Get Played - PaRappa the Rapper with Mike Drucker

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Mike Drucker (The Tonight Show, Nintendo) returns to the show to talk with Nick and Heather about his Edinburgh Fringe show Shit Arcade (Tickets Available Here https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/shit-arcade) and to discuss the 1997 rhythm game PaRappa the Rapper! Check out our 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.

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Sir, sir, you can't go back there. You can't go back there. You can't go back there. I'm so sorry. Is this your house? This house that's on fire? This is my house. What's going on? Yeah, your house. I'm so sorry. Sorry, there was a gas explosion. Oh, my God. Your house caught on fire. It's, uh, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty brutal in there.

Uh, please stay, stay, stay, stay back. Stay back, sir. Stay back. You know what? Um, at a moment like this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know.

Can we, can you get you a chair or do you need, we get, somebody get this guy some water. No, you know what? I got to do what? What? I got to believe. Sorry, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm, perhaps you're not appreciating the gravity. I, I don't know. if you can see from this perspective,

the thing that caused the gas leak was a car lost control at the intersection and drove straight into your house destroying your gas line and bursting into flames. Oh my God, did the people get out? No, the people didn't get out. The people did not survive the crash.

Oh, Jesus. I'm so sorry. I know it's a hard way for you to find this out. Somebody get this guy some water. You know, you know, I got to do what? I got to believe. I'm sir I I am going to have to ask if

if you're okay is well yeah I know I'm I'm okay thankfully wasn't home because it seems because it seems like you're saying you got to believe wait a minute yeah did my cats make it out no sir I'm sorry we couldn't

we couldn't recover anybody from that from the house or or or any animals they they probably died instantly oh my my god I know somebody get this guy some water Meow and Jeremy too. Yeah. They burned alive.

Yeah. They probably just died on impact. I was mad at him. I left the house. I was mad at him. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Tearing up my couch.

I'm sorry you were mad at your cats before you left. Why don't we, maybe we can get you some counseling. Somebody get this guy some water. No. I got to do what? I got to believe. I Can I go in now?

No, you can't, it's still on fire. No, I'm, I just, I want to go in. No, you can't, you can't. You can't. Oh, whoa! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, it burns. Oh, it burns. Oh, God, no.

Oh, I gotta do what? I gotta believe. We kick, punch, it's all in your mind, and M-I-X-X-the-Bull as we discussed the original rhythm game, Parapa the rapper. This week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and any game in between. It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, and our third host, Mr. Games, Matt Upadaka, unfortunately, is ill this week. Yeah. The Triforce of Friendship has been severed. And Gannendorf is rising. But thankfully, we can banish that evil dwarf because in Matt's day, we have one of our favorite guests, return to the podcast,

a comedian and Emmy nominated writer from The Tonight Show, and Nintendo, and the author of Good Game, no rematch, great book. His show, Shit Arcade is coming to Edinburgh Fringe. Mike Drucker is back.

Hi, Druck. Hi, Druck. Hey, how's it going, folks? Thank you for having me. I have a similar silhouette to Matt, so I'll fit in here. Can you tell us about a shit arcade? This is a show I've,

I'm, you know, aware of, I'm familiar with, but I have not actually seen myself. Yeah, it is, you know, kind of the idea, I started doing it like nine years ago. The idea was kind of mystery science theater for games, but live. You know, like plenty of people do it on streams, but I thought it'd just be fun to get like a full audience and just do it as a live show. And so I've done it, you know, over the years I did at Netflix's Comedy Festival two years ago in L.A. And it's just always been fun, but I've never done it outside of North America.

I've done it basically in Canada and the U.S. only. So I'm taking it to Edinburgh to do. So I'm going to do, I think, 17 shows, August 5th to 12th and 23rd to 31st. And it's just different bad games every night, different comedians every night, and just going to make fun of them live. Congrats on that, by the way. It's really cool. And I will also say, you know, from what I've, from my understanding of the show in your description of the show just now, it just sounds like a superior version to our old format here on Get

played where we used to play shitty video games and then do a podcast episode about them. The issue there is that like we'd have spent a bunch of time on our own playing shitty games instead of just like chopping it up with our friends. He also used the word comedian, which I think would have been a good idea for our show. That was a big issue for us as a major liability. Could have like maybe like brought on the funny people. Or been funny ourselves, I think could have been part of it. Impossible.

But Heather, you did like one of the first ones I did back when it was at Meltdown. Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember what game you played? I don't remember. I don't remember. It might have been like DDR on the Game Boy Color.

Oh, wow. I think it was one of them. Oh, my God. I don't know if you do or don't want to tip off what you're going to be covering. I don't know if it's a surprise for the audience or not. But like, can you talk about some games that you've covered in the past? Because I have a feeling that it's got some overlap with our canon. Definitely.

You know, I have a ton of Garfield games because there have been a lot of Garfield games that have been made and very few have been good. There's a Famicom Japanese-only Garfield game called A Week of Garfield. And each level is a different day of the week. And it is impossible to get past Monday. It is such a hard game. It's what are my favorite to play at that show?

Because the audience goes nuts when people get past like the first spider in the first level. Because it's just dying again and again and again. So I've got a ton of Garfield games. I've got the Wayne's World games on both Genesis and Super Nintendo. Also, structurally, you would think Monday

would be the final day. of Garfield's week. You're starting on that, like, maximum difficulty for the guy. Well, there's kind of perhaps a metatextual reading that's a little bit more charitable to the game of because Monday is so onerous because Garfield hates Monday so much, he can never get past it. Yeah. Just weighs on his conscience.

Yeah. infinitely. That's the Japanese programming, like, elitism of the 80s. It's them, like, having a thoughtful conversation about, like, well, Garfield hates Mondays. Maybe we should make it impossible for the player to survive the level. Is that the game where, because I'm aware of that game, I've never played it myself. Is that the game where the default when it asked you to continue is no?

There's a game that doesn't. That might be one of them, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I always love that. Just like, look, we know what we're making here. I also don't think we ever get far enough we're continuing is a thing that anyone matters. You said Wayne's World before I cut your obvious. a Wayne's World also.

Wayne's World for the Super Nintendo and Genesis, which are terrible platformers. There's actually a Wayne's World that was a PC adventure game that's not bad, but that is way too hard to run. By the way, entirely different story than both movies is the PC adventure game. Not important. That's one of my

favorite old game is like, it's almost like a big head, like think of like, you know how like the characters in NBA Jam looked in big head mode. Imagine that, but it's an entire platformer. And it's Wayne's world. Like there's an entire level where you're stuck in the music store and you have to like escape the guitar shop type thing. It is genuinely a confusingly bad and made game.

I like the old games that would give you a different story than the movies. Yeah, I mean, obviously like like, yeah, I think the big one for me was Goonies 2. There's like, oh, there's just a canonical sequel to Goonies in an NES game form. Hell yeah, why not? There's a mermaid? I love it. Yeah. It would be like it's like Batman 1989, but one of the levels he's transformed into a toy for

some reason. shit like that. I love the, when we covered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game, infamously very hard game, which I'm not sure

if you've covered on shit arcade or not, Mike, but I know you're familiar with it. The ending has splinter going Master Splinter goes to turtles. Now I can assume my true form and he turns into a guy.

I was like, what is the basis of this? It really went rogue. Can just discard the mutagen and come back to being, human? He was just waiting to do it too. Yeah.

Yeah, the game was just a hunt for the cure. He got to save splinter. His human heart is being crushed by rat lungs. Are all the are all the like the worst of the worst? Do those tend to be licensed games? Or are there there some like truly

baffling like original IP? They do tend to be licensed games. But it's not just because that they're licensed. like one of the ones I love is there's two Austin Power games that are for the Game Boy Color that are Windows 95 parodies. And there's a Doctor Evil theme Windows 95 parody and there is a Austin Powers themed Windows 95 parody. And it's not just that their license is that someone sat down and was like, okay, we have this license. What if we did a Windows 95 parody? And it's such a big swing that just doesn't connect, but it's so fun to look at.

Because you think about like, again, like most licensed games are just boring. But when someone really makes a big swing that misses, it's way more interesting to me. When you say Windows 95 parody, like, what is the gameplay like? You're moving like a little, using the, you know, D-Pad, moving a little cursor around the screen. And it goes to like a fake, you know, a pocket planner. And it has like a little fake screen saver you can click that does like a Dr. Evil style, like floating toaster type thing. it's like it literally is like a Windows 95 parody in an 8-bit gameboy and there's no real gameplay to it like there's mini games you can discover but they're not that interesting like they're

sort of like a solitary type thing I don't know it's almost like they were like you know kids like watching their parents use Windows 95 what if we gave them Austin Powers baffling yeah what a choice wait a minute yeah this sounds great Also, it's made by Rockstar Games. That one's made by Rockstar Games. Love that. Always on the 4. Like, maybe they were like, you know, they're like,

all right, we got a couple of different ideas here. We got like this like third person, like do anything city simulator. Okay. We've also got this like idea for like a game where you're like in like a prep school. Okay, great, great. And all this like Windows 95 Austin Powers crossover. Why should we put all our time and energy in? That makes me think of the the yo-noid game based off of the, you know, the Domino's mascot.

And but it was a, it was, I looked up the title of it. It was a Japanese game is Kamenno Ninja Hanamaru. And then they just re-skinned it. They just put noid. And but the thing is it's like the hitboxes don't line up with the noids like character art. So it's like first, so it's like work. It's like first time just like set in like feudal Japan and it but it's the Noid with his pizza crusher and he's battling ninjas.

But then also like all the jumps in combat are impossible because he didn't consider you know, where the how the the the Sprite should actually sit in with the world. Wow. Yeah. We, we may, you may have memory hold this. We covered that on the podcast. No, I remember. Because I remember, uh, noid's opening sketch.

What was Noid's opening sketch? just him like ruining our show. Uh, a, uh, like, I, I, I, I'm just like, how do you pick a game for this show? Like, you're gonna do 17 in a row. Do you have them all locked and loaded now? Are you gonna kind of like, like, like, feel it out on the day? Um, I have, I try to, like, been part of like, the way I've been promoing it is I have like, you know, you know, I switch up games every show. I switch up comedians every show. And so I have about 90 games, like, set up and they and sort of paired together in different ways. I haven't completely finalized what

the lineup's going to be, but I sort of have like the 80 to 90 games that I'm going to be working from. And you know, a lot of them are old cartridges and I have, you know, a Retron 5, which is an old emulator machine. I also have everything backed up on a mister just because I kind of find the cartridge, the physical cartridges to be more fun to do at the show. But I also, if I get stolen, I still want to be able to do the show. Right. But I have like, you know, switch games. Like I have a switch game called Fight of Gods where you play different gods fighting each other, including Jesus Christ and Santa Claus. It's a real fighting game.

You can pay as a new bits. You can play as Moses. You can't, there is no Muhammad, which is probably a wise choice. But like any other God, Buddha is in it. You can play as Buddha and fight Jesus. And it is not a good game. Did this get a North American release? It is.

Yeah. It's in, you can get on Steam or a Switch. Wow. Wow. Because that feels like the sort of thing that in years past it would have been like a, that there would have been congressional hearings about it. But I guess now just like gaming is so big. Well, also, congressional hearings don't happen. I just like that you can play Santa Claus.

I love that. Yeah. That's great. Have you, no, have you been to Edinburgh before? No, I haven't. I'm really excited about it. It's a stunningly beautiful city. Also, they have plague windows.

So they have what? They have plague windows. So back when the plague has. happens, you would still want to go and get like wine or whatever from from like a vendor. But you wouldn't want to be like they, they didn't know how it was spreading, but they knew you shouldn't be around people. So these tiny windows are built into the stone where somebody would hand you a single glass through the window. And you would take the wine in the street. I mean, going back to the pandemic, that does sound very COVID-y. It does sound like getting a

margarita at, you know, the shuttered Mexican restaurant. Yeah. Just wanting it some sort of touch of normality. Yeah. So they still have plague windows. And I mean, not still. There's also, oh, this is another thing you should do. Underneath Edinburgh, there is a fully preserved medieval city.

And you can take a tour of it. And like the buildings are still down there underneath the street. And they'll be like, so this was like the main street. And you could like walk down the street and they'd be like, yeah, you would just throw your poop in this street and it would go down this little this channel that you see still in the street, but it's underground. And it's still there. You got to go. I definitely, that's like exactly my type of thing. You'll love it, dude. There's also a castle you can tour. I mean, you and I have probably similar interests in like the medieval history stuff. There's a, there's a really cool underground,

medieval city tour of the old Edinburgh underneath Edinburgh. That's amazing. You do that. Fucking rules. I've never been anywhere or done anything. That's not true. You're a handsome man. You can do anything you want. Oh my goodness. What the fuck. I like this.

Also, you went. I pulled my back real soon. You went to Japan. I did. That was my first time I ever crossed an ocean. Yeah. Like, I went to Japan this year. Have you been?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I've definitely been to Japan. Where'd you go? We went to Kyoto and Tokyo. Nice. So kind of the big two, I guess. But like, like, were you traveling to Japan in your capacity working with Nintendo? or was this just kind of like as, you know,

was it, was it for work, for pleasure, for both? It was, I've gone a couple times. It was after I was at Nintendo, but being at Nintendo was nice

just because they introduced me to a ton of people that I could, like, meet up with when I was there who could, like, get me to good restaurants and, like, tell me where the good bars were.

So Nintendo didn't, I never went to Japan with Nintendo, but weirdly I've hung out with a ton of Nintendo people in Japan. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have a, like, because obviously the gaming culture there is so, so much more just entrenched in the over culture. Like you just see it everywhere. Is there, did you have any,

any particular, like, gaming memories from a Japan visit? Well, one, just like when you go into those, like, you know,

backroom Pachinko parlors where just everyone's smoking and doing it, it feels like it's like a different energy we just don't have anywhere. Like, you know, I know that, you know,

Pichiko's not really a video game, but just sort of that feeling of like, oh, this is an entirely different, like, arcade game culture that we have totally lost now. Um, for some reason that always sticks out to me going into, I don't know if Sega owns them anymore, but those giant Sega arcades and just like seeing like floor to ceiling, you know, like,

giant like virtual on machines and like virtual fighter machines. Um, I love those. Um, I don't know. I just, I just, I just, or, you know, shopping in, um, there's this place called the Conno Broadway, which is like this giant tall mall and just like going into weird retro stores and finding like old stuff or like finding new games that aren't out like, because it was, I, the, I went there once when the switch had just come out. So there was a ton of stuff out there that was not out in the US and just being like, oh, I'm going to buy this for $80, even though I don't want it. And just like buying a ton of like Switch games because I was so excited about the Nintendo Switch. I don't know. I feel like the whole Tokyo, just Tokyo is really like such a big video game

sitting in me. Kyoto is not at all. Kyoto feels like you're going to a museum in a very nice way, even though Nintendo's museum's there. But like, Tokyo is like a big video game city for me. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just like, I'd love going into those arcades big and small or just going up to like the third store of the third story of a gaming shop in Akihabara and they just had a whole bunch of cabinets set up. I was like, this fucking rocks. I wish there was this sort of thing was present in the in the states. Nope.

No, not really. You don't get it here. You don't get anything here. Yeah, Dave and Busters and that's it. Oh, God. Yeah. Jesus. Actually, I will say there is a really good arcade in Los Angeles and there's several really good

barcades in Los Angeles. There are some good barcades here. So if you're going to find video games in a city, this is the city to do it in America. Yeah, I'm hoping some of that stuff gets revived. I was just like the, from a collector's standpoint, how many times I want, because you were talking about, you know, like kind of all the game shops and everything exists. Like how many times I go into like a Nagano Broadway or in, or in Akihabra and just be like, Jesus Christ, I'm so tempted to spend like $800. Yeah. Like there's just stuff every.

where this is like, well, yeah, I kind of want, you know, Ogre Battle 64. Why the hell not? Right. Right. And like Manapodaka bought Kingdom Hearts 2 for the PlayStation 2, new inbox in Japanese. And he's like, I don't know what I. Why? Why?

How are I got to have it? Like he was leaving a strip club without his wristwatch. Like, Jesus, I don't know how out in there. Well, it's also like there's so many little things to where you're like, oh, I, you know, I can get a Mega Man keychain. Well, I'm going to get all of the Mega Man boss key chains. And then you just walk out with like a bucket of small shit, but it adds up to $300. Yeah.

Yeah. For me, there's a Gundam clothing store. This shirt is from that store. Like it's it like, there's not, you can't even go to like, there used to be Warner Brothers stores in America where you could go get like Bugs Bunny shirts, right? And that would be like kind of similar thematically. Like, oh, a place you go to buy clothes from. the thing that you like.

But here you don't, you can't do that anymore. Unless you go to Disneyland and get Mickey shirts, there's not like dedicated outlets that support like Hot Topic is closeish, I guess. I'd be like, oh yeah, you can get a Naruto shirt there. I have sad news about our experience at the Gundam clothing store. I lost one of the two Gundam jackets I bought there. What the fuck does that mean? I don't think that's an issue with the store.

That's an issue with you. I know. Okay, it's an issue with me, but I'm just saying it's related to the store. Because I bought a windbreaker and then I also bought a a zip up a like sweater and I lost the windbreaker. I don't know where I left it.

What are you fucking talking about? It was a nice windbreaker. Yeah, it was a nice way. It was an incredible windbreaker. You just lost it? I just leave stuff places. What are you doing? I don't know. I'm stupid. I'm dumb. You're not stupid. I'm a dumb guy. I'm absent minded. I leave shit places. I know you. You're not stupid.

Maybe you're in insane. It's very different. I bet you handed it to somebody at Burger King and we're like, hold this for me. That does sound like me. I'd already eaten lunch. Yeah. I want to, I want to talk about 2026 in gaming because it's been a pretty good year for games. I think I think if you stop the calendar year now, like even just without. Can you do that? Can you please do that? I don't think I have the authority to do that. Okay, okay. Yeah. But if they had the, Like, even without Grand Theft Auto 6 out, it's just like, there's so much good stuff has already been, you know, been out there.

Is there anything in your 2026 catalog that is really connected with you? I mean, I love Rhythm Heaven. So anytime there's it, and they only feel like they make a new Rhythm Heaven game every like 10 fucking years. But I love Rhythm Heaven. I find it almost like a meditative game. Like once you get to some of those little mini games that you can just close, literally close your eyes and play just based on the beat,

It's like this weird nirvana experience for me. So Rhythm Heaven has been like one of the delights of 2026 for me. Hey, can I try a you guys joke? Yeah, please. Okay. Do you mean you guys meaning me and Matt? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, like a you guys joke.

Yeah. Hey, what is what? What is this? What is this? Say what this is. Here, you go. You ready? Here, tell, I'm going to do something.

Do you mean to set it up? No, I'm going to do a thing and you just tell me what it is. Okay. Boom. What is that? Boom. Boom. Boom.

What is that? That's a rhythm, Heather. Pretty good. That's so you guys do that sort of thing. Yeah, the problem is that's too funny. That doesn't... That's not what me and that do. Is there anything...

Conversely, is there anything your 2026 backlog? Because I will say, like, I just because of schedule and other things I got going on, I just like, there's an annoying amount I've made. missed already halfway through the year. Is there anything you're like, man, I'm really going to make sure to make sure to make time for that? You know, like, I want to, I want to play the Assassin's Creed remake that just came out. I hear it's really good. Yeah. And Assassin's Creed is a series that I keep trying to like a lot, so I keep trying to give it chances. And this sounds like it might be right up my alley in terms of finally working. So I really, I really want to play the Black Flag remake. So that is

in my book. Mike, to lock in Assassin's Creed, what you need to do is play any of the ones. that I think are from Odyssey forward that have just the history game part. Okay. Because you can, you can, you can, you can just take a tour that is like, like extra content and just walk through like a Viking era city and it'll just be a guy being like, hey, over there, did you know? And it'll just be a history lesson. Oh, I love that.

If that was, if they had that as the first thing they promoted, that I would have been 40 hours in. Yeah, no, they have it. You can just like walk around without combat and they'll just. You tell you history. I didn't know that. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, you'll love it.

Ah, I got to do that. I got to do that. I still have, I can install some of the old ones on my steam deck. So I'll do that. Yeah. Hey, buddy, picture this is the end of a long day. You're exhausted. You're starving.

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and or Resident Evil Requiem? Yes, but I've only spent about three hours with each. So I didn't beat either. And it's not because I wasn't enjoying them. I have a bad habit with games where like the moment, something in my life interrupts me. It's almost like it's broken the cycle and I start a new game later.

And so just like I've had some family health stuff, which is fine, don't worry. But like it's been one of those things where I'm like, ah, I didn't play this for a month. And now I have no idea what has happened to Leon Kennedy. and the lady he's working with, you know, or like, and the same thing happened with Silent Hill F, where I've like started it three times

and I've just got a couple hours and then something happened and I didn't finish it. But I really like it. I mean, I want to see where Silent Hill F goes just because it really hits it well. Like I can tell that it's hitting the right themes. I can see how it's connected to the old games. I just want to see more of it.

I really didn't love the Silent Hill interactive TV show they did. And I, you know, Silent Hill, a short message kind of was like, nothing. So I really want to see where Silent Hill F goes. Ranch, I know you finished our producer, Rochelle. I know you finished Requiem. Did you remind us to where you went, you went with Silent Hill F? I haven't finished F. I think I'm probably halfway through. Wow. Do you enjoy it, though? Yeah, I felt like it was like a little clunky on the Gaint gameplay, which was like making me

really bad at the game. Silent Hill was a little bit tough for me, combat-wise. I imagine, though, from a survival horror standpoint in that, in that genre, you'd push Mike towards Resident Evil Requiem if you're going to revisit one. Yeah, it's really fun. Yeah. That's what it seems like. Are you at all,

are you at all hype for the Zach Crager Resident Evil movie? I mean, we sure are. I really am. I was weirdly on Sam Brown's podcast like a month ago and Sam randomly called Zach on it. And so we talked about the movie on the podcast,

which I'm sure was not a PR move anyone had approved of. But no, I really am. One, I really like Zach's work. I think Zach is an amazing horror writer. And also, you know, he's the best Abraham Lincoln I've ever seen in a sketch. And I like, and I like, like, everything I hear about it is it really sounds like he's trying to go for the feeling of playing a Resident Evil game more than a adaptation of a Resident Evil story.

Right. Like every interview with him, every time he's talked about it, not just, you know, that podcast. But like, it really sounds like he's like, I want it to feel like you're in the middle of one of these games. not, I want you to go, hey, I know that guy. Hey, it's that dog that jumps through the window. You know, like I think he's going with a different direction that I kind of prefer. There was a new trailer that was released today this morning as of record. And a significant portion of that trailer is a guy looking for ammo.

And I was like, yeah, no, that's it. They got it. Exactly. He finds a gun. And then he's like, the fuck do I find ammo. And he's just, he pushed it. I hope that's like 40 minutes of the movie. You need to find an ink ribbon.

That's exactly like that would be why I'm looking for it. Like I don't need super cops versus super zombies, which is kind of what the Resident Evil is series is narratively. I just want to see like a guy in a room getting very angry. There's no bullets. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, from the trailer, it looks like you're in for a treat.

So we're going to dip into PlayStation 1 nostalgia when we talk about our main topic. But just from the nostalgia for the PlayStation era, which Heather and I just recorded a Patreon episode where we're also looking back at past PlayStation stuff. We all here at the pod, like fell in love with Astrobot, the platformer. And there's so much like PlayStation nostalgia baked into that. And for me, I just had the moment that I think Heather had as well as like, oh, wait, yeah, I love PlayStation. Like it was just like it just made me so happy.

I don't know if you got a chance to mess around with Astrobot at all, but I just found it so charming. I loved Astrobat. I also loved the, they did one on the PSVR for PS4. That was sort of like a almost like a primordial version of that one. And that's also amazing. No, I really liked it. I really, really like it. What's weird is like, I do love all the Sony properties.

There's something about when they come together that doesn't always work for me. Like, it didn't bother me they did it in Astrobot because they kind of did it in like a cartoony way. But like, it's almost like they don't quite fit together like Nintendo does for me where I can believe that these guys go in a van and solve mysteries. Like, whenever I see like, you know, like, you know, Cratos and like a guy from infamous, I'm like, I don't know if you guys would know each other. Right. So it doesn't always fit like that.

But I really do like, like it was a reminder, like those individual levels that like were pastiches of PlayStation games were so good. Yeah. I agree with what you're saying. Like when you see like the lineup of because, you know, Sony just took the Marvel logo concept and turned it into their pregame logo where you just see flashes of all their properties. You don't feel like it's a family.

Like you see X-Men and you see the Avengers and you see the whole, you see them all together and you're like, oh, those are guys that know each other or could meet. But when you see Ellie and then you see Cretos, you're like, how are these people related in any way? Yeah. It's the, it's the. it's the problem with the server verse in Space Jam 2 where it's like

why is the you know the wicked witch of the West interacting with the droogs from a clockwork orange like it's just like this is so asynchronous right but I and I think that also has to do with it like it's also like that PlayStation Party fighter never

really like worked you know it's just like I don't know it's not the right the right mix but yeah when they're all sort of just like it's basically just just skins that are being put on to Astrobot. I don't know. I mean, I just, it was just such a great tour through the, the nostalgia of the brand. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll say, I like that, like, because I have one or two friends who have felt the other way, they've complained about it. And I'm like, you know what? It's like a skin on a character. It, you do not have to know any of that PlayStation stuff to have an amazing time with that game.

Right. So I'm kind of fine with it because it does not feel like my enjoyment would have been less if I was unfamiliar with like, you know, cloud strife. Yes, right. Unless there's a rap and tree. Yep. Yeah. Where else have we seen a rap and tree?

Well. Well. We'll get to that in one second. But first, Mike, I have one more question for you and for everyone in this studio. The question is, in terms of video games, we've been playing lately, what are you playing? What are you playing? What are you playing? I heard you guys talking about Resident Evil.

There's a new movie coming out. Is that what you said? Yeah, there is. It's from Zach Crager who made weapons, barbarian, very well-regarded. I got to talk to Verizon because I did not receive that call. To Verizon? Your cell phone company? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think they're necessarily the roadblock there. Well, I'm sure he reached out. I think it would maybe could. I honestly would have been a funny Easter egg to see you in that movie. But hey, there's future Resident Evil to be made. I'm sure. I'm sure it's going to become a franchise. But yeah, also like, no, and people would lose their mooring if I'm not in the film.

They'd be like, where am I? What world is this? It's this Boston. You're a popular character. I'm a hugely popular character. You are very popular. I think, but very much so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think maybe a playing. What are you buying? What are you selling? Look, I'm on board to toss you in there and have you do a what are you buying in some capacity. So imagine, imagine, you know, I'm in the Resident Evil movie and I'm like, Helen, look out. And who's Helen in the situation? I don't know. I don't have the script because I missed a call. Right, right, right. Yeah, I think probably. Helen, your baby, no. Like that. No, that's, yeah, that's taken me out of it, actually.

Yeah, because now I'm remembering that you, that you're you like the Resident Evil merchant as opposed to like a character in the film. Helen, I'm sorry he's dead. I mean, this is, no, I'm sorry. Thank you for coming.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think that quite works. Wait, was that the audition? Yeah, I should have prep more. This is,

that's Hollywood in 20206, you know? That's Hollywood. Fucking kids and saying no. Oh. Jesus Christ. I'll probably be canceled uncancellable

Hey Nick Who do you want me to go out to First about this? You want me to ask Mike? Yeah Mike What are you playing? That's my job. What are you doing?

Sorry, I'm sorry. Hey Mike, What are you playing? Thank you so much for asking me, Resident Evil Four Salesman. I am playing Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader Which is the CRPG Warhammer 40 game by I think

Alcat games I believe is the developer. Okay. Tell us about it. I can go into detail, but I didn't want to just give you a pitch. No, I want to hear it.

It's your opportunity to monologue. So like imagine, you know, sort of like a Balders Gate 3, but in the Warhammer universe, but what's kind of nice about it is you're not just focusing on like the usual space Marines.

Like they're, you know, they appear, but you're actually focusing on a rogue traitor, which is a type of person in that universe where you basically have like

a metropolis-sized spaceship and you have a license to trade in certain regions. So you're like kind of like royalty, but royalty that's like almost freelancing royalty. But it's a really cool game and you get to play with a lot of the murkiness of the universe, but it feels like it it really explores a lot of the less cliched parts, you know, like less parts that have been in 30,000 fucking video games. And so it's, I like that universe, but I also like that it's showing me a little bit that I have not seen of it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a Warhammer guy. But I and you were correct the developer is owlcat who previously made the the Pathfinder Games of the Pathfinder franchise.

This this gameplay style like I love CRP's. I love that style of game and so this seems like extremely my shit. The one thing I read here is that it's just it's it looks like it's got like a hundred 30 hours of gameplay which is always a little daunting. It's very long. It is very long. That said if you set it to story mode, it lets you move through battles pretty quickly.

so if you just want to get to like the conversation and story stuff, it will let you slide past some of the friction. That's awesome. Here's a question for me, because this is always key for getting into an RPG. Is there romance? You know, I am about 15 or 20 hours in, and I've had sex, but I have not had romance.

What the fuck? Okay, all right. Because, well, because there was, there was like a woman on my ship who's, and I play a lovely rogue trader named Lucinda, and there was a woman on my tree. my ship, my master at arms was being very familiar with me. And then the conversation path led one place to another.

And we ended up sleeping together. She's not a member of my party. She works on my ship. But things just went somewhere. And then afterwards she was just like, okay, see ya? Like it wasn't a romance? Afterwards, we had to have a conversation where we had to establish that like she wasn't supposed to be acting differently on the ship after this happened.

Like her responsibilities didn't change. There was a conversation after you had to do as well. It's like you sat down with HR. Yeah, let's extinguish all of these possible branching paths of the game and just have her to be like, so I'm going to ignore you and just ask you if you want materials from this point forward. Okay. So like, yeah, I've had sex, but there hasn't, I have not romance to anybody. Wow.

This is definitely going to be a game I add to my. Of course. It's all you needed to hear. No, look, here's what's going to. Sex in the first 15 hours. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

I'm just, I'm just going to say this is a cycle that's familiar. familiar with me. I'm going to add this to my Steam wish list. And then anytime it goes on sale, I'm going to be like, fuck, I want to buy it. And at some point, I will crack. It's like I'm doing right now with Kingdom Come Deliverance too. I'm just like, it's just a matter of time before I see that that on sale for $17.00. I can't wait for you to play. Fuck, this game's going to ruin my life. I can't wait for you to play that game. Yeah. It's because you want me to get divorced. Can't divorce a corpse. And also, I'll say about Rogue Trader 2, you don't need to know 40K that much.

Like it has, like a Baldur's Gate, it has like a thorough explanation of every noun and verb it introduces that might be weird to you. And so it is not something where like if you don't know and haven't painted miniatures, you won't have a good time. Like it's a good introduction to the universe as well. That's really cool. That's rad. I like it. Heather, what are you playing? All right.

So last week, Mary had to go out of town for work. She's back now. And so my gaming habits changed a little bit. I suddenly had more time on my hands to play video games than I've had in a long time. So the first thing I did post-Odesty was download currently on the PlayStation store for free if you have PS Plus, Assassin's Creed Odyssey. And I was like, fuck, yeah, let's go. I'm going to play Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I played through the intro.

You know, the island opens up. And I'm like, this is, what a wonderful synergistic, companion piece to an excellent film where I get to wander around Greece. I get to talk to these people. I get to do these little quests. And because the game has been out for so long, you also begin with, like, great armor. So I don't have to look like dog shit as I'm starting this game. Like I'm walking around and I'm feeling myself.

But then I was like, I should see what's happening in Fortnite. And for the next seven days, all I did was play Fortnite. Wow. Every day I would just, I'd look at Assassin's Creed Odyssey and I'd be like, I should dip back in. I should sit here on Fortnite. And I would play from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. every day, nonstop, just locked in. And can I say, I started to be sad because I didn't know what I was doing. Like, I lost my sense of self.

I was just, it was like a default. thing I was doing instead of like, oh, wow, I have a half hour right now. I'm going to play a round of Fortnite. That's great. I'll see who's on. Instead, it was just like, Fortnite became my dive bar. Does that make sense? It does.

And there's this whole feeling, I think, that we know, we knowed out of all experienced as avid gamers of like, I don't know if it's from internalized capitalism or what, where it's just sort of like, why do I have to feel like I'm productive when I'm doing my favorite thing? Like, why do I have to be gaming in a way where I'm like, this is a good use of my gaming time. Right. Like, I should be playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey because I started it or I should be playing Dencha attack, which I, you know, started this week based on your recommendation.

Fucking awesome game. Love the first three levels. I was like, this is awesome. I'm liking that too, by the way. Yeah. I'm going to see who's on Fortnite and then just put it aside. Yeah. I feel like I can't stop hanging out at 7-Eleven.

Like every day, the entire city of Los Angeles is available to me. And I drive past 7-Eleven. I'm like, well, you know, I should see if they got some chips. And I park in the lot and then I just hang out at 7-Eleven. And I'm wondering if it's an addiction for the first time. So you're not even giving yourself the charity of Japanese 7-Eleven where you're going in there with the egg sandwich. You're in there with a go-go-to-kitos. Yeah, it's dirty ground out there.

outside of the 7-Eleven. Right. There's a B. It's just like, huh. Yeah. And I honestly am like, I don't, I started to be uncomfortable. And like putting, you know, what did I put in like 25 new hours into Fortnite last week? And I started to feel kind of seasick or something about my relationship to the game where I'm like,

is this preventing me from having fun? or is it the fun that I want to have? Is it, is it social? Is it the bar? Is Fortnite the new bar? Or what is it? That's not to say I didn't have great conversations with people and like have a good time and like laugh a ton, you know, with a few new people that I've been playing up with from our Discord, squatting up with. And then also a couple of people who are tangential to that Discord who were like, so you've got to.

a podcast. I love that. I love that part of our, of our Discord, the people who don't know that get played as a podcast. But yeah, so I went in to this last week

that I had, you know, just to myself, with the intention of like making some kind of gaming progress. I also played maybe an hour more of God of War, like inching my way towards the finish line there,

taking screenshots of some of the art because I want to get some kind of Nordic tattoo I'm like maybe I want to fucking play in Fortnite just all I was doing is it's like I had a refrigerator and all I did was just keep eating loose slices of fucking baloney And I had the ability to make meals do like let me let me just ask a about fortnight question You would talk about the game mode that's ongoing right now are you? Are you what skin are you using these days? I'm using so I'm using I'm back to Ivor because I think I might be the only Ivor on planet Earth on Fortnite, which makes me feel something.

It's like, you'll see like a million family guys, right? But you don't see Ivor, so it's probably me. And the skin isn't coming back to the shop. Like, they're not re-releasing Ivor. So, like, at some point, it will be me. Like, I'll be Ivor. And then I exist in Fortnite in a way that a lot of people don't. So I'm playing as I've wore again, in part because I saw the Odyssey and I was like, man, they're really rowing around on a Viking ship and calling it a Greek ship.

And then I looked it up and it was, yeah, it's actually a long ship that they rented for the production because they needed a seaworthy old boat. And the only one that exists is a replica Viking ship. Why didn't they just have them sitting on green crates and then just do it all with a computer? Oh, well, you get to see that kind of filmmaking in Doomsday. Coming to Infinity Vision in December. I will, like, I enjoyed The Odyssey. I didn't realize that the picture Trojan Horse, the actual one from the movie, is right now on display at Universal City Walk in Los Angeles. Personally, I just go see it.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't believe they brought it in because you know there are people inside there. Like Disney's going to invade. I love that reality. Rancho, what are you playing? I just started playing Bioshock. Yeah.

Wow. Nice. It's awesome. You're streaming it. I am streaming it. And so this is your first time you've never played any Bioshock game before.

Yeah, I've never played. I've never really heard of it or knew anything about it. Wow. I didn't realize it was like such a political game. And yeah, I'm excited to kind of get into that world. Yeah. Because someone said it was like a direct.

like response to like iron rand and like objectivism and yeah very much so yeah yeah yeah very interesting it's uh it's a it's a it's a what if you know what if these guys did the thing this is a this is this conversation is a stark reminder that uh rochelle is young yeah because this game bioshocks it's crazy am i pronouncing this right bioshok uh that's awesome you're playing it yeah i mean i i i will I've said this before. I think the Bioshock 1 is the only game in the franchise I played. Even though I really liked it,

I heard about the development of Bioshock 2 and was just like, it seemed like a relatively muted reaction to the direct sequel and then I never played Infinite. Mike, where are you with a Bioshock franchise? I have played all of them. I would say you don't have to play two, but if you play the DLC and 2 called Minerva's den, it's its own self-contained Bioshock game that's like three hours. So we're playing you like blast through getting all these powers

very fast. But outside of one, I would say Minerva's Den is like the second best self-contained Bioshock game. It's just it's only available as DLC for two. It's just got a very tragic story. It's very fun. It moves quickly.

So like you don't feel like you're just playing the same game again. Yeah, so number one's perfect. And Minerva's Den is amazing. And then Infinite was, Infinite's a game that had so much potential, but then it like muddled up its racism and its Christianity stuff

with also like a weird both sidesism being like, you know, the underclass is kind of also bad for being mad about this. And then Bioshop 2 is kind of a mess. Yeah. I will say that Infinite really nailed the look of government-issued AI slop. Like the images of George Washington and Bioshop Infinite are near psychic, like incantations of what has appeared on Truth Social. from politicians today. Wow.

Like it's like the same color palette and this like grotesque patriotic palette that's also supposed to be evoking like the romantics in terms of like the look of the paintings. And it's dead on. And I bet in part that's because AI was trained on the Bioshock Infinite Art. So one of these guys is like patriotic image of Trump. as Christ, it's pulling from Bioshock Infinite. It's crazy. Wow.

Yeah. Well, keep us updated to your progress, Rochelle. Yeah. Summer is in full swing, and that changes what I want to wear. It's getting hot here on planet Earth, so I want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable, so I'm not sweating my little booty off. Clothes that are easy, but still put together. That's why I love Quince.

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And when you're ready to launch, use off for code headgum, save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hell, sounds easy. Anybody could do it. Nick, what about you? What are you playing? Thank you for asking. I'm going to be a little orthogonal here and talk about, we don't really talk about sports games on the podcast all that often. Although I do, I am a sporto.

Sport games are a huge part of video game fandom. I don't know if they're, I don't think they're a huge part of our, you know, audiences' enthusiasm for games, although we have a very, you know, a diverse set of a gaming taste out there. But there is something that has happened in sports gaming in recent weeks that I think is relevant to gaming as a whole. And it's this EA sports college football controversy. I'm going to try not to monologue too much here, but like to be all this stuff I think is super duper interesting. I'm excited to hear about this. So basically this is the controversy is. over, if you can believe this, an EA game.

What's happening is it's been a fascinating, encouraging case of a consumer revolt that's led to real change. And here it's specifically about micro-transactions and single-player game modes. So when we talked about FIFA, we did our soccer games episode during the World Cup. I mentioned Ultimate Team, which is like EA's mode, which is basically like their main profit center in this day and age, just people paying for content that they can use online modes. But college football, the game is a little bit different because calling college football the franchise. And we're talking about collegiate American football in case that's not clear.

It's a unique case in sports games because it was shut down for pretty much 11 years. NCAA football 14 came out in 2013. Sports games are like cars. They're always annoyingly like one year ahead. And then the series was on pause because of a labor law case that went all the way to the Supreme Court in the United States. The case was O'Bannon versus NCAA. This was a class action lawsuit brought by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, Go Bruins. And it was on behalf of college athletes who basically amounted to the NCAA, which administered its collegiate athletics, was profiting off of our name, image, and likeness, NIL for short, and that acronym will come back. But student athletes are not allowed to share in this profit because of NCAA regulations.

before the case was decided, EA voluntarily settled their side of it with the plaintiffs, and as part of that settlement, they were not going to partner with the NCAA anymore and not going to make college football games anymore and college football video games. The case is later ruled in O'Bannon's favor, in favor of the student athletes, then a later case reaffirms that in 2021. So now these days it is legal for collegiate athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness, NIL. So college athletes now didn't used to be able to do this, but now they have endorsement deals, branded social media posts, they collect payments from schools, often routed through third parties like boosters. AJ DeBanza, as an example, he was the number one pick in the NBA draft this past year, or this current draft.

But previously he played at BYU and would have been banned for making money off of college basketball, but instead as a college athlete, he made an estimated $4.1 million. So it just shows us just how profitable these sports are. And for so long, these players were effectively indentured servants to NCAA. After all this was settled law, then EA, now NIL is the law other than. EA is able to reboot the series minus the license. And same thing basically they did as FIFA. And it says EA Sports College Football, 25 was the first edition that came out in 24. But because the video game was effectively shut down for so long,

but so beloved by American College football fans, it maintained this huge community as a defunct, dormant game that was modded and supported by this community to just keep it functional and current. And so people were playing the 2014 edition all the way until 2024 when the new one came out. This circumstance of this basically being a fan-supported game for so long, a fan-run game, plus just the nature of American College football,

which is, as opposed to some other sports, you're more likely to want to play as one team through a season, one university, perhaps your school you went to or perhaps the school you're a fan of, as opposed to playing a one-off game online. You mean I could be Harvard? You could be Harvard if you want. You could try to, you could try to. I could just be Harvard. You could be Harvard. You could be a Harvard Crimson and see how far you could get in the NCAA tournament.

So it means there's an unusually large proportion of single player offline players for a sports game in particular. This is a genre where typically people are more likely be playing multiplayer. Anyway, that brings me to today, which is the new addition is this year's EA College Football 27, again, one year ahead. Without any warning to its fans, EA introduced micro-transactions into the single player and offline modes because it's so prevalent, it's so commonly played, that they were like, well, shit, we need a way to monetize this huge proportion of our player base. These were things that were previously available through gameplay, just like through advancing through gameplay, or things you can. could even adjust in settings. So for instance, this is not a perfect comparison, but we were mentioned Assassin's Creed recently.

Let's say Assassin's Creed, a new Assassin's Creed game comes out. Where would be the next setting for it? We'll say Assassin's Creed, God, what if they did like 1920s America? Assassin's Creed 1920s America. Assassin's Creed, the Gilded Age comes out. Fuck! So that game comes out. Oh my God, that would be so rad.

People are hyped for it. But then you start playing this game. And in story mode, it costs you real. money to put points into a skill tree or it costs real money for you to even adjust the difficulty. Hey, I want to go up a notch. I got to pay money for that. Everyone would be pissed off. There'd be this huge revolt.

To be clear, you can buy tons of cosmetics. Yes. In Assassin's Creed games. But this is not that. This is stuff that affects play balance. This brings me to this newly minted cult hero Bordeaux, an absolute alpha chat, a fucking total Chad, who is an EA sports college football YouTuber, and he was also an EA partner.

And he basically saw this and was just like, fuck this. And then just made a video just talking about how like, look, this may end my partnership, but this sucks. This is ridiculous. This is horrible and exploitative. And this change should not have been made. And amazingly, it worked. Wow. It rallied the fan base.

There's this social media fan outrage that happened as a result. And then other YouTubers were joining in solidarity and other streamers were joining in solidarity, posting their own, you know, criticisms of the EA. standing with Bordeaux, and EA Sports ultimately reverse the decision and remove these micro-transactions from single-player offline modes. Though some features have still not been fully restored, it's still just like, hey, not even saying we fucked up because why would they say that, but just sort of like, we heard you. And so things are, things are going back to the way they used to be. We're a company of the people. Overall, just like a super encouraging, you know, rare win for gamers in this day and age versus, you know, publishers who are increasingly owned by private equity. in Petro Strait sovereign wealth funds, you know, EA bought by Saudi Arabia, obviously,

and that's a huge part of what happens. Anyway, I just like, it was just a fascinating story. Again, I've not played an NCAA football game probably since the early 2000s. I just, it's not a thing that that interests me at all, but the surrounding controversy and the way it resolved and just like this development, I just found so fascinating and so, so like relevant to gaming at large. If anyone wants it even deeper dive, there's this comprehensive episode of the podcast,

Pablo Torre finds out that has Bordeaux as a guest. He interviews him. And it's worth a listen if you really want to dig deep on it. And the subtitle for this game. Yeah. This was EA Sports College Football colon crimson tide. It was about the rise of Harvard. It could be.

It's funny because you mentioned like Bordeaux. My understanding of his content is, is that he does take schools that would never win in football and then tries to win the title with them. And so I think that's the kind of thing that he would do. It's like, yeah, let's see if Harvard could actually, you know, beat these, these Titan SEC schools. Great.

Yeah. Good for Harvard. What a thrilling movie that would be. Oh, man. How fun. How inspiring. You'd never booed the champions. Come on.

Go to the state schools. Let's talk about Parapa the rapper, released in 1996, for the first. Sony PlayStation 1, developed by Nana Onshea, and published by SEA. Released in Japan originally in 96, I mentioned North American Europe coming in 97, and Matsaya Matsuera was the developer, and then Rodney Greenblatt, the other name, who was behind the iconic visual character. And Nana O'Shea was a developer that also made Umjhammer Lammy and Vib Ribbon. Yes.

were their other big, they're big, their big titles. This was a game that was initially not going to be released by Sony Nintendo or Sony North America, in part because there was a, an absolute line of, of no on 2D gaming on the PlayStation. Like they were like, we're not releasing any 2D games on the PlayStation in North America. So you can release this in Japan, but it's not coming here. And it wasn't until it was an enormous success and launched.

It is, it is often said or cited as the first ever rhythm game or a rhythm, whatever the fuck you call it, rhythm action game. So it invented a genre. And a demo of Parapa the Rapo was, I believe, included on a disc with PlayStation magazine, which was my first exposure to Parap of the Rappo was on a demo day. disc back in the day. And I got to say, I'm so happy that we chose this as a game to play together. Yeah, I mean, I was kind of amazed that we'd never actually covered it. But Mike, you brought this to us as a possibility. What is your enthusiasm? What is your history with Parapa the Rapper? Sort of a similar situation where, like, I'd read a couple of magazine articles about it,

and then I got that demo disc. And, you know, I didn't know what a music game was. All the descriptions made it sound like, like some would say it was sort of like, you know, Simon says where you're following prompts. But it looks so weird. And then you play this game and it's unlike anything you've ever played. Like in 1996, you have never played essentially an interactive music video.

Like there were games like the Marky Mark Sega CD game where you could edit together a music video, but you never were like doing the music in the middle of a music. and it really kind of reminded me of like, you know, because I was 12 when this came out, like it reminded me of watching a stage musical, of like being part of a musical, as if like a game had finally figured out how to like put me in the school play. And it was so much fun that it just became like almost a foundational game for me. Yeah, I mean, I didn't play the demo disc, but I do remember this being a game that I heard a lot about and was intrigued by its, I don't know if it was actually the first rhythm game, though,

might as well have been, because in terms of popularizing, the genre. It's like that like the genre explodes up a part of the rapper. But it is the first time I remember seeing the the 2D cut out art style which is later made more, you know, taken even further by the Paper Mario franchise. But I just

loved the way that looked. Yeah. And I also like love the way it sounded, which is like I rented this game and this is a game that you could be, I basically remember I think finishing it in a sitting because it's not very hefty. It's not a super long game. But then I went and bought it on sale later. Like because I like

liked it so much. I was like, I like, I just want to have this game. Um, and I, I, I, I, you mentioned Vib Ribbon, which I imported and played on my modded PlayStation one. Um, we can talk about that game briefly, although it's, it's more of a novelty than any sort of actual game. Um, and then, uh, um, jammer, Lammy, I also played. I never actually played per rap of the rapper two. I'm not sure if anyone played that for PlayStation 2. The franchise is kind of like, yeah. It's not, it's not as good. It has like one or two good songs, but it does not. the songs just aren't as good overall. So it's a fine attempt.

It is a fine effort, but it is definitely not as good as the first. Well, part of what makes this game, it's not just that it is a unique gameplay style that wasn't, I'm pretty sure it was the, it's considered the first rhythm game. You might want to, I don't know. You could Google it. I don't fucking know. Whatever, it doesn't matter. I'm going to be talking to my, this is a journalism podcast and say whatever I want.

I just, Heather, just in case you. PlayStation. station was released by Hitachi. It doesn't matter. Nobody can stop me. In case it slipped your mind, sometimes fans of this video game-centric podcast can be a bit pedantic. So let me go ahead and see what the first rhythm game is in practice. But please keep going.

I bet it was released on the Mitsubishi Dreamcast. Fuck, I don't give a shit. No, that's not right. That's not right. That's not what it is. Take it seriously. This is serious. But part of why this game works is that the songs are catchy.

Yeah. They are both nonsensical and they have an internal logic. So when you're playing like your training, your training level is learning to fight from a, from a, from a, like a karate sensei. Who's notably an onion. Who's an onion. Mm-hmm. And he's teaching you how the game works. And also internally will say things like, now I'm going to do it without a break.

So you know, oh, as soon as he's done, I'm going to start hitting these buttons in sync with the music. There was something about playing this in HD that was a little off putting to me because there was. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird because you part of what made it fun back on the PlayStation 1 is you were like looking at stuff that was trying so hard to look like a graphic. style, but all of the polygons are a little bit wobbly. And like, you know, when they turn their bodies, it would be a little wobbly. Apparently, this was a rotoscoped game. So these, the, the, the, the motion of the characters is modeled after actual actors doing these motions. But it was like that low, that low phi aesthetic, that low polyesthetic really brought, it was really charming. And now it

kind of looks like you're looking at a moving painting, which is a little. little stranger given the incongruity of the, I want to say like professionalism of the music. It's, no, I get it's similar to the sensation of like you like some of the pixel remasters or some of, like, what's got the smoothness to it. Yeah. It isn't like it's like it just kind of takes away from the, the appeal of the spray. Yeah. The disappointment I felt when I was playing Dragon Quest 7 and I downloaded Dragon Quest 1 on the switch and it was a pixel remaster.

and I was like, well, this isn't the fucking game I wanted to play. Right. I want to play the one where it's like scam lines and blurt out. Yeah, I mean, so I do think it in terms of suffers in a modern context from that. But I mean, I just like for me, by the way, I looked it up and it's apparently the first ever rhythm video game is considered to be dance aerobics for the NES, 1987 power pad game. Dance aerobics. But functionally, like, it's, perhaps the rapper was the thing that made this at all a genre.

So that that's really the one that counts. Oh, there you go. I do get what you're saying. And I do think that, like, so much of it was also, like, the novelty of this coming out in, like, like, Mike was saying. It, like, comes out in an era where, like, nothing like this exists. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, obviously gets followed by dance, dance revolution. And I think guitar, um, man, which you were talking about playing.

Yeah, guitar, man's around then. Yeah. Rochelle had been playing recently. And then, you know, ultimately, like guitar hero and the modern rhythm genre as we as that so tends to be so peripheral-centric. I have a hot take. Yeah, go for it. It feels like the Dreamcast looked at this game and said, let's make this an entire system. You know, that's a very good take.

Wow. Because it feels like games like Sea Man are like somebody looked at Parapa and was like, we could do anything. Well, and one of my dreamcast's favorites was the Samba de Amigo, the Maracas rhythm game. Yeah. Which is such a, such a like an insane sort of, you know, swing. Yeah, Jetset radio is like somebody looked at Parapel and was like, this is, this is what we're doing. Yeah. Or Space Channel 5.

I had the Maracas, same thing. I had the Samba di Amigo Maracas. Me too. I got rid of them. I don't know why I did that. It was so stupid. I get, Mike, I have such a horrible habit of like I had so much cool shit that I just like sold the GameStop for store credit.

And I just like, why did I do that? Why did I get rid of these things? So you could keep buying college football. ball games. So, like, do you all remember when this game hooked you? Like, was it right away? Right away. Right away.

In the demo. Like, I put in the demo, the song, because there wasn't any story in the demo. I was really surprised. I had memory hold all of the CG cutscenes of this game. I'd only remembered the songs. I had remembered up through the chicken making. making a cake song. Like I remembered them pretty clearly.

But seeing the CG cutscenes, I was like, what the fuck is happening? This is in this game? Yeah, I mean, you just kind of remember the songs flowing from one to the other. Yeah. But there is a little bit of narrative connective tissue. The one thing that does, did linger in my memory.

And, you know, is the song that leads into the ultimate level of a, So you grow so hard. Did you please this? that you grow fond of. It's kind of like this falsetto sort of, you know, like pop equality to it. That's the one thing. That's the one that I did remember. But like, like, out like that's, and that's a not with a rare non-interactive song in this game.

I just remembered the awkwardness of of the chicken being like, I'm, and I don't know the actual line. I just, it's like a mental stim, if that makes sense, of just her being like, I'm going to make a cake of which is like the end of the rhymes. setup and then led to something something a cake that's rich. I think it will taste rich. Yeah. But it was like of which would like get stuck in my head because I'd be like, how do you, how do you end the sentence? The sentence shouldn't end there. Yeah.

Bacon a cake. Yes, means you got to try. But doing this for years. But don't ask me why. When you like, yeah, when you listen to it, it's just like, wait, this is, yeah, this is incoherent. But it accomplishes what it is meant to be done here, which is just like it set you up for this very basic by modern standards rhythm action gameplay. You also, this game wouldn't have worked if Parapa's voice wasn't charming when it was a little bit fucked up. Yeah, I mean, because this is the whole thing.

You ultimately want to get from, you know, you have good and then if you're in bad or awful, you're going to eventually fail the level hard. fail the level. But you want to at least maintain in good. These are just performance ranks that are just, you descend or ascend to based on how you're doing it with the rhythm. But you can get to cool ultimately. And then cool lets you freestyle. But freestyling is just flat out gibberish. Because you're just saying random words. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, punch. Yeah, yeah. And it's one reason why umjammer, Lammy, which had much less of a cultural imprint, functions better as a game, is when you're playing guitar in that one. And so when you get up to cool,

you're just doing a guitar solo. So it does not nearly feel as incongruent. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever play Um Jem Malami? Nope. So I imported Umjammalami. That was one because I remember that there was controversy at the time,

kind of going back to what we're talking about with that godfighter of there was a level where you went to hell. And in the North American release, they were worried about Christians getting mad. And so they took out the hell level. And so I was like, well, I want to play this hell level, which is also like one of the cooler levels in the game. It's one of the best songs.

So I played the Japanese version, which had, you know, full English support. I, it is so funny that that game didn't have any real success. I do think so much of it was just trying to introduce a new character. I think people just want to see more parapa at that point. Yeah, that makes sense. I think it was, if it was like Parapa the Jammer or Parapa the Rocker, that game would have like sold like a proper sequel. I think it's probably because it stars a woman. You know what, Heather, that could have been a little bit of an issue.

I'm serious. No, I'm agreeing with you. Wait, this game stars a woman that I don't want to fuck? Why? Wasn't like, God, do you go back to Assassin's Creed? Wasn't like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, like the first in the franchise or like, all right, there's a female protagonist, but only one of the two options. Like, it's so wild how long that was just like a.

complete roadblock. No. People were not mad about that still. They still got mad that that option existed at all. Yeah. Taking a disk space. I love the character design of Parapa. I just like a, like, what a, what a cutie.

He's a cutie and he, he, even though he hasn't been in an enormous number of games, I think in gamer terms, he's still iconic. Yeah, you look at him and you just like, his character design lingers in your memory. Rochelle, this was your first time playing this game. It was. First off, Prapa's cute, right? So cute.

I love everyone in the game. I like that they change if you're doing bad. Yes, right. That they get angry at you. Yep. Returning, like revisiting it at the, Mike, Heather, you know, like, God, Jesus Christ, is depressingly 30 years removed from its release. Yeah.

The slow decay of time. crushing. It's really rough. It's what, like, beyond like the visual character and HD, was there anything

where you're like that you viewed a little bit differently or anything that it was just like a like, you know, like a little taste of a memory in particular? I remember that I fucking hate

that cooking song. For some reason, that is my worst song. Like the other songs I can kind of like breeze through for some reason that song, I can't quite get the rhythm right. And so it was almost like being like, oh yeah, I hate this part of the game. It's a fun song.

Like it's an entertaining song to listen to, but I hate that cheap, cheap. I think her name's cheap, cheap, the chicken maybe. Cheap, the cooking chicken is the name, yes. Yeah, I like Mussolini, the driving instructor. Yeah. I had forgotten that there was a part where it's basically like Parapa's having a bathroom emergency. And there's like a level about that. I was like, oh yeah, right?

That's a weird, like, penultimate level in this game. Yeah, I forgot about the garage sale or whatever. The way he's got to make money. Yeah, Prince Flea Swallow. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. Yeah. I totally remember the fucking cooking song, and I totally remember kick punch. It's all in the mind.

For whatever reason, karate and cooking, I think for opposite reasons, the karate song is like such a bangor and the cooking song is like such an earworm in a negative way. And then I, like, I always remember the club just because I remember it's the final sequence. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And for some reason, those are the two that really stick with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Those are the, that was, I was like, oh, yeah, it's this old friend. Kick punch. It's all in the mind. Ranj, so you were having, did you figure out what your issues were with the, the time? Like, I have a feeling it was for some input lag or something with your display. It must have been a lag because even when I wired in, I still was having so much difficulty passing any level. Right.

But I started to like push a little bit earlier than it was on the screen and eventually kind of got the hang of it. I could not get past the fucking chicken. Right? The chicken. The chicken. I told you. I mean, it was so, I think I played it like 20 times.

And then I was like, I just have to give up. I have to go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Input lag at the thing that I don't think was an issue ever with CRTs. Nope. No. No.

They were the superior. technology and also visually warm. Yeah. God, I love CRTs. They're the best. Mike, do you have a CRT in your place? I imagine your space limited in New York. Critical race theory?

Yes, I do. And lots of it. No, I don't, I do not right now have a CRT. The closest thing I have a CRT is I have like a, I have one of those old GameCube screens. Remember, like, for consoles from like the year 1999 to like 2005, they'd have like a screen that could fold on top of the console. Yep. As if you were going to travel with it.

so I have that. I want to get a, I want to get like a Sony Trinitron, like one of those little big CRTs. I just don't have anywhere to put it at the moment. That's the whole problem with apartment living. This reminds me of something I should have talked about in what are we playing. I went to a video game themed clothing store this week called Arc slash 8.

I was looking to buy a lamp and walking down a street and I saw a metal game. Metal Gear Solid Foxcon jackets, like fancy jackets, like hanging in a window. And I was like, oh, wow, this like streetwear brand has a collab with, with Kojima. I'm going to, I'm going to go in and see what this is all about. And almost every piece of clothing in this store was a video game collab. I ended up buying a sweater from them that just says you died on the front of it. And it's an Eldon Ring collab. and on the back near the collar, it says location you would like to be respawned and has two locations,

like right underneath the collar. It's a really cool shirt. But at the counter, they just had a Sony PVM hooked up showing like, I think it was like video content from a camera that was filming the store, but like in a playful way with like a DJ table. And then they had underneath the counter, they had like, an enormous collection of Y2K era Game Boys and Wonder Swan, that sort of that era of things. And I was like, where the fuck did you guys come from? What, what is this store?

How do I exist as a consumer on a machine that is just designed to sell me shit? Like the algorithm gods weren't like, hey, you know what you might like is an Eldon Ring sweater that says you died on it. There were also t-shirts that just said poisoned or Scarlet Rot. It was so fucking good. You set the Scarlet Rot one to the chat. It looked fucking rad. My God.

Anyway, they had a big, beautiful Sony PVM. And I was like, okay, so they're not just like, they're like also deeply invested in like the, like, the honest real gaming experience. It's not just like if you go into a converse in our life. like, hey, can I get the Pikachu converse? And they're like, the what? Right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Is it, wait, is it still, was it just a pop-up or is it still there? No, it's there. It's a permanent store. Oh, I'm going to go to this place. You got to go to this place. I absolutely will. So, Mike, did you, Heather mentioned Vibribin. Did you ever play Vibribin?

I did. Very long ago, though. I never got to play it with, like, my own CDs, though, which always not seemed like that was the big point of it. Yes. So I imported Vib Ribbon and it. It is, like I was saying, more of a novelty than a game. What it basically does, there's some levels that are within it that have music by Nana Nana-on-Shea.

It's essentially the, essentially the story mode. But like Parapa, it's basically like a half-dozen levels, and it's pretty easy to get through. The gameplay is almost non-existent. It just is your, you know, it's a continuous runner, basically. Your character is just walking along a straight line, and then a little hill will come up that will basically. be, we'll cue the one of the four face buttons. So like if it comes up and it's like a little square, then you will have to press the square button to summit it and so on. But the thing is if you, you can do it, you can like put the game in, load it into memory and then take the disc out and could

put in your own CD. And then if you were like, you know, listening to Dyer's Eve by Metallica or whatever, it would generate a level based off of the waveform, you know, algorithmically. And so you could basically be playing a rhythm game version of the CD that you owned. It was it was kind of cool, but also the sort of thing that like you play a few times and show some friends. They're like, okay, well, I guess I just have this collector's item now. Yeah, it's like the first step of what could have been the best game of all time. Right.

Because one of the few, like the experiences in a video game that's like, you know, one of your five senses is audio. And if you can control that and personalize it, then you're going to make an incredible, an incredible game. But it's just like it was just the first part of it. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's like, this is not, this is an imperfect comparison. But it's kind of like a very, very early 2D version of like what res ultimately kind of becomes. you know what I mean, where it's just sort of like, oh, this is like a fully immersive audio video visual experience, even though that that obviously removes the key element of this.

Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, like, it's just nothing really surpasses as far as Parapa style gameplay. Nothing really surpasses the original, which is never really just bested. I think aesthetically, it introduces a new style of game to North America. And I think, and this is another hot take. I don't think Catamari Domesi happens if Parapa failed in the in the U.S.

I agree with that. I think you're right. I think that there that it opens a crack in a door of what gaming is and what it could be and allows for different artistic styles and aesthetics to enter into what was previously, you know, you have your cartoon games like, you know, fucking Mickey Young Genesis or you have your. action games, but there's not like a third path that's like, or you could have a game that's a sort of a modern art, you know, streetwear T-shirt brand. You know, like it doesn't, without that, I don't think there's the space for Catamar Demercy. Yeah, and I think I think that's really well said.

And I think to what you're talking about when you were setting this up about how they almost didn't allow this to be released in North America, it also kind of was one of the early salvos in, oh. Westerners are open-minded towards things that seem perhaps distinctly you know, I mean this with affection that sort of live in that

Japanese weird sort of character. The thing that's odd for the sake of being odd. They don't just want to play Tekken and, you know, ballerina Toshindan and Tomb Raider. Like there's an openness to stuff that's not explicitly for children but is, you know,

but it's also just kind of cartoonish weird. Oh, I've got an even hotter take. Go for it. Wind Waker doesn't happen if Parapa the Rapper doesn't succeed. I mean, yeah, it's not necessarily like the first like cell shaded game, like it's not relatively self-shaded in the sense of later games, but you are like I think that visual character is derived from it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. I love these takes. Yeah. Three for three. Uh, you know, Matt is absent, but he did also play Parapa and he sent in his take, um, with a little voice memo. So we'll see just how, we'll see how sick he really sounds. Me getting weirdly suspicious.

He's just dodging work. He sent us his aura ring metrics. And it was the worst, it was worse than anything that I was experiencing on COVID. It was horrified. Like, I was like, he's dead. She slept for 11 minutes. And he had a fever. All right.

Here's Matt's take on Parapa the rapper. Hello, everyone. Sorry I'm not there. This week, sorry, Drucker, that I'm missing you on your return back to the show. Sorry to the team. Sorry to the listener. Sorry to everybody. I'm a little sick, getting ready to move. Things are going great. Sounds terrible. My experience with Parapa the rapper was goes all the way back to a PlayStation demo disc that I had. And I was very fond of this demo disc because it had some really great

stuff on it. It had Tomba. It had Star Wars Battles of Tereskasi. It had, I think, Cool Borders 2, maybe the first armored core and a bunch of other crazy stuff. And one of those things was Parapa the rapper. And it was the first level of Parapa the rapper with the Onion Man, karate guy. Kick Punch. It's all in the mom. mind. I remember playing that over and over again and loving it because I love the song, but never playing the original game. So when we got to do this episode, I downloaded the remaster to my PS5, and I've been loving playing it. It's so fun and so great. All the songs are really good. I guess I just didn't know, or I couldn't have gleamed from the demo, the relentless positivity

that is within Parapa. I gotta believe. It's so, it's just such a good character trait. And I'm hoping to keep playing. It's not a particularly long game, of course. I wish I could have finished it before recording this. The thing that I will say about it is that my wife thinks it's very ugly and doesn't

like the characters. Which is going to hold it against her. I don't know. But she's just like, I don't like looking at these guys. And I think it's fair. but I just thought I'd share that. See you guys. Oh, man.

Wow, he really does sound near death. He sounds awful. I'm so worried about our boy. I couldn't hear it, but I felt weird interrupt. Sorry, sorry, Mike. Oh, don't be sorry. Don't be sorry. I just don't, if he said something nice about or anything,

I didn't want to be like stone-faced. But I also was like, well, it sounds like he does not do it great. I don't want to interrupt. He was struggling. We get it around this, but he did say, did apologize to you for not being here. and said he wished she could be here. Oh, no, yeah, no. I love that.

I love him. He's okay. He can, he can always not be around when I'm around and I'll still like him. Yeah, yeah, he said his wife thought the characters were ugly. But he did also invoke something that,

is it probably a Derek Jamduty on my part to have not brought up so far. You got to do what? I got to believe. I got to believe. You got to believe. I mean, that's just like such a huge part of Parapa. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do believe. Yeah, I do believe as well. Any final thoughts on Parapa the Rapper? Honestly, like if it takes 30 minutes to beat the game, it's on PlayStation Plus at all times in all forms. Give it a shot. You are not going to spend very long with it,

but you'll have a good time. It is a positive, playful experience with some truly rigid CG cutscenes that at this point are so much more dated than the update of the HD graphics in the game. I would also just say like If you want to just get a taste Watch Chop Chop Master Onion Watch level one on YouTube And just sort of get a sense of

You know This from an audiovisual standpoint Yeah Shall we do a segment? Let's do a segment It's our video game ranked guessing segment It's another edition of pixel chart And today's pixel chart is best selling

PlayStation 1 games worldwide Oh Jesus So Go back to the era of Parapa the Rapper. Parapa the Rapper sold 1.6 million copies worldwide, which ranked it number 58

behind Need for Speed 3 Hot Pursuit and Medal of Honor. So that's just a baseline. That's kind of where that was. Also, I will say in my notes, I wrote originally Believe instead of behind because I just had I got to believe so entrenched in my head.

Love it. Also, Heather, I almost didn't want to say this, but I will say it, just the spirit of candor. I was going to be like, hey, we talked a lot of PlayStation. Let's talk to Sega Saturn. So I was originally going to do best-selling Sega Saturn games as a piece offering.

But, quote, because the Sega Saturn struggled commercially, Sega never published comprehensive game sales figures. Why does the news got to take a shot at me? That's rough. All right. This is a group exercise. Is anyone in Kachima? The system was a success in Japan. Yeah.

The Saturn is beloved. Huge success. It's just North America really bogged down. They hated it here and they didn't deserve it. It's a great, great fucking system. Best version of Symphony of the Night. Oh, God. All right.

Best selling PlayStation 1 games. The first one is, number one, is the first entry in a still ongoing franchise. This is a genre that I don't know if either of you are enthusiasts for. but this is a genre with a large... It's going to be like Madden 97. This is... I will say this is not... There are no, because this is worldwide,

there are no sports games in the top 10, but this is perhaps related to a sports game. All right, great. Grand Charismo. It is Grand Charismo, 1997. Oh, that's a good call. 10.8 million copies. Second one is another entry in an ongoing franchise,

but this is a... I think it is a game that both of you are fans of. Final Fantasy 7. Tech and three? It is Final Fantasy 7, but you know what? Druck, Tekken 3 is number 5, so you get that one. Number 3 is a sequel to a game. You know what?

Number 3 and 4 are sequels to games that were previously mentioned. Final Fantasy 8? Final Fantasy 9. No, it's Final Fantasy 8 is one of them. The other one is... Grand Tresmo 2? Grand Tresmo 2. 1999 is number 3.

The rest of the top 10. Panzer Dragoon. Oh, Heather. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, Knights into Dreams is not on this list. I apologize. Okay, okay, okay. What about Knights into Dreams?

Symphony of the Night? Symphony of the Night is not in the top ten. I'm actually not sure where it ranks. I think that game might have undersold originally. I had it. I love that game. That was the first two games I bought for PlayStation 1 were Final Fantasy 7 and Symphony of the Night.

Wow. Yeah. Okay, number six. So you were like 50% a Sega kid by that metric. What is the math there? Because I bought a Konami game for my PlayStation 1. No, because you bought a game that you could have purchased for the Sega Saturn. And it would have been the better version.

Yeah, sure. That's fair. If you'd had a Saturn, you would have bought Final Fantasy 7 for the PlayStation. You would have bought Castlevania for the Saturn. And you would have been so happy. And nobody would have known what you were talking about. None of your friends. Number six.

we don't like the person behind this. This is a media franchise that is still ongoing. This is the first entry in a license game. Oh, oh, oh, oh, this is, I know this one. It's Kevin Space's House of Cards. We don't like the person behind this. A huge franchise. Oh, geez.

A huge, huge franchise. I mean, not, I mean, I like Tony Hawk, so I don't think it's true. Again, worldwide. Tony Hawk gets pushed out of the top 10. Oh, yeah, that's fair. We don't like the person behind this. This is, think, think beyond video games. This is a licensed game.

Adolf Hitler's golf. Also known as A-Golf Hitler. Ed, golf, Hitler. The putting in A-Golf Hitler is really good. Imagine someone who's posts you wouldn't want to read. What? Posts. Posts you wouldn't want to read on a PlayStation game?

Not on, like, today. And this person is still relevant. Their work is still relevant. Their work is still very popular. And they're still making games based off of this franchise. But this is not a game franchise. Wait, they're still making games based on the franchise, but they aren't. not originally a games franchise these are licensed games oh okay it's a licensed game from a person

we don't like what oh uh it's a harry potter game yes it is harry potter and the philosophers or sorcerer's stone depending on which region you're in okay i will i will say the uh that they that they changed it from philosopher's stone to sorcerer stone just for americans just sort of like basically you can see a delta from that straight to our current political situation uh philosopher. Yeah, fuck that. They're going to be angry at this. Number seven, the mascot perhaps most associated with the PlayStation 1.

Crash Bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot. Two is Cortex Strikes Back is 97. And then number three, Crash Bandicoot Warped is number eight. Number nine, another character who became both famous on PlayStation 1, a little past their prime. Perhaps. Spiro? It's not Spiro the Dragon.

This is, they're games that are still being released. This is also like a game more targeted. It is Tomb Raider. 7.1 million. And number 10, we like this person. We like this person.

Janine Garofalo? It is, it is not Janine Garofalo. Unfortunately, it does not crack the top 50 worldwide. That PlayStation 1 game, Janine Garoflo. Janine Garoflo is bowling. This is a celebrity game designers behind this. This is the first entry in the franchise.

Oh, Metal Gear Solid. It is Metal Gear Solid. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Hey, that's well played there. That is a pixel chart and that is this week's get played. Our producers, Michelle Chan Ranch, Twitch.tv. Slash, Yard, underscore, Sard, where you will continue to stream Bioshock, I assume. Our music is by Ben Prunty.

Ben Prunty. Music.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, Duck Brigade.com. And we have a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon. This week, I believe, we are looking at the PlayStation 3 launch press conference from 2006. Yeah, 20 years ago this summer, Sony stood on stage and with the full-throated hubris of the moment announced the price of the PlayStation 3 was $599 U.S. dollars. And we get into it. on the DLC. A lot of fun.

That's over at patreon.com slash get played. But the most fun hanging out with Mike Drucker talking video games. One of our favorite voices in gaming, just such a thoughtful and funny perspective always. And if people have not purchased your book, a good game, no rematch, which I really enjoyed. It's out in hardcover now and people should check it out. Yeah, good luck in Edinburgh or break a leg. And thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, feel free to plug away, Drucker.

Yeah, oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, if any of you folks are in the UK in the Edinburgh area, because I know that things are far apart in other countries, please coming out. I'm switching up games every show. I'll have different comedians every show. Sometimes I literally toss, gently toss games into the audience that I don't want anymore because I have multiple copies of them.

So, yeah, it's a fun time. And it is one of the few shows at Edinburgh. that is not a one person show about loss or trauma. But it could be. But it could be. If it goes poorly, it will be the following air. How they play the game. Thanks so much, Mike, and you got played.

Thank you. 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.