Get Played - Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss Valve's announcement of the new Steam line of products and dig into the contents of the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection. Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Serial Experiments Lain 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.fm All 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. Hey, guys. You know, I've been dealing with some stuff, and I think I have to take some time off from the show, unfortunately. Okay. Are you, are you, I don't want to pry, but are like, are you okay? No, I mean, I'll share with you. You know, my cousin, Cano.

He entered Moral Combat. Oh, God. The tournament, you know, convened by Shang Song of Outworld and Earth Realm. Yeah. And, you know, we had high hopes for Cano and... Your cousin. My cousin, yeah. Cousin K.

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it was fun. But he got fatalities. No, Nick. Your cousin Kano got fatalityed in the moral combat? We thought he was going to. to go far and then the quarterfinals. Nick, I am so sorry.

Take as much time as you need. Yeah. That is tough. Do you know how or do you not have any of the details? He, um, Sub-Zero pulled his head off. Oh, my God. And his spinal cord.

You know, I didn't want to say anything. Dingled below it like a trophy. You've been very, you've been very open with that you've not been having a really good time. Yeah. If I would have known it was this, I wouldn't have been telling everybody that I think he's full of shit. I mean, thank you for saying that now.

I feel bad about it now. I would have, I would have, you know, I would have liked to have had your trust, you know, just as, just inherently,

just have that be able to be taken as a given, but I, you know, I like that now that you know the truth, you at least. Yeah, now that I know that it's true. Did you hear if,

like, his eyes blinked or anything after his head was off? Well, yeah, well, you know, he has the one cybernetic eye.

Uh-huh. And that one just kind of, I guess the, you know, however it's water or whatever, I don't know the technical side of it, but that just stopped functioning.

But yeah, the other eye, the human eye did blink. It wasn't. Winked, I guess. Winked? Oh, winked. Yeah. Kind of fun. I think it blinked. Yeah, it is kind of because winking implies a sort of bit of an attitude of some kind. I like to think he was winking at me because, you know, he had that kind of

sense. Oh, you were there? You were there? Yeah, it was there. God. You saw it happen. I was there. Well, he's excited. You know, he flew a bunch of family out. That is really nice. I was sitting there. I heard he's generous like that. He was, he's very generous. He's a great guy. He's great storyteller. You know, yeah, he got involved with the Black Dragon Syndicate. But he was more than, you know, part of a criminal underground. You know, he was a, he was a guy who was, you know, like, like, again, very generous, very giving, very funny, loved being around him. And I'm sitting there. And I got my. my nachos, and I got my big soda pop, and I'm watching him be dismembered before my very eyes. Yeah, I do, I do, I've spent a little time in Cano. Yeah.

I think he's a great guy. I do think his attention, though, could be elsewhere. You know, he's always kind of looking for someone else to talk to. I was with one time, somebody said, get over here. And he just, like, left. He's a little sensitive to that. So, yeah, I think you just got to, you have to contextualize what it would normally. mean for him to hear get over here and he might have just taken it as some sort of a taunt if he's

in a shopping center or what happened even if it wasn't intended that way uh you know when i hear terrible news like this the only thing i can think is you know it's like when your when your basketball team loses first round and it's like well i hope the guys that beat him go all the way because then in your head yeah you know oh he was second place that was like me with the lakers last year yeah yeah so i'm i'm really i'm hoping that that sub-zero goes all the way. And I'm, you know, I'm going to look up the tournament results. And no, he died.

He died in the very next round. He died. Oh, that's tough. That's tough. He didn't even make it one more further. Yeah, he didn't make it one more. He got turned into a baby. He got babelied?

He got baballied. So somebody's going to have to raise him all over again. Not it. First of all, not it. Nobody's saying it's got to be you. I can't. Fine. I'll do it.

What? Fine, I'll do it. You're going to raise... I'll raise baby sub-zero, right? You're going to raise the baby of the man, the version of the man that killed your cousin. I have a void in my life by Cato's absence, and maybe it can be filled with this new child that I can perhaps shape into a different version of his previous iteration. I can give him some sort of moral compass so he isn't going up and doing these sorts of... Moral compass!

We play emulated decades-old fighting games and learn the origins of combat with a K as we dig in on our Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection this week on Get Play. Toasty! Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, didn't... Oh, no.

It begins. No, we're fine. We'll use this reset. That's me, Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Mr. Games, Matt Apodaca. It's okay, we'll just reuse the, we're going to use this part. We'll use both their resets. It'll be fine. Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where this week we are talking about a major event in gaming history. The creation and rise of a largely known. Fighting game, Mortal Kombat. I like how vague it is until you say what it is. That was a fun journey for me, because I knew what it was, but for something about the way you were saying it, I was like waiting for the surprise. I also want to say, though, today is a personal anniversary for me.

Oh. 33 years ago today, the Sega CD was released. Wow. Nice. Congratulations. As of record. As of record. Wow.

Welcome to the next level, child Heather. So what was it like being the kid that had that? The sole child. If I'd had friends, I would have been so excited to talk about it with them. Yeah, I'm going to buy a magazine where there's a disc for nights into Christmas. That was a Saturn. That was Saturn. That was Saturn.

Second CD was less known. Oh, God. Man. Those were the days. We, today, for this episode, played. I mean, maybe you played. um Sega specific Mortal Kombat um ports yes the ports were a bit were a big thing at the time but but I'm wagging my finger I'm wagging my finger because she is wagging her finger I do a video close but the finger wagging it's happening I'm wagging it I'm wagging it I'm wagging that finger because the um the Saturn and I think Sega CD ports are just not on the compilation yeah I mean we'll get in We're going to get into it.

Oh, we're going to get into it. We'll get into it. But on the Mortal Kombat Legacy collection with a K, we are going to be talking about everything that's in this package and some notable emissions. Yeah. Okay. Mortal Kombat! It's really fun to say Mortal Kombat the way they say it in the Mortal Kombat commercial.

I think no other games got something like that. I kind of don't think so. I think that's like one of the most iconic things from a game. What's the, yeah. What would be the... other, is there another game title that is said in some sort of specific or demonstrative fashion? I can't think of it.

I can't think of it. All I can think of is Mortal Kombat. What remains of Edith Finch? I mean, on the cabinet, when it would do the attract mode, you'd hear killer instinct. That's good. And Resident Evil, when you press start. Resident Evil. That is pretty good.

You know, that's a pretty good candidate, honestly. I mean, honestly, after I said that about Mortal Kombat, That one's maybe better. It's maybe a little better because it's also in the game. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of scary. It is a little scary, whereas the Mortal Kombat one's a little silly. It's a little silly.

I can't believe that that movie, the second one, was supposed to come out by now. And it's, I think, pushed an entire year or something. That's wild. Yeah, they've got to work on the effects. I think I heard that they're like, it's actually, it was testing really well, that they're like, it was better than we thought. So we're putting it out at a more. an more intentional time of year actually. But you know, who knows? I'm excited to see it. Yeah, me too. I'll see

anything. You know it's a big one? It's just because you mentioned the Sega CD. It's not a game title, but Sega. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Man. An early entry and something being vocalized. What else? What else? What else? What else? I mean, Mario says, like when you start up the N64 version, Doesn't he say, it's a me?

Or something like that? Yeah, but for some reason to me, that doesn't count. What does he say? He says something. Oh, no. He says like, hello. I don't fucking remember what he says. What the fuck is up?

Christopher Columbus was a hero. It's anti-Italian discrimination. He says the title in a lot of them, doesn't he? It's like, Super Mario Sunshine. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Mario saying the title is pretty good. I kind of don't think it's the same thing.

That's Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil. You have to just go with me on this. It's somehow not the same. I don't know. I don't know why. Can't justify it. Yeah, because he's being prideful. It's a sin.

He's a little excited that you're there. Yeah. But, isn't he allowed to gas himself up? Isn't he allowed to have? Self-glazing? Yeah, isn't he allowed to do that? Hmm. I don't know.

I don't approve of it. That's why Mario's suss. Mario is a little suss He's a little cringe actually He's a little He's a little 6-7 He's a little lacking in the Riz department What's the etymology of glazing?

I think it's to like Glass somebody up Gas somebody up But it's like But it sounds like it has some sort of sexual connotation I thought it was like Because guys put their dick in donuts I don't think it's that

I kind of don't think it's either thing actually It does sound like that I agree I do think it's like, I don't know, to like, you know how like when you're making, I don't know if it's this, but when you're crafting a clay pot of some kind and you have to put a finishing layer of glaze,

it's like almost to say that that's like you've reached perfection and it can be put out on the shelf. There was also, there was also a way to describe when women are getting ready to go to sleep, the amount of face care that they do is that you were supposed to be a glazed donut by the time you go to bed. Yeah?

So like glazing somebody up could be like, wow, you've had a glow up. And, you know, a donut without glaze, what are we talking about? Cake. That's just, we're just talking about cake. It's not, it's not going to... Nothing wrong with a cake donut.

No, no, I'm not going to... I mean, I like a raised donut. I like a glazed donut, but I'm not going to insist on it. You can give a cake donut. Yeah, donuts are good. Donuts are, I think... Dunkin a donut. Maybe one of the top.

One of the top desserts. Should we get donuts for dinner? Absolutely not. I'll take a glazed one home. That means he's going to use it to suck his dick. We've done this before. Real quick, though.

Everyone's donut type. I like a chocolate long jod or maple long jod. Yeah, I was going to say maple bar. But I mean, so you kind of took mine. But I will say to... You can also have it. Yeah, I'll take maple bar. Mine's plain cake, honestly.

Plain cake is good. Ranch, donut. Old-fashioned chocolate. Old-fashioned's a good one. Very nice. Specifically the chocolate. Are you talking about like the whole thing is chocolate or it's got like a chocolate layer on top of it? Just the chocolate glaze.

Yeah, that's fine. And then regular old-fashioned. Yeah, that's a hoot. Here's the thing. I like kind of any one. I like every donut. I like every donut. They're all great.

I don't like frosting though. Like in general, on a cupcake, I'd rather have an unfrosted cupcake. I agree with you. I like a plate. Like, for example, I make a pumpkin cake. And in the recipe, there's also a cream cheese, frosting recipe that you can have for the pumpkin cake and I just forego it because what I want is a nice wedge of cake with a cup of coffee. Something I've really taken to heart from a documentary I watch

from the documentary series Chef's Table. Oh yes. From specifically the one with Christina Tosi from Milk Bar. This really like knocked my brain open in a way more than any like sketch or improv teacher ever has or any teacher really. Like this was like just a truly foundational piece of information to me. She talks about how at her establishment milk bar that they don't frost the cakes there because her philosophy is that the cake should actually be good and not covered in frosting, which is typically designed to, you know, plus up or, you know, hide that, like, maybe the cake is dry or, you know, unappetizing. The cake should just be good, so no frosting. I love this. Yeah. I applaud that philosophy. I'm on Urban Dictionary for glazing, and these,

you know, there's some older definitions, I think, that are basically before the modern usage. so I think we can ignore the ones there prior to 2022. The 2022 one and all of the entries are invoke terms like dick writing or meat writing. Yeah. So I think it does have some sort of sexual subtext or just text. I feel like when people say that they're like dick writing though, they're not like. Well, I think meat writing. It's not sexual.

It's kind of more like you're just like so like. I don't know, like, in favor of, like, you're like, you won't see any criticism of almost where they're just like they're infallible. It could be that they're into, you know. Right. I mean, I think it is, I mean, it's meant to be metaphorical. It's not, it's not like saying explicitly that's the act that you are doing. But I think that's what the, that's maybe where glazing is coming from, at least from this source. It's like, and I think we've talked about this on the show before.

It's like how pussy, when you say it, doesn't mean the, the, the, the. The organ, the orifice, it means like weakness, which you can then, you know, back, backpedal to, and we looked it up even. And it was like from like the 1700s or so shit. Yeah, us, like every other podcast on Earth, discuss the word pussy. I open a tab and Bing search typed in pussy. Got an eye full. Yeah, I guess, you know, it's about time you saw something like that. Elf?

Your virgin ass. That's a funny new angle for you. We haven't quite explored. Weiger's a virgin. I like that. This is fun. Married for a more than a decade, is a virgin. It's funny.

The only virgin Chad? Actually, yeah, that's the thing. He is a Chad, though, is the thing. I am? You're a Chad baby Okay, all right I'm drinking some tea right here Yeah, I notice you're drinking some tea

I also like this is a thing And I think some people might I think the Brits would be like Like, oh I love you left your tea bag in there You're oversteeping your tea I don't take I'll never And this is I'm putting this out there Just for all English people

I'm never taking shit from you ever Ever Everything you guys do is ridiculous Give me a fucking break your money's stupid what else what else you all talk ridiculous it's called water

now water miss me with that shit anyway I love America can you imagine what a good guy to be in 2025 I'm just I'm just

you know what I'm trying to take back being a patriot Okay. I think that's good. It's also funny that there are so many accents in such a small area. Yes. Like, it, like, it would be like if there were, like, 15 ways to say Chicago in the city of Chicago. Yeah.

Like, it's a really intense diversification of accents. And they all have these, like, class signifiers that are, like, if you're from the U.K., you're conscious of, and I just have no fucking idea. And I just want to put this out there real quick. I'm just kidding. I don't want any. I want some freaking British meat. head or some soccer hooligan coming to kick my ass. Yeah, but you can buy guns here, so it's fine.

That's right. Because of them. Because of you guys. If you guys didn't treat us like that before. They made it so that we have shootings. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Brits. You know what, actually, thanks a lot.

Yeah, just drinking a little decaf green. Okay. Very nice. Just a little flavor. Very nice. You ever have, because, you know, obviously the pairing. is coffee and donuts you ever try a tea in donuts i have not i can't you know what there was something people do i you know a few many years ago at this point maybe 10 years ago i didn't drink coffee for

an entire year and switched to tea uh and i hated it i hated it so much i was not even though i think they say tea is typically more caffeinated than most coffees that you would get like you know out and about um i'm not sure if that's true you know i don't know i guess it's true like it would depend on the coffee preparation or something, right? But what I was making at home, just like a drip pot. I wasn't into like nice coffee yet. It was like a drip pot of coffee. But I didn't, I wasn't getting, I was just, wasn't getting there with a cup of tea, I guess.

You and Ted Lassow. You know what? In many ways are very similar, actually. What's his phrase? He says, barbecue sauce. What is it? He says that? Yeah, he says it.

What's the context for that? Well, when he like does something like, when he, gets like a bullseye on a dartboard, he says, barbecue sauce. Yeah. That's fun. For real, he does, I think. I think that's right.

Yeah. Sounds like something good. I could see him saying it. It's been five years. Yeah, maybe a little bit longer for me because I didn't watch the third season. No, no, I mean like, it's been five years since the first season, which is when he says barbecue sauce. Okay, okay. And we were all in a fugue state when that show came out.

Yeah, and we just needed something like that. Yeah, we desperately, desperately did. We could use it again, I think. I think we could. That's coming back. That is. Remember when Mitt Ron. Omni's Halloween costume was Ted Lassow.

That was fun. Remember when he said his favorite meat is hot dog? Yeah, I'll never forget that. Kind of the most relatable thing he's ever said. Hot dog. His mind going through a spreadsheet of like American answers. Yeah, hot dog. Hot dog is my favorite meat.

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Should we talk about the steam machine? Let's talk about the steam machine and the new steam glasses. Yes, and the controller. And the, it's a little everything. There's a whole array of steam hardware that got announced this week as of this recording. You know, I don't know if I'll need any of this, but I like that there's another, I like that that steam, that, that, following the success of the steam deck, they're trying other stuff. Yeah. It certainly feels like, I think the steam deck has led to more entries in that space. We still are waiting on something official from Microsoft or Sony and maybe the Microsoft thing will never come

because they seem to be getting out of the hardware business entirely. But like, I definitely think the, I suspect the Switch 2's specs were beefed up a little bit, partly because of the existence of the Steam deck. Yeah, you have, like, I think, because that's the most direct competitor to that, right? And it's just cool that it exists. It's also wild that Nintendo is the ones who, I think, opened up that entire market. They were like, what if you had a console, it was portable, you docked

in your television? Yes. Kudos to Nintendo for once again changing the entire gaming landscape. I really do love my Steam deck.

It is not as used as much as I'd like. I do also have, you know, steam on on my PC that I have and I also have a Mac computer as well

that I have Steam on. Yeah, and Steam coming out of your ears talking about Brits earlier. We have to cut it. They're going to be so mad. They're going to love it. Because you know what?

You know what? To give them credit, they love taking the piss, don't they? They love having a little bit of a laugh. They love a little bit of cheeky behavior. Yeah, I think so. I think that's the kind of thing you would do with your mates before going off to Nando's. I'm just kind of with my mates. All this to say.

I think the steam machine, to me, I'm excited about something like that because I'm not sitting at my, I don't really like to sit at my desk. I work at my desk all day I don't like sitting at my desk to like play games so to have this secondary thing that is like you know that I think the specs are maybe

slightly disappointing the like hardcore like PC gaming enthusiasts but the specs that it's got on it right now seems like it's perfect for me it's just like a little bit more than the Steam deck at this point. Yeah I mean like I think the you know from some of the I don't know how much of this is speculation how much

this is concrete information on the specs that I've read it's kind of like in between like a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox series S somewhere kind of in that sort of void and which to me seems a little

underpowered for current reality but then again they're targeting a different market and I'm sure that if you can afford a gaming PC you're just going to get that anyway yeah for sure why would you get a high end console approximation.

Something that I love about it is the shape. I do like the shape. The shape is good. It's a little cube. It's really Steve Jobs coated. Is Steve Jobs coated? It's freaking GameCube coded. A little cubort coated? A little cuburt coated. What else? What else?

Bit of a Oh, certainly a companion cube. Boxal coated? Boxle coded. It could be kind of crate coated? Crates are a staple of a video game? A bit of a crate? No, yeah, that's good. No, I'll come up with another one. It's certainly.

Cardboard box from a Metal Gear Solid. Yeah, no, no, no. That's, yeah, no, he's got a lot of these for some reason. I think I'll come up with one. No, I mean, like, literally, it's the, when... It does. Yes, it does. It really actually does look like that.

When Steve Jobs left, when you fired from Apple, he started another company called Next. Yes. And the PC he made was a ultra-refined, perfect cube that was his, that was his computer at the time. The next sequence in. Steve Jobs, the movie, is so good. Yeah, I mean, look at that. That's the thing. It is exactly it.

It is. It is. It looks like about the half of a Xbox series X. Yeah. We've talked about this before. Why don't they just make Steve Jobs, too? Three more presentations. I would see it a hundred fucking times.

You're talking about the movie, not the man. I was like, because they don't do that. It'll sequelize human beings. No, juniors exist. I guess it's true. I did see a legit. for an app today that is available on the fucking phone where you record a 15 minute video of a person, get their angles, get their voice samples, have them read a script, and then it will forever allow you to AI generate that person. And the ad is a woman having her mother, the kid's grandma, read her kid a story. And it's like, well, would you like to hear the story of the elephant or whatever? And the, you know,

Parentheses on the ad is, Grandma died before the kid grew up. And so now Grandma's trapped in the phone. You know what? My grandma comes up to me. Ask me if I want to hear the story of the elephant. I'm going to say, fuck, no, Grandma. Are you kidding me?

Tell me a better story. Do you know Heat? Do you know fucking the Godfather 2 or some shit? What the hell's the matter with you? Well, if she's AI, she can tell you that. Then I'm listening. These Italians. No, Grandma, not this.

It's very Violet Evergarden, all the letters that were written to be delivered posthumously to a child. Hey, you know what? It's not. It's not. I'm not going to let you have it. Just because you want it to be. Yeah, just because you want to say the words Violet Evergarden doesn't make something Violet Evergarten. You can't point at Chinese food and go, well, that's Violet Evergarten.

Chinese food? Oh, my God. Somebody says that this food is like major, and he's like, the major? You're like, dude, stop. Pissing me off. The steam machine looks great. I'll be, I think the thing... We pivoted from this grim grandma thing pretty quick.

I'm sorry for the Violet Evergarden tangent, but like, that's weird. That is crazy. Hold on. Let me look up the name of it because it's gaming podcast adjacent. Yeah. Go ahead. You guys keep talking. I'll look it up.

The thing that will really be the, you know, deciding factor of whether or not I get this is the price, right? Because I don't think I'll, I would justify. having a thing that I really have things that have steam on it. I'll flat out say I just don't have I'm not going to have a need for this. Yeah. In fact, I got an Xbox Series X that I just like, I don't need this. I got this because I was like, oh, I should be comprehensive, whatever. I'd ostensibly cover gaming, you know, like, like, yeah, I'll have this.

And then I'm just like, I have a gaming PC game pass on it. I have no reason for this to ever use this. I think, yeah, for me, I'm just sort of like, because the games that are more beefed up on Steam, I would usually probably buy in a different platform. I'm not buying, you know, games that are, like, console exclusives on, like, Steam. Like, when Ghost of Tsushima comes to Steam, I'm not buying that there necessarily. But, like, the little games like, you know, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, all the stuff that I already have there. That's the most appealing part about it to me, like, the Switch 2 is, like, I already have a full library of games. That's a good point.

Yeah. You have a comprehensive Steam library. Yeah, it's a good use case. The company's called 2Y, 2 W-A-I, and yeah, it's so that you can make an AI avatar of grandma or something, and she can talk to you about whatever you want. I mean, we should just, guys, stop recording the podcast for a second. Yeah, this is just like on the side. Yeah, please. We should just like all three of us do this and then have it do the show for us. That's pretty fun.

Just forever. Yeah. We can just like go do whatever we want. Like, go, like, I don't know, get, like, dinner or something? People bust us because mine's too lifelike. Wait a minute. That's not right. Why does why can you sound like a human being?

Their chemistry's too good in this one. If I could, you know, my, my, both my grandmothers have passed away. If I could have my, an AI grandma. I was just, I was thinking about that, like, like, thinking specifically about just talking to my grandmas again. Yeah. In AI form. I don't know if I was like, what, that's, it feels like such a weird can of worms to open. But I do kind of see like, oh, I kind of get why that would be comforting, you know?

Yeah. Like, is that going to be a thing we're just going to normalize. The weird part about it is, is I had a good relationship with one of my grandma's terrible relationship with my other grandma. So when I think about it, I'm like, oh, it's my parents. My parents are getting old. Yeah. So like recording a ton of footage of them would be an opportunity for me in the future to have a

conversation with my mom when I'm down, but I think what the problem is, is that that then will color your memory, your actual memories of the people. Right. Because you will have memories of conversations with your grandma that never happened. And that feels like it is tarnishing the human experience in some way. Yeah. Because I guess then you can't like necessarily, you wouldn't be able to program like what it, like what the AI like thinks about, like certain thing so it'll it could potentially express the opinion of the AI right which famously not great so far interesting it i mean look i do sort of have this hope that like all this is just going to go away in like five years i don't think it will weiger seems really lost and thought about this

just thinking about it yeah what's the first thing you would say to a i grandma Hey Gammy Your grandson's a podcaster Wait Why are you taking that gun out Get me out of this box It just started banging on the fucking glass Starts running at it like a zombie

Why can't I leave? Turn it off every minute's a thousand years No, yeah, it's, that's wild. Yeah, yeah. And so fast. Like, that was a Black Mirror episode just a few years ago, and already it's an app. An app. That's another those things those Brits did.

They had to make a whole show to tell me phone bad. The whole show is that. I'm going to make a show that's phone good. You know what? Phone good now. Sorry. Phone good. Just despite the Brits.

Sorry, phone good now. Are we ever going to do the show today? Yeah, let's do the show. show let's talk about some video games we've been playing lately cold mornings holiday plans this is when i just want my wardrobe to be simple stuff that looks sharp feels good and things all actually wear for me that's quince and the bonus quince pieces make great gifts too this season's lineup is simple but smart and easy with quince fifty dollar mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury and wool coats that are equal parts stylish and durable their denim

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Also got myself a nice shirt. It's kind of a shirt jacket hybrid. It's actually a suede over shirt. And it is really, really comfortable. And again, a flattering fit. And Quince has gifting covered beyond clothing, too, if you need anything for home, bath, kitchen, or travel. Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince.

Go to quince.com slash get played for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash get-played. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash get played. Time to ask the question we ask each week. What are you playing? I ask me the Russian and even if you want to put me in the phone

and carry me around your pocket, I would love to be your friend. That's a nice sentiment. but I feel like, you know, you should enjoy your time in a terrestrial sense. Yeah, in a corporeal form. I want to be in the bucket where it's warm. Well, that is nice. That must be nice. Yeah, I don't think you, I don't know if you would get the sensation of being inside

someone's phone and feeling also the, like, you know, the warmth of their skin and the fabric. You mean me? I don't think anyone. I think that that just, like, probably it would be like an approximation of you would not actually be you. Because I'm burnt Because you're burnt No I don't think it's It's not because of that

Okay It's nothing specific to you I more just mean in a In a metaphysical sense Warb Worm Wirt Yeah

Stink Yeah Okay Bright Bright And vegetables Yeah No

No yeah Yeah no totally Those are Five things Those are all five I can sense all of those things Okay, yeah, I know Sometimes I'm sure you combine

You got a wet, stinky vegetable Or a warm stinky vegetable Yeah Like when you heat up broccoli in the microwave And it could also be wet It could also be wet Yeah Yeah, I get overwhelmed

So I don't do all of them at once It is a little crazy to do all in the ones Yeah, probably should try to limit it yourself To one at a time It's kind of scary when it's all like It's too much It's a little too much Sensory overload, yeah

Tell me that's my friends What I've been playing And you know what I'm going to start with you Meta-Badaka What are you playing? Thank you so much I rolled credits on

I rolled credits on Pokemon Legend ZA And Holy shit Just when I thought I was like Having a little bit of fun with it Oh my God The ending is one of the worst

I think it's like the worst Video Game fight I've ever had in a video game. The final boss. The final boss is you're, I mean, spoiler country for Pokemon Legends ZA.

You're on the, you're fighting against, there are all these like rogue mega evolved Pokemon in the town and you're sort of on your path to, you know, defeating a bunch of them in a row.

And then the last one is like a hyper mega evolved one that it's skyscraper size. So you go up to the top of building and you kind of have no, there's no way that you could actually do this. So what you, what the game does is instead of you fighting a gigantic Pokemon, you are fighting two tentacles that have health bars that are sort of, you know, this is the Pokemon, but you're only fighting these two tentacles.

And then you wipe out their HP and then it switches perspective and you're playing as the legendary Pokemon from this game, Zygard. and you have one attack move per turn and you take out a significant chunk of damage and then you go back to fighting tentacles again and it's just back and forth until you defeat the thing. It fucking sucks.

That's dog shit. That's so bad. And like, you know, I would say that I like I could forgive a lot of the rest of the game because like some of it I was having a good time. Some of it I was having a great time training up my guys going into the different wild areas in capturing the different Pokemon and stuff.

To me, that was, like, egregious. I was like, this is actually pretty bad. What was the, like, was it, was it tedious? Was it, was it annoying? Was it just generally unfun? Sort of all three. Okay. And it's also not like anything you do in the game ever.

Like, it's like it's so just out of left field that it just doesn't feel consistent. It was like they ran at a time. It doesn't feel like a final exam, which is kind of what you want the, you know, the end Basta Adelea evoke. These games end with like, you know,

a Pokemon battle with like a, you know, a very like formidable trainer who's like, you know, extremely leveled Pokemon and a full party of them too.

So it's, so I guess I get wanting to subvert that because that's in every single one of these. But that was just not, that was just not it. But I do also still think that it's not even the worst switch Pokemon game. I don't know which one it is.

You know what? For me right now, it's Scarlet and Violet, actually. Because Sword and Shield, it was their first try. Yeah. And it was kind of like, hey, you know what, for the first try, not so bad. Scarlet, Violet, not great. I'm trying to think of other, like, annoying, specific final boss fights. I wasn't crazy about the final boss in Metaphor Refantazio, a game I overall really enjoyed.

But I found like, I just, it did feel like a little tedious and a little limited in terms of the approach you can take on that final boss. It's kind of, because, I mean, a lot of games are just, like, kill the guy, and, like, that's, or, you know, that's it or whatever. Yeah. So, they can only be so satisfying or whatever, but, like, I don't know. Shadow of the Urd Tree also, that boss was a little annoying. Yes. Final boss. But I'm glad I'm done with that because now I'm back in Ghost of Yote and just having, like, I was like, now this is a video game.

Yeah. This is good shit. This is so much fun. Yep. I got two more weapons. Oh. Oh. I got, like, the staff, and then the one that you, like, throw.

throw that is like a knife and then a big ball. Yep. That's good shit. That's good shit. That's, that rules. It's so fun. And it's just, that's to me, I don't know, that's just like a good, I know that I can assume final boss and that is going to be like all the

other boss fights where you're just like, there's a big guy, kind of kill big guy. But the story is good. Yeah. And the gameplay is good. So I'm looking forward to, I think I'm going to finish that game, not soon, but I'm going to put my attention toward that before I get back into Silk Song.

Because I think those two games are too big to be juggling at the same time. So I think I could finish Yote sooner than I could finish Silk Song at this point. Ranch, our producer, Rochelle Chen. You've also been playing Ghost of Yote, yes? I have, yeah. What are your impressions? I imagine you're still somewhere in the early game? I'm still pretty early.

I'm having the skill tree situation. Having to learn new moves has been really difficult for me. So I just kind of do the same thing over and over again. But I'm really loving it. It's very fun. Yeah. Wow. Just something to remember, the difficulties are very customizable.

Yeah. So if you want to like give yourself like an easier time, you could sort of crank down the combat difficulty and just like have fun. You can you can actually, again, the thing that I did was I cranked all the difficulties up on specific items. But you can have like. oh, parrying is really hard for me, but I want the enemies to be a little tougher. You can sort of negotiate all of the difficulty in the game, including how much damage you take.

Like, it's really, like, go to the settings. Oh my God, I didn't realize that. I was stuck in a, like, dueling tree match with some guy, and I think I kept bringing me back to that checkpoint, like, starting the duel. Yeah. And it took me, like, 10 tries to beat him. Yeah, you can get in there, mess around, and make it as easy or as, you know, as light as you like. Yeah.

Are you taking a breather from Silk Song? I am. I think I've just been so, every time I think about going back, I get a little bit scared. Yeah. Because I feel like I don't remember anything that happened at this point. Heather, what are you playing? Well, I have a bunch of updates. Wow.

First off, since we're on the ghost of Yotei Tip, I did roll credits on GhostWO2 this week's go. I don't want to spoil at all the final boss, but I enjoyed the final boss and died in the final boss fight. Infinity time. Sure. Can you really say if it's a big guy? He's like a big guy.

I'm not going to tell you what it is. Wow, okay. But being that I had, despite having my, you know, having maxed out all of the, Like I unlocked every shrine. I had all of the, you know, found all of the armor, upgraded all the armor, et cetera. My difficulty setting was still set on any single hit kills me from anybody.

So the final boss was a bit of a challenge. Yeah. I did have to like put down the controller at one point and like kind of think, like just kind of like zone out. Because I was like, I know it's going to be easier if I just let it go for a moment and don't get fixated on the first few moves. had a really great time. The story was enjoyable. A couple of surprising turns. You know, what else can you ask from a video game?

Yeah. I'll tell you, here's what I want a new game plus. Here's what I would like conceptually in new game plus because the customizable difficulty of the game was very enjoyable. Yeah. I want customizable speed in a new game plus. Yeah. I want to just be able to toggle movement.

speed, and I think that that would get me to play a game again if I could play it the second time faster. It's kind of a turbo mode. Yeah. You need to play Doom the Dark Ages. Okay. I played a little bit of it when I had Game Pass, you know, when the game came out, you can increase or decrease the speed of everything.

And it's crazy. Okay. Okay, okay. It's really crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's good. You might like it. So, yeah, that was my Ghost of Yote experience. I celebrated by beginning to learn the Shamasan.

Wow. Which arrived at my house as I beat Ghost of Yote. And I'm going to play my first song that I learned on the Shamasan when it arrived at my house. Day one. Incredible. It took so much work to be able to play. Insane. I am not natural at instruments.

That's so cool that you got one though. Yeah. And that you learned. that very cool i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna do it uh in other news uh from gaming from me what are you playing i'll tell you i'm playing a simpson's fortnight i found one joke that i liked okay in simpson's fortnight there is an arcade in the arcade there's a bunch of fake games yeah and there is a game that made me laugh because of what it was which is is a pink cabinet that says escape from

Grandma's house and the way you interact with the game is four pink buttons and a standard Glock and when I saw that I was like

that's pretty good that's pretty good joke enjoying the season it is extremely difficult I think it's very sweaty the island is smaller there's only 80 players per drop so it is a tighter

faster harder game. Yes. Having a great time. But the big news is. So I finished Ghost of Yote and I need some game that's not Fortnite. Okay. So I have to start a game.

I don't know about this. And I'm going through my backlog and I'm like, what is it time to play? And gentlemen, lady, it's time for me to play Final Fantasy Rebirth. Wow. Oh, my God. I put six hours into a fresh play. I got into the overworld for the first time of my playing of the game. I'm so grateful that I waited for the PlayStation 5 Pro.

The game is staggeringly gorgeous. I am shocked playing it because it is so expensive looking. And as AAA as Ghost of Yote was, walking around. with the most beautiful people that have ever been rendered by a game system and having them interact in like fully mocapped like Pixar level facial animation even the fucking like you meet this chokobo guy right real early game yeah and the chokobo guy looks better than any nPC i have ever encountered in any video game ever absolutely he is stunning just to clear it up for Nick, real quick.

It's a guy that has chocobos, not a human chocobo guy. Look, I put some time into Final Fantasy 7 rebirth earlier this year before I bounced off of it. I was playing on PC. It is a gorgeous game. Heather is right. The art direction is pristine. The character models, the character design is top notch.

Models is right. Here is what is funny about it. Yeah. Is that all of these objects in the world, like all the barrels, all the chairs, everything has collision physics. So when you are walking around inside of a store, like looking for stuff to pick up or open a treasure chest, behind you is the clatter of every one of your friends knocking over everything in the store. And it is great, because you'll turn around and they'll all be standing beautifully, but like the fuck, like stuff is still like rolling around and stuff behind them. And it's, it is deeply funny to be walking through somebody's farm and already.

these games always have such a strange layer of permission. Yeah. Because you're going behind the counter and opening up a chest and nobody's saying anything to you. And I'm always expecting somebody in a Elder Scrolls or Kingdom Come style, like level of interactivity to turn around and be like, hey, you can't go through that. And then like all the cops to come. But with Final Fantasy games, you're expected to look around and like open up every chest. Yeah. So you like go behind a counter and open.

in a chest, and you'll be like, clank, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang. Turn around and like, Eric is standing next to a chair that's like half inside of a kennel or something. Yeah. It's really funny. It is so pretty. I am taking my great time with it. I am walking through every piece of the landscape. It'll say, like, you know, go to this next checkpoint in order to keep the story going.

And I'm like, fuck, no. I am looking around inside of this armor store at, all of the gorgeous, unnecessarily detailed pieces of armor. Yeah. It is ridiculous. I'm so happy to be on that journey, but that's it for me. Wow. Nick Weiger, what are you playing?

Heather, thank you so much. I'll briefly touch on Outer Worlds, too, which I am continuing to play. But as I tend to do when I go through RPGs, I start a new save. Because here's the thing. You reach a certain point in the game and you can no longer respect, which I like. I like that a lot. I like that you're committed to decisions that you make. I like the choices are consequential.

I like that you can't just respect endlessly on the fly for some nominal amount of in-game currency. I think it's great. I think it's a fun, especially for a game that is so much about role-playing. I think it's a great design decision, but I want to try a different build. And also it's one of the things once you get a few hours into one of these games, you're like, hmm, kind of do wish I had like speech you know I kind of do wish I had engineering you know what I mean like like some of these skills I like like oh it feels like the stuff that I could have picked maybe has a little bit more utility so I went ahead and and did that and you know the the early game is easy

enough where I was kind of able to blaze through everything and get back to where I was in short order the world building is really great the companions are really good one thing I want to talk about that I didn't get into last time and you know this is a this is one of the things that's fun about this game. Because it just has, like, like, as I mentioned, as other people have characterized, it's basically Fallout X Mass Effect. I know you don't say vocalize the X,

but come on, what are we doing here? I'm kidding so mad. A thing that happens as you progress through this game is that you start to unlock flaws. And flaws are things that happen by in-game actions, And then they have both some sort of benefit to you, but also some sort of deficiency. When they come up, you basically have the opportunity to like, am I going to take this?

I'm going to make this flaw part of my character. Or am I going to not like, you know, just skip it and not take it? That's really cool. It is really cool. And they're also like, they all have a great sense of fun to it. So for instance, one of them is bad knees, which is that if you crouch enough, you get this thing that gives you more crouch speed. but however it basically makes stealthing impossible because when you crouch you have it it makes a loud sound of your knees cracking just actually a fun sound as I do you know

there's there's a there's a brand loyalty one that you get pretty early on which like gives you like a benefit for you know for wearing everything of a certain like everything that you have that's of a certain like like like all of your equipment if it lines up you get some sort of substantial bonus, but then you get some sort of, you know, you don't get that bonus if you're, if you're not having, you're not dealing with that. There's a T-Tolar bonus that you get like, if you, so you have this inhaler, which is basically like a temporary health, like health boost. It's a lot like the what, what you've got in cyberpunk, but you also get toxicity from that. So that both increases the amount of health you get from it, but also increases your toxicity. and so it's it's they're all just like they're all interesting which i like i mean i'm sure there's a way

to hyper optimize it and take the you know and figure out like what you want of like what are the best ones i'm sure i'm sure tier lists exist for these and which ones you can target by just like you know repeatedly hitting up your workbench so that this specific ability comes up um because you know that one's like worth the trade off or whatever whatever the fuck but it's also kind of fun just to see them come up as you play and then just sort of choose it based on how you want to roleplay your character. But Heather, you mentioned something earlier that actually this is relevant to, which is one of them is kleptomania. So if you steal items enough, you start to get a, like you'll get a substantial bonus when you sell those stolen items to vendors.

However, if you just look, if you have the kleptomania like flaw, if you just look at an item for long enough, sometimes your character will just automatically steal it. give me that so I don't know I just it's the kind of it's like environments like don't look at it really funny it's the kind of stuff

that just makes the game like just feel a little bit more lively and like funny the dialogue is funny it's a really well written game but it's it's like and you know again it's got that sort of cheeky sort of

a fallout sensibility that that colors everything from you know item description to flavor text to what have you. But like, it's also, it has a sense of fun and is like a funny game in its own right for, because of things like flaws as well, which I really like.

So anyway, it's cool. I'm just trying to get some more, get a little deeper in the campaign, which I will continue to do so because I'm enjoying this game. Hell yeah. Let's talk about Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection. Mortal Kombat!

Mortal Kombat! Sub-Zero da-da-da-da-da-ba-ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-a-ba-a-ba-ba-a-ba-ab-a-a-bap-a-a-bap-a-bap-a-up-a-compan. So, like, I kept thinking about that other Atari collection that we played that was staggeringly complete. with the same sort of timeline feature and all of the archival footage. Yes. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I want this. I want somebody in the industry to become this.

And Atari doesn't have a lot of like first party brand strength anymore. But if they were to become this sort of legacy criterion collection company where it was like, oh, we're going to do a retrospective of all the Sonic games. We will do a partnership with Atari and create this sort of like. Yeah. I want that to happen. That's interesting because it is like a brand with a lot of history. And, you know, the developer of this collection is digital eclipse, but it is published by Atari.

It would be kind of interesting if they took that up and they were like, yeah, we'll be the, I don't know. I like that. That feels like, that feels synergistic. And also like, I mean, they've done it for, they've done, this is not the, you know, this and the Atari one. There's like, there's the, the Lama Soft one. And then I think there's another one. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm not mistaken.

I don't know which ones. were, I don't have the publishers of everything, but I know that like, you know, that this digital eclipse has developed a lot of these. Yeah. And as you mentioned, they did, uh, they did the, um, Lomasoft, the Jeff Minter story, which I wish list had never got. I, similarly, the making of Karatica, which is another one that people say is great, the Jordan Mechner game, first game he made before Prince of Persia when he was very, very young. And hey, speaking of which the mortal combat developers are very, very young, which is part of the context that you'll get in this thing. Atari 50, the anniversary.

collection, which we mentioned, which was just kind of the definitive one. And then the Tetris Forever also is another one that they did. So they've overseen a lot of these, and they've kind of been craking them out since 2022. That was kind of the interesting thing of watching some of the documentary stuff. I was like, oh, these are just like middle-aged guys. Like these are not like old guys that like make this game. They're just still like, and they're still like doing it. Yeah. Kind of cool. I know I've told this anecdote on the show before, but since it's the Mortal Kombat episode, I will tell the story again, which is that when I was in grade school. The developers of Mortal Kombat came to my school before Mortal Kombat was created

because we were doing this sort of series of like, what are jobs you might have when you're an adult? And they came to school and they showed us the drawings, which I had not seen until this documentary footage. And I was like, holy shit, those are the drawings. Those are the simple drawings that they showed us with the big fucking spiral notebook that they brought to class which now as an adult I'm like oh it's probably a regular size spiral but they showed us they showed us these drawings and like this is a game that we're going to make because we make video games yeah wow I'm I've got questions are those guys real you know whatever yeah sure is goro my dad but it was neat to see it was neat it was neat

He's got his two arms coming out of the t-shirt hole and then just two holes on the side of his t-shirt. Or a custom four-armed shirt. He's got two arms coming out this way, but the other arms are just in his pockets. Anyway, it was neat because the longer that the memory goes into the past, the more I've doubted that it ever happened. And when I saw the drawings, I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, it's real. It really happened. That is so crazy. Yeah.

But also, like, it's just interesting to think, dude, that these guys were, like, in their, like, early to mid-20s. So young. Just at your school. Yeah. Yeah. They must have known somebody or something because it was such a strange thing to have come to our school. That's one thing I do. Like, and let me say this.

So, you know, the developer digital clips already mentioned, they do a lot of these. For people who haven't played one of these games and haven't played this specific one, basically what it is is you've got like this. this menu of it both allows both is it both serves as like this curated collection of classic titles that follow a theme or in the case of something like more like the making of karate cuts a focused on one thing um and then a bunch of supplementary material uh essentially a documentary cut up into a bunch of different clips and the actual documentary it's something like four hours of footage there's a lot of it so it's some of it doesn't need to be there but it but it's a but it's a ton of supplementary material and that's the the primary

thing that's going on is that and as you step through like a chronological timeline of a franchise of an IP, then you get additional clips and you get additional content you can expose yourself to. But you also get non sort of a documentary is like part of the supplementary materials. You will also get like raw footage of them filming Scorpion's Moveset. Right. And like Paul coming up with music in the Beatles document. you watch them on the fly be like oh scorpion should throw something yeah can you try like making

a throwing gesture can you imagine if he has like a big rope or something like all of that is improvised on the set yes and becomes one of the most iconic moments of mortal combat yeah and i do think some of this footage is are it has already been out there but it's nice to have it all collected in one place well then fuck it no no no but no it's fine i don't give you no it's cool i like it i wish i'd never seen anything here's what i here's where it's going with this this. Here's where I was going to go on this. Nothing.

Not even beyond this. Nothing. I wish I never seen that Paul shit that he did. Yeah, you know what? I used to say $30 about the price of something. Now inflation has pushed me to the point where I think it's now $50 because the price of this on PC is $50. And I believe on console it's $60.

Yeah. This is a, this is a, you know, not quite full price. for our generation, but it's, it's a, it's an expensive game. And I understand why it's price like that. There's a, you know, I'm sure there was a lot of production costs and making this, in, in shooting a lot of new content and, you know, licensing a lot of existing stuff, in getting all these games, you know, curated and emulated. I'm sure there were, there were a lot of development costs here that they incurred. And they also know that this is not going to be like a 10 million selling game. It's going to be kind of a niche product for, for enthusiasts.

but it's hard for me to rationalize at this price point oh yeah me too when i when i saw the price i went oh shit this is what we're covering okay except price yeah i mean it's the kind of thing where like if i was just i mean even making content from this but like it like like you know it's like it's like this is like this is like this is like this is like as a mortal combat fan or someone who's just you know curious about games history or whatever i would be a little bit like man and maybe I should wait for a sale. You know what I mean? Yes.

And it's especially because the entirety of the documentary has already been uploaded onto YouTube. So you can find all of the footage, you know, cut together in various forms. If you just want to watch the, you know, the primary anchor of the supplementary material, it's there. And that's to me is like what's interesting about it because I think actually playing these games for me, it's kind of like, you know, messaging. around with a decently emulated version of games that have not necessarily aged well, certainly from a single player standpoint.

And from what I read it, I did not try out online at all, but I've heard that the online play, maybe it's been patched by this point, is a little bit clunky. I was reading about that too, but my initial reactions to playing through some of these was just that like, I don't like

Mortal Kombat that much. It's like, it's good, it's fun, but I'm like, for $50 you would think this would, I, You should love this for $50 because, like, yeah, the documentary thing to me is the most interesting and attractive part of it to me, but it's online. One of, so for me, I had sort of the opposite experience, I guess, not to be contrarian. No. I don't particularly like Mortal Kombat, right? I'm Street Fighter Girl.

That's canon of the podcast at this point. Didn't really, wasn't super excited for this episode. By the game, gasp at the price. Sticker shock. And then what I loved about the way it was organized is that you could go from Mortal Kombat Arcade to Mortal Kombat on the Genesis to Mortal Kombat on the Super NES to Mortal Combat on the Game Boy like this. No, that is awesome.

I do really like that. And getting to see, because even when you have an emulator, generally speaking, it's organized by system, not by title. And so to be able to compare the differences between these games. lightning fast was kind of illuminating in a way that I didn't expect. Like, I knew that the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was significantly frame-reduced in comparison to the Super Nintendo version. There's also the very famous Super Nintendo has no blood.

Genesis version has blood. I also knew that the sprites were physically smaller on screen than the arcade version. But getting to shuffle between all of them, I was like, wow, you really appreciate the ports and you're surprised at how robust to those ports are. And then additionally, playing the Game Boy and Game Gear versions next to each other, I was like, oh, my God, the Game Boy sucked. Like, holy shit. And I really appreciate it because I had Mortal Kombat on Game Gear back in the day. And getting to see it all blown up, I was like, technically the largest sprites in any of these games, just in terms of like visual real estate, is the Game Gear version. Yeah.

Because the screen was so small, so the guys had to be so big. Are you excited that you get to play that version without having to burn through 30 batteries? You need, no, no, because in that, did you get to, did you get to play the Game Gear version? They make you put six AAAs. You had to jam them into your PlayStation. My pitch for this game, actually, for this package, is to make it maybe just a little more boring and frustrating, actually, because I do, I like the presentation of the timeline of events of the documentary and, like, going through and clicking through that. But, like, that's the second option in the home menu. Right.

The first thing is all of the games are there. So you don't have to interact with that stuff at all. Right. But to me, the package is that. Yes, right. So I'm sort of thinking. that that should be what you get to experience first

and then as you're going through the story you unlock the different versions of it because then you get to experience it sort of like as you're learning the story and I just think I don't know that's a little more fun to me well that's my memory that's my memory of how the Atari 50

anniversary celebration worked but I you know I could be wrong about that we did do an episode back on it on it back in the day but I think the yeah I mean I think they really wanted to have all the games just available initially. I think they didn't want to have.

I think they were probably trying to be like appeal to people who like, hey, I just want to have a comprehensive collection of, you know, most of the Mortal Kombat's through four, all kind of archived in one place. Though I will say there are some weird omissions like that we mentioned that, you know, like you do get the arcade Mortal Kombat 4, but I don't believe you get any of the ports. You don't get the Sega C.D. Mortal Kombat, which was, at the time, the best way to play Mortal Kombat, despite the fact that there were loading times before fatalities. So if you pulled off a fatality, it would go, da, da, da, and then zh, zh, and then you'd pull off the fatality. But the music was the actual, I don't know if it's called Red Book Audio.

It was the actual audio from the arcade cabinet. So if you wanted the closest thing to the arcade game at home, that was your port. Yeah, and similarly, the Mortal Kombat trilogy, you don't get the Nintendo 64 version, which is a bit of an omission. I mean, that's a game I owned. And I remember playing that, you know, I was like, I versus my friends as a kid. And that was like probably the most Mortal Kombat I played outside of Mortal Kombat in the arcade just for the novelty of it back when I played at the Skate Depot was Mortal Kombat trilogy on Nintendo 64. We... You remember the skate depot?

I used to go to the skate depot, yeah. It smells like feet there. Hell yeah. I was horrible at skating to hold the side. Whoa. Always fucking falling. Man, got thrown off. We're from the same area, so we probably went to...

It's over by the BJs over by the Stereo's Mall, no? Yeah, yeah. There wasn't a BJs there back in the day. Not then, but... Yeah, I used to... Man, I still feel bad. We ditched a girl's birthday party at the Skate Depot. You ditched a girl's birthday party at the Skate Depot?

Yeah. Why'd you do that? These cool girls wanted me to go with them. you didn't do anything wrong those other girl sounds like a fucking dork she was lovely I'm sure I had many birthdays there

yeah yeah this is a roller rink yeah it's a roller rink yeah is it the only roller rink around because if so I think I've been to skate deep you might have been there there's the one there's the moonlight rollerway I don't know the name that's like that's more our general area now

this is where like in lakewood where like we both grew up separately I have been to skate Depot with some mutual friends as an adult. So I think it's very possible that you went there. Maybe. It is one of the roller rings in the area. Maybe. You like it when they turn on the black lights and it's kind of like disco nighttime? Cosmic? Yeah, but I don't like

they can see what I did. Does it entire, like you got fucking slimed at Nickelodeon. You look like a level in power wash simulator. The before. What's strange about the omissions in this game is the inclusion of the 32X version of Mortal Kombat.

Because if you're going to, like, if you're not going to include the N64 version, why go so far out of your way to include the 32X version? Yeah. Which far fewer people have played. It is interesting that there would just be omissions at all for how comprehensive it is. But like, I do, I mean, just earlier you were saying,

somebody does need to sort of take up the mantle of the criterion, like, collection for video games. Because for game preservation, these things are a dream. Yeah. Because I was reading this, one of the versions, the WaveNet version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was previously lost media. Right, no, it's really cool that's on there.

It's awesome. You could just have it now. It's crazy for $50, but it's just there. Yeah. And then there's things like, you know, is it deadly alliance? That's the one where it's like the only version they have of deadly alliance for some reason is the Game Boy Advance version. I mean, like, I imagine some of this must be licensing.

I also imagine some of it might be, I don't understand how emulators actually work if you're putting them into commercial software because I know some of them are freeware, but I know Some of them are probably released under agreements where you're not supposed to make money off of them. So I'm sure they're probably have to like probably like if the maybe the added expense of including like an N64 emulator in this package or something like that would have been enough where they're just like they couldn't justify it for for one game or something. But it does again kind of like especially with how much you're spending on this. It does feel like a bummer that that so many things are not included. Meanwhile, the 32x guy's like, you want to use my emulator? but it's interesting though because like the the consoles on the nintendo switch online thing like the you know the n64 the game cube the the super nintendo all those are emulators they're just like they're just in there though so like they could do it somehow but maybe it was like yeah too costly to include in the game don't know uh what what i will say though is is that the the documentary stuff especially the new stuff is really cool i love hearing from ed boone and um i

keep wanting to call him Scott Tobias, because that's similar to a name of a kid who was my friend. But John Tobias, Boone and Tobias, who were, like, kind of the two creators of Mortal Kombat. And really, they weren't the only people working on this game. It was something like a six-person development team for the original. But a lot of it is front-loader. A lot of the content is about the early part of the early history of the franchise, which makes sense. That was the formative period when they really figured out what it was. Like Heather was saying, they were just working with stunt performers, shooting them on blue screen.

and in real time being like figuring out kicks they could do and then figuring out how many frames things needed to be and like all that shit is awesome it's great that the and I don't have the it's is it I don't have the individual's name I don't know if it's if it's John Vogel I could be wrong but like one of the coders who is a who is who is basically developed the system that allows them to capture digital images yeah to capture digital video turned into to frame by animation and have it be something that could be interactive, someone who figured out that whole pipeline is the same person who made Kubert. And it's like, it's like, oh, that's just like an awesome bit of history that I'm sure is out there, but I'm learning it as I'm watching this documentary. It was interesting to put a face to the name of the guy who allowed his creation to be fucked by Josh Gad. I hope he made some money off of that.

One of my favorite things about this is that the second guy we see in the documentary is our pal Mike Drucker. Mike Drucker's in this. Jeff Gersman's in this. There's some familiar faces just popping up in the dock. Yeah. That was just, I was like,

oh, fun. Yeah. I really liked, there's a section where you can. Must miss an email. What? They must have emailed us or something.

We just didn't get it. Yeah. Maybe we went to junk. Sometimes that happens. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting. Yeah,

it is interesting. I'll check my spam folder. It might be in there. Yeah, it's probably my spam. I never checked that because. Oh, you know,

it is in here. And they're like, hey, we really want you. Are we just like, so please reply to this Or we're gonna, with the documentary won't be as good. No, it's actually, it's actually in mine too. Is that so?

Yeah, that's what I see. Let me go to my spam. Yeah, no, it says we wish you were in it. Please, they were kind of like they sent a video of them crying that we didn't reply in time, actually. Yeah, that was, I actually feel bad about that. Yeah, I feel bad. Why is Tam Oshanter the restaurant in my spam email? That actually shouldn't be there.

That needs to be in there. That needs to be priority. What the fuck? Why are they eating? The holidays are coming. You're going to want to get a reservation. If you don't live in the Los Angeles area, it's a wonderful restaurant. And around the holidays, they have carolers.

And let me tell you something, it's a fucking blast. It rules. It's really, really great. You don't think you love carols. And somebody walks up to your table. Man, I'm tipping carolers like I'm fucking the richest man on earth. It's so great. It's so great.

Yeah, you pass the carolars and bills. and they'll sing a song of your choosing. You know what's fun to do with the carolers? Like, let them choose. Because here's the thing. People are requesting the same songs all nights that they're doing all I want for Christmas is you like endlessly.

And they're just like, we haven't done God rest of you very gentlemen in a while. I do. Actually, our tenor can really belt that one out. I do. That's what I'll ask them. I go, what's the one that you don't think anyone's going to ask you to do tonight? I want to hear the hat one.

And then they do it. I'm like, that one kind of fucking suck. That boring out I was like That song's like I might fucking church Or something Low the shepherd's

Woes What the fuck is this song It sucks Do freaking hot to go Or some shit One of my favorite things In the supplemental Materials

Supplementary Materials Is the cut Moves sets Yes You get to see a bunch of like kicks Or animation sequences That are

That are actual it's not like the raw footage it's like the digitized moves that would have been in the game that have all been removed and it's like the vestigial sprite work and you also get to see background animation that they had to cut because of memory constraints yeah so getting to see that like the guys who stood next to shang sung used to like switch the spears in their hands before they were like this is taking up so much memory in this game we gotta stop these guys from moving No, that's what's, I mean, like, so much of, so much of what's impressive about this when you get the history of the development is just, like, the limitations they were working with. First off, just from a manpower standpoint, like, Ed Boone was like basically the sole programmer, dedicated programmer, and John Tobice was basically the one artist. And, you know, they had a handful of people. And it seemed like it was a great active collaboration. Like, that's the other thing. It seems like they were all happy to work together.

Everyone was accepting each other's ideas. You know, there's an open door policy all around. It seemed like, oh, this is kind of the platonic ideal of game development is they just had an idea for a cool game and then everyone pitched in and, you know, and made their vision happen. And they were all satisfied with how it turned out. But yeah, like, like things like that, like what you're talking about, like when they, you know, they make a weakness into a strength with subzero and Scorpion becoming in these signature characters in the franchise. But they're there because of the limitation of memory where they're like, well, in order to have a roster of this size, a character is going to have to be. a palette swap, you know, not even on the level of Ken and Ryu. It's like, these characters are just identical, but one is blue and one is yellow, but we'll give them different movesets.

That stuff was all very fascinating to me. Also, just like somebody who grew up where Mortal Kombat was everywhere at that point when I was like aware of video games. So I was always kind of aware of it, but I wasn't aware of like the sort of mythology around it from the community of players kind of. So like people discovering, like people discovering the fatalities and then reading the comics or whatever and like there's that tidbit where they like put a note in there that like sonia's got a slide move or something and like she just doesn't so they were like sort of creating their own sort of like lore with the people that were very enthusiastic about the game and i thought that was really interesting and my other favorite thing was that nobody could remember who decided that it should be combat with a yeah that's really fun and they're all sort of like i think it was me it's like yeah of course you would 30 years later think it was you I was surprised that the game's initial release, Mortal Kombat 1, not Mortal Kombat 1. Yes.

Not the reboot, but Mortal Kombat, the original, didn't have Sonia in it until late in the game. Yeah. That they were like, oh, we should put in a chick. We should make a girl and she should be in this game. Because, like, part of the, at least for me, one of the standout things about Street Fighter was, oh, it's all these weird looking people and a regular looking girl. Yeah. And it's kind of similar in Mortal Kombat.

You've got like ninjas and like like a fucking Raiden's got his huge hat. And then there's just a chicken elite heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's there to fight. And it's kind of a commando. But like, yeah, you're right. It was like the, the attribute is woman. Like that's like the, you know, that's the defining characteristic.

Yeah. Not even like a forarmed woman. Yeah. No. I mean, they came later. They came later. Yeah, they changed that up. Like the women get fucking.

weird in Mortal Kombat games. It's, yeah, I mean, like, I love all of that. I like the insight into, like, the sound design and the voiceover, how all that kind of came about. But, yeah, we were talking about with Sonia is, like, because they talk about playtesting the game, and in Chicago markets, I believe. Yep. And basically, like, it was late enough in development where they were playtesting it.

They would just put it out in arcades and we're just seeing how the player base would respond, how enthusiasts would, whether they'd choose it over the. the existing Street Fighter 2 cabinets or whatever, and that version didn't have, that build didn't have Sonia in it. So, like, it was like, it was, you know, pretty late in the game. But, like, yeah, when you're talking about all the, the cut content as well, that's another thing where, like, they found ways to reappropriate and reuse some of these things when they were like, like, oh, what's Lou King's fatality going to be?

Actually, we have this unused move that we were going to, that was going to be a different sort of, like, kick that we're going to use, but now we can make this part of the animation for it to actually give them a finisher. I remember the first time I played Mortal Kombat was at a pizza restaurant, of course, always. That's where fucking video games were. And it was next to a virtual fighter cabinet. And to me, they both were, they're both, that was the only cabinets there. And they represented such crazy divergent takes on fighting games.

Yeah. Like one, I was like, whoa, these people are like, blocks they look like tron in my head it's like oh it's tron people yeah but they're like you can move the camera around them and then the other one looked at the time mortal combat looked real yes like i was like oh my god these are just real people they've done it and playing it i thought i was going to get in trouble like i remember being like i hope nobody sees me playing this so i don't get in trouble because it's clear that I'm not supposed to be playing this because it was so violent and like looking at it now

like playing it again for the first like the arcade cabinet for the first time and I don't know how long I was like this game's so fucking tame now oh yeah it's goofy we see regularly see the inside of men's heads in video games like split open arrows through their head like even Fortnite feels violent even though it's not violent

it was so like charming to see mortal combat and then see like the documentary footage of like senators and stuff being like this is going to end society that was one of the interesting things that like just like the court documents are in the thing and I was like this is just

fascinating and obviously it's public record but like just like the fact that it's in a video game you can look at it is interesting Joe Lieberman's dumb ass up there. Fucking baby. Well, the game scared me. Grow up. Fucking fake.

Anybody from 2025 going back would be such ruthless bullies to those people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We have different language of bullying now. Like, for somebody to be like... I'd give this guy a wedge you that would kill him. Like, for somebody to be like, this is a moral and ethical problem in the United States. Like anybody from 2025 would look at that guy and be like, you're a cuck.

Senator Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore's running mate and their failed 2000 bid for the presidency, was like the forefront of the moral panic over video games that so much of it was centered on moral combat specifically. But also like the night trap, which was the Sega CD game. Yep. which was for more lascivious reasons, although it was also a violent game. You could almost sort of, you could almost get there on night traffic.

It's so crazy. Yeah. But it's just like him up there like, and then the announcer implores the player to quote, finish him. Like they're talking about how like it, what an ominous grim thing it is now. And yeah,

now it's like our discourse is so completely different. Yeah. You could like cut off a man's head in Ghost of Yote. Yeah. And it's just like part of it. All of it. Yeah.

All of his head. Yeah. In any section you want. And the command is slaughtered. Yeah. In a game that is otherwise not like, it's not like build in the commercials as like a hyper violent experience. It's like, experience the story of the ghost of Yote. What does it say when, you know, like when they're crawling away, like, and they're like basically almost dead?

It's like end suffering. Yeah. Ends. and he just fucking shishababab him with a patana and it helps you yeah yeah yeah it's comparatively quaint

obviously by our contemporary standards but it was like I was definitely scandalized as a preteen being like like holy shit I can't believe this game is vile I definitely remember like moms being upset about moral combat I definitely remember there were certain

arcade operators that would toggle the blood off and yeah I had super nintendo port which had no blood and i think there was a cheat that you could use to enable blood it could be wrong about that i think you had to have a game genie to do it but it was but it was like it was still embedded in the game but they basically you know disabled it and it was like it was weirdly grosser which in which you can experience if you're playing the uh the the emulated version that's in the legacy collection but it's like and so they they didn't take out the the the sprites for the blood effect they just changed it to like look like sweat yeah

So it's kind of clear, which is just fucking disgusting. But it also kind of looks more realistic in some way. Like the blood is so cartoonishly red that now if you look at the game for Super Nintendo, you almost read it as like, like, yes. Like there's some kind of, it's like, oh, God. Yeah. You, I want to circle back to something you said. You played it first time at a pizza place.

Yeah. I kind of think pizza is the number one video game food. For sure. Pizza is the number one video games. As far as proximity to video games. 100%. You know what? If this is the three supercomputers of Evangelion, we've already agreed.

Whatever his opinion is is invalid. Because it's like that's, you know, there'll be like a shakies or something or a me and ed's, for example. No, no, for sure. Hey, another local liquid Southern California shower. out the the yes i'm i certainly the association with pizza parlors which the arcade cabinets and pizza parlors are not as as hand in in glove as they used to be not anymore but that that was that was an inseparable alliance at a certain point i'm thinking about like at home because that's like certainly where where everyone's playing video games these days it's chips it's chips it might be chips

it's pizza it's still for me i think it's still pizza because they think of the other delivery staples you can eat it with one a hand yeah And it's, like, certainly less messy than, like, wings. So, like, you could be eating a slice and then, you know, still be getting some... And you're not having, like, friends over for, like, you know, a table dinner. Yeah. Right. To, like, play video games.

Because one of the things you're worried about with, like, chips is you're going to grease up the controllers. Yeah, I get Cheeto dust in there, some shit. Shrimp cocktail is the food of gaming. I would love it. I'll eat a nasty amount of shrimp cocktail, like an unsettling amount, before it gets room tamp. I remember this is a bag of the upright I said this is a great theater

and Franklin I heard about an improv show once where an audience member showed up sat in the front row and took a huge shrimp cocktail

out of a bag and eating like raw shrimp as he was watching improv comedy I can't remember what the name of the show was but our friends Alex Berg and Alex Fernie

did like an improvide sort of like radio thing I can't remember what it was called oh yeah I remember the show both forgive me I'm sure but the last one that I saw Berg ate a like full amount of shrimp cocktail on stage and when he finished it

he looked like he was about to throw up and everybody was like cheering and so excited and he pulled out a second tray of shrimp cocktail started eating it and the audience was like no so funny it's You know, like, I really like how young and scrappy the development team is. Yeah. And I just, like I mentioned, it seemed really collaborative. It seems really wholesome. That repeatedly just like they keep saying, we didn't really know what we were doing. And that's kind of why these decisions got made.

And that's just like, yeah, it's a, it's a unique sort of stew that results in a pretty singular game that became really influential. It's my favorite thing in any sort of documentary where, like, the people have reached success beyond any. you measure every Beatles documentary Paul would be like, we were just full ads from Liverpool what we were doing. And it was like, you kind of did at some point, though, you became the Beatles. Yeah, there's like a point, there's a threshold you cross

where it's like suddenly like, I guess I know what we're doing. Yeah, I think it was when you figured out that you needed a more interesting drummer. You contrast that with an Oasis documentary where they're like, we always knew what we were fucking doing. We're going to fucking take over the fucking world.

fucking biblical in it yeah I love that you either have to be fake humble or just come in just like huge dick swinging

we look around and we're like ah we're the fucking best yeah obviously the best I've done this shit before meanwhile he's got a tambourine

on his fucking head uh this I I messed around with some of them I think the worst ones are It's kind of hard to say honestly I thought the Game Boy advanced ones were pretty bad The Game Boy regular one is so bad

I was stunned I was like How did they why? I mean Game Boy was in every house So I understand why they released it Yeah but by but when you compare it to the Game Gear version You're like okay the Game Gear version is not good But it's Mortal Kombat The Game Boy version was like, man, there are two colors on this screen. On or off.

I think that the ones that I would, if I were to return, I got this on, I got this on Switch 2. Because I have like a lot of fighting games on that because I think it's just like the easiest way to like get other people to play. Like Switch is like the most portable. And it already has two controllers. So like if you're playing with someone you want to play. So I have a lot of fighting games on Switch 2 actually. If I were to go back and play some of these and show this collection to people,

I would be like, let's play the arcade versions of these I think it's the way to play it. Yeah, but I mean, like, it is, I think it's like just in the spirit of being comprehensive. It's cool that the handheld versions are on. Oh, yeah. And the sub-zero one is interesting. Well, okay, so here's the thing.

Like, like, you know, it's cool that the Game Boy ports, the Game Gear ports of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 are on there. Mortal Kombat mythology sub-zero, which I had played previously, which was, you know, kind of like it's, it's like an action-adventure game. It's not like a fighting game. It was an attempt to expand the franchise. And Mortal Kombat Special Forces, the other one, which I had not played previously. And that one stars Jacks. They're both pretty bad.

And I would say probably are the ones, the games that work the least in this package. Again, it's cool that they're in there because we're covering a certain period of time. And it's like, hey, these are these things that we were trying. But, like, they're kind of games that just sort of prove that this is just a fighting game franchise. They tried with Street Fighter as well. There was a, what the fuck was that weird Street Fighter platform game? It was like Street Fighter 20X or something like that. Fucking do not remember that game.

Like, they've made Street Fighter and an adventure game in the most recent one where you're, like, running around the city and challenging people to fights. Like, that's Street Fighter the Adventure game. I don't you're you're right that there was some kind of super nintendo street fighter action game it was street fighter 2010 the final fight and it was a platformer and you were you were Ken but he got Ken with cybernetic implants and yeah it was not very good and you have to be Ken yeah why I do think more companies should do this let's take it easy on Ken what let's just take it easy on Ken why okay Ryan Gosling because he's a wife guy? What's the angle here?

I don't know. Some of us maybe relate to Ken. You relate to Ken? I kind of feel like Ken sometimes, Ken Masters. Why is that? I don't know. I'm a wife guy. Is it because anywhere else you'd be a 10? That's a different Ken. What are we doing here? I'm mixing

Ken's. I do think Mark Company should do this because it would just be interesting, not just to like see how, you know, like imagine like a naughty dog one where it starts with the earliest things even like before crash or whatever And then you get Crash and Jack and Daxter in there on chart. I mean, there's too much to cover.

You couldn't put all of the totality in it. But I think you could, I think you could put past the modern era of games in documentary form at least. Yep. And it would just be interesting to, like, have that information. Yeah. I think it's just really cool, like, to see the concept art and, and, you know, how things change. Like, I don't remember offhand what, uh, what's his name? Brayden?

Johnny, uh, Johnny Cage. Johnny Cage. I don't remember what his original name was, but it was just like... Mr. Grimm. Yeah, that's right. They're like, that's funny. That's funny to know. Yeah.

Like, just to see how things, you know, iterated over time and stuff and just how actually high quality the documents were. Yeah. Like, they were like pristine condition. And to see the models of the cabinets was like really interesting to and like being able to zoom in and stuff like that. I just think more companies or, you know, or. digital eclipse rather, it would

behoove them to be like, go to say remedy or Kojima or anybody just to be like, let's get all this information somewhere so that just for game preservation because so many things get lost to time and I think just be interesting. Yeah, I mean they're definitely this is maybe the most

contemporary of these collections they've done. I guess they did a Ninja Turtles one which has maybe some more modern games but it's like it's yeah, boy some more contemporary stuff would be interesting. I just imagine that's the kind of thing where it gets even trickier in terms of rights and licensing and dealing with these publishers. And the other thing you'd have to deal with, like, for instance, I was thinking about the Blizzard Arcade Collection, which is pretty cool. It's got

things like, you know, Lost Vikings and Blackthorn on it. And it does have a little bit of supplementary material, but not really, but it's like something on this scale that was like about Blizzard in totality, kind of like Jason Schreier's book, but an interactive museum format, would be interesting. but you can't really go into a company like Blizzard and be you can't just be hagiah like have hagiography about Blizzard because it's a company with a lot of tormented you know the past that that needs that would need to be impact and explained and put into context in terms of its output so could you imagine if they put it in though you'd be like if you did that they'd be like this is fucking this is fucking rat this exists this is but but bad that it happened yeah yeah of course

Yes. If a game company wanted to do this and make infinity money, Rockstar should do it. Yeah. Because if you had a compilation that was released before 6 and was just like the story of Rockstar, not only would it generate hype, but to be able to go onto one disc and see like interviews with people talking about the decision to make Grand Theft Auto 3D. and to be able to play the one that comes right before it and then turn that off and immediately play Grand Theft Auto 3 would be so, like it would be illuminating and provocative and exciting

and it would just generate interest in the release for 6, which is not coming out until 2027. A whole entry for the hot coffee mod. Yeah. The thing is like it's, you know, Rockstar had that re-release of the, you know, Grand Theft Auto 3. The definitive edition. Definitive Edition, which had, which, like, used AI for, like, or, like, seemed to for some of the, you know, upscaling and rendering and, like, did things like what, like, what's, you know, what's that one joke of the, there's the, you know, the nut that got turned completely round, that completely, like, undermined.

Oh, yes. Yes. It's like nuts and bolts or something that. Isn't that what it is? No. It's something like that. I mean, it's some sort of pun that is just like rendered moot because the algorithm they used to, you know, remaster this game made what was a hexagonal nut into a circle. And so it's like it's like, you know, they did instead the laziest version and probably made, still made a shitload of money. But yeah, it would be cool if things like this existed. I guess we should talk a little bit about actually playing this game because. As part of the thing about this, the thing about playing these games is that, you know, and I remember this from playing them as a kid, they're not super fun to play single player because the AI, I'm not talking about AI in the modern art sense, the generative sense, but like in terms of the CPU opponents. Yeah, imagine Chatcheebt is fucking kicking your ass at Mortal Kombat. The CPU opponents, you're playing in this game, like, kind of are really fucking annoying.

And they have the thing that, which is input reading, which is they basically are just taking whatever, you know, moves you're putting in as a player and they are responding them not, responding not to the animation that you were doing on the character is doing on screen, but like what buttons you're pressing so that has this response time that is completely, you know, beyond what a human player could do. And it just, it's like that whole thing of like it's, it's not hard to make a hard AI, it's hard to make a fun AI. That's the whole thing. Like these are hard AIs that aren't necessarily. fun to play. The default difficulty on these things across the board from what I noticed was Medium. And I ain't fucking with that. That's

too hard for Mortal Kombat against the computer. I didn't stand a chance. No, you can get shit oust on Medium. You don't know what you're doing, for sure. That's why I was like, I have to wait for my wife to get home so I could beat her at this game. She's actually very good at, specifically Mortal Kombat

2, and she loves Baraka. She loves Baraka. Yeah. Show me the bridge. Baraka. Hussein Obama. You guys were in the same zone. I did see online this conspiracy theory about him where Obama's got these fucking blades in his arms.

If you've got Baraka's look, you basically are going to enter some sort of fighting tournament. There's almost nothing else. What are you going to do fucking work at Chipotle? Claus is getting in the quack, dude. Actually, you know who should work at Chipotle? Goro, he can be working on two. burritos at once.

Fuck, man. It would be a monster there. Imagine a shift meal, though. Yeah, that's not really an episode, but it's kind of interesting to think of who in World Combat should and shouldn't work at Chipotle. Goro would take the whole steam tray of fucking Karnay Asada into the men's room.

Perfectly rolled burritos. Yeah. It's a men's room. It's fucking going ham. It's funny to think, like, to make a burrito takes your attention. Yeah. And if you had another set of arms, you wouldn't be able to pay attention to both burritos at the same time.

You think he's not doing, he's not, like, focused on all of it? So, like, the idea that, like, you got one set of arms folding and making a great burrito and the other one's kind of just matching shit together below. That's right. I wonder when, you know, the biohacking reaches a point where we can't have additional limbs or when we can have cybernetic implants that give us additional limbs. First of all, I know Heather will be first in the line. But secondly, like, I wonder if you'll be able to have...

Okay, you'll be second in line. You can do this all day. I'll be third. Hand independence is something you can do. Like, you know, as an adult piano student, I just like, like, like, a big thing is learning how you have your left hand and your right hand independent. That's a skill you can figure out. You can train your brain to do that.

I would imagine if you had four arms, you could do the same sort of thing. I would hope so. I did actually just watch somebody, a clip of somebody playing different intros to Ben Fold songs. I really love Ben Folds and this just came up on my algorithm and just watching his hands move I was like I couldn't I couldn't for the rest of my life figure that out I think it was insane to me I'm sure you could I watched a video of a dog that like having his butt slapped you liked it he loved it you know send me that video

in fact you know just because we're here on a podcast I saved it I saved it because I saved it because guys this this is one of the best videos I've ever seen of a dog. Here you go. You ready? He's getting like spanked. There you go. Jackson, seriously, right now, it's Sunday morning.

Okay, fine. But, that's cute. He's making a noise no dog has ever made. It's a pug completely twisted into a circle on the floor. Yeah. Tongue out and just throwing his ass in a circle. Throwing his ass in a circle. Throwing his ass in a circle, asking for butt slaps.

He loves it. Ranch I'll show to you after the pod. that's what mortal combat's cool I just I can't I can't advise anyone I mean like unless you really want to support this sort of thing that digital eclipse is doing I cannot advise anyone to buy this game at full price yes I despite the sort of appreciation I have for the package itself for all the documentary footage for the way it's organized for the speed with which you get in and out of the games so that you can compare them I just it just solidified for me that I don't really like mortal combat like I wasn't like oh yeah this is fun a little bit like I was kind of like ugh like the movement in mortal combat is you really get drafted when you're a kid into movesets and capcom's move set was just first it was just first layer so like anybody else is building on top of that layer and feel weird because it's not Capcom.

Do you mean the inputs? Do you mean I just kind of like, or? The inputs, the organization of punches and kicks versus punches, kicks, and blocks. Right. And then also the sort of frame response feel. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's naturally going to be a little bit more fluidity in the, you know,

the Capcom approach with the just absolutely gorgeous, you know, a sprite animation and versus the, you know, here they're kind of beholden to frame by frame. and sometimes excluding frames for the purposes of making something feel a little bit better but like like yeah when you're working with digital images it's like it's gonna feel a little bit less

have a little bit less of a flow to it I think Mortal Kombat is like a rock solid number two to Street Fighters number one just like I think it's like it's great it's fun it's different enough I'll always prefer Street Fighter like it was even just thinking about the most recent entries in both

series Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat one I've played both Street Fighter 6 is better to me. That being said, this documentary says, and I took it at face value, that Mortal Kombat is the number one selling fighting game. I believe that 100% just because of, I mean, because what? I mean, controversy sells. It's like it's interesting to people. They're also put them out like with such a regularity and that the street fighters come out pretty sporadically and, you know, they've been a varying quality.

I yeah what is I mean like what like Mortal Kombat number one is I was make Tekken number two and I want to step on a segment or something like that I wonder what I wonder what the actual ranking is uh I mean I here's a thing and this is what gets people mad every time yeah completely forgot about Tekken just forgot about it like just like didn't even consider it at all like I got a Brian Cox video we need to watch That video is insane It is really nuts I also am just like I want to ask him like Who does he owe money to? Like he doesn't need to do this

Some people just love to work They just love it Couldn't be me But it is nice that people are like that It's funny to do that video Yeah Just as an aside It's funny to do that video

And also be like method acting is stupid Yeah. Like to hold both of those opinions like, I'm going to speak extremely gracefully and with great authority about the story of Tekken. But also, I don't like it if a guy's like, I'm not going to eat this food because my character is a vegan. I think those two ideas, though, are like part of the, they're in the same part of the Venn diagram. Yeah, I guess so. He's like, I'm not taking this seriously at all. I'm just kind of doing my job.

Right. Which I got to give it up Yeah, with this, I think it is like The price point is a little crazy Check it out on a sale if you want it But also if you love Mortal Kombat There is probably something in here that is worth it to you Or if you love the 32X and you've been looking for a way to play

A 32X game here in your 2025 Yeah This is the way to do it Absolutely The ones we forgot about We did Mortal Kombat Street Fighter Tekin I'm just looking at a few different sources in terms of unit sales for

fighting game franchises. The Dragon Ball fighting games are big sellers and Super Smash Brothers, of course. A platform fighter, its own sort of thing, but if you're going to, it could be lumped in and is lumped in a lot of times. That's right. Should we do a segment?

Let's do a segment. It's time for the question block. All right, these are all from our Discord. Discord. Discord.G. Flash. Get played. Is that what it is?

What the fuck is happening here? I like forgot the link or forgot the URL like as I was saying. Yeah, you stopped at Discord. I was like, that can't be our Discord. We'd flash. Get played. Yeah. The name of the show.

What was wrong with me? I don't know. Maybe you thought it was just played or something. Maybe you thought it was Matt Get. Am I okay? Yeah, are you okay? I'm just, you know, I ate a Goro meet me a burrito at work.

Which one? Did you get the top burrito or the lower burrito? Here's the thing. He was crisscrossing his arms. Oh, boy. His first one's from the Stefan New Hand. Hi, Stefan. Hi, Stefan.

I hope it's Stefan. It could be Stephen. It's one of these things. Okay. New Hand. New Hand. What's up? What's up, New Hand?

Is there a game you wish you? You could have played the year it came out. I have an immediate answer to this. Shadow of the Colossus. I only played that in the last couple of years. Sure. I think it could have just, it would have been nice to have that be a part of my personality when it was new.

Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting. This is a great question. What's top of mind for me is a franchise that I came to late with the remaster. But I feel like if I'd gotten into Mass Effect when it came out, I would have loved Mass Effect, and I would have been really, really into that series. And I think probably my anticipation for Mass Effect, too, and just kind of seeing Commander Shepard's journey come out, like, you know, the way they were actually released chronologically would just be what those time gaps would be like just like really rewarding. Yeah. God of War Ragnarok.

Oh. Because it's still in my two play and it's a great game. But the year it came out, I just didn't get. to it, and now it is on the shelf. Well, hey, maybe when you finish rebirth, you can get to it. Yeah. How about this? How about, like, we could, we could invert a new hands question and say, like, what's

a game you're glad you waited to get to? And I, because I have an immediate answer, Sekaro Shadows Die Twice. If I played that game, the year it came out, it would have bounced off of it. When I was able to finally get to Sekaro Shadows, Shadows, Shadows, I fucking love that game and finished it. And it's one of the more rewarding game experiences. of my life. Similarly, playing Rebirth now, I bought a bigger TV and I have a PS5 Pro and I feel like

I'm getting the optimum version of, I got a Sony TV, so it automatically senses the settings of the PlayStation and configures it to look the best it can. Wow. So I'm fucking, I'm, I'm, I'm just in heaven. It's visual heaven. I think my answer is the same. I think Shadow of the Colossus. Wow.

Because I think it would have been nice to play it when it was new, and I probably would have liked it then. But, you know, I played it. I got a little older, so I was able to appreciate things about it more than I probably would, that I wouldn't have appreciated as much if I was a little bit younger. You'd seen the Adam Sandler movie, so you had context for what was happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I need movies to tell me how to feel. So I kind of watched rain over me to figure this one out. You know what?

I still haven't seen it. um you know it's fine i'm sure he's great you've seen the scene with the sandman's always great he's so good and don't chitel playing shadow the glasses that's kind of all you need

if i run into him i'm going to ask him if you remember is playing the game i'm sure he does oh yeah i love it this next one's from fierce deity with that fierce they're right are you guys excited about the new lego collabs with more video games

such as zelda i kind of wish i was. On paper, I'm a big Lego guy, but I just don't, I don't buy Lego. Are we talking, are these physical Legos, or are these Lego games? They're physical Lego. Physical Legos. I mean, yeah, this is the thing with Lego is, it's just such an

expensive hobby. I think it's cool. I think it's a good thing to spend your time doing, and I, like, I think Lego, I like the Lego aesthetic. I like looking at a completed Lego set, but just in terms of, you know, space limited and I just like, I

How many of these fucking things I'm going to buy, you know? Do you imagine stepping on one of those things at your age? Fucking put you in a home. Jesus Christ. I'm looking for an excuse to go on. You're just looking for any loose Lego piece on the floor? Stopping everywhere. Get my ass in there.

I went through a huge Lego phase and was like Lego 24-7 all the time Lego. Yeah. And then I significantly scaled back and I have one remaining set to build and it will be my final set. Wow. And it's Titanic. Oh, the final set It's the big boy And I have a place where he's going to go

And it's going to be the only Lego in my house What is it the entire ship Or is it some of it like Kind of like implied under the water? No, it's it's the whole ship Okay, interesting It's pre-sinking Titanic So it's like a 16 hour Titanic or whatever

So you could have a little bit of fun with the build Yeah, you could say you could build half of it And be like, I'm done here's what I'll say I like I like that things like the piranha plant exist you know what I mean I think that's a cool piece and it's cool people build that

so I guess I am even though it's not necessarily for me specifically I do think it's cool that these are being made yeah I wish I wish I had you know how like people have model train room I wish I had Lego room like I could be like Bobby Bacala in my little Lego room

or Rod Stewart or Rod Stewart it would just be really fun This next one's from Gambler And Gambler writes Just got back from Universal Studios Hollywood What do you think of the gamification of amusement park rides Like Mario Kart, Bowser's Challenge Or even Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run at Disneyland

Hate it, don't make me do stuff I want it to be a passive experience I know this is the thing It's like this is an old man take Because the younger generation like that it's a video game That you ride But I'm just like I don't need any of this shit I don't want to succeed or fail at a ride

I just want to like, I don't even Buzz Lightyear's astroblasters. I was like, I don't need to be doing this shit. Just let me sit in this thing and look at some shit. I couldn't agree with you more on this. Yeah. Because I want to just experience the ride and the game part of it is like bad to whatever to me. Like I'll do it, but it's not my favorite thing. But like I usually go to theme parks with my wife and my wife hates rides like this.

So the more of these that pop up, the fewer of these that I'm getting on, it's always for something that I like. So, like, I want to get on a Mario Kart ride, but it's a game, we're not doing it. I'm waiting 45 minutes for something, and then I get on and I find out, like, oh, I did it, I did it wrong. You know what I mean? I'm just like, okay, that's great. That's a great feeling. And the Mario Kart one in particular is disgusting because you have to put something on your fucking egg. I was just about to say, I don't like it because I don't want to touch the ride.

No. Like, I want to just, like, enjoy the ride. Exactly. This next one is from Fox Murder. Wow. I imagine like Fox Mulder. I think so. But changing the L to an R.

Yeah. Okay, that's fine. They write. Which game have you repurchased the most, including remasters, remakes, and ports to different consoles or generations? I know my answer, and it's Velgear Solid 3 Snake Heater. I own, I think, six versions of it. Mine has to be Sonic 2, which I even own on my Apple TV. Oh, sure.

Yeah. Like, I don't play it on my Apple TV. Yeah, but I own it on Apple TV. Anytime I see Sonic 2, like I've got the 3D version on 3DS, I've got the original version on the Genesis, any, like, GameCube compilation, anytime Sonic 2 comes out, I buy it. It's a good question. I mean, I'm kind of the port authority. I keep rebuying games and I will buy them on different platforms. I'm trying to think of what I might have bought the most.

and fuck I mean maybe it is a Mario that's kind of a boring answer though but I kind of just think of like all the you know like the Super Mario collections and you know I think you think about them thinking of like the Super Mario advanced versions and and what have you that probably led to some repurchasing I'm trying to think of like like I definitely bought Cuphead on multiple platforms and looking through my Steam library right now you know I got Pagel on a bunch of different stuff Oh. Pagel's one that I've definitely repurchased, double-dipped on.

But yeah, I don't have a ready answer here. I wish I did. I'm trying to remember all the... Oh, Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude. I think I have the original Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, the 3DS one. I bought it digitally on Xbox at one point. That's three. I bought the remake, that's for,

I know there's another one in there somewhere that I'm not remembering. Wasn't it also released on... Oh, I haven't on Vita. Yeah, I'm Vita. Wasn't it also released as like the Metal Gear Solid Collection on PS3? Yes, but I didn't...

Oh, no, I have that. Yeah. Yes. But then there was the... And there's the new collection that has the original ones and the solid series, but I haven't purchased that one.

You know what I have six. I've re-bought the Telltale games franchise, like specifically Walking Dead and Wolf Among us on multiple platforms. That's one I have on like Steam. I have it on PlayStation or maybe Xbox. I have it because I bought it episodic. They later bought a collection. Then I made a pot like remaster. And then they also had an iPad at a certain point. So yeah, I mean, those are ones that have definitely definitely quadruple dipped on. Those are kind of bang for your buck, especially on a sale. Oh, for sure. Those are great. I think I've got repurchased the complete collection of the Walking Dead a couple of times.

for like $10 or something. Wow. It's really great. Those are all of our questions. Thanks for writing in. Remember that Discord link is discord.g.g. slash get played. Well done, Matt. Thank you so much.

Yeah, good job, Matt. Hey, thanks so much. That's this week's get played. Our producers, Rochelle Chen, Ranch Yard underscore underscore Sard. Ranch is streaming anything lately? I want to hello. And plug your podcast again. It's called the D-Files.

and we talk about our ghost experiences and we try to debunk them. Nice. People can check that out. Our music is by Ben Pronti. Benprunti.com. Our artist by Duck Brigade Design, duck brigade.com.

Get played merch at kinshipgoods.com and check out Get Animator, sister show over on Patreon. Matt, what's this week? This week, it's present day, present time, and we're still watching serial experiments lane. What a show.

What a show? It is. It's a good show. It's a good, I might go as far as say it's a great show. I can't wait for the, this. Patreon.com slash get played. For this episode to end so I can show ranch this dog video.

All right, let's wrap it up. You got played. That was a headgum podcast. What's going on? It's Lamarne Morris. And Hannah Simone. And we host The Mess Around, a new girl rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now here's the thing.

Every single week, we chat about an episode of New Girl. And we really get into it. Like, we get up in there. We get up in there. You know, we reminisce about our time's on set. We share behind the scenes team. We react to re-watching episodes that we haven't seen in years. We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog.

That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet. I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodriguez. We're just two BFFs having a good old time, okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co-stars like Zoe Day Chanel, Jake Johnson, and Max Greenfield and Damon Wayne's Jr. And your dad. We talk to your dad on this show as well.

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