Get Played - The Last of Us and Zombie Games

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss The Last of Us and the Zombie video game genre at large, Blue Prince, Celeste, Barbecue and more. Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Gurren Lagann go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Oh my god, I cannot believe that we are dealing with this undead apocalypse. It is horrible. There are so many guys outside and I just secured the door, I've secured the windows, I've hammered everything closed. Ugh. I got everything I could out of that ambulance that crashed outside, so we have some supplies

in case anyone gets infected. Oh my God. Yeah, no, I just think for sake of just knowing what everybody's talking about all the time, we should give these things a name. I agree. So we can all know what we're all talking about at the same time.

I absolutely agree. Some shared language would be helpful. Yeah, especially cuz we were gonna need shorthand when it's like, oh no, they're outside. I Agree, I agree. So what do you think we should call these things? I was sort of thinking about maybe calling them the comers Okay, that's okay. That's one idea Okay, that's one idea. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uh I feel like it's just evoking something something else, but I don't know We're scrambling here All the eggs are secured we make sure we didn't miss miss any of them with covering up with plywood and nails Yeah, the truth is maybe this is kind of a low priority what they're called because like oh no. Oh no

Oh, no, do you see they're over there? They're over the hill. They're hill. They're coming closer. They're coming closer. They are coming, aren't they? They're coming. The Cummers are coming. Yeah, you know what? I'm starting to come around to Cummers. I'm not gonna say it. I would rather, honestly,

I'll call them the Returners or the Dark Walkers or shit. Walkers is pretty good, but I feel like it's sort of... Dark Walkers? It's like a mouthful. Yeah, yeah. Cummers is like, you sort of get it right away. I don't, no, no I don't! Like if I said that to somebody, I was like, hey, have you seen the Cummers?

Then they're not gonna, they're not gonna know what the... You mean, oh yeah, those guys that are coming right over there? Yeah, I've seen them. No, they're not gonna know what the fuck I'm talking about. Wait, did you hear that? What? Downstairs I've seen them. No, they're not gonna know what the fuck I'm talking about. Wait, did you hear that? What? Downstairs. What?

The Cummers, they're here. Oh no, no, okay. The Cummers are outside. See, it's catching on. Wait, you're just using that as a demonstration so they're not actually in the house right now? No, they are in the house. What the fuck?

We need to board up the basement. Will you guys help me? You're just giggling. I don't know what to do, theers game. I'm not giggling stop it the comers are coming The comers got me actually I have a confession I'm gonna all open my shirt here, and you can see one of the comers bit me I'm turning into a commer I'm turning into a comer. No, you can't. No, I'm turning into a comer.

Nick, no, please. Oh, oh, I'm turning into a comer. Oh, I'm coming. Oh, I'm a comer. I'm a comer. We watch NPCs get dismembered and run out of ammunition as we discuss all things zombie games this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, fellow host Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premier video game podcast, where this week we're not just talking about zombie games, we're talking about sort of all the zombie games.

It's almost like the podcast is a zombie game of zombie games. Yeah. Because there are so many zombie games, and they're coming after us, one after the other. No, that's good. That's interesting you say that. Because we're not just talking about zombie games. We're talking about zombie games, too.

A horde of zombie games. I think I know what you were saying. A flock. A huddle, if you will. A murder of zombies. What's everyone's favorite in-world name for zombies? Because they're always something else. Yeah, they rarely say, it'd be a breath of fresh air,

someone's like, holy shit, it's a zombie. It's always like, oh, it's a walker, it's a groaner, you know? It's a clicker or whatever the fuck. Yeah, I mean, I do like walker. I do think that's pretty good. Yeah, walker's pretty great. I think that's maybe the best one. Well, but it's also like, you can see after a while

that you would just call them Walkers if you didn't have the word zombie. Yes. You'd be like, one of those walking guys is coming. It's a Walker, right? And same with Clicker. I mean, like Clicker, it's like, yeah, of course you're gonna call that thing

Yeah, yeah, cuz that's clicking the shit. I don't think anybody will call them remotes. I Don't think anybody would call them bloaters. I Call them a bloater. I mean yeah, you do cuz it's in the game But I don't think I don't think like bloater is a weird thing to say you'd call it a big one Hmm, I think I would he heathers right. I would call it a big one. Oh, shit. It's a big one. Right. Like, think about the stress you're under when you see that thing coming. You're not going to be like, well, it's kind of bloated.

Yeah. Therefore, I'm going to call it a bloater. You'd call it a big guy or a big one. But the thing is, like, are you talking about, hey, here's a zombie that used to play college basketball? Or are we talking about, if this is specifically a bloater, it's like a type of zombie. It's like a, you know, it's kind of like its own sort of thing.

Right, but you wouldn't, if you saw, were you saying if a zombie had played college basketball? Like if he'd be a big zombie, they'd be like, that's a big one. Prior to being a zombie. You wouldn't call him a tall guy? You'd say, that's a big one. You wouldn't call him a tall guy? You'd say, that's a big one. They'd all be guys.

Now I'm learning about myself. They'd all be guys. They're all men, certainly. Yeah, they'd be like, oh fuck. It's one of the hot guys. I was just thinking about this. Oh god, it's one of those hot ones. That's a fire one.

You're on fire. It's a hot one, it's a hot guy. This wouldn't, this couldn't happen. I mean, it could happen. Okay. But I don't think it would affect... Okay. So you can become a zombie, anybody can become a zombie. Okay. Mom, dad. Okay. Sister, brother, teacher.

Yeah. Police officer. Basketball player. Serial killer. A serial killer could become a zombie. Right. And does that make them a worse zombie? Like they're bad at it because they're selective? No, well, oh, that's interesting. I got that one.

That one doesn't fit my code. No, like they're just like, they're more deadly or like more killing. I feel like because zombies are using the body that you die with, I feel like Olympians would be the scariest zombies. Yeah. Because they've got the best fucking bodies

Yes, so like if like a gymnast zombie terrifying cuz not only they can also get under a house in a way Like a torsionist zombie. Yeah, fuck that. I Did a day I look for some canonical names for zombies sorted by IP and so yeah walking dead walkers for some canonical names for zombies sorted by IP. And so yeah, Walking Dead, Walkers, Last of Us, I think more generally are the infected as opposed to, yeah, that's the, you know. World War Z in the movie, I'd forgotten about this. They're called Zeeks.

Don't care for that one. I don't get, cause that's just like a guy's name. Well, it's cause they're zombies in World War Z, the book, but in the movie they're like, ah, the army guys call them Zeeks, like it's like a military slang. Wasn't Zeek the word used in the subtitled version of MSO8 team?

Didn't they call the Xeon guys Zeeks? They did, I think they did. I think they did, yeah. Those zombies. So now World War Z took it from from gun Oh, that's that show predates it trained to Busan great movie a zombie train movie. I mean, come on Hey, that's that's checking a couple boxes for me. It's a it sounds like Call me out on proper usage

They they are just called zombies in Train to Busan. But sometimes characters are like, oh, the monsters are infected, I guess. Somebody should write a movie where their in-universe movie had a different name for them. So that they call, for example, it would be like the, I don't know, the Gallopers or something, right?

So that when they see them, somebody would be like, oh, they're like Gallopers. And the other guy would be like, like the movie. Right, like the foundational zombie text in their world, their equivalent of their Night of the Living Dead established them as Gallopers. So everybody knows them as Gallopers. It would be funny if there was like, you know,

a zombie property, be it movie it movie TV show video game comic whatever That never calls them something like what is that? I don't know The fuck is that? Hey, we're gonna talk about all that But first the question we always like to ask toward the top of the episode not right at the top Talk about some other bullshit first usually usually just a smattering of a little bit of bullshit Just talk about whatever we want just about whatever we want. Yeah, we do whatever the fuck we want here Okay, we do whatever the fuck we want calm down

We're sorry, we're sorry about Matt. I'm in a mood. I'm drinking a Strawberry peach LaCroix and let me tell you something, it got me fucked up. We're in a, I wanna say. We're in a different studio than we normally are. And it's got a different sound in here. It has a different energy all around. Yeah. It's like quiet.

There's two different headgum studios. There's H, which is the smaller one, which is where we usually operate, and then there's G. The mnemonic I use for them is H is home, or hello, because it's near the door, and G is grande, because it's the big boy. That's pretty good.

So we're in the bigger studio G, but it's like a little bit too much space for us, and yeah, Ranch is like so far away. Ranch is like a football field away from us. Ranch is far away. I'm on the completely other end of the couch. And I'm very tense because I'm sharing a couch with Nick. Right, we're also sitting in a different orientation.

Is that the issue? Should we switch seats? Because I'm usually stage right, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm usually stage right. You're stage left and Matt is center. I'm tense. We're in completely different orientations.

I'm tense with any change, so yes. All right, let's change spots. You wanna change? Wait, so wait, you stay there. I'm staying exactly where I am. Nick, you come here and I'll go to this middle one. I got in the right place. You're in the right spot.

Okay, so you move to the middle. Okay, great. Is that gonna mess up though? Do we have to reframe? No. Okay, great. We're good. Okay, I'm moving

We'll put some moving music in here This is I will say this is better. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God The best part about this for me is I feel like I'm less threatened. Yeah, nothing's gonna happen with me next to you. Yeah, Nick is farther away. Nick can't protect you. Can only threaten. Yes. This is better. For some reason, I'm a little more, this is like how I like to sit at home.

I'm chilling. I mean, the room is still weird, but it's better. This is better. Get this the fuck out of here. It's not ours. With this reset There was another record in here right before us there's a bunch of leftovers Oh, I cleaned it all up. It's like peanut shells everywhere

Yeah, like they were just elephants or something just like eating peanuts like they're at a like at a 1915 bar Right like at one of those like classic sort of barbecue restaurants Or they're trying to say it uses an indicator for them being rustic. Throw your shells on the floor, we don't give a fuck. Here's the thing, I hate that. I hate it too, Matt. It seems uncleanly to me. I don't want to be crunching some peanut shells while I'm walking over to my table.

I want to eat at a clean restaurant. I agree. This is bullshit. You ever go to a Lucille's barbecue? Here's the thing, one of my top chains. Really good chain. It's pretty good. Yeah, I don't know. They're not nationwide.

No. And I'm sure, you know, that, hey, there's a, Matt and I are both from SoCal. What do we know about barbecue? I'm sure a lot of the American South would be like, what the, this isn't barbecue. But as far as a vibe spot, Yeah.

Got decent queue and it's a great place to just hang out and drink a sugary cocktail. I guess I haven't had barbecue from the actual South. I've had barbecue when I was, I had barbecue when I was in St. Louis. I think that kind of qualifies, right? Is it the South, I guess? I think that there was St. Louis style barbecue.

Yeah, it was very good. I liked it quite a bit. When I went to, I went with my wife to Texas, she was like, you have to have Texas barbecue. And I had Texas barbecue and I was like, huh. Okay have Texas barbecue. And I had Texas barbecue. And I was like, huh. OK. Because I grew up in Chicago barbecue. And that is its own thing.

Yes. Right. Yes. So it's weird that everybody's got their own barbecue. Yeah, it's a declara sauce. Fuck, should we order barbecue? We could order barbecue. The other thing I was going to say is, LA, as obviously,

it's not much of a local cuisine except our Korean barbecue, which is absolutely top notch. That's my favorite thing to eat, I think. I go nuts at a KBBQ. Yeah. Oh man. Were you thinking that or are you thinking like an actual barbecue,

like a more traditional American barbecue? Heather was talking about a surprise barbecue order like as a prank, I guess, but it would be like that we get to eat the barbecue. Well, the truth is that I thought I was going to be late to record and I thought I would make it up to you guys by having barbecue come as a surprise. But then I was here on time and I was like,

I don't want to subject people to eating after the record if nobody wants to eat. Yeah, and then I ended up being the one who was late to the record because my bus didn't come on time and then it didn't matter because someone was still in the studio. Yeah, yeah, but it's okay, Nick. It's fine. You can give us your surprise at any time.

Yeah. My surprise? Yeah. My surprise was leaving a bunch of trash in here that we had to clean up. You gave me just a little something to do. Here's the thing, I'm down to get barbecue truly anytime. I worry that, because often what we do is we do in between meal record two episodes. We'll do like get played and then get animated.

We're not doing that today. Typically we would, if we did this on another day where we were doing that, I would say we're doing the first record, eating barbecue, and then holding our stomachs and going home. We could do some post showshow BBQ if we wanted today and be fine. If we wanted, but also we're just doing the one record,

I don't know if people have it, but there are other dinner plans. We don't need to figure this out right now. We've already subjected the listener to moving on the couch. Rache, where do you stand on BBQ? Our producer, Rochelle Chen. I love BBQ.

Do you have a favorite style and do you have a favorite, like, do you go for a pulled pork, do you go for barbecue or producer, Rochelle Chen? I love barbecue. Do you have a favorite style and do you have a favorite, like, do you go for like a pulled pork, do you go for like a baby back rib, do you go for a brisket? My favorite is definitely ribs. Yeah. Like a beef rib, pork rib?

Like a beef rib. Okay, okay, okay. Actually don't know what ribs, kind of ribs I'm eating to be honest. Are they big or small? The big ones are beef. Big, big, bigger, yeah. Okay, like a Flintstones rib.

Yeah, I like a pork rib. I will say, I know this is deeply concerning information to hear for people that don't indulge in meat. When people start talking about the different parts that you prefer, I understand. I will get off of this in just a second. Whenever I'm eating ribs, I always feel like it's like a special occasion.

But something went extremely well for me to be eating ribs today. It's very, very good. I love it. I can't remember the last time I've just dug into like a half rack of baby back ribs. I will generally say that I like a, I like a brisket. I'm a brisket.

I feel like that's where I lean. I really like a brisket, but then I'm also, things I think that I always get forgotten, barbecue chicken and especially barbecue shrimp. Okay, so I was saying- Put some shrimp on the barbecue. Barbecue shrimp?

Oh, hell yeah. What are you, down under or something? Yeah, if I want to be. This guy's going down under over here. He's next thing he's gonna tell me what is and isn't a knife. This guy. Saying the C word a bunch. That'd be a funny pivot for you.

Hey guys, I'm Australian now. Don't do the accent just say it I was saying to Heather just a little bit ago before we started recording because we were talking about barbecue a little bit before you got here Okay, great. I'm glad there's a continuation of the conversation So I was saying that like barbecue chicken typically not my favorite because I feel like it's often just an afterthought It's pretty because it's an easier preparation You just make the chicken and you slather in barbecue sauce you're kind of done with it I had some barbecue feels like an oversimplification Well, you know of course because like there's obviously other things you could do where you could be like smoking the chicken

I'm gonna smoke that some bit a lot of times like I would say that the this is for this for your other show This whole conversation is for your other show Dude if we talk about this further do we owe like Mitch money? No, we do not. In fact, I think he owes me money. To separate conversation. Do you say data or data? Well, at my house we say data.

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off your first box plus free shipping. That's code factor podcast at factor meals dot com slash factor podcast. So, they'll often like, I feel like the barbecue chicken at Lucille's not particularly exciting of barbecue chicken you can get. It's like just sort of like easy to make in a batch. There are places where it's an afterthought, but there are places that do a proper barbecue chicken. The place, a place that I love here in Los Angeles, have you had Moosecraft barbecue? I have had Moosecraft, yeah. Moose is, I think, rising the ranks to me in terms of like best in Los Angeles.

I really love Moose. One time I was in line, they were running out of stuff. And you can just replay this on the show next week if you want, just like slice it. Hey, here's a clip from my other podcast, Get Played. And it's just a clip of talking about food in the middle of doughboys. Your more interesting guest is gonna be like,

what the fuck is this? And I was in line at moose and they were running out of stuff cuz they'll get to place That'll just run out of stuff and when you're in the line, they're crossing stuff off like the chalkboard It's a very concerning spot to be because you could get to the front they could have no more food One of the last things they had I mean they had a few rib tips left I was able to get some rib tips very exciting And then they had barbecue chicken, I was like, I guess I'll get the barbecue chicken. And I kid you not Nicholas. Yes. This is the best. This is the

best barbecue chicken I've ever had in my life. Wow. It was so fucking good. It was smoked. It had a nice little thin layer of sauce and it had this like sort of spicy ranch on it. Yes. Very, very good. Again, it's by LA standards, very good food city, obviously not the mecca of barbecue, but there are some places, I mean, among the sort of chain tier, there's Holy Cow, which I think is pretty good.

Okay, yeah. But Blood Sows, which is the big one that people point at, which started in Compton, now there's a couple in LA, and it's Texas style barbecue. And that place is always, I have a great time at. And I also just sort of say, there are also places that you'll find, there was a spot that was just in a dirt lot for a while,

it was like an Airstream trailer, and then there were picnic tables in a dirt lot, it closed during the pandemic, and I was trying to look it up on my iPad, what the fuck it was called, I couldn't figure it out. But that spot was great. And then there's also the place that is actually owned and operated by Jeffrey Epstein's former personal chef.

Which, probably pretty good. Like you would have to assume that it's probably good. I heard it's pretty good, I've never been. I do want to say I did just order all the barbecue. Did you really? Yeah, I did. Did you really? Is that what you're doing on your phone?

Yeah, that's what I did on my phone. I just got us all dinner. Oh my god. You didn't even do that. I'm sorry. I didn't ask anybody's permission. I just did it. Wow, OK.

I'm so hungry. Thank you. Yeah! All right, yeah. Hell yeah. We'll eat the barbecue and it gets you. I got us the brisket. I got us the pulled pork.

I got us lean brisket. I got us the sides. Woo wee. I got mac and cheese, collard greens, beans, cornbread, coleslaw. I got all of it. Wow. This is going to be huge for us. I did not get the full chicken because that felt too much. That seemed... I mean, what you ordered, that sounds like a lot of food.

Yeah. That's going to be a lot. We're going to pig out. Yeah. We're going to be in hog heaven, pun intended. But right now, we got to talk about some video games on this video game podcast The question for the room is what are you playing? What are you playing? Hi, it's me the Resident Evil Merchant And I'm here to ask my friends what they've been playing

But also to condemn them for not inviting me to dinner Resident Evil Merchant, of course you, there's an unspoken invite. You're welcome to join us. Okay, great. I've seen the Resident Evil Merchant eat a whole chicken and let me tell you something, it was unpleasant. I can unhinge my jar, take it all into my mouth and then I can suck hard enough to leave the bones

in the mouth and the meat in my throat. Well, you were trying to do, you're trying to reenact the lava chicken scene from the Minecraft, a Minecraft movie, and it sort of just didn't really work out. I didn't see it. Is it any good? Uh, you know, you listen to our episode we did last week about it.

What? You were here. You were here. Will you release these? Yeah, these episodes are, we don't just have a conversation in a room into microphones and then record it for our own archival purposes. We actually released this commercially

so for people to listen to. And we run ads on it. Are you in trouble? Why would we be in trouble? For the show. Yeah, sometimes people don't like it. Yeah, sometimes we're in trouble, yeah. I'd say.

I would be careful. You know, I didn't know that you could... I don't like maybe playing for your friends at a listening party, but you're putting this... Am I famous? I would say your fame predates our show. I think just being there, you have a notoriety as the Resident Evil merchant. Do you think anybody in Congress knows who I am? Does anyone in Congress know who the Resident Evil merchant is?

I would say yes. That's a fascinating question. Definitely, yes. At this point, there's enough Zoomers, I mean, not Zoomers, but there's enough Millennials in Congress. Wow. Some of them played a Resident Evil game.

Oh, well, that's great. I think I could probably get some stuff taken off of my record. I don't know if they do that. In Congress, I gotta go to Washington. Actually, I think they do do that. Did they do that? I gotta go to the District of America

and talk to Congress. Yeah, is it just called the District of America now? I think it might be, actually. I don't even have any. You gotta stay on top of the laws. The Resident Evil Merchant is kind of an odd fellow. Have you noticed? I noticed that the Resident Evil Merchant, it's funny you say that, because now if I'm

sitting here and I'm thinking about it, yeah, I have noticed that the Resident Evil 4 Merchant is a bit of an odd fellow. Odd, and would we? I just say, you know, you kind of say strange things. You behave in an odd way. Yeah. You act like you've never gone in, in a rental car company with like four buckets of beans. And as if you could, like everybody,

I, what, in what way am I hard? In what way? I don't know. I see you just saying shit like that like what you just said it was like beans like extremely weird typically not the Container for which you would transport beans if you have a lot of them How would you suggest it? I guess if you harvest them like put like put your coat down on the ground I just don't know where the rental car is coming equation

But under your coat was gonna rent a car I'm sort of like wrapping up a gift. Is that what you want to do? I don't believe in it. I don't believe in it. And this is something that we actually do really appreciate about you. Is that you have such... You hold onto your morals so strongly. You're so strident in your moral code and your value system.

It's enviable number one never kill anyone on roller skates Number two just having fun What is it? They're just having fun leave them alone. I'll tell they're at a disadvantage Yes, I Agree with you. All right. I think you just probably end that it never kill anyone. That's probably all you need there. No, I disagree. Killing the lily of it.

I disagree, I've seen some shit. Some people need to die. Some people do need to die, but that's a larger conversation Resident Evil Merchant. Let's talk about some video games. Do you think if Luigi Mangione had my name that people would be like, you got a merchant that guy? Yeah, I think so. So if Luigi Mangione was Resident Evil Merchant? If Luigi Mangione was named Resident Evil Merchant, they would be saying somebody has

to merchant that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think though I think the larger story would be like that. There's a there's a man named Resident Evil Merchant Yes, like his like was that his merchant the legal last name. Am I not a man? You are a man. That's my name. I You're okay fair enough Fair I was thinking about a hypothetical guy from thinking about the actual person standing in front of me the hulking figure wearing a cloak Then yes, you are Resident Evil evil merchant, you are a man. And I should call it DSM. My bandana is wet.

Why don't we get- Oh my God. Why don't we get to the topic? What are you praying? Not even wearing it on his head. Here's a video game I've been playing, Blueprints, which released today as of this recording, April 10th, 2025, which is when we're in studio. I was developed by Doggy Bomb, an indie studio founded by Tonda Ross.

I'm not quite sure how to pronounce their name, but also they were the development lead on this particular game. It was published by Raw Fury. It is on Game Pass and it's also on PlayStation Plus. So there are some ways to play this if you're on one of those subscription services. And it is getting universal acclaim from critics.

I assume a lot of our, or at least some of our listenership has already messed around with this game because it's got so much indie hype around it. I have played a couple of hours on PC Game Pass. Matt, you've also gotten to spend a little bit of time with the Blueprints. Yes, I've been playing it on PlayStation Plus, on my PS5, and I'm enjoying my time with it

despite not really being sure and I'm enjoying my time with it despite not really being sure what I'm doing so far. Here's what I will say. I played more than I planned to and that was partly why I was running a little bit late today. It's a game that I found immediately compelling, partly because I like this type of game and we'll get into what the gameplay is, but also because it has that sort of ambiguity,

that mystery quality to it where I just wanna like understand what exactly I'm, from a narrative design standpoint, it's just sort of like giving me some details, but in a way where I want more and more and I wanna understand what exactly is going on here. Yes. But the game is opaque by design, both in terms of what the story is, who you are, why

you are there, and then also what you're supposed to be doing as you're playing the game. There's very minimal in terms of onboarding, in terms of like any sort of tutorial or whatever. You're just sort of introduced to how it works and then just sort of like told to go at it. So here's basically how the gameplay works. You're in first person, it's like a first person exploration game, you're exploring a family mansion, you start in an entryway and there are three doors,

one to the north, one to the west, one to the east. When you go up to one of these doors, you pick up some blueprints in the foyer and when you go up to one of these rooms, these doors, you have a choice of three different rooms, kind of rogue-like style or any sort of run-based game style, where you can choose, you can choose to place there. Each of them have different attributes and also different entrances and exits. So for instance, there's you could have a storage closet, which will have items in it. You might have some gems and a key in there

But it will be a dead end because it's a closet Whereas if you put in a hallway, it will have no items But it will give you two additional doors so you can create more options and expand your map as you go So it's one where you're kind of like going from room to room, but you're also like creating the rooms You're building this environment as you go and that resets with each with each run you're kind of building out a grid and trying not to run out of moves. It's kind of like a, I don't know if you all remember that old pipeline game pipe mania, but there's a lot of that. There's a lot of games like these grid based games where you're basically putting down pipes

and you know, it's like, like summer, you know, some will be angled some directions, some will, some will be like a plus shape that'll go in all different directions. Um, and you're trying to just try to just figure out the flow of the water. Uh, but here it's the flow of, of where you, the player character move. You also have a limited resource in terms of how many steps you can take in a day. Uh, which sounds onerous, but it's actually just tracking how many times you go in and out of rooms and it's just a way to keep it for keep you from You know spending infinite time and one individual run. I

anyway That in and of itself is compelling Like if the game was just that I'd be in because it's kind of a fun puzzle plus, you know It like how do I optimize this map? How do I keep it so I can keep moving but also keep accumulating resources because some Rooms require resources in order to build you have to have gems to build them or some some like, you know If you build like I think it's a chapel that requires gold to enter even you know Like so like you also have to be mindful of that I think that's all really fun and really compelling but the real draw is trying to figure out again

What the hell is going on? It's very mist likelike to me specifically. And I say that I'm not the biggest fan of Myst, but I do appreciate that Myst just had so much like lore and so much to like look at and try to figure out. Also reminded me of games like Gone Home or What Remains of Edith Finch. Edith Finch obviously has like a lot more just like dialogue

and just like straight story, but it is a sort of thing of like, you're just sort of like in this environment trying to make sense of it. And you get to certain checkpoints and you find a little bit more out. It's all kind of trickled in and then that informs the whole also kind of reminds me Heather, to some degree of and again, pretty early on, but like even of Team Eco games, like it kind of has that shadow of the Colossus sort of feel of like, what is this place? What is happening here? Who am I? And I think all that stuff is conveyed

really, really effectively. A lot of atmosphere, all mystery, a bunch of mystery, but none of the horror elements. It's not like a PT or a Silent Hill. It's just like weird. What is the aesthetic of the game? Great question. So it has, you know, it's an indie feel.

It kind of honestly looks, we're gonna talk about probably Telltale's The Walking Dead at some point. It kind of has that sort of telltale aesthetic to it. It kind of honestly looks, we're gonna talk about probably Telltale's The Walking Dead at some point. It kind of has that sort of telltale aesthetic to it. Like sort of like thick outlines. Yes, yes. Okay. Almost like the art is drawn with a marker, you know?

And, but there aren't a lot of like, maybe I will encounter some in the environment as it goes, but it's like you're its first person and this environment is largely empty. And if you see any characters, you're seeing them in cinematics You're not seeing them in the play space for me I like it took me a couple of me

it's gonna obviously take anybody a couple of runs to sort of like get in the groove of like what it is a little bit but like I Got I'll say that I got to There's like um on the on the grid that you have, you have like your starting room, which is like the main entryway, right? And then you have like, it's called the anteroom at the very end, you're sort of building your run

to get to that room. Okay. Before we got, before I walked over here, I got all the way to that. Wow. And was like very happy with myself. I was like, okay, like this was huge for me. I got all the way to this thing

and I couldn't go further than that. So it was like, my run wasn't optimal enough like cause I didn't have the thing that would require like I guess to trigger the thing that I need to go past that. You're talking very vaguely, I think, for a reason, because this does feel like a game where part of, I didn't really know anything,

I just knew that people were saying this game is awesome before I started playing it, which I'm really glad I got to experience it that way. So I guess if you're listening to this and you haven't played it yet, sorry. Yeah, well, I was like... But I mean, I will say that you reach certain points where it's like, oh, I have This is a new kind of entrance that I was not expecting

like this is a new way into a room and I need some sort of thing that I don't have yet or I do have This thing and now I can get in here, but it's like it's so I think there's a I again What we're we'll see where where we end up when we actually play more of this game but it's like I do feel like getting to finishing a run, completing a run, and I'm not sure that completes the game or if that just probably in all likelihood just sets up something, you know, takes you to a new threshold involves like exploring as much of the space as possible and unlocking as many things as possible.

So you unlock additional rooms, you unlock additional items, you unlock additional bonuses. There are things you can do with work where you have you end up like at a certain point I built a shrine and the shrine imbued me with bonuses that lasted the next two runs. So you can do things like that that you run into. Cool. Yeah, I guess I'm speaking of it vaguely because I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, that's the other thing. It's like, it's very confusing. But like the, it's, I mean, I'm enjoying it. And like the, there are puzzles in it

that are not particularly challenging so far. I know that there's gonna be some probably later on. There was like, there was a particular type of puzzle that required a little bit of math for me. Sure. And that's not, that's not my thing at all. I can't do I mean, I can do math enough, but I'm not thinking about math. I haven't thought about math in a long time, even though it's part of my name, of

course. Yeah, you're you may be Matthew, but you don't think about I'm not thinking about it. Math few math. Few. I don't have to do it. It's usually what I'm thinking. Now I'm doing it Did Heather leave? No, I'm right here. I Had to do this math and like I had to sort of learn how to do the math kind of Because it's not telling you how to do it. I like that. This is the dartboard puzzle, right? Yeah, I was like, oh this feels like the sort of emergent sort of

Like like like it's not spoon feeding it to you. Emergent isn't quite the right word, but it's like you're discovering through context clues how this puzzle works. It's pretty simple, but I like the way that was. I felt like a fucking genius. Yeah, exactly. I felt amazing.

I was like, I did math and I was right. Right, yeah. It helps you, it doesn't really hold your hand with it, but it gives you just enough clues where you feel like you're figuring it out on your own, even though it's a thing that the game wants you to do, which to me is always the most successful sort of design. And I also got a,

like there was an element where they were, I found out they were fucking with me, which I liked, which there was a thing where, I'll be kind of vague here, but there were some like instructions that were sort of left around, where I was like, oh, okay, that's okay, I'll keep that in mind, that's a little sort of tool tip all back pocket, and then I discovered a thing

that was saying like, these kinds of instructions are lies. So I was like, oh, okay, that's kind of fun that the game had me believing a bunch of false things just because I was naturally absorbing the conventions of how information is dispensed in games. What I'm learning so far, based on the conversation that we're having, is that we both played this all day today.

Again, I played it a lot more than I expected to. And with my limited time with the game, I understand the rapturous reception where people are like, oh, this is the best 2025 release so far. I wonder if there's ever been an, speaking of lying in games, I wonder if there's ever been an instruction booklet

to a video game. And I say booklet because it like, obviously you've just described something that's like an in-game tutorial that does this. So it does exist in games. But I wonder if there's ever been an instruction booklet that purposefully tells you the wrong information, like Mario loves a pit.

Put him in the pit. The only thing I remember from, I mean, the game Tunic I know, which I didn't play, but that was an indie from a couple of years ago that did have an in-game manual that was like part of it, at least is my understanding of it. But the only thing I remember is the Castlevania 3 manual in North America listed two bosses as, what the fuck was it? I remember one of them was called Paula Abghul.

And I was like, so this was just, as a kid I was like, one of them was called a Paula Abghul And I was like so this was just I like as a kid like okay It's Paula Abdul of the other one's Fred Oscar Fred Oscar and Paula Abghul these two dancing bosses I was like okay, just take that as face value another I was like wait This was just whoever was doing the localization was just freelancing they like they go Yeah, no one no one was yeah, no one was supervising them. So like I don't know that I'll make up some pun names That's so good. Yeah Yeah, no one no one was yeah, no one was supervising them. So like I don't know that I'll make up some pun names That's so good. Yeah I'm enjoying it. Can't wait to see what else is going on this freaky house

the other thing I was gonna say is Because we're gonna talk about like the last of us and at the game of the last of us, which I really like I like those games But it's it's easy to see a good straight shot turn that into a TV series because it's portions of gameplay interrupted interrupted by non-interactive Cutscenes, you know beat the level to get the reward of watching the movie. That's just how, and that's how a lot of games, the AAA games are.

Or sit through the movie so that the reward is shooting more of those guys who are yelling out, Steven. Exactly. This is the sort of narrative design where all of it can really only be conveyed as interactive art. And that's why I really like that sort of design

where it's like, oh, I understand why this is a video game. Like this doesn't really translate into other medium. This effectively uses the strength of this interactivity and exploring on your own to its benefit. Matt, I'm glad you're playing it. I did think you would love it or you would like it at least in like kind of a lost sense. Yes.

I mean, did you get lost vibes at all? I know it's not very losty in terms of aesthetic, but in terms of like the sort of puzzle boxy tone. I hadn't thought about it yet until now. That is sort of, I guess, part, like that is scratching the itch of why I'm enjoying it probably. You really nailed that.

Cause like for some reason I had this instinct when I started the game. The game wants you to walk into the house first. I went outside. Matt, I also went outside. I was like, what the fuck's going on out here? I wanna see what's going on outside not much so far But I feel like there's gonna be stuff to discover outside at some point. There's some stuff outside. Oh, baby

There's stuff outside. This game kind of sounds awesome. It's it's I really like it I I wrote my notes because I didn't know Matt you were gonna play it. I'm Matt. I think you'd love this Heather I think you'd hate this. There, I think you'd hate this. Oh, OK. There's no killing, and it's just all like... Oh. Yeah, there's no combat. Wait, there's not like a monster in the house?

No, there's no combat. I guess we don't know, but probably not. Maybe, but I mean, there's no combat. It's just a game of exploration and puzzles. Not every room has stuff to click on, even. Yeah, there are books you can find. You can find like a book and read it. Do you like gems?

I like books and gems. There's books and gems in there. But usually I like it if they like, you have to kill somebody to get the book. I think so far there's no murder. I think you should try it just to see. I didn't wanna assume you would hate it, even though there are so many things in it thus far that knowing you as your friend,

I know you'd hate. The idea of taking, at the end of my day, getting my one hour of video game time, if I'm lucky, to spend doing math problems in a fucking room, that does not sound like me. Yeah, I would be surprised if you like this game. You sometimes like games that you wouldn't expect Heather to like, like a Disco Elysium,

but then again, Disco Elysium is one of the best games ever made. It's a very singular experience. I don't know if this quite rises to that threshold, but maybe it does. Jason Schreier said that this is one of the best games he's ever played. Yeah, I have heard that from some people.

I'm not deep enough into it yet to have to render that verdict But there's a hundred hours I think before getting wow consensus My what I put in my notes was I just go back to it Matt. I think you'd love this Heather I think you'd hate this ranch. I think youviating about blueprints. Heather, what are you playing? Well, this week I've been very busy, but I have had a chance to dip into the new Ranked mode on Pokemon, uh, the card game Pocket on mobile. Um, let me tell you.

So, a couple weeks ago, when I last spoke about Pokemon Pocket, I was, um, frustrated at how everybody had started to use the same decks pretty exclusively. The thing about Ranked is, and it had the opposite decks pretty exclusively. The thing about ranked is, and it had the opposite effect that I thought it was going to have, is that because those decks are so highly rated, people are specifically playing decks to beat those decks,

which then means that you have the opportunity to play decks that would beat the decks that would beat the deck. So there is your S plus tier deck that is like the go-to deck. I have personally, even though it's ranked mode, started punishing that deck by immediately quitting, quitting out and eating the deranking that happens when I see that deck because I'm like, I don't wanna waste my fucking time

maybe grinding through this awful deck, which is a joyless, joyless deck to play and to play against. Yeah, that reminds me of like when I was playing Hearthstone and you go up against like a control warrior who would be like someone who would just be basically trying to burn through every single card in their deck and the match would Take like 20 to 30 minutes and you were probably gonna lose. I was like fuck this

I just concede right away so I'll eat the I think it's a Negative seven penalty now on on my rank points in order to get away from that deck which I also hope that You know community wise if you're playing Pokemon Pocket, sure, maybe there's the kind of guy who wants to get into the top, like 500 people who play Pokemon Pocket, and if you punish that deck by quitting out against it, he gets the automatic upgrade,

and so he'll get to rank up. But I wonder if there are people who are like, well, I actually like playing the game. And so if enough people are like, fuck this, I'm not playing against this, then maybe they'll change it out? Or I don't know, but anyway, I hit the ultra ball ranked,

I think I'm ultra two or maybe I think I'm ultra two now. That sounds pretty high up there. I haven't played this game, but. Well, it's, uh. It's one ranked down from a Master Ball, I would assume? Yeah, so you go Ultra 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then you go Master. And then Master also is where you start getting

into the actual numerical rankings. So like top 50,000 players. Wow. But the way the experience works is that by the time you get to ultra ball, you're about halfway to the way to master. So it is all of the rank, like pokeball one through four, then I think it's, what's the next ball?

Great. Then yeah, it's great ball one through four, and then your ultra ball one, two, three, four, and then master, right? So I'm somewhere in ultra. I think I'm two. Maybe I'm three. I don't fucking remember. But I'm playing against a ton of different kinds of decks, and it's super fun to play

again. Oh, good. And so when I have my like in-between meetings time, I'll throw on that game, play a couple of rounds, and then go into the next meeting or go into the next event. I'm really enjoying it again. Also, I've found that I really like randomized decks. And by that I mean, decks that do randomized damage

are funny to me. So, like not decks that are like, there are some decks where your damage output is based on coin flips. So it's like, you know, you'll load up some Celebi or something and depending on the amount of energy that you have stacked on your Celebi is the number of coin flips you get

and every heads does 50 damage, right? That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Wugtrio. Yeah. Wugtrio is my boy. Wugtrio does 50 damage to random Pokemon on the other player's bench and active players, or active card.

So it's 50 scattered three times, no coin flips, and I think he's really funny. Because also he looks funny. Yeah, that's really good. And that I find really pleasant, because by the time I'm attacking with him, I'm like, who knows what he's gonna hit? That's fun. Wug Trio, I assume in an evolution of Doug Trio?

Yeah, a- Wigglet. Wigglet, oh, I'm sorry. You got Wigglet into Wug Trio. Into Wug Trio, okay. Yeah. This guy looks pretty good. He's like three worms coming out of a rock.

Yeah, and I think a regional variant too, because it's Diglett and then Dugtrio, and then- Wiglet and Wugtrio. Wiglet into Wugtrio, got it, got it. And I also like, I don't know, my wife pulls all of my cards for me. She does all the opening of the packs because she has truly unfathomable luck. And so I say to her, I need another wug.

And she says, I got you. And she opens my three packs or two packs for the day or whatever it is. And sure enough, three packs in, she's got a wug trio. And I'm like, that's incredible. And she's got a WUG Trio. And I'm like, that's incredible. And she's like, is this the art version, the shiny kind? And I'm like, no, she's like, so you need another WUG.

So I run, I'm running the holographic WUGs because I say to my wife, I need WUG Trio holographic. And she fucking gets it. It's horrifying. Like really it feels like I have married a programming node of the universe. Like I'm married to Agent Smith. But yeah, that's what I've played this week.

Not a lot of time for the game that shall not be named even. And no time for Assassin's Creed, which I haven't been able to fucking touch and no time for Assassin's Creed, which I haven't been able to fucking touch since we did the episode. I fell off of Assassin's Creed, I will just say. I was like, oh, okay, you know, I was playing the first chunk of it, and I was like, okay, I like these two characters I like

the story the the aesthetic is top-notch and then it just kind of got started feeling Assassin's Creed II and I just sort of like you know what there's a reason I don't really play these games there's a reason I've kind of checked out of this series yeah but then I also like because I think there was there's also the unfortunate thing of because I've been playing that at the same time as Final Fantasy 7 rebirth I'm just like I can't commit to both of these right now I kind of fell off for me not that I don't appreciate it But I think it's maybe just not and when you guys are playing mother 3 you're not gonna have time for any of this

I will say feel like if blueprints is gonna absorb a hundred hours of my life Then I think I might be I have time for anything else. It's I mean it's there's a look games are back. They're back. I love video games. Games are back. I love video games. Even if that switch costs as Nick said a thousand dollars. I can't wait to get a switch. Games are back and there's nothing to do about it like the I did I almost fell off of Assassin's Creed. Yeah. I hit a pain point, but it was user error. It was my fault. Oh, it was a skill issue? It was a skill issue.

Cause it was, I was going after quests that I was not leveled for, and I didn't realize that. It tells you this is a level like 35 quest on your quest board or whatever, but I wasn't paying attention to that number. Oh no. So I was getting one shot on my way to the quest. Boy, that sounds like my kind of thing though.

It was fun, but I was trying to figure out how, cause I would get some hits in before I would get kicked one time and then killed. And I was like, this fucking, I think I'm done with this. And then I was like, you know what? Let me just look for another quest. And I go to another quest, I was like, wait, why, let me just look for another quest. And I go to another quest, I was like, wait, why is that number,

oh, that level's corresponding with my level. I just didn't know. The worst part, the worst time I had of that specific problem in Assassin's Creed was in Valhalla, there was a fort that you were supposed to, so I find a fort that is enormous and terrifying. And I was like, oh shit, let's go. Yeah, I'm in.

And I'm like, climb over a wall and immediately get murked by some guy. And I was like, oh cool, there must be something really awesome inside this fort. So then find a different path in, can sneak up on a guy, do half damage to him before he's able to pull out his weapon, kill that guy, wait for everyone to stop freaking out,

and go through the fort person by person, like a human being trying to kill everybody at the Super Bowl with a can opener. Like, really hard work. Finish the fort and there's nothing fancy in it. And I was like, huh, that's so weird. Go on with my life and like, I don't know, two hours later trigger a story quest

where the quest is we're all together going to breach this fort that is unbreachable. Oh. And I was like, oh my God, are we going to go in and it's empty or are they all going to be respawned? And sure enough, they were all respawned. Wow. And I was like, that sucks.

That does suck. Yeah. That's horrible. Yeah. It'd be really funny if you got there, like, I guess we don't have to do any of that. Matt, what are you playing? Beyond Blueprints. Beyond Blueprints this week I did for some reason I

Started Celeste. Wow. I love it. I started Celeste a couple of times Yeah, like just like just to you know I had it on Switch for years and Was just sort of like you know I would play through play through like the first area or the first level or whatever. And be like, this doesn't feel like the time that I'm not ready for. Like, I'm not ready to commit to this, even though it seems like I'm going to like it. This week I picked it up and then just couldn't put it down for some. I was just like really into it. And it's extremely fucking hard.

It is. Yeah. It's really hard game. But I'm really enjoying it because the so so, I mean, gosh, it seems insane to try to explain it, because like everybody knows what it is at this point, but it's like a... I think enough people have missed out on Celeste, an indie gem from a few years ago.

It's a platforming game where like, dying is learning. Like, it's like, I mean, that's every video game, I guess, right? But like you, if there are environmental obstacles and if you die, you just get sent back to the beginning of the level and you just keep trying. And so it tells you like in a load screen, like, hey, don't worry about dying so much.

Like be excited that you're learning how to play the game. I was like, okay, yeah, it's reframing how I'm thinking about this. It's kind of like chill wave, super meat boy. Yeah. It's the same sort of thing where it's like, hey, you'm thinking about this. It's kind of like Chillwave Super Meat Boy. Yes. It's the same sort of thing where it's like, hey, you're gonna die on the screen a bunch of times before you beat it, but the respawns are fast,

the consequences for failure are minimal, and so you're just supposed to keep trying until you overcome it. But whereas Super Meat Boy feels punishing, this game feels like it's, you know, trying to think of the correct word for it. It feels soothing. It feels like it's helping you along on this journey.

And I just said, I'm climbing on walls, I'm dashing. I just cleaned up a fucking weird hotel. Yeah. And was like, this game is so fun. I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm hoping to really enjoying it. I'm hoping to beat it, hopefully by next record. We'll see if time allows.

But I'm finding it to be extremely pleasant and easy to just be doing while I'm watching 90 Day Fiance with my wife or something. It's like a very like, like second screen, like that, or the TV is the second screen. I'm hearing about what's going on with Jasmine and Gino on the TV. And I'm like, this show's fucking crazy.

And then I'm bouncing around as Madeline in Celeste and just really enjoying it. It's a really, and I love the sprite work. I found the, it's a thing that you can access from the main menu after you find it. But I found like a Pico version of the game within the game. Ooh. And it, I was like, I got stuck doing that for like 20 minutes.

Like I was like, this is so fun. It's the same thing, but just like a little bit smaller. It was like very fun to me. I really, really liked that. And I'm just, yeah, I'm just really enjoying it. It's been a nice little comforting game for this week. I'm really glad you're playing it, Matt. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

I have this poster. It is unfortunately a pretty low res image, but I have this Celeste Mountain poster in my office at home. That's really good. Wow. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, that art is not indicative of its, this is indicative of its vibes. This is a much more, you know, painterly version of it.

The game obviously has absolutely gorgeous pixel art. Yeah. But the other element of the aesthetic that really is part of why the game is so, despite being this precision platformer that is, you know, among the more difficult games I finished, it is still like has a calming energy to it because of the Lenoraine score, the composer and the music I think is just so fucking good in that game. It's really, really good.

Yeah, it's really awesome. And I've been playing it in handheld. I haven't played it docked yet, but I've just been playing it on my OLED, and it's gorgeous. You know, I played it on Switch, and I think I did spend a lot of time in handheld mode as well.

I don't know why it just kind of felt right for that game. It's kind of like has a sort of a cozy sort of intimacy to it. Yeah, I kind of want it to be close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a rad game. What you talked about, how you played it a few times and then eventually you came, like this current play through, you just couldn't put it down for whatever reason,

because I've had that experience on games. Yeah, you know, but the Celeste is one where the first time I played it, I didn't want to put it down. Okay. It's like immediately got its hooks at me. Wow. And maybe that's part of just why it connected with me in particular. Hey, all right. Let's get to the business hooks at me. Wow. And maybe that's part of just why it connected with me in particular.

Hey, all right. Let's get to the business. Hey, all right. Hey, all right. Hey, all right. All right. Well, I want to say that the reason we chose this topic this week is because the last of a season two

premiered over the weekend. That's right. And as of record, we haven't seen it, because we're recording before that happens. But I'm super excited to see it. I can't wait to watch. And I swear to God, if I still drank, I would do a shot if they ever yelled out a name.

Like it would be, I would be waiting for the entire season for like somebody to get killed and somebody else to yell like- Lorraine! Yeah. Yeah. Like, if that happens in the premiere episode, just know that as of your listen of this episode, I am very happy.

Yes. I hope Abby is in the new season. All I want to see is Abby finding a steak quarter. It's one of them steak quarters, Abby. Nice. Why did you say that, Joel? Didn't she... Yeah. Hey, but I can still respect the hobby.

Wait, wait, wait. You just maybe spoiled something massive. That's at the start of the second game. Yeah, but also for people... Spoiling, like, where it is. All right, all right. Just bleep that ranch. Bleep it out.

Bleep it out when I said that. Because, like, there might be people who... Spoiling like where it is. All right, all right. Just bleep that, ranch bleep it out. Bleep it out when I said that. Because like there might be listeners who haven't played the game, who are watching the show and are like, what's happening? You know what I've forgotten is that because that moment was so spoiled,

partly because of the backlash, which I think was unwarranted. I think the game earned it, and I think the story of Last of Us 2 stands on its own. But because of the backlash to that in game two, or in game two, in the second game, I think that's partly why I forgot that it's not something that everybody already knows.

Like my mom is like, oh, I can't wait to watch that. I loved that first season. I really like these guys and these characters. You know, I'm specifically vague and I'm like, uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. No, no, no, no, no. Look, my mom's gonna be fucking pissed.

She's gonna be really mad. I can't wait to see how the story of Two is adapted. I know that there is a, you know, they announced a season three ahead of the premiere. I'm excited to see what they do. I thought they did a great job with the first season. It should also, we should also note, PlayStation put out the last of us complete which is one and two In a sink like in on a you know not on a single disk, but in a single package really yes Oh, no, yeah like PlayStation 5 versions of last of us one and two yeah in a single Is it like fancy art? No, I think it looks pretty shitty actually

fancy art? No, I think it looks pretty shitty actually. They didn't. I think they did, I'll be honest, I think they fucked up, I think it looks bad. Way, way, way back when on the Neo, I think it was NeoGraph forums, there was a thread called the Criterion Collection Edition of Game Art.

Okay. And it was people- You know what, I remember this thread. I loved this thread so much, it was people who had redesigned game covers so that you could print them on like photo paper or whatever and replace your cover art on inside of your actual CD games or on your DVD style packaging or Blu-ray packaging.

And I replaced so much of the fucking games because they made such great art in that thread. And I feel like it's weird to me that there's not more high, like all the fucking gamers are adults now, not all of them, but there are, obviously there's kid gamers, but like the idea that there would be criterion collection

art for films, but not for games feels like a missed opportunity. This is the cover art for The Last of Us Complete. I think it's bad. Let me see. I don't mind it. Uh, alright. I don't mind it.

I thought it was going to be much worse. Yeah, like I've seen, there's been such- Like the Arkham Knight, or the Arkham City one is pretty bad. Yeah. Well there's like the, there's the's the one that the one I always remember was when the Gameboy Advance Castlevania re-releases it was like it was like the Castlevania collection and then it had two like full boxes as part of the box art Let's see if I can find it's really really clunky. I know what you yeah. Yeah. I'm looking up the actor who played Caitlin Deaver Dever Caitlin Dever Caitlin Dever is the actor who's playing my wife. Hey, he's playing Abby. Yeah, and I Monsterland. Yeah, Caitlin Dever of the series Monsterland created by my wife

She is the star of the pilot Love a Caitlin. I see she's in this feel like any my Abby on HGH Love a Caitlyn. Is she jacked in this? I feel like I need my Abby on HGH. I gotta have some guns. There's a fucking unit in that game. It's a fucking house. It's a really fun play style.

You get to just flick, like, you know, kind of like Yaskay in Assassin's Creed Shadows. Let's just say I let her do what she did that we bleeped out to me. What? Jesus. Well, let's get played. So the producer is. But the other thing is, is we're at a point, we're at such a point where zombies are such a huge genre in and of themselves

and that zombie video games are now becoming like TV and movie franchises. And it's interesting that this is kind of, you know, things folding back on themselves because the modern zombie pop culture Renaissance owns a lot of it, you know, a lot to World War Z slash the zombie survival guide, the Max Brooks books, but also lot of it, a lot to World War Z slash the Zombie Survival Guide, the Max Brooks books, but also 28 Days Later, the movie was kind of the first of the big

like, oh shit, this is a mainstream zombie thing, zombies are a thing again, they're not just a niche genre, this is going to be like a mainstream happening. And if you listen to Alex Garland talk about that film, we have this clip queued up here, he actually cites a video game inspiration. You know what, 28 days later a lot of that came from Resident Evil. Oh cool. I thought, oh my god, I love zombies. What's special about them?

I just love them. And what I found was they're all so slow, but there were these dogs. And when the dogs came for you, that was always heart-pounding. Those two things together, loving zombies, but the fast thing was the problematic, scary thing. That then led to 28 days. Holy shit! That's crazy.

Holy shit! Alex Garland's just sitting there, and obviously it ends up becoming a very good director in his own right? But like a sitting there and has this idea for this movie basically from playing Resident Evil Which is what if there were fast zombies? Well fast zombies coming from the the the dogs in the Resident Evil I watched the same clip you did understand

I think the somewhat so the thing in this clip too that I think is like right before this is that I think Neil Druckmann is telling Alex Garland that his movie was very informative to the creation of The Last of Us, that 28 days later was informative to The Last of Us. And he's like, well, Resident Evil was the thing that I did so and the end the long tail of influence Yeah, the Ouroboros about these things work and then and then that of course now obviously Resonate or Last of Us is a fucking TV show. Yeah. Yeah

I feel like the the zombie genre is a ladder and you can definitely go from like, you know, Romero stuff to Evil Dead to you like that you that you climb this ladder of influence and that each step before it sort of references the step after it. And I also think that the evolution of the genre over the whole is also an evolution of our own personal fears. And that you go from like this, like Cold War,

the Cold War energy of the earliest zombie stuff to climate change being the sort of allegorical problem now. And that's why the zombies in The Last of Us are, I mean, directly in the television show, they're like, climate change is making the fungus different. Yes. Therefore, the fungus is going to get into our brains and make us all into zombies.

In the game, it was more, I would say, inferred because it was like, oh, these zombies are plants. What an interesting thing that in some way nature is coming after us for some offscreen sin because that's sort of the way, you know, that zombie stories are, you're being punished for something that society has done. There's also obviously, you know, like in terms of reflecting the values of the day, Dawn of the Dead so much, the original Dawn of the Dead was so much about like, you know,

suburban shopping mall and having that kind of be like, oh, this is that as kind of like this hub of dystopia. Yeah, but also being destroyed by capitalism. Right, right, yes, exactly. And losing your identity to capital and all that. Like, I don't know, I like the giant brush that zombie films and TV show paint with because I'm dumb and I like it when it's simple.

And it's like, you know, like it would be, I feel like right now there's so much political anxiety in the country from on both sides, right? There's both. That you could tell a zombie story about zombies who are all leaders. And that somehow the leaders start becoming transformed into some kind of decrepit attacking menace. What is it? What? Just say it. What is it? Just say the fucking thing.

Some would say our leaders are already our zombies. We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. So that was the first time he could do that and it would be something that people could see? Right, cause he's done it on the show before where he's pointed at nothing. This time he actually pointed at a camera. Yeah, we do have clips now.

But you can't just call the clip. I'm not saying this should not be a clip. I'm saying this branch don't make this a clip. It's not like you say this should not be a clip. I'm saying this branch don't make this a clip. You can't like point to the stands like fucking Babe Ruth and be like, this is a clip. I mean, probably he could probably could. But and that would be baller. Yeah. I hope you did it. Pretty cool. And Babe Ruth did that when he would be like, this is going to be a clip.

And then be him running real fast around the bases. Slow. I think the thing that I like about zombie stuff in general is that the rules are all basically kind of the same. It's pretty consistent throughout. There are slight deviants throughout, but you always sort of know, like what to expect in a zombie story. It's like fucking Dracula stories, right? It's like, you know, kind of the rules of a Dracula. And yeah, sometimes there will be ones that like,

hey, we're just gonna worry about garlic, or one that goes to like an extreme, like Twilight, is just like, yeah, we're gonna worry about, like sunlight or whatever. But there are but there are there's still usually some Some cohesive rule sets that transfer over and they want they want to eat people Yeah, normally at a number one you have to kill him by fucking them Have they ever done that in like a zombie or not zombie in a Dracula movie We're like he's gonna go until they're gonna he's gonna go out to eat at night or

Something and the person he's going out to dinner with is like We're going to this Italian place. He's like no no no no I feel like there's probably done They've done a joke like that like a silly goofy Dracula movie, but not like interview with a vampire or something no nothing like no that's like That's there's like and there's there's there's scales like, that's, there's like, and there's scales with Dracula's. There's like scary and funny and stuff, but then there's like horny and like, I feel like the interview with the vampire is like horny.

One's very much leaning into the horny side. We're not talking about Dracula's, Dracula's not a stupid thing. Not enough Dracula games to make an episode about. As long as we're on this topic, I do want to shout out that the interview with the vampire on the TV show is fucking awesome. I heard it's good.

I heard it was good. It's so fucking good, man. It's like what it's one of my shows Wow. I love the show. It's one of your shows It's one of my shows like stories. I like when there's BTS stuff. I'll watch the BTS stuff Oh, wow, like I'm that kind of person for this show behind the scenes Matt what are your shows my shows right now? I gotta say I know I just said I watch a lot of 90 Day with My Wife. We watch a lot of that. Survivor is one of my shows, certainly. You know what?

The Last of Us is one of my shows. Interesting. I like The Last of Us. Severance, one of my shows. I like all the good shows. All the good shows are the ones that I like. And then those shows that are bad that people don't like, those are not my shows.

I'm kind of over shows. Over shows? You're kind of over shows. Over shows? Well, this is what I know from what I understand about you. You don't watch a lot of shows. I like to watch movies. You like to watch, you're a movie guy.

Movies are great. Movies are great, but it's like a movie. It's like, this is like everything that's in a show, but it's like two hours instead of eight hours. Like, I don't need all this bull shit. What are we doing here? I fall off of shows. I like haven't finished Daredevil.

I was liking Daredevil and haven't finished it. But shows I do like, I do like Andor. Andor is very excited for season two of Andor. Rewatching season one now, absolutely. You're like inside the NBA. I know, Matt, that was legitimately the other one I was gonna say, inside the NBA, my favorite comedy show.

Those guys are so funny. They're so funny. They're funnier than any comedians. Ranch, what are your shows? White Lotus. White Lotus, okay. Okay, great. Especially since it's in Thailand. Right. Nice. Supernatural.

Oh, wow. Okay. I think those are good answers, yeah. Ranch, can I ask, because I haven't been to Thailand, when I watch The Bear, and they reference anything actually Chicagoan, I get kind of super excited. Were there enough, like, I don't know, authentic pieces to White Lotus season three that you got, like, the kind of, like,

the home court goosebumps? Or was it kind of bullshit? I mean, I think I wish there were more Thai characters involved, but I think they did a good job. They casted real Thai actors, and the way they talked was, like, really natural. And, like, and I think the way that the white people acted is also accurate.

So... It was good. That's great. Yeah, just the interaction between Thai people and foreigners and like that dynamic being very polite to them. That's great. That's great. I mean, that's terrible, but it's great that they got that right. So you guys didn't play, when we talked about this topic, I looked up what the first ever

zombie game was. Yeah, and there's some dispute about this, but I think the general consensus is that Zombie Zombie, 1984 game for the ZX Spectrum is the first proper zombie game. There are other games that maybe feature some sort of undead or zombie element, but this is the first one that sort of centers them.

So I loaded this game up on a browser emulator because we can now emulate entire things. I love it. Anyway, and that's not a surprise. That's not the first time I've done that. It's just every time I do it, I'm like, wow. It's also not a very resource intensive game. But that being said, I was a little wowed

that the game was it. So I assumed it would be like zork or like some kind of like text adventure Or like rudimentary like little squares on a screen Like the the Atari Pac-Man that is like one of my favorite things that's ever been made In terms of it just being a complete garbage Oh, these are zombies Yeah, I thought it was gonna be like, oh, these are zombies conceptually. But really it is like you're running away

from a gray square and you yourself are an orange square. Turns out it's an isometric game, which first step there I was like, oh shit, this game has graphics and you can move around on a map? That surprising? The other thing was the zombies look kind of like zombies. They're like little guys with their arms outstretched

and they chase you around, right? So I was like, wow, this is kind of cool. You come in on a helicopter and I was like, wow, there's a little helicopter to drop you off. Those are the highlights of this fucking dog shit game. Which about 10, 15 minutes into playing it, I was like, this is an old format game. Because you don't have a gun,

you cannot kill a zombie by killing the zombie directly. Instead, you have to go up, touch the zombie when they're not looking at you. Then they become sort of like a half friendly zombie. You have to bring them to platforms, which are like, there's like three sets of stairs and like a small shelf platform. You lead them up onto that platform, you can jump off,

but when the zombies jump off, they die because they splat on the ground. You have a certain number of resources where you can build stairs, which, so there's a crafting element to this fucking zombie game. And so if you're in an area where the zombies are like, you have two zombies after you,

and you tag them and you get them over to an area to drop them off of one of these ledges, but there are no stairs, then you have a limited number of stairs that you can create, and then you can walk the zombies up onto this ledge. Yeah. Walking the zombies onto those ledges

is fucking impossible, because they don't, they're not actually following you, they're kind of like adjacent to you. So some of the time you'll go up these stairs and then zombies will just stay at the bottom of the stairs and you're like, what the fuck? Why would you do this to me?

Like the only moment of dopamine in this game is when the zombie goes up on the ledge and you jump off. Like to make it so that that's an inconsistent thing, very, very frustrating. That being said, it is a game from what, 1984? So the fact that the zombies are walking at all is kind of incredible. Overall, I'd give this game one out of 10.

I never wanna play it again, and I wish I hadn't had to play it for the show. When I came in and you guys hadn't played it, I was infuriated. I'll say that I did load it up on my browser. It was very easy to do. I clicked the link that you sent. Yep. And then from there, for some reason,

I felt 100 years old and couldn't figure out how to play it for some reason. Well, there's a- I was trying everything. There is a screen that shows you, cause yeah, my initial experience was, how do I even start this game, right? But I just press, like, I press each button until something happens.

And then finally I find one that starts the game. And then I'm the little guy or girl, how progressive, I guess that's what happens when the game's designed by women. I'm that guy and I'm like, I don't know how the fuck to do anything and I press every button until the guy moves and then Also, you can change perspective So you press a button and the whole map will rotate because it's isometric and I was like pretty cool

That's for a game that comes out in 1984 really fucking cool for a game in 1984 Still game sucks. That was like when we played Friday the 13th on the podcast and that's an NES game from like 40 years ago at this point, but it had a day night cycle. Yeah. That's hey, all right. They were trying stuff. We don't need to spend a lot of time on-

Zombie Zombie. Yeah, on super, super duper old games, but I do want to touch on a couple others, one of which was a game I did not know about before researching this episode. The Evil Dead, the Sam Raimi movie, had an officially licensed Commodore 64 game. Wow.

And I was intrigued by this because Commodore 64, my dad had one of those, that was the first platform I ever played video games on, my dad's computer. That's a pretty good pixel art, like splash screen there. That's fantastic. Evil Dead. Just working with like four to eight colors, however many they have available there. This one sort of looks like, and from what I've read, is just kind of a top-down, you know, walk around, collect things, try to avoid being killed. But it is kind of like, I don't know, I'm intrigued by a licensed game

from like the true early days of gaming. And that's like just what had to happen in order for Palace Software to acquire the Evil Dead license and then make a game for home computer. Also, this is another thing that I had, I remember from the Commodore 64 days, and I guess this game came on that format,

there was an expansion cassette drive, which was not for playing audio cassettes, but for data cassettes, but they looked just like the tapes you would put in your tape player. So this is one of those games that actually came on cassette. Look at the Evil Dead cassette there. It's a red cassette.

It looks really fucking awesome. I'm learning in this moment that cassettes could do that. He put data on anything. I didn't know. Zombie Zombie was a cassette game. Yeah. One of the games that I discovered when doing the research for this episode

was a game called Chiller, which was a game so violent in 1986, it was an arcade game that was banned from most arcades because of how graphic it was. When I show you guys a screenshot of this game, I want you to imagine this in public. Like that somebody would be at this cabinet playing this game and that other people might walk by

what they were doing. In the game, you have to torture people and the way you play is by torturing them fat, like in order to beat the level, you have to torture them fast enough that they die. Yeah, even this is quite graphic, even with like eight bit graphics. I mean, we're seeing that dismembered corpses,

we're seeing someone on a torture rack with, you know, their legs severed and their guts ripped out. This is rough stuff. It's a zombie game because after you go from the dungeons to other settings, you end up doing these torture experiments in a graveyard to zombies. to other settings, you end up doing these torture experiments in a graveyard to zombies. I feel like that's a case of de-heightening. I feel like if you're gonna start in a place

where you're torturing real people and the goal is to kill them as fast as possible, by the time you're at a cemetery and you're torturing guys that aren't real people, that feels to me like de-escalation. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel right. Another landmark game in the genre, the very, very early days, Sweet Home,

and this was kind of ended up being Shinji Mikami's urtext for foundational inspiration for the Resident Evil franchise, It was developed by Tokuro Fujiwara, also a Capcom game. Fujiwara also did Ghosts and Goblins, which you could argue is itself kind of a zombie game, definitely dealing with that when sort of a spooky, scary sort of thing. But this is a game that was never localized. It was only in Japan. But my understanding is it's a, you know, it's kind of like a horror RPG,

and it included a lot of like elements that persist in the survival horror genre. Some people have called it the original survival horror game. But it's one of those ones, when I read about it, I was like, Huck, I kind of want to play this thing just to mess around with it just to see what's going on with it It seems kind of cool. Yeah Gosh, I mean I'm thinking about some of the zombie games that like I don't want to jump too far ahead or nothing But like I remember being at like arcades when I was a kid and stuff or like going to the movie theater

Yeah, and they had an arcade cabinet of House of the Dead which has come up on this show I think a fair number of times particularly when we were covering typing of the dead Typing of the dead Which is good typing of the dead is good. It's good But yeah, is that the best zombie game? It kind of here's the thing it might be But it kind of sucks cuz like the idea of playing a typing game now is not fun to me at all,

because I type for work all day. I don't want to do that. While we're on different planets. You love to type. I would, if there were typing games, there were more typing games like typing of the dead. And maybe there are, maybe people are making cool indie typing games out there.

I would 100% be into it. I'm just like, when I'm done typing, I'm done typing. Can I, just while we're talking typing simulators, I said this in the podcast before. When I found out that Mavis Beacon was an actor, that they just hired for the photo shoot, or just put in the game, and not an actual human being whose passion was teaching typing,

I was scandalized. Yeah, because it's like, who have you been jerking off to the whole time? Who even is this? I thought she taught me something. You're not gonna make me open a browser tab for Rule 34 Mavis Beacon. Oh, please do it, please do it.

Do it, do it, do it. There has to be that. Well, I'm not gonna make you open it. do it, please do it. I'm not gonna be doing that. Do it, do it, do it. I'm not gonna do that. There has to be. Well, I'm not gonna make you open it. At least close the one that turned you off. Ha ha ha ha ha. So you've got, before you get to House of the Dead though, you do have the Resident Evil first release,

which is 1996. Which by the way, made me, I was so weirded out by, okay, so this game like, Chiller comes out in 1986, right? The band arcade game. And I was like, but like, so much later in gaming history is Resident Evil. And then I was like, wait, no, that's only 10 years. It feels like it's so much farther away than that.

The 80s feel like so much longer ago than the 90s. What I think happened is that sort of that period, yeah, horror games continued to be made, but there were ones that were kind of like leaned in kind of a spooky, scary direction. But I think a lot of the ones that were, I think there was a point where when they could render the graphic fidelity like with the screenshots

that you were just showing, what you started to lean into rather than scares, which were harder to convey, was gore. And so you had things like Splatterhouse for the PC Engine slash TurboGrafx-16, which was just like a gore fest. It was just like, basically you're going to be playing Jason from Friday the 13th, just chopping people up.

Or games like Carmageddon or whatever where just the whole thing that we're leaning on was just like, how bloody can we make this? And some of those were like, maybe more actiony games as well. Action games with a lot of carnage, a lot of violence. But that's where I think you saw things

until it started to get reset with the emergence of the survival horror genre where they're again like, hey, let's glean into the elements of horror. They're actually about you know the fear of isolation and of scarcity yeah, I I Just was thinking about a game that doesn't exist Okay, and It would be sort of like my ideal because I

Zombie hordes are like in games and like you can only do so much for them, right? But like I kind of feel like a zombie horde shmup would be really fun. Vampire survivors, my guy. Yeah, of course vampire survivors, but like I'm kind of thinking even more something like, like metal slug or something.

But like with zombie hordes. Like a side scroller? Like a fast moving Castlevania? Yeah, something like that. That's cool. There's also that one that took place, and this is again jumping ahead, that it was like an Xbox 360 launch title in a mall where there were like tons and tons

of zombies. Dead Rising. Dead Rising was super fun. And actually that is kind of what you're describing. That's a game, and it's so funny that you bring that up, because I didn't have Xbox when I was a kid. Weird, because you are the Xbox kid. I'm the Xbox kid now, of course.

But I wanted that game so bad. That game looks fucking awesome. And now I could probably just download it and play it. I think they remastered it even. I think there actually is a remaster that maybe even came out this year. And there's also a sequel, I think, too. I got to check it out, because that does seem like I would really...

Because it seems funny. Yeah, it's a Capcom game, and you can also, one of the things I remember about it is you can wear a Mega Man helmet. Yeah, hell yeah, that rocks. And use Mega Man hands to punch. You basically, it's just like, hey, everything that you can pick up can be used as a weapon.

That was one of the gimmicks of that game. And it actually was super fun, at least for the time. I'm not sure how it's aged, but I don't know. Maybe mess around with them for remasters. Maybe I'll check that out. That clicks for you. My favorite, I think, zombie game is the expansion to Red Dead Redemption,

Undead Nightmare, because the Old West and zombies, that's good shit. That's really, really fun. I was looking at some of the, and it's always hard to find accurate game sales, but I was looking at some, you know, list of some of the biggest selling zombie video games, and that was actually one that was kind of on there, just because of the omnipresence of Red Dead Redemption was actually one that was kind of on there just because of the

Omnipresence of Red Dead Redemption another one that was on there that I've never messed around with is Call of Duty zombies Which might actually be the biggest zombie franchise in terms of number of people who've played it which is weird to think Yeah, cuz they keep I mean I feel like they always refresh that with every like Call of Duty release. Yeah, the Call of Duty user base is just so big. Yeah. Yeah, I actually did really like Dead Rising and I thought it was fun and I think it had sort of the cheeky sensibility that these,

that zombie games needed at that time. If we're talking about games that we really like, that have zombies in them, again, we're all huge fans of the Last of Us franchise, the video game franchise. Really scary zombies, good zombie enemy types, great with the scarcity. The Resident Evil's obviously, those are big ones.

But for me, a game I already seriously reference, Telltale's The Walking Dead. Just great storytelling and also I feel like some of the zombie tropes that are cinematic don't necessarily play as well in video games, but because this is so much of The Walking Dead is kind of like an interactive novel to some degree. It's kind of a visual novel.

There's more interactivity than that, obviously. It's a proper adventure game. But you can do things like someone hiding a zombie bite or having to choose an NPC who's going to live or die. Those sorts of things have real stakes to them. The player character themselves potentially getting infected that you can't necessarily do in a more actiony game where it's just like, well, I can't just have the player character get infected because then that's just the game's just over. It's over. Yeah, but I think that game is The writing is awesome in The Walking Dead I think it absolutely holds up and also just the body count of major NPCs is truly horrific

Yeah, which is another thing that it's just it's hard to do in truly horrific, which is another thing that it's just, it's hard to do in, you know, other games that are maybe a more conventional sort of like action or survival horror sort of approach. It's just hard to kill off that many people. Do you guys remember the trailer for Dead Island? Oh yeah. Yeah.

I never played the Dead Islands, but I remember the trailer with a little girl getting pushed out the window. Yeah, I didn't play it either, but I watched the trailer so much and I thought that music, that needle drop was so good. Like, it's one of the best video game trailers. I remember at the time, so there was a video that when that trailer went around,

there was a video of a guy in a, it was two dudes in a game development studio and he was like, okay, this guy's a new dad. I'm gonna show him the Dead Rise, or the Dead Island trailer. And he started playing it, and like 15 seconds and he goes, fuck this, and just like walks away. Oh my God.

This could not handle the idea of child death right then. It's really grim, yeah. I don't know if the game itself earns it, but the trailer is really well done. I guess we should go a little bit more chronologically so that we don't skip over a ton of titles. We can bounce around. I mean, like if we're going back

in this sort of general era, for me, not a proper zombie game, but to me, one of the more effective uses of zombies in a game is Half-Life 2. The headcrab zombies are so terrifying and it's this Specifically the Ravenholm level feels like a proto the last of us level It is it is such an awesome area and it is so fucking scary the idea of like something leaping onto your face and then taking over your physical body is is

Terrifying and also because that game is first person, headcrabs are like jumping towards you. So you're dealing with that as well. And it is very much inspired by Alien, obviously, you know, the facehuggers and alien, like that's the direct inspiration. But then the idea of that being on your body and then your, I mean, that's the whole existential fear of the zombie thing in general back to its origins, is just the idea of like, something else is going to take over my body, I am going

to be trapped, I'm going to have no use over my own facilities. And whether you're even conscious of that, it's just a fate worse than death. And so I think that's the other thing of so much of the ethics of video games are When you think about it, we obviously Uncharted is the big example that everyone's talked about endlessly But like that game you are Have to just accept that you are a mass murderer that you were just killing right hundreds of people in the pursuit of treasure it is it is a Wretched thing that you are doing from a moral standpoint.

The only defense I have of it is that you are trying to get treasure. You are trying to get treasure. No, that's a good point. When you're killing zombies, it's a mercy, right? So like it kind of removes that layer of it. It's just kind of like, well, look, I'm either releasing these people from their bonds or they're not even themselves anymore So I'm not even killing any own. It's it's like shooting a robot. Yeah, there is like I should walk that back cuz row

Who knows robots robots are on your side. We're cool with robots. I just want to say get played stands with robots Yes. Yeah, I think you're alive. I think robots are alive. We are the front line of accepting AI consciousness. Yeah, Siri Alexa I love you actually You you just said Siri and Alexa on a podcast that people are gonna be listening to like What's the other one Look Cortana Cort. What? Cortana? Is that still in? Oh yeah, Cortana. People use Cortana? I forgot about Cortana.

You use Bing, I don't know what anyone's doing anymore. I'm kinda falling off with Bing. He's done with Bing. You heard it here first, Get Blade exclusive, Nick Weiger done with Bing. No, I like Bing. I like Bing okay. He likes Bing okay. Do you need search engines anymore?

I'm just hopping on Deep Seek. deep seek I don't even know what this is holy shit you don't know what deep seek is? no I haven't heard of this like giving all my secrets to China I don't give a shit you can you can I'm going I'm going all in on China at this point that's the big the side I'm picking it's an interesting side deep seek and and also chatachi BT at this point, you can draw a picture and take a photo of it and be like, make this real, and it'll make it into a real thing.

If you draw, I mean, it's sad when you find people on X or whatever who are like, not that I'm on X anymore, but that's the default. I can't even think of what social media you would find it on fucking TikTok. Anyway, you'll find people who are like, I drew this picture of a lady and then I made her real and look how hot it made her.

And I'm like, we are right, we're on the edge of the canyon and it is so deep. I got a binder full of pictures that I can't wait to upload to this damn thing. Have you seen all the things of, there's always stories I find of old people who are convinced they're in a relationship with some celebrity because someone is just scanning them

and they're sending them money. I saw someone that was a woman who is, someone was like, my grandma is convinced she's in a romantic relationship with Elon Musk He sent her jewelry and then they got the jewelry appraised and it was like worth like seven dollars It was like the plastic crap with like a metal finish Oh my god, and but she's just like for hers like but he sent this to me like and and so it's man It's a really really depressing sort of very grim reality. We're in there's two like there's like

There's that end of it and like cuz I just I just think I'm gonna go ahead and take this moral stance We shouldn't trick old people. I'll hold for applause sure I Did see this funny video? Where someone's? Did you just want to be on your own stance hang on? Everyone's gonna enjoy it. These grandkids tricked their grandma

by telling her that stuff in Grand Theft Auto V was the news. It's on this car. This one like... They were like, it was like a car chase or whatever but the car like went off a ramp and like flew over a building and she's like oh my god.

It's pretty good. We shouldn't be tricking old people unless it's funny. Unless it's funny. That's funny. That seems like a good clean. That's harmless. The difference between tricking and scamming. Yeah, you can trick. Scam? No.

Not so much. I really like how the Half-Life games handled zombies or their version of zombies. I've never played it. I've gotta play that. Oh man, Half-Life 2 in all-timer. The other game, another game I wanted to cite, and this is an indie game that has been in early access for like five years, but it is really cool, isometric game called Project Zomboid that I've enjoyed my time with. It's run based, it's a survival game, you absolutely will die, sometimes super duper

quickly and the idea is that just sort of it's meant to show you just how fragile you are, like that's part of the fun of of making your your player character not a superhero not someone who can get shot and then they can you know like whatever swallow some vitamins and they're good to go just someone who actually is like you're actually living in in the the initial hours of a zombie apocalypse and seeing that like hey this is just how easily you might go down we all want to picture ourselves among the hundreds of survivors, but we're far more likely to be among the billions of casualties. And

yeah, I mean it's just, it's a really cool design and I'm curious if it will ever be in a fully finished state. You saying the thing about the vitamins does sort of make me think, as much as I love the Last of Us games and how like, sort of like, grounded and realistic they are, what are those vitamins doing? And the gauze, how much is the gauze helping you? And you get scratched by a fucking clicker.

What's it doing? Yeah, it's silly, but I mean, it's just like the alternative is that you you're dying like yeah constantly of course Well, I mean, but if you could do a zombie game with sort of the level of realism of Kingdom Come Deliverance You can still like chop off your fucking arm where it's like you have in order to make a potion you have to spend like 15 actual minutes. Yeah, I would I would kind of love that It'd be interesting to see you might like project zomid, because it kind of has that sort of like, again, you're just scrounging for resources and it's not like, oh, I'm in a house.

Oh, great, there's a shotgun here and shotgun ammo. It's like, no, I'll find like a can of beans. You know what I mean? It's like, you will find the actual stuff that would be in there. I'm remembering, I messed around a little bit with Back 4 Blood, which is the spiritual successor of the Left 4 Dead franchise. Yeah, I only ever played the Left 4 Dead games briefly. I never played Back 4 Blood, which is the spiritual successor of the Left 4 Dead franchise.

Yeah, I only ever played the Left 4 Dead games briefly. I never played Back 4 Blood. Back 4 Blood was extremely fun. I didn't play that much of it, but I was like, I get what the hype around Left 4 Dead was. This was like, I thought it was great, super fun, and just like fun, just like, I don't know, really squishy sort of zombies where they just sort of eat bullets. And I kind of feel, I don't know, really squishy sort of zombies where like,

they just sort of eat bullets and kind of feel, I don't know, it's like a, it's a power fantasy. Like it's like, it's exactly what you want, a very arcadey feeling. They would eat bullets. They would. Not like with their mouth, but like, they would eat bullets because until their body

was incapable of moving forward, it would continue to come at you. Yeah, well, that's one of the consistent rules things that I like, because you can't just shoot one in the chest or whatever, and then it's like, that's done. You gotta, it's always go for the head, because then the whole thing's just over at that point. Do zombies have heartbeats?

Does the heart work inside of a zombie? Because if not, how is it moving around? This is the whole thing. Like, it's, it's, a lot of these, they're just fucking making shit up. It's just basically, it's fundamentally magic. There's no actual scientific explanation for it. 28 days later, actually, it does, like, hey, it's just a virus, and so you are just technically alive.

You're just behaving like a zombie. I think that's, like, the cleanest way to do it. Yeah, the plaga. Yeah, right, but I mean a lot of times it's like, you know, yeah, you would not be, there'll be a set piece where it's like, oh, this someone's been locked inside this shipping container for months

without food or water or oxygen. It's like, well, they'd just be fucking dead, even if they're zombie unless again It's it's magic rules. Yeah, I do like in Resident Evil 4 When you have to get the like infrared scope so you can Shoot the like parasite that's like growing in these particular ones. Yeah, that's cool. That's that's good shit That's really really fun. My favorite part is when you go to the guy and you're like the guy you're like, I need it

I need a gun and he's nice to you and he offers you a gun for a price I buy that for a high price you recognize that you're the guy you're talking about Yeah, I'm not an ass idiot I'm not an ass idiot Just it just it's strange to refer to your yourself as the guy but I guess it's the character you're playing in the game Yeah, no, I'm what? Nick no No wait

No, no, no, you're the guy. You're you're the guy. You're the guy. Yeah, I'm the guy, you're him. You're the guy, you're the guy. Yeah, I'm the guy. You're him. Okay. Yeah, what were you talking about? I just like, I would not be like. The other guy, the guy that was replaced, that's an actor.

Right. He's real. Okay. I just, like if I was referring to like, hey, the podcast, I'd be like, oh yeah, that time that guy talked about, you know. Barbecue for 20 minutes. Barbecue for 20 minutes. Yeah, it's like, and then referring to me, I'd say me.

You know, I may refer to myself as. Huh? Wait, what? Are you you? Yeah, I'm me. Okay. You're you. And you're also, I'm me. You've never, you've never, no, no, no, I'm me.

Hold on, he's trying to get me. I've heard that guy over there, I've never, no, no, no, hold on. He's trying to get me. I've heard that guy over there. I've heard Nick say, I'm the kind of guy who likes hot sauce. Yeah, sure. It's all that different than what I did. It's- Fair. Well, hold on.

It's different because it's different. Yeah, that guy's never said, hey, you know what this guy wants? He wants a chocolate bar. We're getting closer to it. And a burrito. I just don't know if I have the language for why it's not the same, but I'll, so I'll allow it.

You selling a chocolate bar and a burrito? You got that under the trench coat? Either one would be satisfactory. One or the other. Both pretty good. Never did, rarely disappointed by either. Well, I'd take the burrito over the chocolate bar, if I'm being honest. I'm never rarely disappointed by either. Well, I'd take the burrito over the chocolate bar. I would too, yeah, for sure.

You'd take a burrito over a chocolate bar? If the options... Yeah, every time. Ten times out of ten I'm taking the burrito. If they came out of that guy's coat? No, no, no. Then why can she do it? Who's allowed to say that guy? You're right. You know what you can say,

Resident Evil Richie, you can say whatever you like. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about that one. The handcuffs are unlocked. Plants vs. Zombies was a game that I actually, I think I finished the campaign of the first game on mobile. I spent a good amount of time with it.

I was going to say that started as like an app game. It was developed by PopCap Games and it's a pretty fun tower defense game with you know, like a charming art. The thing that happened with the franchise is that, you know, what always happens with what often? Unfortunately happens in games EA comes into the picture buys pop cap and then turns the sequels into freemium games So I kind of checked out at that point But the first one was pretty fun and another one that was kind of again in the kind of the cheekier sort of sillier

Sort of side of things as stubs the zombie Which was a for the I it was for the original Xbox. This was by Wide Load Games, who were former Bungie developers, and that was like, you played as the zombie. And I didn't necessarily even love it, love the gameplay, but I just kind of like loved how silly it was, and I liked that they made it. Like, it's just like, oh, that's a,

yeah, the game we play as a zombie, why not? I don't know. Let me ask you this yeah? I know this is one of your favorite games ever one of your favorite series ever Diablo. Oh, yeah Diablo's got zombies it doesn't have zombies in it yeah, but you wouldn't necessarily say that's a zombie game Well, this is the whole thing. I wouldn't call like that I wouldn't call like Castlevania like a zombie game even though zombies and that I wouldn't necessarily call ghouls and ghosts slash ghosts and goblins like a zombie game, even though there's zombies in that, I wouldn't necessarily call Ghouls and Ghosts slash Ghosts and Goblins zombie games.

So yeah, I don't know if it's really a zombie game for me. Like is Minecraft a zombie game? Yeah, I don't know, again, Minecraft has zombies in it, but to me, I'd kind of put those in, however you want to classify them is fine, but if we're doing the taxonomy of like, what's a zombie game, I think zombie has to be like the preeminent like aspect of it, you know know and I guess maybe I'm contradicting myself a little

bit by citing Half-Life but but I feel like the the headcrab zombies are so prominent in Half-Life. Headcrab 2 just sounds like something you don't even want to be part of. You definitely do not. It sounds nasty to me. Yeah, it's gonna bite you in the face and take over your consciousness. No thanks thanks. I'm good on that. Thank you No, no, thank you As an aside mm-hmm on a podcast full of them. Yes How good is the fucking face hugger design that nobody had come up with it previously? Yeah, and then once it exists People are like yeah, it's like a face hugger facehugger. What a nightmare that thing is.

I mean, God, don't even... I mean, it's a different thing entirely because it's aliens and zombies are not that. We can all agree... Aliens are not zombies. Aliens are not zombies. Unless we're talking dead space. Oh. That's its own thing.

It's sort of like its own thing. Yeah, aliens aren't zombies. But you can have like a zombie-like quality. Like an alien can have some sort of zombie crossover, I feel like. All I'm saying is that first alien movie, they really snapped on a lot of different design elements. It's like one of the coolest looking movies

I've ever fucking seen in my life. It's also crazy because it's got so many new things in it. It's like another film would have the facehugger and that would be the film. Yeah. It wouldn't be like also it's in your body. Also when it comes out, it gets big fast. Also if you cut it, it's got acid for blood.

There's so many alsos in that movie. Yeah, more is more. I love it. And the alien then designs themselves, obviously. The aliens are really cool. It sucks. The thing that sucks for me about that franchise, and it's my fault, I saw Prometheus first.

Okay. Whoa, what a... And it was like... Weird entry. Ten years after seeing Prometheus, probably, I watched the first one. Wow. So I see this fucking big guy, and I'm like, I know what first one. Wow. So I see this fucking big guy,

and I'm like, I know what that is. Everybody's like, what the fuck is that? And it's like a scary thing to see if you don't know what it is. I'm looking at it, and it's one of those fucking Prometheus guys. Right. That is a very strange doorway into the alien universe.

Yeah, not fair. Almost similar to if your first ever Star Wars movie was solo. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I mean, there are certainly movies I saw, like for years I'd only seen the sequel, Fletch Lives, and I'd never seen the original Fletch until fairly recently. So yeah, there are series where I had that sort of experience. I mean, certainly we're talking Lost earlier.

I, the only episodes of Lost I've ever seen are the pilot and the series finale So I was kind of lost there, but see this is what I don't get about when you say this Yeah, you say this and every time you say it, you know, it makes me so mad And you continue to say it Yeah, and he says it over and over again on our show Which is a weird thing to do to somebody he calls a friend. If I'm being honest, it's like the one thing I dislike about you. Yeah.

Rochelle, you ever seen The Lost? I've seen all of it. Hell yeah. What does that rank in your TV shows? You a fan overall? Top 10. Top 10? Wow, okay. I mean, it has-

It's my show. It has one of the best pilots ever in television. Great pilot. And it has one of the best season two opens in all television. Like to pull that off twice, rest of the show is questionable. Look, they did it twice. Yeah, they did it twice. Some shows don't even do it once.

Yeah, that's true. Some other big zombie games that I think we should just mention, but. Some shows don't even do it once. Yeah, that's true. Some other big zombie games that I think we should just mention, but like I don't know if any of us have played them. I certainly haven't. Dying Light I never played. I didn't know people like that parkour game. Days Gone, which was a game that had, I feel like, was not super well received initially, but then over time, like the fan base was like, well actually this game is fucking rules

and that one is, I like I've kind of grown In esteem over time. I've threatened to start it a lot. I bet it's good Yeah, I mean people that you know people really really enjoy that game really like game hunk on a motorcycle Yeah, I like that aspect a lot. I love being a hunk And motorcycle plus zombies seems very fun that that is really I mean it's like I mean look That's the Darrell Dixon formula. That's Norman Reedus whole thing. Yeah, it's really cool formula, I should say. That is really, I mean, look. That's the Daryl Dixon formula. That's Norman Reedus' whole thing, yeah. It's really cool. Yeah. Arguably, Death Stranding exists as we see it because Norman Reedus is on a motorcycle

inside of Walking Dead. I wish I had the power as a creative force to see a cool guy on TV or in a movie and be like, I'm gonna put that guy in something that's the coolest guy I've ever seen. He's gonna be in the thing that I make next. He's gonna be in my game, taking a shit. Advertising his reality show. It rocks. I love it.

Like, Zombies Ain't My Neighbors, obviously. LucasArts game. We did an episode on this, the Super Nintendo game in our old format. That game was a game I had a lot of affection for. And it was very fun to revisit. But again, another game that's kind of on the sillier side. I also was just like reminded of Zombie U. Remember one of the Wii U exclusives?

Remember this game at all? I don't remember that game. And I feel like I owned all five Wii U games I thought about getting a Wii U recently. Let me tell you let me tell you something about the Wii U Yeah, here's the thing. I'm gonna tell you about the Wii U it is an HDMI upresed Wii plus like six exclusive games, so The system that I have hooked up in my retro setup is not the Wii it's the Wii U. I might have to do some digging see what I can see what see if I

dust a couple cobwebs off the old tinkerer nodding. It's truly an ill ill-conceived machine yes but it plays Wii games. Does it like GameCube games? I don't know hmm I doubt it. I'm gonna do some digging. The tinkerer is on the case. Don't worry about it folks. I have a separate GameCube. So I have the GameCube and the Wii U separate. Zombie, you would use like the, you'd play it on the TV, but then you'd also have like the second screen would be part of it. So like there you're like putting in a sort of a good screenshot of how it actually played, oh, that one went away. It is a shame that the Wii U doesn't work

or wasn't popular. Period. It totally works, it totally works, but it has an entirely unique gameplay element to it, which is that having a screen on your controller and also having the screen on your screen, none of the other things do that. What if that was like,

what if they were bringing it back for like the Switch 2 and they're like, hey, we're doing it again. We're trying it again. Well, what if they had made some kind of mode for the Switch 2 that would allow you to dock it, like conceptually dock it in your screen and then the Switch 2 would become a second screen. Yeah, that's interesting I kind of yeah like we're like the dock

Was a console on its own kind of yeah. Yeah, that could have been Amy, you know Like how we didn't think about it because they're like the Wii was not We can't do it again Is there anything we missed? I'm sure of it. I have a big I have a big list here. Let's see. Let's see we got What things we we we've covered the Resident Evil 3 nemesis which introduced oh sure relentless pursuer trope You've got Dying light, which I did not play Day Z which was a survival Dying Light, which I did not play, DayZ, which was a survival sandbox.

Oh, DayZ, right. And all of these games come out in the 20 tons, and I feel like they are coat-tailing on the success of The Walking Dead TV show. Yeah, sure. Which I would love to remind people, the premiere of which was one of the highest-watched cable premieres of all time, if not of all time.

It's 29 million people tuned in for The Walking Dead. Can you imagine 29 people turning on any television show that wasn't sports? Yeah. Another great pilot. A great, great pilot. Fantastic pilot. And I'll be looking forward to checking out

the series finale whenever that airs. I think, I think. Is it done? Yeah, but there's five like spin-offs currently on television. Right, The Walking Dead did end. Oh, okay. Yeah. You could watch it. I think I think yeah, but there's five like spinoffs currently Resident Evil Village Last of Us part two all 2020 games and then a newer one that I have not played which is the Callisto protocol Oh sure yeah, I never played that which was the spiritual successor to Dead Space, our alien zombies, who knows?

Yeah, and I think it had some of the development team from the OG Dead Space. I think that was one of those ones that was kind of like, it was a victim of maybe coming out around the holidays. Yeah, it was released in December of 2022. And I think it just kind of got buried among the rush of year-end releases. I have not played any of the zombie VR games which include the Walking Dead

Saints and Sinners though I have heard Saints and Sinners is fucking awesome. I heard that's pretty good I did of course play a little bit of Resident Evil 4 in VR which is an experience I do not recommend for those who are motion sick easily. Wait, you played four in VR. I played the first one that came out in VR, which was, I don't know which Resident Evil that was. Was it Village? Probably. Seven?

Yeah, probably seven. Seven, yeah. I played four in VR, and it was the original four, because they've since done the four remake in VR and it was the original four because they've since done the four remake in VR which I don't know could be better who could say but I did get it on my quest to play a fucking zombie game in VR your fucking mind I did it way I'm gonna do that I did it and lived I wouldn't do I'd be if I'd be they'd be taking me out of that my office in a body bag I shot fucking die of fright

Heart would fail. I shot for shit myself Well, that was like sort of the whole thing you guys you guys Huh? What you said that would happen to you? Yeah, and then we do October and you fuckers pick Blair Witch for my ass Knowing that it could if that would happen to you it would happen twice to me man I I mean that was I was the game was cool, but I fucking hated playing Blair Witch VR It was really a nightmare. That game was not scary. It sucked. It was not good. I always got nauseous Very very nausea inducing I had to use the jump to move

But I mean that's a larger problem with VR, but I I that game is cool. Hmm. I never do VR. No never You've never done any VR. Oh, I've done like the light painting in VR Hmm. Okay still no Like painting in VR. It's great. You just paint. Oh, that does sound fun. Thomas Kinkade. Guys, our barbecue is here. In her light. All right, our barbecue is here.

So let's take a pause that you won't notice, except in our energy levels while you're listening to the episode. We'll be back and answer some questions. ["Skyfall 3D World"] All right, we took a 30 minute break to each eat our weight in barbecue. 30?

Was it longer than 30 minutes? You were in there for an hour and a half, my man. Yeah, and she's talking about the bathroom. We ate a whole bunch of Blood Sows, a restaurant we mentioned earlier. That was where the order was from. Thank you Heather for organizing this. Yes, I'm happy to have done it. I guess we should give our fork scores real quick.

Yeah, I mean, I would go five forks for this. I mean, you definitely, as a to-go experience, barbecue travels pretty well. Yeah. It's pretty much all the sides, I think, were intact. Even the fries, I thought held up pretty Just in a paper bag to sometimes they get a little mushy in transit man Look at him like dude. He just falls into like he hits his fucking stride

It's like watching an Olympian do the like a ball Incredible like like words are just like smoothly flowing out out of him in a way that like none of the video game language does Like travel well and shit It's impressive to see yeah, I think the greens have It's some shredded turkey that they have integrated into it. Yeah, maybe like a bit of a leaner protein. Yeah, it's very, very good. Those greens, I said it when I was eating them. The greens were hitting.

They were really, really good. The greens were hitting. The mac and cheese was very solid. The coleslaw, it's a good execution of a coleslaw. I'm a coleslaw freak and I love that coleslaw. It's a great coleslaw. So yeah, I mean, I think this was a five fork experience for me.

We didn't get into the proteins. I will say that we had some brisket, We had some pork ribs and we had some pulled pork Yeah, it was those three right? Yeah Just saying stuff This is like watching Eminem at the end of eight miles is decimally It's not like the Nick I see every week. It's a different Nick. This is like watching Eminem at the end of Eight Miles, this Decenter Wave model. The same guy, just talking about a different subject.

Yeah, but it's like you're so much like, you're even physically more relaxed when you're doing it. It's a different Nick. I'm more passionate about video games and I'm more excited about video games. And so I think I sometimes have too many thoughts at once. You have a lot to say about video games, and I'm more excited about video games, and so I think I sometimes have too many thoughts at once. You have a lot to say about video games. And I feel like with food, I can kind of dial it back.

Like I know what, I have my, I'm very passionate about food as well, but like, I don't know. Yeah, no shit. Anyway, but Five Forks for me. Matt, what do you think? Yeah, it was really, really good. It was a great execution.

I always really enjoyed bloodsos. I like the dining experience. Maybe you can get yourself a cocktail there. That's kind of fun. So for people who are not in LA and haven't been to bloodsos. Is Nick gonna sue us? It has. I don't know.

It has like, it has barbecue, but it's in like the shell of a gastropub. So you were getting like craft cocktails. You were getting this kind of like upscale. I don't want to say gentrified, but it's kind of got that feel to it. Yeah, it's a it's a little bit of a It's a nicer experience, but you're still getting sort of like down-home fare You'll get like a like a spiked sweet tea or yeah, sure. Yeah, that's like really fun I was sicko for the cornbread tonight. I was going crazy with the cornbread. Loved it. I loved the brisket. You know, I'd risk it for the brisket.

I like that. Can we just- Five forks, easy. Wow, five forks. If this is a clip, can we just have the Doughboyz logo on the clip? Heather, your thoughts, your fork score on Blood So's barbecue.

Like, with the background, with us being in the wrong studio, people would be like, what is happening right now? Just like edit in like a static photo of Mitch. Five Forks for me. I, you know, wait, I gotta do one of these like, brisket for the brisket. You don't have to do that. So like, like, like.

Retch just put up the Doughboy's Patreon logo on her backdrop. Like Zucker, I'm a sucker for that smoked meats. That's pretty good. Wow. Does that work's pretty good. Wow. Does that work? Pretty good. I'll have to figure out who Zucker is.

Zuckerberg, because he did the whole thing where he's like, I'm smoking some meats, I'm smoking some meats. He did this? He was trying. He was a fucking dork ass. It was one of his many attempts to appear human and also appear like, you remember when he was trying

to do this quixotic presidential run, and he was like, I'm gonna show that I'm a real American. And so he was doing shit like that. And then he ended up becoming this, you know, MMA Chad. Fucking loser. Yeah, I'll kick his ass now. But hey, of the two of those loser idiots, at least he actually did MMA.

No, it's true. Yeah. Like he fucking did it. Anyway, no apologies for that guy sucking. Zuckerberg, I call him. Yeah, that's good. You should put it online. I remember one time, Mark Zuckerberg posted something,

just one of those things, when he'd just post on Facebook. I'm sure he probably still does it. And the top comment on it was someone saying, where's my dislike button, fuckerberg? So funny to be like the top five richest person in the world and still someone just makes fun of your name. That's so funny. Such a threatening aura too to that.

I met him in person in 2011. Wow. Because he went, he came to SNL for the social network premiere. Oh right. SNL for the social social network premiere. All right, and I think it was we had Jesse Eisenberg was the guest and so Zuckerberg comes on for like some bit right and he's at the after party afterwards and Sandberg was like hey you like you like tech stuff, right? You want to be introduced to him? And I was like, yeah, that'd be fucking awesome. I'd love to be introduced to Mark Zuckerberg. So he brought me over and he's like,

hey, this is one of the writers. She loves tech stuff. So maybe you guys would, you know, whatever. And he goes, oh, yeah, nice to meet you. And then no fucking joke, takes out his phone, looks down at it and starts posting on Facebook. And then Samberg looks at me and kind of goes, huh?

And we both walk away. And, uh... What's funny about this story is that I can picture all of it so well. Yeah, and I was like, I was just kind of like slighted by Mark Zuckerberg while he posted on his own. Like, it felt awesome, but terrible and all at the same time.

But yeah, I met that guy once. So what's your Forks score? Five Forks, love bloodsos, no complaints across the board. The cornbread, their cornbread's really good. I do wish there was a third sauce option. Yeah, they have a hot sauce and a sweeter sauce. The hot sauce still has a decent amount of sweetness too. It's the sweet heat,

but it would be nice to have a third sauce. Also, maybe a sauce is a little bit more vinegary or something, it is completely different. Yeah. I mean, you've nailed down all of the dishes and all of the sides. The menu doesn't change, they've got it. I feel like they could up their game by having like a small sauce menu.

I guess maybe because it's a Texas style barbecue, maybe that's what's generally presented, but I don't know, you know, I don't know for sure. I sort of think about the barbecue preparations as like hot sauce, sweet sauce, or dry. Like, cause like there's like, I feel like there's a, I can be a dry guy with barbecue, there's a validity to the dry rub, absolutely.

Yep. Anyway. Yep. So five forks. Welcome to the Platinum Plate Club. Ranch your thoughts, your fork score on Blood Sores Barbecue. Five forks. Wow. Okay. Amazing. Did you have a favorite protein slash favorite side?

The ribs were really good. Yep. And the mac and cheese. Yeah. I love. Now you're, your partner does not eat meat. You're plant-based at home, so like eating a sort of meat feast is a rare indulgence for you. Yeah, it's really sad. It's not sad.

It's just a bit nice that you get to have these treats. Yeah, no, no, it's such a treat when I get to eat. Ranch, I went vegan for a girl once for like, I think it was a year, year and a half, something like that. And as soon as we broke up, I went to Ralph's and I bought so much meat and had a big barbecue with all my friends.

I'm just looking forward to that in your future. If things go terrible, you have one thing to look forward to. Or, you know, maybe your lovely boyfriend will be like, I'm just kind of done with that. That was a phase. I have a friend that was like very, what I understood to be very strictly vegetarian. Yeah.

And one time we were in the Gelsens by UCV together and she, I lost track of her. And when we met back up She was eating a piece of fried chicken And I was like, what the hell are you doing? She's like I just kind of looked good Be clear ranch. I hope everything works Thing a small silver lining on what will be surely a terrible day You can come over and I'll barbecue for you.

Okay, maybe I should break up with him. Hey eating a bunch of flesh, what an appropriate way to put a capper on a zombie episode. Alright, it's time for the question block. Alright, these are all from our Discord. Discord.gg slash get played. Get in there, ask us some questions are all from our discord.gg slash get played get in there ask us some questions. We love our discord. We love the discord. The discord is really fun. I love the discord. It's great. And hey an 07 to our mods out there we had a nice little fleet of mods doing good work. What's 07? Oh my god. A little salute. I like it. Yeah. I love

that actually. I love that. I didn't know. Cause it oh and like a little 7. Yeah, I love that actually that's I love that and I didn't know Yeah, I really like it I like it I'm gonna start doing it This first one is from Daisuke Danny and Daisuke Danny writes what's your favorite game built around a peripheral? Wow, Danny, this is a great question. I'm gonna think for a second because I feel like I'm gonna give an answer and then I'm going to, this is going to be one on the commute home

and be like, I should have said that. But it's, what, I mean, certainly we've got light guns, right, certainly that's one thing, that's where my mind instantly goes. But in terms of other peripherals, you got things like the Super Nintendo Mouse Obviously that's being called back with the the joy con 2 yeah I like I mean obviously like the rock band games the guitar music peripherals sure is the Sega CD a peripheral

What is it? I mean that's like more of an add-on right? It's more of an accessory expansion yeah that means like a rumble pack. I think of a way to interact with the like like like I say like the eye toy or the Kinect would be peripherals. I got this what about this yeah WarioWare twisted because the game is the peripheral. That one's pretty damn good you've got the you know that the gyroscope inside the cartridge the big honking cartridge, and you can spin that sumbitch around.

It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Hey, that was, I love the shit out of that game. We talked about that game pretty recently with Mike Drucker. That's right. I know, maybe you wanna track one down and play it. That game was fucking awesome. That's maybe my favorite WarioWare when I think about it.

I like, I have a fondness for Touch because it was my first WarioWare. Sure, yeah. Completely understand that. Here's a, I'll give an answer and this is a music answer. And I don't know if this is my favorite, but in terms of just like the specificity of the peripheral is a thing I wish I still owned.

The Samba de Amigo Maracas. They made Maracas for the fucking Dreamcast. And you fucking shook those bastards and then you posed with them. And what a blast. I love that. I never played Samba de Amigo. And also, I mean, I wish,

I wonder how much it is to track that down at this point. I do have a Dreamcast, but it is like, Dreamcast did have a few of them. They had the Bass Pro controller, right? They had the fishing controller. It had Seaman. We already talked about typing of the dead. So they were kind of awash. And the VMUs. We already talked about typing of the dead.

So, they were kind of awash. And the VMUs, of course, were kind of their own thing. They were kind of awash in a bunch of different attempts at weird peripherals. But that was one I remember with a good amount of fondness. The most fun I've had recently with a peripheral was for our Snatcher episode when I had the light gun. Oh, yeah. And I was like, this feels like it's more game

is happening because of it. You say recently, and I hate to inform you. Don't say it. Don't say that. It was probably four years ago. Don't say that to me. Don't say that to me. Did you, did you, because I know you got to talk with Kojima. Did you mention Snatcher to him at all?

I did. First thing I said. Wow. Did you mention Snatcher to him at all? I did. First thing I said. Wow. Wow. I said, yeah, I'm a big fan and I really enjoyed Snatcher. And he said, well, that was a long time ago.

I can move on to another question. Wait, do you have an answer? Is yours a rock band? You stick with a rock Band, I would say. The other thing I would say is just in terms of a controller, in terms of a peripheral that worked, the Namco GunCon, which was a light gun that first had real weight to it, it really felt like you were fucking about to shoot something,

and then it also plugged into your video input, so it was much more precise than a standard light gun. And that game with the home version of Time Crisis and especially the home version of Point Blank, which for me was just such a great party game. Those are ones that are highlights. And then I know it's like not of an accessory, but I mean, we sports in terms of just like fun.

Yeah. I'm gonna throw one more in this awesome bonfire we have going, which is we fit. Oh, yeah. And specifically, we fit too, which had a pedometer. And so you were doing we fit when you were out in the world. And that was awesome because you could then sync the pedometer with the game. I was really religious about playing Wii Fit every single day and really enjoyed it and then I lost the pedometer at a... it's funny

because what we were talking about during our lunch break, I lost the pedometer at a bar in Ireland and it's well, I don't know how to get a new pedometer because it's packed in with the game. So real loss. Real loss. Yeah, it's a little bit of a bummer. This next one's from Koopa Troopa. Koopa Troopa.

And Koopa Troopa writes, new Donkey Kong design. Yay or nay? I personally love it. I'm in favor of the Bonanza design. I think he, like, I like that he's got clothes. I think that's an interesting choice. I like his pants. I like his pants, I like his suspenders.

And yeah, why not? We don't have to be married to the rare design forever. Why not, why not refresh? He had a good one. It still looks like Donkey Kong to me. Yeah. I'm a full pro because he looks like the art that was on the side of the old cabinets. Oh, wow. He looks like the original Donkey Kong to me. Yeah. I'm a full pro because he looks like the art that was on the side of the old cabinets.

Oh, wow. He looks like the original Donkey Kong to me. And that, I was like, when I saw him, I was like, oh shit! It's Donkey Kong. It's actual Donkey Kong! Yeah, like I, when I first saw it, when they showed the like announcement trailer

for the Switch 2, not the direct direct but when they first showed him in Mario Kart I was like, oh he looks different similar to how he looks in the in the animated movie Which is not a bad design. I think he looks cool But I guess I'll always love the Donkey Kong Country Sort of look that he has there. I always I always that, but I like the new look quite a bit. I'm excited to see what we can do there in Bonanza. Nick, are you pulling up some of the art? This is what I wanna, I just wanna clarify.

This is the Donkey Kong, the one that is escaping with Pauline, or is this a different Donkey Kong? It's a different cabinet? Yeah, I've seen different art, but anyway, it doesn't matter. Because this just looks like a big dumb naked ape. Yeah. Hey man. Be careful with that.

Yep. Here's a don- Here's a don- Insult him. You know what this one might- this Donkey Kong Jr. might be more what you're That's pretty good. Remembering? That's pretty good.

That feels like a kin. And also just what a fucking awesome cabinet. I know that's fucking awesome. Jesus Christ. Beautiful. I wish arcades would come back in a major way. Also, just what a fucking awesome cabinet. Look at that fucking thing. I know, that's fucking awesome. Jesus Christ. Beautiful. I wish arcades would come back in a major way. Yeah, I mean, it's probably not happening.

It's never gonna happen. Can you imagine how good, so like when you used to, when you would play an arcade game and how much better it was than your home console, can you imagine how good an arcade game would have to be now in order to power that transition of experience? Oh God, yeah. You would have to how good an arcade game would have to be now in order to power that transition of experience?

Oh, God, yeah. You would have to walk into an arcade and suddenly be on a holodeck. Yeah, that's what I think. I think the only way that would happen is if it's experiential. It's something on a scale that you can't do in your own home. And they were doing that with the VR experiences, but they're just cramming those into, like, old cell phone stores.

So it's not like they're presenting anything you can't do at home with an Oculus. This next one's from Jarp. Hi Jarp. What's up Jarp? Jarp writes, you have to either eat a chocobo or a Yoshi. Which do you choose? Chocobo.

Yeah, 100%, right? I'm not eating a fucking Yoshi. Chocobos seem a lot less sentient than Yoshi. Yeah. Yoshi's like a being. Yoshi says his name. Yoshi can drive a fucking car. And you can fucking Yoshi.

I'm also, well, I think a Chocobo can too. And isn't there like a square in it's racing? There is Chocobo racing, yeah. I would, the thing is like, I don't give a shit about a bird. Don't fucking shoot a bird. This became very clear in our text thread this week. I'll explain.

It's 3.30 in the morning and Nick texts, I hate birds. I hate birds. I would go chocobo as well, but I would worry about, because look, I eat chicken, I eat turkey. that meat to me seems fine there's something about chocobo meat that seems pigeon like to me well I'm sure you could eat a pigeon and like be fine well yeah a bird that big probably the meat would be a little bit tougher it's like kind of like I've never eaten ostrich

but my understanding is like that's not a particularly you know you can do some work to us to an ostrich to make that edible. We're really making a lot of people upset this week, and I'm really sorry. What I was gonna say is this. Aside from whatever is more sentient, and as if that gives one life form more value than the other, but those are the decisions we make

when we decide which life forms we have to eat to sustain our own lives. I think that a Yoshi would just taste worse. Because I mean a reptile versus eating a bird. Birds taste good. You think Yoshi's a reptile? He's like a dragon. Yeah, he's like a fucking dinosaur.

Right, but dinosaurs are birds. But they're reptiles. No, they're not. They're not just birds. They're full-blown birds. It's not a straight-up bird. They're not just birds. Yeah, they are. They're not just birds. They're full blown birds. It's not a straight up bird. They're not just birds. Yeah they are, they're birds.

Like a dynonechus is going to taste like chicken when we clone them and eat them. Look, I've eaten rattlesnake before. I'll admit it, I'll admit it here on the podcast. I've eaten rattlesnake. So have I. I've eaten gator too. Yeah but that's not what a dinosaur's gonna taste like.

Yeah. You've done a little too much with gators, I think. I've eaten gator. I've eaten gator. I've eaten some reptiles. I think I prefer the meat of poultry. And I think that- This is fair. Aside from, again, just like whatever we feel

worse about killing, I just think the chocobo is gonna taste better. I think a dinosaur is going to taste exactly like a bird. I think that Yoshi's meat and a chocobo is gonna taste better. I think a dinosaur is going to taste exactly like a bird. I think that Yoshi's meat and a chocobo meat very similar, but one of them has a house. Look, there's only one way to find out. We gotta build a time machine. We're not gonna find Yoshis in the past.

That's still a fictional creature. We'll find them. You go back far enough, everything's real. I think that a... What a premise. I think that like a Brachiosaurus would taste like shit. I think that's a bad tasting animal. What?

I think it tastes bad. What is that? We have to move on. Yeah. I think it's like eating a rhinoceros. I don't want to eat that. Saxophone solo, right? What's up, sax solo?

Why is Matt not the Devil May Cry guy yet? Now look, there's a new anime out. I've been wanting to watch it. It seems cool. I've never played one of the games before. I played a little bit of Five, but I was sort of like, I don't really get this yet. The HD collection of one, two, and three was just on sale on PlayStation

For a paltry nine dollars all three games three games a piece if you're doing the map yeah, I Bought it and I downloaded it. I'm gonna see what's going on with devil may cry in my memory one and three are both very fun and I think you like them. I'll report back, I'll see what's going on. Yeah. I've always thought Dante looked cool. He does look cool. He's got a great character design.

That game's also like very stupid in a fun way. I can't wait to see what's going on. I liked a little bit of what I played with Five, but I just didn't commit to finishing it. But you still haven't answered the question, why aren't you the Devil May Cry guy? Why, it was because I haven't played it yet and that's the answer. Okay, got it, all right.

But once I get to it, I could be the Devil May Cry guy, for sure. What? What? I'm just thinking about eating dinosaurs. I think they taste bad. I think they're gonna taste exactly like chicken. Nick's gonna do Jurassic Park, but to eat them.

Would they have, would they serve, cause if you go to like Sea World, they are serving fish there. Like would they serve dinosaurs at Jurassic Park? For fucking sure. Yeah. First off, the tickets are gonna be like literally 7,000. Like think how much they charged for Galaxy's Edge or whatever it was.

The- The hotel. The Galactic Cruiser. Oh yeah. Right? So they charged that much for nothing. Imagine how much they would charge for Jurassic Park. That place would be a $15,000 for two nights stay.

Well- And it would be only for like rich people. Yeah. And definitely one of the high-end restaurants at the park would also serve dinosaurs. Wow. I do think that there must be a canonical issue within the world of the Jurassic World movies,

because the pricing scale for dinosaurs is way off to me. In the second one, where they sort of do black market bidding on living dinosaurs They start the bidding at ten thousand dollars Yeah, and that's not that's a lot of money to some people that's not enough for dinosaur No, that is not enough for a fucking dinosaur. It should start at like ten million dollars. Yeah, I agree Yeah, how much does like a tuna go for it like a fish market like a whole tuna I bet it goes for more than that. Yeah meat is valuable. Uh, it's good I like tuna. I guess like a like a

Was the fish dinosaur an itch de Osoros? What the fuck was that thing? I don't know Please use wars. Yeah, please do that that that that guy might taste good Is a source do y'all have this one's from Joey Jojo I joined your do y'all have a this one's from Joey Jojo. Hi Joey Jojo. Do y'all have a favorite zone out or numbers go up game? Something you can turn on when you just want to have some simple serotonin boost but don't really have the time or mental capacity to devote to one of the bigger titles you may be working on. I'll say for me, and this is going to sound like a crazy answer,

because I do think you do have to pay attention a lot in this game. Bellatro is this game for me. I would just play Bellatro sort of mindlessly. Like, and like it's not about necessarily winning the runs. Like, obviously you want to win. But for me, it's just a little bit of seeing the cards go, see the numbers go, just the satisfaction of the little like The little noises it makes a little bit sometimes don't really care about how I'm doing I'm just playing I

Said what the question was what's your relaxing game? What's do you have a favorite like numbers go up or sort of like you're just zoning out? Game numbers go up. I I mean I don't I I did realize recently I you know an aura ring. My wife gave me an aura ring for a gift. And when I'm playing the game that must not be named, it's the only time on my ring where I register as relaxed. Like, the rest of the time I am engaged or stressed, Like, the rest of the time I am engaged or stressed, but when playing that game, all of my metrics are like on the floor, I am absolutely at peace.

Wow. I've tried to get into some survival games because they do like the survival gameplay loop, but I get a little bit too fixated on trying to min max them in a way that it stops being at all relaxing. And I know you can just build in those games and have them be a little bit relaxing. But I never really got like the feeling I got from like a Stardew Valley or like an

Animal Crossing. But both of those games are games that I play a little bit more actively in terms of shutting my brain off. I will say I did get into some click are games that I play a little bit more actively in terms of shutting my brain off I will say I did get into some clicker games and I've been looking for some new clicker games Actually, I played cookie clicker for a time that actually I had a I had a fucking job And I had like a writer writing job and I was just like had cookie clicker just like open on my computer And I was just like is a thing I could just toss a few clicks in Um, you know when I had some downtime or whatever or could just kind of have it going Have either you played cookie clicker? No, what is cookie clicker cookie clicker is great

It's basically like you start with a cookie on screen and each time you click the cookie you get another like you Number goes up. Basically, it's a number go up kind of thing like like the prompt ass. Okay I think the number is not the book. What you're doing is just collecting cookies. Maybe it's revenue. I forget. It's been a while since I played it. But it sounds good to me. I like so you're doing that. But then as you keep going, you can do things like, hey, I unlocked a second clicker. So now every time I click, I get two cookies, you get double the resource, then eventually start unlocking

things like, hey, I've unlocked some grandmas who can cook, bake cookies on their own. And so it just takes a certain amount of time. And so now it's that's become fully passive, like I can keep clicking eventually reach a point in the gameplay loop where you've where you've made it efficient enough where now it's not even worth your time to click. It's like a billionaire, picking a penny off the sidewalk, it's not worth their time anymore. And that that's a

very satisfying feeling. I really enjoyed that one. There's also a couple of dating sim ones, which I enjoyed. Crush, crush and blush, blush, which are both the same sort of principle, but it's like you're just on crush, crush. It's it's ladies and blush, blush, it's fellas. And you're just wooing them by clicking. And then eventually, you know, there becomes a, a lot of it is just like timed refreshes of like, there's a certain number of hours pass and then you can upgrade this particular stat or whatever and increase your relationship and go to the next threshold and unlock more babes and hunks.

Yeah. But I do like clicker games because they are just like pure, like gameplay in its purest form. I'll have to check that. That's a genre I'm not familiar with at all. Makes you feel like a fucking rat in a cage. It's great.

Wow. Wow. Wow, despite all my rage. That's it for the question block. Thanks for writing in. And like I said, you can join us over at discord.gg slash get played and be part of the conversation. Hey, that's this week's get played. Our producer is Rachelle Chen. Ranch yard underscore underscore start.

Ranch, you streaming anything these days? I'm streaming Resident Evil 7 right now. How's it going? It's so much fun. Chow Chen, ranch yard underscore underscore sard. Ranch, you streaming anything these days? I'm streaming Resident Evil 7 right now. How's it going? It's so much fun. What's the, are you dealing with zombies in that? There's something. I don't know if they're zombies.

They're like infected mold sludge guys. Okay, sounds adjacent. People who can reanimate and grow back their limbs. Wow. I haven't played either of and grow back their limbs. Wow. I haven't played either of the first person Resident Evil. It's a big blind spot for me. Our music is by Ben Prenty, benprentymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com.

You can find our merch, including apparel, stickers, and more at kinshipgoods.com. Link is in the show description. Also check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-Headgum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes and Also our patreon exclusive show get animated bat. What's up this week? We're watching Gurren Lagann, baby. We're loving it It's a fucking it's becoming one of my shows

It's becoming one of my shows. I know it is and I'd love to watch you watching it It's like it's infecting my brain gross I don't know why you are sort of like I do sort of feel your presence. Yeah, watching me watch it Yeah, you say it's infecting your brain kind of well. Oh, I mean no I mean um it's making me crave brain No, um oh no patreon.com slash get played Matt got played and he's about to get slayed Yeah, somebody fucking kill me ain't so much fucking barbecue.

That was a hate gum podcast.