Get Played - Our Favorite Video Game Performances

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss some of their all time favorite performances in video games! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For our exclusive show Get Played DLC, ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? episodes go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. There's nothing I like more than a fine bit of acting in regards to the theater. Well, put Heather, when it comes to Thespians using their talents to enhance the scripted dialogue of a video game, why there's no craft more admirable. Oh, more no, more noble. What are you guys doing? Well, I'm elevating the craft of podcasting to that of acting.

Why? Are you embarrassed? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? You think this is... I think I see what's going on. You think this is funny?

Trying to make me look like some kind of idiot or something. Trying to make me look like an asshole. Well, guess what? I didn't have a lot growing up, okay? I didn't get to see the theater. I didn't get to experience performance in any sort of way. Matthew, Rune. No.

Is it true? You listen to me. I worked hard in my life, and I'd seen some shit that I'd want to see. I wouldn't want to wish that on anybody. Now look at me, sitting here, doing this show with you two. How do you think that makes me feel? He rose up from the streets. Shall we commend him for him.

self-sacrifice? Aye, for you to rise from nothing, to achieve the heights that you have now. Clearly, you have inborn gifts. So let me stand and salute you. Whoops. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. Woe is me.

I've just received a missive from the Academy. They've asked us to never act again. We have our motions captured in red leather yellow leather as we look back on some of our favorite video game performances this week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. Ooh, that's me, Tiger Weiger along with our third host. Mr. Games himself, Matt Upadaka.

Ooh, hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the premiere of video game podcast, where this week, We are talking about everybody's favorite career, acting. It's the most noble profession. It is the profession of the Greeks. That's right. It is the profession of the Greeks.

That's inarguable. They invented it. They did philosophy and acting. They also like throw plates on the ground stuff. Yeah, they had vomatoriums and wiped their asses with a communal sponge on a stick. Yeah. Vomatorium, is that where everyone gathers around to watch people throw up? Yeah, you fucking, you fucking puke your guts out.

You have a big feast and then you go puke a bunch, you eat some more. Can I tell you? Yeah. Please tell us. What story could this have possibly sparked? I've been going on walks in my neighborhood. Uh-oh. And you know, you just kind of take in, you take in the scenery, you see what's going on.

And this is a neighborhood in America, right? This is a neighborhood in America. Okay, great. In America, Los Angeles. All right, okay. I'm walking around. I'm not looking into anybody's homes, but you know, you kind of, you look into a window. You see like, you kind of, you walk by, you're like, oh, look, they got that, they got a nice new chair or whatever.

I'm just going to say, I'm looking into homes. Anyway, continue. Well, yeah, you're sort of like going a different route, usually behind the house. Local man found under house. Yeah, you're trying to parasite into every home in your neighborhood. Hell man. They didn't do anything wrong. But the third act kind of is...

Okay, all right. You're walking in America. Walking in America, I see a handwritten sign, a child's handwriting. It says barf rules. It's been making me laugh every time I pass it. It's so funny to be. Yeah, you know, it's the kind of. of clarity of a child's vision.

They could just see the world for exactly what it is. Barf rules. I think... It's so funny. This inspires me the next time I see barf on the street here in America walking around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to carry chalk and put free barf next to it. Free barf.

Take as much as you want. How often are you seeing barf? Because I don't feel like I'm seeing as much barf in the wild. If anything, I'm seeing more shit. I've seen more shit. I did one time pull into a parking space in a grocery store parking lot. opened my door, looked down, there was immediately a pile of barf, and I drove to a different parking spot instead.

That's nasty. Didn't want to deal with it. No one wants to deal with that. Well, it does seem like our country is succeeding and providing the facilities that human beings need in order to live. Remember we're in Japan and there was no shit or piss or vomit anywhere? Yeah. It's fucking crazy.

I avoided those neighborhoods. There are neighborhoods. Oh, take me there next time. Oh, my God. That's where I live. Like, there are plenty of. Instagram accounts, like I think one's called the Shibuya Freak Out, which is just like

the deep, deep, deep, drunken corners of Tokyo. Oh, I love it. It is not a paradise. I had a Shabuja freak out when we were there. It was like, why is everybody crossing like that? Um, Matt, got that crossing? Matt, can I ask you about... Where'd I scramble at? Can I ask you about your hat? Yes. Is it, is it like a

Trump hat? It's a Los Angeles Dodgers hat. It's not a Trump hat. I think it's pretty unfair to characterize it as a Trump hat. It does not, the Maga But it's got his, it's got his, the president number on the side. The brand is 47. Oh, I do have this. It's an unfortunate coincidence.

Oh, I thought it was like, oh, we're on president 47. No, and I know that they did go again. But it's, no, it's not that. Gotcha. No. I would never. I would never. I wonder, because I don't, you know, I was like, oh, is this?

It would be funny if I was like, I'll debut it with a hat. Yeah, it's a Trump hat. No, no. I thought it was like an unfortunate, like, bitter pill you have to swallow in order to wear a World Series hat. No. Is it also has the president number on it? No, I did this by choice. The pill went down nice and smooth.

Great. You know, and it is, I do wish that they would, you know, not go. Yeah. Because that option is afforded to them. What is not go? Yeah, not go. They won't go to the White House. Yeah.

They could not go because teams have not gone in the past. Yeah. Who knows? I'd go. You gotta go. I would not go right now. I wouldn't go right now. I've been.

Y'all been? You've been to the what? The what? The White House? No. You were just out of frame that picture with him and Joe Rogan recently. The podcaster summit. No, I've not been to the White House, actually.

Yeah, no. I've been in the White House. I saw, I was sat in an Obama press conference. Oh, wow. Yeah, I got a full tour and everything. You're painted like Nightcrawler, right? It's ready to take his form like mystique. Was this part of Funny or Die?

Yeah, I worked on what ultimately became the Between Two Ferns with Barack Obama back in the day. That little bit of liberal propaganda helped write. And that was part of why we're mired in our current fascist regime. Yeah, yeah. Because of the incremental centrism that we committed. do under the Obama presidency, but what are you going to do? Hey, what are you going to do? You got to go to the Whitehouse.

Hey, you know what? Healthcare's a little less expensive. And not that many people are being drone-striked anymore. I saw the movie Michael. He-he. That's right. He-he indeed. I saw the movie Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic.

Yeah. I believe there's a video game-related floor. Club. Now, it could be wrong, because I don't know the Atari 2,600 catalog well, but Michael Jackson goes to a toy store and a kid comes up to, like kids are coming up to him. He takes them, I'll sign some autographs for all the children. Is he a kid in this story too? No. No, he's an adult man. Yeah. And it's not addressed as weird that he's in a toy store on a shopping spree. Anyway, he's in line and he gets recognized and he starts, of course, he's kindly signing autographs for everyone.

A kid brings up a copy of an Atari game. He said, is that Atari game? I love that one. He's like, yeah. And then he gives him a tip, which is like, hold left while you're blasting. That's how you, like it's clearly like a tip from a shooting game, like a Gallagher or something like that.

The game he's holding his adventure. Now that's more of like a quest game. That's more of it like its title. It's the proto Zelda. It's an adventure game. Yeah, yeah. down, walk around. You do get a sword, but I don't, I could be wrong. Again, if someone knows Atari 2,600 better than me, let me know if that's accurate. But I think what happened is that was in the

script as a generic sort of Atari 2,600 thing. And then the art department got a copy of Mittenbox Adventure and we're like, we'll use this. And everyone was like, great, fine. Didn't actually sign off on all the research. There's only one thing about Atari 2600 that I know. So I can't argue yes or no about your sensitivity towards whether or not this is a video game-related flood. And this is the only thing about the movie that rubbed you the wrong way? It's the one historical inaccuracy in the film. The only thing I know about the Atari 2,600 is the Pac-Man sound. Ranch, play the clip.

We'll get it to you. Love that sound. Yeah, that's the best sound ever. That's your alarm in the morning, right? Bang! Bang, bang, bang. Well, the worst ports of all time. But the best sound of all time.

It is very funny. It is really good. Yeah. You should get it. You should mod your limo to have it. You know, and it ends before the movie cuts off in 1988 for some reason. But the, they didn't want to show 9-11. They didn't want to show 9-11.

So you know what, let's give it plenty of times. And we don't think there's any chance 9-11 is coming up. Anyway, Michael Jackson, of course, worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack. Yeah. Originally it was going to be credited and ultimately ended up being uncredited because of, you know, the allegations that came about. And but there's, there's like, you know, Eugene, Nukkah has posted things of like him

in a helicopter approaching Neverland Ranch, you know. I just be like, give me, give me that story. Give me the story of Michael Jackson using some of the same melodies and harmonies that would become a stranger in Moscow for like a casino night zone level. I would have included a scene where. he does record the Simpsons and then be like, it was him. It wasn't an impersonator. It actually was him.

Yeah. I thought it was Leon Kompowski. You got to watch the Simpsons. I'm aware that there's like a big fat white guy. Yeah. Who plays a piano and is maybe Michael Jackson? Lisa, it's your birthday. Happy birthday, Lisa.

It's good. Okay. Do you know that ranch? No. It's real. We didn't make it up. I wish you better than your heart's desire and your first kiss from a boy. It's a Michael Jackson, Bart Simpson duet that they sing to Lisa as a birthday present,

and Lisa is so profoundly moved. So Lisa ages in Simpsons canonical? No. They have birthdays. They have birthdays. They have Christmas. You know cartoons. You know animation works.

Well, no, but I thought that the Simpsons specifically did not have birthdays. They do, but they don't say, like, I'm turning this age from this age. Oh, yeah. I'm going to this grade from this grade. Interesting. Interesting. Hey, buddy, this time of year always makes me rethink what's in my closet. Trying to keep fewer things, but better ones.

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I guess we should. Nick, what's going on? I heard that both the merchant and I got food poisoning from the same location last week. Yeah. So I heard that he didn't show up. I'm glad he's back in studio today. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. And, you know, honestly, we should catch up

with him right now. We should catch up with everyone in the video games we've been playing. The question is, what are you playing? What are you playing? It is me to resident even weird yet, and I'm back from the dead after a hard week struggling in the hospital. Oh my God. You were hospitalized. I broke records. Broke records. And what sense? I broke hospital records. Oh, my God.

Tough week for the merch. So you're calling yourself the merch now, huh? You got it, baby. I'm back with a brand new. bag. I didn't realize how cool you were. Yeah, merch is pretty cool. I'm cool enough. I, you know, I had a near-death experience.

Oh, God. It's tough to hear that you went through something so, harrowing. So harrowing, especially because you don't seem all that well anyway. You really don't. I made the mistake of following another to a restaurant. She got her food to go, but I stayed in, and I ate, I ate the food there, and I ate all of it. You ate all of it.

Do you know, what? I got fucked up by it. What kind of things are we ordering here? Are we like, you know, because I feel like certain foods. Noodle. Okay, noodle. Okay. I love noodle.

Noodle good. I'm a fan of noodle. Can't complain about noodle. Rant you like flat? Rant you like a noodle? I love a noodle. What? You got a favorite noodle?

Egg noodle. That's a wide boy. That's a wide boy. That's a wide boy. I guess there's different types of egg noodles. There's different types of egg noodles. Yeah, you can kind of cut them however you want. Wait, you can cut.

Yeah, you can cut. You don't have to like suck it all down. Like, you know, like one strand of spare. I thought that was not, I thought it was a... Well, some people are frown upon it, but I think in America it's fine. You got two noodles. You get noodles types. You got...

I love a noodle. I like a... Stew. It's good. Noodle and stew. Love it. Noodle and stew. Okay.

What kind of restaurant was this? This was a... and a kind of cuisine. I love. I love it, but it was Thai cuisine. It made me sick. Oh, that's fun. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I love it. I will not stop eating Thai food just because of one bad experience. Now, let me ask. They brought me a friend in the hospital. Did you order the food indoors and pay money for it? Or did you collect food? No, I'm not a stranger to the game. What does that mean?

Did you think the merchant was some kind of idiot? I saw her go in and pay money and I'm like, woof. I don't know what she's doing. Yeah. But did you know that you can give any food for free from behind a restaurant after it closes? Yeah, yeah. That's called eating out of the trash. No, I know.

I don't eat out of the trash. Okay. I don't bring a fork to the trash can and just. eat it like it's a big bowl. You grab a bad Grinch style and hunch it over your shoulder and sort of saunter back to your dwelling. But you know the Grinch? I'm aware of the Grinch.

I don't know of the Grinch. I don't even know if he's a real guy. And you know what? I assume he wasn't a real guy. But you know what? You're real. So who knows? I don't want him anywhere near me.

No genitalia. Okay. So that's not just the way he's portrayed. Yeah. He doesn't just have like a fupo. Zero genitalia on the Grinch. Because I don't know his species. Perhaps it's internal or something.

thing. Only emergency. Oh, you're saying it descends before he makes. It could be. Like a, like anus? Like an anus? We don't have time for this. We don't have time for this merchant. I just like, look. You came in a hot merchant and it's fine. I'm glad you're doing well, but we don't have time for this today. I saw God and now I'm

cool. You saw God, what he looked like? He's that his two white eyes and they look into you and they say no! And then you wake back up on the bed. That's tough. Wow. So it wasn't your time yet. I think so. Well, that's great.

I'm glad you didn't die. It sounds also like God may have been startled by your presence. Yeah. And rejected you from the kingdom of heaven. Like you caught God jacking off. Well, I hope I just keep catching him jacking off so I don't have to die. I hope you keep catching him. Yeah, all right.

I should probably ask a question that I'll be to ask, which is Maddo Badaka. What are you playing? Thank you so much, merch. The merch. The merch. I've been playing a surprising game. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And I hadn't really floated to any of you guys yet.

Okay. I'm playing the original Max Payne. Oh. The remedy game Max Payne. Wow. I'm playing this because I'm going on my friend's show, my friend Connor McCabe's show to talk about it. But I was like, you know what? I haven't played this remedy game.

I'm the franchise. you're the franchise. Let's get in there. Let me tell you something about Max Payne. It's fucking good as hell. It's fucking awesome. It's really, really fun. I'm playing it on my Thor and it's just a lot of fun. But it's, I didn't kind of know it was like this. I knew about the bullet time and just like that, just the relentless violence of the game. But it has, it has all the, like, they have all their tools available at this point, like, too. Like they're incorporating like Norse mythology in it. There's like weird cult stuff.

They sort of like always had this vibe. I didn't know that it was also like touching on some of the stuff that then they get into in like, you know, Alan Wake and in the control games and stuff. So I'm glad that it has that connective tissue. It's always been in their DNA. Yes. What year is the original from? Do you know?

I think it's 2001 or something. Yeah. It's a while ago. It looks, I mean, it looks crazy. Yeah, sure. Because it's, I mean, it's also, like, it's very funny that it's Sam Lake. Right. Like, uh...

His face. It's his face. And so he's just like, making, like, a really crazy face. It's like his face digitized on like a, by today's standards crude polygonal model. Like he's trying to do a De Niro impression. Right. And then they've mapped him onto a square. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it has, like, weird, trippy stuff in it, too. like there's like a, I'm in act two of it and there is like a section where you're reliving, walking into your home and finding your wife and I think child like dead. Oh. And there's like a, you're trying to, you're in the distance you hear a crying child and you're going down like a hallway and the hallway just goes on forever and ever and ever. Early 2000s loved realizing that you could

show somebody's dead family. Yes. Oh, yes. Because, like, God of Wars just a few years later. Yeah. And they're like, oh, you can just do that. Instead of just Mario, like, running around, what we could do is show, like, a guy's dead family. Yeah, we could, like, instead of him just running around. His motivation for this could, could, instead of, like, acquiring some scepter or freeing some damsel in distress, it could be grieving his dead family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then his, the way he'll get his revenge is by killing everybody in sight.

Right. But it's a really compelling game, and I think that it has these narrative breaks where then you'll have like a comic book where there'll be like multiple panels on the screen, and then it'll be, I'm blinking on the voice actor now, but it'll be, which is bad for the exercise that we're doing today, but it'll sort of narrate

the captions and stuff. and they're all like really well done and it's an extremely fun game so I'm playing that and then Would you say like first of all, are you playing it using any mods or anything You're just playing it? No mods. Just playing it.

Really to be able. And do you have or whatever the most current build is? And you would you say, you know, it's obviously a game from several generations ago but you say it's pretty playable in its current state. It seems like it. I think so. I like it's obviously like they've come such a long way

and they've really refined their gameplay. for what they do. And I think it's just as, I mean, it's like, it's just a lot of fun because it is so schlocky and crazy. And you're just like getting wet. Like, I've never once ran out of ammo because there's just like so much. Like in my end, like you're always just shooting like waves and waves of guys and picking up ammo.

And it's always telling me that my ammo is full, even though I'm going crazy on everybody. But it's, it's a lot of fun. I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm hoping to wrap it up pretty soon. Yeah, because I was just going to ask, because you're the franchise,

but you're also the finisher. You're planning and finishing this game. I'm going to finish this game, and then, who knows, I might get into it. Well, I would like to play Max Payne 2, and I know Max Payne 3 is not really the same thing, but people say it's good. But on another remedy tip,

I'm a big fan of video game art books, and I buy them pretty often. Not that. Okay, a little bit of Matloor. I'll get them. Like, I have ones for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. And they're like art books, but they're also like guides that then like we'll have like, you know, oh, like, you know, info about like the shrines and things like that. The only art books I own are Death Stranding and Last of Us Part 2.

Okay. I have a persona 5 art book that I love. It's gorgeous. Can I pitch something real quick? Yeah, I want you to finish your story. Matt Artbook DACA. That's pretty good. Okay.

It doesn't have to be an official nickname. I'm going to just tell you right now, I'm not going to, I'm not going to legally change my name to that. That's fair. But I do like it. Okay, great. So you have art books?

Matt. Yes, yes. Art book DACA, yes. It's like how you would say my last name if your tongue was falling out while you were speaking. But I also... It's like how TSA would say

your name. And that's it from now on. You understand. But I also have the, I have these three volume, Eldon Ring ones that then have like, art, but then they have like information about just like the weapons or the enemies or things like. They're like guides, really, but like I have that.

I've coveted one for a long time and I wanted it after. It's the art and making of control. I knew it. and it had been out of print for years. I finished the game late, obviously. Like, I got to the game like two years ago or something. And then was like, I got to find out if there was a book of this so I could look at it more.

And then I found that book. And then I was like, oh, like just seeing like little bits of it. It's a gorgeous book. It has like lots of like making of stuff that I would find particularly interesting. But it's been out of print for years. and every second hand copy costs $500. Oh, Jesus. And I was like, I'm not going to buy that.

I want it, but I'm not going to buy that. No. That's a little too rich for my blood for a book that I'll probably look at one time. Most books we only look at one time. And isn't that something? Wow. Not me with the Bible. Yeah, I'm looking at the thing pretty much every day.

Yeah. You know, I'm with the Paul Walter. is their schedule. I'm up at 3 a.m. The hitting the gym. Then I play 18 holes of golf. Then I say my prayers. Then I make breakfast for my kids.

Then I say some more prayers. Yeah. Most of the day I'm saying prayers. Most of the days I'm saying prayers. Yeah. It's, and I won't do them now because we'll be here the rest of the day.

Right. As of today, they, I saw a post because I, like, I had inquired, like, at one point, I felt like I, email them, like, are they ever going to reprint this?

And then it's from the company Future Press. And so they, in the last year or so, had put up, hey, which one of these should reprint? And Dark Souls 3 always gets the fucking vote. Like, or anything like that will get the vote. Control not happening. Today, I open Instagram for the first time this morning at around nine. Kind of late for me. Okay.

Not to brag. I never look at Instagram ever Kind of late for me to open it Yeah 9 a.m. Yeah, it's pretty late I always forget Instagram exists Yeah

Really? Yeah What do you go to? I go to the worst places Got it My first open of the day is X.com Oh great But if I may Most English users have left

So now it's just a Japanese social media That's translated by AI Yeah, that's why I'm always sending you guys like, hey, there's like Mother 3 Converse that are being announced. Holy shit. McDonald's has just announced the Gundam meal. That's because my entire social media feed is now just Japan. That is good stuff.

I open Instagram. I see a collab post from Remedy, Control the Game, and Future Press that for the 25th anniversary of Remedy, they're reprinting this book. And I go to the website LinkedIn Bio. And the website won't fucking low. Because everybody's going crazy for it. And I'm on the control subreddit. I'm like, I'm just like looking to see what people are saying.

And people are like, God damn, these scalpers are fucking ruining this. There's now the website's crashing. It's not working. I'm patient. Matt, please tell me this has a good ending. I'm working on this for two hours today. I love it. I love to hear it. Because I'm just like, look, I'm going to buy this.

fucking book. Great. Wow. I'm going to get this thing. Yeah. And I'm just like, hey, you know what? I'm going to refresh when it times out. I'm not going to refresh before that.

Okay. Because it's, you know, it's taking its time. For two hours, I get a little bit closer. I get a little bit, like, advancing the page, adding it to cart, adding in my payment information, my address information. At one point, it automatically had, shipped to a different address than my billing address

unchecked and when you unchecked that another little pinwheel starts for some reason and I'm like I have to just power through two hours go by I'm hidden checkout it's failing I'm just like hey you know what I was going to keep

doing this yeah and I deal with whatever happens later do it again do it again I type in something else instead. I like I put a different card or something. I was like I'm having a hard time with this for some reason. Do that. It goes through. I get the order confirmation to my email. I've successfully preordered the reprint of the art and making of control. Oh my God. And I'm very excited to have this book in my possession. I'm so excited for you. So I could look at it because I actually

do want to read like the making off stuff because that game is so interesting. Of course. And the art of it is so, I just love it. I think it's a masterpiece. And I can't wait to eventually have this in my hands. I love this, Matt. That's what I've been playing. I love it. I love it.

Heather, what are you playing? Let me tell you guys what has happened to me. I have played in the last two weeks an hour and a half total of Fortnite. By your standards, that's not very much. That is as if, because that's three games. Yeah. Because each game is about a half hour. Right?

I played three games of Fortnite. night. For me, it might as well not be installed on the system. What I have played, nonstop, I wake up in the morning, I dream about it at night, dream about it at night, dream in Tetris style, it's in my dreams, Pocopia. Wow. I have maxed out the first area at level 10. Now, as you may recall, it was hard for me to leave that area without maxing it out. But I did eventually, I was like, you know what, I should probably see the rest of this game. And once I'd opened up other areas, I just kept going forward. So I returned to the first area withered wasteland. It's at a 10. I am now maxing out the second area. What I've been told by social media is that once you roll

credits on the game, which I've now done, completed the story. The finisher. fucking made me cry. Wow. Made me cry. The ending of the game made me cry like I was watching a movie. Wow. Incredible ending. Incredible story, incredible concept, great game.

I'm now building out the resort town of Bleak Beach. Bleak Beach. I have never had, this game is, I think, I think, recency bias. I think it's in my top 25 games of all time. Wow. It has changed my relationship with the IP. Whoa. Like, I've always known the guys.

Yeah. Yeah, you know the guys. Like, I played the first one. I bounced off and didn't play for a while. I played the Game Boy advanced one, bounced off for a while. I played, you know, the one with Trubbish. Jordan Shield, yeah. Fucking played through the entire thing.

Finished the game with, I think, a near-all-truvubble. I was like, this is my guy. And finally, my favorite one, haven't played any of the Switch games. I think I bought one, played it for like an hour and was like, oh, no, didn't play any more of it. Haven't played any of the Archaeus. Arceus? Arceus. Archaeus.

Do play regularly, religiously play the card game. Right. Pocopia has made it so that I love. these guys so much. I care about them in the way that you care about pets or family members. Wow. Wow. I care about Pokemon.

I need them to be okay. Yeah. The story of the game is so tragic. They are all so stupid that they don't, they can't process what ditto has processed about what has happened. And I would love to talk spoilers here. So if you're playing through Pocopia and you haven't heard the story, Stop listening right now because it is emotionally effective,

but I'm going to talk to my friends about it. Yeah. So hold on to your hats and glasses. Giddy up because we're headed to spoiler country. Yehah, gitty up, y'h. The story of Bocopia is that the world started to end. Natural disasters, perhaps meteor showers, and all of the human beings took all of the Pokemon

and we're like, we can't bring them with us. We are going to build spaceships and get off the planet of Earth. We're getting off of Earth, but we can't bring all the Pokemon with. But we need to make sure they're safe. And as we know from the games, Pokemon can be stored in a computer. Yeah. So they created a computer vault and took all of the Pokemon and kept them in the computer deep underground.

Wow. To save the Pokemon. Knowing that someday they'd come back and they'd be able to bring the Pokemon back to life from the computer. That's going to make me cry. But the people never came back. No. This is canonically the ending of the Pokemon series. This is the story of Pokemon.

This is going to happen at the end of time in these games. Eventually the PC malfunctions and brings back a couple of guys. Tangela and Ditto. Tangela is like, hey, I don't know what's going on. where's my dude? And ditto misses his dude or her dude so much that becomes the dude, becomes the trainer. It's like, have you seen this guy? Right.

And the two of them are like, well, we'd better prepare the world for when the people come back from wherever they went. And it doesn't look like the way I remember it is all wrecked and shit. So let's build the town back up. Let's build the cities. And then the people will see it. And they'll come back. And so Ditto starts bringing the Pokemon back to life. And with their help, he starts building the cities and uncovering the story of what happened to the Pokemon.

Okay? And each time you finish a building, the fucking professor, Tangela, who's taken on the role of the professor is like, do you think this building's big enough that the people will see it and they'll come back? And every time you as Ditto have read enough of the story that you're like, they're not fucking coming. coming back, man. They're not coming back, but you can't tell. So all of the Pokemon are like, wow, I remember this. They used to play games and this.

It was like an arcade. Yeah. My person really liked arcades. I bet he comes back soon. It's the fucking, it's the dog that laid by the grave. Yeah. For generations. Wow.

Guys, do you want to know the ending of this game? Spoil me. Do you want to know what happens? You can tell me. Because I want to get there, but you can tell me. So what you learn is the people all got off of the planet except Team Rocket who died on Earth. Wow. Because they finally were like, oh, this is what we want.

All the Pokemon. No, they died trying to make their own rocket because they weren't welcome on the other rockets. You rebuild what you rebuild this power station that's all Team Rocket stuff, right? You rebuild it takes, it's the entire game. And when you finally build it, the sides of the building fall off. And it is a rocket. And it was four team rocket to leave and they never made it off. And their bunker is underneath the rocket and they died in their fucking bunker.

Wow. You have stuffed this rocket full of supplies because Team Rocket was tricking everybody. It was like Team Rocket was doing all these little missions and you were giving them all these supplies. which was helping everybody like they were trying to trick people into like oh bring up food and it'll help rebuild the building so we've stuffed the rocket full of shit. The last thing you do

is also we should bring a photo to remind us of what earth was before we leave. So you ditto, you the player, put a photo that you the player have taken of whatever. It's like

make sure it's important because we want to remember. So I take a photo up on the in the first area. It's a selfie of ditto giving a thumbs up in front of all the city that I've built. Yeah. Because I'm like, that's cool. I give it to the rocket. It takes off and goes to space.

The credits is this rocket traveling hundreds of light years forever, getting fucking rusty, getting destroyed until it finally arrives at a human colony like a thousand years later. And the colony opens and welcomes. the rocket and they open it and they get all the supplies and the photo and they give it to the fucking descendant of ditto's owner. I am just sobbing. Because like you don't know that's what's going to have. You're just like throwing shit in the rocket.

Yeah. But you ditto have saved the people. But also the person who was like the descendant of ditto's owner who has like ditto stuff. stuff in his room gets a photo which could have been of anything. And instead it was my photo of Ditto giving a thumbs up basically being like it's okay, we're okay. I love it.

That's wild. I cannot fucking believe this game. I was told after you roll credits, how do we end spoilers? Take your hats back off, goddammit. Now exiting spoiler country. You're safe to not be spoiled. I was told after you roll credits there's more of the game. By social media

people when I was like, holy shit, the credits of game made me cry. And they're like, keep going, keep going. There's more stuff. There's more story. So I'm continuing to play through the game. Breathtaking. That has gotten me now, I got to get in there. It fucking killed me. I will say, I think humanity made a grave mistake by keeping James and Jesse's fine asses off of that rocket. I would have fucking with me.

Yeah, we got to bleep that. We got to, we got to breathe that. It's too funny. Remember when James got Biggins? So that's what I've been playing and thinking about all the time last night. I literally had a dream where I dug out a cave under water and it started to flood. And I was using blocks to try and fix the hole in the water. Nick, what are you playing? All right. Now exiting spoiler country.

You're not going to be spoiled. There we go. Unless you want to hear about what I've been playing, which I wanted to get some time. And unfortunately, I didn't. I didn't get around to it. I'll hopefully have some time with it next week. But I picked up mouse PI for hire, but I was like,

I haven't played enough of this to really give my impressions. It is this gorgeous first person, rubber hose animation cup head style game. It looks like a step in, first person. People have seen this game. And also, and again, you know, I get, I get deeper into it.

But apparently it plays great, too. It's the Steam reviews are overwhelmingly positive. So I'm excited to get into it. But unfortunately, that's merely a promise for a future take at this point. But I did get some time to mess around with a game, an indie game that is a nonviolent fighting game from 2018 called Boredom.

It is by a solo dev named Cole Allen. You call... Wait, wait. Hold on it. Yeah. Wait. Did you clock what just happened? No. Nick, what have you done?

I was hoping you both. pick up on it. I definitely picked up on it. Okay, now I'm... So Cole Allen, who was arrested shirtless while trying to kill the president. You've been playing the game? No, unfortunately, it's delisted. I know, I got it. I put on my wish list.

And that helps. And you are going to get a knock on your door. You're going to be on A list. I'm on enough lists already. Slavis Mired 2, got an update. They thankfully Nerf the Silent Card Acrobatics, has been OPE since the first game. I mean, it's like one of those things where it's just like every silent build,

you pretty much are going to pick up acrobatics, which is draw three cards, discard one card. It's just way too powerful. So all they did is they made it uncommon, and that seems to, I'll hopefully have been enough of an adjustment. It's a fun card, but yeah,

not making sure that it's omnipresent, just gives a little bit more variety to play styles. I still can't figure out the regent, which is one of the new classes, a dude sits in a chair. if anyone has any regent strategies like like like LMK in the in the discord

I will I will lurk in there and read what you say because I was like can't figure this some bitch out he just plays a little bit different than everyone else I do love the other new class a necro binder very very fun Would you say jumping into Slay the Spire 2 would be crazy having not played much

of Spire 1? Not at all I mean Slade the Spire 2 is still an early access so its update was pretty substantial in terms of you know there's a lot of temporary art in there. There's a lot of placeholder art. There's some, the portions of the game that are just unfinished and it's, and it's really unbalanced right now. In a way that I think is, is compelling, but that's, that's part of the reason it's in early access, and so they can, they can get all that solved. So certainly, Slay the Spire is a much tighter, more polished

experience as you might expect. And I think Slay the Spire might also be on Game Pass. Okay. So if you just want to mess around with one of them, that's, I would just start there, but you could absolutely jump into Slay the Spire, too. No prior knowledge of the franchise is expected. But I thought it takes this time to talk about an article that a piece that I happened to stumble upon in the past week called the effect of CRTs on pixel art. And it's basically talking about how so much of what happens with pixel art is we see it on these really crisp modern monitors. And so you see things like here's a sprite from the article. of Peach from

from Super Mario RPG on an LCD or LED monitor versus on a CRT monitor. And you can just sort of see, we're used to seeing all the individual pixels and, but in terms of how these were intended to be observed

on their original displays that existed at the time they were being made contemporaneous with their development, it was meant to be a little bit more like, you know, the use of dithering and the positioning of individual pixels was taking into account the effect you'd have

from a low resolution CRT monitor, the inherent fuzziness of it, and so you would have a smoother thing of this. Like, I'll show this to you, the two of you right here. You can sort of see that Princess Peach on the left, you know, it's still not like a crisp, or certainly not a crisp image, but it's a little bit more,

it's a little bit more of like like an actual artistic representation of it versus like I mean the pixel art version is an artistic representation of it but it's not quite how it was meant to be presented Nick you are preaching to the Pope on this and it does kind of it did kind of make me think make me really covet a CRT monitor I mean here's another one with us with a CRT effect on Sonic the Hedgehog yeah and we can sort of see it there it's like it's like really clear that that it you know the waterfall right there like like specifically the waterfall you You can see the individual lines of it and some of the individual pixels. It's supposed to be transparent. It's supposed to have a different sort of effect, a different sort of feel, but that doesn't quite come across on a modern display. So the piece is really interesting. It got an update. And I think an aspect of it, because the CRT thing has been discussed a lot, but an aspect of it that is applicable specifically to PC playing, rather. And, you know, obviously, it's a much easier to retro game on PC.

In fact, it's a lot of people's a typical platform. But, you know, a game like Secret of Monkey Island, which I played as a kid, and you can play in modern form. I'll just read some of this. If exploring old authentic pixel art using a modern screen, you'll eventually come across something like this image. And it's image of Monkey Island that's squashed. And the reason is because there was a one-to-one, it's one-to-one conversion. version of old pixel art. I'm reading more from the article. Modern flat screens all have fixed resolutions and purely digital influences ensuring a fixed aspect with the height ratio and completely

square pixels. CRTs on the other hand can display a number of various resolutions. VGA, for example, includes the gaming standard 320 by 200 pixels and 256 colors and the business oriented 640 by 480 and 16 colors. These two resolutions have very different aspect ratios. A VGA monitor that still had to be able to display both of them, does approximating the aspect. respect ratio of 640 by 480 rather than that of 320 by 200. Hence, if you wanted the abundance of 320 by 200 games available to fill the entire height of your screen, you had to adjust it so the pixels weren't square, which is a weird thing to wrap your head around in a modern sense.

But yeah, a lot of this was, a lot of pixel art was designed for it's like, oh, these are ultimately not going to be displayed in its original form because we know that will look compressed and we are in fact crafting the art taking that into account. but then if you just view it on a modern display, that completely goes away. So anyway, it's just like, where ultimately land here is, we'll put a link to these articles in the show notes,

but I just wish there were CRTs that were available now that weren't like 30-year-old Sony monitors that cost $800 on eBay. You know what I mean? And how can we can't get a modern CRT because there's clearly demand and enthusiasm for it? Why? Why is no one manufacturing these?

Because also they're making Walkmans again. They're issuing music on tape. Yeah. Like there is a hunger for CRTs in the retro gaming community. And I think that there are also nostalgic applications. There's a huge VHS community, you know, that are divorced from the retro gaming community. It's different. I mean, sure, there's some probably Venn diagram overlap.

But why isn't there? It must be that manufacturing CRTs is progen. is prohibitively expensive. It's got to be that. Because it's crazy to me that there isn't that analog, for example, right, doesn't make a CRT, like a bespoke CRT. Or with all the tech shit that gets super funded on Kickstarter, how is that they're not been like a Kickstarter CRT monitor?

I know. I, my CRT is like at this point one of my most treasured possessions. And when I got it, I certainly loved it. I was like, holy shit, I got myself, finally got a PVM. of my own. And I know they look gorgeous. But as time goes on, it's like, I am reluctant to use it because I know that it will only have so many hours. Right. Right. Yeah. Because eventually it'll just burn through the tube. Well, especially if its previous use case was like in for video editing or in a professional television studio. It's like, oh, that thing was getting a lot of hours

burnt into it already. I'm really lucky that the hourage on my, because you can see the the outrage on the high-end PVMs is pretty low for the, for the device. But I'm also like, this is supposed to last me the rest of my entire fucking life. I just want to play Super R-type. Yeah. You know, when I have you guys over for when I make video game food on a future episode that we can't do because I haven't set up anything in my place, we're going to game on that CRT and you're going to be like, oh my God, it's so fucking beautiful.

Can Ranch come? Of course Ranch can come. Can we get Mary Kate and Ashley Licensed to Drive on PlayStation? Yeah, of course. Okay, great. I have it. I think I have a PlayStation with an optical drive emulator.

I can't remember. Wow. I have to set up everything. I can't remember. You have so much stuff. I have a lot of stuff. I have a gaming museum at this point. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I can't remember these days anything. I'm fucking dumb. I don't know what I was thinking. The brain's not working. I like, my wife yesterday three times. What day is it today? She was like kind of scared.

Do you think because this is a thing I read about and maybe it's just happening sooner than we think. I've noticed everyone that I know, again, we're all aging, but like feels just stupider in general. And I remember reading climate change, global warming will lead to a higher presence of carbon in the atmosphere, which means a lower presence of oxygen, which means just like a general sort of lowering of cognitive power, as you can see in low oxygen environments, you know, any time that's been artificially created on Earth.

So are we just getting dumber because there's more carbon in there? Well, you have that plus the demonstrated effects on cognitive thinking from social media and scrolls of every kind, like, Right. of including ninja? Yeah, Ninja Scrolls. Scroll the damned. These scrolls, damn it.

Naruto Scrolls. But you have the cognitive decline that is affected by the presence of the internet. And every time you catch COVID, you take a permanent hit to your IQ that is forever. Oh my God, it's a permanent debuff. And you know what? I didn't need that. I didn't need that. I need every point I got.

So, like, I think, you know, that's all having a cumulative effect on our ability to think. It sucks. Why did I go get COVID 30 times? I've only had it twice. Oh, man, that's rough. Yeah, it is tough stuff. Yeah. I thought I only had to worry about those vaccines I got as a kid.

Not to mention the ones I got as an adult. Don't get me started. My mom was shoving Tylenol into her belly button. directly into my blood your little mouth came out like the fucking xenomorph you're probably listening right now and you're probably thinking

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But here we are. Thanks. Thanks a lot. You know who. And if you're traveling abroad, you can access to streaming services back home. And we all get a little homesick when we're out of the country.

Switching your virtual location with NordVPN can also save you money. That's what I was talking about earlier by purchasing flights and hotels from other countries at a cheaper price. I'm all about saving that money. You understand? Protecting the bag, as it's known.

NordVPN can also act as an invisibility cloak for your IP address, protecting your privacy online and leaving no digital footprint, especially while you're traveling and use public Wi-Fi. For me, let me just tell you, using public Wi-Fi, the riskiest thing I do. I'm logging on to whatever I can do. So it's good that I have a VPN to help save my behind. NordVPN protects you wherever you are in the world, anywhere. It could be Los Angeles, California, could be Tokyo, Japan. Those are only two places as far as I'm concerned, but it could be anywhere else. It's super fast, no bug. while streaming and it stops your ISP bandwidth throttling.

I hate that throttling. And you can use one account on up to 10 devices. Now that's a value. Premium cybersecurity for the price of a cup of coffee per month. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash get played. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description.

Go save yourself some money. If you've ever spent way too many hours obsessing over game mechanics, storylines, or the perfect build, Reddit is full of people just as deep in the weeds as you are. The breakdowns, the wild theories, the speed run tech, it's endless. New trailer, new expansion, new season, I watch it once, then immediately open Reddit to see what the people really think. Reddit is where gamers go first when something happens, before the patch notes, before the headlines, before the streaming breakdowns. With more than 47 million members on R-slash gaming, Reddit is the front page. For gaming news, updates, rumors, and leaks, all discussed in real time by people who actually play.

Whether you're stuck on a boss, perfecting a loadout, or just want to geek out with people who get it, Reddit has a community for you. There are subs for every game, genre and niche, MMOs, shooters, RPGs, speed runs, modding, lore, everything. It's real players, sharing real tips, fixes, and discoveries. When I need answers or inspiration, Reddit's the ultimate player hub where every gamer finds their people. My go-to subreddit. I'm in this subreddit a lot. Sometimes I'm not even playing the game. I'm a subscriber to R slash Eldon Rings.

I love seeing what people are up to with that thing. I love it. I love watching people take down bosses. I'm following all sorts of gaming subredits for individual games, but also things like R slash gaming, R slash games, all sorts of stuff like that. And you know, there's a subreddit for Get Play too, and everybody in there is cool and nice.

Reddit is where all the real gamers are. Download the Reddit app and dive into R slash Elden Ring or R slash Get Played or anything. For the latest gaming updates, download the Reddit app today. Guys, should we talk about our topic? We're talking about our favorite video game performances, and I think maybe expanding its scope slightly beyond VEO, because we know that in a modern sense,

a lot of times this involves performance capture as well. Correct. But even if it doesn't, I mean, like, it's obviously such, it has such a huge impact on how a game is received, and, you know, it can elevate the writing. I mean, I always feel like there's kind of like a ceiling on something or rather the, maybe the floor is, maybe there's a better way I put it. The floor is established by the quality of writing. The ceiling is established by the quality of the performance.

I like it. And I definitely think that's the case with some of the ones I think about. But I don't know. Where do you all stand in this? Because it's a place where I remember video games back in the day, there were a lot of non-actors or a lot of Amateurs, you know, who are doing voices. And there were also a lot of people who, like, it felt like, like, oh, we got to go anime big. Because this is like, this is basically a cartoon.

So we got to really go for it in this performance versus you'll see these more nuanced, more human, more restrained performances in modern games. Well, I remember being a kid and, you know, a lot of the games that I played were, didn't have Vio, like, Pokemon and stuff like that. Or like Tony Hawk or Crash Bandicoot. Like, you have some noises, but like, nothing really. Yeah. You didn't get full, I mean like, you didn't get full,

like guys eating shit, full voiceover in a Final Fantasy for instance until Final Fantasy 10 on the PlayStation 2. Which I think I texted about but haven't spoken on the show. I've been playing an undubbed hack of the Final Fantasy

10 ROM and it is so fucking creamy and good. Yeah. Like it is amazing how much the vocal performance of Titus in that game affected my ability to enjoy the game. Yeah.

And now that I'm hearing the original VO and it matches sort of like the physicality of the character because it's some Japanese mannerisms. Right. It fucking rules. So Heather can say creamy and good and it's everyone's fine, but I say creamy and good. I get thrown out a Best Buy.

I'm going to tell you something right now. Yeah. I didn't care for it. I just didn't say anything. What would it? Buttery? It's a buttery performance. It's buttery. Maybe cummy? Cummy, like yogurt.

Yeah. Like hot yogurt on a jammed in our toothpaste tube and shot back out. The way we all love to eat yogurt. But I remember, I remember because I would play a lot of, I'd play a lot of movie time games though too. And so sometimes they would have the cast of the movie come do the video game. Wow. Right? Like not every instance they'd have like a sound alike a lot of the time.

But I remember very specifically that Toby McGuire and the cast. of the Spider-Man movies did the voices for the Spider-Man games that I loved when I was a kid. And he's doing like full-on like Spider-Man stuff. But the novelty of him doing it has worn off. And he and everybody else in those games did a bad job. That's the thing with some of these cats. I mean, like, and that's kind of the opposite problem is they're not like acting towards the, with an understanding of the medium or perhaps also they're not being directed adequately,

perhaps also they're just not, they don't have enough time in the booth and they're doing one, one or two takes of everything. Yeah. But a lot of those performances by celebrities, particularly in that day of gaming, that era of gaming, were pretty listless. I worked on some movie tie-in games myself. One I can talk to talk about is Pirates of the Caribbean, the Legend of Jack Sparrow, which they came to the development team where basically you have two options.

you can have the entire cast minus Johnny Depp or you can have Johnny Depp and no one else just because of how much they cost. Yeah. And the studio opted for Johnny Depp and no one else. So we had Johnny Depp doing the actual voice of Jack Sparrow and everyone else was done by a professional voiceover artist who was doing an impression of Kira Knightley or whatever the fuck.

Yeah. All those performances were just a little bit more locked in than Johnny Depp Streets with a bottle of red wine in his hand. Interesting. I mean, I can't get into it. That's insane. Yeah. Also, all of our lives are so crazy.

It really is. Yeah. That is wild, though. But obviously, over the years, since then, I think people have caught up to video games being a storytelling medium. And, like, you know, you get people like Keanu Reeves or like Norman Readers or something. I'm Sam. I'm Sam. They know what they're doing.

doing instead of it just being like a thing that they're doing uh you know to and from lunch to to be fair when norman ridis talks about the game he does not seem like he knew what he was doing that is that is correct but it's but it's engaged and it's fully committed with the artistry of it and is understands like this is this is uh hideo kujima's vision i'm going to do my best to deliver now there's a whale above you is the quote right that he has in the interview where he's like Oh. Yeah. Now cry.

Speaking of celebrity performances, my first pick is a celebrity who, in a recent C bias a hoi. Because I think one of the things we're going to be doing here is talking about some of our favorite performances, right? Yeah. But my favorite game of last year, Dispatch. Okay. Had a starring role by Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame, Jesse from Bringing Brad. And he is a very different Aaron Paul than you get in Breaking Bad. And it is just so locked in.

and it is the emotional core of the game. It's the main character, him playing Robert Robertson, who was carrying on the, you know, this sort of legacy kind of phantom style, the phantom style of just like this, this super, the super bech, that this mecca that is passed down from generation to generation and with it the responsibility of being a superhero.

But he has a team of misfits, a suicide squad, if you will, that he is leading. Here's a clip of him addressing this team. When I look around this room, what I see is... Did you not plan this ahead of time? Potential. Both are in the end. Unfortunately for you, it's a curse.

Because there isn't a thing in the universe that goes more wasted than potential. And despite how common it is, no one seems to forget. It's what they whisper when you leave the room. Oh, so-and-so had so much potential. it follows you forever. I'm here to help you lift the curse of potential by getting you to fucking do something with it. He's awesome.

He's so good. He's so lucked in it. And this is like a dramatic sort of monologue he gives, but he's funny in the game too. Like it's a big range of emotions that are projected. So I don't know, it just sort of show. But for me, it's just kind of like, again, it's such a different character than Jesse in Breaking Bad.

I know he has that kind of range, but I wasn't expecting this specific performance for him. I've often said that Hollywood needs to just figure it the fuck out with him. Because I think he's so good in everything. I would like to just see him in more stuff. He's awesome. It's like they gave him one shot with like the need for speed movie. Yeah.

That didn't work. Not his fault. But it's just like, I don't know. He's good. He's great. I want to behind the curtains a little bit on this, which is that we had to take a break. Yeah. Because our dinner arrived early.

So you queued up the clip and then we watched the clip after we ate. And I forgot it was Aaron Paul because the performance is so fucking smooth. It's really great. I was like, oh, this is great. It was great. And that wasn't until the very end of the clip that I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. That's who this is.

I mean, that a game looks like this. It looks so good. It's just such a good art design. Yeah. Look, the performance physically as well as vocally. but also, yeah, the art direction of this game is pristine. It's my favorite game and my favorite looking game of last year. Anyway, as someone else go.

I can go. We can queue up this one. This one is just like, this one I feel like paves the way for video game performances in general. And it's one of my absolute favorites. And of course, it has to be David Hader as Solid Snake. Let's go. Life isn't just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA.

Through speech, music, literature, and movies, what we've seen, heard, felt, anger, joy, and sorrow. These are the things I will pass on. That's what I live for. He's fucking awesome. He's great. He's so great. This is the end of Metal Gear Solid, too. And yeah, we could just like to fade it out there.

But it's like he's, that's such a, I mean, we like doing the voice. That's a good mark of a performance, I think, is if we like doing it, it's just an all-timer. I think that across the board, the performances in the last 27 years of Kojima games have been astonishing in part because they take copy that is so, almost esoteric. It's like this like conceptual words instead of like the way that a person might talk to another person. It's a combination of opera and a PowerPoint presentation. Yeah.

And and they deliver it in a way that makes it sound like human like like human choices. And what I mean by that is it's a theatrical script presented in human dynamics. It fucking rules. And that that script is it's hard to pull off any. he killed it. Well, of course, and, you know, Snatcher is as part of it, but Metal Gear Solid, which predated it, but a game that was more of a cult hit, whereas Metal Gear Solid was the original of the solid part of the franchise was a mega hit, was a huge critical and commercial success and just had really committed performances throughout. And yeah, that's,

I think part of his legacy is establishing that sort of cinematic quality or at least making that cinematic sort of quality a little bit more pervasive. Yep. In games. One of the, one of the, oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just like an interesting guy.

Like, like, he's an interesting guy. He's an interesting dude. His career is fascinating. He wrote like the first two X-Men movies, right? And then I think did a pass on the Watchman movie also. I'm realizing we pivoted from Kojima to David Hader. Oh, no, yeah. I'm talking about David Hader.

David Hater is an interesting guy. He's a fascinating guy. But also, Cojima, pretty interesting himself. Very interesting guy. They're both interesting guys. And maybe that's why it's such a good partnership. Yeah. You know, a game that I've been recently playing undubbed is Shenmoo.

Oh, really? And that's another game that really suffered from the redubbing. Right. Like the American version, you know, the character's like, do you know what happened on that day? Yeah. And it's like in the original Japanese, it's like a prophetic performance. It's so good. Wow.

I don't remember why I was going to tie that into something we were talking about, but I got nothing. No. Hey, that's just how life is. Yeah. Yeah. The theatrics of early video games, maybe? Perhaps. Look, my first pick here is going to be really vanilla.

It's on the nose, but the performances are so extraordinary. You can't take that? Yeah, vanilla is a flavor. It doesn't mean plain. But I'm sorry, please continue. I got your meaning. Some exotic bean. It is an exotic meat.

And you know what? I love vanilla. Yeah, I love vanilla too. Yeah, me too. And that is the cast of The Last of Us. And while I couldn't find a clip that I enjoyed featuring Laura Bailey, I think her performance as Abby is astonishing. It's so good.

I just wanted to like sound bitey something for a podcast. So what I have here is from the first video game. It's Joel Miller and Ashley Johnson as Joel and Ellie. And I think at this point, you know, we've seen this. them on HBO, reinterpreted with other actors, and it's been a while maybe since we've reconnected with the original performances. These performances, the reason the game works is because of these two people. Because otherwise, it's just a stealthy zombie game.

But the story carries you through and the story is carried by these performances. So this is Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us, Part One. Is this really all they had to worry about? Boys, movies. Deciding which shirt goes with which skirt. It's bizarre. Get up. We're leaving. And if I say no...

Do you even realize what your life means? Huh? Running off like that, putting yourself at risk? It's pretty goddamn stupid. Well, I guess we're both disappointed with each other then. What do you want from me? Admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time. Tommy knows this area. Oh, fuck!

Well, I'm sorry. I trust him better than I trust myself. Stop with the bullshit. What are you so afraid of? That I'm going to end up like Sam? I can't get infected. I can take care of myself. How many close calls have we had? Well, we seem to be doing all right so far.

And now you'll be doing even better with Tommy. Not her, you know. What? Oh. Maria told me about Sarah. Ellie? You are treading on some mighty thin eyes here. and we can bring it out there

Yeah, so fucking good So fucking good Last of Us part one And I think we're divided on where we are in the franchise I know Heather Last of Us part two is in your all timer list I still prefer Last of Us part one Just because I think it's such a like a perfectly constructed package But in both entries

The performances are top notch Yeah, they're incredible And I I did get to see The Last of Us live where these actors performed these roles on stage and Gustavo played the music live. Wow. And it was like a single night in Santa Monica.

It was the strangest weird, like it was an event that had no precedent. Like you don't go to see actors redo scenes from games. But they did it like a play. There were like a few pieces of furniture on stage and they walked through the entire story with Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. and on stage.

And it was so moving. Wow. That's rad. And very cool. Yeah, it sounds like an awesome experience. While we're in Troy territory, I got another Troy clip I want to play. Let's do it. Back to back.

Because I think, I mean, he's sort of the Andy circus of this medium kind of where he's just like good at it and he just does a great job. He's in a lot of these. A lot of range. A lot of range. And I think his performance as Higgs in Death Strand. and Death Stranding 2 is so fucking good. And this is him in Death Stranding 2,

his sort of intro scene in Death Stranding 2, and I think it's fucking awesome. Hey, brother. Did you miss me? Yeah, I figured you'd pay this place a visit. Seeing us, I've been distributing the fruits of this fine factory all over the continent. Some guns and violence, the whole damn world could be yours. Same as it ever was.

Oh Looks like you decided To trade in that rope For a stick this go-round Well I suppose even a porter Has to pull the trigger from time to time Oh, what about you? Hey buddy

Are you just another Soulless little husk? Let go of me And what's so good About the performance is that I mean, obviously, this then falls into the motion capture. They motion captured the actors for The Last of Us also. Yeah.

But their likenesses are in these Death Stranding games. And he looks fucking insane. He looks so crazy. He's doing so much. But it's fucking awesome. And like, if it was a movie, you'd be like, this rocks. This is such a great. I mean, this is, he should be in movie.

He's fucking good. Yeah. He's really awesome. Yeah, he's really good. But a big part of is also the art direction of the sequence. I mean, and the game in general. But it's just like you hear that. And I'm sure a good chunk of our listenership who has not played Death Trending 2 is hearing that.

And like, okay, I'm kind of hearing like some sort of sci-fi drama. Some terms I don't quite clock, but I can follow it from context clues. But what you're looking at is fucking bananas. He's wearing like a mex show. suit with like internal organs like mechanical organs it looks like that like are semi transparent yeah and he has a guitar that's a gun well and he's got face paint that makes him look like sting from wrestling yes and just a tableau you know he's got these guards that are with him yeah these automaton and then also one of the lines is delivered to a sentient doll yeah and the doll man

does not like it. Does not like it. And also animates it a different frame rate than everything else that's on screen. It's such a visual feast. This is a for sure, recency bias one as well. But like,

I just, he's, he's good. He's fucking good as hell. He's astonishing in it. And the lack of, like, awards that Stranding 2 received.

Yeah. Feels like an enormous oversight by the industry for both a game of extreme passion and extreme performances. It's really strange. I wonder because, you know, when it released, everyone was like, is this a game of the year? And then some time passed. And is it one of those things where it's like, you know, the Oscar movie that comes out in March and then everyone's forgotten about it by the time award season comes around? I don't know.

I remember when they did the first trailer for it, they're like, and it comes out in three months. And then we were all like, wait, what the fuck? That's crazy. Which also was because Grand Theft Auto was supposed to release in November. That's right. So that's like clearly a fall game that had to move. release dates in order to accommodate a game that never came out. Unbelievable.

And might still not. You know, the one of the one game, the sole game that's on all of our lists for favorite game of all time, the one bit of overlap in all three Venn diagrams, I guess it's one Venn diagram with three circles. In all three circles on one Venn diagram. Yeah. On three different Venn diagrams, none of the circles are touching. Yeah, forget that.

Forget I said that. We're on one Venn diagram. We each have our own circles. and we have all the games that are favorite games of all time, and there's some overlap, but the one that overlaps with all three of us is Disco Elysium. And I, pick your favorites.

To me, Lenval Brown and Disco Elysium is my favorite video game performance of all time. He plays the narrator, and his voice is so present and so dominant. And he also basically has to embody however many different, you know, like thoughts there are. It's something like, We think of all the emotions that you can use, all the affectations you can use, you know, your half-lights. Your volition.

Yeah. Your shivers. It's just so, it's just such a great performance. I pulled one clip of him with this is one, something for the thought cabinet. This is the wasteland of reality, which is when if you take one of the paths where Harry opts to be, the protagonist opts to be sober, and you hit this. And this is something that like, the writing is part of its point in to, of course, this game has incredible writing, but I just think this delivery is so, so great. Let's listen to this.

Wasteland of reality. Congrats, you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol. So you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping. sleeping like a normal person.

Full recovery will take years, though. It'll be depressing and it'll be boring. Don't expect any further rewards or hand claps. This is how normal people are all the time. Devastatingly true. Absolutely wretched. No fucking bonuses. Maybe I sleep better.

But it is so boring and miserable. What a fucking. game. God, what a piece of art. Well, it's also a thing of, you know, because Harry is such a functional addict, if you take this, if you end up like completing this thought, you end up with three debuffs, one small buff, and then you also lose the positive effects you get from alcohol in the game. So it's like, it's a kind of thing of like, you're kind of punished as a player for getting sober in the same way that when you get sober in reality, it's, It's, for some people, it's life altering in a very positive way.

And for a lot of people, I get that's the case. But for other people, they're just like, they just miss getting drunk. Fuck, it sucks. But then you also get like, I feel like you then hear people like, you know, are then excluded from social gatherings and things like that because there's just not something for them to do there or whatever. That is the only bonus. Oh, so you like that part.

Yeah, I like that part. Heather, what's your next one? What do Ewan McGregor, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Martin Freeman, Chris Pratt, and Chris O'Donnell all have in common? They are all officially voiced in Japan by one man. Wow. And that man, the official voiceover actor for every one of those actors, think what you get when you blend Tom Cruise, when you blend Keanu Reeves, when you blend Ewan McGregor. Who is that voice? That's Toshiyuki Morikawa,

aka the voice of Sephiroth. Which also means, if you watch Sonic 3 in Japan, Shadow is the voice of Sephora. Jesus. Wow. Can you imagine how fucking rad that is? That's intense.

That's awesome. I play these games subtitled, the Final Fantasy remakes. And also, when I watch things like Advent children, I'm watching it with the original voice acting by Toshuki Morikawa. Let's give a listen to his moments with Cloud at the end of Final Fantasy 7 remake. These are spoilers, maybe, but only if you understand Japanese.

And only if you understand the larger context of the game. I promise I won't make you suffer through too much of a foreign language, subtitled in your ears, but just enough that you can get that gravel, that depth, the deep canyon of sorrow behind every word that is Sephiroth. Sautkio, so-for-sak-go-carus there there's not there's not there. Wow. The man who killed Mario.

So, fucking delicious. So fucking delicious. Yeah. Like a cup of coffee. It is like you're hanging on every word kind of where you're kind of just like, he's obviously bad. I got to hear what he has to say.

Yeah. I love that you included a Japanese language. clip, I do play a lot of games that were, you know, intended to be in Japanese originally, in Japanese language with the subtitles, including the Final Fantasy VII remake and what I played of rebirth. It's a great performance. It's an incredible performance. It's really good.

I just, just in hearing that performance, hearing those reads, and then also hearing the range of this actor, how many different English-speaking actors. Yeah. he's able to embody, while speaking Japanese, I feel like the fucking whale here. People are amazing. People are amazing. People are amazing.

It is also kind of all those, well, a lot of those movie stars you mentioned are pretty good. But the fact that all it takes is one guy is pretty damning. Pretty good. His voice as Sephiroth is the voice of somebody daring you to fuck him while also knowing he's going to shoot you in the head when you do. It's incredible. And I don't know if you guys have seen that. I sent the lemon sour ad to the thread.

I don't know if you caught it, Nick, because sometimes you miss my texts. Safferoth is currently the spokesperson for lemon highball sours in Japan. And a commercial is him drinking it. Him C.G'd voiced by this actor drinking a lemon sour. And it's so sexy. I haven't had a highball back in the U.S., but I crushed so many highballs in Japan, because it's just like, it's such like, it's kind of the default cocktail there, and it'll be canned very often. I drink a fucking highball in the Shin-Konson.

You can do that. Yeah, we did it. And we did. And you can do it, and we did. You also, you could take coffee to your room. You could take coffee to your room. I got one more here. And this one, I mean, I just think it's such a special.

performance in an incredible video game. And it's the actor Roger Clark as Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2. And like there's so many juicy moments in this in this game for him to do in particular. But like this one that I picked here is like what the, to me this is the clip they would play at the Oscars. It's so good.

And here we go. What's wrong? Hmm. I'm mugged. I'm dying, sister. Okay. Yeah, I got TB. I got it.

Beating the man. To death. For a few bucks. I've lived a bad life, sister. We've all lived bad lives, Mr. Morgan. This is a nun. But I know you. You don't know me.

Forgive me, but that's the problem. You don't know you. What you mean? I don't know, but... Whenever we happen to meet, you're always helping people and smiling. I had a son. He passed away. I had a girl who loved me.

I threw that away. My mama died when I was a kid. And my daddy... I watched him die. I weren't soon enough. As cool as being a cowboy seems, it seems fucking miserable. No, I wouldn't want to be a fucking cowboy.

It's not for the faint of heart. I couldn't do it. It's also strange to me, when we talk about the Wild West, it was a period of like 15 total years. Yeah, right. Like, it's like from here to 2010 was like the era of the Wild West.

Yeah. And these guys have an iconography that has lasted for a hundred years. There are Vikings. Like, it's like, it's crazy. Yeah. Cowboys are cool Cowboys. Here's the thing

But I don't want to be no cowboy. I don't want to be no cowboy. I don't want to be a cowboy. Cowboys are cool though. The aesthetic is good. Yeah. Like the hat? Right. That's kind of it.

Politics probably not good. Probably not good. Probably not good. Yeah. We can infer that these 19th century gun owners perhaps did not have the most progressive agenda. If you ate beans outside with your friends in the 1900.

1800s? 1800s. 1800s. You might have bad politics now. Or was it 1900s? I don't know. I feel like it was like turned like they were starting to like have cars. Well in the first one they were starting.

This one might have been 1800s. You're correct. Because in the second one it was like closer to like 1910. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. It's too current for you to be doing this. All right. My actual final clip is Devorah Wilde and Balders Gate 3.

I'm not going to play it as good as good as this performance is. Devorah Wilde plays Leiselle. And a lot of people have rightly isolated, you know, Neil Lubin's performance as a Sterian or Jennifer English's performance as Shadowheart. The great performances top to bottom. Everyone is good. But for me, Leiselle deserves some praise as well. And it has gotten a lot.

But I just really love that performance. And that's my favorite party member in the game. And I also was looking for a clip of Jennifer Hale as Femschep. a female shepherd, the player character, and Mass Effect, but I couldn't find a clip that just, like, really embodied that performance. I'm going with Tim Curry

and Command and Conquer Red Alert 2. Ranch, play the clip. I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism. Space. That is the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen. What you could always tell about any Tim Curry performance

is that no matter what he's having a fucking blast. He's awesome. He added an A before B sup pace. Unbelievable. His physicality too of just like him rolling his eyes up. Yeah, he's like I can't even believe I'm saying this.

God bless him. Wow. Yeah, one of the all-time greats. For my final pick, I would like to single out actress Ellen McLean who plays the voice of Glados in Portal and Portal 2 as well as

in the voice of the AI in Pacific Rim she also does Gladys in commercials apparently for Progressive or something Wow But none of these jokes would work without her fucking stone cold Ice Queen performance as Gladys

So let's listen to just a little bit of a highlight from Portal 1. Swaddle over to the elevator and we'll continue the testing. Well done. Here come the test results. You are a horrible person. That's what it says. A horrible person.

We weren't even testing for that. Let that horrible person thing discourage you. It's just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a door. Oh man It's it's nonstop bangers in that

Yeah And her performance like although there is Slight alteration added to her voice Like that's her those are her inflections Yeah And it fucking rules And it's a classic that became a meme Like how many voice actresses become a meme

Not many Yeah she became a meme Also, she was born in like 1952. She's an older woman. God bless. That's nice. That is nice. We love our silver queens.

Yeah. Let's do a segment, shall we? Segment. It's time for game fuel. Wow. We've got some game-related grub. And this week we have the Jolly Bee Final Fantasy 14 meal. Let me go ahead and read this copy.

Jollybee X, Final Fantasy 14. The X is unvoiced, but what am I supposed to do? What are you supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? Your hands are tied. You got to say that it's there. It's an audio medium. The X is there.

Jollybee Final Fantasy 14 meal. Featuring deliciously themed meals, exclusive merch and for the first time in North America, an in-game eat chicken emote. That right, it comes with a QR code that has an eat chicken emote you can use in the MMO. Level up. Jollybee and Final Fantasy 14 online are teaming up for a limited time collaboration and joyful celebration of food, adventure, and community.

So we got the Final Fantasy 14 six-piece bucket bundle. Gather your party and enjoy a six-piece bucket of our juicy, crispy chicken joy, and three pineapple quenchers served in a limited time FinalViz 14 themed bucket and includes a collectible sticker sheet to commemorate your feast. They do include due to high packaging supply, due to high demand, packaging supplies may be impacted. And Matt, I was very worried. We were really worried, and I was sort of half-joking, but kind of also serious, saying that we should include a note not to forget any of the fucking stuff. but we didn't have to do that because our prayers were answered and they did give us all of the stuff, which is great. I was worried that they, less that they'd forget it

and more that they would have run out. But we thankfully got it. Now, of course, this is not going to be something that's saved. I'm not going to save a fucking greasy bucket of chicken for the rest of my life. Buckethead? Yeah. Who my fucking guitarist bucket head?

Guns and Roses slash replacement buckethead? Can I ask some questions about the last action? Hero soundtrack Buckethead? If your question is who's buckethead, he's a guitarist. No, I know who Buckethead is. Who, what? So this is my first Jollybee experience. Yeah.

Oh my God. I've never had it too. We've got. Ranchia, Jollybee? Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. We've got chicken, we've got lemonade or pineapple laid. What is this gravy?

That looks like it could be gravy. So there's just like a dunking gravy? Yeah, you want to dunk so you want to dunk your chicken and gravy. You have that option. That's incredible. You don't have to. That's incredible. Yes, it is, they are pineapple quencher specifically.

Pineapple. And they are all in Final Fantasy themed plastic cups. Now, they have muggles on them. The way you brandished that cup was alarming. I'm doing it fine. I'm not spilling anything. Yet. We've got some muggles with some, um, some, um, some, um,

peach mango pies. That's cute. We got a, is really cute. We got a muggle with a chicken drumstick, a muggle with a bucket. and this is my favorite, the one that's on the bucket of chicken itself, the Jollybee writing a Chocobo. Which is also a sticker, and I think that since it's your favorite, Nick, you should get this sticker. You should have that one.

Oh, wow. I think we should cut up the sticker page and distribute stickers equally amongst us, but I do think since you've called it out twice now as being your favorite guy, you need the JollyB on a Jockey Bo. Jolly B on a Chokeabo. Jollybee on a Chokeabo. Jolly be on a chokobo. Just fucking words. Jolly be on a chokobo.

Jolly be on a chokabobo. So how do we do this? We're professional voice actors. We can nail that in the first take. Yeah, well, yeah, good luck with me. We're just going to taste this, huh? I mean, like, also, you don't have to. I'm just, we just got the stuff, is what I'm saying.

Okay, so we got spicy. We got half spicy, and I'm going to enjoy the spicy because I'm a bit of a heat seeker myself. But we've also got half non-spicy. So if you want a mild, the spicy ones have a little. spicy flags. How fun is that? I love this. I want to say... Ranch, you want a piece of chicken? I'm going to walk this over to you. I want to say to our listeners, you know, both the Resident Evil Merchant and I both got food poisoning last week, and I don't know about him, but I've been subsiding on a diet of crackers,

jello, and then I graduated to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That's all I've eaten for a week. I will have a bite of this chicken. There is a chance that it is going to set me back a month. Okay. I took one sip of a pineapple. What is it called a pineapple refresher? Pineapple quencher. Pineapple quencher?

It's heavenly. It is so good. Oh, that's excellent. Let me have a little swig myself. Oh, that's great. Wow. I also don't have sugar, and I'm sure this is full of sugar. It is delicious.

I rarely have a full sugar beverage these days myself. Oh, my God. Let me go ahead and take a sip. Holy shit. That's good. That's really fucking good. I was worried is going to be overpoweringly sweet, but instead what I'm getting is fruity refreshment.

Yeah. It's great. This is like drinking a high potion. It's like drinking a goddamn high potion. Feel rejuvenated. Oh my God, that's so good. That's fucking great. It could even be a...

Guys, is this the best fast food drink I've ever had? It's delicious. It's really good. It's incredible. It's doing an amazing trick of tasting like it's not bad for you. Yeah. Ranch, you said you didn't want one, but you can't have a sip-ins-in-boy. I'm also trying not to drink sugar.

Oh, that's smart. Okay, I'm going to grab a piece of spicy here. Oh, my God. There we go. That juice is so good. And now I, wait, how do I know? The flag is so fun. Anything left would be non-spicy.

Yeah, the spicy ones have a little spicy flag. Guys, I'm not going to do this. All right? You don't have to. You don't have to. But the bucket's good, right? The bucket is good. Bucket's good. It smells delicious.

We did this to get the bucket. I'll tell you, this, this, this, uh, this jolly bee, uh, on the chocobo. I may have my next tattoo. What? It's fucking sick. I love the jolly bee. What a good mascot. Oh my God.

Oh, their fried chicken is so good. Fuck. It's fucking awesome. I'm so happy. Oh, no. Oh, no. It's really good. It's really good.

Can I look? Can you give me a, a, uh, look at it? Oh, fuck. God, that looks good. The spicy is really, really good. Is it on a stick? This is a drumstick. Oh, no, no, no, no.

That'd be a bizarre choice. Like, I thought it was like an art, like, because sometimes you'll get vegan fried chicken. Oh, right, right, right. And it'll be on a stick. That crunch is incredible. Yeah, great crunch. I can hear that crunch.

I'm tempted to have a little gravy. Have a little gravy. I'll have a little... Oh, my God, please be careful. I'm not going to spill the gravy on the carpet. Relax. I did I'll spill maybe a little bit

but here we go we're recording with a guest later and this room is going to just smell like shit oh my god there was a good chance it wasn't going to smell too good anyway wow

I love this I don't know what we're really doing here I don't know what to comment on we're eating fried chicken and we like it we like it the tie in is I guess let's talk about Final Fantasy 14 for a second the bucket's good I never

spent any time to Final Fantasy 14 it was the one I kept thinking about. Yeah. I just feel like I don't have time in my life for an MMO. I dipped in, and I played it for a short while,

maybe three months. I've spoken before about how deeply addicted to Final Fantasy 11 I was to the point where it was detrimental to my existence. I started to feel

the tug of addiction when I was playing Final Fantasy 14. and I had to back out. So I purposefully deleted it, Nick style, from all of my devices. Sometimes you gotta do that. And I was like,

I cannot engage with this anymore because I could have done it forever. Maybe that day will come for Pocopia for me because I certainly could just do it forever. Yeah. But it was, it's very, it's very meta game. Like it incorporates a lot,

of other characters from other Final Fantasy games, and tie-ins that are maybe inappropriate to the world of Final Fantasy 14, but are like larger importance to the series on a whole. Yeah. Like I think the newest update has references to Final Fantasy 13 in it. Wow.

Lightning and such? Yeah, because that game is coming up on an anniversary. So I think one of the monsters in the newest update is from Final Fantasy 13. it's a really, really great game. I'm fascinated by the idea of the original version of it, which I never played. Oh, sure.

I dropped chicken between the couch cushions. Did you pick it up or did you just tell it? I can't get it out. I have to take the cushion off. Oh, this chicken's good. I think it might be the best fast food fried chicken I've ever had. Just what I was thinking, because I was like, I always say Popeyes. Yeah.

Jollybee might be executing on a better level than Popeyes. Because I've had some inconsistent Popeyes. Yeah. Well, I was saying earlier, too, because we were talking about our joint fear of not getting the bucket and the cup. He's cleaned the bone like a cat and a cartoon. I'm hungry. Party chicken is my favorite food. And it's his favorite food. It is?

It's his favorite food of all time. Are you serious? Yeah. That's why. Look how happy he is. He's really happy. Picking shit. I'm like David Hasselhoff drunk up his ass eating a cheeseburger off the floor.

What a mess. I was saying that I don't even remember where I was going with it, but basically I was like the footprint is smaller. There's not as many jolly bees as there are, say, McDonald. Right. So I think because of that, they're able to operate on a higher level. On a higher level. Yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, I've certainly seen it with chain restaurants when they scale up, the quality goes down. Yeah. I wonder if it's also, you know, it's a non-American chain, right? Yeah. And when you get McDonald's in Japan, it's better than when you get McDonald's here. I wonder if the Jollybee here has to be on their A game. Yeah.

Because they're representing an entire lineage of Jollybee. Yeah, it's great. I had never had it before. This is, I mean, look. Fuck, I love it. That's five for Forks. Yeah, great promotion for Finalized 14. That's really good.

Because, yeah, definitely raising brand awareness. They're doing that. There was an announcement of an Evangelian tie-in to Final Fan. Tennessee 14. Yeah. And then they also announced that it's coming to Switch to in a confusing way. Yeah. There's like a, because you pay a subscription.

Yep. To play. But Nintendo Switch has a separate subscription. Right. That you also have to pay if you play, if you pay. Yep. On other platform. Yep.

There's some real heat to that chicken, which I really like. I was going to say. Nice lingering berm. How are you feeling, ranch? What spicy. Yeah. It's not. It's good though, right?

You like it? It's not normal fast food spicy. where you're sort of like you get a little bit of burn. This is like a couple of notches up. No. Not even one notch up. You used to sell euphemistically call it white person spicy. Yes.

Where it's like it's been the spice level has been nerved for Americans. But this has some real burn to it. Again, maybe because it's a Filipino chain. Yeah. That was, it's, no, it's heavenly. That's good stuff. I fucking love it. It's right at a level of spice for enjoyment.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It's not like too crazy where you're like, I can't eat this actually. You're kind of like, this is, that's the zone. I can't stop thinking about the chain. chicken in the couch. It's making me insane. I got it out. I retrieved it. Couch chicken. Couch chicken. Um, no, that was, this was a good idea. Heather, you're going to make use of that, chicken emote? Are you going to make use of that chicken emote? You're going to make use of that chicken

emote? No, I don't play the game anymore. Eat chicken emote. Ranch, you ever miss around with FinalBazzy 14? No, never. Oh, man. Maybe we should give this eat chicken emote to somebody in the Discord or something. Yeah. It'd be great. We'll figure it out. You have to make sure you save the receipt because you also have to include proof of purchase along with the QR code. Oh, fuck. Okay. We'll figure it out. We'll see if they did it. That was game fuel and hey, that's this week's get played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chan Ranch. Twitch.tv.tv slash yard underscore underscores. Ranch, what do you stream in these days? Frozen and evil oracle? Where are you progress-wise in the game? I'm sorry, keep asking you as you eat chicken. I haven't played in a few weeks. So just coming up on Spider-Town.

Wow. You're going to get through it. It's going to be okay. Yeah. I'm excited to hear your... The Thomas the tank engine mod. Our music is by Ben Pronti. Ben Pronti.com.

Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, DuckBrigate.com. Merchant at Ginshipgoods.com. And a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon. Get played D.L.C. Matt, what's this week? It's Star Wars Month. That was me being Darth Vader. And I didn't have anything else for it after that.

May the month be with you. The DLC is strong with this one. Oh, that's good. Fuck. You'd fine. You did fine. Damn it. You really committed to the breathing.

Somehow, D.L.C. returned. I committed to the breathing. And then I got nervous that I was breathing spicy chicken on the microphone. I was like, I have to stop that. Look, I got, I had dropped kitchen between, or chicken between the couch cushion. Yeah. I do a lot worse. But it's Star Wars Month on the DLC.

We're going to be talking about all different types of things all month long, not just, I mean, it's all going to be Star Wars stuff. So it's going to be similar in that way. Star Wars themed. Yeah. So we're going to mix it up. It's going to be a lot of fun. So check that out. Patreon.com.

slash get played. Patreon.com slash get played and something got played this week. A lot of clips of some of our favorite video game performances. That's right. And also Matt. What did I do? I didn't do shit. You got played.

We would like to wrap up this week's show in memory of composer David Schmull, who composed the Get Animated theme song for us. He passed away this week. Check him out online. He leaves an enormous musical legacy, including his brand new off-Broadway musical that just premiered last month called Bigfoot.

All right, Dr. Schmole, take it away. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That was us now on HeadGum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive

from our show This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh?

A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.