Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Alanah Pearce (Special Guest) - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 118

Episode Date: May 5, 2017

Alanah Pearce joins us to discuss Mario Kart 8, video game stories, Telltal's problems, and Xbox exclusives. (Released first to Patreon Supporters on 04.28.17) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yo, motherfucker, do you know, Kind of Funny Live 3 is happening? I bet you did, you piece of shit. Come hang out with me, June 3rd, kindof funny.com slash KFL3. This episode of The Kind of Funny Games cast is brought to you by Sherry's Berries. Mother's Day is coming up, and Sherry's berries is offering huge,

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You click on the microphone in the top right corner and use the code K-F games. That's B-E-R-R-I-E-S dot com and the code K-F games. You click on the mic. This amazing deal won't last long and Mother's Day is right around the corner. So make you mama proud. order now. What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 118 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes of video games, Greg Miller. I'm gonna crack open a fine vintage of water, 2017, right off the Alps.

Yeah. Yeah. Wait for it. There is. That's my favorite far as that little, you know what I mean? And joining us for the first time, IGN's Alana Pierce. Hi. Hello. Oh, multiple people clapped. You might know her from the internet. as Char Alonazard, which is a very fun thing to say. Big fan of the name in general. Less fun thing to spell, but it's fine. It took me a long time to everybody would wrap my head around it as not being a

Pokemoniac. It's the age in Olana that I think throws people off. It gives people hazard. So it's just my name in the middle of Charzad, which to me seems obvious. Everyone else is incredibly confusing. What's the origin of that? You just like Charozoard? You like, that's my fun, dude?

Yeah. Okay. I didn't put a lot of thought into it. It's actually on the back of my senior jersey from high school. Like, that's how long I've had that. It's a username from back in, like, MySpace days. And it kind of got to a point where I was like, I'm aware that I should change this for marketing purposes.

Too late now. I can't. It's a part of me. Like Marty Sleaver and Mick Bigotty. What a great idea. What a great idea. What a great idea. Marty would have never known.

The heights that he would have said. Garfep. Come on, guys. I actually like Garfep. Well, yeah, it's come around now because Greg always regets fucking elderly people. Clearly. What? That's what we used to do on Beyond.

When nobody could keep it straight, we had to give it, you know, spell it out for Mononic device. Yeah, nomadic device. I see. I see. Yeah. I always regrets.

But McVigdy has a really dumb origin story as well. He's too drunk. Well, what a surprise. Marty's drunk. You're probably right. Jesus. Marty,

get help. We've been telling him for a long time. McVigety. Yeah. My God. See, that one's hard too because no one can spell bigotty. But that's why you say

with two G's and two T's. Like, at least his username has like its own slogan. Yeah. I respect that. I remember when we were trying to like brand Alfredo. And like we're trying to figure out what it is. And obviously,

Obviously, Alfredo Diaz is taken everywhere. Obviously. Yeah, there's a bazillion. Alfredo Diaz is out there. We were trying to figure it out. I'm like, well, what if we just made it, Alfredo? And just be like, it's Alfredo with four O's. It's not a bad idea.

Taken. Really? Five O's, taken. Every combination O's taken. Brilliant ideas. Obviously, someone thought of him first. But no one thought of Alfredo plays. No one did.

No one did. Actually, some people did. So that's why he has to be. The Alfredo plays on some other things. He doesn't have it anymore, right? I thought he finally got it. On the most important ones, the most important ones he has on Twitter?

Yeah. Oh, come on keep up with him. I don't tell Fredo plays. The guy on Instagram who is IGN, we have to be IGN.com. I'm so sorry for him. And his description is just not affiliated with IGN.com. It doesn't say anything else.

You're like, I'm sorry, dude. Man, he got tagged in so many things. Yeah, so bad for him back the day. It's funny, it's very rare, but once in a while, one of our fans will tag at Kind of Funny just to be like, hey, do you regret that not selling this to kind of funny?

Yeah. That was a war. That was a war that we lost. Yeah. Apparently. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every week get together. Top of video games.

All things that we love about them. You can get it early over on Patreon.com slash kind of funny games or guess what, Alana. You can get it late on YouTube. com slash kind of funny games. But I know why you'd want to do that. But you could. Live your life.

Do you. Do all the things. But I'm Pedro on those whole bunch of perks and goodies. And don't go chasing the papers. Yeah. Because you said, live your life. Yeah. Shout out to Rihanna.

Shout out to that song. sampling the numinuma dance. Yeah. Amaya. Be careful. You've got a copyright strike. You're right.

I am nail it. Thank you. Thank you, Lana. Oh, you flatter me. Greg is very, very good at that. What's we've been playing

lately's? Start with you, Greg. Mario Kart. Eight deluxe. You've been playing that Mario Kart, Alana? I've been playing a bit Mario Kart. Hell yeah, me too.

By the time this post on Patreon, we, well, by the time post on Patreon, I guess, we'll still be on the eve, if not the morning of.

But I've been prepping, of course, for my birthday stream, 1230 to 5 o'clock playing kids in Mario Card 8 deluxe on Twitch. Of course, I'm taking on Zyger head to head. I'm taking on average Josh head to head. I might be taking on some kid who didn't have it, but challenged me.

He didn't understand what he was doing, but he brought down my ire. Well, average Josh is at least average. So you just have to be better than Josh. I'm going to get clowned out. Ziger, he's one of those crazy Nintendo fanboys. I'm not sure what I'm getting into. You know what I mean?

I have $150, well, I guess $300 technically riding on this. Sean Pitts, of course, backing Ziger, 150 there. Ziger backing himself 150. We'll see what happens. I think I got him because I've played a lot of Mario Kart. What actually is the battle

that's going on? For those not aware. Are you playing battle mode? No, no, no, just straight up racing. We're just racing. We're racing. Rubin is racing. That's what I'm all about. Battle mode was never my forte. I don't make any claims to be good at.

Regular Mario card I claim to be good at. It's not forte. It's fort. I believe, shut up with that crap. Right now, it's something like we have 130 kids I'm playing throughout the day. Hot damn. And I'm going to lose a lot of those. Like, you know what I mean?

Because that'll be like, I'm doing the, you know, 12 player, you know, tournament things jumping in there. Right. I'm sure I'm going to drop a lot of races there and, you know, get cloned out by a bunch of people. But I feel like I'm going to be in the mid tier there. Even if I get into a really good group, I think I'm going to be able to, you know, go there and struggle. But I love Mario Kart as you know. What if you were average, Josh? I mean, I just, I don't know.

I'd be scared. If I'm average Greg after this, I don't think I could possibly do. Yeah. But that would be just the most depressing thing on the hours I've already put into Mario Kart. But that is the problem with Mario Kart. As much as I love Mario Kart, always have loved Mario Kart. It's not crashing racing. That is the main problem.

Kevin, please turn off his microphone. The problem with Mario Kart is that there's always someone remarkably better than you. Yeah. Where it's like I've been playing online and so it's just games journals going and I feel really fucking good because I'm kicking their heads in most of the time. But then like I was playing, playing, playing and last week's guest, Andre Seeger popped into the room and I just went.

Fuck. Fuck. And he just like went and he was gone. I think I'm pretty good at Mario Kart to the extent where I can confidently say I will beat most people. Yeah. And then there was one time where. I played against a Nintendo PR rep.

And he kicked my ass so bad that I was confused as to how. I was like, I literally don't know how I can do this better. How the fuck are you beating me every time? And you'd be like, I don't know, I've just, I played it a bit. Me too. Yeah, I know. Yeah, and that's the thing. And that's the thing of like, now especially with like, this is a weird one.

Because the kids have been complaining online. Like when I, because I keep cutting wrestling promos and yelling at people and talking about insulting mothers. I saw that. Thank you. And I'm saying, you know, to the fact of like, they're like, well, it's unfair. You've been playing for a week before. release. And it's like,

Mario Card 8's been out quite a while. And when it was on... To be fair. Yeah. It's a different game mechanically because of the dual items and the extra... The pink sparks. The drift system. Yeah.

Sure. There's no more fire hopping. But again, I don't think we're, we're not like MLG E-Sports Mario Kart players coming at this. It's still Greg Miller and a bunch of gonies. Oh, the people who are the e-sports people, like, Sancha West scares me. Anytime Sancha West says he's going to play me and something, I'm like, God damn. And here we go.

He's down. Yeah. I think that if you're good at MarioCot 8, despite the changes, you'll probably be good at most, right? No, for sure. Like, I think you could practice on that and just things would be vaguely simple. Exactly, exactly. And that's the thing when you get scary.

Well, like, there was a moment with Ziger where I was like, when we were going back and forth, back and forth. And Andy Cortez came up with the 150 when I started baiting them into increasing their bets after I tank the less play on purpose. I was like, hey, what do you want to do here? Blah, blah, blah. And Andy's like, well, what about 200? I'm like, no, no, not 200 CC.

I don't want to play 200 CC. 200 CC is dumb. Exactly. thank you. And I asked Zyiger about it. Like for one moment, we let down our guards on our little rivalry. I was like, hey, but how are you like good? Do you do T0? He's like, oh no. I'm like, oh, God. Thank God. He's like 200. He's like 200. But I imagine that 200 CC is like being on cocaine. Like that's what that is. Some people nailed it on, of course, I'm Greg Miller. So I'm on the Reddit for Mario Card. As you know, I'm a big Reddit fan. And talking to people there on that and

then people responding to like me and Ziger talking about it, they bring up the good point of like, the people who don't like it like us are just like the courses weren't designed with this in mind. So it's that thing of like when I play it, it is that frustration of like, remember when you first got more. I think back to when you first started playing a Mario card and you played 50cc and you're like, oh, okay, I got the hang. And you like, and you like jump to 150 and you're slamming into walls and you don't know how to do anything. And it's like, part of my brain's like, oh, that's what's happening 200 CC. If I commit to it, I could do it. But then on the plane ride out to Montreal, I was like, I'm going to only play 200 CC.

And I was like, this is so frustrating. Like I'm not coming around on this. Well, I think the issue is that you have to play the game differently. Like we've grown up playing Mario Kart as being a... Let's drift. You never... Like, why is there even a break button? Have you ever used the break in Mario Kart?

As I've gone head over heels into eight deluxe here, there's a few turns I am using B on while still accelerating while still drifting. But having to pop down... I feel like you use the drift as the break and then just adjust a little. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's kind of just like a on rails game to an extent where you're just like, you're just going and you're just controlling where it goes. But I think that the 200, it brings a bit. different level of skill where you actually have to use the break to maneuver the course. So it's like, I feel like for people that are looking for a actual challenge, like a racing

experience, that might. And that speed it up to, which would slow the game down a bit. On the Reddit, there was a discussion of 150 versus 200. And there was a lot of people like us just like, 150 sucks. And I was like, I just, 200 sucks. I'm sorry, 200 sucks. And then some person Bobbi is like, and it's like, of course, probably the monocle wearing internet comment or evolved. Just like, well, 200 Cs where real racing skills come. through and I'm like there's an argument to that because yeah you are doing that's why I actually stopped in the flight because I was like

my hope was I'd do this so I'd be like how when you went you know 50 you might have been hard for you 100 was hard for you get to 150 and you go back in your law thing you're like oh my god like I can I drift so easy I'm like I'll do that of 200 but 200 is making me play so much so differently that I'm like this is actually going to fuck me up when I go back to play 150

that's pretty rad though that something like a speed increase can make it almost feel like a different game sure yeah it's interesting and I think that the the cart series has evolved slightly over time to get to where it's at with Mario Card 8 where when you compare Mario Card 8 to even 64 they are very different games and

they feel totally different. And I think that with the drift mechanics and getting to the 150 CC, the courses are designed for 150. Yeah. I think at this point. I agree. I agree. And especially, you know, with the addition of the motorcycles in the Wii version and

then the all the anti-graph stuff. Well, the anti-graft stuff which is kind of, that's just a little extra shit. I'm talking about more the gliders and like the underwater stuff for Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS. It's like once you get to 8, they've kind of like weeded out all the gimmicky stuff of it. And it's just like, all right, cool. There is a lot going on. In every single course has some of these elements being used. And so it's like there is a bit more skill than there was in some of the other ones.

I mean, Mario Kart DS people really love for, but that's the one that got ruined by by snaking and all that stuff. But the snaking is where the pro. Yeah, exactly. I've never been able to say I'm good at Mario Kart. I didn't believe people could be good at Mario Kart. I'm just like there's so much rubber banding. There's so much like the game is just designed to have fun. You know, it's not designed to be better than someone else.

It's designed to make everyone think that they're better than everyone. I've also seen arguments that like it's such a game of chance that there's no way you can actually be good at it because you have no idea what items are going to pick up. But by that logic, like if I get first in every race, that shouldn't happen if it's that based on chance. So I think you can be good at steering across the course. Drifting is obviously super important. I try to teach my mom to drift. It didn't go well, but she'll get there one day.

But then like using items is like, if you're in the lead and you're far enough in the lead and you keep getting bananas, it's fine. It's all the thing that's really going to go is a blue show. And that's the thing of like when you play someone like Andre, when you play someone who just peels away and is gone, you're like, well, you are a better racer than me. And that's the thing that blows of mind. It's like I felt like at the level of play I've always done. I'm like you can't really be good at it. It's a game of luck. If you know what you're doing, yeah, you're going to do better than someone that doesn't know what they're doing.

But it's like, yeah, then you see like the like YouTube videos of people. Like I haven't played online yet at all. I'm sure. Just get my ass kicked. And it's like, I just don't know what it is that they know that I don't. Yeah, it's insane. Well, I'm like, I feel like I'm drifting correctly. Yeah.

Why are you so much better than me? That's the thing of the tiered system, I feel like it is where it's like when we were doing, when we've been playing in the mornings here, but when you guys were in Austin, we were playing on the TV. And Andy kept saying, I just don't get how good. And I don't feel like I'm that good. but for that I am and then to go online or not even online to play somebody like Andre

I just had like before you got here I was playing how much races and I was showing Nick I'm like I'm coming in first online I'm like real people have this game like it's not all in my head like I do have something here but it is that thing of it can change in a dime of you drift once wrong one time and you're in the thing then all of a sudden you get to third which means you're catching all the red shells which means you're into fifth now

which means you're getting shit you get the fucking piranha plant you get Chad who's chomping away I'm like the worst power it's like if you play fighting games against your friends and you're like I'm the fucking best of this And you go online, you're like, oh, everything is awful. I mean, we've lived through that age. I know I have. You two are very young.

I always forget. But like that moment where that was a real thing where I'm like, fuck, I'm the best at NCAA football there has ever been. I destroy all my friends. And like, oh, shoot, the new ones got online. It's just like, ah, you don't know what you're doing. You're like, damn it. Fuck. Yeah.

Yeah. So, do you know all the shortcuts in Mario Kart? Because I feel like that, the thing is it becomes a game of memorization. Yeah. Just knowing all the right places to go. Because I don't know them at all. For them, I know where they are. But for the most part, there's a strategy to a pro-level Mario car player that I don't want to get, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole of.

You know what I mean? Of, I'm going to fall back and hang back to get a mushroom or get the three mushrooms or infinite mushrooms to then accelerate up there to do this to then make use of. Because there's plenty of shortcuts, but it's like if you try to, you know, shoot through the library or whatever in the castle, like if you don't have a boost there, you're actually going to slow down and fuck it all up. You need a plan for that. And I'm like, I don't want to get to that. I respect that, but it also turns the game into math, which I don't want to. Like totally don't want that. But I have like routes that I prefer.

But one thing that probably holds me back in my Mario Kart career is I always just play standard cart every time it's always standard car, standard wheels. It's because I'm used to it. So if I ever try and swap to the bike, I'm like, I don't fucking know what this thing is dealing. And I'm just like, how do I turn a corner? I don't know. And everything's terrible.

This is the one with, you know, the switch and the screenshot button where like I am definitely getting into beautiful mind style shit where I'm like, all right, let's, let's look through. I'm like, all right, well, this is, this is what my acceleration speed look like on this build. but this build would be the end, but this build is this, but this build. This is actually a screenshot gallery. Yeah, these are all my screenshots right here of me going through trying to figure out.

There was a time where like I was, you know, I'm online, I'm reading all stuff. I'm going through. I'm like, well, who should I be using? I'm a dry bones fanatic. We all know that. It was a big, I'm sure you knew that. It's a big deal that Dry Bones is in this game, but back, you know, I can play as them, you know what I mean?

Like this is what the audience wanted. Yeah. The dry boners like they call, we call ourselves. We all wanted this. You know what I mean? Everyone loves a dry bono. Yeah. We wanted this bad.

into. I'm like, well, maybe I should start using heavy because that'll affect this stat and do the, and I played a few as a, what's the little fat guy? Marcus or whatever? I don't even know. There's a few of those. Yeah, exactly. A little fat squat guy. I don't know. One of your Nintendo guys I've never fucking heard of in my life. Oh, Morton. Morton. Yeah, yeah. Yes. There are literally tens of them. Exactly. And so I'm using him and I'm like, you know what? Like, this is where I got to draw the line. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not going to go

this. I'm going to be dry bones and I'll, I'll take 40 screenshots to figure out which build I like the most but I'm not gonna go that crazy so that's a problem I have with Mario Kart in general and specifically with Marri-Card 8 I feel like Mario Card 8 and especially Deluxe are just such polished games like them they're an example of why I liked Wii U games is that like for what little was going on that console don't get me started do not get me started I love it way too much because of the games because of the levels of polish that they have it's back it's compatible come on

best console ever I don't know about that I didn't say that can't stand with you that but but the thing with Mario Card 8 is is there everything about it from the soundtrack to the the amount of courses and the amount of characters. Yeah. There's so. Also the DLC. And the DLC is fantastic, finally getting it towards a Nintendo cart that we all want it to be. But my problem is I'm also a standard card person. Not because I don't want to do the other stuff, but because nowhere in the game does it make it clear what and why. Like I feel like if you hit the start, the plus button or whatever, it starts to give you a little bit of stats and stuff. I just feel like it's there's not enough information in the game for me to understand why I'm supposed to be using the combinations that I'm using And what terrain these things work better on or whatever and and but the thing is even testing it like I don't really know exactly what feels are so then I go online. I start looking at what's up

But then the problem is even looking at the different characters There's no clear way to know who's a light who's a medium who's a heavy there's no way you know that you didn't even know that there is classes right right right right so you just kind of got to look at them and guess and it's like all right then if you look at look online, it's like, okay, well, they fall into three main classes. There's light, medium, heavy. But here's the thing about that. It's like, but then there's ultra light and ultra heavy. But who qualifies is what? Are all the babies equal weight? Are they? I think all the babies are

ultra light, yeah. What's Rosalina fall under? A ghost. Because Rosalina, well, do you know who Rosalina is? She got no legs. But she's heavy. How is Rosalina heavy character? Start us. And she always has been. Like, she doesn't got a lot. She has a big dress. What's going on in there? We don't know the secrets. I'm sure you'd love them. Heavy secrets. Yeah. I mean, she's,

And she's historically been a heavy character. Sure. But here's my thing about what you're saying. Is this not the beauty of Mario Kart? And the fact that it is so simple to understand and jump into, but then like if you want to get like, all right, I've spent enough time to get good at it,

but my friends are still beating me. Why are they beating me? I think a long time ago somebody would have turned you on. Because like that's the thing right now, Ryar, I'm, you know, on the flight back from Montreal. Jen was next to me. I popped off my controllers, put them on there. I had my pro controller,

set it up on the table. And we played, you know, the entire way back home. And it was that thing of her. We're having no idea what was happening. And so we're playing on 50 so she can get her, you know, bearings. And then after a few races, he's like, wait, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm drifting. This is what drifting.

You know what I mean? I have to explain those things piece by piece moment by moment because there's no way she can step in and compete against somebody who's played every Mario Kart since GameCube, right? Yeah. That's like one thing that I will argue to the death is that Pokemon is not a kid's game, but if you want to play it as a kid, you can't. And I think that that's a huge selling point is that you can play something as complex as you want to.

Like pro Pokemon is fucking crazy. Yeah. EV, Ivy, all that shit. It's insane and it's awesome, but you don't have to do any of that. And I feel like Mario Kart's kind of the same. It's also like one of the best things about Breath of the Wild is that it hasn't been telling anyone too much. So people have been figuring stuff out together.

And I kind of like that about Mario Kart as well. In theory, like I haven't delved into the Reddit. But like the fact that people are figuring that stuff out together kind of makes it even more of a community experience than Mario Kart is already designed to be. I hear you because that's the thing of like, I want the easy answer of Googling. What is the best cart load out? You know what I mean? Like what is the one I should be?

racing at to be the best. And there are, not even the best. Just give me the, what is the best card for your style of racing? Sure. You know, because it's like, that's just not even that clear. But I think so much that I think comes down to your skill then, right, of what you're talking about. Like, do you know the shortcuts? Do you know how to get these items? You know, because I think it's like, I think any cart

combination can hang. That's, I mean, my, maybe that's a naive opinion. I'm not, again, we're not e-sporting it up and going on and doing all those things. But I feel like the game's designed that there's the combination of, okay, well, you can have this cart and whatever. And like, you know, this card's going to be faster. This card's going to accelerate quicker but have a different top speed. But there are, you're going to hang back, you're going to get this item, you're going to do this.

Like there's a way around it where it's trying to balance everything out. Yeah, I just guess it's the problem that I have with a lot of Nintendo games where it just feels like there's not really an excuse besides, oh, it's Nintendo. Like, oh, it's supposed to be for kids and adults, but it's like, well, there's something missing there for me. Like, I feel like with Smash Brothers, there's, for the amount of characters that game has, and at this point, it's like upwards of 60. Like, you can play as any of them.

And if you play them enough, you do understand the differences between them. Even the clone characters, like, you can look at him and be like, all right, cool, well, he is faster than this one, but he's stronger than that one. And you can very easily understand that. But with Mario Kart, I feel like I could play as all the different characters over and over and over. And never really, just by playing, be like, okay, this guy's faster than this guy. They don't have anything like to facilitate you testing different things, which I would agree with. I guess that's my complaint with it. So it's like, it's hard to figure out what works best for you.

because there isn't any, like, take this for a spin and see how you fare, because like, how do you even quantify that? Like, it's tough. And I feel like it would have been really hard for them to balance the carts, honestly, because online people don't just use the same things. You know how that happens with fighting games a lot? Everyone's like, this is clearly the best. Like, that's definitely a problem in Pokemon.

Everyone just uses the same shit every pro tournament. Mario Kart doesn't have that. So it's maybe a blessing in that way, but it's definitely, like, I agree with the criticism that you can't figure out what's best for you because it doesn't tell you how to figure that out. Sure. That's totally a thing.

You have to go watch. I was just watching YouTube, videos today of like the differing acceleration tiers and all this stuff. And it's like I'm watching the video this guy put together. I want to say Abdul Abdullah. Whatever. Do you know? I didn't know if he was a big Nintendo guy or not because he wears a Nintendo shirt.

Anyway, he had it split in, you know, three parts of the screen. He's showing these different people racing against the ghost. And it's still like, I don't even know what exactly I'm seeing. You know, what is the best acceleration of these three builds and stuff like that. But that's the whole thing of where it's got to be. I'm not going to worry about that. If I, inevitably, I play this Twitch stream and I, we have, best friends that are like that.

More power to you. I just can't, you know, dedicate that. Can't get there. I've been loving it, though. I love having it portably. And like this is a perfect example for me of a Switch game and what I'm looking for.

Like Zelda obviously is fan fucking-tastic. But like these are the type of experiences that I'm like, I'm happy that we're going to get a lot of these. Dude, I want persona. Like now that that game is out, I want persona on a switch so, so bad. And it's like almost like it's ruined me already. It's like there's so many games that I want portable now.

As much as we all travel. Yeah, exactly. It's like there was a period where I folks. started playing Zelda every plane I got on. I was excited. It was like, dude, this is six hours of interrupted Zelda. Do you have any shreds I can do? Same thing with the cart going up there. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

And no, but that's the whole thing of just like, you know, like going up there to Montreal coming back now moving, now getting ready for all this other stuff, then going to convention. I'm like, when the fuck am I getting back to persona? Like for real? Like when am I going to sit down and play? But it's like last night before bed. Like, all right, yeah, you know, pop this on for a couple seconds and go. Yeah. Because it's so easy to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. Shout to battle mode though. I'm a huge battle mode fan, especially back in the 64 days.

I'm so bummed that Blockfort's not in this. That seems like just such a missed up because this is like, it feels like the greatest hits of Mario Kart and then it just missed one of the number one hit singles. They might bring it back. Will there be DLC for this, do you think? Yeah. You think? I imagine it might be packaged into a broader thing.

I wouldn't think battle mode specific DLC, but it's like if they add extra DLC, well, I don't know. Nintendo is very hard to manage. You know, I feel like with the. They made such a big deal. This is deluxe. Yeah. It would have been the definitive. The games usually don't add DLC to definitive editions.

Yeah, you're right. It's a slightly different situation with this, but I don't know. See how it sells? You figure it's going to sell real well, maybe if it does. But it would seem crazy to have it be on the switch and people not get extra content or for it to not have new content like that. That would seem like a loss, right? Yeah, we'll see.

I mean, I hope it comes. The courses they have, they're fun, they're cool. And I've played not enough of it yet. Again, I haven't played online. So I've just been playing against bots. And it's cool. It's great. But I mean, it's battle mode and it's fucking back.

The balloon burst is just like, thank you. Yeah. I've missed this so much. I beat all the Grand Prix. I've got at least gold and most, I think there's two of them that I haven't done it yet. Oh, that's embarrassing. You're way ahead. I know, it is.

I was going to say, do you want to how many kilometers I've driven? Yes. Sure. 984. I'm glad it's in kilometers. I know, right. It's annoying. Shout out to that.

Currently, I have 2,071 coins. Yeah? Yeah. I've done, I've done 8,140 drifts. of which I've then hit 3,334 mini turbos. Should I leave? You guys like sexting right now?

Online, my race rating is 1290. But it's climbing up. I've done 50 total battles. What has been playing a lot? Gone gold and 24. I feel like this is like phone sex, but like in person. For me it is.

Do you want to know how much I've done in Mario caught? Because there's no trophies for me to brag. I can only brag with stats. I have no idea if they're impressive or not. They're just numbers. What was the question? What else have I been playing? So what remains of Edith Finch?

is something that like I played a little bit of. Totally not a ton. But I think it's a very, very interesting game. Have you guys played much of it? No, I haven't. I've done the preview stuff at like packs, I think a couple of years. Okay, that's most of what the content I played is exactly the same as that anyway.

But it is way bigger than I thought it would be from what I have played of it. And it's just so goddamn beautiful. And it does this really, really good job of storytelling in that saying this the other day on a podcast, but everything basically, the environments look like they are,

part of the characters that lived in them. So for anyone who doesn't know the premise, it's a game where there's this either family, they're a huge family, and you're basically, Finch family rather, and you're trying to figure out what happened to all of them. And there's a family tree, and you sort of figure out their stories one by one in this house.

It just keeps being built upon and built upon. And each of the extensions of the house is really reflective of the character that lived in it. And there's like this one little boy, he really like space stuff, and he has this little corner of a room that's just like beautifully decorated with all the stuff that I believe that kid would have. Whereas I feel like a lot of houses in video games,

It's kind of the Bioschuk Infinite effect where it's like, yeah, you kind of like put a little bit of detail there, but when I delved into the detail, I didn't find anything. Sure. Like if you find someone in Bioshock Infinite, you follow them for a little bit out of curiosity, they just end up sitting down and just kind of staring into the distance. It's like walking through an IKEA, right? Here's all these places, but you're like, there's nothing behind them. Yeah, I mean, like, look for it. Yeah, whereas I feel like this game has detail on every single inch of it. That's awesome.

Feels lived in and feels reflective of the person who actually did live in it. And I love that about it. I think that alone is worth experiencing. it's super cool. It's also like just very easy to play. It's not very long. How long is it? Yeah. I haven't finished it, but Maddie was saying about 90 minutes or so. Oh, great. Yeah, that's perfect. I do that now, right? Anytime something short, I'm like, sweet, I have time to play this. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's just trying to fit in so much stuff in life, let alone like, okay, persona's there. But I was like, I finally couldn't take it. And I sat down and did episode three, a Walking Dead season three and then episode one of Guardians. Because I'm like, I know how long this is going to be and I can be done. Whereas persona's like, I got to grind. I got to grind to beat this guy. Yeah, exactly. Palace and all this different stuff. But I'm super excited to sit down with Edith. It's something I think you could easy finish in one sitting.

Awesome. Yeah, I love Giant Sparrow. I had such a great time with the unfinished swan. I didn't play that. Really? Oh my God, you got to. It was PS3, right?

Yeah, but they made a PlayStation Vita version for sure. And I think that it had a PlayStation 4 port as well. Yeah. It's super pretty. But, yeah, I think it's $40 or so. Whatever it is, it's cheaper than a standard game. It's a short experience. And it's something that has, like, sparked a lot of conversation about video games,

which I assume that will get to. but I think for just watching things happen, even though you're technically watching people die in this really metaphorical, spiritual way, it's just weirdly uplifting. Like, I don't really, like, part of the thing that I find amazing about it is that I can't explain the things that I like about it.

It's this feeling that's like I've almost never felt in a game before that I think is really powerful and it's really cool. That's awesome. This is a great segue into topic number two. This topic's brought to you by Patreon producer Tom Bach. Shout to Tom Bach, the homie. they say. I know him.

You do. He's come by here. He sat here. He ate barbecue with us. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. There was an article.

It's cool. It's cool. What about? An article by Ian Bogust posted over at the Atlantic. Headline was, video games are better without stories. Now this thing went viral for all intense of the word. And yeah, people are upset about it.

We've all read the article. I want to kind of have a discussion about the article and also about video games stories. Is he right? Is he wrong or whatever? My thing is, seeing this headline upset me. There was like a guttural reaction that's just like, fuck you. Leave my shit alone.

Video games, I will fight for them. I love games. Yeah, it's like, don't insult my shit. You know what I mean? But then reading the article, as I was going through, I'm like, all right, you're making points. I don't agree with all the points. But I'm like, I'm going to think about this more instead of just standing up to fight

because you're insulting something that I love. Yeah. What were your guys' thoughts? Well, I mean, he brought up What Remains of Eith Finch. And the way... Thank you. Kevin hasn't made a face yet, but your turn is,

I was making sure. Great, just making sure, but... I didn't know that Tim was breathing last week, you know, so sometimes I can't trust your ears anymore, it turns out. Anyway, the way that he brought it up was like, this is obviously a story, but it's called an interactive story, but how interactive is it when there's really only one thing

that you can do in every environment? And I understand that criticism. There's like games that have stories that I kind of like the idea that a player gets to control the pace of something like that. And with like it's environmental storytelling. And I think that that is a powerful thing that doesn't really exist thoroughly in any other medium where I can look at something and spend as much or as little time as I want to exploring what that thing is. And I think that's where video games have kind of an upper hand on other forms of storytelling. And I think that like there are plenty of games that have trash dialogue.

We have a lot of writers in video games who aren't experienced in writing narrative at all. So it's like, it's a mixed barrel, but something like The Lost of Us didn't exist, I think the world would be a worst place. That's like my thesis here. My jumping off point with the article was I think it's got a bad headline because it is a broad stroke, a shot across the box of video games. And then when he gets into it, he's not talking about every game. On this measure, alas, the best interactive stories are still worse than even middling books

and films. And he brings up Gone Home, Edith Finch. He's talking about Bioshock. He's talking about walking simulators, though. Last of Us gets like a tertiary mention. I didn't feel like he was really going at Last of Us. Maybe I'm wrong. No, I agree.

But I felt like he was much more the walking simulator, this kind of thing. Because that, I don't know if he's, he's not necessarily wrong. I love video games, but it is that argument of like, think of the amount of video games we've all played. And the amount of times you walked away and been like, what the, that, what a story. You know what I mean? Usually for me, it's what an experience. What I was wrapped up in this. And gone home is one that I was talk about, right?

of like, I finished that and like, you know, the credits rolled. And I was like, holy shit, that was awesome. And it, but it was like, yeah, they're just telling me their story. And this is when I used to go to Bat for, and still do for Telltales game design choices where people were like, oh, walking in season one didn't even matter. None of my choices mattered. It all got to the same point. And I was like, well, no, like, my whole argument was that the game starts in one point,

deviates out, but then inevitably has to come back. And it's all the little choices we made here. I said it was like a coloring book page. We all have the same coloring book page. But when we sit down and show them to each other, they all are shaded differently. Because we all came away from the same story, but we all had different moments and things you didn't know somebody else did or this. You had to get to the point that what are you going to do about Lee Everett?

Like, Clem's got to go off on her own. Like, that's the story they wanted to tell you. But the journey there for you is what it was about. What I thought was interesting that he brought up with Gone Home is comparing it to like young adult novels where I was just like, again, you're not necessarily wrong. You know, like you're putting it in a category where it's like young adult sounds like an insult, but it's like, no, the young adult novels obviously, it's a genre. It's a genre and a lot of people are really into it and they take something away from it. And it's

like, if you were to take that same story and adapt it in a way that made sense in a young adult novel, people would be moved similarly, right, from that experience. And it's just the headline to me, the thesis of what he was saying is more like video games shouldn't focus on having stories. Yeah. Whereas the headline is video games are better without stories. And it's like that just goes back to the gameplay as king argument. Sure. It's like I just think that there's so many different types of games that it doesn't need to be a this or that. Right.

Like there are so many games that don't need stories, Mario, like platformers for not and that's not a rule, but like overall, platformers are about. Save the princess. There's no choice here. Yeah. Yeah. Bouser's like all the stories just to kind of like just, just get it going. To frame you why you're doing this. More for fun.

Right. Like to give a light reason for why locations look the way. they do or whatever, right? Like it's more set dressing. But then there's games that are just purely, like the story is the point and the mechanics are all built around getting you through that. And it's interesting to think about like books, for example, because it's like, oh, well, the difference between a game and a book is it's the interactivity and you're in it.

It's like the plot doesn't progress unless you play. It's like, well, the plot of a book doesn't progress unless you read. Yeah. Yeah. But that said, like, what does gone home the book look like? I really think that the way that that story is told in that game is probably the most effective way to tell that story because it's peace to you slowly.

Like how do you write a book like that? Yeah. Like how does that work? I mean, the other thing about Gone Home too is the fact that I think we're, in this example, so far removed from the release of Gone Home. You know what I mean? Because we all beat the dead horse.

I actually only played it this year. Did you know the twist? Did you know what you were getting into? Yeah. Because that was the thing, and I was talking to Jen about this too. Like, I haven't played it because I was asking about the wall art when we move. Like, where should we put this stuff? She's like, well, I haven't played it.

I'm like, do you know what happens? Because if not, we're stuck. She's like, no, I totally know. I'm like, fuck. Because like, for me, it was like, it was that day the reviews popped. And it was Marty tweeting. It was Macaroid tweeting and being like, hey, if you don't go play this game. Don't read anything.

Don't do anything. Go play. And I sat down and the, you know, playing that game, you're like, oh, it's a fucking horror game. I'm in a, I'm in a horror game and playing through and like being like, where's the ghost? And like, where's the ghost? And like, oh, fuck. It's going to start any second.

It was like one of the coolest things about Firewatch as well. Yeah. Is this a horror game? You don't know where it's going and what's going to happen. And like that was part of it for me that makes gone home so amazing was the fact of playing it and being like, all right, what's going on? All right, cool. I'm getting it through her. Okay, cool.

She's going through it. I'm like, oh, this is really cool. Look out for the ghost. And then finally it was like, there was like a moment. Like, wait, is this the game? Is the game? And then there was that moment of like, all right, cool. You're going.

I mean that. And then like the bulb explodes. Like, oh no. Is it a horror game? I don't know. what's in the attic? So that's like part of it, right? How the hell do you do that in a book?

Like, I think that that's a really successful way of telling a story. And I was super-emost in that game for the amount of time that I played at, what, three, four hours maybe? Oh, not even five hour and a half.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's an achievement for fucking finishing that game in 10 minutes. No, there's an achievement for, oh, is it one minute? Yeah, you're right.

And it took me a really long time. It was like, it's gonna be easy. It's gonna take three minutes. What was that thing? You hit the door, you double-click the door. The door doesn't be like, fuck restart

or if you like slightly bump this deck case you're like, yeah, well I got to rest my time. You don't fucking drop the duck

fast enough he was insane took me a really long time don't talk shit on Christmas duck fuck the dog right there is that actually

the duck? Yeah, it's one of the prototypes they made when they were getting all the time don't, oh no

Steve Gamer gave us that that is a prototype he'll be back he'll be back he'll be back he'll fly but now Kevin's

vlog Steve Gander will come back too oh you're really fuck that well now he's watching yeah he's watching I like that. Yeah, it's interesting that like the same games always get brought up.

Sure. When you start talking about stories, like games with good stories, because most of the games do just have generic stories just to get through whatever it is. And I don't necessarily think that that's bad. And I think that it's important to kind of give credit where credits do to the games that do push that narrative and do give an experience that is unique to the franchise. Oh, yeah. That's a really unique way to tell a story.

I actually didn't like that game very. Oh, really? Yeah, I was just by the end, like, I loved it until I got to a point where I was like, okay, this doesn't make any sense to me now, and I'm annoyed. Virginia grew on me the more I thought about it. I finished, I was like, oh, okay, that was fun, whatever. And then I kept finding myself thinking about it, like, before bed or whatever. And then I went back and platinum it.

And I was like, what's going on that box? It was one of those games I came around on. And, like, I was interesting about bringing Last of Us into this equation is that I think, I don't, again, think he's talking about the narrative of Last of Us or bringing that up. But I always think about how Last of Us was so great at interactive, environmental storytelling, of walking into a house and being like, somebody lived here and finding notes. and references to them. And of course, the whole Ishmael storyline.

Like that you could totally blow by and never know anything about it. But if you were picking up all these different things and tracing them from the water till their ultimate end, you're like, holy shit, this was fucking awesome. The thing with The Last of Us though is that it would also make a really good TV show.

Yeah. Like it could do both and it would be perfectly fine. And I had problems playing that game because anything that's like two tents, you know that boss fight in Resident Evil 7 when you're in close quarters with the two cheats. Oh, I fucking hate that one. Me too, but because it stressed me out so much.

And I had that with The Last of Us Where anything that's too tense I have to put down for a bit So it's like, it took me a while To get through that game Because I had to keep taking breaks Because I was like, I'm going to die I'm going to ship like this is terrifying

And I just had to keep stopping And I wonder if consuming that as a movie Would have made this story I don't know It still had a huge impact on me Yeah But like there's something to be said For like things like that

That should cross over Like I'm glad if they make a movie out of that I don't really care about Calla Judy But there are like plenty of like Assassin's Creed could have been good Like that's the thing that like playing through the first two games like, it was like, this could have made a great movie.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Prince of Persia. Yeah, we'll see if there's ever a good video game movie. I mean, that's the, that's the thing that's interesting, though, is you take the, all the games that have turned into movies and it's like, all they're doing is taking the, the story elements and just adapting it to film. And a lot of games are just trying to mimic movies.

Yeah. Right? I feel like that's what's happening now, though. And, like, you know, we brought up the, you know, young adult fiction isn't a knock against it. It's just that there's not a lot of games exploring that space. And we're back to my, what I always talking. about right with the silly putty we're going video games are growing and going in

every direction that's awesome because there's a game now for every mood you're in but the library still isn't that huge for when we're talking about like well I want to do the young adult stuff well not that many nor is it the fact that we've learned all the lessons right in terms of how old the industry is so it is this generation that grew up on Mario being like I'm making games now and I want them to be more like movies but for the people who are growing up playing last of us right now what happens when they jump out and they're ready to start making stuff and they've consumed and know it in a different way so again I don't think I don't think I don't think I think the headlines

bullshit and that's what started being here because I'm sure most people didn't even read the entire article right I'm sure that's like where it starts and stops for a lot of people and they do want to get defensive and yell about it but I do think there's a point of like yeah a lot of video game stories do suck and they don't they don't need them yeah exactly it's like it's like it's it's getting you from point A to point B and like we can do better and we're going to do better and we are doing better and I think there are standout examples I think gone home is a great example of what you're saying of like how that doesn't work as a movie that doesn't work as a TV show like what is that you just come home and you're finding notes and walking around

and reliving memories and it's like, well, no. There's a million other ways to do that. But in the same way of like, when I'll watch a movie and it is like a high school drama or whatever, and it's just like, high school doesn't even matter.

You don't even know, you know what I mean? But that's because it, that is a young adult movie that I'm watching and enjoying for, you know, for what it is. Yeah. Worry about it. Yeah.

It's kind of, I think that that is a genre of storytelling in itself that exists exclusively in video games. Like something like Firewatch, something like gone home. Like, I like that video games have like even sort of recently figured out what stories they tell and how they tell them.

And it is mostly like us being pieced dialogue slowly and mostly exploring things. And I like that too. Like the video games have figured out this is like a short form book that we have made, but it only can exist in this format. Like what is what is Bywatch the book? I don't know. But like there's totally games that I think would have I would have preferred if they didn't have a story at the same time,

which is like kind of the thesis of the article that, yeah, they have been I mean, that's the thing. Go back to it. The video games are better without stories. It comes down to the gameplay versus story, but then there's the games that mesh both of those perfectly. Yeah. And I don't know that we've gotten too many great examples of that,

because most of the things they were naming, it's like, it's, we talk about the experience more than anything. Like, we don't really talk about the gameplay of Last of Us. Yeah. You know, we talk about the story of Last of Us.

Well, the gameplay of Last of Us is pretty good, though. It's pretty good, but it's still, like, the shooting and everything in it is, it's not the same as the way you would talk about a quality shooter. Yeah. A 10-10 top-the-line shooter, right? It's also like gone home.

what is that gameplay? Yeah, exactly. I don't know. And because it's about the plot, it's about progression in the plot. And then I think about, I think the Metal Gear Solid series is an interesting example

of both sides of this where whatever, there's thought put into the story. Whether or not you think it's a good story and depending on the game, I would argue it is or isn't. Yeah. There's still obvious,

a point of, the plot is important, you know, and the characters are important, and they're thinking about how it's all going to fit in for that game and for the sequels and for all that.

But then you do that little. Yeah. But like Middle Girl Scout 5 is an example of the gameplay is perfect. The story's not. Yeah. Yeah. And then you look at other Metal Gear Solid games and it's like the gameplay is it's fine, but the story's really great.

And then it's like there's not really the perfect middle ground because then it turns into like a Metal Gear Solid 4 where the gameplay is really fun, but the story turns into more movie than video game story. I just think I'm fine with that. Like I think I'm okay with picking one or the other and having the option of being like today I want a story focused game and today I want a gameplay focus game like I kind of like that like it would be great to have one that would have both but like I'm fine with having to make a choice I think the reason you talk about experience so much is because it's unique to the medium

that there isn't an experience to watching a movie necessarily and I mean there's obviously different examples but the fact of the matter is someone's talking at you this is you participating right and so I always talk about where you know nine times out of 10 I'm going to come home and I'm going to want to play something I'm going to want to interact but there's those rare nights from tired or whatever and I just want somebody to talk to me talk at me, not even talk to me, talk at me, tell me your story and be done with it. And so, like, I think his, you know, in between the bouts of combat and Bioshock, for instance, the recording, the recordings players discover have no influence on the action of the game except to color

the interpretation of the action. The payoff, if that's the right word for it, is a tempid reprimand against blind compliance. The very conceit, the Bioshock player would have to embrace to play the game in the first place. And it's like, no, like, Bioshock is this awesome experience. And again, we're taking for granted how fucking cool that reveal the would you kindly reveal was. Like when you didn't know that was coming. You got there. And you were like, holy shit, that's awesome. Not to mention like in terms of environmental storytelling, I think Bioshock does it so well with picking up audio diaries and continuing to explore and scavenge for things and feel like, you know, this is an old argument? But like, is Bioshock a first person

shooter? Because you get three bullets and you're really not supposed to fight anything until you have to fight something. And then you know it's going to be by the skin of your teeth, you're usually going to get through it. Like that game is an experience. It pulls together all these awesome bits that I think you lose the seam of like, well, maybe the story. Well, story wasn't that great. You know, it was just telling whatever.

Like, no, like the way it all comes together as a package is what we're talking when we talk about video games in the media. Well, there's a bunch of problems I have with Bioshock Infinite story. Oh, Bioshock Infinite. Yeah, I went on. So like, I played that game and then I played it again. So clearly I enjoyed the gameplay, but weirdly I don't remember enjoying the gameplay. And it's like just the fact that what you are doing in that game versus what

you had told the story is about it to completely different things. It's like you're told that it's a story about a girl, but what you actually do is just fucking kill people the whole time. And it's like that is a limit of the medium. Like maybe Bioshock Infinite would be an example of something that maybe would be better as a book. But the gameplay is great. So it kind of doesn't matter. Like we just kind of like passively take it and it's fine.

And that's the thing. And I think that's the one of the, you know, comparing about it. I mean, Bioshock, you know, or the original comes out in Bioshock to different development team, but not even in the remotely same league. Bioshock Infinite, you hope it's going to be the return to Bioshock 1 because we have expectations of what Bioshock one was. And this Bioshock even is a first-person shooter. You kill more people in the first level than you did in all of Bioshock.

Because there's just so much going on. And it is like, wow, Americana and this is going to be awesome. And it's like, nope, just eating hot dogs out of toilets and fucking blowing everybody to bits. And it's like, okay, I agree with you. Like I played through that, you know, on like a two days off or whatever from IGN. And it was like, cool. That was fun.

But like, I'm not ever going to think about it again. Like that's something I ran through and did. Like most call of duties I play, not to not call of duties or battlefields where it's like, Oh, that was cool. Peace out, whatever. Like, that's fine. I don't need to think about this. And like, with the violence thing,

they try to tie it into the story by saying Booker is a violent man. But that's the thing that I look at as like, they figure that out afterwards, not beforehand. It wasn't like, Booker's a violent man. That's a part of who he is.

And then they were like, oh, we kill a lot of people. Let's make that a part of the story. And I feel like it's like this dumb thing that was fed to people. It's just like, it's exposition and it's shitty. It's like such a disconnect for that game specifically that,

like, I don't think Byershok One had. I think Byershook 1 was incredibly strong in terms of storytelling. It just like was probably weighed down, if anything, by the fetch questy shit. Sure. Yeah. Cross Rapture. Yeah, of course, of course. And that's the thing is like video games.

Video games are a balance, right? Where Biosec Infinite gameplay's fun, sure, but it fucks up what the story you think was going to be or should have been kind of thing. Yeah. The games that find it somewhere in the middle are like, it's a good story and it's good gameplay. Those are the ones that stand out and you talk about. Do you guys play enslaved?

No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I really liked that game. and like the gameplay was good for when it came out and the story is really interesting and kind of like gets messy

but I feel like that's an example of a really good balance of those two things even though it's like still parts there that it's just like defend the girl and it's like you just throw her up on a ledge whatever but it's still super fun I mean I think more recently in similar vein too

is Horizon or Horizon's gameplay was awesome and I was blown away by how much I enjoyed that story and I was like fuck I want to go do the next main quest because I want to know what's happening to people you know so uncharted's another series that gets thrown around a lot when people are talking about story and a lot of that isn't necessarily even just the plot,

but it's also the characters involved. The amount of for me, it's like the gameplay is great, and I think that what's special about Uncharted is that you get to be part of the chase scenes. You're part of the gun fights. The whole of Madagascar and Fall was just fucking amazing. So, I mean, the whole franchise is so great. I mean, the two is better than three, but it's so great.

Funny, IGN.com says it's a tent. Oh, yeah. When you take... I'm going to go edit that. When you take Uncharted and you're like, what if it was just a movie? Like you take all the main beats of Uncharted Because like honestly

Besides the main beats Like the collecting the random treasures and stuff That's not the point of the game That's just extra stuff to do right That would be cut from a movie for a reason, right? Would the Uncharted movie be good? I don't necessarily think so It would be very different

It would be a popcorn blockbuster movie And that and the problem is like what you're talking about right Like usually honestly Uncharted story gets made fun of Right Lizarovich is just drinking blue sap. Okay, whatever the fuck. You know what I mean?

How did Talbot disappear in that dark alley? Whatever. Well, there's that story, but then there's the story of their relationship. Exactly. What Uncharted succeeds at and makes Uncharted stand out and be so beloved is the fact you love Nate and Sully, you love Nate and Elena. You love all these people interacting with each other. And a movie would never get that in two hours.

Yeah, and the subtleties, the reason that I like Nathan Drake so much is just like he finds something dumb. You don't care about it, but the stuff that he says when he finds it. And it's like, yeah, this dude is a good guy. And it's like, that's weird, because I don't give a fuck about what those pirates who are doing. I don't care at all. Just like, tell me what's happening with Elena. Like, that's all I wanted in fault was to see her and know how she felt.

And that's interesting in that it's like three separate parts of a game. Like the actual treasure hunting story, that's history. The relationships, which is what I actually care about. And then the gameplay, which, like, I really wanted what uncharted would be like without as much shooting. Like, would we enjoy it as much? I mean, it becomes a movie. Yeah, kind of. Right, you know?

And like, that's the thing is it's just like, when, it's just like, When if you were, is it only a good story and again, story involving all the things we were talking about? Is it only a good story because it's a video game? Or is it only a good story for a video game? I don't think so. But the thing is if you take out all the gameplay, then you lose all the banter. And you lose just those subtle conversations that really build those characters. The one liners that make you laugh and chuckle while you are negotiating this thing.

When in doubt, climb like that. Like, you know what I mean? Like that's something that wouldn't play as a one liner. in a movie to make you care more about Marky Mark's version of on chart or Nathan drink yeah like that's it's so like it's that that's another game that I think succeeds so well because it's an experience and is so beloved because it is something only our medium can do we national treasure is uncharted for the most part right if you want it to and national treasures are fun movies but they're not like man can't wait for the next national treasure

I'm gonna go watch national treasure again that one guy who said that is now very offended yeah sorry don't get wrong I love to hide this sequel though, come on. Bring the parents in. It was a weird choice. Come on. Thanks, though. All right, well, there you go. You guys can go read the article over on the Atlantic. Like how, you're like, all right, well, there you go. We made absolutely no decision on this. We have drawn no

conclusions. I think there is. The conclusion is that it's just like, hey, video games are just as wide and varied as any other form. And it's just like he's making good points and he's right about certain games, but he's not right about all games. And the headline sucks. And the headline definitely no like this.

It definitely got the press, though. I got the Yes. He did well. Next topic. Let's talk about telltale. Patrick did a great article. Friend of the show. Friend of the show over on Waypoint. Yeah.

Talking about how why the fuck are Telltale games so broken. Right. When will they fix this? Well, yeah. Lead us off. What's interesting about Patrick's article over on Waypoint. Everybody should go read it is the fact that I was, I clicked on it when he tweeted. I'm like, oh, here we go.

Like what we've all talked about, right? Colin was always banging the drum of just like their engine sucks and they need to fix it. Now, granted, we all said that one, but, like, call it was really bad for the trouble. And so I was like, okay, fine. But Patrick's argument's interesting because he's not, he's like, take away the save corruption. Take away the crashes. I'm talking about that as a Guardians of the Galaxy fan playing episode one, these guys look like robots at Disneyland. And I was like, fuck, you're right.

Don't talk about Disneyland. He didn't bring Disneyland into this. Oh, Disney World. Sorry. He was talking about Chuckie Cheese. A chucky cheese. My apologies. I mean, the way they woke up staircases is just like.

Yeah. And it, when it is that thing of like, it reframes. what telltale is and where they're going in such an interesting way of the fact of like, oh, right, like for me, Andy and I played episode one of Guardians, you know,

the week before it came out and came in the next day and talked to each other about it. And we, before any reviews parties, like, what did you think? I was like, it was all right.

Like, I was like, okay, by the end, they're telling an interesting enough story. I liked it, but I was like, it doesn't,

it's a weird thing of like, for me, as somebody who was not a Marvel guy, Guardians is Chris Pratt and there's all these different things. So to get in there and not have them look like that sound like that and then have them move. I didn't call in them moving inorganically or whatever. And I was like, it's something weird about it.

But by the end, I'm like, I want to see where we go with it. But it's a great phrasing of, yeah, like, when does this end for telltale? And what is their legacy? Because for somebody who was covering it for IGN at the time, like, when Walking Dead hit, when season one came out and it was like, oh, that was a, that was a cool episode. That was, wait, what the fuck is going on? This game is like so different. And we were talking about stories.

and interactive and can you tell a story? Like this story is awesome. I care so much about these characters and like people crying at the end and being changed. Like it's so easy now as we look back at Game of Thrones and all these different huge franchises and what Telltale is. Telltale was fucking nobody before Walking Dead. Like they put out a bunch of games. Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park which sucks. Back to the future. Which ended horribly. Like started off so strong and then tanked. And then it was Sam and Max before that. It was strong bad. Every time we go to Comic Con and I came from, we're over by. Hall H, the last hall before Hall H or whatever.

I remember taking my first Telltale demo when they were like in a car like one of the little rooms with a little fucking table right there at the entrance that I saw Sam and Max down like I don't even know what Sam Max is and they're like, oh we're doing it was strong bad next I'm like I don't know what Sam Max is or I'm at what no we're doing strong bad I don't know what strong bad was either

you know what I mean and it was like all right cool this was a quaint thing to do cool to see you and I'll never forget when they announced they had an event and it was like we're doing a Walking Dead game and we're doing a Fables game and I was like wow awesome that seems and I was a walking dead fan this before the show and it was like okay cool like that's awesome i'm glad to see this is going to go on comic book world but like when that hit it was like oh shit and then as it kept continuing they

kept landing franchise and game of thrones and then what they do with borderlands and the marvel deal now which becomes guardians you're like Batman too Batman yeah yeah and like holy shit these guys are going they they just went nuclear they're like they aren't the it's similar i guess in the same way they they are the you know years of work overnight success story that rocket league is or some one day everything's different. And like they're, you know, you go up to their studio now,

you know, obviously full disclosure, I hosted the Batman show, which was just, I wasn't paid for anything. It was just, you know, I want to go host a Batman show.

But, like, you go up there now and like, I remember when they had like 30 people and now they have like three floors and all hundreds of people. And it's like, holy shit. Like this is such a different thing.

However, these problems still exist. The janky animations, the crashes. When I sat down, I'm like, all right, cool.

I'm budgeting at the time. I'm going to play Walking Dead season three, episode three. like it's finally here after you know they put out the first two and I jumped in and it's chugging a bit I'm like all right I'm on a PlayStation 4 I'm like that's weird and it hard crashes blue screen like fuck all right well that happens do it hard crash blue screen do it I'm like okay well I got to uninstall this game and reinstall it and be like guys what the fuck let alone the fact that Batman was the same way Batman for me personally and everybody

it's always a different experience for everybody for me personally Batman 1 through 4 ran better and performed better than any tell tell game I've played in terms of like there was still the jinky animation you're we're going to a cut scene and then we'll come back and it won't be or we're going into a lot of audio just not be there yep oh for me it was we went from the bat cave to city hall but it still had the echo of the bat cave and i was like all right and this is me saying these have run better than other telthel game telling you how bad it has it was like it's sometimes like i'd be in the middle of combat which is like actually really satisfying in that game and batman would kick someone and they wouldn't be a noise yeah and then then we got to episode five and episode five was well i guess before

that there was the one where the guys were running around to Arkham and they had no faces. It was just eyeballs. It was the Assassin Creed face. But episode five was the same thing where, oh man, I'm into the climactic battle. Blue screen, hardlock dead. Fuck, restart, get past that point, then dead. And then one more, I think it died. What were you playing Batman on?

PlayStation 4. So I played the whole thing on PC. Yeah. I felt like I didn't, like I think that is the best performing Teltow game I've ever had. But that definitely were every single episode had an issue. Like some kind of issue that like I either loft at it or it pulled me out of it. Like things didn't load. The audio thing was really annoying.

I didn't have any crashes at all and my save files were totally fine but it's like even that the fact that I'm being like but at least it didn't crash is like that's a standard that they have. And that's the weird thing right now is a trade off with telltales the fact that I think for me personally

you still, I still think of them as this oh man this studio is still doing big this small studio is still doing big things but it's the point of like you're fucking working with DC and Marvel and image and like HBO like do you not have the money and the resources to build something

and it used to be I remember oh well I'm playing on PS3 and this game is optimized probably for a PC so no wonder it's crashing but then you get to play this morning like well no this is still happening and Patrick's article talks about you know PC yeah Patrick yeah Patrick yeah Patrick

yeah Patrick played on PC and his article talks about the fact of like you know rumors I've heard too of just like well yeah they don't have a physics engine you know what I mean to make a ball roll it's fucked up and that was one of the I remember at E3 when they showed us Batman the wall the wall the world moves around the character rather than the character moving through the wall

is one of the things I don't know if that happens with Batman Batman they made a big deal of like we have a physics engine for the Cape like there's actually something happening which sounds goofy but I mean like it was It was, I remember doing the panel where they announced it. We did it at Southby. And I was like, oh, cool, you're, you're listening and you're responding. But it's like, how much are they?

Because, like, here we are. And it's, and it's, for me, I wonder, is it just the fact that, you know, you know, Patrick put it like, I've always described it on these shows of like, it's a network, right? And like, where Collin will always be like, telltale's putting out too many games. They should stop paying out so many games. Like, well, no, not everybody plays every telltel game.

It's like a channel you tune in, you watch the show you want. But are they putting out so much that there's just no time for somebody to go there and be like, Let's blow everything up and rebuild the... Yeah, I mean, well, I think even more important than that is like, there needs to be consistency and release schedule. Like, with Walking Dead, it's like, it's ridiculous that the, for season three, like they released one and two at the same time. December, yeah.

Such a huge gap until three. Which was the end of, was the beginning of April? Wait, no, because it was December, we got one and two, then no word, then nothing. End of March, we got episode three and now end of April today, right? No, today's Wednesday. So yesterday, we got four. episode four. I think the thing with that is they don't even have an idea.

Like when I was reviewing Batman and it would be like, hey, we think we're going to get a code maybe Wednesday. And it seemed to be like Friday, 6 p.m. I have to play the fucking game. I have to capture everything on a Saturday. I have to write my review. You have to have it published by Monday. And it was like every single time was like, can we get this for Wednesday so I can get

this all done so I don't have to work the weekend. They were like, I don't know. It would just like appear in my inbox. And I think it's that they work on those. Up until the moment. Exactly. Like absolutely. And I think like part of the thing with.

like episode four kind of historically being shitty is that they like probably plan out the first three episodes really solidly and plan out the last one and then in the middle they're like oh i have no idea what we do and make a bunch of changes that are still being made two days before the game comes out yeah it's like they have no idea what their schedule is yeah and it's like on one hand as a consumer it's like all right cool they're trying to get to us as soon as possible and they're much as possible. Delay it. Delay it.

It's fine. But let's make it good. And I think that it really, at this point, does come down to what you're saying where they have to have money. And at what point is it unacceptable? Have we reached that point? Or is that point never going to be hit because it's fine and people will keep buying it. And it's better for them to focus on getting more IP to make more games that run this

way. That's kind of what I think is that the point that it stops being fine is the point that people stop buying those games. And the point that people start complaining about them all, which is like obviously people who work in the industry do. but I think people who are telltale fans do not care. Like a crash sucks, losing safe progress sucks, but for the most part,

they just will play all of them and not give a shit about it. So it's like there's no onus for them to change. And I think that they must make so much money on all of the different skews across all of the different platforms, including mobile. And that's one of the reasons they're optimized so poorly, you assume, right? It's because you have a team that stretched thin

trying to get it on every platform and make it run a little bit and stuff. And I think that is the tradeoff you talk about of like, well, it's a telltale game. You know what you're going to get. And like, I'm part of the problem I reviewed him back then and I was like oh it runs better it runs worse whatever but it wasn't like really dinging them because it was the story is so good and the choice is so good and I like where this

is going and that still can be said obviously right like uh I'm giving review scores is bullshit it's like you have to weigh up the thing that you care about the most and for a tell tell game despite complaining about the bugs I still do care more about getting a good story than I do about those bugs like I can laugh them off it's fine like I'm willing to accept it I don't know why it happens yeah and that's the thing of like where do they go and will they ever change it how I think it's like anything else right like it's a vote with your wallet kind of thing but like I'm part of the problem right like I know that episode four is gonna be have shitty things but I'm gonna play episode four and granted I already bought the C's pass but I'm in for it you know

what I mean you already bought the C's a pot you're absolutely for it yeah yeah exactly I already fucked it up and did it but I again it is because I have that bar set for what that's going to be yeah what's interesting too I wanted to pull it up of course just so I make sure earlier this year they lost a bunch of talent too which is interesting yeah you know I knew much people went to Ubisoft right exactly uh Dennis Lenart Nick Herman Pierre Shortett. Sorry, Pierre, I never pronounced your last name before in any of the shows. All people, friend of our shows have been through, I mean, fucking Nick Herman came by that one time for that, Tales the Border League thing where we all got drunk.

And then Adam, who I don't know. But like, you were talking about executive producer, director of writing, creative director and senior cinematic artist, creative director. Like, these are the guys who like, for Dennis, Nick and Pierre, these are the people who were like super behind the Walking Dead, like, forever that I talked to. And I think did a lot on tails. I mean, they all bob around. So it's interesting. But it is an interesting thing of like what that'll do going forward in terms of brain trust. I'm sure you're hiring the right people.

They're all coming up. It's not like someone leaving the company ruins it. But it'll be interesting to what that does on the writing front and what it does for the game front. Yeah, definitely. The consistency, not even just in release schedule, but in terms of quality and like episode by episode pacing is like a difficult thing too. Because it's a blessing and a curse being episodic. I think episodic releases are a good thing for things like this. because it keeps these games that might not necessarily have the huge boom of a AAA game

in the media, you know, kind of talking sphere for a couple months at a time. I feel like it was like the opposite with Hitman though. Like that game was really good, but I think it would have done way better if they'd release it at once. See, the thing about it, if I can jump in, sorry, Tim, is I think it works with a telltale game because I'm there to talk to you about the story. What choice did you make? What this? Hitman is pretty much just gameplay, right?

Yeah, how did you take this guy out? Well, I'm going to eventually take him out that way. Hitman fans play those games over and over and over again. Whereas like Telltale, it was always when Mitch and I would get there in the morning after getting the new episode, we'd go into a room and shut the door. Like, what did you do? And how are you handling this? Blah, blah, blah.

And you know, you're talking about consistency. That's the thing. Telltale's consistent in what their games are going to run like and look like and do it. You know what I mean? That's why when they're like, oh, we got capes physical. Like, oh, fuck, all right, guys. You're trying. I just think that it's a different experience.

And we've talked about this in a ton of different shows. But binge watching something, binge reading something, binge playing something is very different then the week to week or month to month of getting it. Right. And especially when these games are for the story. So they're comparable then to reading or watching something. And I think Walking Dead is a perfect example because you can read the comic or watch the show.

And it's like that show when there's a little episode, you're at least like, all right, cool, well next week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That means there's going to be something cool. But when these games, you don't know when the next one is and it's like, oh, well, episode three is kind of a bummer. Then it's just like, you don't know when you're going to get the next one. And that's another thing back to like reviewing sucks and putting scores in

things sucks. Reviewing episode by episode Walking Dead, like I remember season one episode four, that was the first one I gave like a 7-5 to where I was just like it's fine, like you know what I mean? It's kind of just middling. There's a huge thing at the end and that's what I think IG just said about episode four of season three where it's like it's fine but the ending is awesome and it's

like it's shitty but then when I went back and like it would do streams or whatever and play through all the walking dead episodes together episode four didn't feel like such a downturn anymore because I knew where we I knew that I was getting the next thing right away and actually it helped with the narrative in terms of like Oh, this is what's going on. And we need to have that slow moment.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's like season two of Walking Dead the show when it's like binge watching, it's really not that bad. Yeah. But sitting through weeks a week, I couldn't even imagine doing that. That would have been so slow. You never, you don't know what it was like. I don't.

The pain. Yeah. Sophia, you fucked. We're moving on. Yeah. That's what you leave that note on the wall. You're done. No.

A lot of, a lot of, I was playing a Game of Thrones, the Tell Tell series. That was bad. I got, I got through two of them. And then like, I was like, I don't even want to keep going really. Because it's like, I feel like it's, the Guardians is an interesting thing because Have you played it? No.

Okay. But they're borrowing from reading Patrick's thing and just like hearing you guys talk about it. Borrowing the aesthetic of the movies and the Guardians verse. It feels like it's like it's the music and it's this like, you know, it's more funny than than anything else. Whereas like the comics aren't necessarily that. Yeah. Or at least the original source material of it.

So that kind of creates a weird shift where it's like, well, they don't look how I want them to look. Yeah. They don't really sound. like I want them to sound like every time that someone voice acts is the Joker and it's not Mark Hamel. I'm like, what is this? But the interesting thing about it for is the fact of, I think they succeeded so much with Tales from Borderlands. Do you play Tales from the Bullerlands? No, but Monty keeps telling me I should. Apparently it's super funny. It's so funny. It's so good. It doesn't matter. That was my thing. When they announced it, it's like, what a dumb thing. I like Borderlands as the

RPG, you know, loot grind or whatever. I don't need to go through it. Then you play it and like, it doesn't even need to be Boralands. It's just giving you the framing of the universe. Yeah, yeah. But did you not like. him? No, I do like. Oh, he's great. Yeah. He's a really good performance in it. Uh, and then Batman, but Batman was great, remember, because episode one ends and you're like, oh shit, we're going in an entirely different direction. This isn't the Batman universe, you know, whereas guardians, granted, there's a big moment early on where you're like, well, I guess we are not in the cinematic universe or the comic books. They are doing their own thing, but it doesn't feel like

their own thing. Like Batman, you know, like, he's a different car and he has a different suit and this is that. And like, there's all these clear things, but one of you're totally aping, not against it for, you know, James Gunn's style. That's when it's like, it's harder for me to leave that behind because this feels so familiar. Yeah. And then the biggest issue I had, though, was on the complete other end of the spectrum with Game of Thrones was it was canon. Yeah. It is in the TV show universe.

And that means that it was limited. Yeah. Like they could only do so much. And any time that a character that, to be honest, you'd care about would show up, you knew it was going to be limited. And you knew that where the stakes were at. And it's just like, all right. Well, I don't really care to do this because it seems like a. Side story, side story, side story.

It's so inconsequential. Didn't you want to know what Marjorie was doing on this Tuesday? And really, that's what it felt like. And it's like the main plot going on. I'm like, all right, this is interesting. And it was very much Game of Thrones. They nailed everything about it. But I'm like, there's already enough characters that I care about that I'm like,

I don't really buy this. This was the whole problem with Walking Dead season one Glenn and Walking Dead season three right now, minor spoilers. Jesus. I'm just like, they show up and I'm like, really didn't need you here. You know what I mean? Like Glenn, when he leaves it? like, wow, so I'm going off to go.

I'll go see. I'm like, I know where you're going. Just go away. And Jesus mentions hilltop. You're like, oh, that's kind of cool. Or kingdom maybe. But it's like, all right, whatever. Like, all right, just go do your thing.

Like, it's weird that you're here. This is Clem's story. And that's the thing about this one where they've introduced Javier or whatever. And it's like, okay. Like, this is interesting. But it is that thing of, there's a prone con to it of like, well, I don't have a history with him. So I don't really care about him.

But then choices pop up. And I'm like, I don't know. Fuck that. A guy seems like an asshole fuck him. Whereas like with Clem, I was always super protective or I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna appeal that I'm a little girl,

get around this. Yeah, I'm used to that. Final topic of the day. As always, it's brought to you by you. You can go to kind of funny.com slash gamescast topic and leave your questions

just like all these beautiful people did. It's from John B. X3-2. John BX3-2. Xbox really needs a big new exclusive. If you were in charge of making that happen, what kind of game would it be?

What would it be about? Oh, shit. It's interesting, because you look at the exclusive game right now, right? Nintendo in its own little fucking world, it'll always be there. It's going to have its IP and it is what it is. But when you look at Xbox first PlayStation, we've discussed the exclusive thing to death at this point. Sure. Where it's like, all right, PlayStation's very much succeeding in its exclusives.

Xbox is not doing so well. This year has been PlayStation PlayStation PlayStation PlayStation. Yep, and it's like Xbox seems like it's going to hit eventually, but whatever. Maybe. Busted its load a little bit like the last couple years with its big guys. scale bound with uh well yeah RIP canceling all exclusives it had

Halo 5 came out Master Chief Collection before that gears it's like those are kind of there the big franchises so it's like all right And then Forsa yeah Is there another need for a shooter? No don't think so

Is it a big RPG? I don't even know like what the one would be If I can have any any game that my answer to this question has always been that I would make a Justice League game that's just like Akum like I would make a Justice League game so there's tons of them

we're in a big old city is a you okay? Yes you're just saying all the right things keep going it's like much bigger scale than a regular Arkham game but that's the tone

that I would want right and that's the thing I've always said does it make sense as an Xbox exclusive probably not so for them to fill a gap I think they need an RPG see I don't know man

I would argue that they do that I think that does fill the gap because I think here's the thing with... He's not an open wall either here's what the well I mean look at Horizon right and all that stuff

the thing I think it's pretty clear that Xbox has been trying to chase is the adult gamer who would be story driven and like, hey, we don't have an uncharted. I think esports too. Sure. But I think right now in terms of how to catch up to PlayStation, right? Like what does PlayStation do so well? The exclusives and stories that matter, uncharted Horizon being excited for Detroit, right?

And you see Xbox go like, all right, cool. We're going to get Tomb Raiders exclusivity. But Tomb Raider comes with so much baggage, at least, you know, for a year, so much baggage, it doesn't move the units. Then when it comes to PlayStation doesn't do as well and everybody's getting fucked in that deal, right? And then you're like, all right, cool. then what we want to do is we'll make our own. Let's get Quantum Break.

Quantum Break comes out and just doesn't perform well because it's still very much anchored in old Xbox of like, no, no, no, it's the melding of TV and games. And everybody's like, no. Yeah, I did. I actually really like. I liked it a lot too. But I understand why it didn't sell.

It was sent out because it was like, is it a TV show? Is it a game? You'll find out. And then we're all like, we hear TV. They're like, fuck. Stop with the goddamn gimmicks. Yeah, exactly. But it was cool and it was interesting and different,

but whatever. Like, I think sitting down and being like, taking a page from Sony and being like, all right cool, you have Spider-Man, we're doing this. And the fact that Marvel is already playing ball that way and doing all these different things and letting Spider-Man be exclusive. And we talked about it before, right? Of like, well, what does it mean for the other games they're working on at Adventures and this and that?

I think we did look at a moment. The Marvel DC thing could be interesting that. Yeah. Yeah. And that would even make it happen. If you were like, of course it is the normal thing being, you know, DC fanboy number one of like, oh, Justice League game, I hope it's not made by Zoxx Knight. You know what I mean?

Like that kind of shit, there'd be all shit talking. But if it came out and it was fucking awesome. Rosting makes it. Yeah. I mean, everything's fine. Can you fucking imagine 83?

Like, all right, cool. Yeah, Rocksteady's making the Justice League. That's literally when I answered

that question for the last like decade, I think is like, this is the game that you make. And that's the thing is because then you're taking what movies are doing and what they're doing where they're,

you know, what I love about Marvel is the fact that like, all right, cool, tell tell you're great at stories, take this. Square, you guys are good with a whole bunch of shit. Here you go make this Avengers game

rumored to be making another Guardian's game. Like, let's just take our properties and not try to do them in house that make stuff. I mean, I love Fable. Like, the first Fable game was one of my favorite games.

Like, I love that game so much. So it's like, that's a property that doesn't exist anymore that almost filled a gap. And then it was open world. It was RPG. But one thing that I think, like, is definitely missing is a Bloodborn or a Neo. Like, sure, Xbox has Dark Souls as well. But, like, if there was a game like that, that's what I wanted scale bound to be. And that game's been canceled.

So, no, there's a ton of gaps right now. I do think that Halo and Gears are incredible franchises. I'm super attached to those franchises. And I love those games. But they're definitely not enough. to carry console. They've shown that. Yeah.

I mean, and that was, I think, a wake up called Xbox in a lot of ways of like, well, we have these, these sell, these are who our gamers are.

And I do think that that's true, but I think the gamers have grown up in a lot of ways. Yeah. Whereas like just chainsaws and fucking Master Chief aren't enough right now. Yeah. I think it needs a, an answer to uncharted. Like it needs a AAA.

Yeah. This is a movie game. And not too much. That's not too many. Yeah. Like, like, two meter is great.

But it's like, you need something that is like a Nodgy Dog game. You know? And it's like, I don't think there's anybody necessarily that can do that. I mean, too, and like this is, we, we've had this discussion on this show, right? Avengers hasn't announced platforms. Correct? It hasn't.

Yeah, exactly. And that's where it comes back is I wouldn't put that past them of like, this is their answer. Like, okay, Sony got that. We're taking that. And this is, and it would be the same thing. But it would be the crystal dynamics and working on it, right, of being like, all right, here's our game and this is what it is. And it's the same thing as Tomb Raider, though, in the argument, if they could just come out and be like,

no, this is exclusive to this platform. It is not. Yeah, exactly. Because that's what killed Tumrater every time was like, E3, here it is, and then an hour later E3, you're like, well, they're going back and forth and they're using this. And it's like, when PlayStation's already selling so much better,

why would I jump over to buy an Xbox when I know I eventually going to get that game if I really wanted? And then a lot of people just didn't do it. And they were like, oh, I'll buy it when it comes to PlayStation. And then they forgot it. Oh, what a surprise? There's a million games coming out a year later that look better, or do this or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. This one comes from Bongo's for Kevin. Bongos for Cav Dog. Cab dog, what you're playing over there on that switch? Zelda. I don't know why he shook his head at bongos. Oh, he doesn't want to be bongoed.

There's a history here. At one point, Nick pulled up Kevin Shred and bongered on his belly. And it's been a... We did it for charity. We did it for charity. That's good. Yeah, yeah. Raising that money.

Bongers for kids. Raising that money. Should I get a PlayStation VR or a Nintendo Switch? Oh, dang. Look at the library of games and switch. Just get the switch. Yeah. I mean, it's, the argument for any, anytime anything like this comes up, what do you want to play?

I hate these questions. I hate all the people ask me the stuff because I'm like, I cannot tell you what your preference is. I don't know what you prefer. If you travel a lot, get the switch. If you probably prefer shorter experiences that you are more likely to play by yourself. Maybe get PlayStation VR. But there's also like VR is pretty rad. Like if you happen to really like that tech and you haven't tried it, PSVR is a great way to do that.

It's very easy. Yeah. If you can find one. You can't find a switch either. So there's that. And I feel, but I feel like it's that. where a year ago we would have been more bullish the other way or one way or the other. Whereas I feel like now that both switch and VR are out, I feel like...

One's getting support the other side. VR is going down and it feels like Switch is coming up. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I also think that I mean, I loved PSVR. I didn't buy one and I had all the experience that I need playing gear guys. Sure. And it's like, I'm a little bit lucky that I work in the industry and I have all my friends have it. But it's just like, I'm sure you could find somebody if you really wanted to play that would let you borrow it for a weekend.

They probably own all five awesome experiences that you can do. Do them all and then you're done. It's pretty easy to say that you'll get more time out of Switch than you would out of PSVR just with Zelda alone. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing is cheating. And it's the same, I mean, as, you know, Vita fanboy number one or two at least. Over here with Switch, right, like it's everything I love about the Vita without the pitfall of the Vita

that at no point Nintendo can be like, you know what? Everything you love. You know trophies, I know. But for the most important part, right? But Nintendo can't say, you know what? We're not going to make AAA games for it anymore. Yeah. They're making triple-o-games for this.

I'm getting Odyssey. I'm playing card. I love Zelda. And then I have Mr. Shifty in there, that Tumbleweed game, Tumble-seed game. I can remember the name of it.

Tumble seed. Tumble seed, yeah, I mean, and graceful explosion machine. Like, there's enough reasons right now. I feel that it's why it's my most played system at the moment

and why it's with me at all times. Mr. Shifty. Yeah. Did you beat it? No. Okay. What do you think?

I enjoyed what I played early on. I mean, it's rough around the edges. Yeah, it's pretty roughs at times. game really it's Kevin you beat it right? What did you think Big Kev Dog? Hitting a million buttons. He gets a mic turn down.

I'm going to turn a little web game here in a second. You know, I'm actually turning off your mics when I do that. Oh really? So nobody can hear us? Well, no, for the morning show. Oh. Those mics are on and it's like, I'm off. I love, I love Mr. Shifty.

I just like how us talking to you feels, you like played off like we're inconveniencing you. You're like, oh, I was in the middle of something. Switch down. Good, I'm glad you liked you. All right. That was that? The ending was.

It gets so hard and it does have a lot of, like, blitching. Yeah. Where your, like, characters just kind of, like, the whole screen freezes. Oh, real. And then all of a sudden, you've jumped a little bit and it's like, all right, whatever. But eventually, you kind of figure out when that's going to happen, when there's just too much. The tell-tail problem. Yeah.

You just accept it. Andy, what are you thinking of Mr. Shift? You get in there and talking that microphone, big Andy Cortez. Oh, my God. Why are you? I really like it. I like it a lot. Good.

All right. Thanks, Andy. Look at these. Look how cute they are. I've never said this phrase before in my life, but I think I ship you. Oh my God. Yes. Big cow dog and Andy Cortez.

It's good. It's getting hot. Aw. Damn. What do you got against bongos, man? Yeah. Oh, man. Brian B.

Shar Sharan says, who's the best video game in game DJ? This was an Alana question. I don't really know of many. What's your DJ names? You DJ, DJ Alana? I don't have one. I literally let the venue choose. I'm like,

whatever you want, Sam. Just do it. Yeah. I thought about going with Alana Zod for a while because I feel like that's a cool DJ name, but it's a lot of effort.

Like, I don't know. I'm just like, whatever the fuck you want. People are like, what kind of genre do you DJ? I'm like, whatever the fuck they ask for.

Like, I don't care. Yeah. I'll play queen if you want. It's fine. The answer to that, I'm just, can I just say Child of Eden?

Just the whole game? The game. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Shout to that. Yeah. Did you play DJ Hero too?

Or DJ Hero? Why did I jump to you? Yes. I have played DJ Hero. What did you think? As it like a DJ. Completely inaccurate, but very fun. Yeah, right.

That's not even remotely accurate. Yeah. DJ Hero for me, I was so, so heartbroken by it. Really? I love rhythm games. Yeah. Amplitude, obviously. Fucking greatest of all time.

And DJ Hero was because I'm like, I'm like, all right, this is going to be the closest thing to that I'm going to get. And it's just something about the mechanics of it. I'm like, eh, this is just a broke ass. Like, it wasn't even that. B-Mania was awesome and then that show. Sound shapes is so good. Oh, sound shapes. Fuck, yeah.

Good call. Good call. Double platinum. All right. Now, now here is a very hard-hitting question from more saying. Does Alana think Armored Core can be revitalized with a new gameplay mechanic? I think Armid Core can be revitalized anyway.

Like, I really like those games. We haven't had a meck game. It happened. Oh, my God. Holy fucking shit. It's been a whole. 118 episodes, and it's finally happened. We have a guest on the show that has played Armored Corps.

This dude. Everyone just started yelling at me, Andy. This dude has sent in a question. Every time you have a guest. He sends in a question about Armored Corps. No way. And no one ever has anything to say. Oh, the floor is yours.

Go. Armored Corps. We all yelled over your answer. What would you do to remind? It's been a long time since we've had an Armid Corps game slash any good MEC game. I think you don't need to. to revitalize it with a gameplay mechanic.

I think that exists in this day. You just make one. Well, there you go. I don't know what you're going to ask for that one. This is it. History has been made. I can't believe it. You guys not played on Nicole?

No. I think I honestly might have reviewed one for IG. Back in the day when they were like, review everything. I don't know anything about it. Review it. All right. But I don't, you know.

Fun. A lot of. So here's a lot of Olauna questions here. Alan Martinez. Alan Martinez says, when did you decide to go into the game press? A specific game? Did someone really inspire you to cover video games?

And was IGN your dream? So I think my answer to this is very similar to most other people's, and then it was a complete accident. I was working in this terrible job in a call center, which I fucking hated. So naturally, I was looking for jobs elsewhere, and I'd always loved writing. I'd always love games, and I just saw a listing for a volunteer newswriter for a game's website, and I was like, I totally do that on my spare time.

So I started doing that, and then was like, this is the best thing, and then just worked my way up to doing it full time. So it wasn't like a decision I made. It was like a job listing I saw and was like, hmm, I could maybe do this. And that was like five years ago in May. I think my first article was published May 6th. So like kind of soon.

What was the other half of that question? Was IGN the dream? I wanted to work at a place like IGN on GameSpot for sure. And I wouldn't say like that I had that like one goal, but it was definitely I wanted to work in the US because the industry is so much bigger here. And there's kind of a ceiling in Australia. So it was definitely like one of the bigger websites,

but it wasn't IGN specifically. I'm pretty happy there though. Yeah. Speaking of IGN, Michael Gulliver wants to know. What are the expectations versus reality of working in IGN? You walk constantly and you're very tired. No, it's a super fun place to walk. I love everyone I walk with.

That can't be true. Well, almost. You work with Fran. I like Fran. You're allowed to like Fran outside work, but it worked. No, no, no. Well, I'm only just starting on the video too. Oh, well, you'll learn.

You got to. We should have meeting about this. I might have tired for four months. Damn it, Frank. It's funny how many times I've heard that exact thing, but I've never experienced it myself. But, yeah, I mean, you definitely work way harder than even I would have thought. And it's also, like, one thing that I always want to talk about is IGN takes ethics way more fucking seriously than I ever would have expected before working there.

Because I was one of those teenagers who made fun of IGN because they were the cool kid to make fun of. And working there now is like, you know, I've worked for the BBC. I work for the ABC. There was, like, actual mainstream news organizations who didn't take. game reviews or games journalism as seriously as IGN does. So like that's something that I think really needs to be spoken about and like when we do those ranking lists or game

of the year list, people are in a room fucking arguing. People are yelling, people are angry at each other at no point is this like maybe they'll give us some money. Let's just like email Activision, see what happens there. Not a thing. That's like something that I didn't expect to be as serious as it was. I like it. Graham Hughes

wants to know which switch cartridge taste the best. I assume they all taste bad. I have tasted two of them. It was Zelda and Skylanders. I was drunk. That's my excuse. And they were both equally terrible. I also actually speaking of Steve Gaino tried to make him taste one. I tried very hard. It's like I have this recorded because I was drunk and I was very rude about it. He didn't do it. He was like, I'm not doing that. I was like, Steve, lick it! He didn't do it. He said the same thing when I said to put a platinum trophy and

gone, oh. It's like, I'm not doing it. Yeah. And then did you say Steve? Lick it. Yeah, I did. I'm talking about something different. His next game is an Xbox PC-exclusive. George Alexander wants to know, how hard is it to juggle IGN content and your own YouTube channel? Oh, that's a great question.

Yeah, it's tough. Like, I work late a lot of the time, and the biggest problem I have is that I live with a bunch of housemates who, when I get home at like 10 p.m. at night after work and going to the gym, and then I can't make a video because it would be super rude because I would keep all my housemates up.

So that is, like, the biggest problem is finding the time. It's also, like, it's very hard for me to respond to things. Like, I make videos about lifestyle, or current news. Like I did a Pepsi ad reaction video which was like, okay, I know I have to do this right now. But how the fuck do I find the time to do that? It's really hard to respond to things immediately.

But yeah, I don't know. I block out time. I plan things literally months in advance. I have the YouTube videos I plan on making for probably the next year in a list and I just sort of reorder them all the time. It's just like I have to be very organized about it. How many videos you put out a week?

Just one. I usually like, because I have to be flexible in times. I can't publish like at a certain amount. I try and do every five days. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. Gotcha. Yeah, I think being more on point on dates would probably work better, but just with the way that my schedule isn't traveling so much, I can't.

I do what I can. Yeah, you're doing it well. Thank you. Gareth McCruden says, what are games you've never played slash wanted to play because they weren't available in Australia? I think games being banned in Australia is exaggerated. and that it doesn't, when you live there, you're angry about the news, but then you seem to just end up getting access to everything really easily anyway. So it's not really a thing. The only thing that I really wanted was I think Leffeta 2 was originally censed in Australia and I really wanted the unscensored version. That was the big one. Yeah, they shot and disappeared or became flowers or some shit like that. That would have been nice. No, the body's disappeared. Um, which like, I hated. So I just played the unscensored version. Not a way to play it. But then on the flip side, um, South Park, the stick of truth is also censored. But I think the way they sensed it is funnier than the thing they sense.

So it's like basically someone, I think in the U.S. version presses a button and then Randy Marsh just gets a dildo up his butt. I think that's what happens. He gets probed. He gets probed in the alien ship. Right. Something goes up his butt either way. Yes. But in the Australian version, it just cuts to a picture of a kangaroo crying with like a faint didgeridoo sound.

And it's like, Australia, you fucked up again. Like, we're not allowed to show you this because you're a bunch of pussies. And I like every time it would cut to that. I was like, this is way better than the actual probing. It was pretty good. Usually is. Usually is. Yeah.

Well, Lana, thank you very much. for joining us today. This has been a very fun episode. Where can people find you? I am on all of the social medias at Charlaanazard. Including Patreon. Yeah. Patreon.com slash Charlanazard.

Yeah. I keep it consistent. Nice job. I like that. I like that. You should support her. She's cool. She's doing cool stuff.

Thank you. Support her at IG as well. All the places. Don't support Fran. Yeah, don't support. Never forgive the 7-9. Double dash. You're fucking kidding me, Fran.

Well, you're with a well. You're learning. Until next time. I love you.