the days of not having a lot of games. Right. And my sister and I had a PlayStation. and for whatever reason we got Crash 2 first, I think. Yeah, same in my house, actually.

And I, like, went to Blockbuster and got a used Crash 1 afterward. But that game, the amount of times I played Crash 2 probably is only rivaled by the amount of times I played the first Metal Gear Solid. Wow. And just every secret area, every warp level, every single ever, the Polar Bear Chase in Crash 2

is so, he's so cute. I love that little polar bear. He's one of my favorite little guys. Yeah. Oh, a top-tier little guy. All-time little guy. Yeah. But yeah, I think Crash was the best.

He was a big PlayStation mascot. Yeah. Trying to fight Sonic a little bit, maybe unsuccessfully. But he's my guy. He's got no shirt and pants. My favorite aesthetics. Here's the thing. Like, it's a great look.

And you're rocking in the studio, which I appreciate. Yeah, absolutely. John Cena before John Cena? gloves, short jeans, giant boots, and that's it. That's a look. There's a, so the thing about Crash is that you mentioned the comparison to Sonic, and yeah, that's clearly they were trying to vote. But the thing is, like, Sonic was starting to get a little, feel a little try hard

and sweaty at that point. And Crash, when he emerged in the PlayStation marketing in the 90s was, like, cool. And kind of, like, had that the sort of edginess that you'd see in a lot. Like, the Grand Tarismo ads also, like, had, like, that same sort of thing to it. They weren't accomplishing the same thing. They weren't attempting the same thing tonally, but they also just made PlayStation feel like a cool brand. And that was a big part of it.

Like, he didn't feel like a kiddie mascot. He felt like a thing that was for teens and adults. And, you know, we previously had, I mentioned this on the guest, Alex Berg, who is one of the actors who donned the suit, who was Crash Bandicoot in one of these spots. The thing I love about Crash, he is funny. He is funny.

He does funny stuff. He's dancing is good. Yeah. I love when he dances. He'll, like, turn around, he'll show his little butt. Yeah. That dance is a good thing. He'll show his butt.

Craig just did the dance for our baby. It's kind of a this kind of thing, and he goes down, it down. It's kind of the LeBron, sort of a proto. Right, right, or whatever he calls it. He'll turn around, he'll show his butt, but then from showing his butt, he'll sort of like peek around. He'll be like, how do you believe I'm showing my butt? It's great. It's good stuff.

Sick fuck. What's that? It's a sick fuck. I mean, he's actually, it's actually disgusting. Actually, he shouldn't do that. but he's also like he is cool but he's also kind of like hey whatever man he's a bandicoot

yeah he's a bandicoot yeah it's right he's got cool friends and cortex funny because he got big head cortex is funny but we're not talking cortex no no no no no we're not that's for the antagonist draft which you're doing right after

we're going to do it immediately uh whygs you want to go next yeah I'll go next I'll gladly take the second pick and take off the board the mascot of video game mascots. Give me Mario. Holy shit.

I'm not going to take Mario? Mario's available. Give me fucking Mario. Yeah, Mario's good. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Mario's clothes are really good. Mario's clothes are really good. He's got a great look.

The suspenders, the coveralls, and then the, you know, the red and blue, the colorways. Great shoes, which don't get talked about enough. Yeah, the brown shoes are really good. And he's got the classic sort of cartoon character gloves, which is a big, you know, a big part of his style. But like, but like even like if you look at that like Martin, like 2D Mario back from the Jumpman era, he's still so identifiable. He still passes the silhouette test. And also just like a character that has endured over the decades. If you ask someone like what is video gaming, like what's a video game character, top of mind, got to be a top three answer, maybe number one overall.

I love all of Mario's games as well as the other thing. It's just like great 2D games, Super Mario World, one of my favorite games of all time on my all timer list. I love Odyssey, obviously. You know, just just so many bangers over the years. Basically every mainline

Mario game, absent sunshine, which is still pretty good, is just an absolute classic. So I think Mario is the natural pick for me here. It's a great pick. It's a great, I mean, somebody had to take him first. Yeah, someone had to take

him. Yeah. Might as well be me. I never really thought about the gloves actually now you talk about it. Nobody, no human being wears gloves like that. It's only cartoon characters that wear gloves like that. Yeah. Hmm. What is that? The routes of it are actually not great.

The roots of it. It's like it has its I believe it has its origins in like minstrel shows. And so that like the early cartoon characters were like trying to evoke that aesthetic. Yeah. Okay, got it, got it. But it's fine now.

It's fine now. Mario can wear them. Hey, Mario, lose the gloves. What do his hands look like after all this time? They're all wet. He's an aquatic worker. He's a plumber. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So those hands are, that's disgusting. Man, he takes them off now. They fucking stink. He made the 2D 3D jump, I think. Like you said, looks great in the side scrollers. Doesn't look weird in 3D. No, no, it also looks good. in 3D.

Yeah. He looks a little weird in the Mario movie. A little bit. Just a little bit. Sounds great. Sounds, Oh.

The voice is good. Indisputable. Yeah. We all like it. But yeah, he's got, what why is, what's going on there, Heather?

Because you're right. Why does he look just a little bit weird? Yeah. I, I... He looks more like a baby. Does that make sense? Like, his features

are more baby-like. It feels like the kind of thing. And look, I'm a big illumination fan. And I do overall like the Mario, movie, I think some of those sequences are just absolutely dazzling.

It would, when they're, you know, especially the platforming that you're saying, feels like the game on the big screen. I think that this, this feels like the kind of thing where they made tweaks just because they felt like they needed to, you know what I mean? It's just almost like, like, well, we got to have our version of Mario.

But if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Part of it, I think, is bottom teeth. Yeah, bottom teeth. He's very rarely peeking through that mustache. Very rarely has bottom teeth. Like, if you look at the official art, he's got top teeth all the time. But very rarely does he have bottom teeth.

It's kind of like when you see Bart Simpson's bottom teeth, it's very weird. Yeah, you don't want to be looking at it. No, you don't need to be seeing that. Yeah. The other thing is the collar to button ratio is wrong. His clothes are hyper-realistic. Yeah. and his like the overalls come way high up

and he has a collared shirt oh my god he does yeah you know the collar shirt is a little bit off but it's weird yeah he's got human clothes on I can't believe they fucked up this bad they fucked up that movie could have made $10 billion that's not only made like $3 billion

I would have gone to see it twice instead of just one I'm hello you want to go next Yeah, sure. I'm going to pick a mascot that nobody gives a fuck about except me. Toro is the Sony cat. Wow. And the official mascot of Sony in Japan on the PlayStation 3, Toro had his own daily news show. Yeah. And this was, and here's why he represents gaming to me.

Because gaming has always been something that you read in a magazine, and you can't get your hands on. It's an import product. It's the Nintendo 64 disc drive. It's the Famicom Disc Drive. It's weird add-ons and like niche titles. And the fact that there is a mascot that we've seen, I mean, he shows up in like PlayStation All-Stars and stuff.

Like, it's not like he isn't completely gate-kept from us here, but we don't see him constantly. And he is, he's been this, he's been a, he's been a, he's been such a fixture of Sony that he had a daily updated news program on the PlayStation 3 that you couldn't watch if you had an American PlayStation 3 and he would tell you the news with his friend

like how fucking cool is that? Remember to we news channel? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there was like a time when video game consoles were trying to give us the news they can't do it anymore. Bashar al-Assad again today. One of my favorite things about his wiki, I'll just read a paragraph here. He seems to live a life very human.

He has owned an apartment and was evicted. Hosted a daily and weekly news program along with other activities. That's the caption of who this guy is. I have an action figure of him on my shelf. I think he's got a really. good look, and they often will sort of juxtapose him with extremely realistic environments and his

extremely basic look. We're looking at him vacuuming a more. He's cool town. He's great. I will say Ranch is it safe to assume you had never seen Toro before. I've never seen Toro before.

So upon Googling Toro, I looked over to upon Ranch Googling Toro, I looked over just to see if I can get some sort of reaction, went from basically stone face to a big smile. Ranch's love and Toro. Yeah, immediate big fan of Toro. Look at Smirk.

His little swirly smirk is incredible. Yeah, he's good. He's good. I like him. So that's my pick. And that leaves a lot of really big mascots on the table, but he's the only mascot in my office. Yeah, you know.

Wow. There's some really big ones on the table, and I think I'm potentially taking, the biggest one of all. Wow. For my first pick, I think I got to go with the big man. Pikachu.

Yeah. Wow. Pikachu. That's a great first round. Not even my favorite Pokemon. Like, kind of a, to me, Pikachu is basic. Yeah, but he is the mascot of Pokemon.

He's the guy. He's the guy. He's the mascot. He's, he, he, you don't, there are people who don't necessarily identify, they don't know what a Pokemon is beyond Pikachu. He's the one that stands on his own. and I just think he's just important

to the mascot lexicon and look at him he's really cute I wish they made him they keep making him thinner he gets thinner and thinner over time I wanted to address the Zep boundification of

that we've been going through like a original Have you seen the leaked art of new Pikachu? I can't get into it, yeah what? Leaked art of new Pikachu for the upcoming Jens

because there was a big Pokemon hack this week yeah And there's a, yeah, look at them. There's a, there's a, I gave him a neck. A strange, yeah, that top, that top, that top Pikachu on the left there is, is new Pikachu from the region, from the region, because, you know, they all have variants. I think he's strange looking.

It is a little odd. It's a little uncanny valley. Yeah. Like Pikachu looks like Pikachu. Right. His, his cheek, his cheek circles are too low. Yeah, yeah. I got a blush colored instead of just.

like a color color. It looks like Pikachu drawn from memory. Yeah. It's like kind of like not exactly it, but pretty close. Yeah. My, like, I'm thinking of Pikachu from like the original animated series as like the proto. That's the Earth.

Like Pikachu. Like he's like, because he's kind of, he's kind of thick. But he's like, he's got a lot of personality. He's like, he's a lot of fun. But that's my, that's my first pick, Pikachu. Great pick. Great pick. I love, I do love him.

Future rules. Yeah. He is cool. Pikachu's pretty fun. I wish I had one. Yeah. It'd be cool if I had one. I don't care canonically.

How big do you think? I don't care what it says in the Pocodex. How big, when you envision like a Pikachu, what's the size? I feel like Pikachu to me is like the size of like a one-year-old. Like about like this big. Like you could hold Pikachu like this and like cradle Pikachu, like a small dog kind of. Yeah, I got corgi in my head. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's pretty good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Is Pikachu the number one video game? And I know Pikachu's not a pet. But if you could import any pet from a video game, would Pikachu be the pet? I would do anything, anything to have a real Pikachu.

I would sell my soul. I don't care what. I'd be, I'll headline next year's Riyadh Festival that I can get a real-life Pikachu. 2026 Get played They gave him a picture They did it

They made him real They did it Matt has the only one Yeah I don't want that talking head From God of War You want Mimir? Yeah

I don't want to know What you're going to do with it Just sitting there next to you on Hey buddy Not again Please bring me back to that tree Jesus What is our show

Craig, you're back up The second pick Wait, so you're not doing two in a row We're just going, we're not doing snake style I'll do two in a row Yeah, it's all the way back Snake I forgot, okay I feel like I got to claim this guy

Even though we don't talk about him too much How many total are we doing? I say let's do four Four, okay. Four? Four is good. Four's good. I feel like we would typically do five But since there's four of us, let's do four. Okay,

great we don't talk about this guy enough does this franchise and maybe this uh this console doesn't come up enough on the show really but i got to claim this guy because he's like the guy i'm i'm taking master chief for my second pick it's a good pick it's a lot of sense a great pick master chief is he's got a great look he looks fucking awesome actually uh the armor's really cool um he's you know the funny thing about master chief he was not in the only halo game I've ever played, which is Halo Reach. Incredible. But, you know, the Spartan look anyway is really, really cool.

He's fucking awesome. I like him. I would like to investigate Halo more, actually. Game Pass got a little too rich for my blood, so I did cancel it, but I'll find some way to play. I feel like you need to just, like, drift a 360 and get, like, a physical Halo 3. that is it is one of it's one of my all-time things

it's it I the time that I spent with well I loved Reach I think Reach is an incredible video game but I would like to see more of Halo and Master Chief that's that's my second pick I got Pikachu and I got Master Chief Wow man you are stacked ATC back to you yeah

All right so I'm gonna go with I think his name was Sagata San Shiro who was the mascot of the Sega Saturn What the hell It's a man It's a human man I remember this man

There is a man on the screen What the fuck is happening Heaven Vicks A cat no one's heard of And a man How did the Saturn Lose that generation I can't believe it

And I was saying They had a guy and a ghee A normal man Yeah that's just a man Yeah No I remember this guy I remember him well If you may or may not recall, Sega did not release a Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Saturn.

So who was their mascot? It was that man. Wow. Seeing you on the screen with the rest of the characters, suck. I defend this pick. You rock's actually, even though Heather is clearly trying to lose. It's still very funny to draft him. Wait, how do you win?

you win by picking the best you're having the best draft i don't know you might be having the best draft i mean what is it to win this what does that mean what is it to win anything i thought these are my guys no there's always there's always there's always a winner look i mean imagine you're you you know you've got to you roll up to some place

and and and you've got to bring these guys with you and it's like okay who's gonna you Pikachu and halo match chief show up from from halo and you're like oh fuck okay Matt's serious Mario and Crash Bandicoot show up

and you're like, these guys know what's happening. My picks, if you walk into a garage with these two guys, you're like, I don't know what they're capable of. This is some real participation trophy-ass logic here, okay? There's going to be a winner, okay? What was this guy's deal? Why was he the Saturn Man's shot? So this was the era of extreme, right?

Extreme advertising. And in order to get people to play the Sega Saturn, the commercials featured this man bullying them until they started. So he's just a bully. He's just a mean man. The information is worse

than worse. I hear the name, I'm like, okay, interesting. I see it to man, okay, great. Now I learn he's a bully. I'll read from the AI overview of from Google. The mascot of the Sega Saturn was Sagata San Shiro a martial artist, character who starred in Japanese commercials from

1997 to 1988. He was portrayed by actor Hiroshi Fujioka and his commercials featured him physically intimidating people into playing Sagascar. Ranch has a screenshot on the board. It says, you must play Sega Saturn. He's holding in the most threatening way I could say. It's frightening way I could say. It's frightening, actually. We should watch a commercial with him. We should just, you know, we should watch a Sagada and Shiro commercial and with English subtitles. It's watching. one right now. Great.

You guys haven't seen any. Some baseball players walking down an alley. They bump into Sagana San Chiro. Lord's over them, intimidatingly. He just hit through a child. He's beating the shit out of them. Yeah, they're in a pile. Cut to Sonic and Knuckles.

So he beat the shit out of some children and then presented them with a Sega Saturn. Well, let's watch one more. Let's watch one more. He's going to go to the club. Yeah, he's dancing. Maybe he's going to, there's people dancing. Oh, see it.

Another throw. He beat up, he's beating up a woman. He beat up an entire crowd of people. They're like saying his name with like their dying. breath. And he just says it right back. Nice footage of Shining Force 3. That's fun. All right, this guy rules.

Yeah, I would watch the rest of the 10 minutes and 33 seconds of this video. Fucking rules, man. I love the idea of the man who kills you, the only exchange you have with them is you say their name and they just look at you and they say it right. No other explanation.

That's very hard. Craig. Craig. Craig. That's fucking. can write, take this dreamcast All right, I'm up Yeah, that's right.

Give me Sonic the Hedgehog. What are we doing? I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I think perhaps slightly more impactful as Sega mascots go and Sagada San Shiro. It would be just a little.

But yeah, look, the blue blur just like I think he's great. He's fucking awesome. He's cool as hell. He's the natural counterpart to Mario. I can't believe I was able to get both on my roster. It is huge.

And also, like, I like that he likes chili dogs, because so do I. Man. The chili dog thing has fallen away, but I remember my sister and I watched the cartoon a lot when we were younger. And, man, it was like chili dog lobby level and chili dog representation to the point that I remember my sister would make my dad take us to get Chisholm. Wow. Because she liked Sonic so much. And I don't think she liked chili dogs all that much, but would, like, suffer them just to get a little closer to Sonic.

And that's- That's fucking awesome. I remember that for whatever reason The Chili Dog's thing just lingers in my mind Because of The specific thing that lingers in my mind Chili Dog and Sonic related is A lewd piece of fan art I saw

That was tails wearing short jorts And Sonic's holding a chili dog And it says Sonic learned there's some things even hotter than chili dogs Oh my God Just tails his ass And by piece of fan art you saw

that is the background on that. Yeah, that's my lock screen. Yeah. Okay, cool. We don't have time for this tangent, but are chili dog's the best alt hot dog? Alt to the classic.

As close to what? Like corn dog? What do you mean? Eh, maybe. Is Chicago dog an old, or is that a hot dog? What fucking podcast am I? Yeah. Which fucking shows?

I was, I just had to raise it. We don't have time for it. We won't get a resolution to it. I ate at Costco dog today. Fuck it. You're fucking good. Chili dogs are incredible. Two of those are great.

Yeah, they're so great. Imagine if Costco had chili? Uh, boy. It'd be good. Man can dream. Yeah, anyway. Anyway, we don't got time for it. You know what they have now?

They do have a calzone. I was shocked by it. I've been interested in trying it actually. I went yesterday. I got a slice of pizza. Oh, man, that's fun. Yeah, that's good. Anyway.

How many booms was it? I gave a five big booms. Yeah, that makes sense. That's a pretty typical number of big booms. They dragged me out kicking and screaming, but I gave them. Craig, you had two big picks in a row. I know. So, here's where I'm going to go.

I gotta go another one of my boys. I think you guys have no idea the canonical gender of this of this delightful creature but he'll be one of my little guys, let's say. I gotta go Kirby. Wow, Kirby is a great pick. Oh man, good mascot. I love Kirby.

Another cute little guy. Another little red-shoed little freak. So maybe that's just one of my unifying factors. Again, Kirby's Dreamland. Huge for me on my O.G. Gray, Game Boy. Great soundtrack. Yes. Oh, yeah. That's been echoing in my head, low, these past 35 years. Da, do, do, do, do, do, da, da, da, da, da, da. Yeah, a lot of bangers on there.

Exactly. I've been playing the 3DS Kirby game, where he gets in the robots. I can't remember what it's called. But it's really, really, he gets in, like, mech suits that then it used the Kirby power. That's crazy. It's nuts. Yeah. I love his mechanic. It's so fun that he's just like a void that inhales enemies. And then when he kind of like, I don't know, I guess Kirby's Greenland, too, for sure,

he can sort of imbue himself with the powers of them, kind of Mega Man style. Yeah. Which I also really like. He's a little pink, cute little guy. He's got sort of like natural double jump and float, which I remember I appreciated platforming wise when I was younger. Great for Smash Brothers, too. Yeah, I just think Kirby rules.

Great story, as you guys have covered. Oh, yeah. Great origin with the name. With John Kirby, the lawyer who was arguing on Nintendo's behalf in a pivotal court case. Yeah. So yeah, Kirby, Kirby is a solid second pick for me. Ranch, I'm not sure about this Google search for a Kirby gender. I don't think that's going to turn out too well for us.

Just leave that alone. This purple link where Kirby's woke now. Joe Rogan has a whole episode that's weird weirdly Kirby's on it yeah he's just sucking in the microphone

he turns it up microphone he becomes loud there is a post that can I read this out loud please from 2018 Ranch has pulled this up on the Kirby fandom.com

Kirby male or female very few punctuation marks here so I'll try and read it And it's in its intention. Do you think Kirby is male or female and give reasons? I'll go first up. His voice.

It has a bit of male in it, especially if you listen to him and smash second, his appetite. It's stereotypical, but it's worth mentioning. Third, his hats. All of Kirby's copyability hats are all for males like ninja sword, ice fire, beetle. Fourth and final, his personality, he's extremely curious and quick to help stubborn. And his favorite things are food and sleep. Also, he just has that vibe. I know it's not helpful, buddy.

has that male vibe, period. Feel free to voice your opinions on this. I just want to end this conflict once and for all because everyone's drawing Kirby one gender or the other one. Would them make him human? Why don't they do this? I don't know, maybe for fun.

Those are the DC sniper's last words. Oh, God. That's scrawled into a restroom skull. I don't know what to think about that. Yeah, Kirby's an incredible picture. But you have a second one. I do. I do.

And I mean, you know, again, as long as they're up here, I think, I'm going to say that this is a mascot, although we're maybe drifting a little bit. I got to go Larcroft. Oh, sure. If I have her, I got to take her. You know, I was a PlayStation kid. Sony has been very good to me in my adult life. I got to keep.

I know she sort of cross-platform, but I think of her as a Sony. Very much so in the early going. Yeah, in the early going. that's a great pick yeah there's just I was the right age at the right time for laura croft to mean a lot of troubling things to me

I think we all were yeah yeah so there's definitely a little bit a little bit of that going in here um great ponytail yeah yeah the two guns is cool yes uh she passes the silhouette test for good reasons and bad um but an amazing outfit

yeah i like in the image that that ranch is pulled up, she's tripping herself. Yes. Her foot is stuck behind her other foot and she's about to fall down. While holding two guns. Maybe the lore reason

is mosquito bite bit her other leg and she's scratching the leg with the... The lore of the reason. Yeah. Yeah. I loved her house that you could run around. That's right. I loved locking that goddamn butler

in the fridge. Let's go. That was an all-timer activity for me. The remaster of the first three, unfortunately. I think is broken. I have a physical copy of it and it just bricks my PS5

when I try to pencil a lot. I haven't been able to revisit it but I still have all my OG games and my OG PlayStation so I just have to go up to the attic when I want to hang out with my girl Laura. There you go. Dinosaur fighter, tiger, tamer. Oh yeah. Yeah. Incredible.

Great. Great pick. I've talked before on this show about how much Lara Croft meant to me as a female gamer back in the day and I know she wasn't designed with that intentionally to be inspiring to young women, but man, she was inspiring to me. I was like,

I can't believe I get to be a girl in a game. It was awesome. Very cool. She rules. All right, I'm up again. What's it going to be? I mean, it's not even one of my games, but I guess I got it, I'll just do Minecraft Steve. Holy shit. Are you kidding me?

I wasn't even, my head was not even in that space. No. He's got into the lava chicken? He's getting chicken jockey? Yeah, I mean, the Jack Black personification is a, you know, obviously takes it to another level. But it's like, you know, I don't know. I mean, I feel like it's just like another character that's just so iconic as a video game mascot. And yeah, I guess he belongs up there at this point with Mario and Sonic. I mean, he's kind of like the same sort of tier.

So I guess if I'm just going for all the A-listers, I'll just add him to my stable. That's great. That's a great. I mean, yeah. You've got a AAA roster there, and I think you should be proud of it. That's like the best 10-year-old's birthday party I've ever seen. Game Master Anthony. It's so good.

Ben Zagata is going to show up and beat the shit out of those 10-year-olds. I like to see him try. I guess I'm up. Yeah. And, okay, okay, I hear the notes. To niche. To niche. Pull back.

Pick something that everybody knows. and so I pick something that everybody knows and that's blue slime Wow, this is a great pick from Dragon Quest Blue slime is not, there he is from Dragon Quest

also the mascot of Enix Blue slime is fucking awesome to look at Great design awesome controller Yes there was a There was a slime controller for do you remember a platform

that was for Multiplatform platform yeah multi-platform but it looked like a slime you could hold um and uh but yeah it was i'm not sure how functional it was but it looked cool as hell uh i think they even made one for the switch so i bet you could still use it for switch too yeah um very few things say adventure the way blue slime you see blue slime and you're like time for an adventure um and that's the spirit i would like to evoke with my mascots is one of wondering what could be over the hill, wondering what could be in the distance, wondering what games you can import.

And that's the theme also of mine is that for a long time, you couldn't get all those Dragon Quest games. And you would see blue slime in a magazine and you would be like, what is that? I don't want that. It looks good. Yeah. Amazing. I do like him a lot.

Yeah, he's cool. All right. Abadok, it's you. With my final two picks. That's right. I got to make some tough choices I haven't represented PlayStation yet

and I grew up a PlayStation boy and there's a lot of great mascots to choose from where do I draw the line I guess I have two picks I could make two very specific picks but I'm going to pick one PlayStation mascot to round out this one right here you know I could go

actually this is what I'm going to do I'm picking ratchet and clank ratchet and clank wow I'm getting two. Wow. Two for one. And I think I'm allowed to get two there. I'm not,

that's one entry. Ratchet and clank? I think Ratchet and clank is one entry. Could go to a booth review, Ranch. I think that counts, right? Yeah. That's fine. I think it's fine.

I think Ratchet and clank together is one entry. Yeah. Because they're the guys. They're the guys, ultimately. And like, yeah, Clank has had some games on his own. Ratchett's never had his own solo game. He needs Clank. We need, yeah.

It's a damn. Hamming that when you Google Ratchet and Clank, only solo pictures of Ratchet come up, absolutely. But I kind of think it counts. Of the PlayStation mascots, I think they're the games I've played the most. Their recent entries have been really fantastic. I would love a follow-up to rift apart, but with Insomniac seemingly only making superhero games now,

it's unlikely we'll ever get another one. But what an entry to go out on. that incredible game incredible and incredible video game um and so for my final pick i'm sort of like okay what's left on the table for me there's a lot of big ones and i think i just got to go go with my gut on this uh i'm going with tony hawk wow tony hawk of tony hawk's pro skater fame tony he is another man another god he's a human man but i will say as opposed to sagata San Chiro, not a, not characterized by an actor, but like an actual guy. Yeah.

He's obviously, you know, he's really cool. I would, I would probably classify him as one of my heroes. Yeah. And I, he's, he's the, his name is in the title of the game. It's his game. His name's in the title. So he's the mascot of that franchise. And he's on the cover of all of them.

So he gets to be, he gets to be on my honor. Rantz has pulled up a T-Pose Tony Hawk. Very good look for him. That sucks. I love it. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. They made him do the mocap for that.

Hilarious, really, really funny. But yeah, those are my picks. Ratchet and Clank and Tony Hawk. Wow. I love it. I love it. Quite a roster you got there. That is a varied group.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of covers a lot of different bases. anytime Tony Hawk comes up on the podcast I will once again tell the story that I probably told 10 times at this point but when Tony Hawk guested on the comedy Bang Bang TV show when I was a writer for it

I got to wear his clothes we did a bit where I was his stunt double for talk show appearances because you know the bit naturally being those very low stakes and so I got to they got doubles I wasn't wearing his actual clothes and get that Tony Hawk musk

but you got to give me your underwear buddy but I get to wear the exact same thing I get to wear the exact same thing as him. Did you like the style? Do you think it worked for you? Yeah I felt cool of shit yeah yeah yeah you should you should dress like that now that'd be cool. In your theater era? I guess I'm kind of at the age

where I could just dress like that and people would just think I'm one of those guys yeah yeah why not yeah I'll just do it. Get some big chunk of shoes yeah change of boards yeah that's what they mean when they say that Heather, you're up with your final pick

All right, my final pick There's so many There's so many great ones So many great ones Still on board I got five Oh, you did it though I'm gonna go with the mascot

So I've gone with the mascot of a company The mascot of a console The mascot of a game series And now I'm going to go with the mascot of of one more of a publisher and artist and that's Luddins from Kojima Productions.

Oh wow. Wow. I love the audacity of making your own mascot that doesn't appear in games and still opens all of your games. Ludens of course means I think play or to practice in is that Latin

probably. He's a dude in a space suit with a skull mask and there's a big statue of him at Kojima Productions offices he exists exclusively as a mascot as merchandise and not in game in any

like certainly not any like deep or meaningful way but he is the representative of the hope of the corporation so yeah Lutens is my final pick to round out my

mascot roster They should do a Ludin's game Why not? He looks cool He looks cool as hell He's cool but why I guess you're right Like they can just keep that

Fucking terrifying dude At the beginning of the games Another cool Kind of abstract pick from Heather What does that mean? No I like it I think it's great I think it's a

You know it's very you Okay great I mean that a nice way It's the kind of shit you would pick Well yeah So is Mario Sonic and Steve. It's a kind of shit you would think. We have to just be grateful that you didn't pick the UMD somehow.

Yes, sneak that in there. Or the, what was the Dreamcast one? You know, first off, there is a Dreamcast mascot, and she is a girl who represents the internet and is made out of a Dreamcast. I think her name is called Remy. I can't believe she didn't make it up there. Like Rumi? Rumi, R-U-M-R-M-U-M-I.

dreamcast mascot No, that's There's another really popular Roomy is going to be a tough search right now. With an eye, Remy, Remy, Remy Chian. We got Rattatoui on the screen. Yeah. Remy Chan, maybe that's her name.

Remi chan. I don't know. There she is. It's just, oh, okay. That's her. That's her right there. Yeah, she's, uh. She's got a controller head.

I like her. She kind of sucks. So I didn't go there. I also thought, you know, and maybe this will be Nick's final pick, so I'll say, I hesitate to say it out loud. No, go for it. But Ryu is a great pick. Riu is a good pick, but he also kind of looks like he's already on my board.

I think the Ghee is extremely tough looking at, actually. It's a good look. Yeah, it's awesome. Sony Cat is still, he had a news program on PSP, and you can still play that game, sort of. Yeah. So Sony Cat kind of works as a PSP, guy.

All right, Nick, you're up. Here's the thing. I got Mario, I got Sonic, I got Minecraft, Steve. I've just got like three max players, basically, if we're talking in NBA salary cap terms. My roster is absolutely loaded. So I can just kind of riff here. I would say, like, you know, I was thinking of going with another absolute banger.

And I was thinking of going with someone who's like that similar sort of status. But then I was thinking through all of the video game mascots over the years and realized only one gets fucked by Josh Gadd in the movie Pixels. Give me Cuber. Oh, my God. Great pick. Cubert canonically has sex with Josh Gad and then produces Cubert Gad hybrid babies. Yeah, that's tough.

It's tough information all around. Is that considered docking? Because of Cuberts's nose. I guess so. Is that proboscis or foulus? I think it's kind of a little from column A, a little from column B. It does seem to be the only orifice on his face. So one hole does it all.

It's like a super cloaca. One hole, one use. Do you think Cubert shits out of it, too? I'd have to. You got to dispose of ways somehow. He eats, shits, comes. gives birth Not pisses

No Yeah All out of that thing His face tube It's They didn't know that they were gonna do that No They really didn't know

Looking at the design There was only one way This was gonna go It was just a matter of time Before somebody fuck Cuban I'm glad it was good Yeah that's right He deserves it

Yeah yeah Good for him It's there's so many You know When you license out One of these These characters There's so many

approvals That have to be gone through and I just kind of feel like whoever owns the Kubert was just so desperate for whatever cash they were offering like yeah fucking Gad can fuck him in the post credits

I don't know what to know yeah fine whatever the most Kubert has come up probably in the last maybe 15 20 years is people talking about how Gad fucks him yes yeah like it's

they did something right Cuber will be holding a Confederate flag in the scene yeah fucking whatever $250,000 Whatever. It's all good. Wow. All right, Craig. You have one last pick. I'm reeling from Cuberts still. I'm sorry. There's so many different ways I could go with this. But I got to go. I got to go with my heart. I got to go with one of the most iconic performances of all time,

voiceover wise. I got to go with a great look. I got to go with like meme penetration. And I think I got to go glados. Wow, that's a great pick I thought you were going to pick yourself What an awful Turn this podcast would have taken I thought you were setting up the heel turn I'm just choosing yourself from L divers I wish I had because it would have a fucking rules

What a way to learn that I suck Just oh yeah I listen to Getplay Oh he fucking sucks That guy's the worst Got to go with the best to ever do it He is the worst guy No Glados is amazing

Yeah, it's a great pick. So funny, but so scary and really both at the same time, the boss fight is unbelievable. Oh, aperture science. The song is so good. I listen to the song sometimes for just enjoyment. It's a great song. You do it you must because you can, Matt. That's right.

That's right. So, yeah, I feel good about that. There were a lot of other ideas. Earthworm Jim was floating around. Oh, nice. He was important to me, but I got to go Glados. Nobody chose Pac-Man I was thinking about Pac-Man

but I went with Kubert And why is that? Because Cubert fucked Gag Yeah, that's right Yeah Because Pac-Man doesn't fuck actually Yeah Pac-Man has a wife

Yeah And he's still celibate They sleep in different twin beds Like Lucy and Desi All right, shall we recap Craig, let's start with you Yeah, so my mascot draft Crash Bandicoot

Kirby Lara Croft and Glados. I got myself Mario Sonic Minecraft Stephen Hubert. Like a fucking cereal box.

I have the Sony Cat Toro Sagada Centuro Ludens from Kizuma Productions and slime. Blue slime. And I got Pikachu, Master Chief Ratchet and Clank

and Tony Hawk. Wow. What a lineup. A guy. Just a guy. Yeah. That was mascot draft. Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment. And guys, Craig prepared the segment this week. Wow. I did. So what's about to transpire is my fault. You know, we talked a little bit last time about, you know, just some of the processes of doing video games. So I wanted to give you guys a little bit of maybe like a clue, the other side of the, the other side of the mic, what we go through. And a lot of what we go through is just being.

given absolutely inscrutable physical actions to portray and having to do alts of those that sometimes convey that reality. So I thought, what if I made them even stupider and forced you guys to do them? So I have a segment I prepared called Good Effort. Nice. Great. And Rochelle and I are, I mean, I don't know, we could, Richel, the world's our oyster. We could do points. We could just give praise. I don't know. We could gamify this however we want. But I prepared some effort scenarios for you guys each to do. Great. So yeah, we could just sort of cue

these up. I will read out and then each one of you guys will perform this to the best of your ability and Ranch and I will award some points. Dynamite. Amazing. So Heather, your first toad from the Mario universe flees from his

life from a pack of wild dogs. That's pretty good. That's incredible. She's good. I would say, yeah, maybe we could judge on two factors. I would say, like, in terms of seeing it in my theater of the mind, I give you a three out of three. And, yeah, in terms of dedication and performance, I also go three out of three. What do you think, Granch?

Same. Full points. Perfect. Full points for you. Matt, let's say, goofy from your favorite Kingdom Hearts, suffers from a terrible nightmare for around five seconds, and then awakes with a gas. I'm getting, I'm getting into the space. And that's fine. I'm getting into the space.

Take your time. I'm going to sleep. Wow. That was sensational. I mean, I think this might be becoming a trend, but that's a full score. for me. You got Gorsh in there and we had a Yahoo! That was really what I was looking for.

Ranch? Wow, okay. It's all tied up at 12 p. You're going to be talked to point because I wasn't prepared to turn the dial down. Oh, okay. That's my fault. You lost one point for engineering. Ranch wasn't prepared and that's my fault.

Wiggs. All right, team me up. I'm ready. All right, Wiggs. Decker-Kane. Desperately chugs a jar of water, finds it as irradiated and is violently ill. Deccard Cain from Diablo. Yes.

Can you give me the direction one more time? Deccard Cain, he chugs a jar of water only to find it is irradiated, kind of fallout style, and is violently ill. Okay, got it. Oh, by. That is not the direction I thought the illness was going to come from. But you did, you used the old voice actor trick.

Hey, your character's drinking. You get that water bottle out. I'm sorry, that's full points. Wow. That was incredible. Okay, so far, I'm the only one that has not full point. You take that up. Take that up with.

ranch. I think her and merch are hanging out later. And this is fuck. I'm actually docking one because that was gross. Fair enough, fair enough. Ranch don't like potty human. Heather, I don't mean to stretch you because this is a character that I know is not really in your wheelhouse

and I don't know that you've ever done an impersonation of this character before. But what if the resident evil merchant took a bite of something delicious that was not theirs a la like window cooling, a pie cooling on a window and then had to flee away. Okay.

So you want me to do an impression of the merchant? They're on the show a lot. Do you have a lock on that voice? They ignore me. What was it again? They take a bite of something delicious and then are surprised by the owner of that food and have to sort of splutter an explanation. Yum, yum.

Yum, I like it. Yum. Yum. Oh, no. There's a cat. I've never tried that voice That's so good I was sending you out of your type

He would be like that though Yeah Listen I ain't too proud That's a full score for me I thought that was fantastic Thank you so much Well done Well done

Well done Matt Yes This is another one I keep making you guys I apologize I don't know if you ever done this before I know he's been on the show

but Joel from The Last of Us Okay Is caught in a room full of rakes Alas sideshow god Okay If I hope were to lose you Oh wait there it is It's one of them comic books that he likes

It's just beyond something that can't quite It's oh fuck Oh god damn That hurt really bad Hey wait it's one of them comic books how he likes it's something in the well fuck oh god

second one who put all these what are they called big forks or something incredible so Joel's stupid yeah

I would give you a full score Matt I am gonna have to dock you a point because I think Joel knows what a rake is that was a little bit immersion breaking for me I was getting cute with it

it's my biggest flaw no no no Matt you're a cutie pie Yeah, I try it. You live by the sword, you live by the big fork, you die by the big fork. I don't know what are weird. Look, is this similar to a note I would have gotten on Herald Night? Absolutely.

Incredible. Nick, I'm so sorry, guys. I'm a fan of the show and I should have made this easier for it. Kind of seems like. There's another out-of-the-box one. No offense. You keep apologizing. It kind of seems like you're doing it on purpose.

I don't know what he's talking about. It kind of seems like you're doing it on. We soldier on. Nick Bubsy is hooked up to a car battery and intermittently tortured for information Got it, got it, got it. Okay, okay. This is a catastrophe.

You were dancing on the edge of a deduction until the pun. The pun sealed. Full score. Okay, full score. Was the battery in the car still? I assume so Okay so did the car sound like

Bubsy too? Buby's car sounds like it It's a buzzy milk Yeah that makes perfect sense He sucks in him I thought that was fantastic Okay Heather I saved one of my favorite characters

For last I don't know that they've appeared In a lot of video games But I think you can get a lock on this Nick Weiger is dragged out of a courtroom After being found guilty Of a capital offense dragged out

dragged out of the courtroom you know how court works once you're in there they drag you out well fair enough I brought my own news it's a public execution and it's immediate as well

no waiting We got to do this here today. Shakespeare said at best, Brevity is the soul of Witt 12 out of 12 for me. Excellent. Matt, again, not a character that appears in a lot of games, but certainly is involved in games. Heather and Campbell flies into a rage

after someone knocks over her recent gunplow project. Okay, no, yeah, you got it. Do I have a Heather? Okay, okay. I'm just searching for it. I'm just like kind of going through my day. No, go into your boxing. I'm going to the palace.

I'm watching. watching anime I'm on eBay looking at defunct media format you're individually cracking coffee beans

with a tungsten tool my hands are just covered in egg yolk my fists are balls filled with eggshell What was the prompt? Heather and Campbell flies into a rage after someone knocks over her recent gunplay. Ah!

Yeah. I think that was incredible. Full points for me performance. I am going to have to dock you a point because you did scare me and I peed a little. That's fair. I'm so sorry. That's more on me.

That means I did a good job. Nick, you're going to bring us home. Matt, Mr. Game. Apodaca reacts to Christopher's death on the Sopranos. Okay, all right. So I'm Matt. So I'm probably petting my cat, wearing a Dodgers hat. Okay, okay.

Christopher Maltesanti has just been iced by Tony Soprano. His uncle surrogate father. Yeah, right after a car crash. He's plugging his nose. and he's asphyxating on his own blood I'll never pass a drug test I'll never pass a drug that's what he's saying in the show

I just re-watched it Apataka looks up from his play date he sees this scene play out on the screen and huh That's good effort. That's good effort. What a segment.

Great segment. Really well crafted, Craig. Hey, that's this week's get played. Our producers for Channel 10, Ranch Yard underscore underscore Sard. Do you stream in ranch? I am. I'm playing Silent Hill F. Awesome.

Nice. Check that out over on her Twitch. Our music is of Ben Prenti. Ben Prenti Music.com. our artist by Duck Brigade Design, DuckRigate.com. Get played Merge at Kinshipgoods.com. And check out Get Animator's sister show on Patreon. Matt, what are you watching this week?

We're going to be done with elephant lead. It's fine. We're going to be done with it. We're sorry. We're sorry. We're fucking sorry. We fucked up. Fucked up.

Patreon.com slash get played. Craigley Thomas. What an absolute delight to have you back in studio. Thank you so much. Just the treat of treats. I spend so much time with you guys every weekend. It is truly the joy of a life. to get to actually spend a little bit time with you guys.

So thank you for having me back. Thank you for being here. Such an incredible voiceover artist and such a funny dude. It's so great to have you in studio. Anything you'd like to plug? No, I mean, if you want to see pictures of my dogs and me wearing my helldivers helmet, somebody sent me just doing tasks in my house. You could look at my Instagram, which is at It's Me, Craig Lee.

And then you'll see those are the things you'll see. And Craig, I'm going to turn the exercise back on you. And I would like you to react as Craig Lee Thomas finding out you just got played. Well, let me open up this message here. Good old Wiger has emailed me once again. Oh, dear God. You son of a bitch. I'm going to flay that tiger tattoo off of your leg and make you eat it.

You fucking podcasting little bitch. You're never going to be able to write another parody song again. You're an absolute asshole. And that's that. Yeah, full marks. That was a HeadGum podcast. What's up, everybody? I'm Kyle Mooney.

And what's up, everybody? I'm Beck Byline. And, man, ooh, we got something to tell you. Oh, yeah, we definitely do. Yes, it's a brand new podcast on HeadGum. That's right. and it's called What's Our Podcasts? Yep, and that's because we don't have a single idea

what our podcast you'd be about. Yeah, we don't. So we actually have guests come on and they tell us what they think our podcast should be about and then we try it. Yep, guests like Mark Maren, Jack Black, Bernie Brosky, Caper Lan, Bobby Moynihan, Meg Stalter, and Tim Balls,

Landon Axler, Jony McGreeze, and Dender. And Dender. New episodes release every Wednesday. So subscribe to what's our podcast on youtube or any of your favorite podcast platforms yeah i'm gonna go do it right now