Get Played - Tiers of the Kingdom: Controllers

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt talk about the Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 patch, rank video game console controllers and more. This Month's We Play, You Play: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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We here at Apple are attempting a console. Now, I know this is a market that we have not yet conquered, but I think we can do it, and the way we're going to do it is we're going to have the best game controller on the market. So I want everyone's ideas. How can we innovate in this space? How can we come up with a game input method that's even better than everything else out there? Well, Tim Apple, not my name, but please continue. I just want to say I'm a big fan of you and your company. I think, you know, it's terrible what happened to Steve Jobs, but I'm also happy that you did it to him. I want to talk to you about some of my controller ideas.

My name is Doug Gatt. And the first pitch I have is that there's not a lot of tactile feedback in controllers. Okay. You know, you got that force feedback, but you don't got tactile feedback. So what I would suggest is, and I've got a demo here, I've put two wires in the bottom of a can of applesauce. And I think that you should be able to like, so you know, like in

a game, we're like trying to find something in the ground or in their treasure chest or whatever. Kind of. Yeah. So you're like, oh, where is it? So you scoop into the applesauce and you swash around in there and you can clear off the screen that you're looking at and it's a tactile experience. So we're shipping a jar of applesauce with our console? No, I don't think it should be applesauce. I think it should be whatever. Well, I mean, it does tie in thematically. So maybe applesauce.

If it's apple, it should be applesauce. Applesauce. I mean, look, we're just pitching ideas here. So I'll put this one on the whiteboard but I don't know if this is the direction I want to go with hello I got a couple ideas for you if you want to

hear what I got to say thanks to both of you for showing up too I'm happy to be here I don't technically work here so this is an opportunity no yeah I'm just trying to get my ideas out there. I think it should be shaped like a gun. For playing first-person shooter games? No.

For any kind of game. Any game. You should be able to play. You should be able to point a gun at your TV and play any kind of game you want. Okay, so we're thinking some sort of form factor where we have a trigger input. No, yeah, it looks like this. It looks like this. Okay, please put that away.

It should look exactly like this. Okay, these are both. I'll put this on the whiteboard. Thank you. Gun controller. But again, I think let's start in a more conventional place. Let's think of something that you're holding with both hands. It has buttons.

It has tactility. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, tactility. That's what I brought up with applesauce, but I guess you're just going to bypass it. Well, no, I brought the applesauce idea down. All right, so how about this? How about this? You got two hands, but you also got a mouth.

You got two hands, but you also got a mouth. So what if you're holding a controller, you got two hands, but it's like, uh-oh, my character is tied to a chair. How do I get out? This is a nub, like a big rubber nub on the top of the controller. Here, I'll demonstrate. So I brought in a Nintendo that I've just taped like a pickle to. Okay, please do not demonstrate. No one wants to see this demonstration. I'll show you.

Please. So as he's showing us, it's like, uh-oh, my hands are tied. I can't get out. I had a similar idea for the gun one. I don't think we should be encouraging people to put a gun-like object in their mouth. It's a pickle. I also don't think that they're... But it would be rubber

and wet. Again, this all sounds really unappealing. All controllers since the dawn of time have been dry. And we're not... There's a whole space where we could be thinking about what's what's new and what's interesting and i think i think that's wet yeah wet controller um i'm only an idea three here so don't sound too tired yeah no i'm just gonna write wet on the whiteboard and then i'm

just gonna press uh send on this email submitting my resignation because this is obviously a completely dysfunctional workplace. Have you heard of teledildonics? Okay, I'm leaving. I'm going to push you aside. I'll grab your gun if needed, but I'm leaving this office. I have some literature for you if you would just peruse this. I've gone. I've left the office. Bye. We wiggle our C-sticks and charge

our VMUs as we make our video game controller tier list this week on Get Played. Hello. My feelings are frozen. Do something. I can scream now. Is anyone out there? Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to Get Played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Abadaka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back, Bucket, to the premiere gaming podcast. Should we start calling this a AAA gaming podcast? Ooh, I love it. Or AAA. Or AAA. A AAA gaming podcast.

That's right. We're an S-tier AAA. S-tier. Fitting for today's theme, that we're an S-tier podcast. But we cannot today's theme that we're an S-tier podcast. But we cannot help you with roadside assistance, so stop asking. Matt, not that kind of AAA. Y'all got that? Y'all got AAA?

What do you got? I do. I do, yeah. I love it. With my nightmare car, I do. I love it. Which, by the way, this morning I tried to start my car for the first time in three months. Battery's dead.

Oh, yeah. And then I was like, well, I'll close the garage door. Garage door broke. Oh, boy. Then I was like, okay. There was like a cascade of failures. So then I went to pull the garage door closed and the handle on the garage door snapped off and a bunch of red dust came out of it.

I was like, red? Red dust. Red dust. Do you think it's the salt from that planet from The Last Jedi? Great question, Matt. That is not a great... Do you think it was, yes or no?

I don't. She's sweating. She has no idea. I'm not sweating. I'm not sweating. So it sounds like Heather's having a case of the Mondays. Because right before this, right before we recorded, Heather got herself lunch.

That's true. And you know what? She got the wrong, they gave her the wrong thing. Classic wrong lunch situation. Oh, this has all been the same day. Yeah, Heather said that that was like the last straw. I was like, it seems like kind of like a crazy thing for it to be the last thing. But you had a day.

I ordered a ham sandwich, opened the bag later and had a hand pie. Yeah. A peach hand pie. You said ham sandwich. They heard hand sandwich. And they mistook sandwich for pie. sandwich. They heard hand sandwich. And they mistook sandwich for pie.

Thank you for listening to the premiere AAA video game podcast where we spend the first couple of minutes of the show complaining about mundane problems. I can keep going off. Would we be gamers if we weren't

complaining about mundane problems that don't really affect us? Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that we weren't complaining about mundane problems that don't really affect us? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that we don't complain about the things that normal gamers complain about. Oh, I got some of those. Okay.

Interesting. Okay. Cool. That's cool. That's cool and good. You know what? This month's We Play, You Play. Now, that's a format where we talk about one game at length, and it's always the final episode of each month if you're new to the podcast.

Well, this month, we're talking about Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, the DLC that just came out. We're going to release that episode on Monday, October 30th. So look forward to that and play along if you like. How far into—so I'm restarting. Yes. How far into the game is Phantom Liberty? It's a new area. So I don't know if there's another, like, if there's a set number of hours in which it's like unlocked but i think you have to get through the extended prologue you know the prologue is

pretty lengthy in order to have access to that game area but there's like a new part of the map that's basically the designated uh phantom liberty zone i saw on x yes that uh that there's like a phone call you get from a new np that like starts these Phantom Liberty quests. Do you have any idea when that is? No, I mean, this is the thing. Like, I'm not in the Phantom Liberty stuff yet. I'm like, I'm actively, I was actively avoiding it for this episode because I was, I think we talk about the non-Phantom Liberty aspects of it. All right.

Yeah. My understanding is that it's like there's an area of the map called either Dogville or Dogtown or something, and that's where all this transpires. I don't think we should talk about Cyberpunk 2077 at all until the episode. Well, that's all I have to talk about today. Well, that's on you. No, I thought we were going to talk about 2.0 today.

I thought we were talking about 2.0. Wait, I thought we were talking about 2.0 a little bit. We had a topic. I think we have a topic, but that's part of what we're doing. But when we talk about what we're playing, that's what I was going talked about 2.0. Wait, I thought we were talking about 2.0 a little bit. We had a topic. I think we have a topic, but that's part of what we're doing. But when we talk about what we're playing, that's what I was going to be playing. I think we'll be checking in on Cyberpunk a little bit all month. Yeah, but Phantom Liberty, we'll have a designated Phantom Liberty zone. That'll be like, we'll talk about the DLC and sure, some of that will bleed into 2.0.

Because we talked about this game before. Yeah, we talked about this before. Yeah. I just don't know. Because we talked about this game before. Yeah, we talked about this before. Yeah. I just don't know.

I'm concerned about the amount of content we will have for our Phantom Liberty episode. Do you know how much we just did on fucking sandwiches? We're fine. Yeah, you let me cook. I'll be talking all goddamn day. I wish you'd cooked me lunch. I would have made you a freaking hand pie is what I would have made you. I would have made you a freaking hand pie is what I would have made you. Heather brought up the new commercial for the Phantom Liberty in a group chat.

And I don't know if you've seen it. It's really funny. It's fucking great. We should watch it together right now. Throw it on. I'll toss it on. What a great idea. It's the new commercial starring Idris Elba who i believe is also in phantom liberty yes as an as an actor uh and uh it has the funniest and like the end slogan for the uh for the commercial

is like it's it's fantastic it is a self-acknowledgement of Cyberpunk's problematic past and a guiding light, a North Star for its positive future. They're like, how do we solve this? Let's get the most handsome man alive to say stuff about it. Here we go. Here's Idris Elba

and the commercial for Cyberpunk. Sean's fired at Jon Hamm. Oh, shit. In 2077, how do you win when a deck is stacked against you? You go all in. In Night City, the rules are different. The stakes are higher. One wrong move is all it takes to get burned.

If you want to hold the winning hand, you need to become stronger, faster, better. So who you know and who you can trust, that's the ace up your sleeve. The more you have, the more you stand to lose. So go ahead and play. Just don't forget, the game is fixed. The game is fixed. The game is fixed. Very clever.

So funny. Yeah. Like, the fact that that's even allowed. I love the idea that some copywriter got, like, this assignment and was like, so I have to convey that the game is fixed? And they're like, yeah, we want to make sure that the, because there's this, like, idea that cyberpunk is not, it's like busted game yes where cars fall out of the sky certainly was at launch yeah and i hope that that copywriter was like oh the game is fixed means more than one thing yeah wrote it and did like four shots of whiskey and fell asleep I first gave AG1 a try because I was tired of taking so many supplements every day and wanted a single solution that supports my entire body by filling in nutrient gaps daily. I need energy.

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Maybe that includes Cyberpunk in its more vanilla state. The question I have to ask everyone is, what are you playing? What are you playing? Hey, Nick, why don't you go first? Why don't we start with a Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update discussion? Because that came out last week after we recorded our most recent episode. And again, we're not going to talk about the DLC, but we'll just talk about the update, which is substantial. And I would say very fun. I mean, like I'm having a blast going through it.

I think the thing that, you know, I was impressed by is that I feel like in the, the, the launch version of the game, which we all played during the launch window and was updated some during that stretch. And I finished that game. We all finished that game. But this is like a much more complete version that also a big issue with I feel like playing the OG Cyberpunk is that walking around the open world, it kind of felt a little bit desolate and barren and depopulated and like nothing was really happening. Like it didn't really feel like a real environment. And I feel like they've done a lot to correct that

in terms of just having more NPC behaviors and animations. So that is great. But I will also say, and I think a big part of this is just the in-house red engine they built that they are abandoning on future projects. I think it's still a little bit more glitchy and less polished than I expected for like a big, like, this is the 2.0 update and our marketing is saying the game is

fixed. You know, I'm still encountering like, you know, a floating NPC here and there. And it's just like, you know, but I do admire all of the additional stuff they've thrown into it. Having been away from cyberpunk for a year or two, however long it is, one year? Has it only been one year? It's been three. I think this game came out in 2019.

Yeah. Isn't that wild? What? No. Am I wrong about that? No, no, no. It came out post pandemic. It came out in 2020.

2020, okay, no. It came out post-pandemic. It came out in 2020. 2020, okay. Jesus. So it's been three years since I've been to Night City. And I'm, my first impression, because it's also the first time I played the PS5 version. Yes. I'm playing on PC, by the way. And I think I'm playing on the same video card as I did when it released, but it looks a lot better.

So I keep going. It is beautiful. It's gorgeous. They've done a lot with the lighting in particular, but it looks a lot better. So I keep going. It is beautiful. It's gorgeous. They've done a lot with the lighting in particular, but they've also, you know, reworked. It feels like they've reworked some of the character models. Like Judy in particular, who's one of the romanceable NPCs, and I've seen some side-by-side videos of these effects,

but look at her model in this new version and the way she's lit. It's just like it's such a stark improvement. Yeah. and the way she's lit, it's just like, it's such a stark improvement. Yeah. I did, yeah, I did catch a T-pose from a character in the game still, but I'm having a blast with it. Yeah, that's the thing that I'm just still, and I'm, you know, I got a 3070, I got a decent video card,

but I'm still like getting like just weird things. Like when I go into the map screen, I go full screen in the map screen and I'm scrolling it, I get like huge frame drops, which i'm just like it's just again it's just a little bit i was expecting like this is gonna be this game is gonna feel relatively glitch free but i'm i feel like i'm encountering that pretty regularly and also just speaking of the npc uh civilians i'm routinely encountering just like the same character models even like standing side by side and you know again it's it's all fun i'm i'm feeling very positive about the game having a I'm routinely encountering just like the same character models, even like standing side by side. And, you know, again, it's all fun.

I'm feeling very positive about the game and having a blast with it, but you still just are noticing those things, especially with the game coming in, having its previous state. I'm stoked that driving feels better. Driving does feel better, yeah. It feels a little more how I'd like it to, closer to like the GTA V driving, I think is maybe the gold standard in a game like that. But I had started a new save earlier this year,

and I didn't get very far. And now with the 2.0 patch, I just started completely new because that's what they were recommending. Me too. And I caught up to where I was in my previous new save. And even in the little bit that I did, encounters have been similar, but there have been other things I've been able to do now

that were just, like, completely new to me that I was just so, like, I couldn't believe. I'm so excited about. What kind of build are you playing? Well, I started as a corpo, and I want to try hacking. I didn't really do hacking. There was a lot of stuff that I didn't do

the first time that I played. I just didn't prioritize the hacking skill at all. I was more of like a... I was a bit of a cyber psycho almost. I would go in and start guns blazing, start chopping people up with swords. I had a, yeah, it was like a gun and katana build is what I was mostly doing.

Okay, okay. But I wanted to do hacking this time because it seems like it would be pretty fun for me to do. And, but I do have a katana. And like, the thing is, once you get a katana, it's kind of the only thing you want to do. It's so fun. Yeah, so i did a guns blazing build last time and i also did a uh yeah i also played a male v so i was like i'm gonna do something different um and i went with a female v and then i'm also i'm uh building my character around the katana uh And it feels like there's a lot of new stuff

in terms of mobility. Maybe some of this was in there and I just didn't explore it. But because the skill tree is completely different, there's a whole thing now with like how dashing, I got the upgrade that makes it so that my dash is replaced or maybe the thing is replaced with is called the dash.

But it's replaced with is called the dash, but it's replaced with something where I have like a, you know, just a super fast zoom towards something. And I can zoom forward and I can zoom forward towards enemies specifically. And you can combo that with a katana slash. So it feels like I'm kind of like this dude fucking zooming around, just slicing people up. And it is a very fun way to play.

And I'll also say that, you know, I played mouse and keyboard my first go around, but I'm playing with a controller this time on PC and it does feel a little bit better you know yeah so uh yeah I think they've definitely done a lot of gameplay tweaks just to make that all a little bit more engaging all all my playthrough the first time was Netrunner and I was a street kid Netrunner and famously for the podcast famously was jumping into an area and spreading the suicide virus to everybody and this watching like an entire group of people kill themselves. was so heavy on Netrunner that I almost didn't shoot anybody first round. Because I was like, oh, I want to be effectively a psychic, and this time

I'm going full blunt melee, and the first thing I unlocked was the sledgehammer perk, where you run at somebody and they explode. That's great. that's a totally different experience of the game for me uh last time i was street kid this time i'm corpo it's funny to think of a corpo with a sledgehammer yeah i went from i

was corpo and now i'm street kid so that's the playthrough i'm doing and i'm also playing like i'm just picking all of like the aggressive dialogue options which I normally don't do in a game which is fun because I was like it's just just a nice to say someone like the fuck you looking at you know like something I would never say you should give it a try funny for you next time you're

at sprouts person making you sandwich the fuck you looking at I get sledgehammered but okay but so all that is great i think that the i like great walking around great the driving around is much improved i still don't feel like it feels great but it feels a lot better the combat is is really fun the skill tree is is completely overhauled the ui looks a lot better and also just like the way they have changed clothing to be purely aesthetic i really appreciate that you don't have like an armor rating in your booty shorts,

but it's all just like whatever you want to wear and all the armor value comes from your cyberware. I'm confused. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I like that all that's in there. What were you going to say? I love those changes.

I haven't gotten anywhere where, like is there at all an armor class or is it all just- It's in cyberware. Yeah. Oh, it's in can get like you can get like a carapace or something or you can get like just whatever implant you get may have a little bit of an armor rating i haven't done that and my understanding is there are certain items of clothing like boots and vests that you can get that may have some like small gain small boost to your armor but it's like not like a thing you have to really think about it makes so much more sense to have that system be in cyberware

and not in shorts. Like a tank top. Yeah, yeah. Well, and also because you just get to dress like a fucking lunatic, which is part of the fun of inhabiting this world, is just building your character to look insane and then dressing them up like a freak. There's some things about this game that I don't remember,

and I'm a little confused. So you encounter the police and they're having like a shoot down with, I don't know, a street gang. And the police all have little blue arrows over their heads and then the street gang have like those little

red eyes, right? And I thought if I kill the gangs, the cops aren't going to give a shit. Oh, no. That's not what happens. Yeah, the cops get mad at you for getting in their shit. But they're trying to kill those guys.

Yeah, you're trying to help them. It makes sense. You'd think that they would be like, hey, thanks for the help. I don't remember that being the case. They've tweaked a lot of the police behavior and they've tweaked a lot of those encounters and a lot of just like the stuff you'll stumble upon is that's more content that's been overhauled. In the tutorial, it says as you pass your first street encounter, it's your choice whether to get involved or not. But apparently all involvement ends in police stars. I think it depends on the encounter depends on what you do but also like i'm just ignoring all that shit because i don't care like i just

don't care about getting into random combat encounters i'm going around yeah i'm not trying to help the police well that's another thing so this is the like all that said all this this praise despite the glitches uhensed, I still am getting reminded of the stuff that annoyed me about the game initially, and a lot of that is, you know, I think that the storytelling is good, and I think the characters are well-drawn,

and I think the narrative design is oftentimes really effective, but some of the dialogue I don't love, it's like a little corny and a little bit laden with cliches. Some of that could just be because it's in English as a second language issue. But there's also just like the kind of bad GTA style comedy, like the NPC who's named Mr. Hands. I'm just like, oh yeah,

there's a fucking Mr. Hands joke in this. Like that stuff, it's just all kind of eye-rolly to me. And so that's another thing that I kind of have to look past. And whatever updates they do to the content, that's still just like a presence of it. So I love looking at the world aesthetically, but like some of that shit I feel like

is just kind of a thud for me. And then also speaking of which, there is still a lot of copaganda in this, which really contrasts with Edgerunner's approach to police, where they're just fucking evil and being massacred by the bucketful. But there's still just a very early quest. And I overall like the quest.

It's the Andrew quest. It's the guy who's in his apartment and he's shut in and he's depressed. Right. And he's lost a friend who's died and you have to look into that. It's a very satisfying reveal who his friend is if you go to find his grave.

And it's also a great way to open up the world to make you go to this remote gravesite. But it's two cops and they're talking about their cop friend who's depressed and they're like, he's a good cop. We got to help him. And me, I'm a street kid who's got attitude. I, and they're like, we're worried he's suicidal. I, what I want to say in character is good. I hope he fucking kills himself. And that's cyberpunk. I hope this cop blows his fucking brains out. I don't have that option. I'm going to, I have to do the quest. And then I'm told like. I'm a street kid. I don't have that option. I have to do the quest and then I'm told

I'm a good person by the police. At the end of it, all that just feels kind of authoritarian encounter to the game's more nihilistic impulses. Can't you kill those two cops? You can just kill them, I mean, I guess. Alright, well. I guess that's an option.

Yeah. But I'm saying, like, within the... Like, I feel like there should be a middle ground within the dialogue. You know, there should be an option to roleplay that. Yeah. You want to antagonize them so they pull their guns on you. Yeah, sure. And I'm saying you can just... You can prognosticate that that's going to happen and just pull your gun on them.

Just double tap them from behind. Yeah. I do like the stealth in this. So that's another thing. I'm kind of building around stealth a little bit and it's fun to sneak up on behind people. And I think all that's been refined a little bit. Yeah. And there is a good like the stealth in general is like very like line of sight sort of like

you can kind of lose your tail pretty easily if you're trying hard enough. Yeah. And there's also perks that you can or things you can get in the pretty easily if you're trying hard enough. Yeah, and there's also perks that you can, or things you can get in the skill tree that let you reset your stealth based on certain abilities, or, you know, get your, what's the word I'm looking for?

I don't know. Get the fucking stealth back. What was the word I'm looking for? Stealth meter? Yeah, stealth meter, whatever it is. Oh, stamina. Yeah, whatever. No, I'm not saying stamina.

Hmm. Your stealth perception? Everyone can see you, and then you can disappear again. Visibility? And they can't see you again. Yeah, whatever. Some word like that. Wait, what's the word?

Fucking whatever. That's the word. Whatever. This is how it feels, Nick. But here's the thing. I legitimately don't know. You know, okay. You're playing Metal Gear

Solid. You're walking around. Yeah, exactly. That sound plays. The guards are alerted. They're pursuing you. And then you duck into a locker. You close it behind you. And then you evade them for long enough where everything resumes to normal. And then that counter starts down. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Reset your stealth. I don't know what the word I'm looking for is. Yeah, I don't know either, but I know what you're talking about now.

Wow. Yeah. This was a needless bit of conversation. I don't know that there's a word for resetting stealth. Like losing your tail kind of? Yeah. Because in the real world, that doesn't apply. You don't regain stealth.

So you don't have the, like you can't say. Oh, good, I'm stealth again. Yeah. Yeah, if there was like a guy in the office who just sort of walked by with like a gun, we'd be like, holy shit, like look at the guy. And then if he like hid in a cardboard box for a second,'d be like well i guess that guy is gone we wouldn't do that we keep looking for him yeah because it's a video i wouldn't look i'm leaving i wouldn't no i'd get the fuck out yeah i'm out of here i try and i tried and be her hero you could stop him yeah sledgehammer his ass i learned a thing about

vikings oh yeah is this the part of the podcast where i talk about vikings yeah of course go for it um i learned about the the truth of berserker vikings so there were soldiers and then there were berserkers and berserkers were naked guys who would show up who would show up on the on the battlefield and both the allies and the people on the other side would be like, these fucking dudes. They may or may not, probably not, but may have been on a huge amount of hallucinogens. But they would rush the enemy in such a fevered rage that when the enemies,

like we have writings in the Byzzantine empire and they're like these fucking guys are insane the vikings fight with these other dudes who are crazy sometimes they wear a wolf mask that's cool what were we talking about right before that uh this concept that nick invented oh no i was gonna say i think like if a guy shows up with a gun and hides under a cardboard box if you take off your shirt and charge him he's done he's like something is wrong i don't know if he has a gun i think he tries to shoot you first really i think so you think okay like philosoph, you think a guy shows up with a gun. Yeah.

And then somebody comes at him who's naked. That that guy doesn't hesitate a little bit? I think he might be like, the fuck? Right. But maybe just for, is that long enough to keep him from pulling the trigger? Yeah, is that long enough? Depends. Don't know.

Depends on the range. I think then you try to like, shoot the guy's dick off or something. Kind of a different thing to aim at um can i point out one more thing which is that the i didn't know this but uh if you bought this game i think i think on if you bought this game anywhere but i could be wrong uh you get a pdf of the cyberpunk 2020 core rulebook. Oh, yeah. So that's just a thing you can just download and look at. And I was looking at that a little bit. It's really kind of an interesting bit of, you know,

a tabletop game written in the 1980s, or a PNP game, rather, written in the 1980s. And it's kind of interesting to look through the rule set and see what it has in common with the game that you play today. I do like the, the new system. Cause like before you can kind of just do whatever you want in night city. It felt like,

and no, nobody would come, come and try to stop you. But now there is a wanted system. Maybe is that what you're thinking about? No way. Yeah. Whatever.

He sets your wanted meter. Maybe, you know, honestly that kind of is pretty close to it. Uh, it's yeah, there is that now. And I, I've been, but I've been enjoying that. But if we're done kind of is pretty close to it. There is that now. I've been enjoying that, but

if we're done talking about Cyberpunk, I have been playing something else that I'd like to share. Please. Me too. I know, within the last couple weeks, I said, Apple Arcade? I don't want games on my phone. That sounds like something I've said recently. Yeah, that's something you've said.

Well, I just thought I'd give Apple Arcade a try pretty recently just because I was like, I'd say all that. But I don't really know what's going on over there. I have this game. There's this game on... Oh, fuck, what's it called? Oh, no. I'm not even prepared.

He doesn't know what game he's playing. No, I forgot the name of it. Is it Matt's Little Game? It's Matt's Little Game. It is called... Okay. It's called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splintered Fate. And...

I like that you couldn't remember the name of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. Yeah, I knew the first part. We could have started there. We would have gotten what you meant. I knew the beginning of it was TMNT. I knew that part. So there's this game on there called— What the fuck is this game called?

It's called Red Dead Redemption 2. That's what it was. It's got these fucking big turtles, and they all have different personalities. I'm fucking lost. It's a roguelike. It's a TMNT roguelike. That's cool. And it plays like Hades.

That's cool. You can kind of go through different little areas and there's different enemies in each little area and you get different boons and stuff like that. It's a lot easier than Hades. It's less involved systems-wise. But it's a lot easier than hades it's like less involved systems wise uh but it's it's it's pretty fun you can play it on you know with the touch screen which works great or you could play it it works great with the touch it works great with the touch screen i i've very rarely uh so

far have played it with the backbone attached to it uh just because i'm like oh gotta pop off my case gotta do all this whole dance whole dance to play these little games. But I have played it with the Backbone, and it plays good with the Backbone, too. It's fun both ways. Yeah. But more often than not, I'm not snapping it into the Backbone. And I've been enjoying that. So I take it back.

There are games on my phone right now. I don't know for how long, but right now there are games on my phone. now I don't know for how long but right now there are games on my phone I love to hear it so you'd say people should check this out I think it's really fun if you'd like to play one if you like Ninja Turtles and I do think most Ninja Turtle games are pretty fun

because you get to be the Ninja Turtles that's pretty cool boy that's a good are most Ninja turtle games fun shredder's revenge great uh although you know no one rips arcade great yeah uh they're mostly time is great mostly pretty fun but are we just like are we overlooking the because obviously the the ninja turtles nes game which we covered in our own format is basically unplayable there's also a really bad we i think a Wii TMNT game that sucks. I don't remember this.

I think this is a good format for the Turtles. You only got one. You can switch. It's fun. It's nice. I don't know. I think the Turtles are back right now though too. You think the Turtles are back? The Turtles are back. I did like that new movie. I loved it. They're certainly good.

I haven't seen it yet but they're certainly back in comic form. Yeah. The Last Ronin is an excellent TMNT comic. Yeah. Which is about a world where all the turtles except one is dead. And he's getting revenge. Which one? That's kind of the thing.

That's kind of the thing. Oh, you don't know. You haven't figured it out. Okay. Yeah. Because he's maskless. You can't. Oh, so you can't tell by the color of the thing. That's kind of the thing. Oh, you don't know. You haven't figured it out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's maskless. You can't.

Oh, so you can't tell by the color of his headband. Yeah. Yeah. And they're adapting that into like a God of War style game, I heard. Oh. Like a AAA like character action game. Wow. That's interesting. Yeah.

But that's, I'm enjoying TMNT Splintered fate on Apple Arcade, and I'm loving it. I love hearing that sentence come out of Matt. Yeah. That's pretty good. Pretty shocking. Mr. I don't want games on my phone. I got a game on my phone. Meanwhile, other than Cyberpunk, I am playing a game you cannot play on Apple products.

Fortnite. Wow. Still playing Fortnite. Apple products. Fortnite. Wow. Still playing Fortnite back in like now that I'm back in the States and my ping is good. I have been playing Fortnite regularly again. I thought maybe three months off was going to break my addiction cycle. Turns out that game's so fucking great and things change so frequently that that you play for a couple of days and you're back in it 100%. There's a new set of powers based on My Hero Academia

where you create ice walls to stop gunfire. Ice walls. Ice walls. Pretty good. A whole new set of weapons. It's fucking good, man. Fortnite is so good. Any cyberpunk content?

There isn't cyberpunk content. Johnny Silverhand should be in Fortnite. He actually should be in Fortnite. That's a great call. The truth is there hasn't been a lot of really good Fortnite character drops lately. At least not ones that overlap with any of my interests. So, yeah. Still waiting on lydia tar like lydia like literally anytime they put in like mike ermantrout has joined fortnight be fucking awesome anytime there's like yeah like a a character that's 50 years old or older like i mean like you know like

from a movie from the 70s or the 80s you're like who who is this I mean it's great that they're in there well they licensed Gene Hackman

from the French Connection there's the overlap here but yeah back in Fortnite I can't wait to further connect with the Get Played Battle Bus on our Discord

discord.gg slash get played right yeah that's right all right great fucking matt i was still looking at the name of that ninja turtles game yeah i was like hold on no i was looking up i was gonna do a very specific bit that's not even gonna be worth it it required you to open a browser tab yeah yeah yeah what is it i wanted to be mike ermantrantraut saying, like, all right, Walter, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to go to Slushy Jr.'s house in Fortnite. So you're just looking up a quote?

That's what you're doing? I was looking up Fortnite specifics that I can maybe have my bad impression of Mike Ehrmantraut say. And then this happened. Wait, what? Are you mad? Are you OK? No, I don't know what's happening right now. Brutal Bastion.

There's there's a right. There you go. Say say something as Mike Irvin Trout. Get this bit back on the rails about brutal, brutal Bastion. Well, the impression is not. Walter. Here's what's going to happen. He always says stuff like that. OK. about Brutal Bastion. Well, the impression's not even... Walter, here's what's gonna happen. He always says stuff like that.

Okay. We gotta get to Brutal Bastion and then we're gonna do Fortnite. I'm gonna hit the gritty. I don't even... Matt, what the hell are you talking about? Wait, is that Walter White? That's pretty good.

Why would he say Matt? I mean, he says it to Jesse. Jesse! Jesus Christ. Let's cook. I don't, this bit is insane. I think it all makes sense. I'm Skyler. Oh, God. Oh, boy, here we go. Here we go. The truth is, I'm really happy there isn't a Walter

White drop in Fortnite because it would only be Walter Whites. You think so? The entire fucking game would be Walter White. But you think, like, the 11-year-olds want only be Walter White. You think so? The entire fucking game would be Walter White. But you think the 11 year olds want to be Walter White and play this game? I think so. The moment 40% of the game becomes Walter White, then everybody's

going to be Walter White. I think they should just go the other way and put Saul. Put Saul Goodman in the game. That'd be a lot of fun. They could put in Bob Odenkirk from nobody. That would be fitting. He's an action hero.

Put Bob Odenkirk from any of the Mr. Show sketches in Fortnite. Put in Choo Choo the Herky Jerky Dancer from Mr. Show. answer from Mr. Cho. I'm very happy that you're still having fun with Fortnite. I'm so glad that that's there for us. It makes me wish that we

were doing Uggtober again. Because I thought not only was Uggtober like a fantastic format for us to explore our boundaries. But it also introduced me to one of my favorite games of all time. And I think a second Uggtober

would have potentially unlocked some new interests for us. We could, you know, sweatily put Ugg in a different month somewhere. Ugg-ist. Yeah, we could always do a different Ugg. We'll figure it out. We could do no Vember.

That's pretty good. Like, no, I don't want to play it. Vember. I mean, I don't want to commit to that right now. Yeah, it's good pitch. I don't know if we're going to do it. Not until Mike Ehrmantraut's in Fortnite. And what would that sound like?

Just so we know. Walter, here's what's going to happen. Here's the thing. It doesn't sound like it's getting better, but it is. It is getting better. You're improving. Hey, everyone. You know, you want to eat healthy.

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Plus, you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious. What are you waiting for? Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplayed50 to get 50% off. 50% off. Let's get into the topic we're going to discuss for the second act here today, which is tiers of the kingdom spelled T I E R S for controllers. We're going to do a tier list for primary pack-in controllers. So here's what I'm going to say. First thing, I think this should be consoles, not handhelds.

Like, I think we should just, maybe we can make a Wii U, Steam Deck, Switch exemption, but I don't think we should be talking about, like, comparing, like, the Game Boy Micro to an Xbox S controller doesn't make any sense. The other thing, and I think this is actually borne out by the tier list that Matt picked that we're going to be using as a visual guide here in studio, I think we should start with the gamepad generation, so like the third console generation, and avoid the joysticks, paddles, the Coleco Telstars, the Magnavox Odysseys. I think that's the right approach.

I think, yeah. If we haven't touched it, we shouldn't talk about it. Well, it's also such completely different approaches. There is a pack-in controller from the, because we're starting with the NES era here. Yes, that's where we would begin. And I don't see a Sega Master System controller. Yeah, there should be a Master System one there.

Is there not one there? There is not. There is not. Okay, that's an omission. I will tell you, it's Sega Master System controller. Yeah, there should be a Master System one there. Is there not one there? There is not. There is not. Okay, that's an omission. I will tell you it's a DTR controller. It's a little clunky. I mean, I didn't have a Master System, but my friend had one and I would play it at his house.

And I had a couple of friends with Master Systems actually. And yeah, there was an eight-way D-pad, which what you thought was like, oh, this is cool because it's hard to do the corners on the you know the nes d-pad but it actually felt a little bit mushy it was mushy as fuck and you could like screw a tiny joystick into it oh that's right like a tiny tiny like like imagine the tip of a uh a headphone jack right you could screw into a controller and kind of mash your thumb.

It hurt. That doesn't sound fun. It sucked. Yeah. You know, whatever. They were figuring stuff out. I think that's a fair deal. I think Master System is a D tier sounds about right. I'll trust you on that, Heather. I am going to argue in favor of the NES controller. I don't think it's the most comfortable controller

ever made, but I think it should rate pretty highly because it set the template for the gamepad. Before that, all of controls were based off of arcade controls, and it was based off of pressing buttons with your fingers and controlling a joystick with your hand, and the gamepad approach put that with your thumbs, and it completely completely changed gaming and it stayed with us through today. So to me, the NES slash Famicom controller, which was actually the first gamepad I ever used because we had my brother's good friend who lived on our block. His parents were from Japan and they had a Famicom. And I think both of those controllers are, is it crazy to say those are A-tier controllers? I know they're not as good as modern controllers, but I kind of want to appreciate them for history's sake. I think it belongs in A. I think, yeah, you can't get to some of these later ones without this design.

Because, yeah, like you said, it put it in your hands. Yeah. ones without this design because yeah like you said it put it it put it in your hand yeah i've pulled up a a pretty robust secondary controller map here wow to look at uh in case we we we skip or forget any this is great because you got like things like the nes advantage there like peripherals but then you've also got uh you know ones like the the Atari Jaguar controller or the Saturn 3D orb controller. Remember that big fucking hockey puck thing? Yep. I don't know what that was called. Wow.

I think it was just called the 3D controller. That's great. Yeah. Well, okay. So we'll settle NES and what do you think, Heather? What do you want to sit that bad boy? What, the NES? Yeah. We could go down to B. No, it's an A. Okay, we'll put that in A. Master System in D.

That brings us to, and that's it for the 8-bit, Jen, right? Yes, because we aren't covering the Atari 7800 joypad, the NES Advantage, the NES Max. I had both of those, by the way. The NES Advantage? I had the NES Advantage and the Max. I was so excited about the Max because it's got a turbo button. I thought both of those, by the way. The NES Advantage? I had the NES Advantage and the Max. I was so excited about the Max because it's got a turbo button. I thought it was so cool. I think I got it for a birthday one day. What does the

turbo button do? You can just hold down the A button and it would press it repeatedly. You wouldn't have to mash it. Nice. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. That's an A. Yeah, but it also like... That was not an A controller. Oh... That was not an A controller. Oh!

That was not an A-tier controller. Those are both kind of clunky. Alright, let's move on to the 16-bit era. So we've got the Sega Genesis, and I don't know if they both are represented in this graphic, but I think we should talk about both the 3-button and the 6-button. I'll let you start this one, Heather.

Wait, there was a... Am I misremembering? There was a six... Oh, yeah, I remember now. Okay. The Sega Genesis three-button pad, which, by the way, Sega Genesis is released before Super Nintendo,

so when this controller comes out, people are like, oh, shit, it's got three buttons. Yeah, yeah. It was like a pretty big deal. Fucking wild. Like, oh, man, there's three different things you could do um that being said it is a is a chunky controller yeah thick and because nintendo owns the patent on d-pad like it still has a slightly different input system on its face. I think

that as much as I was a Sega kid and loved the Genesis, I think the Genesis pad is C tier. The other thing about that is that yes, it is chunky, but it also kind of sits in your fingers. It isn't quite

substantial enough to sit in the palms of your hands. At least that's my memory of it. And so, yeah, I think that's a fair rating. Also, just three buttons in a row isn't the most ergonomic setup. But then when Street Fighter comes out, everybody needs a six-button controller or a six-button joystick. They sure do. And so Sega Genesis comes out with a six-button controller, and that controller iston joystick. They sure do. And so Sega Genesis comes out with a six-button controller, and that controller is fucking great.

Yeah, that was a great gamepad. It is not on our map that we're using, but I do want to shout it out as an absolute A-tier controller. I'm in favor of that, and it also is kind of the same. Like, how different was it from the saturn controller it was very similar very similar so i mean i think those are both good controllers certainly for 2d games and so yeah i definitely am in favor of that uh should we talk it was super nintendo slash super famicom yep i love this controller i think that the advent of shoulder buttons as

like the advent of the gamepad itself it deserves like a little bit of a boost for that. I also think the, you know, the layout of four buttons that are at an angle so you can press two at once is something that has endured. We've seen that with the that was emulated with the PlayStation controller and with the Xbox controller. And also, people get a retro pad nowadays. It'll oftentimes just be modeled on a Super Nintendo game pad. So I think for controlling that type of game, I don't know. Is it crazy to call that an S-tier controller? I think it's S-tier, and I think an additional point of value in the controller

is that you don't have to look at the A, B, and X, Y buttons to know the difference between them. Right. Because some are concave and some are convex. Which was a thing they changed for the Super Nintendo versus the Super Famicom. My understanding is the first-gen Super Famicom controllers, all of the buttons were raised and people got a little confused, so they added that for the worldwide release. It's excellent. Yeah, it's for the worldwide release. It's excellent. Yeah, it's cool. Cool controller. I love it. An S-tier controller. Love how it looks up there.

I like the color of the buttons, too. Those are nice purples. Those are nice purples and the Super Famicom one has the red, yellow, green, blue. That's fun. Yeah. I prefer the color scheme of the Super Famicom. Me too. But I prefer the concave convex the super famicom me too but i prefer the concave convex buttons on the super nes that was back when everything like americans didn't like

sleek for whatever reason everything we wanted or at least they the people who made consumer electronics thought we wanted boxy yeah we wanted jeeps for fucking everything so like everything like the the super nintendo control like system looks like this big, like chunky, like, you know, VCR. And then the Super Famicom is a lot more rounded. And I don't know, I think I think aesthetically pleasing. But, you know, whatever. That's that's the time we lived in. Before we blast past this, the rest of this era into the 32 bit slash 64 bit era.

I would like to also say that the 3DO controller sucked. And the Atari Jaguar controller double sucks. Wow. The Atari Jaguar controller is like holding... It's like holding a big sandwich.

It is this... So far, so good. It is this. Yeah, what's the issue here? Matt, it's like this large. Yes. And it has three buttons and the D-pad,

but then it also has like a full phone pad of buttons at the bottom. Yeah, inexplicable numpad. And let me guess, instead of inside where the wires should be, it's ham.

There's mayo where the other wire should be. I admittedly did not play a ton of Jaguar on the controller proper. Most of it I've played has been via emulation. But I did use that controller some back in the day. And it was very chunky in a bad way. Absolutely sucked. Yeah.

Uh, also we should, I mean, we might as well, we're being comprehensive mentioned the, the PC engine slash TurboGrafx-16 controller, which was just the Nintendo controller. It was just the NES controller. I mean, it really didn't have, it was, it was two buttons and a D-pad didn't really offer anything new. There's also the Neo Geo pad, which we've skipped over, but that's just a four-face button D-pad controller. I only played on a Neo Geo pad once, and it just felt expensive.

But I don't know if that's because I knew the system was expensive. I was like, oh my God, I've never seen this in person. It was probably at a Sears. But yeah, that's that generation as well as can be remembered. All right, let's move on to the 3D era. So first up, I guess we should talk about the Saturn. The Saturn 3D pad. Fucking great. You love that controller. where do you want to put it i i think saturn 3d or the original saturn pad is good but the the the the international release sega saturn pad is fucking incredible it's one of the best controllers ever made it's s tier all the way

i can't argue with it because i've not i've hands on it. Oh my god, it is such a good pad. It is such a good pad. It's clicky. It's responsive. The depth on the D-pad is so good. It's a good controller. So for clarity's sake, we're putting the with the 3D controller

you're saying is an S tier or the original D-pad? No, there isn't. The original controller. The 3D controller is, we haven't talked about that one yet. We haven't gotten there yet. Sega Saturn 3D. Yeah, this is the original Sega Saturn. Got it. So this comes out at the same time as the PlayStation.

And the original PlayStation controller, remember, does not have analog sticks. No. That controller, I think, kind of sucks. It sucks. I don't like that one. I honestly would put that one in C tier. Um, put that Saturn controller in S tier.

And then we don't have it on our board. Oh yeah, we do. There it is. I see it down in the corner. That PlayStation controller. Yeah. The original PlayStation one without the analog sticks.

Yeah. That controller is not great. It's pretty uncomfortable. The D pad. It's worse than, it's worse than the Genesis. Put it in D. And that's an original sin

that they've never really corrected that d-pad still kind of sucks it hurts yeah it's not very pleasant uh i do i the one thing i do do really like is i really like the you know the the visual language of the buttons although i think that's been undermined by making the x now into the confirm button which doesn't make any sense. Circle is confirm and X is cancel makes a lot more, you know, that's how things used to be. That's how things should be. But whatever, it's a different fight. Um, but I, yeah, I, I, I didn't love that. And I had that. And then he also had the analog version, which was the pre dual shock version. They ultimately got the dual shock. Um, so had all three evolutions of that controller, but that one was definitely

the worst. The analog PlayStation controller had concave button or concave joysticks, and then the DualShock had raised ones. With a little bit of texture on them. Yeah, which then becomes like the sort of standard for Sony across the board. I love the DualShock controller. I think that's a great controller. A controller that we don't have, I guess we talk about the N64 next, but we haven't put the Virtual Boy up on this board. D-tier.

Yeah. D-tier that piece of shit. We're putting the PlayStation controller in D-tier. Virtual Boy controller featured four face buttons, two for each thumb. So two on the left, two on the right, and then two D pads also for each thumb. Yeah.

Nonsense. And the handles were too long. That's a big issue. You guys played it at my place. It's a weird controller. It's one of the worst things I've ever had in my hands. Horrible. Yeah's a weird controller. It's one of the worst things I've ever had in my hands. Horrible. Yeah, it's brutal.

Where does that, what does that leave us? N64 is next. N64. Fuck. It has its charms. I do think this is what gave us the analog stick. So again, you know, before the DualShock is a reaction to this controller. So is the Sega Saturn 3D.

So is the Sega Saturn 3D controller is a reaction to this controller. So the presence of the analog stick is another huge innovation from Nintendo, as is force feedback, which comes via the rumble pack. That's another thing that everyone copies. So I think it deserves a little bit of extra,

you know, a little bit of extra boost for that reason. That said, the three different candles is nonsense. deserves a little bit of extra you know a little bit of extra boost for that reason that said the three different candles is nonsense um the the trident form factor doesn't like like does not have any real utility uh and i i just feel like some of like the c buttons are kind of clunky too i don't know i want to say i want to stick this in B, maybe C tier. Not C, not C. Maybe it ends up in B tier. It's the first controller that I can think of

that has a trigger where the gun trigger should be. Yeah, that's nice. That's nice. The analog stick is nice. But it only has it there because it's shaped like this. Right. It would be somewhere else if it wasn't in this shape. Sure, fine.

But I think that for a company that wasn't willing to commit to analog exclusive control, right? Because, like, really, if you look at this control pad, this is an argument between people who are like, it's 3D now. The analog stick needs to go in a primary location. And somebody else who's like, absolutely not. We cannot tell our developers you cannot make games for the D-pad or Nintendo. And so they shove it in the middle and then most of the games end up being played with that middle stick. No, that's true. Yeah. It was really rare when you were holding the left side of the controller. So, it's an argument between two factions internally, I think, at Nintendo.

And there is an S-tier controller here and a C-tier controller here. Yeah. So, what's that average out to? An A or a B? I think, I would argue to put it in B. Let's put it in B. B it is.

All right, great. This controller seems like it was designed by you, Sleepy Joe. Yeah! Like you made two handles and then you forgot you made two, so you made a third one. Let me tell you something. This controller, it has to be shaped like a trident. Who are these people? Oh, it's in B tier.

Let's just move on. Sasha has homework to do. Oh, it's in B tier. Let's just move on. Sasha has homework to do. Sega Saturn's 3D controller is a baffling piece of technology shaped like a circle. Yeah. With six face buttons, an analog stick and a D-pad. It's not up on our board here, but it was released for nights. It was packed in with nights. Yeah. And it's not good.

I love looking at it. I think it looks really cool. It looks cool, but it is a weird, it was a weird choice. I would put it at C tier. The 3D one? That sounds fair. Yeah, the Sega Saturn 3D controller. And hey, while we're staying in Sega town,

let's talk about the next gen Dreamcast. Fucking. Lot of fondness for this controller. I love the VMU as an idea, even though it was not well implemented. I think the positioning of the analog stick versus the D-pad is like, well, that was a right move to put those where they are. Analog triggers. Analog triggers are awesome. The buttons have a great feel to it. My only issue with this controller

is it's straight on the sides. So your wrists are like kind of cramped holding it. They're not ergonomically in line with your forearms. If they're, you know, and so I feel like for long periods, if I was playing a game for a while, I'd always get pretty uncomfortable holding that thing. But it is a really cool controller. It is also a really cool looking controller.

I also don't love where the cord is. For some reason, that bothers me me that's a little clunky it should be in the back of it not the front but yeah they need room for the VMU I still have a lot of fondness for this one I would personally maybe put this in A tier but maybe that's overrating it

I'm living in a time when there is a fan community making a new VMU. Wow. Wow. With a, with a better screen. Wow. And if you're making an addition to a controller 24 years after release, I think that that means that the love and fondness for this controller is off the charts. 100%. So I put this in S tier. You go all the way to S. That's interesting. I have a hard time getting there. It had a portable

game system inside the controller. Right, but it also was better, again, better in theory than in practice. I remember the whole thing, it was like, oh, when you play NFL 2K, you can pick your plays from the VMU, and then if you actually try to do that, it was kind of clunky. It didn't work great. It was like, oh, when you play NFL 2K, you can pick your plays from the VMU. And then if you actually try to do that, it was kind of clunky. It didn't work great. And like the Sonic Adventures game that came with it, again, it wasn't great to play on the go.

And it has this portable device in the controller. If you have one. True. Otherwise, the memory card goes in there. Yeah. Otherwise, that's where the memory card goes. Should we explain what the VMU is to any children who are listening? Yeah, dear children. Also, go to bed. Listen to your parents.

Don't smoke. And do your homework. Julia, if you're listening, go to bed. 24 years ago, before you were born, there was a system called the Sega Dreamcast, which was so far ahead of its time that it killed the company that made it. called the Sega Dreamcast,

which was so far ahead of its time that it killed the company that made it. The Sega Dreamcast was an online enabled, out of the box, an online enabled console in 1999. So to put that in perspective, most people weren't going online at all. And this was a company that was like, no, online's the future.

We're putting online inside of our system. It was CD-based games and used some kind of proprietary technology. Yeah, it had more storage. It was more storage than a regular CD. It was called GD-ROM? What the fuck was it called? Who the fuck knows?

And the controller had a slot in it that you could put a memory card this used to be the way that you would save games but if you wanted to you could get a fancy memory card called the visual memory unit the vmu and the vmu this is also i'm not reading this no this is off the dome this is off the dome the vmu had a small l lcd screen in it and a tiny controller and a tiny set of buttons. So you could save your game to the VMU, which would be active, kind of like the Wii U game pad during play, like showing you information or allowing you to choose plays in NFL. I never did that. But then you could save your game to the VMU, take it on the go, and like a tiny game boy, play the VMU and do these mini games when you were bored because nobody had cell phones. So there was nothing else to look at.

I just came up with a great VMU game. So it requires two things. One, there has to have been an Evangelion video game for the Sega Dreamcast. Okay. there has to have been an Evangelion video game for the Sega Dreamcast. And then the VMU game, it's just like entry plug the game. And so it's like a Tamagotchi, but it's Shinji. And you have to make sure that Shinji is okay in the entry plug. And then the Evangelion game is basically just like Armored Core, but it's Evangelion.

And you do better in the game if your Shinji is good in the in the in the VMU entry plug there were Evangelion games for the Dreamcast wow

none of them used this technology they fucked up Matt you fucked they fucked up and you you should you should be the president I should be the president

Matt sounded like he was talking to Santa and then and then um you know what I'd love to have an audience with Santa. I got some things to say to that motherfucker. Anyway, Sega Dreamcast was so far ahead of its time that Sega,

once people realized that you could burn discs for the Sega Dreamcast, because it ran on Windows CE, so it was like just a single hack trick. The system was fucking crushed. And so was my heart. It was a rad system. It had some rad games. It had Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Great game. And I think I actually imported that. I'm trying to remember. Because I imported a few Dreamcast games. Power Stone, Skies of Arcadia. Power Stone was a lot of fun. Shenmue. I don't think I ever played a few Dreamcast games because it was pretty easy to mine. Skies of Arcadia. Power Stone was a lot of fun. I don't think Power Stone do too. I don't think I ever played a Sega Dreamcast game

with its printed label on it. There's just not, there's no way I did. We covered fucking, what's that dude? Worm dude. Fish man. Sea man.

There it is. Yeah, Sea man, yeah. Sea man's good. Sea man's good. And that was another way in which the Dreamcast controller was expandable. You snapped in a microphone.

Yeah. And then you could talk to your guy on the screen. The S tier. N64 also had that ability. Yeah, for Hey You Pikachu. S tier. S tier. I can't get all the way to S tier.

Why? To me, it's A tier just for ergonomic reasons. But I will let Matt make the final call. He doesn't know it. I've touched it. He was born after it. That's not true. I've touched it.

I think I don't want to make Heather mad. And I don't think Nick will care if I put it in A or S, actually. So I'm going to put it in S. I feel like my voice has been heard. It's fine to say it's S tier. Alright, let's move on to the PlayStation 2, the DualShock 2. I think this is more so than piracy. I think that the

people awaiting the PlayStation 2 is what killed the Dreamcast. And I think also the presence of a DVD drive as opposed to a proprietary format was so huge. So many people, including me, used it as their primary DVD player for years. But I'll let's say the DualShock 2 is a really good controller. And I think it's an improvement over the DualShock 1. And yeah, I'd stick that sumbitch in SDR. I think that the DualShock 2, here's what I'm going to say. I'm frustrated that Sony, for the last, what, almost 30 years,

has put the analog sticks where they've put them. Yes, I agree. They should flip them on the left side. It's chaos that they continue to put those analog sticks in the dead center of their controllers when even the Dreamcast and the GameCube put the analog stick where it's proper in your primary position. And the Xbox. And the Xbox. But it's a, boy, it's a, like, it's a Sony Walkman style. They nailed it and they don't change it.

Right. It is really good. And, you know, the, what do you call that? Like the rumble in the PlayStation 2 controller, that thing, if it was on a flat surface, it wouldn't be for very long. That thing would fucking vibrate. You know what I'm going to say? I think we stick the sumbitch in A tier because I think because they iterate

on the same format with the PlayStation 3 and 4 and 5, I think there are better versions of this template. So I think I'd put it there. Nothing warms my heart more 24 years later than putting the DualShock 2 in A tier in the Dreamcast controller last year. We're building the future you wish you had.

I feel validated. I will say the DualShock controller's analog stick placement allows for games like Katamari Damacy to exist. You know, because somebody looked at this controller and was like, OK, well, what is this? What could you do with it? Yeah, for sure. And, you know, in the same way that kind of the it didn't quite it's not the same thing. But I mean, like Goldeneye and the Nintendo 64 controller sort of set up how these games are kind of going to be controlled on a first-person games are going to be controlled on a console. Obviously,

that got tweaked when dual analog sticks became standard. That being said, I do think that travel on both the DualShock 2 and the Dreamcast analog stick is a little much. You really have to swing that guy all over the place in order to

there's not like a precise amount of control on these two controllers. So I would be willing to put the Dreamcast in A tier and the DualShock in C tier. Wait, you're bumming about in two tiers? What the hell? GameCube's up next. Let's go through GameCube and Xbox. Let's finish out this generation, and then we can see if anything needs to be nudged.

I think it's good for now. Okay, are we doing GameCube? GameCube. Let's do GameCube. I want to stick this in C tier. I think it has some... Whoa! I think it, like, the, you know...

Holy shit! The locking R trigger feels good, but all the asymmetries in this controller make it really awkward. I don't like the button layout. I don't like that there's a Z trigger on one side, but not on the other side or an R button on whichever one is called. Yeah. Which there's only three shoulder buttons is really awkward. I don't like the C stick at all. I don't like the C-stick at all. I don't like how it's set up.

I hate the C-stick. I think the positioning of the D-pad makes it basically useless. The main reason I have any fondness for this controller is because of Smash Bros. Melee, and this is still the best way to play a Smash Bros. game, which is what would let me bump it up any tiers at all, but I kind of feel like this is a C-tier controller. Holy shit. Things have got too-tier controller. Holy shit.

Things have too much going on. Holy shit. I don't like, just from an aesthetic standpoint, this little gap in between right here where the floating D-pad and the floating C-stick sort of are. Yeah. They're off on their sort of little, they're on peninsulas,

but I hate this little valley right here. It really bothers me. And also, yeah, I don't love the buttons. I have no fondness for the buttons at all. I can never really feel like I was having a good time with this controller. Wow. This is astonishing to me. Astonishing?

I thought this was a B-tier controller. Maybe it is B-tier. I thought that the clickiness and the interesting feedback that you get when you're playing the triggers on the GameCube. That I like. That's my favorite thing. A really interesting snap. And I also think that Nintendo's willingness to think outside the box of how you interact with buttons. In that there's a primary button and then there are buttons that are off to the side of that primary button. It's interesting and effective.

And also, Resident Evil 4, one of the best games ever fucking made, is designed around the GameCube controller, and it has an excellent input system for it. No, I mean, that's the thing. for it. No, I mean, that's the thing. If there's, like I mentioned with Melee, if there's things that I like about this controller just because I have associated it with games that use it effectively,

I might, honestly, I might like it more if it, if there was just a better Mario game on this system. Boy, the Mario game on this system sucks. Here's what I'll say. I like this controller more than I like the N64 controller.

Yeah. I think it's better. So... Yeah, I guess we... I would like to put the GameCube controller in B and bump the N64 controller down to C. You know what? I'll allow it. I disagree with this completely.

What? But we can do it. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to keep stomping on your dreams. You think that the N64 controller is better than the GameCube controller? Look, I'd rather use a GameCube controller, but I think in terms of, but I'd also rather probably use a, you know, some of the controllers that are ranked below the NES controller. But I think we're also putting into some giving, offering some historical perspective in terms of these rankings. Right. So, I mean, like, yeah, for a

modern game, I'd rather use a DualShock than a Super Nintendo controller, but rating the Super Nintendo controller a little bit higher because of what it did for innovations in control schemes. So I don't know. I don't think the GameCube has much of a lasting legacy as a controller. I don't think there's a lot that other controllers emulate. I don't know. The Smash community still uses it. I agree with that, but yes, that is fair. The Wii came with GameCube controller ports built in because of how many people still wanted to use the legacy controller.

Well, that was also for backward compatibility. And I think this, playing an N64 game on a non-N64 controller is almost impossible. True. You can play a GameCube game almost on any type of controller. There. Oh, oh, excellent point. But the N64 gave us the analog stick. impossible. True. You can play a GameCube game almost on any type of controller. There! Oh! Excellent point! But the N64 gave us the analog stick. That's the

whole thing. That's the whole reason we're rating the N64 controller so high in the first place. Wait, I took that to mean the opposite I think of what Matt wanted it to mean. I'll stop you both right there. I don't know what I mean. I just am bringing it up as a... I mean it as a negative to the,

um, the N64. Too many of the games are built toward that controller. That's why I'm, I take it as a positive. If you can't swap out that controller for any generic controller, then the controller itself is specific, interesting,

and valuable. Whereas like, yeah, you could make an argument that the, you know, you could play a Genesis game the, you know, you could play a Genesis game on basically anything. Yeah. Yeah. This is how, how funny, how interesting that the GameCube controller is the hardest one so far. Well, it's also, I think it's an argument

that's being, that has been made for 20 years, which is that people were either extremely pro or extremely anti-GameCube controller. I like that Nintendo tries their own thing. I like that they aren't Sony or just like, we're just going to make the same fucking controller for 30 years. I like that they took that big swing. I don't think either this or the N64 controller honestly worked all that well. It's a B tier. I guess if you're saying, all right, fine, put it in a B tier. It's a B tier. I guess if you're saying alright fine, put it in a B tier. Let's talk about Xbox.

I have a lot of fondness for the big boy Xbox controller, aka the Duke. That said, this absolutely cannot go above C tier and maybe honestly belongs in D tier. It kind of sucks. I love this thing. It sucks. It's too

big. It sucks. It's too fucking big. But what I it sucks it is it is too big it is it sucks it's too fucking big but what i like about it is again you know i got kind of big hands so it was a thing of like i can kind of use this thing you know and i again just talking about i'm playing halo on that thing felt pretty good but i think the s controller is such a clear improvement obviously the market and microsoft agree yeah the s controller becomes sort of the standard Microsoft controller. Kind of like the DualShock becomes the standard Sony controller. And the S is a good, it's a good controller.

Yeah, I'd put the S in A tier. Yeah, it's an A tier controller. I do want to say this about the Duke. One thing that I liked about it is the Is it called the Duke? That was its nickname. It's because it's so big? It was apparently named after one of the hardware team's kids, I think.

I think they called it the Duke for that reason. But yeah, it's affectionately known. I named it after my giant son. Hail to the king, baby! The cord is as thick as my piss. Again, another thing for, for younger people who are listening,

all of these controllers so far in the wired controller era, these all were plugged in. And that includes the Duke, which had a quick release because a problem with these is like, if like, again, your, your your your roommate was stumbling in front of the tv or your mom was vacuuming the controller might get pulled on

and it might pull the entire console off of the shelf and could wreck your uh could wreck your game so this one had if there was any tension on it it would quick release and it was kind of an interesting stopgap innovation um but yeah put this in d tier it, it would quick release. And it was kind of an interesting stopgap innovation. But yeah, put this in D tier. It sucks. It's not even, it's like, it's uncomfortable. I mean, for me, Nick has big hands. I have regular hands.

Right. It's hard to hold. I will say that looking at this, looking at our charts so far with the PlayStation 1station 1 and the duke in d tier makes me feel like what what the barrier of of d is does it hurt yes yeah well also it's hard to get a controller right on your first try right like these were the first this was the first attempt at a uh at a controller from a new console first try but not the first controller ever made. Like they, like they should have been able to see,

okay, what's everyone else doing? Let's split the difference. The fact that the NES controller is so high on the chart. Yeah. It's like Nintendo being like pointing to the, pointing to the stands and hitting a home run at the first, at the invention of baseball.

There are three Sega controllers ahead of this one. Like that's, I do think the S controller, I don't know if it's represented here, but I do think that one is probably B or A tier. I'd maybe just put it in. What is the... I'd maybe put it in A tier.

You keep saying the S controller. Xbox controller S was a smaller, slimmer version of the Duke, which then set the sort of input language for all Xboxes to follow are essentially using the controller X or controller S configuration. I see, okay. But it's confusing because Xbox uses

just letters arbitrarily all the time. They have an Xbox Series S now, which is not related. But yeah, the controller S, I'd maybe stick that in A tier. Fucking assholes. All right. Anything else on this, Jen? Anything we anything we overlooked nope let's move on to I can't believe Dreamcast is an S I also can't it's an S tier just looking at it though it's

just like it's it's look I'm happy with it I guess I'm fine with it again I disagree with it being an S tier but you know whatever know, whatever. Let's move on to... All right, fine. You want to move it to A? I'll move it to A. I would put the Dreamcast controller and all of its incredible options on the same tier as the NES controller. I swear to God, if it goes lower than that, though, I'm going to... We won't bump it down further than that.

Upgrade the fucking mic. It just seems crazy. I mean, the DualShock gets iterated on. Okay. Okay. Looking at this, looking at this, I feel comfortable.

I feel Super NES and the Sega Saturn pad are both, like, you cannot improve upon them. Move the DualShock 2 down to B.

Give us some room to grow. Whoa. This is, okay, but then, this GameCube controller is sitting next to the PlayStation 2 controller. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. The DualShock 2 has to be A. It's an incredible controller. I just feel like the, yeah, it's fine. Leave it at A. Okay, let's keep going. All right, all right. Speaking of Sony, we got the PS3 6-axis and also the DualShock 3.

I mean, I think these are so similar. We can kind of just rate them as one. I feel like is you know this is wireless it's wireless uh and it has the what was the name of the locomotion tech they had whatever the fuck it was yeah it was like it like with sony it's like the sadness engine or some shit but um and that that wasn't really like super necessary super well implemented and hasn't been a thing that's stuck around. It was more reactive to the Wii controller, which we'll talk about in a bit.

But I do think this is just a better version of the DualShock 2. It's an A tier. Yeah, A tier. I like it. It does not hold up in modern day. If you've had a PS3 controller for a long time, those fuckers, those sticks drift real bad. That's a good point.

Maybe we nudge it down. Because where's the DualShock 4 going to go? Are we going to put that one all the way up in S? I have a similar problem with the 4. But I think somehow as consoles have have gotten better the sticks have gotten worse and i you know it's tough that's why they sell these elite ones now that are like 200 and you can swap out all the parts yeah apparently the elite dual sense was like the best-selling controller of the year or something like that it was like yeah people like people are i i guess if

you're gonna buy a second controller people are like, I might as well get the top shelf one. Interesting. Are we all comfortable with it there? I'm fine with it anyway. Let's look at the Xbox 360 controller again, iterating on the controller S. I do really like it. I honestly would. I mean, I feel like from this point on, the Xbox controllers stay so similar.

And it's my primary gaming controller.'s what i use on my pc i it's what i prefer to use um i i would i would almost put this one in s tier if and but i'm trying to remember i'm trying to remember if there were issues with the xbox 360 controller specifically that i'm i'm If I may, I would keep this one at A tier and then as soon as they become rechargeable instead of battery powered, then they move into S tier. Because you'd chew through

batteries on this fucking thing. Yeah, I mean but the current Xbox controllers do have a battery port. Like, you could put batteries in it if you wanted to. But they also have the... Maniac.

Yeah. I'm not doing it. I use rechargeable batteries in my modern Xbox Series S wireless controller I use on my PC. What? Yeah. Just throw rechargeable batteries in that. You don't charge it, like, with a USB-C port? I use on my PC. What? Yeah. Just throw rechargeable batteries in that. You don't charge it like with a USB-C port?

I mean, I could. Madness. I say 360 is A tier and then the Xbox, whatever the fuck, the Series XS is your S tier version of this controller. Well, we'll get there.

All right, leave that in A tier. A tier is getting pretty bulky. We might have to make some revisions. We'll keep going. This brings us to the outlier of outliers, the Wii Remote. How to evaluate this thing. It is so different from everything else. It did not really have a legacy.

It was kind of a gimmick that certainly boosted Nintendo's hardware sales for a time and made them the unexpected winner of sorts of that generation. But it kind of sucked to play a lot of games on. Yeah. And you have to have what it did. The nunchuck for an extra part of it too. Which was kind of, in a sense, it was kind of cool that your hands could be separated.

Like that sense of freedom was nice, but it was also like not great to control, you know, a lot of games. They did have a pro controller, which was its own thing. Or the classic controller. It was a classic controller pro was, which was its own thing. Or the classic controller. The classic controller pro was the version.

I didn't love that classic controller. I don't know what to do with this. I don't like it. It was cool, though. It's cool. At the time, it was so cool. No controller in... Here's my argument for it being S tier.

No controller in, here's my argument for it being S tier. No controller in history has brought people over to your house. And if you had a Wii in 2006, people weren't coming over for the graphics. They were coming over to hold the controller, to play bowling, to fucking play tennis. And that is just because this controller had that gyroscope in it and the fucking laser pointer. Like, I would argue that most of the people age 30 to 35 played with just the Wii remote almost exclusively and never picked up the nunchuck. It wasn't unless you were playing like Super Mario Galaxy or No More Heroes or some shit that you were using the nunchuck. Yeah.

So the nunchuck is for gamer gamers who had a Wii. Everybody else, moms, dads were playing with the fucking Wii remote. I think it's an S-tier controller. And I'm saying that also not really liking it. It's a persuasive argument. The case against it is, yes, it wasn't great for games that weren't just explicitly trying to trade on its gimmickry. It was not all that great as a pointer. There was the clunkiness of you had to have the bar that was positioned either on top of or underneath your TV

that was plugged into your Wii, and that was always kind of fucking weird. And, you know, there were games that tried to use it like as like a gun, like there were, and that didn't really work. I think the games that used it effectively demonstrated that it was a fantastic controller. Yes.

It's just that everybody was trying to shoehorn regular video games into that controller, and it sucks for that. How many of them do you think wound up in people's TVs? Definitely a good amount. I mean, they released the wrist strap. Yeah. Definitely a good amount. I mean, they released the wrist strap. Yeah.

That was a reaction to it, and also the little softening guard, the glove that you put around it. The Wii condom. Yeah. Fuck it, put an S to it. Let's put it in S. Let's go. It's an S. Not on our board. The PlayStation Move. Yeah, I thought about the Move, and I thought about the Kinect, and I feel like...

I don't know. They fucking suck. Yeah, I thought about the move and I thought about the Kinect and I feel like I don't know. They fucking suck. Yeah, and there's a reason those don't really exist. Like, that type of thing doesn't exist anymore, really. Yeah, and I know that we're including some, you know, controllers on here like the, you know, the Saturn 3D controller that weren't pack-ins, but these are mostly just traditional controllers that would come bundled with a game

with the system, so I don't feel like they're the same thing. Okay. All right. That brings us to the next gen. We're almost home. Yeah. All right. We got DualShock 4.

So here's my argument against the DualShock 4. I think it's fine. I think that the DualSense is a better controller. Yeah, sure. The only thing the DualShock 4 adds is this fucking touchpad thing in the middle that literally nobody uses. Yeah, it doesn't really work. It kind of just functions as a big oversized pause button. It has a speaker built in, so you get like BB crying when you're playing Death Stranding.

But overall, this controller is just kind of like, okay, sure, guys. I think it's an A-tier controller because Sony just hasn't topped it yet. You know what? Put it in B-tier. What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's better than the 6-axis. Put it in B-tier. No, put it in A-tier and move the 6-axis. Put it in B-tier. No, put it in A-tier and move the 6-axis down.

Alright, I'm fine with that. I don't like the sound of the fucking speaker and the controller. I like it. I don't like it. I like it. I don't like that. When you said that, that made me want to bump it down a few. No, I like it. It's annoying. I like it. A little BB crying. Stop making noises. You gotta shake your controller.

I gotta... We can put the six axis and the dualshock 4 in no no bump them both down no way um the this is all one controller as is my understanding the xbox one the series x s controller is just the xbox wireless controller that is one controller controller that has remained fixed since that generation. Xbox One as a system was kind of whatever,

but this controller, I think is terrific and it's the best way to control PC games. I put this as an S tier. It's S tier. They finally did it. Yeah, I think it's,

and I think of the S's, it's the most S of these by far. No fucking way. I think so. No, I think it's and I think of the S's it's the most S of these by far. No fucking way. I think so. No. I think it's so good. No, because we moved the Dreamcast down so it can't be the most S. So do we have two Xbox, two versions of the Xbox controller? Well, here's the thing.

The Xbox One and the Xbox Series controller, they're the same. They're the same. But this It's accounting for both generations. Dual Sense. No, wait, we're the same. It's accounting for both generations. Dual sense. No, wait, we're not there yet. We got the Wii U game pad. We got the Wii U game pad.

So we're talking about the actual Wii U itself that's got the little handles on it. Well, no, it's the game pad. Yeah, the game pad. Because the Wii U sits on your thing. Right. It's separate. Right. This is the controller that has a screen. No, that's what I mean. We're talking about the screen with the handles. It has a screen, a camera, speakers. Yeah, it's got the little edges on the side. I can't. It's very cumbersome. Nothing in gaming history has been as baffling as the move from the Wii to the Wii U.

From naming convention to what they did with the controller. It's baffling. Absolute nonsense. Nobody's ever blown a lead like Nintendo fumbled this back. You don't get to the Switch without this, though. That's true. That's the other thing. It's an intermediary you know, they

almost had it. But also But I also thought the Switch was going to crash and burn because of the Wii U because I was like they can't believe they're fucking doing this again except they actually perfected it. Yeah. Which is very unlike Nintendo to be like we're just going to take the same thing and improve it. It's so, it's fuck

everything they do. They've done it in the past with the NES controller and the SNES controller. I mean, it was kind of a completely different thing. What the Wii U was is they released the Switch prototype to consumers. Yeah, that's true.

They 3D printed concept art and put it out on the shelves. It's a D tier. It's D tier because gaming on that thing sucks. I might want to add a tier. No, I think that's fair. I think that's fine as a D tier. It's fine as D?

Yeah. I'm getting mad looking at it. It really sucks. It's so bad. And then also that it had a limited range if you wanted to play it on the screen.

And it ran out of fucking batteries. Yeah. They put a TV in your hand and then they were like, it's battery powered. And it ran out of fucking batteries. They put a TV in your hand and then they were like, it's battery powered. It's so close. It's so close to being a good idea. What's also frustrating is that the Wii U pad controller

was incredible. I don't even think it's on our map here. Like, the Wii U pad controller is amazing. You mean it's the pro controller they had? Yeah, their pro controller is so good. It's so good. But is that the Wii U pro controller or is that It's like, yeah, their pro controller is fucking so good. It's so good. But is that the Wii U pro controller or is that the Switch pro controller?

This one right here is the Wii U one. That one I love. I love that controller. It's great. It's incredible. I feel like that's like an A-tier controller. That's an A-tier controller released simultaneously with a D-tier controller. Yeah, I didn't really touch a Wii U ever. I've seen it.

You get the gist. Yeah, I think I get it. So I still have my Wii U ever. I've seen it. You get the gist. Yeah, I think I get it. So I still have my Wii U hooked up. And that's because you can play Wii games in HDMI. And I don't think Wii games benefit that greatly from a CRT. So if I'm doing retro gaming in that era, that Wii, Wii U pocket, then I use my Wii U.

And my favorite game to play on it is Jeopardy. Wow. Because you memorized all the answers? Nope. The Wii U Jeopardy or the Wii Jeopardy? Wii Jeopardy. Huh. What distinguishes it from other Jeopardy versions?

You can point with the stick and pick a category. That is pretty good. It's fucking great. Alright, that brings us to that cleans up this generation, right? We got the Wii U. So that brings us up to the present.

Alright, so remaining we've got the we don't have to talk about the Xbox again. So what we've got left is the Switch Joy-con slash the switch pro controller and the dual sense yep i know we love the switch i i know where you're going and i agree i would like to make an argument for the joy-cons being in the d tier i don't know if i go that far but actually just using the Joy-Cons separate from the Switch is not a fun experience.

But I think you do have to take into account that a big part of the utility of the Joy-Cons is that they hook onto the Switch. Yeah. And it lets you use it as a portable system, which is the whole gimmick of the system. And it works pretty well at that, that aside from the analog stick drift which is egregious the analog stick drift is bad the um at a certain point after holding the joy cons they sort of they don't detach from the rails but they start to like sort of the rails start to bend a little bit like they become a little more loose and the d-pad is not a D-pad. It's four directional buttons.

And I think those are some of the worst buttons in gaming. No, that's a good point. I think they're horrible. Can we C-tier it? Is that okay? I'd be happy with the C-tier. I put it in C-tier at the highest. And I also, this is just a Nintendo thing,

because this is now, well, I guess they've always had letters on them. This letter scheme is absolute bullshit. This fucking sucks. You mean X, Y, A, B, or what do you mean? Yes. I think. But it's been that way since Super NES.

I know. Well, then maybe Xbox fucked up, because they're different. They're the same letters, but they're different. This is the kind of thing that the EU needs to regulate. In the same way they said, like, everything has to have USB-C charging now. Like, they need to come in and they need to say all game controllers have to have the same button names. Like, I don't want to be, when I'm playing a fucking Xbox game and I'm switching over to a Switch game, having to learn new positions for my X and Y buttons. I totally agree with you.

Right, which Sony avoids. Because, you know, you've got the Super NES comes out with that X, Y, B, A, right? Yes. So they establish the vocabulary and they do it because the Nintendo controller is B, A, right? Mm-hmm. And then Genesis is like, all right, we'll do basically the same thing, ABC.

It is Microsoft that's like, no, we'll do it my way. Right. And they are the ones that fuck it up because Sony's like, we're sidestepping. Yeah. There must be triangles and X's. Their mistake was was doing A, B, X, Y when they should have done like A, B, C, D or something like that. You know, just just have a different. Why not? One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four work. Sure. Just just do something else. But either way, it needs to be standardized. The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is excellent. Yeah, I like the controller a lot. It's an excellent controller. I would put it in A tier. Yeah, that's fine with me. Yeah, the Pro Controller is really great

and I love mine. Now we're gonna get to my mama. DualSense? Fucking STS. I love the DualSense and this is the thing that I think is really encouraging about gaming is I think we're at a point where controller has gotten really, really refined and really good. I love using the DualSense. It's really fun to hold.

Those adaptive triggers. Really nice. Haptic feedback is great. It feels great. It feels great. It's still got that speaker. Yeah. It's still got like a little bit of a hope that it'll be able to go like.

The speaker's better, though. Yeah, it's a good speaker. The speaker's a little better, but also shut the fuck up. Oh, he hates it. Like, well, the, the speaker's better though. Yeah. It's good. Speaker's a little better, but also shut the fuck up. Oh, he hates it. I don't like the speaker. Get out of there.

He hates it. I want to do a, a special shout out to the Xbox adaptive controller. Oh yeah. Which is, uh, which is, uh,

an alternative control and input method, uh, for people who, need a different controller, uh, and input method. And it's fucking great. It has opened up gaming to an entirely often forgotten audience.

Yeah. And that's great. PlayStation has one also. I don't remember what the name of it is, but it has... It's probably called, like, the Melody or some shit. It's probably called, like Melody or some shit. It's probably called like the Sony Homeroom. I don't know what it's called. I love Sony.

But Microsoft, I think, deserves credit because I think theirs was first. And I think they, yeah, it has gotten a lot of praise. It's called the Sony Access Controller. Yeah. It's awesome that that exists. Yeah. And you know that this is making gaming more inclusive and accessible. The adaptive controller

and the access controller are both fantastic. And I'm glad they're out there and they fucking rule. That's a very great point, Heather. And I do want to mention one more thing, which I don't know if we want to

talk about here, but in terms of controls, should we talk mouse and keyboard? I think Is that a different thing? No, because here's the thing. It's a method of control, and it comes with the system. If you're

a PC gamer, that's what comes standard. For certain types of games, it is the best way to control them. And, you know, like things like turn-based strategy, real-time strategy. Yeah. You know, certainly some would argue FPS. If you want to play competitively, certainly, that's what people use.

MOBAs. There's all sorts of games where that is the primary input method. And I think AI like using a mouse and keyboard. I played Disco Elysium exclusively with a mouse and keyboard. And that was one of the great gaming experiences of my life. I loved that. I'm not a fan of the mouse and keyboard, but I do admit

that when I am absolutely smoked in Fortnite, it's clear that the other person is using a mouse and keyboard. I think... I think I could go A on this. I would put mouse and keyboard all the way up in S tier. Wow.

But that's just B. We're trying to come to a consensus here. Well, argument for it being S tier, mouse was brought out in like, what, 1984? And nobody, it's still the mouse. They nailed it. They nailed it at the jump. They did a really good job.

I don't, like, it's like, what if you could just move your hand around? Like, great. How do you click on something? Oh, you click on it. I got a big hot take. I don't think the mouse is going to be superseded until Apple Vision Pro.

Wow. That's interesting. And I think that the moment, like, the moment you can just literally point, then that's a new input method. Well, they've done different types of mouse, mice. They've iterated on the mouse in different ways.

I've seen those ones that are like the ball or something, right? Yeah, yeah. They got a ball on the mouse in different ways. Like, I've seen those ones that are, like, the ball or something, right? Yeah, yeah. They got a ball on the outside. Or, yeah, you mean like a mouse that has a built-in trackball. That or, like, I've seen them where it's, like, it's a ball and you can move the ball. Yeah, that's a trackball. Yeah.

Those have existed since, I mean, those have existed since early arcade days. Yeah. But, yeah, that was definitely an alternate PC input method that's been around for a while. Hey, do you guys want a little more Viking history right now? Yeah, please. They had mouse and keyboard? Well, so the reason that some words in the English language are mouse and mice and some words are door and doors is that the English originals were all irregular. It was like tooth and teeth, mouse and mice, goat and I believe gat.

Like it was so many fucking weird, like Doran. Yeah. Right, instead of doors. And the Vikings came in and they conquered people and were like, this shit needs to end.

Yes, exactly. And under threat of force said start putting S's at the end of the fucking regular words so that we can learn English. They brought a naked berserker in and got it done. So when you see an S on the end of a word like doors,

it's because the Vikings shouted until somebody said, okay, it's doors, it's doors, it's doors. I kind of like that. I'm in favor of it. I like it too. Plural, a dumb thing you have to learn. Why do we need plural? Get out of here. I like it too. Yeah. Plural, a dumb thing you have to learn. Why do we need plural?

Get out of here. A lot of words gotta go. Yeah. Agreed. We gotta fix them. One shoe, two shoe. What does the S do to two shoes? No, I get it with two shoe. I think that the way you interact with anything, we should, so here's another thing,

that Vikings, as their alphabet got older, it got smaller. So they were like, we don't need all these fucking letters. Get rid of them. Love that. That's good. I think we should reduce all input and interaction

to the concept attack. Hmm. Well, yeah, you would think this. Do you remember when there were a bunch of nintendo prototype controllers images that were that were either leaked or released but one of them this was in the nintendo star cube day uh days one with one of them was just a star-shaped controller with a single button on it and they were like we're gonna they tried for a time to figure out can we design

a controller where there's just one button that you press um and it's just kind of it's it's kind of interesting to it to obviously it didn't work but to to try to attempt to reduce things that much at a at a point where now we've got so many different fucking you know doodads on one of these controllers you got 20 different like button bindings that you've got you've got to learn to play any of these games and i i don't know There is an argument for simplifying things a little bit. A lot of great games work with just two buttons and an input or, you know, a D-pad. Yeah. All you really need is move, analog, and fire.

Yeah. Gun. That's it. And switch gun. If you're vampire survivors, you just need one move stick. There you go. Wow. The ultimate game.

All right. So I think we're done here. Yeah. This is good. That's true. There you go. Wow. The ultimate game. All right. So I think we're done here. Yeah. This is good. We don't need to recap this. This is too much stuff. I'm not going to read through the 25 controllers we just classified. I think we can.

Here it goes. Ready? Jesus Christ. Do you have anywhere to go? What are you doing? I got nothing going on. S tier is Super NES, Saturn, Wii, Xbox, the most recent. Yeah, Xbox Wireless Controller is the official name.

Xbox Wireless Controller and the DualSense 5 for the PS5. In A tier, it's the NES, the Dreamcast, the PlayStation 2, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 4, the Wii U Pro Controller, and the Switch Pro controller. B-tier controllers include N64, GameCube, and the PS3. C-tier controllers are Genesis and Switch. And in D-tier controllers are the PlayStation 1, the original Xbox, and the Wii U. Did we rank the Master System above the... Did we put that in C tier

or did we put that in D tier? No, it was D. It was D. It fucking sucks. There were a few here that we didn't have graphics for that may have been lost in the recap.

Yeah. What a spirited tier list. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, that was a good debate. Fun to do. Maybe not fun to listen to, but what are you going to do? Look up some President, tearless.

It's like that. Yeah. You think this is not fun to listen to? I don't know how it is to listen to. Do you not like listening to me while you're talking to me? I love listening. I love listening to both of you. You both are two good friends who have great insights.

Friends? And make me laugh. I like that. I like the sound of that. I've heard people say they like it because they get mad. Damn it, Sleepy Joe, you would like the Xbox control.

It has the release. So if you don't know what the boys are doing, a long time ago. Go on YouTube. A long time ago, they brought up that there are AI-generated, tierless, announced or the dialogue is AI versions of Trump and Biden and Obama. And they're very funny because the presidents would never talk at length about the pros and cons of Baldur's Gate. Yes, yeah.

But there they are talking about it, and it's a good listen. Yeah, those are a lot of fun. All right, and also they all talk like me. They don't have any inflection to their voice because they're AI-generated. They're all just roasting each other. It's funny. Those are great. You would wish that that's how they interact.

All right, I got a segment for us. Segment time. This is our video game sales chart segment. I got a little pixel chart. And I thought, because I knew we'd be talking about the Wii and what an outlier it was as a controller, that we would talk about the system that had the most gimmicky controller of all time. And the challenge here is,

can you name the top five best-selling Nintendo Wii games worldwide? And note that this list does include pack-ins. So the first one should be pretty easy to knock off. Wii Sports. Yeah, you're correct. Wii Sports, the number one by a huge margin, sold as many as Wii consoles were sold, 82 million.

Heather made a good point when talking about the Wii earlier that people came over to play it. I remember being able to place the Wii controller in my grandparents' hands and they were like, I got it. I got it 100%. I just know how this works. And it is kind of amazing that that didn't get emulated

or there wasn't a takeaway from that generation that was like, hey, you know what? Every system has to have a little bit of Wii. They were just sort of like, no, that was its own thing. Which is also wild because the Joy-Cons, in theory, do. Right. Like, they have Wii functionality, but nobody wants to fucking play that way anymore.

Wii Sports number one. Wii Sports. Hmm. I Sports number one. Wii Sports. Hmm. I would be shocked. I mean, I guess I don't know how well these games sell in

general. I know that more recently they're big sellers. Would The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess be a top seller for the Wii?

There are no Zeldas in the top ten. Wow. I will say that number two here is a, actually two in the top five are ongoing Nintendo franchises. Nintendo franchises?

Yeah. Oh, I was going to say Call of Duty. No, there's no Call of Duty in here. Oh, shit. Actually, there's one third-party game in here, and you would never, ever guess it. The number 10 one is a third-party game. But these are top five?

Yeah, we're trying to guess the top 5, but I've got the top 10 here. Is New Super Mario Bros. on there? It absolutely is. That is number 4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii. That's a great one. Yeah, that was a good one. Man. Man, I don't know how well it's sold, but Super Mario Galaxy. Galaxy is in the top 10. It's number

9, but not in the top 5. But that's a good guess. I'll give you a hint. This is a, this is consistently one of the biggest selling Mario franchises. It took advantage of the Wii's. Mario Party. Not

Mario Party. Mario Tennis. Mario Kart. There you go. Mario Kart Wii. Number two selling. Right, because it snapped into the steering wheel. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. That is pretty good. Number three is a sequel number two selling $37 million oh steering wheel yeah yeah oh man yeah that is pretty good number three is a sequel

and it is a Wii exclusive and it's another one that takes full advantage of the gimmickry what was that like that like samurai game where you also had a gun

oh I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that was like a launch title. It's not on. Yeah. I remember wanting that.

And then people were like, it's not, it's not that good. Yeah. Hmm. A sequel. A, a week exclusive in a sequel.

Yes. You may have... Wii Sports 2? It's Wii Sports Resort. I'll give it to you. Wow. This was a, you know, I think people have forgotten about this,

but this was also a huge seller. $33 million. New Super Mario Bros. Wii at $30 million. And then number five... Is our third-party game. Not a third-party game. No, there's a third-party game in the top 10. Number 10 out of 10. but in the top 5,

which we're trying to guess here, this is one I'd forgotten about, and then I was like, oh yeah, that one. This is another kind of gimmicky sort of party game. That was a wee exclusive. Is it the, um, that WarioWare

jack-off game? No, it's nothing that cool. It's not WarioWare jack-off game? No, it's nothing that cool. It's not WarioWare crank-off. Jack-off! I'm gonna come. This was a launch game in much of the world, though it's not a launch game in the U.S.

Whoa. And this was a first-party Nintendo game and a party game. And I think this is one you'll hear the title and you'll remember it. But do you want to take a guess at it? Hmm. Oh, man. Could it be Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games?

No, it does not have a big mascot. Oh. A big party game, no mascot. Remember how a lot of Wii games were named? Was the word Wii and then another word. We love Katamari. No.

Wii shits. It's not Wii shits. Do you want me to give it to you? Yeah. I don't think we'll ever get it. Wii Play. You play? Wii Play. I don't remember what WiiPlay was. W-I-I Play. It had games like, it had like a shooting range game,

had a table tennis game, had laser hockey. It was basically like a shittier version of Wii Sports. But it was just like back in the day, they were just experimenting with what you would do with it, and it sold a lot because it did kind of what Wii Sports did, and people just wanted a second game. Rest of the top 10 is Wii Fit at number six. Love Wii Fit.

Love Wii Fit. Love Wii Fit. I was surprised Wii Fit wasn't guessed. Wii Fit Plus right afterwards. Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Mario Galaxy, which you mentioned. And number 10, I would never have guessed this, Just Dance 3 sold 10 million units. Oh, yeah. But I feel like when you go to a GameStop,

if they have a Wii clearance section, it is a basket of Just Dance 3. My mom was very into this Zumba game for the Wii. She loved it. And she would just do Zumba all the time. I fucking loved Wii Fit. I did Wii Fit every single day. Like, it was the first time I had gamified fitness.

It was before I found boxing and my love of, like, actual sport. But, like, I fucking loved Wii Fit. It's kind of, I mean, Ring Fit Adventure, which we did on the podcast, was an interesting one. I know someone who lost a lot of weight using that. But there haven't been a lot of those just kind of fun, gamified fitness. I mean, I guess that's maybe migrated to apps, right? People working out on an app and working out on Peloton or whatever and getting up on the leaderboard. That's effectively how.

But there was something fun about the gimmicky controller that you just played on your console. I also liked the sort of softness of Nintendo's, like, passive aggressive. Like, if you put on a pound in Wii Fit, it would be like, you'd see your me get a little bit heavier and then it would be like uh-oh you'd better watch out yeah can't keep going in this direction and i'd be like fuck i also i think i lost seven straight pounds on we fit because every day i would turn on my tv step on that thing and i'd be like like, I got to keep fucking working. Was Wii what introduced the warnings to be like, hey, it might be time to go outside and take a break? I think so.

I can't remember which Nintendo console that was. I know I had that on the 3DS, and that was obviously after. Very rude. Wii Fit Plus had a. Shut the fuck up. A wireless pedometer that you would snap onto your belt so that you could track all of your fitness over the course of the day. And I'd be like, well, instead of driving to the coffee shop, I'm going to fucking walk there just so I could get more points.

Fucking love it. Yeah. Not. I do not get that sense of gratification from apple fitness is this is making me realize that that switch is like the first nintendo system where games haven't been named after the system right because everything was super for super nintendo everything was 64 nintendo 64 one two switch uh one two switch and one two switch two yeah but it's not like it it's not like for everybody one two, two, Switch, I think it's called.

There's Castlevania Switch in the same way there's Castlevania 64 and Super Castlevania. Or that DS thing would be like Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword. Right, right, yeah. They turn it into an acronym and then obviously all the Wii ones and all the U's. I guess the GameCube didn't really have that. So maybe I just destroyed

my own thesis Mario Cubed would have been great a Qbert Mario Qbert Mario? it's like Qbert but it's Mario ugh

dad's getting horny hey that's this week's Get Played our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram also check out our

paywalled show Get Animated Heather actually what are we watching this week? we're watching Cyberpunk. Oh, we're watching Edgerunners now. I love it. As we begin the autumn of Cyberpunk, we are watching Cyberpunk Edgerunners while playing Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 while setting ourselves up for We Play, You Play, Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty. It's all cyberpunk all the time if you don't like cyberpunk the truth is the anime is fucking great yeah you don't have to like the

game you do not have to like the game to like the anime because it's an excellent fucking anime stands on its own uh we are watching that over on patreon.com slash get played on Get Animated. Wow. And if you out there are a defender of the Duke, listening to this episode, I think you got played. Oh, shit. Sorry. Man, he went after his own fan. EARRAW