Get Played - Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick talk about the recently ratified SAG-AFTRA Video Game strike and dive into the competitive speedrun game Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. I'm really excited to cover this game. I know it's not like super zeitgeist-y, but Nintendo World Championship? Sign me up! In fact, I think we should play right now. Oh, I'd love to play. Yeah, it's a fun way to start the show where we're recovering Nintendo World Championships NES edition and I think we should just like play the very first challenge

Which is who can be the fastest to get the first mushroom in Super Mario Brothers 1? Oh, I'm in So, uh, I guess we'll just count it down, right?, okay, three two one go We got a minute Hold on It's pretty it's so easy. I just need a minute here hold on Wait no no no it's just the mushroom. It's in those first block. Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know the game works. Hold on. Give me a second. Hang on a minute.

The game is telling me that I wasn't even born when this game came out and I still got it before you. I don't understand what you're doing right now. I'm playing the game that I've played a bunch of times and I know how to play. Okay. I probably just know it too well is the thing. So I'm just like too. Don't overthink it. Yeahthink yeah okay I got it hold on

hang on a minute right hand ranch do you want to play oh sure you want to try my switch just hang on okay then okay she already ranch did it she started long after I got this hold on What are you doing? They're trying to try to play the game. I'm trying to just do the challenge that we're all doing What what is taking you so long? I don't know. I have no idea what you're doing How about why don't I turn it flip around on you since I'm getting the third degree here since you're all getting a hyper Competitive for some reason I'm just trying to have fun playing the game. game. Why don't I ask you, how'd you finish this so quickly?

I just ran up to the blocks, jump over the Goomba, and get the fucking mushroom! Yeah, it's level one, world one Mario. It's so easy. What are you doing? How did you get... fine, you did all that. How did you get Mario to jerk off to completion first? What the what what what are you fucking talking about? That's what he has to do first, right? Why would he? In what world would he have to? Angry talking about I am so angry And like he can't jack are you, take a look at my screen here. What the fuck is that? Oh my god, Mario's got it! What is happening?

What the fuck? What is happening in your game? What the fuck is he jerking off? There we go, there we go. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Yoshi, don't.

No. World record. I don't. All right, I'm done. It kind of still feels like it took too long. We earn A++ rank in Mush Zoom and attempt to control Ice Climber as we discuss Retro Speedrun Mini Game Collection Nintendo World Championships NES Edition this week on Get Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Madda Badaka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere of Video Game Podcast, where this week we're talking about Nintendo World Championship's NES edition for the Switch. It's a brand new game. Not a lot of hype here, but I'm hyped for it.

I'm hyped for it. I'm hyped for it. Yeah. I think there's a lot to discuss when we get into that game. There's so much to discuss. Yeah. I'm hyped for it. I keep forgetting about the NES edition subtitle.

Right. And you hearing it? hearing it presents a lot of possibilities. Oh yeah, because you're going to get that Super NES edition. You're going to get that N64 edition. You're going to get that GameCube edition. Give me the, just give me the Game Boy Advance edition. Oh shit. Let's get straight to my heart. Oh my God.

That would be incredible. I can't wait to talk about the game. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to discuss. There's also just some general video game news that I think we should address. This is pretty much breaking just before we record, hours before recording this episode. SAG-AFTRA has called for a strike covering video games. So I can read some of the statement that I have here, but it's all basically centered on AI, which I'm surprised by.

I'm surprised that that becomes like the one sticking point, the one thing that the game publishers that the parts of the collective bargaining group with SAG after the convenience bargaining group is the name for it. Like that's like their's like their red line. Is there like, they're like, we're not going to do anything to give actors any sort of control over their likenesses and voices. We want to be able to have AI versions of that that we can use in perpetuity. It's really kind of a bummer.

I would imagine. Yeah. Here's the problem, right? If you are a video game company and you are constantly toggling these performances and the script, the script especially, is constantly being toggled, then bringing back those actors for additional voice records on things that are very, very malleable

is probably cost prohibitive. But on the other hand, there's no fucking way I don't see the actor's point of view on this because you can't just record lines and then grant the company rights to your performance and remixing, rescrambling and creating. If your tool is your performance, you cannot give the concept of you over to a company.

Yeah, 100%. So like, it's, I think it's a pretty intense stalemate. It's a, it feels like one thing that just like, intuitively as human beings, we feel like everyone should be entitled to is like the rights to their own personhood. Yeah. And so it's like, it should be a thing

that SAG-AFTRA should fight for on behalf of their memberships. I can read from the statement real quick. Matt, do you have any thoughts on this? I'm not like, this is what I'm gonna say. I don't feel smart enough to even offer any thoughts. I just know that I'm on the side of the workers in any strike.

But obviously, it's so wild to me that even a few years ago, this whole thing with AI, is like, this wasn't even part of the conversation, and now because it's around more and people are using it more, it's become a bigger thing, but that nobody who's wanting to use it is hearing the people when we say that it fucking sucks and we hate it.

And we don't like it sucks and we hate it. It's so crazy. It's weird because it's fixing a problem that nobody has. Nobody has this problem. Nobody needs this solution. It is like I came in and I was like, hey guys, I finally figured out how to make your sneakers full of ice.

You'd be like, I don't want that, I don't need that. I'd be like. Good news guys, I learned how to piss out of my ass. Right, nobody needs or wants that. My man sounds depressive. Doesn't solve a problem. Guess what, I'm very sick. You know, my friend Simon Rich talks,

like he and I have been talking a lot about, and the reason I name drop him, is he has a profile in the New York Times this week, and he is extremely concerned as a writer about AI, and the way it is encroaching on all industries, all creative industries. And I was raised to believe that the first place the shark would head for

is autonomous driving. I thought the first thing that was going to fall apart was that they were gonna put AI in trucks and deprive truck drivers of jobs. And it turns out that's a much harder problem to solve than creating a poem, which makes me feel like shit about what I do in my life. Well, making a creative poem, that's the thing,

is like a lot of the, so much AI art and AI, of any medium, is like just absolutely excrucible. Right, but I've also read sort of tell-alls from people who work at OpenAI, and the unreleased AI chat GPT algorithms or whatever the fuck you want to call them that they have are so much better and the reason they can't be released is that they can't figure out how to contain them safely but like apparently the creativity is fucking off the charts and it really reduces it

reduces art to a question of, why are you consuming this? Because you want to consume content or because you want to understand something that your fellow human being has experienced. And I think that the reason that people don't give a shit about that is because corporations and multi-conglomerates

have trained us through spreadsheet-based filmmaking to not give a fuck about the artistry. And instead just be like, oh, it is the next movie in this sequence. I think so, but I also think consumers are fans of individuals. You know what I mean? So like, people feel a connection with somebody personally.

Like for instance, you might be able to come up with an equivalent podcast that is three AIs talking as us, you know, that is like the same quality level of Get Played. I do not think- It might be better. It might be even better. It would be better. It would be the one time it will work out.

It would definitely improve. But I think our audience feels like they have a connection to us as individuals. And I think that's pretty common with anything. You're not necessarily a fan of an, you maybe are a fan of an IP, but you're also a fan of the creator and you're a fan of the actors who are a presence in it and that people make stuff for it. You know what I mean? So it's like I do think there's an element of like if stuff was just purely machine generated, if they decide, hey, all our MCU films moving on are going to be machine generated, they're

going to use AI scripts and they're going to use AI performers and AI scores for the music, I think people would be like less interested in it. I think there would be like a lot less engagement for it. Maybe generationally, they will reach a point where people are accepting of that. But as of right now, I think there's like, people want to be a fan of somebody. People want to know that this was created by a human and this was their perspective. What if you're just a fan of the particular AI that created the film though. What if it becomes, authorship is like,

oh, I subscribe to Alpha Labs Gen 5. And it's like, oh, what does it do? Oh shit, it makes such good Marvel movies. I love this thing. I think they're at least the worst person at every party then. That's like, I would hate that person. But I mean, yeah, things could reach a point

where a specific AI has such a clear, clean, creative voice and is actually adding something artistically beyond what a human being can achieve, where an individual might be like, hey, you know what, I actually am a fan of their work. We haven't reached there yet. But to that point, what you were saying, like that's one of the reasons why we need these sort

of workplace protections for people who are currently working in these fields. But then you also, what Heather was saying too about these companies that like ChatGBT and stuff that have stronger AI than is publicly released, they're in the Jurassic Park zone where they're sort of like figuring out Is this safe to open are we allowed to do this and then this with?

Forgetting the central message of Jurassic Park, which is don't fuck around don't do anything like this. This is crazy I they shouldn't do it is it is frustrating Yeah, as we started this segment by saying it is solving a problem Nobody has nobody is listening to music and being like, I hate that this was made by a person. Yeah, I hate this is good. Yeah. The article that I referenced is called,

if AI is coming for comedy writers, Simon Rich is ready. It is in the New York Times on July 24th, 2024. I recommend it. The failing New York Times. Just kidding. Just kidding. Yeah, you know what I mean. I recommend it failing New York Times Use of AI so far is AI presidents arguing over video game tier list those YouTube videos are

That is good, but that's also that is not hurting anybody is not hurting anyone and also making fun of war criminals It's fine There is a there is a human being who is writing those scripts and who is editing those videos. So there's still, that's like a part of the tool set for what they're making. Give us some about this. Let me read this. Yes, let me read this. This is AI Productions Remain the Sticking Point is the headline. I'm reading this from SAG-AFTRA's website.

And okay, let me read a little bit of this. SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree Ireland, the same person who was in charge of the negotiations in the successful SAG-AFTRA film and TV strike. Acting under the authority delegated by the SAG-AFTRA National Board and with the unanimous advice and counsel of the Interactive Media Agreement negotiating committee called a strike of the Interactive Media Agreement effective July 26th at 1201 AM. The convenience bargaining group with whom SAG-AFTRA is negotiating includes Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa

Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take-Two Productions, Voiceworks Productions, and WB Games. So from that list, like some of those are clearly publishers. We all know what Insomniac is. We all know what Activision is. Some of those other companies are voiceover houses that are subcontracted out to provide voiceover services for video game productions, sometimes, a lot of times, specifically for localizations. I'm reading a little bit more of this. Any game looking to employ SAG-AFTRA talent to perform covered work must sign on to the new

tiered budget independent interactive media agreement, the Interim Interactive Media Agreement, that's a mouthful, or the Interim Interactive Localization Agreement. These agreements offer critical AI protections for members. A lot of companies that aren't named above, not all of them, but a lot of them have agreed to those and that's one reason they can continue to use SAG-AFTRA talent during the strike action. I'll just read this quote from Fran Drescher and then we can open things up.

We're not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live and work with, we will be here ready to negotiate. And that's SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. I guess the problem in solving is greedy people want their money. Yeah. Yeah.

Like that's the problem. That's exactly it. It's like the CEOs are like, what if we could get drawings without paying an artist? What if we could get scripts without paying a writer? What if we could get music without paying a musician? That's the problem it's solving. Yes.

It's solving a problem for like eight people. Yeah, I mean, it's like, look, the promise of automation was always like, oh, our menial tasks will be handled by like machines, and we will be freed to do creative pursuits. And now that's been completely inverted, where it's like, actually, machines are going to handle everything creative. And you know, like, we don't actually don't need people anymore, because it's

expensive to do that. It's a bummer that what we've consistently seen is technology employed to transfer more wealth upward. But that's where we are. That's why we need unions. As soon as somebody turns this technology around on them and then we can have an AI CEO they're gonna shut all this shit down. Because those fucking people that sit in those fucking offices don't do a goddamn thing they're losers and they have no taste taste. That being said, if you want me to be the CEO of your company, I will 100% do that job.

You just contact us at HeadGum, CC me, and just be like, we want you to be the CEO. I'll fill out a CEO application, I'll do whatever. I won't fill out an offer only Do you have a dream like CEO position all I'll go first Fuddruckers So you can turn that company around you're gonna turn around bring it back. Yeah, Fuddruckers is back You're gonna be like like Leo and the wolf of Wall Street in the fucking Fuddruckers deserves a for sure come back. That place is an excellent restaurant. I guess honestly, Islands might be the new Fuddruckers.

So maybe I should go in with a rescue operation for Islands. Maybe it's not long for this world. Nick, don't. They just keep closing, Matt. I don't know what to tell you. The original location is closed. I'm gonna punch the wall, I think. Islands is my favorite restaurant.

Islands is so good. Heather, have you been to islands before? I've asked you this a million times, I'm sure. I think once maybe. Did you love it? Ah, okay, to answer Nick's question. We should go tonight. Here's the thing, I would love to go tonight,

I can't and it kills me. Oh man. Drive all the way to fucking Burbank, what the hell? At six o'clock at night? Our offices are kind of nearby islands at Rick and Morty, we're like real, real close. That's where I see it every day. I drive past islands.

I'm like, why is this, I know islands. If, if. I've never been there. Yeah. If Mr. Poopybutthole or something wants to go to islands, my treat. Great. To answer Nick's question, I want to be the CEO of Sony. Oh, sure.

Because I would be immediately, I would cancel all streaming services. Great. I would reissue everything on physical media, and then I would release Sony proprietary machines to play that content and, through profitability, demonstrate to the rest of the industry that this was the path of the future Simultaneously to that I would have an entire division activated that would be Mid 90s Sony design and I would be like we're making computers. We're making

Mini disc players. We're gonna fucking make all of the shit look cool again, and we're gonna take on Apple with quirky retro futuristic design. I love that. That's really good. Bring back the Vio. Fucking Vio? Fucking Vio? Vita 2?

Yeah. What? Put a Vita 2 out? Yeah, I put out a Vita 2. Like I would either, it would become, the ascent of Sony would be so fast that people would write About me in fortune, or I would tank the company in a month. Yeah, yeah The only thing I can think of is wing stop so I could eat wings whenever I wanted

That nice seem to have a similar trains of thought here. Can I ask a question that was posed to me once and I can't stop thinking about it years later? Where are the, and forgive me vegetarians, vegans, if this is an upsetting question to you, then please feel free to tune out for a moment. Where are those chickens? What do you mean, where are the factory farms that produce those genetically enlarged chickens?

But the amount of chicken eaten every single day in the United States is like one chicken per like five people, right? And that's one day, okay? So you're wiping out, Oh, a good day for me. It's 300 million chicken a day and there have to be adult chickens in order to do it So where the fuck are the chickens like where do they live like where are these if you're slaughtering?

Let's how many people are in the United States 300 million ballpark 300 million so let's say that let's say you're slaughtering every single day 60 million chickens, I Don't know what the think about the space of that and how 365 days a year you have to stack there should be a skyscraper Yeah, that you can see from every point in the United States. That is each layer 60 million chickens I mean an enormous amount of land area is used by, is used for like animals grazing

and just for storing livestock. Like I believe the bulk of water that's used in the United States is used in agriculture to, you know, for animals, to feed animals. So it's like... Specifically the beef industry. Yeah, beef is extraordinarily water dependent But like yeah as far as like where they are

I mean, they're just like in communities that have like ranching and they have hatcheries and yeah, go on All right. All right. The number is so much larger The number is so much larger than I expected. Yeah, I'm looking at a similar statistic. Hold on a second Yeah, the US chicken industry kills 9.5 billion chickens each year. So what is the average size of a chicken? Where are the chickens? I mean, I think there's like a stat that's like, there are more chicken,

there's like so many chickens on earth per person. Like, I can't remember exactly how many chickens there are on earth, there's like it there's a lot of chickens and they're not very big and I don't think it takes very long for them to reach full maturity. How big is this? Is this seven inches? Yeah I think so. Hold on one second. Heather was kind of making a bowling ball shaped. That sounds about right. We don't have to further investigate that. It sounds good. Just as far as where poultry, the poultry industry is centered in the US. I mean, I have to look up a map to see where it is. I know that they're stored in poor conditions

and they're not like. Yeah, a lot of them live in absolutely horrible lives. We make animals live in hell to provide cheap meat for ourselves. As CEO of Wingstop, I'm stopping it. I'm the guy on the inside. I'm putting an end to that. You're getting ousted so fast.

No, not before I... I did it 35 minutes ago. I'm on my Ozymandias bag. Hold on a second. I'm doing math here. Okay. I will say that yes, I think future generations will judge us extremely harshly for our complicity in factory farming.

It is an absolutely abominable practice. This is physically impossible. Where are these fucking chickens? So I averaged six inches per chicken at 9.5 billion chickens a year that represent represents 852 thousand miles of Chicken yeah, how big is the United States? This is the thing I mean look we can't keep doing math

We have so much to talk about The thing I think we're forgetting is that the land area of the United States is about four million square miles. Chickens are being slaughtered and born exponentially. Like they're just always, it's just always happening. But listen to what you just said, it's four million square miles. Yeah. That means that a quarter of the country should be chicken every year. An enormous, yes, an enormous part. When you look at a map and you see- But they're not all there at once is the thing. You're thinking about them as all, as they're there once. Even if they're, hold, do you understand how-

Think about like- It's crazy, it's crazy. It's too much. Oregon, California, think about 25% of the fucking country. Yes, mechanized breeding and killing for the means of feeding human Space yeah, the logistics are better and they're all out if they were all out and about That would be a carrier to me Well a lot of them are I mean I think a lot of them are live in cages that are like stacked on top of each

Other I mean you know again. This is this is basically them from space. It's 25% of the country It's the largest thing on planet Earth. I mean, again, this is, they're basically- We should be able to see them from space. It's 25% of the country. It's the largest thing on planet Earth. I don't wanna see them from space. So most of the production of chickens is centered in the American South in the US. So Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, it looks like. Should be all chicken.

Arkansas. What about Kentucky? I think a lot of the land area is. Yeah, there's a decent amount in Kentucky though less so And you may be making the association because of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'm stressed out. I'm stressed out Yeah, are you worried that one day? Are you just gonna turn a corner? It's gonna be millions of chickens Thousand miles of chicken ever seen chicken run her year. Yeah, I Think that many chickens in chicken run, they wouldn't have the problems that they were in.

That's what I was going to say. Well, that's how I got an argument for collective action. They all sort of work together and they're able to escape. I guess that's true, yeah. If they could find a way to unify all of them, yeah, we'd be in trouble. Am I still on the show? Hitchcock's the birds. Look, take it up with Heather, alright?

She's reeling us with a chicken discussion. I should have turned this into a math camp, can I briefly? I feel like you guys are lost. I've never heard more times in one show, hang on, I'm doing math. What the hell? Yeah, I didn't like it. I didn't like that at all. If you're thinking about how to manage your inventory, I can think of a way that you can

fit more chickens into a briefcase Hmm interesting. Yeah, I'm the resident evil merchant. I have resident evil merchant. It's your first episode Usually I'm queued up to introduce a segment, but today you guys got lost in a maze. Don't blame me I'm not blaming you. Don't blame me either like I don't want to I'm allowed to have a concern about something. Yeah, we don't wanna hear about it. The Resident Evil merchant actually pretty familiar with chickens. You could sell gold eggs to the merchant. I love an egg.

You know how creamy a gold egg is? I never thought about eating the contents of a gold egg. What do you think I use them for? I assumed it was like you know like a like I was some sort of jewel. It was some sort of you know Gold yeah, it can be used as a weapon Yeah, you can you there's a there's a camera what boss it is in Resident Evil 4 the remake, but you can Use the gold egg and it the enemy takes a substantial amount of damage.

Ugh. Well, I'm glad I get a chance to crack them open. Wow. And eat that delicious yolk. Hey guys, I'm here to ask you, what are you playing? And I'm going to get Heather out of the way. Okay, okay, thanks. Well, this is going to be the last time I think I talk about this game for a bit.

And for some of you listeners, that's going to be such a pleasure to hear. Because Epic Games is on the list of struck companies as of midnight tonight for SAG-AFTRA, so I'm not gonna talk about Fortnite until they resolve their labor dispute. But today, I'll talk about it one last time to say that the Cybertruck has been added to Fortnite, and I fucking hate that it's happened.

Everyone seems to be really mad. Two strikes. Two strikes. Why? Why would you add the cyber? Nobody wants that. I mean, it does look like a video game car. So the place that it is most appropriate, design-wise,

is probably inside of a video game. Yeah. Like a PlayStation 1 video game. Yeah. Yeah, a shitty game. Yeah? Like a PlayStation 1 video game. Yeah. Yeah, a shitty game. With a stupid car in it. Given that the memes about the Cybertruck is how often it gets stuck in mud,

stuck in dirt, stuck on a road, wheels blow off. Guy accidentally smashed his balls getting in and out. You see that one? Yeah. There's critical wiring failures because the entire system is daisy chained together. You can't put it in a car wash or you void your warranty. Like there's so many,

and these are like popular problems with it. These are like Reddit front page problems. Not like who knows what a mechanic would think when they look in it. But being that so much of the play of Fortnite is driving your car through a river or up a mountain, it seems awfully misleading that you would be able to do any of these things in a Cybertruck.

So I won't be playing those quests. I won't be downloading that skin. I do, they did add a Dots into the game and I do drive my that's pretty good. I drive my old car. That's way better Yeah, it's pretty great. You know car. They should add to fortnight what the homer the car that homer makes yeah Very similar to the cyber truck One to one the cyber truck is what like a dumb kid or Homer would come up with. Fucking stupid ass. It's also funny because, you know, as other players have pointed out on Twitter, the amount of visual space you have in a vehicle allows for greater targeting of the drivers.

So if you want to play competitively, you want to reskin your car with a smaller windshield. And the Cybertruck has all glass in the front. So if you are driving it, you're effectively paying to lose, except you're not paying because it's a free, they're giving it away. But putting that skin on your truck is going to make you and your passengers

vulnerable to sniper fire. I'm just, like, when you told me this, I was just surprised because it feels like they've taken pains to do things like, you know, scale down someone who's famously tall, scale up someone who's famously diminutive, take a character like Peter Griffin and give him a buff body so that he's, like, got the same. Like, it feels like they're trying to make sure there's no advantage of one skin over the other, but I didn't realize that existed with the cars,

that there was like a meta where certain cars were more advantageous than others. I assume they were all balanced. No, as of right now, they are not balanced. There've been tests on the windshields of various cars, and if you can see the player, then you can shoot the player through the car, through the car window.

And because of that, I think cars in general have been taken out of competitive because there are different advantages to different skins, plus people just fucking hated the cars. And if you want one more reason to hate the cars, the Cybertruck is coming to Fortnite. That's my, what? It also just kind of feels like,

it feels too late, kind of. Like it's like, let's put this, it would make more sense to put the Cybertruck out as they're becoming commercially available. Or before. Or before, yeah. Like people would have been like, oh shit, I drove this in Fortnite,

maybe I'll drive it in real life. I'm driving the car from Fortnite. That's actually really crazy and kinda cool. It sucks still, cause Elon Musk is a piece of shit, but it feels like they're just doing it now at a point, at a critical cultural apex where nobody likes the car and nobody likes Elon Musk. It's a really weird time for them to do it. I still like the car. You likes the car and nobody likes Elon Musk. It's a really weird time. I remember do it

I still like the car you like the car. I like the way it looks a lot. It's funny to see it Awesome to see it, but I hate everything else Yeah, I like that. It's on the road. I wish there were more diverse Vehicle models available to purchase. I do think that's I I wish it was like the way you know in the 1970s when cars came in all these different candy colors Like I wish that that was still an opportunity for an option for consumers So for that reason I like that the cyber truck exists I don't like that it exists because of who made it and how shitty it is. Yeah, I will say

That if you have one, I hope you get your balls trapped in it. Um... Me too! For that reason alone, I'm gonna save my money. The one thing about Homer's truck that was cool is that the horn played La Cucaracha. It's really good.

It's super funny. That's on the Cybertruck, is it? No, I mean, I think you can... You can that the horn played La Cucaracha. It's really good. It's super funny. That's on the Cybertruck, is it? No. I mean, I think you can- You can modify the horn. You can modify it because it's just a MP3 that you can play. It's not a building feature I'm not interested in. Yeah, you can play anything you want.

Nick Weigert, what are you playing? Thanks so much, Resident Evil Merchant. You're welcome. So I want to leave things off by saying I feel like people out there might be expecting me to have a comment on click holding the cuckolding clicker game Because of my taste in games I have not yet played kick click holding but it is on my radar I almost bought it to report back. Yeah

Should we do it on the show? We could cover click holding. It's only like $2. Yeah, I think we should just do it What what is it? I think we should do it next week I remember we'll just talk about it I asked what it was and Nick's eyes rolled back like a mentat I have a sense of it, but I haven't firsthand experience. It does feel like there's something else going on. Yeah It's basically like my understanding of it is having heard other people talk about it and read about it is that you go, the game gameplay is you go to a hotel room

and you're, and a guy is paying you money to click like a mouse or click something for him. Click some sort of device. Oh. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's not what it sounded like. Yeah. But I mean it is-

I probably know why you looked it up. It is certainly meant to parallel something. like. Yeah. But I mean, it is probably not why you looked it up. It is certainly meant to parallel something. I was going to talk about EVO 2024. Fuck yeah. So we're always about a week behind because of our record schedule. So this will have been like not this past weekend, but the weekend before that, as you're listening to this on the Monday. But this has happened since our last record, EVO 2024 was held in Las Vegas. This is the major American fighting game tournament. And I watched a lot of it live on YouTube. Me too.

And I had a, I know we're all watching it, we're all texting about it, but I just had an absolute blast just taking this in. So like, you know, I don't really play fighting games, but it is a, I don't mean this any sort of negative way. It is like a pretty narrow genre. Like if you understand how a fighting game works, you can kind of understand how like all fighting games work. So you don't have no one specifically to pick up like watching it.

And it also just televises incredibly well. It's just like really well broadcast. Two large characters in one frame the entire time. It's a one-on-one competition. It's really easy to track, much easier to follow if you're casual than something like a MOBA or an FPS where you've got to monitor a bunch of different screens to understand the play space.

And I don't know, I just thought it was super exciting. That's a really valid point, Nick. I've never considered it. Well, because that's a big thing about sports, is one reason people think the NBA is so much more popular than hockey, even though these are games that should have roughly equivalent fan bases, equivalent number of franchises, and have similar schedules,

is that just like it's easier to watch an NBA game on TV than it is on a hockey game, where you have trouble, like, where's the puck? It's harder to watch an NBA game on TV than it is on a hockey game where you have trouble like where's the puck? You know, it's harder to follow. So and the NFL and you know, the biggest sport in the world, you know, proper football, soccer is like those are other sports that televised really, really well in HD. I have a easy solution for watching hockey. The problem of not having seen the puck. Huge puck, big puck, make the puck big.

Yeah, I like the idea of a really big puck. I mean, I think that's just like a fun adjustment. Make it like really big. Change the meta a little bit, but yeah. Make it sparkly. But then also to come up, cause like you can't make it too big, right? You have to make the guys really big too.

Yeah, then you're kind of getting, but going back to ice hockey on the NES, where you can get like a team of just like all big fat guys. Yeah, then you're kind of getting get going back to ice hockey on the NES where you can get like a team of just like all big fat guys. Yeah, what if it was bigger guys, bigger puck, less guys, smaller rink, like five guys in this room. I'd watch it. I'm interested in seeing it. Sounds compelling.

Anyway, this was just an awesome experience just watching it. I just sat down and I just took a lot of it in. And as a viewer who doesn't really play fighting games, I will say it's a very welcoming community it feels like. I never felt alienated or like I was being talked down to or overwhelmed by jargon or anything like that. I never felt like I was like, oh, this isn't for me. It felt like, hey, they were like,

hey, check this thing out, you know? You wrote something in our text thread that I wanna copy paste into our dialogue here, which was that when we were talking about watching these games, there were a couple that I was watching where I didn't know the game at all, but I was still fixated on it. And you wrote, mastery is intoxicating.

Yes, 100%. And that stuck with me, because I was like, it is, mastery is intoxicating. Yes, 100%. And that stuck with me because I was like, it is. It is. It's incredible to watch anybody be extremely good at a thing, which is part of why AI sucks. 100%. Yeah. No one's rooting for Watson in Jeopardy.

No one's rooting for the computer versus Kasparov. That sucks. And yeah, you could design an unbeatable fighting game AI, but like no one's going to cheer for that. You're rooting for people and yeah, just seeing human excellence at its highest level. On that note, while we're talking about that, I was surprised by like how many like winners of like the grand finals for a particular game were like, were using game pads. I was like, oh, that's fascinating that elite players now Or I've moved away from fight sticks not all of them some of them are using sticks

But a lot of them were just are just using game pads Yeah, I'm sure that's a development that's happened in the past decade or so Street Fighter 6 to had that or you know Street Fighter 6 had that That control scheme the The modern control scheme. The modern control scheme that doesn't benefit the fight stick. Although I have to imagine that's banned at something like EVO and all these players

would want the more granular control over their inputs anyway. What was I gonna say? Okay, so talking about specific games. I feel like Tekken fans have gotten grumpy with us because none of us are into Tekken. But I really- I love Tekken.

Okay, that's great, that's one. That's someone on the podcast who's a Tekken fan. I love it, I love it. I love that lion guy. King. Yeah, King's great. Love him! King, he's like the one guy I know.

What happened to him? How did he get like that? I think it's just a mask. I think it is a mask, yeah. It's like a skin. that? I think it's just a mask. I think it is a mask, yeah. What? It's like a skin. What? I think it's like a-

I think he can take that off and he'd have a human head underneath. Yeah. I hate this fucking game. The Tekken 8 play was really super high level and super fun to watch. Guilty Gear Strive, obviously a gorgeous game. But the surprise highlight for me

is Grand Blue Fantasy versus Rising. This is a game that's not on my radar at all. I watched the top six all the way through to the grand finals and loved it. Like I don't know this game at all. It's super watchable, super clean frames, lots of hips, hit stop. There's a free to play version, which I have downloaded, have yet to play. The finals, the grand finals ended up being Aaron DeMack versus Tororo, which was a rematch. Tororo had not dropped a game until they faced Aaron DeMack, and Aaron DeMack ended up winning American Flair. Wow! And it was just awesome.

It was really cool to watch. The Street Fighter III Third Strike, we were texting during that. That was happening on Saturday night. It was really cool. Fuck, it was so good. One of my favorite looking games ever, so just watching it is just like, in and of itself,

I'm just like, I love looking at this game. The art and animation are so incredible. It also featured, obviously we've talked on this podcast about Evo Moment 37, I think is what it's called, which was a sequence of events like 20 years ago in an Evo tournament, where one player tried to essentially chip damage another player to death, and that player ended up parrying what at that point was considered an unparriable super art.

And it was a very compelling clip to watch. You should look it up if you haven't seen it. You don't even have to know the game. But this tournament had what people are calling EVO moment 38. Yes. I mean, do you have it specifically? I mean, I don't. I mean, it was Hugo versus Ken.

One of the players was named Hayao? Hayao? Hayao, yeah. Hayao was like a fan favorite. And he leapt over, he used an input which is basically unusable. It is a dropkick by Hugo who is a character so large that he takes up most of the screen.

Huge burly wrestler. But it has an unusual hitbox, which means it's invulnerable in strange places, and managed to leap over the super move that Ken, and I don't know who he was playing against, and I feel bad about that. And what I'm describing is described with so much more poetry by the actual announcers of Evo, but basically he pressed a button that nobody presses, it allowed him to dodge,

and then it allowed him to win the game. Yeah, it was Hugo, it was versus Ken. And I mean, I have the clip up here if we want to. Oh yeah, no, I knew you said that, I was just, just reiterating. I don't know who the player was though. It was FrankieBFG, I believe. Oh, okay, there you go. Okay. And yeah, I have the club up here

actually, I watched this live and it's a combination of yes the the like the Inventiveness to use that move in this moment. So it's it's again what you're saying completely like useless move as is my understanding And yeah the commentators and the crowd reacting to it and And then Hayao just does this incredible celebration. He's like this contortionist who does like, who has also an incredible showmanship, an incredible showman. And so it's just a great bit of sports entertainment.

Okay, here's the clip. It is Hayao versus Frankie BFG. He's not dead yet. Do we go for the cross of Tatsu? He goes for the universal overhead then backs away dashes up in danger Oh my god That is a worthless button! That button is so worthless!

But he was able to make it useful in a very touch- crazy scenario. And look at this, the pop-up. This is what you want. Everyone's just at a loss for words. And then he runs to the crowd and starts fucking high-fiving. Yeah! It's so awesome.

I wouldn't be that excited at the fucking Olympics. Like, there's no way. It's also an arena, I think it's like the MGM Arena, where the boxing matches, it's a huge amphitheater. Maybe it's in the Sphere now, I don't know. I think it might have been in the Convention Center this year, but yeah, it was a very huge, very large event.

It's fucking massive. Street Fighter on the Sphere would be so sick. Yeah, it would be. That was an awesome moment, and yes, it's hey, I would just like, also I think like an older player, like I think they're in their 40s, so it's like, as a gamer grandpa,

I'm always encouraged when it's like, oh, that person's still at it. That's a wild thing for Nick to drop. I didn't even know he had a kid, let alone a grandchild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot you don't know about me. Yikes! Highlight for me, beyond that Street Fighter 6, I watched the top six for this game live,

just such a beautiful game and just the level of play has gotten so high. There was also just like a great story through here. So the grand finals was Big Bird versus Punk. Big Bird lost in the winners final versus Punk. Then they made their way through the losers final, the top six, because it's a double elimination tournament. So if you lose, you get another chance to get back in. Ended back up in the grand finals for a rematch.

The grand finals, Punk, one of the top fighting game players in the world, but they'd never won EVO. Had been competing there since 2017, I believe. And it was kind of like, are they ever going to go over the hump? It's Rashid versus Cami. These are the characters. It goes all the way to the final round of the final game. And if anyone's curious, just look up the VOD of that match if you haven't already seen

it because it's really awesome. But it's just such an incredible bit of emotion and one of those awesome bits of humanity that you get with sports I don't know. I loved it I mean and I just had so much fun watching it and I just if anyone attended to evo or watched evo I'll you know, let us know in the discord because I'm curious at your thoughts and I kind of just it just makes me want To play a fighting game again Just the fighting game community feeling so welcoming makes me want to like, I feel like I wanna be some sort of participant in this. And I think I'm just gonna go to EVO next year

because I just would love to have that experience. I would love to do that with you, Nick. And I will say that watching the Street Fighter VI finals and seeing Akuma present on the roster again made me want to break out my fight stick and put some time into Street Fighter VI because I've'm waiting for my boy to get into the game. Where is it? Vegas.

Vegas. Alright, I'll go. Yeah! I'll fight, I'll stay up for two days and just smoke cigarettes all the time. I'm in! I'm in, I can't wait to go! I'll drive! Anyway, just- my car is wet. Just wanted to say some, probably a few too many words about Evo, just because I've just like,

I had such a fantastic time watching it. I thought it was better than the NBA playoffs this year. Holy shit. I just like, this is such an incredible sporting event. That is incredible praise from Nick Weiger. That's incredible. Yeah. Was it because you didn't like any of the teams

in the NBA playoffs, maybe Matt what are you playing? Okay, so I do have I have a job I'm sorry. I've risen evil merchant. Can you please queue up our? Next podcaster where you bring me I want to take the wind out of your sails You seem kind of deflated Man, what are you praying for? What are you praying for? No, that's fine. What are you praying for? This is fine. What are you praying for? to get to the egg inside. That's not, that's not even. Not how it works.

Where do you think they come from? I mean I guess it could be how it works. I get to my eggs. A depraved calculation. For a time, there is an egg inside a chicken. You gotta eat that window, my friend. You ever bitten into a chicken and have a yolk come out? No.

Inclusive. Oh my God. It is kind of crazy to think about that animals that lay eggs form shell. They make shell with their body. Yeah, that's the worst part of it. Bones and shell. But otherwise, get into their chicken when the egg is inside.

I have an update in correction from last week. I said that I had read, and I had read this, so this is not my fault. I just reported something that wasn't true. Oh, okay. I had read that the I had read this, so this is not my fault. I just reported something that wasn't true. Oh, okay. I had read that the laser room from Resident Evil 4 is not in the remake nor the DLC, and I'm here to tell you right now,

that laser room's fucking there. Wow. Wow. And it chops you up if you don't go through it. And it's funny. It's pretty good. Great. And I finished the Separate Ways DLC and I really enjoyed it. So much so that I do think that I have, I'm not getting to it soon,

but I've bumped up the Resident Evil 2 remake in my queue because I would like to play more Resident Evil, but I think I'm too scared to play the first-person ones cuz that's too much even though I Want to see that big lady Well, we all like the big lady. We all love the big lady. Yeah, I like the big lady. The big lady is good She's scary. She's scary. But also I was away this weekend With some friends. This is the same group of friends who, and I went away last year,

I brought Rock Band, we played Rock Band. Didn't bring it this year because it was too much of a pain in the ass and I don't think that my set could take another trip. It just like could not, it was such a pain. I need to replace all the, all the components. But I got us all into Overcooked and we all got really mad at each other. We were all yelling, there was pointing at, getting up, pointing at the TV, telling people to stay in their zone, stay in their section. It was pretty intense, but we all made it through and we all got so happy when we did, we did one level, we beat like, we got through half of the game.

Wow. Like we got through like three of the worlds like fully and we got to this one that we were stuck on for hours we did this one level for hours just trying to get one star we couldn't do it and we finally did we did do it and there were, we all had like tears in our eyes, like not fully crying, but we were like so happy that like we started to like well up a little bit after hours of trying to do it.

That's incredible. That's what friendship's all about. And if you're a listener, you don't know what Overcooked is, it is a cooperative party game that is, you play a bunch of little chefs in a top-down restaurant, and you're supposed to service a restaurant. Now, typically it'll be like somebody's shopping vegetables,

somebody's putting those vegetables into a dish, somebody's cooking those vegetables, somebody's plating the vegetables, and somebody is cleaning the dishes and running the plates to and from the restaurant. But the levels are designed so that these restaurants are less and less cohesive as environments. So sometimes the restaurant will be splitting a busy street.

Sometimes the restaurant will be on the top of two cars that are not maintaining the same speed. Yeah, yeah, that was a tough one. And also the movements that you have as a player are wobbly and imprecise. They're not very, like, you can think you're going to, you know, you're grabbing onions and you accidentally grab a fucking tomato and you wanna scream.

It's a real nightmare, but it was really, really fun. But you know, it's a it's a real nightmare. It was really fun, but you know Nick's a thirsty little bitch right oh didn't that did not have to be commented upon Intentionally open that soda away from the mic also walked in here with four cups, and we all got really scared It was really really crazy. He's like once empty once empty I've already finished my my one can of spin drift and half of my water I've been you know it done pretty parched right now if let me just tell you right this yeah if you spill I'm gonna open up a can All right, what the rest of it is I?

Was in Palm Springs in Palm Desert, so it was like 113 degrees all my friends are outside in the pool That's not my zone now inside is my zone and I had my PlayStation portal with me I was like, you know what I'm gonna do seems like a good weekend to start Avatar frontiers of Pandora so I popped the disk in so I could play it remote when I was away And what did I do start a new save on Baldur's Gate 3? Started a barred run and Baldur's Gate 3 and all weekend I played it as people were like, what are you doing Matt? Oh, I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3. Oh great. It's really hot outside. Yeah, great. See ya and Over the course of a weekend. I got to the start of act 2. I like I flew through it blaze through it in comparison to

It's just cuz I know how the game right right right? I know how the game works I know what I have to do and I think it's been patched a bunch to where There are things that are like a little more clearer a little more like There's a little more Hand holding early on There's like tutorial pop-ups and things like that So like stuff that I wasn't remembering it was telling me like oh make sure you do this when this happens or whatever

Some really useful stuff so and I knew Where everybody was yeah, so So within the first less than an hour of my playthrough, I basically had almost all my friends back. I had Will in my party pre-transformation, which was very, very sick. And I'm loving it. I have Lae'zel, I've romanced Lae'zel. And I'm afraid to break up with her.

Because I want to see what else is going on too. Because I thought that this was going to be my carlac run. But I'm like, I'm afraid that she's going to jump out of the game and kill me for real. Oh yeah, Lae'zel is not going to be happy if you try to sever that relationship. You're locked in buddy. I wasn't aware that Will, or maybe I knew this in passing, I didn't know that Will could be a party member.

I thought he was just a guy you killed. No, no, you think this about everybody in the game. Uh-huh, uh-huh. You can kill him. Yeah, you definitely can, because he attacks you. Because Will is- He's very angry. Will is pursuing Karlak,

and that starts with like, they have an antagonistic relationship between the two of them. You can get both of them in your party, but you killed both of them. Yeah, well, no, they attacked me. Well, that's how you frame it. I did not attack them, they attacked me. Karlak said, on sight, and just came after me.

I didn't know she was a party member, and Will attacked me in that town. Cause I looked at some beans. We ran into this lady with Lae'zel in my party and I ran into this lady before where she's like, go break into there and steal a get Yankee egg. And even then I knew that that seemed bad. And I killed that lady on site.

But now that I had her in my party, it wasn't even faster. Like I'm gonna kill this lady because I was like how dare you that's why that's my wife I will say did you do that quest on your on your previous playthrough? Cuz like that's what that one's an interesting one Cuz I did not follow through it with it on my first playthrough on my second playthrough I did retrieve the egg get the egg and then that one continues into act three and it's kind of crazy Oh, really? No, I didn't do it. I did I guess I could go the egg, and then that one continues into act three, and it's kind of crazy. Oh really, no I didn't do it.

I guess I could go back, because I'm not super far into act two. I just got to the shadow inn, or whatever it's called. And I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna, I've gotten this far. I've put in like 20 more hours into this game over a weekend basically and I so I think

There's no reason for me not to See it to the end again of it. I'm playing a bard like I said and I was saying in the chat that it It's a funny way to play because you can just lie all the time. It's so fun. It's so fun. All the all the barred like dialogue options are such funny lies that I just like this rocks. This is so funny.

Sometimes it's like performance and you know, sometimes you could mean what you're saying, but a lot of times it's like just like it's just it's just blind confidence. A lot of times it's a psychopath. Yeah, it's great. It's so so confidence a lot of times. Yeah, just a psychopath. Yeah, it's great. It's so, so funny and so good. But it's also fun for a game that is so centered on combat, how many encounters, specifically with a bard, but with other high charisma characters as well,

but a bard has the most versatility. You can kind of end an encounter with no combat. That's a thing I always love in any RPG. You can do this in Fallout as well. But I mean, there's a lot of games that have this. But anytime that's an opportunity of like, oh, I don't actually have to do this combat encounter. I don't have to fight this boss.

I can talk my way out of this. It's super satisfying. And what's satisfying about that too is that you get experience no matter what. Right, yes, yes, yes. Experience isn't locked behind having to have an encounter with an enemy. Which, you know, there aren't... It's kind of funny too, because I guess maybe where I'm at right now, this isn't true,

but in the early part of the game, there are not that many enemy random encounters. There's some beasts around that you can fight like to maybe get a little extra like experience But otherwise, it's just like the the main battles that you have to fight I remember I mean I'm getting through a lot of this stuff Without dying I haven't died once. That's great. And you know, I am playing on Explorer I'm just trying to have a good time. But in the my previous playthrough, I Was probably stuck on that Goblin encampment for like days, and I was like I think I just kill all these these guys

I think and just kind of cuz I was I was trying not to kill the goblins, and I couldn't figure out how to do that and help the tieflings and the Druids I don't think you can help all three of them once you must be able to but I couldn't figure out how to do and help the tieflings and the druids. I don't think you can help all three of them. You must be able to, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I think you can help them through. Killing all three parties and just letting them.

Yeah, you can end the conflict that way. I just felt like the tieflings deserve a place to be, and the druids don't want them there. The goblins are trying to kill both. You can't make peace with all sides. You have to make a choice. Yes. You can have something of a,

you can, I think the virtuous thing to do is to assist the tieflings. Yes. The druids, there is a large, good contingent there, and it's more just sort of like ridding the leadership that is trying, you know what I mean? Like there's a way you can kind of play a middle path there.

Yes, because that one woman who's in charge while Halcyon is gone is like pretty bad and is gonna like execute a child. Yeah, yeah, that's why I murked her. Yeah, I let her stay but I freed the child. I was able to free her just through talking. Did you find, this is one of those things, there's an additional bit of lore attached to her

that involves, I believe, finding a note in a different area of Act One. There's a letter that's tucked in a tree, and I didn't find that in my first playthrough, and I did find it in my second playthrough, and it gives additional insight into that character. It's kind of like, oh, okay, I kind of see where she's coming from a little bit more.

I know she, oh, the leader character? Yes, yeah. Oh, no, yeah, I haven't found that, no. But I'm, you know, I'm trying to fuck this bear, all right? Like, I'm trying to see what's going on. So I had to, like, I gotta, like, see, like, make sure that he stayed, that his, like, his quests are satisfied.

But I hadn't gone into the, the Yankee creche, which I've learned now to pronounce because I actually experienced this part of the game. Huge part of the game. It's amazing to me that you didn't encounter this in your first playthrough. Didn't see any of it. Was stunned by it. Loved it. Loved that.

And now I'm excited to continue on and to act too and do things differently. I'm trying to do as much differently as I can, but like some of the stuff, I just kind of liked doing it. So I was like, I kind of picked a lot of the virtuous options. So I was like, well, I'm not gonna not be good again. Yeah, I can't bring myself to sell this guy to fuck off. You know, like my big thing that I found

when I was playing a an oath of vengeance paladin in my second one is like, if I just role played as a paladin, I would find myself doing some options. I was just like, that isn't what I would normally choose, but this guy's oath of like upholding, you know, his idea of justice leads him down the path of like, okay, well, I would not normally side with this guy

and punish this person, but that's what my character would do. I will say that I have been choosing the options to be more sus of my dream visitor. And that's all I'll say about that. I like it. Last time, let's say I trust them a little too much, made some choices that I can't take back.

I did not trust that person at all, but I never beat the game, so I don't know what that meant. I will say that I played it both ways. I did fuck the squid, and then on a subsequent playthrough, I was much less trusting of the dream visitor, and that character's, the, well I'll talk about this delicately, the dream visitors eventual, like their reaction to me

dismissing their advances made me be like, oh shit, this was complete manipulation from their side of things, you know what I mean? Like they totally were working me in my previous play through and I just didn't see it. I mean, I fell right into it last time then. I think this is a great time to plug the Dungeons and Dragons movie, which is so fucking good.

It's so insanely good and really makes me think that there's no meritocracy in art because everybody would have seen that movie if anybody had known how good it was. And instead, it has just unfortunately been, like it would be a treasured VHS tape if it had been released in the 80s. And instead, it's like, people don't believe you.

I'm here to tell you I am hyper critical of film, I am hyper critical of television, and I fucking love the Dungeons and Dragons movie. It's such a fun movie. You're talking about Honor Among Thieves is the subtitle starring Chris Pine, and who's awesome at it, and kind of plays like a bard-like sort of figure as well. I saw some discourse recently that was suggesting

that he's a rogue actually. He's a rogue, okay, sure. But he is kind of like a charlatan sort of character and very silver tongued. But yeah, it's an incredible representation of the D&D experience as a movie. And it's also so incredibly fun. Yeah, that movie rocks.

The hardest laugh I had in, I think, what was that, 2022 or 2023? 2023, I think. Whatever. Was it just I think? Whatever. Was it just last year? Whatever year, no it had to come out in 2022. Yeah, because I wasn't in the United States last year. Release date, March 10th, 2023 apparently.

Oh shit. You might have seen it when you came back. Oh maybe I saw it before I left. Or before you left. Because I did see it in the theater, so I must have seen it anyway, it doesn't matter. Point point is we're saying a bunch of Dutch words when you saw it mmm Yeah, no then yeah, I think you saw it when you were not here. Oh, yeah, I saw a triple feature Barbie Oppenheimer Dungeons and Dragons

Anyway, it's a great. It's a great movie. If you haven't seen it. Give it a shot. It's game adjacent Matt I knew what you were gonna talk about. Did you notice my T-shirt? I did, I was admiring it earlier. Is that Scratch and an owlbear? It is, these are the two camp pets you can get in the game. I didn't even know you could get an owlbear. Oh, Matt, you're missing out on that owlbear.

I killed an owlbear. Oh boy, could have been your pet. I killed an owl bear. Oh boy Could have been your pet. I killed it too. I killed it too. It's a baby. There's a baby owl bear I killed that one. I killed that one. I killed everything. You're a monster. I'm not a monster Everything's fucking attacking me. I killed one that had killed or what had maimed a tiefling in the In that area. Yeah, I forget the exact sequence of events. There's a giant owl bear, there's like the mama owl bear

who's in the cave, and then there's also some baby owl bears, and I believe one of the baby owl bears will eventually come to your camp, but I forget exactly what you have to do. Slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered. It's the owl bear who's at the goblin camp, who they're treating as like a curiosity. You can talk the goblin into giving you that owl bear, and then that owl bear will flee

but eventually return to your camp. I did not see that owl bear at the goblin camp. Probably among a pile of corpses, just buried under dead goblins and tieflings. My favorite thing about the goblin camp is walking across that bridge, opening fire on somebody because I was not going to side with the fucking goblins, especially since I had to kill everybody else.

That felt like a real, like, that would have been a shitty position to find myself in. I wouldn't have felt free. Yeah, you're right. It was worse to keep them alive than kill everyone. It would have been less work, because you could have just told them, hey, I killed all those guys. No, you walk across the bridge,

you open fire on the guy that you see, and then you see the bottom of the screen just become red. Like, with like, every goblin suddenly aggroing you. It's great, it's great. And you work your way through the, okay, we've talked about this enough. This shirt is from the Larian store. This is like a well they get they get some official new some new official design So I really like this shirt. Yeah, it's just it's scratch napping next to an owl bear. It's lovely Yeah, that's actually a good dog. Yeah, very good

I'm wearing I'm wearing a Gundam shirt from the premium Bandai store, and I'm wearing a Pokemon shirt. Look at us We're all on brand. Are you really yeah? Oh yeah there it is behind the microphone Um I guess I want to say one other thing about fortnight before I never get to talk about it until the end of the strike Yeah, Gundam is coming to fortnight. That's a cool in October and I I'm really excited about it. I hope I get to play it I hope that it is after the contract negotiation comes to a close. I hope they just wrapped this up. Yeah, we don't want to stretch this shit out.

I mean, come on, let's get to it. Let's do it. Let's get to an agreement. Hey, let's talk about Nintendo World Championships NES edition. This was released on July 18th of this year, 2024, published by Nintendo, developed by Nintendo EPD in collaboration with Indie Zero, which is a Japanese developer who also did the NES remix games for Wii U and 3DS. And Matt, this is in your wheelhouse, the rhythm game Kingdom Hearts, Melody of Memory.

One of the few Kingdom Hearts games that I haven't really tried, but I am interested. I like a rhythm game. There's no reason I haven't, I shouldn't have, I should have been playing this. And now that I know, I'm interested. Even when they have the opportunity to give it a normal title, like,

Memory of Melody makes sense. And instead it's melody of memory. Right. Their memories, if you think about it, what is a memory if not a song? Jesus, he's got a Keyblade tattoo on his leg. He does have a Keyblade tattoo on his leg. I start gloating. So here, I want to open up the floor here and say,

I didn't know anything about this game a few weeks ago. I didn't know what to expect. And as release date approached, I was assuming that this was going to be like an Atari collection, like that incredible Atari collection we covered by a few years ago or a year ago, I don't know what time is anymore,

that gave you sort of a history of the games, documentary footage, it's an incredible package. This is not that. This is a game that lives in the present, doesn't tell you fucking jack shit about any of the games you're playing, and then does a remarkable job of breaking them down into mini games.

Like our intro bit, instead of playing all of Super Mario Brothers, for the people who aren't familiar with Super Mario Bros. because it came out before they were born by like 20 fucking years, it breaks down the first level into, all you have to do is jump and get the mushroom. And it really shows,

it brings a great illumination to how much of the classic NES experience is effectively a string, a chain of mini games. Like minor engagements instead of the more fluid, open world shit that we now do. Yeah, I mean, if you really break it down, it's like a series of discrete tasks. I was looking at that, but so NES, the North American release of Super Mario Bros. 1 was October of 1985.

So yes, if you were born 20 years after that, you can vote in this year's presidential election. Yeah. Like, it's...'s been a long fucking time ago It's as far away as you know, I feel like everybody knows about the JFK assassination But none of us were around for it and it's like that kind of event in the background, right? JFK equivalent to Super Mario Brothers Okay, so the, this is, yeah, Heather's right. It's basically like a collection of short challenges pulled from NES and slash Famicom

games, whatever it was called in your territory, designed for both single single-player and multiplayer speed runnings. There are modes for both. It is named after the Nintendo World Championships, which were early e-sports competitions, kind of a proto-evo. They were convened in the early 90s. They were officially sanctioned by Nintendo. I have a quick description of what this was like

from a person who participated in the 1990 NWC. The source here is GameBits.net. Quote, The NWC's games were announced in advance. Contestants would have to earn 50 coins in the original Super Mario Brothers, complete one lap in Rad Racer, then use the remaining time to play Tetris. Each game was worth more points than the last, so the goal was to rush through them as quickly as possible and then max out your score in Tetris."

So it kind of had like a built-in thing of you were playing for time in the first two games and then top-scoring. Exactly, yes. So NES Remix is another game that they made that is pretty similar to this. Did either of you play NES Remix? Because I had the first one on Wii U. I don't think I played NES Remix. Not me, no.

Didn't have Wii U. It's pretty similar to this. This one is certainly more speed run focused and has some things built in like the two up that you get of your previous best run when you're playing the game. So like you'll see a screen of your ghost next to a screen of your current playthrough.

If you're trying to beat it, you're trying to get to a higher rank. As a person who is playing primarily in handheld mode, I will say that a lot of the design on this game is small screen prohibitive. Too fucking small. In the settings, you can change it to prioritize

your screen, which is pretty good. But you only get that clue, that hint, after you've compete one time. So I entered the Silver Cup, of course I place first. And then afterwards they're like, hey, you can make your screen bigger. And I'm like, that would have been really fucking nice to know.

Yeah, because in the Silver Cup, and that's a different thing, that's the multiplayer mode. So the speed running mode is single, because in the Silver Cup, and that's a different thing, that's the multiplayer mode. So the speed running mode is single player. The Silver Cup, it's the same game play, but it's multiplayer. And yeah, so we'll start with an eight up, eight different screens that will get, you know,

like the top four advanced and then the top two advanced, and then there's an ultimate winner. That's too, it's too small on that screen. Too fucking small. Too fucking small. Here's my big thought on this. Uh-oh. There are 13 games Here's my big thought on this. Uh oh. There are 13 games represented in this, right?

Yeah, yeah. I can give you the full list, but I feel like we'll just end up talking about these individually as we go. I have played through every one of these games before. I like, I've played all of them. All the way through them? No, no, well, I said that wrong.

I've played every one of these games. I have finished nine of the 13 games. Holy shit, Nick. On original hardware. No, no, well that I said that wrong. I've played every one of these games I have finished nine of the 13 games On original hardware like so it like I'm pretty familiar with all of these There's just not a lot of content here, right Like I feel like it's like it's it's kind of cool what they've done It's cool to how these are being presented and I feel like if you're coming to these games fresh It's kind of like like okay, this is an interesting way to experience what Balloon Fight was like.

I don't have any sense of this game, but like, okay, I kinda understand what this, but like for $30, $30, like that's what you're paying for this. Let him cook. I just feel like, shouldn't there be more to this? I- Wow, I have the opposite impression. Here's what I'll say. Yeah, there's not

There's not a lot if you're not interested in Beating your own time, right? Because like the thing that this thing is selling is replayability based on improving your score improving your speed run, right? I want to get an S rank on every single one of these Kid Icarus challenges. Yeah, that's the thing that like, out of the box, I would guess no one is able to do. I mean, there's probably a top 1% of players

that are playing this game that are getting S rank every time somehow, and then maybe the game's done with them. For some of these, especially, because there's a couple different levels, right? There's like, the challenges are ranked by difficulty, so the first few will be easy. Even some of those, I'm having a hard time getting an S rank in, because, you know,

I can't pretend that I'm so young, but like, I didn't play a lot of these games growing up, so I have, some of these games I've never even played. I've never played Ice Climbers. Yeah, I- Well, Ice Climbers, I mean, like, I had Ice Climbers, and I think that's a game that has not aged well.

I think it kinda controls like shit. I mean, a lot of these have archaic things like the, you know, like Donkey Kong, for instance, a game I really like, I think, does hold up, but it has like a, you can, it has a fatal fall in a 2D platform, which feels like a thing you're just not used to. A fatal fall from not that high up. From not very high.

It feels like, and there's other things, like some jumps just feel very floaty, or you just don't have a lot of friction on surfaces, so they're just like, the control is like a little bit imprecise, and so that's a difficulty. So I wanna say that I was surprised at the amount of content in this game,

in part because I'm not an NES kid, I'm a Sega kid. So I was like, wow, there are a lot of games here. And then additionally, each of those games is broken up into, I don't know how many different challenges, I'm gonna say 10. So you've got like 130. Yeah, some have more than others.

Yeah, 130 grid of like, here's 10 challenges for the original Super Mario Brothers. Here's 10 challenges for the Super Mario Brothers 3. In addition to that, as a competition junkie, the fact that you can online play against other people was what hooked me in the game. And then also knowing that there was, like there's this concept,

it's called the World Championship because there is a leaderboard of like the actual winners from that week. And watching those replays, I was like, how the fuck is this happening? Like there was stuff being done in in just these little thumbnail games That was so impressive and obviously I'm impressed by watching fucking video games every goddamn day like yeah, sure some clip on Twitter or YouTube or whatever but like

Seeing it on the console and imagining that it was something that could conceivably be done with my hands and brain. This is the thing that really fucks with me because I'm looking at this, because I've entered two, at this point, two world champions, because there's like a week long thing where it'll be like five challenges or whatever. And that refreshes each week and updates with different challenges

So when you get your although although as far as I can tell so far these are challenges that already exist They're not you challenge. They're not you their challenges that are present in the game Which is it that you know? Hopefully as this game keeps going they will be new challenges because I could see that kind of getting stale playing the same like You know Donkey Kong barrel Jason fight kill the Lionel or whatever. The cool thing though is that as you unlock challenges in the speedrun mode if you've done a challenge already in one of the like in either the Cups or the World Championship for the week it counts your score in there and then you don't have to play it again in the in the speedrun mode but when it gives you

your rank in the world championship at the end of the week, it was so humbling and so like, cause I thought it was like, I'm doing pretty good. But like, I know that there's, you know, I don't know how many people are playing this game on planet earth right now. I was like, oh, I scored in the top 90%. I like playing this game, this same amount,

or playing it at the same level as almost everybody. There's a 10% more people who are better at this game than me. That's like a stat that I could live with even though I didn't succeed. But then going back and watching the winning one, I was like, how did a human being do this? This is so crazy.

That shit is awesome. Like there, again, you know, I'll repeat the thing that Heather said earlier. Mastery is intoxicating. You watch- You said that. I just quoted you. I know, but I'm saying, like I'll repeat the thing

that you quoted earlier, just so that I know- Oh, so you're repeating yourself. I'm repeating myself, as Heather, as quoted by Heather. Mastery is impressive. Man has always been curious about apes. I stand by that too. Man has always been fascinated by apes. Fascinated, that's what it was. Yeah. So yeah, like you watch someone and they're doing the speed run where it was, it's like retrieve the key, right? Like it's a Super Mario Brothers 2 one and the way that it's one of those ones that involves all this tech if you do it to, you know, the absolute fastest execution where there's a magic carpet that you're supposed to jump

on that you ride over across a vast crevasse. This motherfucker is just jumping, bouncing off of enemies' heads to forward the crevasse without using the magic carpet to go even faster. And then just like every movement is absolutely so precise that that's just incredible watch. I'll absolutely agree with you there. I don't know if it offers much beyond, you know, what you could just see just watching people

do speed runs, you know, on YouTube or Twitch or what have you, but I guess it is built in here and you can compete. So that is kind of a cool element. I think the offering for me is, yeah, like you could see something similar on YouTube, but you can't see somebody do something that you also just did.

No, that's the thing, you can compete directly against them in this clear, discrete task. So I do like that aspect of it. I guess I just kind of feel like it's like, it's like a little bit slight. And if I paid $30 for this and I wasn't discussing it for content, I might be kind of feel like it's like it's like a little bit slight and if I paid $30 for this and I wasn't discussing it for content I might be kind of pissed off like shouldn't this yeah shouldn't this cost like $5. I so I

Think especially when you compare it to The Atari collection. Yeah, I do think that there it that it is a it is a, it is a, the premium that you're paying for is that these are all Nintendo titles and so they're tight to begin with on the whole. Like Ice Climbers or whatever the fuck it is, sure it's a weirdo game, but like a lot of these games, the reason it is pleasurable to engage

in these speed running mini-tasks is because the game is fucking tight and clicky. Yeah, Super Mario Brothers 3 has incredible control in physics. Right, so like even the original Zelda, it's like, you know, go fucking kill these octorox or whatever. And I'm like, this is engaging just as a snapshot of the Zelda franchise. And you can take all of this out of context and just enjoy yourself while you compete against these three enemies. And that's a lot of what the Atari collection doesn't have. You play some of those games for 30 seconds

and you're like, I am never thinking about this ever, ever again, but- Yeah, that's a great point. There's such a huge generational gulf going from like the pre-8-bit to 8-bits when games actually are still kind of playable in a modern sense. But I agree with you, it is a slight collection.

I do wish there was like, you know, some history about each of these fucking games. Yeah. Like something that was like, especially since, when you're choosing your title as like your gamer card or whatever on the game, so like the title you're competing under, one of the first titles they offer you is, I was born after the NES.

Right. Right, like that's one of your first options to choose, is, I was born after the NES. Right. Right, like that's one of your first options to choose, or like, my parents are NES generation, or like a title you can choose. So you might be seeing these games for the very first time. Like if you're a 14 year old kid playing NES World Championships, and NES World Championships,

you might not even know, you might be like, what the fuck is an NES? Like, especially when you see some of those YouTube videos where they're like, hey, here's a handheld phone and they show it to a Gen Z person and they're like, what is this, do you eat with this? Is this a fucking spoon? You fucking little dumbass kid.

No, you're totally right. And there is an opportunity, because there's a thing that you get, which is the pin collection. So as you collect coins, you can unlock, or as you collect coins and as you beat challenges, you unlock pins. But the pins are basically just like a JPEG to look at.

And so for instance, I'm looking at one of, you know, the harp from Kid Icarus. And it's just an image of it that says Nintendo World Championships. It's basically just like a 2D trophy. And it's like, I don't know, maybe some context, like explaining what the harp was, and this was its usefulness, the item.

Hey, maybe some history on what Kid Icarus was. Like, I don't know, just feel like you were unlocking something as you progressed. Even for that, if it was like, you know when you can look at the character models in a video game and you can spin it around? If you could even just turn the pin around and look at it from another angle,

I'd be like, this is a little more interesting. Right, yeah, and I understand it's a sprite, so it's not quite the same as having a 3D model, but still, it would just feel like you had something a little more tangible. I will say that I, to that point, I purchased, and Nick's nightmare, I purchased the NES Deluxe set, like the collector's edition of the Switch game.

And this was such a lovely little package that came with hard cards of all of the art of, individual hard cards of all the art for all of the games featured inside of World Championships. It also came with a replica cartridge, a gold replica cartridge, which was the exact same kind that was handed out at the World Championships themselves, an original Nintendo cartridge sleeve,

which was something that was packed into the original NES games, and it came with the pins. The pins that you get in the game, you can fucking hold in your hand, and they are high quality, glossy, heavy pins. They don't feel cheap. So I paid a premium in order to get, because also I thought I was getting,

before I knew what I was getting, I thought that I was buying the Atari collection. I thought this was gonna be like a tiny little museum. And I wanted all the little goodies to go with it, but instead I was like, oh, this is like a racetrack. I bought a racetrack. I wonder if maybe that, I mean, that could just be it in and of itself.

I bought the digital edition, you bought the physical edition. It seems like the physical edition actually is cool and has a bunch of tangible stuff that you're getting. Those cards are great. I saw that the Japanese one has Famicom controllers, which is awesome. That's a thing that we should have gotten over here.

But I believe that's- That you can plug into the Switch to make the gaming experience more accurate. Absolutely should have gotten over here. But like, I believe that's- But you can plug into the Switch to make the gaming experience more accurate. Absolutely should have been included here, but it feels like that I think is $20 more than the digital version. I think if you're gonna buy this game, buy the physical edition.

Yeah, yes. Like I can't justify the purchase of the- The deluxe edition. Yeah, I can't justify the purchase of the digital. I bought digital as well, and it's a big regret of mine. Uh, because I would like this little stuff. The stuff looks cool. But I did buy an additional extra thing,

because I was like, I know that like the, I was playing handheld mode and I was like, ugh, these fucking dumb switch buttons are bad. Yeah. I don't like the directional buttons on the switch. Did Nintendo ever release Joy-Cons that have like a proper D-Pad and stuff? You can get them third party, I think.

I think they have- It feels like a missed opportunity for Nintendo. Well, the Pro Controller still like has the proper D-Pad, yes. And I do like the D-Pad on the Pro Controller, actually. But I wanted to replicate the experience of holding, well, this is I guess more modeled after a Super Nintendo controller but I got this 8-bit dough SN30 Pro and I'm just gonna click into it you probably can't even really hear that but the clickiness of these buttons is my I love

this that's got a lot of click to it I need that click and it's a little it feels a little more precise as I'm playing it when I'm playing it on the TV I love that you got an accessory for this episode. Yes well, and I'll keep honestly it works pretty good as like a Regular switch controller just kind of feels different of course, but you know I have it now an additional Controller from what I make my friends Yell at each other playing Overcooked. I have that controller I purchased because you brought it in and you're like, look what I got.

And I was like, I got that. I was like, I have that. But I got it for the analog pocket. Oh, yes. Because if you dock the pocket, you can use that controller and play your retro games on your HDMI screen. Yes. What I remain frustrated by is that the analog pocket was advertised as being able to be played on a CRT if you got The adapter and they still haven't released that fucking update. Yeah

I'm her and I will that's all I want that so bad a classic Heather frustration Like if you're gonna cater to these hyper nerds and say, do you have a CRT? Well, we've got something for you that I'm gonna like sit up in my chair and like lean forward and then they're gonna be like, you could play the analog pocket on your CRT. And I'm gonna get so excited and then they don't actually fucking release it.

The Venn diagram of Heather and Campbell is so fascinating because you're as mad about this as you are mad about where are all the chickens? All laugh. Same problem. Yeah, it's the same. It's a question of where is it? All laugh.

Very angry. Let me just like, I hope I'm not sounding too negative here because I did have time with my fun with this game. Jesus Christ, I did have fun with my time with this game. Elodie of memory. That's what happened, I get Kingdom Hearts. So I'd like, but I just like, so for The Legend of Zelda,

I played through all the Zelda challenges. There's 14 of them. Jesus Christ. Yeah. So, there's 14 total for The Legend of Zelda 1. I have at least an A rank in all of them. A lot of these are like, you know, the time you get, it's like these are all like under 10 seconds.

So, you know, like I don't want to make us do more math here when we're earlier, you know, calculating the amount of land area that's allocated for poultry. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole again. 25% of the United States. But it is like, if you actually do the math on how much gameplay there is there, it's like, there's not a ton. And Zelda has more challenges than almost all

of these games. So I think like, yeah, okay, if I was trying to get S-Ranks in absolutely everything in this game, it would take me a little bit more time. How much time do I wanna spend redoing the run where one of them is, it's dangerous to go alone, take this, it's literally picking up the first wooden sword in Zelda.

So it's like, how quickly can I walk into a cave? S-Rank. How quickly can I walk into a cave and position myself to pick up this sword? Like, it's like, even getting an S rank there isn't particularly difficult, but if you are gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna spend time doing this,

how much time do you wanna dedicate to this task just for the sake of getting it? I guess it depends on your preferences as a gamer. The answer to that question is based on what you think a game is. Yeah, sure. Like, is that a game or is that a task? Right. And it sounds to me like you're describing a lot of this as a task.

It's like, oh, this is a thing I have to do in order to achieve X goal. And that's fine. Like, I'm not even certain because a lot of these things don't have quite fail states and that often has been my line on whether or not something is or is not a game is whether or not it has a fail state. And I guess some of these games don't, you can't fail these little tiny thumbnails. No, okay. On that point, so the way this works, if you die in one of these, instead of you failing

the run, which should be what happens, they, I guess, to make it more friendly to people, which I understand, I understand this design decision, they've made it so it's an automatic rewind. So like if you fall down a pit, you know, like it will be like the game will automatically rewind it just before that and then the game will continue. So yes, there actually is no discrete fail state. I had this happen while I was playing Kid Icarus. One of the achievements is, or I'm sorry, one of the challenges is to make it through the entire first level of Kid Icarus.

I reached a point where I fell down a pit, because it gets to a platforming section, and I died. It rewound and my character went back to the top of the pit to the ledge I fell off of. And I was like, well, this run's fucked, but I'll just keep going. I kept going A plus rank. I was like, how, this feels like this should not be, like I should not be able to achieve an A rank if I died during the run, right?

Like just the way that's balanced is so interesting to me. And then I'm like, are we going to,, is there gonna be an element of this where there's somehow it's, I don't understand how this would work exactly, but somehow advantageous to die like, you know, purposefully in some of these to get a higher score. I guess that's maybe okay if that's how it works out. But it was just, it just felt so strange to me. I was having an issue with that as well. And you know, you do, it does rewind, but your time still goes forward.

Your time continues to advance but it but it like may not be Enough of a punish where it's like gonna wreck your run. So it's like I don't know I mean, I guess that's just to make it more, you know user-friendly I was getting kind of fucked by some rewinds because it would rewind me just far enough Where then like I would be like mid jump and I would still be falling and then it would rewind again. Yes. And it rewinds you when you rewind a second time it rewinds you a little bit further back too from that point and it's it can be a little bit of a trap.

Well here's another thing. So the Metroid challenges, some of the Metroid challenges are just beating the bosses in Metroid. Yeah just beat Kraid. So I played through Metroid 1 on NES and I love that game. It's an incredible game. What I remember, I could be remembering this wrong. What I remember about fighting Kraid is that there was a, an exploit where if you hopped

into the lava, cause lava is not insta death in Metroid. If you hopped in the lava, it drains your health. If you hopped in the lava on the sides, that was actually a great way to position yourself cause then you could just sort of blast Crayed with missiles from there and you'd be out of reach of his prongs that he's shooting at you. But the game makes it so that if you fall

into one of those lava pits, again, that's what I want, straight forward, it could be misremembering, it could be Ridley, who you also fight in this. Once you fall in the lava, it's a fail and then it rewinds you. So you don't even have that option anymore. So I'm like, it does feel like maybe the fastest tech for this could be to, you know in the lava, it's a fail, and then it rewinds you, so you don't even have that option anymore. So I'm like, it does feel like maybe the fastest tech

for this could be to do that, but it's robbing you of that option because of the way it's set up. And I understand why they made these decisions, but it's just a little bit odd. The ones that are just beat this boss make me so mad because some of them, they're not all equal. In the Zelda ones, it's like, here's,

you're right outside the dungeon or whatever, you're right outside the boss area, walk in, beat the fucking eyeball guy or whatever, and then you're done. In, in Metroid, it's like, here's half the map and a bunch of enemies and they're all around. Yeah. Go through all of it and then, and then beat Kray.

It sucks. No, that one's more like, it's closer to a 30 or 40 second task as opposed to some of these other ones which are sub five seconds, which is also fine. Like I'm fine with some of these being longer. But on that note, I feel like I'm monologuing too much here. So I'll let other people talk about this.

No, no, I mean, people like it. People love it. So, for instance, the Metroid, the final one is the escape sequence from the original game. That's a prolonged extended thing that takes a good chunk of time. I don't know if you got to Mario Master, but Mario Master is the final Super Mario Brothers

one challenge. That challenge has beat Super Mario Brothers. Now it's built into the game where you can use, you can take the warp zone and it holds your hand with this. You can take the warp zone from level one two to level four and you can take the warp zone from level four to level eight one and then play through all of world eight. But it's still like, that's a lot of time to dedicate

to something like that. And I guess it's like from the standpoint. And also the, or am I thinking of Super Mario 3? Yeah, Super Mario 3 is a maze. No, Super Mario 1 is a maze at the end. Yes, it is. Yeah. So and it also like again, there's built in things in this there's there's what they call classified information that tells you how to do some of these things. So it does give you the solution for the maze if you just want to you know, again, if you're new to this game and you wouldn't figure out that would be how it would work. But it but

it's like that's the sort of thing of like, again, it's a game that at times feels like WarioWare. It's like, these are super fast, super micro games, but then you've got these longer tasks that are like, wait, so this is like a five minute run. So this is more like doing, I don't know. To me that feels asynchronous, but maybe it's okay as like kind of like the equivalent

of the boss fight for this game. I do- Oh no, you go. But don't you like, Nick, since you're obsessed with speed running, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic here. I don't think you are. You like speed running. I do. But let's say that you were to beat Super Mario 1

in such a fashion that you believed it was your personal best ever, and you'd have no proof and no record of it. This is kind of a nice repository of those times that are like available for other people to see. No, it's true. And I guess that's is kind of a nice repository of those times that are like available for other people to see. No, it's true. And I guess that's the kind of thing like if you're not someone who's like, I know how to set up all the software to stream this and I know how to get a timer up and I know how to get this all, you know, like I know how to do all the work to get this through the official

channels. This is just kind of built into my Switch and I can remember me running through this game when I was a kid and Compare how I do to other people now, so I understand it from that standpoint. I do think the games featured in this game should be In it in full that you could play as an option Outside of the speedrunning or any of it very simple thing a pretty good idea. A very simple thing. Again, they own the rights to their own library, their own catalog, they're remonetizing the same 40 year old games yet again.

An easy thing they could have done is to include the full games in here. And I know they're part of the Nintendo online, but that's a separate thing. And again, that's the sort of thing that just like, it's a frustration I have with Nintendo generally, where it's like, you're spending this much for this, and even if I like what's in here,

it just feels like such a small amount of content. I still like it. I think it's fun. I still overall like it. I love my little pins. I still overall like it. I think if I bought the physical edition, I think I would like it more.

I think that does look really cool. I think my frustration with it is just as a value proposition. I think it's overpriced. I do also, I will say I want to shout out the music is really good. The sound effects are really good. And I do think that the presentation, I guess excluding the smallness of the screen is very good. I like how they have it all set up.

I do wish you could full screen it instead of even seeing the littler screens. Yeah, if it wasn't 150 degrees in Los Angeles, I could play this on my big screen. Yeah. But my television isn't set up in a place where I'm able to play in docked mode during the summer. Yeah. So I, yeah, I look forward to being able

to see these games larger because they are tiny as fuck. Yes. They are so fucking small. They're really small. They're Nokia phone, original Nokia phone screens. Yeah. Yeah, it's tiny. I agree, you're right, Matt, that the UX is pretty pleasant

and it's tiny. I agree, you're right, Matt, that the UX is pretty pleasant, and it's a nice presentation. I do like to say, you know, we've seen this now in wake of death stranding, of Super Mario Wonder, to see other people doing something you've done or are about to do. This is a strand game, baby. It is a bit of a Strand game.

I think that's good. Yeah, no, I mean, I love that in Wonder. I love that feature in Wonder. Yeah. Really cool. I love that. Ranch, I'm gonna read off this full list of games. Tell me if you've heard of it, and tell me if you've played it.

All right, first up, Balloon Fight. Never heard of it. Donkey Kong. Heard of it, never played. Excite Bike. Never heard of it. Ice Climber. Never heard of it. Donkey Kong. Heard of it, never played. Excite Bike. Never heard of it. Ice Climber. Never heard of it.

Kid Icarus. Never heard of it. Kirby's Adventure. Heard of it, never played it. Metroid. Heard of it on this podcast. Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3 and Super Mario Bros. of the Lost Level. I've played the first one, I think.

Okay. One of them. Legend of Zelda and Zelda II, The Adventure of Link. Heard of it, never played it. Wow. There you go. See, one for all. One for 13. You pull most people.

Yeah. They're gonna say they've at least played level one of Mario. Everyone's played Mario. No, but that's what I'm just gonna say. This is just going to Heather's point earlier. It's been so long since these games came out. There is such a huge generational divide here.

That's kinda cool that this collection is being presented and maybe some younger people will connect with some of these games and wanna play them for. I'm just remembering, what did y'all put as your favorite game on the system? Because you set up a profile, you pick up a profile icon I picked Kirby going like this Like he's like making a suck And I put that

I'm a cuz they didn't they didn't have a gameboy color generation I feel like that's sort of more represents. Yeah, right it goes from Gameboy to Gameboy Advance So I did pick Game Boy Advance, because I was like, I never really had the original Game Boy. So I said, I'm from the Game Boy Advance generation, and I said that my favorite NES game was Final Fantasy. Hey! Because I've played Final Fantasy 1, and I do love it.

Wait, you can pick that from the list? I thought it was just the... No, it's every game. Every game. Oh, wow, it's every game. That's the cool thing. It's like fucking Monopoly for NES is on that list. Yeah, I saw Jeopardy on there, yeah.

But I picked Super Mario Bros. 3 as my game. I don't remember what I picked as my title, and I picked Mario and a boot. That's pretty good. I picked NES Generation as my hype tag, and I picked my favorite NES game as The Legend of Zelda, which you may remember is on my top 10 favorite games of all time from our episode we did at the start of this year, and OG Legend of Zelda.

And then my favorite, my avatar is Pit from Kid Icarus Crouching, which I always thought was a really funny bit of animation because he's so squished. That is pretty good. Yeah. But I will say too, because a lot of these games I had not ever played. I played all the Mario ones, probably not all the way through all of them, but I've played all of those ones. I've played through Metroid Zero Mission, which is the remake, the Game Boy Advance

remake of Metroid 1. And I played Donkey Kong. I had not played Ice Climbers. I had not played Balloon Fight. And I have not really ever played an old Zelda. And playing the original Zelda in this format sort of made me think, should I play like the original Zelda? It seems kind of good.

I'd be interested in your reaction. I mean, have you played, which of the 2D Zeldas have you played? Remind me. I think none. I guess I played the Link's Awakening remake, which is not that, but I liked that. I would play Link to the Past

and see how you can respond to that. That's a good game. Link to the Past is, it's got a good graphic look. Okay. A good look. Hey, well I'm saying we should do something for, that could be something we do on the show. Ooh.

You like the way it looks, but you don't wanna play it again. Yeah, not for me. League of the Past holds up. That's still pretty fun. Yeah. I have that Zelda Game and Watch, and I sometimes take that places with me,

and I will chip away at Link's Awakening on that, because I just like, oh, I know how to play this game. And that game, Link's Awakening is so fucking good. Yeah, it's good. But maybe I'll go back and visit one of those old Zeldas. Nintendo World Championships NES edition. That was our discussion. Let's do a segment, Matt.

I'm bringing back a segment. Okay. But it's a slant on a segment we've done before. Interesting. I'm calling this segment Game Over Time Speedrun Edition. Wow! So here's how this is going to work. I'm going to name a game and I'm going to tell you how long it takes to beat the game according to howlongtobeat.com. What you're going to do is you're going to tell me what the fastest speedrun is according toobeat.com. Okay. What you're gonna do is you're gonna tell me

what the fastest speed run is according to speedrun.com. I love this. Closest without going over gets the point. And I wanna note that these speed runs are as of Thursday, July 25th at 8.52 a.m. when I pulled them. Because some of these are constantly updated. Continually updated. Yeah.

Do you, just for the how long to beat, are you reading like the, there's kind of like the three? There's the the middle path. I assume is what you're doing not the completionist. Most of them are main story main story I'll note when it's completionist. Got it Like for example this first one this first one Super Mario 64 120 stars completionist cuz that's the whole game. Got it How long I so it takes 20 hours to beat the game to get everything. Okay.

How fast is the speed run? How fast is the speed run? I'm gonna say, with being able to wall glitch and shit, I bet it's 28 seconds. Yeah, this isn't a glitchless run, I bet it's 28 seconds. Yeah, this isn't a glitchless run, right? It didn't specify that when this one, on some of the other ones, I have more.

Okay, okay, so yeah, assuming glitches are a factor. I am assuming it's still gonna take longer to get all 120 stars. I'm gonna say 16 minutes. Oh wait, no, wait. I thought it was just like, how fast can you beat the game? Not how fast can you do all 120 stars? You're simply completionist.

This is completionist, right? How fast to 120 stars? Jesus Christ, okay, wait up. You said 16 minutes. Yeah. Others said it was in the seconds. Fuck. It was immediately wrong.

Yeah, I misunderstood. I misunderstood the task. I thought it was how, like, that's the, here's how long it takes to complete the game. Yes. How fast is the fastest speed run? But now I understand. How fast has somebody gotten 120 stars? I'm going to guess 31 minutes.

Heather is technically closest. I'm going to guess 31 minutes. Heather is technically closest. The answer is an hour and 36 minutes and two seconds. Wow, so it's still a pretty substantial run. Still a pretty substantial run. That impresses me, because what I was talking about, how the legend challenges are big meaty challenges in the Nintendo and Nintendo World

Championships game. Like the people who do speed runs where it's like these are this is multi-hour commitments and like you know it can come down to tenths of a second by the end. Like that's like incredible to me that anyone wants to commit themselves to that. It's really great and I have stats for who did it and what console and stuff so I'll read those as well. This was by a player named Ouija from the United States on a Japanese Nintendo 64, and this record was solidified 19 days ago.

This is the newest and most recent speed run. I mean, these will all be the most recent speed run, but this is the most recent speed run on this list. One alpha. I know, absolutely. I love that. That's also like the kind of thing of like- Ouija 2024.

Yeah, you hear about what hardware is being used and sometimes those are ways to optimize as well It's like Fred. Maybe the PAL version runs, you know, just a little bit faster or whatever It's like that's just really interesting. I love the idea that 19 days ago was maybe one of the highlights of that guy's life Yeah, yeah, it's really really great Next one on the list Celeste any percentage How long to beat? Main story, 8.5 hours.

Hmm, I love Celeste, it's one of my favorite games. I have a Celeste poster in my home office. Wow. I don't know, I have not followed Celeste's speedrunning, really. So I don't know if there's any real glitches that you skip through a huge chunk of the game or anything. So I'm going to assume this is more just someone just going through with technical precision.

And I'm going to say this is one hour and 12 minutes. I'm gonna say three and a half hours. You both went over. Oh! So in the case of going over, I have to go closest. Well also no one can get a point. Okay, nobody gets a point. Nick, no point for Nick.

The answer is 24 minutes 58 seconds and 23 milliseconds wow and this is by a player named secure account from the United States on a PC four months ago I'll have to watch that run. I wonder I wonder what there must be some glitches involved I'm not sure cuz I mean for a lot of these when I could toggle it I would click no major glitches or okay, but with that one I don, but with that one. I don't think I had done or you know, I didn't see an option for that Next up. I wonder what the skips are. All right, give me one portal full game in bounds As you can go you there's like there's stuff you can do out of bad. Yeah, how long to be three hours What is the speed run?

I'm gonna guess first. No part. 19 minutes. I mean, I was thinking sub 30 minutes. I'll go lower and say 12 minutes. You both went over on this one. I love it. This is what's good about this game is that I do think at the end of the day, it's just interesting information. It's fascinating. The speed run by player Sidious from England on a PC one month ago.

8 minutes, 1 second second and 275 milliseconds Incredible I've seen portal speed runs like just segments of it And it looks like it doesn't even look like you're comprehending what you're looking at it. Yeah, it seems impossible to me Cuz like for me that game is like Daddy Daddy like if I did in three hours, that would be the greatest achievement of my life It seems impossible to me because for me that game is like steady steady. If I did it in three hours, that would be the greatest achievement of my life. Okay, next one. Hollow Knight, any percentage, no major glitches.

Time to beat 27 hours, which I didn't realize. It's a pretty big game. Yeah. Chunky game. Hmm. Is it, what are you guessing? That's what, no, that was what the original. Oh, 27 hours, okay. Yeah.

I think, I feel like this is still gonna be a pretty substantial thing. I'll just say 10 hours even. 11 hours. You're both over. Wow. 31 minutes, 24 seconds by player Sk8King from Ukraine on a PC one year ago.

That's really impressive. Yes. Oh man. Okay, so Nick's on the board with one point from the... Wait, when did I get a point? What? Heather's on the board. No, Heather's in's in the lead excuse me Heather got the point. One point.

The next game a game we covered on this show maybe you remember it. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Oh yeah. Full game glitchless. How long to beat six and a half hours. I'm tired of going over. Three minutes, 30 seconds. I'm not gonna price this right, Heather, here, even though she just did the same thing to me.

I'm gonna say- I did? Yeah, didn't you? In the previous one, you said 11 after he said 10. I did? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry But I think someone probably gets through this pretty efficiently I'm gonna say hmm I'll say 13 minutes

You both went over The speed run by blast bolt from the US on a PC one year ago. Zero minutes, 59 seconds, and 885 milliseconds. I want to just watch this. I know, that seems like it's so amazing to me. Because that game was very hard. And not fun. Is that the one in the in the pot? Yeah, we're in the pot trying to climb. Yeah, somebody did that in less than a minute

Okay next one Cuphead full game any percentage Full game I guess meaning getting to the end of the game any percentage no major glitches regular difficulty time to Time to beat, 10 and a half hours. I love Cuphead, one of my favorite games of all time. There's only so fast that little dude can run though. He's not very fast. He's really slow. But there is like, there is stuff you don't have to do. Like not, I don't think, I don't believe

every single encounter is mandatory. Like in next case you don't have to do. Like, I don't believe every single encounter is mandatory. Like in Nick's case, you don't have to try to upskirt Miss Chalice? Jesus Christ. Achievement unlocked. I'm gonna guess. You don't have to do that. I'm gonna guess one hour, 45 minutes.

What's the how long to beat time again? 10 and a half hours. Oh man. I'll go under and say 59 minutes. You're both over. The speed run by Markin sws from Italy on PC three months ago 28 minutes 45 seconds in 410 milliseconds. I gotta watch that I gotta watch that in the celestial

I'm gonna all these are pretty watchable like you could just go home and be like this is the rest of my night watch these Yeah, and it's you probably have the fucking night of your life. Honestly, it seems great last one here The Legend of Zelda breath of the wild full game any percentage normal mode how long to be fifty and a half hours That's a big game Wait, but this is any percentage. This isn't you don't have to do anything. You can go straight to Gannon You can go straight to it. Okay Like someone does this shit in like seven minutes. I'll say seven minutes.

I'm gonna say three minutes. The player, player five from the United States four months ago on a Nintendo Switch. 23 minutes and 23 seconds. Wow! Nick gets a point. This game is a tie. It's a tie. What a way to end it.

Let's watch this. Here I found the world record getting over at speedrun in 59 seconds. Let's watch this. This is a song that the uploader made that they put in the background. Here we go. Look at this thing. Oh my God, he's zooming. This is a song that the uploader made that they put in the background. Here we go. Look at this thing. Oh, my God, he's a zoom. The fucker is flying.

I don't get through a day in my life this officially. This is incredible. a day in my life this officially. This is incredible. This is one of the most amazing feats I've ever seen in my life. To have this down so well. To be able to progress through a game this precisely when the control is actively fighting against you. Like this is a game that's hostile towards you.

I can't believe this. This is unbelievable. Wow. Incredible. I was watching like something I would see in a nightmare. Top comment, undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements in speed running ever, GG. Wow.

Well, that's the segment. Apparently took apparently six years in the making. Jesus Christ. I mean, this is the thing is like Like it's okay like dedicating your life to that is as good as anything. I agree That's all that's an amazing thing to do with your time I don't believe that wasting time is possible. No given that we are on a rock that's going to explode No, absolutely no, No, that was amazing. Yeah.

I love that game, Matt. Let's bring that back. Hell yeah. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Our producers is Richelle Chen, Ranch, yard, underscore, underscore, sard. Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com.

And check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire pre-headgum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and also our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire pre head gum back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and also our Patreon exclusive show get animated. Matt what's up this week? This week we're talking about Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence and I won't spoil it for you guys but let's just say we talked about the movie. It's true we did. Patreon.com slash get played for all of that. And you know what?

All these little games, all these little ass old games, they got played. They got played and they got played again and again and again until I got a better score. Also I got played for spending $30! Nick's least favorite dollar amount.