Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Being A Black Nerd in 2018 (w/WWE Superstar Xavier Woods) - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 160

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

WWE Superstar Xavier Woods joins us to discuss what it is like to be a black nerd in 2018.(Released first to http://www.Patreon.com/KindaFunnyGames Supporters on 03.02.18) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sorry. What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 160 of the kind of funny games cast. Brought to you by Patreon producer. Tom Bach. You got it. How did you know, Greg? You know,

I think it's just because he's given us his daughter's entire college fund. So it's been fantastic. Thank you, Tom. We appreciate you a lot. She'll get scholarships. It's fun. As always, I'm Tim Geddies.

He's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games. Greg Miller. Brap, I'm taking it back. Take it back. Take it back. And joining us in the full proper games cast for the first time. Jared Petty.

Glad to be here. The Reverend. Yeah. Dokey-Docke. about this. And joining us for his second ever kind of funny games cast appearance, but the first ever, a real numbered games cast appearance. Austin Creed. Yeah. Yeah. That's my YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't subscribed already. And make sure you hit the

notification bell so you can watch videos as soon as they upload. He says that all the time on the Twitch show today. We never say that. We got to, everybody hit the bell. So you can see when the videos go live. Because if I if I don't look at it on a Tuesday and then I go on a Thursday and there's eight videos uploaded I got time for one mm-hmm I'm not gonna watch all of them you gotta get that bell get around I got down fine art do you watch any modern YouTube videos These days yeah I watched YouTube once wrong because they're always on that bell now oh yeah whole thing

But I watched like the more intellectual content Oh I mean where they're like hey here's this cat jumping through a screen door Oh okay get it cat you know what I mean How you guys doing doing well we got quite the motley crew at this table I'm feeling it excited. I'm really good about this episode. This episode will be worth the dollar. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games we get together and talk about all the things that we love about video games. Ring the bell, motherfucker. Yeah, ring that bell. Ring it. You can get it early. How early, Greg?

So early, you can be watching it live right now as so many people are who give us a buck on patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Or you can watch out your leisure by going to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games and getting the VOD or the early audio. The VOD comes with the pre and post show. Sure. Which we just did a fun thing. You weren't here yet, but Austin took his shirt off during it. You did.

You want to see that. I did. No one's ever seen him shirtless before. No one. So if you want to see him shirtless, this is the time. It was rather breathtaking and spectacular. It's a thing. Did I hear you correctly?

You said this is only a dollar? I thought that it was like five bucks to watch. Oh, that's only a dollar. That's not a deal. Yeah. That's a steal. Yeah. Yeah.

You better be getting it. Or if you don't have a dollar or don't want to give a dollar. It's cool. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. We're trying it really hard and we're doing really well. I'm loving that pre-show, man. Loving that pre-show. That's a lot of fun. Pre-sho's great. We just sit here and talk to the chat. There's not that many people there, so we usually get to talk to everybody.

It's nice. It's fun. Join the crew. Let's start off, right? What have you been playing? Let's start with you, Austin. Okay, things that I've been playing, Monster Hunter. Yeah. Pretty much like it's my job. Yeah. I'm in so deep. Like, any spare time that I get, I'm playing Monster Hunter. So we'll get to a show. Normally we hook up what's called the lab.

We hook up PlayStation's. I hook mine up. Kofi hooks his up. People have their switches out. But we're normally playing like UFC or people are playing Madden. But I have now taken my PlayStation out of the lab. And I set up in a corner by myself and play Monster Hunter. And I cannot stop.

Why is nobody playing next to you? That's the big question. Why are they not there? Why are they not all in Doctrine? Is there a bunch of Tim Getty's fuck boys? You know what I mean? That is a good point. Kofi Kingston is a Tim Getty's fucked.

Boy, if I've ever seen one. No, he's the, he's the Madden champion. Sure, sure, sure. So him and the Uso's always play Madden, but people are always trying to get onto that PlayStation to play Madden. And then E plays UFC, so he's got a Monster Hunter guy. Yeah. But that's just like, that's our rotation. So these guys are dorks.

You're the cool kid. Oh, 100%. Okay. So you're over there in your corner by yourself. Like, is somebody going to like, one day there's going to be sad music playing, you're over there playing your hunt, and then one day somebody comes up with their PlayStation and sits down next to you and it like breaks into the orchestra. And then, like, you bring them into the fold. Now we're two. As long as when we're on missions, they don't die because I want my war.

Oh, the fainting. Oh, the fainting. I hate it so much. It's to the point where I'll be fighting something for like 20 minutes and then someone will come in and just die three times. And it's like, you've wasted my time. Right. So are you patient with an understudy or not?

Like, do you like to bring new people into the fold or you just like, nope, you need to be here to play right now? You need to be here to play. I'll talk to you about it and tell you like, oh, you try this and this and this, but don't come into my time. Don't come into my stuff, but I'll come and help you. I'll help you kill monsters if you're lower level. Yeah.

But I don't need lower level people trying to get into my stuff and wasting my time. I feel like there was two nights ago, Jen and I, we're just cleaning clocks. You know what I mean? We're out there. We're increasing. You're doing amazing stuff. And it was like, okay, let's open it up and let's, you know, you just put out the code, let people come in. And sure enough, we went in there.

And I died right away. And I was like, these people must think I'm a fucking phony ass. I'm tweeting about it, talking about it, nonstop. And here, they pop in, oh, I'm excited to play with Greg Miller. Faints. I'm like, God. And it's the damn T-Rex-Angithas. I hate that.

Oh, man. And like, last night, it was the same thing. We were like, oh, okay, we got on. We're playing. We're just going to farm this quest. Jen needs these skins. And we're doing it over and over again. And like, new people would join him.

We went in there. And it's like, all right, cool. Oh, I forgot. I was finishing something for myself. So I came and joined them. And I'm like, all right, big Greg Miller here to play. thing looks at me, runs me over, bites me, flatch me on, throws me, and I'm dead.

And I'm like, what the fuck? It's like a low-level quest, too. John's trying to knock out easy. She's like, oh, fuck. What you don't notice it on the other end, there's some vengeful developer just controlling that monster. He worked on a layer,

and he's here to take it back. Are you playing Monster Turner? Not right now. I'm a Monster Hunter guy. I remember you, on your first games cast appearance years ago were the one that kind of explained Monster Hunter to me and Colin. I love Monster Hunter.

Monster Hunter Try on Wii. Monster Hunter and DS. Love that Monster all the way back to those those claw days when I'd watch folks in Japan Planned on PSP. I know well. I haven't gotten into the new one, mostly because I was leaving one job, starting a new one, making a series starting here. And so I've done a lot of gaming lately, but Monster Hunter is an investment that I need to give

the proper amount of time to. So a few more days and I'll be in. And I can tell you about what I'm up to whenever my turn rolls around. Awesome. Is this my turn? Well, to keep going with Monster Hunter. Yeah. Do you guys see yourselves playing this long?

long term still. Yes. I'm no end in sight. I'm 85 hours in now. That's my game clock safe, right? Yeah. That only puts me 100, rig 38 based on my, and like, there's kids who are like 150 or whatever already.

Yeah. Like, I'm in. I love this game. I love this world. Jen and I love playing it. The only thing that'll derail it, I feel for me is when the next game that's like big comes around, right? Like Moss was a fun.

I'm going to talk about Moss eventually. Moss was a fun distraction. You know, it's a short game. So it was like, oh, I bopped it out in two settings, and I'm great. and I'm back to Monster Hunter. But when a god of war comes around, right? When there is something big that's going to distract me

for multiple, multiple hours, it'll be interesting to see how it is. But at the moment, like last night, even we were playing and I was grinding stuff for Jen. And it was, all right, cool, this is great as always. Don't make that about me. Don't make that face about my wife and me grinding. I'm pretty sure I'm going to manage through Monster Hunter

to render myself irrelevant to every discussion we have in the show for the next year because I'll pick it up. By the time we sit down next Thursday to record, I think I'll already be into it. But by the time I'm up where I want to be, because it's probably a 400-hour game for me. Sure. Then y'all have moved on to the next thing.

And then I'll be behind that discussion. I'll just going to go on forever. It falls into Destiny Done Right camp for me, where maybe even division's a better example, because I love the division. I thought it did really well. Eventually I'm going to get distracted, but then they're going to put in a quest. Or you're going to say, man, I really want to play Monster. I'll be like, I'll come totally help you farm.

Now this is the big thing. I'd have a heart to heart with our best friend, Cisco. Where you hit me up and he's like, hey, man, we said we were going to be. gonna play, you're not playing with me. And I'm like, dude, it's the weekend. Jen and I are right, we think we're right at the end. Let me beat it. I just, because like, what it does, Tim, is it level caps you, kind of, where it gives

you like, you know, you're 100 ranked 13 or 14 or 15. And it's like, it's saving the progress you're making so that when you do beat the game, it goes, all right, cool, now you're 100 rank 29 is what I jumped to, which was another fake cap at 30. So then I beat the mission last night to go 30, and now I'm 38. So it's like, it's saving that progress, but it's so infuriating. to look at the game, oh man, I've put 75 hours into this game. And then I get in and I'm like, I'm 108, 14 and I'm running around with kids there are 46.

I'm like, fuck this. So I was like, Cisco, you got to just let me beat it this weekend. And then once it's done, I'm available for everything. I will pay it forward because so many kids are coming and helping us out. They're just jumping in that are insanely good that are just making us be bosses so much quicker. So good. It's so great how a friend could just hop in and help you like that. It's fantastic.

I love that element of monster. And that's the thing. So for me, it's like, it's like an MMO on a smaller scale. like an MMO light. So it's got all those things that you want in an MMO as like tons of different content. So like I think it just ended, right in tomorrow, the Riu stuff. Right. Street finder stuff.

Yeah. You can just straight up be Riu. And now it's Aoi from Horizon. Yeah. So there's so much stuff that they're just dropping on a regular basis. But the fact that you can play with so many different people whenever you want and they're all over the world. Like it's a good toe in the water to an MMO. So like I can easily see people going.

from once they're done playing this, if that does happen, like going to like a Final Fantasy 14 or something because they say, oh, it's like the same kind of deal, but there's magic and it's a bigger world. Like it's a cool kind of set way to get people into that world. What works so well with it is that it's so rewarding in the way that like last, I've been running this armor set forever, right? This big gold and I look like almost like a Samrabbit. It's like this giant blocky armor. That's really great. But now I've, you know, unlocked further ones. I'm like, do I want to upgrade that or do I want to, you know, I'm like, I'm going to start making my move for the this next thing armor and so I made that decision and then two or three

hours later had like two or three pieces from it and like I know that sounds long but this is also a game where time melts where it is literally oh man it's 730 I'm gonna play if you and then you look down as 915 like what the fuck just happened so like it's in destiny or I mean like I think about MMO is DC Universe online when it'd be like man I want that house of L that Krypton war suit and it would be I remember doing the math one time and it was like well that's 90 hours I'm never I'm not doing that again. I'm already this far into it. Whereas this one is like,

oh, my sights are set on that. Last night was the moment where I was like, I know how into it, Jen and I are. Because it is like literally, oh, good to see you, catch up on the day,

eat dinner, and then let's fucking play and sit down there. And like the other night, we played till 1145 or whatever, right, which is an obscenely late, but Jen's usually someone who goes to bed early, right?

And so we went to bed, and then the alarm went off. And I'm like, what time is it? And she's like, it's 545. I'm like, you are not the person

who plays till midnight and then wakes up at 545 like she said how to do it just had to do that morning I guess it's that thing of that is what it's all about and that is what's driving and that's why I'm to keep coming back to it

and that is the rewards to it and if I, you know last night we were sitting there and I was like all right fine and I got up and she's like what do you know I brought the computer over I'm like because it's that thing of like

fuck where do we get the elder dragon whatever where do I get this how do I make that drop and she's we're both asking it for our things and we're Googling and then it's like all right I'm going to go do this, you go do that. We're going to set up our own quest, get the kids join us, go get what we need.

How many people can play together at once? Your hub world can have 16 people in it. Your missions can have four. Greg, does plan this change the way when you look about the game like Peace Walker? And think about how when that was originally designed with Japanese audiences in mind, and you could always find people when Monster Hunter craze was going on,

because I was living there, and you couldn't walk in to a McDonald's and not see four people sitting around a table playing Monster. You couldn't ride a train with an ad hoc network in the car, people playing Monster Hunter. Does that change the way you look, go back and look at games, say like Peace Walker, looking at that now and like, wow, I wonder what that was like when you could play at Monster Hunter style. Is there any of that? Oh, I mean, I got to do that with Peace Walker. Did you? Okay. Peace Walker was the breakout game for me.

I reviewed the Monster Hunter ones, right, when I first got to IGN and I, you know, Capcom would come by and explain, no, like in Japan, it's like that. And this is how it already works. And this, and like, I remember playing with the PR person. And it was like, oh, this is awesome. And it's what's happening now where, like, when we play with Grimecraft or it did when we first start. He'd be explaining all these different things and we'd teach him something. It was like, oh, wow, that's great. Peace Walker was the example of I was in love with Peace Walker. Caleb Lawson was in love with Peace Walker. Mike Pereira was in love with Peace Walker. And it would be cool, works done. Let's go to the bar. And we would go to a bar and sit there and play PSP. And I'm like,

this is fucking awesome. Why isn't it always been like that? And it's like, I was talk about it. It was that. And then it was Freedom Wars on Vita that are really the only times I can think of having those experiences where it was like, man, this is the way this, this, system was designed, this game was designed to be played. And that's why it's awesome now to play Monster Hunter and be like, man, like when people compliment it or do this or how we're using, it's just like, this was all on PSP, but the audience wasn't here. And that wasn't how we use it. And so now for it to be in this time, perfect. I think to your point of it being so satisfying when you're getting stuff so much faster than you would in other games, I think the biggest thing for me

is I play with a lot of my friends at home. So all my best friends from like elementary school and stuff are in Atlanta, but I'm never home. And so it's one thing. to like jump on and play like street fighter with them or tech and it's like okay cool we're just mashing buttons and talking and catching up and everything but like monster hunter it's so much easier to i don't know like form a more quality bond playing with people online through monster for some reason and i think it is because like you said time melts so you feel like you're going through something with people and as opposed to like i used to play destiny a lot online and i had like my whole clan and they're like 80 of us in there so we kind of talk and i'm

Discord and then jump in here and there. And it was fun, but to that point, again, like it takes so long to unlock things or get what you want and all the drops are so random. So, like, even if in Monster Hunter, if you need a specific scale or a specific, like, piece of something's stomach, you're still getting so much other stuff with the drops that you can still make things on your way there to keep you satisfied until you get what you're actually looking for. But while you're doing that, the person you're playing with might get the drops that they need. And so, like, it's just a, it's a cool environment. to be able to be a part of because everything brings you together so much more than in pretty much any other game that I played. You always feel like you're moving forward.

Exactly. You're always making progress in what you're doing. Nothing feels like a waste of time. And when it did like in destiny, when I'd be high level and come back and help a friend, you're like try to get a friend into it, it felt like I'm wasting my time to go back. Whereas this, yeah, I'm picking something up. Maybe it's I'm just getting flash bugs that I'm going to use to make flashpods or whatever. It's like, whatever.

It's all paying it forward. And again, because it moves so fast, oh, I want to grab it. grind out this summer hour we can do that no problem especially when you get in there and you're like we're running missions down and killing things in like nine minutes it's like oh easy this is super simple and the facts of with the investigations so if I've got something that says oh uh I need to hunt like three large large monsters or I need to capture this or that like if you're running a quest and I've beat this thing 19 ranks ago I can just come in beat up capture it so like you're getting the quest fulfilled but I'm fulfilling my investigations which will give me more armor spheres

which will let me upgrade my armor that I've currently got, so even helping lower-level people, you're still going to be able to advance your stuff. For the record, and I hate to do this. He means bounties, of course. Bounty, sorry. I don't let them yell at you in the comic. The fake gamer guy!

Sorry, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Sorry, bounties. Forgive me if you guys have covered this on Gamescast before, but I don't think I've heard you talk about it. This is both y'all's first, right? This is my first, yes. I reviewed the two on PSP, but they didn't click. It was work for me, where I was like,

oh, okay, I get this, but it's not mine. So what was it like for you, Austin, playing this? And the very first time you are whooping up on a monster, you're feeling good, you've learned the pattern, and the thing just turns around and runs away. It's the worst. Isn't that? The worst. I had no clue is going on. So one of my buddies was like, you've got to try this out.

You got to play it. It's so much fun. So maybe like, I'm two hours in. I'm like, dude, I don't like this. It's so difficult. It moves around like, it reminded me of blood-borne. And the fact that you press the button and then two seconds later the attack happens. And I'm like, no.

So getting that timing down was aggravating. And he said, hey, go to your, go to your little house, and they'll let you go to like a training area and you can try all the weapons. Once you find a weapon you like, it's going to be so much more fun for you. So found a weapon that I like, switch axe, baby. So I found that out, and it became better.

Then you get the dodging down and it became better. So it went from like two hours into not liking it to like seven hours in. Now it's my favorite game ever. Okay. So like went from seven hours into now we're like 72 hours in. And it's like where did the time go? It's just, and you feel like you're always, progressing but you're always just hitting the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. And so that's what makes you want to come back

So like this one is this gonna finish and it's like never spectacular games It's fantastic series is great do you do you think the next monster hunter is gonna be Switch again or do you think it's good or not again but Nintendo again portable again or do you think it'll be a monster hunter world too I don't have an informed hypothesis on this I think it's an incredible match for switch and because Monster hunter does work really well as a portable series It's just so much fun imagine those little those little grinds you're going on now but if you can just do that on every bus ride every train ride, you know, pop in there. Well, that's the thing of right of if it's on switch and it's, again, it's all the things that are great about world and then all the things that were great about PSP.

Exactly. Where it would be of, yeah, like, you know, it would be, oh, just pop it on for two seconds on the plane, grind out whatever, come back, go online, sync it up, play with the other people. And it's like, yeah, this would be the best. What is the major difference between the portable versions of the game and? They're fundamentally the same. World is, obviously, the online focus is more than we've ever seen over here before.

That's a big part of it. But the other bit is portability. The game is designed to be played in little chunks and in big group settings, both. Those are both very important elements of the game. When you played on the handheld, you always had the ability to sit there and kind of, like he was saying, just grind out a little bit, go after a little something. And then you met your friends and you did something together and you do kind of a dedicated, scheduled hunt.

Then you go off and do your own thing again for a while. And then you pop back in. Switch would allow you to emulate that experience in the United States, which is something that world, as great as it is, is a little less good for it because you can't just take it for that commute. You can't just have it in your backpack for when you got 15 spare minutes to, like you said, just go grab a few components for something. You figure, like right, for what I was talking about, oh, we got 20 minutes or whatever until showtime. I could have easily done the quest, but turning on the PlayStation 4, loading up the game, loading into the world,

picking the quest, loading the map, jumping in. But if it was where it was just like sleep mode, like it was on PSP, and then I come back in, boop, oh, I'm already at my quest board. I'll put it up and go. But then with Switch, you walk up, you do that. And you're like, man, I want to play with some friends right now. Yep. Pop it in the dock. And out you go. And assuming there's some kind of communications matrix eventually designed

to that thing that is less than, you know, completely ridiculous. Yeah. Then you're able to pop on and do some fun. What are the games you've been playing besides Monster Honor? You get your hands on that Dragon Ball Fighters? I love Dragon Ball fighters. I can imagine you do. It's so good.

And it's because I love Dragon Ball so much, but it just like it looks perfect. And that's the thing. Like you feel like you're playing the anime. Yeah. And it's cool because I was at an arcade bar like two weeks ago. Like oh, this is our guy. He's like the best at Dragon Ball Fighters here. I was like, oh, let me play him.

So we went, I ended up beating him in set. So three out of five, but it was the first time that I actually played it against someone, like after I'd had some time to like practice in person. And you know, it's very different playing against someone who's sitting right there rather than playing people online. So like my heart is racing and like my combos aren't coming out and I'm freaking out. It looks like, I'm sweating. And he's sweating him like, oh my God, what's going to happen?

But people are watching because it's like, like I said, because it looks so clean. It's called to watch. Yeah. So it's probably my favorite fighting game out right now. But it's, I'm back and forth between Monster Hunter, Dragon Maw Fighters, and UFC 3. How is UFC 3? I love it. Now, I haven't done any of the story mode stuff.

So like backstage it shows, like we use that. We just play. Exhibition stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I haven't gone through any of like the story mode or anything. but I've heard that it's fantastic. But as far as like a party game,

playing with your friends, like a pass-the-controllers-round type game, it's super fun. Is it easy to pick up? Because that was always with the original UFC game. I remember trying to play it. I think I might even reviewed one. But it was like, man,

this is a complicated control system that takes time for me to figure out. It does take some time, but one of the things that's interesting about it is they have something called knockout mode. And so it's like if you guys want to play but you don't understand the jiu-jitsu stuff or neither throws,

you can just go to knock-out mode, and it's just the person who gets hit like six times their player gets knocked out. Oh, okay. And it they... So it becomes a normal traditional fighting game. Exactly. But it's got the UFC tendencies and they got the announcers and you get to essentially

learn how to throw certain punches and kicks so you feel better with your stand-up. So then if you go into the real game, you're not trying to learn a million things at once. But legit, like, I don't know when we started playing it, it took maybe, maybe like two weeks and then we felt comfortable with the controls. But it is a lot if you're just trying to sit down and play it for the first time. Like in the first five minutes, you're not going to really understand how to move everything around, but it doesn't take too long to get it. I wish one of us were into it because I would love somebody to make Nick.

Yeah. Take him through the story. I love it. There he is. He said his name and he appears. Yeah. Matt Scarfino is somewhere around this building right now. Have you ever played the UFC games?

I played a lot of guy. Not since they switched over. I played them when they were T.HQ. They were really complex. They're really fun. It's just I think when you're playing them and the hard part about them you have three separate systems you have to account for where you have stand-up clinch and then when you're on the ground.

And so I think that was a learning curve for a lot of people that they just weren't really to do. And they're simpler now. Yeah. It's so fun. Are they fun? Yes. So I think what I was talking about there's knockout mode where it's literally just

stand up, a person that could hit five, six times, whatever it is, gets knocked out. So you're just, it lets you just work on the movement and everything in your range and stuff. But it's awesome because it's super satisfying to knock somebody out because the physics of the bodies and Joe Rogan just screaming and it's like the crowd losing their mind. It's so fun. So there have been instances where people bring their kids backstage and would toss the kids a controller and one of the guys' kids who's five years old, he was like wrecking us because

you can just mash buttons, but he's sitting there pressing and screaming because he knows that he's winning. So have they simplified the actual moveset for the three different systems? No. So for this one, it's probably this UFC 3 is more complex than UFC 2 because you can do like, okay so square and triangle those are your jabs but then if you hold L1 it's a hook but if you hold L1 and R1

it's something else if they have like a spinning back fist but you don't have to use those like power punches to knock somebody out you can keep them at bay with just like jabs and kicks so you can play it as simple or as complex as you want interesting so it's it has a learning curve but you don't have to use it

and you can still be good at it without it maybe I'll get to secretly really good at it and then challenge these guys that would be awesome Hey guys, I was thinking I want to take a shot at it I fucking choked everybody out So Jared, what have you been playing? Well, so I have been launching Hot Blip And working over here and was leaving my old job

And so a lot to do during that period of time So I've turned to my old friend portable gaming For the last couple of weeks That's where I've gone is during commutes and stuff Sat down and so I am still making my way up that mountain My friend? Oh, yeah, I am near the best You play Celeste?

Yeah, are you too-D platformer guy? Oh, you're going to love it. Yeah, it's something special. It really is. But the seamless integration of a worthwhile thematic story with action that fits the theme and, you know, not to spoil anything here, but you're going to figure out fairly early that, hey, I got a mountain to climb. Yeah. And you've got a mountain to climb in the story, and you've got a mountain to climb in the game.

And they're both really difficult. And it's very well done. It's a superb game, not quite like anything I've ever played. I've seen the comparisons to Super Meat Boy. They're apt. There's definitely some inspiration there. when you get things like the B sides versus the dark sides and all that. But it feels utterly its own as well.

I didn't know that playing a platformer with a stick could be that much fun. It's superb. Absolutely nailed it. So that's a great game. And I am just continuing to kind of grind through that because there's so much. Yeah, there's a lot of replayability. It's on switch. It's on everything.

But switches, even though the other versions are neat, switches the way to play, in my opinion. That's how I play it. It's a delightful game. Crack. Then I, there was this, this year, Chrono trigger you might have heard of. Sorry for your loss. Yeah, I was very excited.

Oh. I feel the pain too. You feel the pain? Did you run out and buy at the moment you saw the news? No, because I luckily had to wait the next to the next day to get it and my phone was like, it's the phone port. I was like, oh. Yeah.

And so it's a very interesting situation because it's not actually the version of Krona trigger that used to be on phones. There has been a phone. version for a long time, but what they did was they created a new phone version that they updated people that already had Chrone Trigger on the phone and released this at the same time. On PC. On PC. And they're identical, but it's not actually the old phone version.

It's a new phone version. But it's still a phone version. But it's still a full version. Great. So I've been playing the new phone version. That's actually where I've turned to. And you know what? It's not the ideal way to play a Chrono Trigger, but it ain't half bad because it's

Corona Trigger. And on a phone screen, they can get away with some of the things that are harder to get away with in the PC version. So while Kroner Trigger is, I think, inarguably, one of the greatest examples of game making ever. It's superb. You agree. 100%. And you want a game like that to get TLC. Square has done some weird things with remakes and ports.

All right. All right. What's that? What happened with Falafantzzi-6 on the phone? Why is it so smushy-looking? Just all over the map. You've got some weird stuff there. Then you got, you know, Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions on iOS, which should be just like the perfect matching of that kind of game.

Totally. Except it crashes all the time. I'm fancy tactics. Yes, it worked. I told you. Did it happen? Wow. No kidding.

Oh, wow. That's rad. Okay. I'm really excited about that. But yeah, tactics, which should be great, except that it's buggy and it crashes a lot, or has still recently at least. And that's problematic. I mean, you've got this wonderful game with a great translation. And I understand.

I read an article on, on, uh, Touch Arcade recently that was talking about how, hey, look, man, it's not that mobile's the problem. It's that a lazy port is the problem. There are great mobile games out there, and they could have chosen to make a great mobile game, but the person writing this article argued they've learned that the name sells the game and they don't have to put a lot of work into the port. And you remember this going back to, remember you get compilations of old games and sometimes you get really beautiful, real polished ones like the ones that M2 does, for example, for virtual console. Oh, yeah. And then you got some of those that were just obviously thrown into a barrel together and somebody slapped an emulator

on top and hoped it worked. I afraid that Square didn't give the love it deserves and they thought it would be easier to just create something they could put as many places as possible so they could justify the investment. But it's chrono trigger and it deserves a better treatment. So I'm okay, actually playing it on my phone. I think the button placement's a little messed up. That font is ugly. There's some graphical issues there But it sounds pretty nice At least coming out on my tinny phone speaker Have you full with you at Austin at all?

Like you're gonna dive in or? Maybe eventually I'm gonna give it some time Yeah, I wonder it. What's your Chrono Trigger background? So I didn't have a Super Nintendo when I was little So I got into Chrono Trigger like late high school But just like played through it as I don't know if I've played through an RPG as fast as I played through Corona Trigger

because it's just like so good And music is big for me in games. And CrunchG are some of the best music of all time. So it's been a very long time since I've played through it fully. But every once in a while I'll see it like on my shelf and let me play me play for 30 minutes. But I always start over. Yeah. And that's the stuff.

That's where this is so frustrating. Like somebody I saw on the internet the other day, somebody on Twitter was saying that this version of Crona Trigger looks like somebody's first RPG maker game. Yeah, I saw that. That whole thread because it was the guy who was like, holy shit. Tron trigger is out today. Wait a second. This doesn't look good. This looks like RPG maker and then it was like a just a fucking tear down. This is the phone version. And let me tell you what. There's some great RPG maker games out there to the moon one of my all-time favorite video games made an RPG maker. There's some great stuff out there. But this looks like a sloppy project that kind of resembles an RPG maker game and you know you have you were talking about that sound, that music. You know, the beginning of Chrono Trigger on this SNES is that the pendulum swinging and that beautiful and that echo and that lovely music. And on this, it's this weirdly, badly rendered, like, looks like it's on the 3DO, 3D graphic swinging down.

When you get into the game, it's actually a form of pixel art, but there's just these rough edges where you're like, man, you could have tried harder. And you just didn't. So I think the backlash is going to maybe end up costing them more than, but then again, Usually I don't buy bad games Even you know even This time they got me They had the name

Jerry and he fell for it And that's my fault I did the wrong thing I wrote my rule they got me With mobile games I've been playing one called neon drive And it is fantastic It was actually

It was it's also on PlayStation 4 But I just heard of it because I was looking at the mobile app store For things Does it have a platinum? On PlayStation I am not sure But it is a It is such a Tim Getties game

It is a rhythm action game styled after retro 80s aesthetic, very outrun. Oh, with love outrun. Yeah. So it's like it kind of, it starts out looking like outrun, but the only controls that you have are left and right. And it's real simple. And then it kind of turns into a DDR with a controller style experience where this rad 80s retro music's playing as you're going through what looks like Andy Cortez's dreams. You're just kind of driving through it. and you have to just dodge obstacles

and it's all to the rhythm of the music you're playing. So you really get in that like Zen like trance of playing through the game. And right when you kind of get used to it, it'll switch perspectives and go up to like a more top down like old school rad racer. Oh wow, okay. This is really cool.

And then all of a sudden the car will transform, transformer style and it turns into a 2D platformer. But it's all the same type of gameplay of just dodging things. Oh wow, there it is. That's a transformer. Like Blade Runner, Tron, Transformer, Audio, Surf. There's so many fun references and just cool kind of visual nods to things. Like one of the levels actually begins and it sounds and looks exactly like Blade Runner.

And it's like a kind of remake of the Blade Runner theme. As you fly into the city and then you go down into the streets on the cars. It's really cool and I'm having a good time with it. It's one of those things are just like I have, I'm in an Uber. Yeah, so much good mobile gaming out there. I mean, if when you can sift through the garbage, there's so many innovative games that deserve to succeed out there on mobile right now. I, you know, I got mad at Krono-trigger, and I pulled out my old Port of Dragon Quest 1 on mobile, which is perfect. It's a really good little, it's a great little port.

And again, that's another, you know, Squarry inx game, but it's actually works well in the phone. It's charming. It's cute, and it's well done, and I've had a lot of fun with it. And I have also, before moving on there, I did play some more shadow. I'm slowly grinding my way back to that. When I'm at home, that's the other bit and the other reason I haven't not been to Monster Hunter yet, which I will. But I also, and maybe this is a bridge right here because I think this fellow's next, but I am also sitting here resenting that I'm an Android user for the most part. Yeah.

And I can't play Florence. Yeah, you fuck. Lawrence. What's up with I still haven't played it? And I'm really sad. You got to play Florence. You're hyping it up. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And that sucks. Don't let me hype it up. It's a great game. It's a great game. I found it super compelling, emotional. awesome, but I don't how it is. You hype a game up.

And it keeps good, because a lot of people were talking about this at the time, you know, last week. I played on the way to dice or whatever. From a developer called Mountains, published by Anna Pirna. So like, I stumble through that every time, but I think I said it all right there. But, you know, all those guys down there making great games and gals, obviously.

Deb Morris, what up? It is a game that is the entire life. Did you shout out, Dengar? Deb Mars. She's working Sony, Santa Monica, now she works over. Anna Pyrna. Am I saying it right? Jared? You seem like the guy who cracked me on this. Anapurna, thank you. I always screwed up. I can't ever say it right.

That's my favorite Russian novel. Florence follows the entire life cycle of a relationship. That sounds so rough. That's how it was pitched to me, and I played through it. That sounds like a relationship would end, obviously. There's no spoilers here. I don't think you have to worry about that because it's about the journey, not the destination. Yeah. But it is a game that is told through beautiful music.

through ingenious control mechanisms and no dialogue. You're not, they aren't saying stuff. There isn't V-O. There isn't text on the screen. You pick up on the contextual clues of what's happening. And it's, you know, it's drawn and is animated. It's like a,

it's like a graphic novel come to life kind of thing. And there's movement and stuff like that as you walk through. But like the biggest thing I've seen, when I played it and Jen and I, I played, I was playing in Jen and Jen at your phone on it. Made her cry, of course. Because that's, I definitely felt this game afterwards.

But we both said the same thing that I then saw echoed by Joey on Twitter and other people. Like the conversation system in it is really, really well done. And so mild spoilers, but not really is that like when you meet, you're the girl Florence, obviously. When you meet the guy and you start talking, you have to assemble these word bubbles, right? And it's like the word bubble is there. And then there's like colored puzzle pieces that you bring in and like move around to like make it then it makes the word bubble and pops up, right? It's, they don't beat you over the head with it.

If you're flying through, you might not even notice it. But in the beginning when you first meet the person, obviously, she's already seen him. She already knows she thinks he's cute or whatever. She meets them and the puzzles are really hard. Not really hard, but they're, you know, oh, fuck, wait, no, that doesn't go there. Like, you're doing that kind of thing, right? But in that conversation, as it gets going, it gets easier and easier and easier until the end. It is just like moving one giant piece into the thing to have the conversation flow.

I love when a game has an interesting conversation. system. That's great. Oxen Free does some neat things with that. Or the insults sword fighting and Monkey Island, which is one of my all time favorites. That is a brilliant idea. Again, we were talking about Celeste earlier. When you can make the gameplay feel like what's happening in the story. It makes you feel

smart and you're getting it and you're seeing it. There's this thing where they're having like a bad day and like you start assembling the word pieces for the word bubbles and then they start getting like jagged edges. And you're like, uh-oh. Sure enough, it's them back and forth fight. It's like, wow.

And so that's awesome. They have different things in there, you know, like there's some customization to it of you laying out a pattern on something I don't want to talk about. There's like little things of moving in together and then taking his stuff and putting it on your shelves

and your apartment. Like you're moving, you know, you have to take some of your stuff down, put some of his stuff up, but you get to pick and choose whatever you want it to be. And then at the end of it, right, of like having to take those down

and put them back in the box and close the box. It's like, I love that. It's fantastic. The other thing to give it out for, and I know I'm ruining a lot of it, but like the soundtrack, so amazing. I want to say, it's all, it sounds like classical music. It's all like that. I want to say it's all violins, but don't

quote me on that. I've been listening to it. There's piano probably there too, and I'm just not paying attention. But it's on Spotify, even if you're all going to play the game, just go listen to soundtrack. It's awesome. And even there, like, it'd be the thing where we're, we're, I was cooking either night and I had it on. And it got to, like, where there's, like, troubled waters. And Jen's like, oh, no, they're fighting. You know what I mean? Like, it brings back that feeling to it. It's like, it's a game, man. And it's, it's short. I mean, I beat on the flight down there, but it was like, I want to say 30 minutes maybe.

But it's, it's that thing where I'm not paying attention. And it was totally worth the three bucks or whatever I paid for it. It was like, yeah, that's awesome and that's great. Yeah, I download it. Buy games on your droid so that we can have nice things. Nobody buys anything on Android. So he's an impound on Android. There's a game on Android.

You guys know BTS, the Korean K-pop event. So there's a, they. have a sweet game on Android. Oh, really? It's fantastic. That I actually had to change my app store to South Korean app store so I could download it so I could play it. Is it worth it? A 100%. In? It's free. Okay. And thanks. It's amazing. Especially if you like K-pop, because Ryan Clements, your ears are burning. I'm not saying there's no good games on Android, but I have read in more than one place that Android's marketplace is a very different ecosystem than iOS's. And so the chance to sell certain kinds of software at a face value

which is how I prefer to buy things instead of incrementally. It's a lot of hard to do that for certain stuff. And I also guarantee piracy has a lot to do with it because the people that have Android typically have them for a reason. And it is one of those reasons is they don't have the money to buy the new iPhones. And it's like, and it's like, and it's like,

but then there's also the people like Kevin that are just like, I want to tinker every single thing in this iOS and customize the living hell out of it, which also means you know where to download. Are you calling me an impoverished pilot? No. I feel like what you're saying. The way he said he goes, Well, certain kinds of people like to get Android.

Listen here, you're tougher. If you look at the Android pie chart, I think those are two very big ones. I'm a Buccaneer. I'm a buccaneer. But I'm a poor buccaneer. That's me. Florence is great, and they'd be foolish if they don't make a Switch version because the art's amazing.

And so to turn the switch sideways, right, and play it that way. You think it work on Switch? I think it would. I mean, it's got a touchscreen, right? I mean, it would have to be one of those games that is only touch, but I don't think that's a big deal. They've already done that. Yeah, that's happened.

And I think, again, with how, how the e-shop is selling, how indies are going. I think this is a game that most people won't give a lot of consideration to, and it'll always be over there with your Monument Valley where I've heard that's a great mobile game, but I don't ever want to play it. That's me speaking. I've heard. I'm not going to play Monument Valley.

But on Switch, I'd totally play it again and I'd love to have that, especially to see the art blown up. And I'm sure it's super high-res. With the indie stuff coming on on Switch, I feel like it's very much like the Steam Store. Stuff will drop Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then I see stuff Saturday. Like, oh, this game came out. And then I look, oh, this whole new

list of things. It's like, oh, that one's four bucks, this one's seven bucks, and then I've spent like $60 on games on games. Well, it's like Thursday on kind of funny games daily every time you go there and it's 13 new switch games in each hour. I'm like, geez, Louise. I still got to play Space Cats with Lays. We're going to talk about that next week. I was going to talk about Gary today,

but we said to the way of it. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. The random shout-on I want to give that Florence reminded me of in a similar vein of the story of the life of a relationship. One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is a short film called Strangers Again by Wang Fu productions. If any of the Florence's up sounds interesting, I'd highly recommend

check it out. It starts, I mean, it's the story of strangers that meet and then eventually become strangers again. Fantastic. It's so good. I want to watch that. I want to watch that. What else you've been playing, Greg? The other big thing outside of Monster Hunter in Florence would be Moss. Moss, of course, we were lucky enough to play before E3 last year. They hit us up like, hey, these are guys who have worked at Bungie and Rockstar and all these different places and they're making a PlayStation VR game and they know what they're doing and it's gonna be cool and you should check it out and we did a let's play that one up right after e3 when it got announced at uh PSX or I'm sorry at the PlayStation conference which of course was the little

mouse and everybody thought it was mouse guard at first and it's like oh no it's this new thing called moss uh it's it's incredibly special um it's wonderful it's whimsical it's I feel like I've said it before I was talking to Jen about this where I'm like it's a storybook come to life and I know I said that two years ago about song of the deep and I still think it is in song of the deep I still think it's awesome because again song of the deep was this woman telling you this story moss is that and more and it literally is like in our let's play it was us you know sitting there in the library remember you it's a place you i think i've said that a million times but just a picture you're looking around the library in the

books in front of you and then you you know you jump into the pages now having the complete package it's so much more than that and it is that there's this one woman telling you this story right and it is a throwback to that thing. I think, I want to do a Game Over Gregi's show topic a while back because somebody on Reddit put up something really heart-wrenching, I felt, but something you never think about of,

think about this. It was like, you know, today I learned or whatever. Like, think about this. There's a time for every parent where they hold their child for the last time and don't know that.

I mean, like, like, hold them. Not like, you know, hold, you know, like, hug them, but like, hold your, like, when's last time my dad picked me up, right? you're like, fuck, that's heavy. You know what I mean? And this is the same thing playing it. And I think it's the other level of Song of the Deep

where there was a time when I had a story read to me for the last time. And I don't think about that. And you go in this and it's one narrator telling you the story. But when she gets to Quill, who's the female protagonist of this game, Little Mouse, who's on the hunt for her uncle who ran off and never came back.

He ran off on a mission. It's not he went out for cigarettes. She does all the parts. So she's got a narrator voice, then she's got a quill voice, then she's got an uncle voice, then she's got a snake. And it's like,

you're playing through it. It's like, you know, if you're doing it the right way with PlayStation VR, the headsets on, the ears are in, everything's dead. And it is,

you're being told the story. And then on top of that, it is, and this sounds like an insult. And I feel like it also, since we're doing the PlayStation VR show right now, Patreon.com, such kind of funny games,

new episode right now. We say it all time. Like, holy shit, what a great experience. that was my favorite thing in PlayStation VR, blah, blah, blah. Without insulting any other PlayStation VR game I've played, and that's because my footing is, this is the most game, PlayStation VR game I've ever played.

So that's a question I have. What is the game? Because I've seen the trailers, and I watched you play it at your desk, and I still don't quite understand what's going on, like what you're seeing in your VR and what you're controlling, because you have a dual shock. Right.

So you play with the dual shock you're in PlayStation VR. You have two methods of control with the game. with the dual shock. So like the idea is that in the game, you are the reader. And that's what they refer to you as. And there's like reflecting pools and you can look down and you have like this like ghost mask.

Not ghost like scream guy, but like ghost like the anime guy. I don't know. But like you have a mask on and like they quill references that you're, it's like I'm being followed by this reader. And like she found a like an artifact that is, you know, there's an ancient history too.

So like when she runs into people like, oh my gosh, there's a reader with you. Like oh my, you know, they get that you're this tag team duo. So as the real. With the dual shock you have this blue light this like circle light on the screen that you can use to certain objects interact with Because what this game is is a puzzle game. It's a puzzle room every everything you go to different rooms and then there's different puzzles right You're inside of them with quill the little mouse running around

So with the blue thing you know you grab things and pull them you do other stuff so like if you know the last night one of the puzzles I was finishing the game with was Quill hops on this thing like a standing like little tower hits the thing in the center of a gate goes up and it starts moving, but you have to figure out, okay, how do I stop it? Where do I stop it? How do, you know, there's enemies there?

How do I use them to stop it? Shit like that. You're moving and interacting with those things. You can also take control of enemies as the reader, certain enemies. And like, so like there's ones that are shooting. You can take control them and then shoot stuff and then use them in puzzles to shoot the levers

to open new doors and stuff. On top of all that, which is where it gets interesting. And I, where it gets interesting. I'll get to that. A good thing for this game is that I really feel, there's gonna be a there's gonna be a moss too for sure the game definitely is you finished book one of moss and they talk about like the your journey's just beginning and I'm like fuck yes great and as good as this is I fucking hope they make another one the thing is though this is definitely going to be even playing it now you're like this is their uncharted one where this is this is great but next time you're gonna knock it out of the fucking park when you do this because one of the most interesting things they do is and they don't do it enough is that I'm controlling enemies I'm holding doors with the blue light

But then the entire game, you're controlling Quill as well in traditional thing. So I'm moving her with the right stick. I'm fighting. I'm sorry, the left stick. Sorry, I'm bad for the left stick, right? Moving her with the left stick. I'm jumping. I'm attacking.

I'm evading with these things. So there are puzzles that are like, it's like, you know, rubbing your stomach and pat in your head where it is like, all right, cool. I'm holding this guy to use them to block them, but I'm fighting this enemy over there. I need to run her over here and then release him. And it's like, wow, this is a really cool puzzle. design and then there are levels in it that use PlayStation VR in a three-dimensional space or use VR.

So that's another thing. The question I have is why does this game need to be VR? Because a lot of things that you're saying like sounds like it could just be done in a traditional and like looking at what the game seems to be. Yeah. You just can 3D platform or puzzle game. The thing about it is they're good at and again Uncharted 1 and uncharted 2 thing. They're good at making you operate in the three dimensional space later on.

where it was last night, like, there's like, you finally get to the end boss of the game, and it is like a boss thing of like, this giant snake is chasing you and you can use weapons here and there, but it was like,

I was like, fuck, it's like one in the morning, and I'm standing up in the living room. I'm sure if Jen was awake, I'd look like a psychopath, but I've been sitting on the couch pretty much the whole game,

and then every so often, leaning in and looking left and right, trying to find the hidden things. There's like, you'll see an item, and you like, it is that, like, it is that, like, imagine, like, when you're working on a puzzle,

like a real puzzle on the table where you like walk around the coffee cup and you try to get a different angle on it, that's how it is. And you don't, puzzle games for me, I don't like, I don't like getting stomped,

I don't like having my progression stopped, I don't like feeling like I'm beating my head against the wall. And this one is a juniory puzzle game. It's not meant to befuddle you and make you angry, but it also works so naturally. Of it is like, I almost, you know,

like there's these collectibles to get to assemble this like picture. I feel I'm too short or whatever through my playthrough. And I was looking for them because they were, fun to find and it was actually living in the space and moving around and moving my head around and seeing how it works and figuring out how to take down enemies or how to get over there and stuff like that the games beautiful graphically the animations for quill are awesome like awesome like there are times where I'm playing it's VR so the visual qualities downgraded a bit but that works for it where I'm playing I'm playing like fuck I'm controlling her and that looks like I'm seeing an animated movie

like something's actually happening the way it should be and then they do such a a great job of you're playing through the woods and stuff and they're telling a narrative story around you of like you know there's this whole animal kingdom but early on even you're going and like oh this bridge is a sword and then you walk into this thing and like oh this is like a knight's chest armor that I'm walking through that they've made it and then it's like there's this like battleground of all these swords in the ground and stuff like that and like oh man what the hell happened here and there's all but you go through the forest and you go through the muck and you go through the sand and then last night and I don't because of how you are

works and the way it locks you in and shows you what it wants you to see i don't think i've had a gaming experience like this where all right i've done all the stuff and like i've i've begun at this point to take for granted how great this game looks and how it all is and you walk in and it's just it's just blinding white light and it's just beautiful it's just beautiful white marble it's bright the sun's coming through like an amazing cathedral and then this is after having okay cool i'm in the forest falling through a hole and then in a pitch black room where I'm running around and just my little blue thing

is giving off light and it's like, holy shit, I forgot this game is stunning. Like this game is something really, really special. It's short. I know a lot of people are cranky about that, but I mean,

like, it's another one of those experiences I think's there. And I think PlayStation VR fans are there because we understand what we got with this thing, right? It's Gen 1 tech. This is by far the most gamey game you've had, though.

Not to take away from super hot, which I think's great. But super hot is like, cool, I'm dodging and this is how it is. Whereas this is like, oh, cool, it's puzzles. and it's combat. And the combat's like one of the weaker parts of it

where I'm like, either give her more moves or dial this back a bit because it was by the end. I'm like, I got it. I know how to dodge these things. This is just kind of getting annoying. And Greg, to be clear, this is a third person experience, right?

You're right. Right, yeah. Quills, imagine like you're in a diorama and you're controlling the character running around the diorama and you can move freely. And like, again, what you're talking about, like, what does PSVR add to it or VR in general?

It is the thing that with the blue ball, technically I guess you could put it on a stick. Yeah. like you put on the right stick, but with it being your hands, it is, oh, I need to get back there, I need to get a little bit further. I reach out and I do one of these kind of things to grab. With the dual shock. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Move my, move my reader's ball further back into the world. So this is something I have noticed is most of the VR titles that have really impressed me up to this point have been third person. And it's striking. I didn't

expect that when this technology emerged. I think like most of us, I expected it would just be about being plopped in a world from my first person perspective. And that's, and again, and again the way people are using this to tell stories you couldn't have told any other way, but from an outside observer's perspective, I'm fast. It sounds like Jim Henson's the storyteller, the game. Yeah. I cannot wait. I love that conceit in games.

The beginning of Princess Crown has always captivated me, which starts kind of the same way. But the fact that they stick with that metaphor all the way through, I am beyond sold. Yeah. This sounds spectacular. And it's that thing where, again, it's uncharted one. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's got like an 8283 on Metacritic right now. And I might go a little bit higher, but not much.

You're right in the right in the right range there of how it's supposed to be. And to Tim's point, it sucks that you ran away, little baby bladder, little baby bladder of like, you know, it sounds like something could be done somewhere else. There's another game and I don't remember the name off top of my head that does this similarly of I'm in the audience watching like a stage play in controlling it. And I played about 20, 30 minutes of it. I was like, I'm out. A VR game? Yeah. Because it was just like, to the point is I am just sitting there doing this.

I could not this doesn't need to be VR yeah and whereas this one VR added so much to it and it was clearly a passion project for them to build this and make a VR game that is awesome and does feel like a game and in the same way I was talking about Metal Gear showing me like oh fuck like metal gear solid this is what games can be the stories they can tell is like oh fuck this is what VR can do yeah and to your point like I think third person works so well because it's something you already know and it's not It's not obtrusive, right? Like, I was talking to Jen about it, and I was just like, this is great, it's beautiful

Bonn. She's like, yeah, I just wish I could play VR. And I'm like, this one you might be able to. It isn't first person. It isn't on rails. You are, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like you're like getting that weird wobbly effect from it. Yeah.

And any VR experience that I've had. So I've got the PSVR. I've got the Oculus and I got the Vive. Sure. So Vive is easiest for my stomach because I'm actually getting to move around. Rift is 50s. Fantastic because you got pretty much the same game just easier setup so but the PSVR usually messes me up Oh really? Because anything where I've got the headset on I've got the headphones on but I'm moving

Like I'm walking rather than like the teleport motion Yeah, yep, yep yep, yep the just a regular motion my stomach instantly goes sure and I and I'm out So then there's so many like cool looking games that I want to play on it and as soon as I realized like there's like What was one where you're like in a meck and you're flying around and Oh the one It was one of the experience ones, right? That came with the, when VR first came out. It wasn't one of the experiences, but it came out at launch.

Oh, Riggs. Riggs, the sports game. So it looks so awesome and so much fun. But as soon as I got into it, it was moving while not physically moving, I was out. And even with like Resident Evil. I can't play it because at least give me like a walking motion when it's just floating through. My brain and my stomach become unattached and then I don't like it. That's why I think this is a good.

in a way to ease you into it right because it's not that and that I totally feel you Riggs was the same way for me where I was there I was like I've got the demo at packs I'm like great and like oh cool I'm in the thing and it was your elevator going up and the elevator stopped and my body felt like it kept going and it was like oh fuck like yeah I've heard that about rigs a lot yeah for most of the people I know who have played it have had the complaint yeah but games like um sorry like Robo Recall on the rift where you're actually where you're using the deal of teleport yeah teleports is big people like teleboard a lot now yeah yeah yeah It makes these stuff so much better for me.

But to your point of, like, it being a third person, like, sounds kind of awesome. Give a shot. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's the two thumbs up from Greg Miller. 100%. Jack out Moss. Ladies and gentlemen, kind of funny games cast is brought to you by Blue Apron.

Greg, you know all about Blue Apron. I do. I love Blue Apron. You and Jen been getting it for at least a year now, it seems like. Yeah, I mean, I was a customer before they ever started sponsoring the show, which was easy for us to take this sponsorship. Yeah, Blue Apron is the number one fresh ingredient recipe delivery service in the country. The mission is to make incredible home cooking.

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There's the two-person meal plan or the family meal plan. Both of those are pretty self-explanatory. What's been new? What have you been eating recently? Last night, we don't even talk about this. I know that you just know that I did.

Last night I came home. This is why I love blue apron. I love cooking. You know this. Austin. You've seen cooking with Greg. I come home last night. I am just want to play a monster hunter.

I'm like, where are we going to go out to eat and I look around the boxes on the floor. Already unpacked. I'm like, nailed it. What do you want to eat, babe? And I went over there picked up. I did Parmesan-crusted steaks last night with mashed potatoes and broccoli. My god. Is that what we're eating tonight?

No. We're doing pizza tonight. Now we're just playing monster here at the studio. You miss out on a home-cooked meal now, brother. But that's what it looked like. Oh, okay. Right? Yeah. So what? Can you explain this to me? Because I don't know what it is. So Blue Apron, you sign up, right? And you pick your meal plan. You can have what is it? One, two or three meals a week, I believe.

Tim's looking at the cop. I do the three meal plan. The two-person meal plan, you choose from eight new recipes per week with the choice to receive either two or three recipes. My apologies. So we do three. So every once a week, every Tuesday, we get a box delivered. You open it up and there's three recipe cards in there that are step by step. All the ingredients are in there and they're all pre-packaged. So what you do is you can turn off your brain.

You learn how to cook something new, but you don't have to worry about like, oh, do I have this? Do I have that? Everything's there. And you flip it over. And it's just like, all right, cool. Start your oven. Last night was like, I think, the instructions. You know start the oven at 450 put it in the center rack.

Start boiling a salty thing of water. Wash all the vegetables, you know, large cut the potatoes. And it's just step by step by step and you go through and do it all. Dude, I'm in. What do we have to do? All that you got it to God, you're professional. Blue Apron is treating kind of funny gamescast listeners to $30 off your first order. If you visit blue apron.com slash gamescast.

So share out this week's menu and get your $30 off at Blue Apron.com slash gamescast. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And shout out to Aaron. to Aaron, Jeremy, Casey, Jose, and Dylan, all folks that I gave away my free meals from my, because I'm a real blue apron customer. They give you free meals to give away. And on Reddit, some guy gave away his. And he was, and then so many people were like, I'd love these.

And I was like, oh, anybody want mine? And those guys hit me out and they got them. That's awesome. And kind of funny games guys is also brought to you by 4hems.com. Let me tell about 4 hymns. It's a one-stop shop for hair, loss, skin care, sexual wellness, wellness for men. It's medical grade solutions. Real doctors offering well-known generic equivalents to name brand prescriptions to help you keep your hair.

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They don't have a fun thing. For him. Do something for you. Do something for you. So Greg, topic of the show time. Tots, tats, tats. It's been a long time. We usually just talk about all the games.

We've been playing for an hour and a half and then call it a day. My topic of the show, sure. It's for you. Austin Creed. Okay. It's a serious topic, too. Ooh. Top level, I want to know

what it's like being a black nerd, a black video game fan. And I say this because of a great conversation that happened on our subreddit. I feel like this is also sponsored by our subreddit because I keep talking about that. Reddit.com slash our slash kind of funny. There you go.

When we did our Black Panther, MCU and review, you know, went up and we were all like, yeah, black panther is a great movie. Maybe not as good as everybody was saying it was because we saw it, you know, opening night. So it was just the advanced reviews that are like, this changes everything. The most spectacular, craziest movie you'll ever fucking see.

And we're like, oh, it's good or whatever. Yeah, we liked it. But we ranked it high in MCU. We got to go check out that thing. Anyways, though, that went live. And on our subreddit, two really respectful threads went up. But one stood out to me. And it was a guy posting me like, hey, I love the guys.

I love MCU and review. I think they missed the mark here. I'm black. This is what it meant to me. And then it started in this really respectful conversation. of people would love to see more diversity on our show, that they would love to see us on MCU for Black Panther bring in a black voice. And that's come up before. Like when I, back in the old days in the old spare bedroom, right? Like we did a topic on Ferguson when it popped off.

And I was really emotional, really angry about it. And it was like, great. You know, we were, we agree with you, Greg. But like, I really wish you guys would have had a black voice on this. And it was my response of, I hear you, but then I feel shitty doing the token thing of calling somebody I don't hang out with often or whatever to be like, we need a black voice. Come on and be that guy. You're here because you're awesome and you love video games and you're our friend. But it is like, it's not just like, hey, we're talking about black games today.

You're like, you know what I mean? Let me tell you something. Tell me about that 50 cent. Dude, Jeff Jam vendetta is so good. DeFJetra let's go. But legit, that's a really good game. Not to put any of stigmas on it. So, and I had said that then it's once or twice come up before. And then you know, Black Panther has happened and it was that, huh?

And I had thought about that. but it never happened. And also it is that like, who would I get for that? Like, who do we know in that space that would work? And it's like, would it be worth flying Andre the black nerd up here? We don't have unlimited budget. Like, you know, it's a thought that goes through on my head or ever, right? But then the conversation kept going from there.

Again, I love you guys so much. It was so respectful. Like, I hear you. And then I got popping up and be like, oh, I am black. And I love, you know, listen to NBA shows, but I don't expect the guys to talk about the NBA. So, like, you can't come in here and put that on them. And they've talked about the show. And everybody's like, I understand that.

but eventually somebody said something that I found really compelling of just like we had announced Jared yet but we were teasing a new host and they were like I understand but it's in the same way that with this new hire I hope it's a black voice and somebody said but realistically who would that be I can only think of five black gaming journalists or gaming personalities and they listed them and one of them and this isn't me knocking it was Bobby amos from IGN who I've done tons of Madden videos with and he does the call of duty videos we used to when we work there and I love Bobby but not a journalist it's not like he's out of there, you know, going to press conferences and taking notes.

Not that, whatever. That's what defines gaming journals. How do you go to a press conference and take that? Where's your badge? He's a personality, right? But it was like Austin Walker and Bobby, and I was like, wow, that is a super short roster. And so all that leads me to hear where I need to have that conversation with someone like

yourself who is involved in this, who is a fan, who has a YouTube channel, who does all of stuff. Why is it like this? Why is it? Where are we? Yeah, like, where, why is it that there aren't as many black voices in? video game critiquing or nerddom in general, I guess, if that makes sense. Or am I missing them all?

No, I don't think that you're missing them. I think that there are more than people think that there are, but they might not have the platform that other people might. And I think that that comes from, let's go backwards in time. So growing up, so I was born in 86. Okay, so growing up like throughout the 90s, in the South, Bible Belt, in Atlanta. before then lived in Inglewood, California for a little while. So, like, dealing with gangs and stuff there,

and then moving to Georgia, dealing just with being one of the very few black people, like, in my school, in my community at the time. Not the fault of the kids that I hung out with, but just because the way that things were, they expected a black person to act or be a certain kind of way. And that was Donald Glover does a really good stand-up on it, one of his older ones,

where he says, you know, as the black kid in school, say they said, oh my God, the black kid in school, what kind of hats do you wear? What kind of basketball teams do you like? What kind of shoes are you dig? He's like, I like school in comic books. Like, no, you're black. Tell us what kind of shoes to wear.

And so while he's joking, like that's a lot of what a lot of us as young black kids who were nerds went through. So it was a situation where, and people say this term lightly, like, oh, like, you're an Oreo. Like, oh, you're black on the outside, but you're white on the inside. Like, you don't like black stuff. You don't talk black.

And it's like, that's not really a thing. And it's something that was very, it could be very detrimental at times to hear, like as a young black kid. And there's an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air where, so everybody knows Carlton and how he is in very Ivy League and Princeton and stuff. And so there's an episode where people,

other black guys are making fun of him saying that he's not black. He has an act like he's black. And he says, I think something along the lines of being black, you can't act black. You just are black. Black isn't something that you do when you wake up. It's just something that you are from birth. But I think that that gets mixed up in a lot of people's minds

and stigmas and stereotypes get thrown on. So me personally, so I loved school. I love comic books. I love video games. And I wasn't at the time, what you would call, the stereotypical black person. And so I got a lot of flack from people, like on both ends from white kids, from black kids,

from all kinds of kids. just for being a nerd in general. And so it kind of created a scenario where as a black kid going through that, you either stay the course and you do what you want or you take the easier route, which is no fault of anyone's. It's just you don't wanna get made fun of.

You don't wanna get yelled at. You wanna have friends and you go the easy route and you kind of drop all that stuff and you kind of fall more in line with what people believe you should be rather than what you wanna be. And the way that that kind of plays into our adulthood and with this topic of Black Panther, with all the talk of equality in Hollywood and things like that,

there's this kind of thing that's been pounced around that movies with predominantly black cast won't move well. They won't make money. So that's why they don't make them. And it's like, well, the reason that Black Panther was such a good thing for just black people in Hollywood and then black people in general, because it showed that's not a real thing. If you have a good story with good actors with like money behind it and good promotion, just like you would with any other movie with any other kind of cast, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, what have you, it'll do well and make money.

So this kind of smudge on us as black people that we can't do or that we're lesser than. Black Panther in that sense has kind of helped us feel a lot better about that. because we can kind of show the world. Like, no, you've been wrong about us. And the only thing that I know that I want for black people in games, in movies, my main push was in wrestling. That's why we created a new day. We wanted black people to have a clean slate

just like everybody else. Because in wrestling, for instance, there was a time where as a black performer, you either danced a lot or you were just the big, strong black guy, or you were the foreign black guy. So at the time, I was the dancing black guy. E was the strong black guy. And then Kofi was the Jamaican black guy.

And those were like the three archetypes of black wrestler. And so right before we started New Day, we sat and we talked. We said we want to break away from this and just be whatever we want. Because if we were the same three guys, but we didn't have dark skin, people would see us and they go, okay, they can be whatever they want. He can come out and he can have like a chef gimmick. Or he could be like a rock star gimmick. or he could be a techie nerd gimmick. Like we could be anything that we wanted to.

And so with New Day, we chose to be ourselves. And when we got to a certain point, we did like the gospel stuff at first because everybody hated it and kind of got it to like a fever pitch. And then it's like, you know, now we're just going to be us because it kind of set the table for that.

And so for us, it's a clean slate because this is how I am. This is how I act. That's how Kofi is. And so for people to see Black Panther, it's like that's how those acts. And that's how those roles are played, you know? It doesn't have to be a thing where

Where you say this is this won't do well because of these people's skin You know, it's the actor the person inside the character the way they're written the the the setting of the movie like and I don't this would probably be a few spoilers, but just like being able to take The African culture and make it so badass like my favorite part of the whole movie was when they started to be a few spoilers, but just like being able to take the African culture and make it so badass like my favorite part of the whole movie was when they started fighting each other and you saw them they have like the kente cloth shields like that popped me the most because it's not like oh technology occurred so like they just get rid of all this culture and you know make this new stuff it's like no they take their culture that is within them and they add technology to it so there's a lot of small things within the movie that just kind of for lack of a better term like just like make you proud to be a black person because they could

have just like done away with things and been like oh okay there's flying cars there's this that everyone's wearing suits. Everyone's just, they're like everyone else that has technology. It's like, no. They're like proud African people. Sure. With technology added on. And so that's a very long-winded answer to try to work around and explain

like why it's important. But I don't think that it's necessarily a thing where if you don't think the movie is amazing, like you're not racist or anything. And I feel like that's how people will take a lot of stuff like I heard. Well, that's the internet. Let's boil it down to 20-40 characters. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, so I saw like some of that stuff and then so take it back even for like when Wonder Woman came out One of my friends was like oh I don't like Wonder Woman and he said it like on the internet They're like oh you're sexist. You don't like women. It's like whoa whoa No, I didn't say that at all like I just didn't like that movie So it's it's weird especially in this day and age and this time like it's almost like you're like walking on eggshells to make sure like You don't get like pushed into a corner and people saying stuff about you. That's not true But at the same time

It's it's I think this is good that you guys wanted this type of discussion because it is from one perspective from from the guy who's talking on Reddit like not that you guys can't talk about it but coming from the perspective of a black person who like lives this life every day and understands like the different things that we go through like I don't understand what you guys go through like as white males you guys have your own struggle as a black male I have my own struggle and so this movie kind of helped helped our struggle a little bit and so that's that's why we feel good about it

That's kind of what it means to us. Do you see it for video games? Getting better, being better? Is it already changing? I think definitely it's on its way. And so I'm talking about the stuff that I went through as a kid. I think I went through those things because there wasn't anybody who looked like me in the space at the time. And granted, so you said you could only think of like five people.

That's five more people than we had when we were growing up. And there's definitely, so there's five, if you say five, like five people up. here, but there's so many more that are sprinkling, like everybody's like on the come-up. So as a kid with the internet, I can find someone that looks like me that's doing the things that I want to do. And that, I can't explain the immense help that gives you as a child knowing, oh, if I stay on this path, I can get there, but not being able to see anybody in the space that looks like you. It's kind of, it's detrimental, definitely, but it's very disheartening because then you start to listen to people

and they say, oh, you're black, you can't do this. And you're like, well, I don't see anybody that's telling me any different. I don't see anybody doing different. So maybe they're right. But actually seeing faces in that space and seeing seeing articles

and seeing them on video and seeing them like come through your town with whatever they're doing, seeing them at E3, seeing them at Pax. It just helps you to know that you can have a blank slate and you can, for lack of a better term, be whatever you want to be.

Yeah. Austin, did you ever see Robert Townsend Hollywood shuffle. I did not. Okay, well then there's the end of my question. Okay. You know, being who I am, looking at the whole situation, like the tip of the spear when it comes to, you know, kind of women in gaming and how we're finally at a point that it feels like there's been some momentum towards like a better new woman running IGN, right? Like for IGN games is run by a female for the first time ever. It's more women working there than ever and working in the entire games industry than ever. And I, you know, it's like the it's not. Perfect yet, but and it probably never will be, but at least we're making the steps, right? I feel like there was that initial wave that first wave for women where It had to be about them being women. It had to be girls on games or you know Whatever it is and there's nothing wrong with that and then you see it with black nerd where it's like that needed to be kind of his

I don't know speak for him, but you wouldn't see Jared come out with you know the white nerd. It's like it kind of It sucks to that. No, you will. I would not. No, but like it sucks that it goes without saying that that's just, oh yeah, yeah, no, I can be whatever I want, but that these groups feel the need to kind of have that be their, they're, for lack of a bit of her gimmick, you know. I think that it's, it's less that it's, I'm sure for some people it's a gimmick, but I feel like the sentiment is because it's still fairly fresh. So I would think If I'm young me now And I'm looking for

Like a black journalist Or a black guy in video games And I look up And I don't know what to Google I don't know who's named to Google I Google show me a black nerd And I find Andre the black nerd I'm like oh

Okay hell yeah I can rock with this guy And not that it always needs I don't need to be like oh I'm black Austin Creed But like as So like people that are kind of kind of, let's say, pioneering or spearheading. I don't think it's a bad thing, let's say girls on games.

It's easy to find. They can find them and rock with them, they can watch their stuff, but then as we go down the line and there's more and more and more, that's when we start to shed that and come closer together rather than highlighting our differences. Sure. I mean, I think it has its good and bad things,

but I think at the forefront of it, so like now, I think it's fine to have those monikers and things like that. But then again, as we move on, we start to shed them everybody can just be people. And again, it's difficult for me to say all these things because I do not want to put words in people's mouths,

but I was so happy to see Andrew Renee and them do what's good games and have that be the name because I do feel like we are finally at that point where the first round is, we're past that. Like, you know, it's they, everybody can watch that and understand what it is. They're very clear publicly, right? This isn't, we're not, girl, I mean, they say girl,

but that isn't their leading message. There's people who like games and have a podcast. We're all friends. We're all friends and we're very knowledgeable and we're a great group of people. And this is who we are. And I think that that is a very, very powerful message. And it excites me that we're going to get more things like that. Okay.

No, I'm good. We solved. Okay. Done it. It's solved. Sorry. Yeah. It's one.

You know, because it is that thing of like I started responding on Reddit and it was that thing of like, no. You know, I don't. I really, I can tell you over and over the way. I've thought about it or hemmed and haught or done whatever. The fact that they're like, oh man, I really hope they, you know, hire a person of color. And then somebody was like, well, don't forget about like Andy and Kevin and Joe. I'm like, they're like, yeah, you know what I mean. And again, everyone's respect.

We're like, yeah, I know what you mean. It is that thing of like all of our contributors, right, are doing it out of the kindness that they're hard. Yeah, we give them a few pennies. But it's not like we've never been able to. We aren't at the point yet where we're like, let's hire a full-time host and do a nationwide search and find the next person. Yeah. Greg, if you want to give me a race, you're welcome.

Sure don't. Sure don't. They got your lunch. Yeah. You got your beef from Rockley. Thank you, awesome. Thank you very much. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been kind of funny games cast.

Until next week, I love you. Wow, that was just that's that was it. You just do it abrupt every time. You didn't say up, up, down, down. YouTube.com slash up up, down down. For watching live, we're going to stream on it tonight, do some Monster Hunter. Yeah. Watching later, do you archive your streams?

Yes. We do. Switch. TV slash I think it's Slash off and creed Yeah, yeah I'll pin myself

Here's my message Hey everybody Don't be racist But you can catch me on Twitter At Xavier Woods, PhD Same thing on Instagram On Snapchat

It's used food My dad used to call himself that And then when I became an adult I realized what he meant Because used food Oh That's nasty So he's the

Shshshh He's the shit He's the shit He's the shit Yeah my PG thing on in my brain. I know, yeah. That's why I only operate in X.

But then now you catch me on YouTube. Channel is up, up, down, down on socials. It's up, up, down, without the O's. So follow us and we'll tell you what's going on. But when you go subscribe on YouTube, make sure you do two things. Hit that notification bell and any video you watch. Matter of fact, any video you don't watch,

hit the like button, the thumb, because analytics are good for your boy. But if Dan Reichard's in it, voted down. Well, down. I mean, yeah. Well, here, vote it up, but on Twitter, send him a picture of you doing a thumbs down. It's nailed it, perfect.

Everyone who's watching this, I would be very happy if you send a picture of you doing a thumbs down to Dan Reichard. Austin Creed, master of algorithms. I love it. The master of algorithms. And now, until next time. I love you.