Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Console Wars Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 39

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Tim, Greg, Blessing, and Imran discuss Hades, Mario 3D All-Stars, Going Under, and review the documentary Console Wars. Time Stamps - 00:04:00 - Spider-Man 00:08:34 - Hades 00:25:48 - Going Under 00:37:02 - Super Mario 3D All-Stars 00:49:39 - Console Wars Movie 01:10:22 - Post Show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, guys, welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes, joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. I already got the boost on train rolling. Oh, is that where we're going? No. That's right. No, no. The new face of video games blessing at Aeo Ye Jr.

It's me. So I got my switch, right? And right now, I'm playing DocuCon Country 2. Fuck, yeah, you are. As you sure. I got my new joycons, you know, my blue and yellow. and I'm really excited about. And I realize the thing.

I realized that growing up, I only played the first level of Diddy's conquest as I'm looking at it right now. I'm like, I've never seen anything past this. And so one, I'm excited to play through it for the first time. But then two, is Donkey Kong in this game? Or is it like a military child in a situation where it's like you just plays Diddy and Dixie?

Dude, oh, I am. You're asking all the right questions here. I'm flabbergasted that you have not, that you, the king of Dongtober itself, have not played through Donkey Kong Country 2. And you love Donkey Kong Country 1? Oh, yeah. Dude, I adore Don Kong Country 1.

And to be fair, I play through Don Kong Country 1 on my Game Boy Color. Like, that was the way that I originally played through that game. I played the original also at a friend's house. But, yeah, no, my Don Kong fandom comes primarily from DK 64. Imran's famous thing I've ever heard. The former and former Imran Khan. Hi. Imron, give me your DKC2 take.

It is one of the best 2D platformers, in my memory at least. I don't know how well it holds up now. But like, it was so much better than Dunkinand Country that, like, at the time it was mind-blowing. As far as I remember, it has held up since then. Oh, it does. And I'm so excited if you bless. I'm going to need some like up-to-date texts on going through this game. Oh, I got you.

Moments, man. When you get to the Bramble Blast level. Oh, yeah. That's another thing is I've heard the soundtrack a lot. Like I've listened to the soundtrack just being like, oh yeah, this shit slaps. Like sticker brush, Sticker Brush Symphony I know is a jam. Bramble Blast or whatever.

I know it's, I know the same thing. The same thing. The name of the level that Sticker Rush Symphony plays. Gotcha. Stickerush Symphony is like in brawl a lot too, isn't it? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. The dopest remix of all time. I remember that song sticking out a lot. But yeah, I mean, I'm excited to play through. I'm playing a lot. I've been playing a lot through a lot of classic games lately. It's been a great time. There's a theme park world.

That theme park world will blow your mind. Just like a near automata. Less killing, but maybe about the same about killing. Ladies and gentlemen, 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 to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can get the show early watching live on Patreon.com. kind of funny games.

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You'd be awesome in other ways. Watch us later on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, roosterteat.com, or listen to us as a podcast. Just search for Kind of Funny Games cast on your favorite podcast service. And we'll be right there for you. Guys, I want to get into this. Before we talk about what we've been playing, I want to talk about something that we're probably all going to play in some way, shape, or form. Greg, you and I just did the RTF superhero panel. I'm sure we'll go live on Roachit.com at some point soon. And something you said kind of like triggered something in my mind.

You were talking about Spider-Man on Spider-Man remastered coming out on PlayStation 5. I assume we're all extremely excited about Maas Morales. Oh, yeah. You said that you are planning on platinuming the Spider-Man remastered. That's correct. where imron and bless where do you fall on that i don't know that i'm going to go back and platinum that game again but like i say that there's like a reasonable chance i just get bored one week and like yeah sure

let's just platinum it let's skip every cutscene or whatever and get through this as fast as possible and it wasn't a hard platinum so okay now that i'm i'm talking myself into doing it now so i'll probably actually do it what a fucking game like i think it's so cool that it can come out as a remaster with minor changes and a couple new trophies. And it's like, already, we got two out of four of us being like, it's happening.

Bless, where are you at? I'm not going to. I don't think they're going to either. Like, I think you're going to, I think you guys are going to play Malth Morales, platinum that and be like, oh yeah, there's a hundred other games are out right now

and then transition to those games. We're going to be going to find a way. We're going to find time to Platinum Sparty Man remastered. Spider-Man, the original platinum's like one week or end, one weekend. I remember I beat in a weekend.

And then I went through and had a great time running through doing all stuff. I'd love to see the story again. Hopefully I have my suits. I can unlock suits faster. You know what I mean? Like, I want the end of the Spider-Ver suit faster than... Yeah.

If they let me, like, just play the game with Spider-Vers suit from the beginning, then I'll probably play that game over again. And then it's going to be like a very short trip to platinum get from there. I don't know where you guys are going to find the time. Yeah, I don't know that I'm definitely not platinum. I didn't say I'm going to do it right away. And it's like, it's the first thing I do, PlayStation 5 out of the box. First thing I do is, yeah, platinum and Miles Morales.

But I am so excited to see how Spider-Man runs with all the fancy new stuff and tech going on, the ray tracing and all that. Because Spider-Man is one of the games that I pop it on every once in a while, just when I'm just like in here in the theater just popping around being like, I want to see something pretty. The HDR in that game is fantastic. Barrett is actually running the show right now. Barrett. Yo. You finally told me you're making the jump. Yeah.

You're getting one of the LG OLEDs. Yeah. It's coming by Tuesday. Oh shit. I'm very, I'm nervous and I'm excited. This is the most I've ever put down on a TV ever in my life. And so like, I'm just naturally nervous as I usually am about everything in life. But yeah, that's coming by Tuesday, I think, at the latest.

I'm excited to get it installed. The current TV I have, we're going to put in our roommates room. And yeah, I get it all set up and I want to, I want to, like, I'm trying to think in my mind what to play first on that. And someone's- Okay, I'll give you the order. of operation. No, someone threw out their Tetris effect, which I think is a really good move there. Yeah.

What do you got to? That's cool. That's cool. But I really think step number one needs to be ratchet and clank. Pull it up, run around a little bit and just see how crazy these colors can be. Yeah. Then pop into Horizon Zero Don. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not going to pay money for that too. Nope. Here's, oh, okay. If you had access to it or if you wait for the PlayStation PlayStation Play. collection, then you'll be fine. But the H-Dor just walking around. I go back to for the PS-plus collection, for sure. You don't even play through it.

Just walk around for like three minutes and just see how crazy this sort of looks. But then load up Spider-Man and play for like an hour. Just swing around and see what happens because you have to get through one of the sunsets. Seeing the sunset with the H-D-R and 4K stuff, great stuff. Yeah, I don't think I've actually touched Spider-Man since before this current TV, which does have 4K HDR. It's just not an OLED screen. The last time I played Spider-Man

was just on a 4K TV without HGR. So I don't think I've ever played that game with HDR. So. What an experience. I know. I want to say a Resident Evil 2 is also a really good OLED game. No, that's too scary. Okay, yes.

Because it's one of those things that like, this is complete darkness. I cannot see shit and that's great. Like it's, it managed to make an OLED look amazing despite seeing nothing. God. I love it. Anyways, enough about those old games.

Let's talk about some new games, Hades. Who wants to start? I'll start with Hades. Hades is fucking amazing. Holy shit. Hades, like, I've had this game on my Epic account for the last, God, well, it would have been the day the game came out on Epic Game Store. So that's 2018, I think.

This game was shown at Game Awards, right? And it was like, it's available now in some type of early form. It was the game that launched the Epic Game Store, essentially. and like I had it and I just never booted up. It's like, oh, early access. I'll wait or whatever. Then I keep hearing of people, oh, this game is actually really good. Like, Super Giant games are always good.

Like, mostly narratively, mostly in terms of art, rarely in terms of gameplay. Like, they're fine, but nothing ever like popped for me personally. But I basically, until the 1.0, I didn't really do much with it. Then we got Switch codes and I was like, okay, sure, I will play this game. it is it went very quickly went from hey this game is pretty good to holy shit this is one of the best games of the year

because the way a game feels is very primarily important to me and Hades feels so good it feels like every single movement is exactly what you want to do and it's like buttery smooth the entire time

plus I'm with you there I think for me the thing that really makes it is the gameplay loop like for a rogue like that is the whole thing for a rogue like is the gameplay loop where you're going through these different levels you're it's procedurally generated and you die you come back and the way you play each run feels different based on how you approach and and in the case of hades based on like what is the first boon i'm getting which are which is your upgrade that is then determining all right is my attack getting upgraded is my special getting upgraded is my cast getting upgraded how am i approaching

this run this time um just just so i can get a lay of the land right like tim and And Greg, you played some Hades too, right? Yeah, you know, I love Super Giant Games. And when it came to Epic, I actually installed the Epic Game Store and installed the game and played it for a while there. And now that it's on Switch, yeah, I've downloaded it and I've played, I'd say maybe a grant total of an hour. I've been working out of the projects. But I love it. I think it's fantastic.

Tim, how much do you know about Hades? I haven't played it. I just know the art style looks cool and Super Giant make dope stuff. And besides that, like, Dead Cells is really my only kind of entry into any of these epic games. If you like Deadcells, I think there's a good chance you'll really like Hades. Because, yeah, so the story for Hades is that you're playing in Zacharias, who is son of Hades. It's Greek mythology. And as Zacharias, your whole mission in this game is to make it out of the underworld.

And so you're essentially climbing through these chambers that the way they explain it, because it's a rogue like, and of course, everything's procedurally generated. The way they explain it in game is that, yeah, the chambers are shifting and moving in order to make it difficult for anybody who's trying to escape from the underworld. And so every time you die is aggris, you get sent back to the bottom, and you're basically trying over and over again, and you're making it further and further into the underworld, or out of the underworld in each attempt you go through. As you're making it through, though, you're finding different upgrades in the world that are upgrades that last for only that run,

and they call them boons. And boons are basically granted to you by the different characters and gods that are in Olympus or that just exist in the game in general. And so you'll get boons from like Artemis who's I think like the god of shooting arrows or something like that something like that.

And like you'll find upgrades from Zeus, you know, and each of the upgrades have different qualities to them. There's something that Imran pointed out to me during the first impressions that I didn't put together is that like the boons from different gods have different focuses to them. And so yeah, Artemis will have stuff that'll

increase like your critical hit damage or essentially have a build around critical hits, whereas other gods will have abilities and upgrades that will then focus in on those different, like specific different types of play styles. And that is probably the biggest compliment I can give to this game is for most of my runs that I've had so far,

I felt like my character build and the way I play shifts each time in a way that is very unique to either a specific weapon or a specific way to use that weapon, you can choose which weapon you want to go through that you run with. And even with the shifting play styles, the shifting builds, it's felt very satisfying each time. It's felt like it's felt very skill-based each time. Like I don't feel like I'm just purely button-matched the whole time.

Like it feels like I am curating how I'm going to play this run based on the hand that I am dealt. And at a certain point, you can then you can then shift things so that, all right, yeah, the first boot I'm going to get is going to be from Artemis or is going Bees from Zeus and you can Artemis from the Cardomis. Artemis foul. On the game. You can essentially.

Thank you, Craig. Wait, is that a Wild Wild West reference? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait, say that again because I didn't have to be. Yeah, Artemis from the start of this. Run to the game. Jim West.

Oh, okay. Remember the name? I did not put that together. It's been a while since I've seen Wild Wild West. I appreciate the Artemis Fowl call out. Blessing. Thank you. I mean, that was the book and all.

It's a school bear, right? You know? Oh, yeah. Bless, I don't know what this book. No, no, what's this book about? I don't know what Artemis Fowler. It's like, it's, like, edgy Harry Potter kind of stuff. Like a young adult novel that try to take advantage of all that, like.

That era of like fantasy and stuff like that. But it is a, it is really cool universe and story. Don't watch the movie. Read the book. The movie is really bad. Bless, I have two questions that are dead cells related. One, how long is a run? in Hades.

So I've beaten the final boss twice. Each one was about 30 minutes. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. Even for the runs I'm making, I've made it to now the third boss

in the game. And it shifts from like 15 to 30 something minutes for me. Gotcha. Yeah. And then so something that I liked about dead cells, but thought that I personally wish was sped up a lot, is the more that you play and the more runs that you do, you start to like gain the points or whatever

to be able to get to the things you want faster and all that like do you kind of level up when you're playing the game so that every run feels like even if you lose you're still kind of gaining something substantial So there's like a lot of stuff you're collecting as you're going There's the boons that I've been talking about Which are your upgrades you have during the runs There are coins of Karen that you're

That's a currency you collect that I believe disappears after your run. You then have... Right, those are only for items in the run. Yes, only for items in that run. Then you have, I believe it's called darkness, which you're collecting, that then stays with you after your run. And that you can then spend on permanent upgrades.

And to your question, Tim, I feel like it paces at a similar rate, if not maybe slightly slower than dead cells as far as, like, how... Wow. How, like, you getting stronger as you're going. Like, I feel like I'm not getting that much stronger as I'm going. Though I do feel like I am demolishing the first. You are extremely early blessing. Like as you go, by the end of it, you are like the run before I came here to set down to the Duke Games cast, which is a run I finished, that I was using the gun, which is not a weapon that I was particularly good at, that I was between where I started and where I ended up were just a massive difference.

I was constantly shooting, constantly dashing. every dash got or poisoned the enemy and every time I shot them which is like because I did it so I never have to reload the gun but there's an on three shot bursts would do a doom spell which also then hits them for 150 damage which is bullet so it's like it's stuff like that that okay yeah you start powerful

and you get a little bit more powerful early on but by the time you actually get to the end game you start powerful and you get extremely powerful interesting that I'm very excited about I'll also say compared to death cells I feel like there are more things though that you can focus on for like permanent upgrades and so you have your darkness that you can spend

then you have like I'm wrong saying the weapons that you can buy and those are then permanent weapons they can choose from at the beginning of each run which are like yeah you can get a gun at a certain point which I still don't have a sword bow and arrow stuff like that but then you also have your keepsakes which you get by there's a certain item that you'll find during your runs that you can take and then gift to other characters those other characters will then give you

keepsakes which are basically like these special I don't know what you'd call them like special conditions that you can have during your run and so like you can have you can start with more money or you can start with a guaranteed boom from Zeus or something like that and you can then upgrade those also

and so like there's a number of things that you're able to upgrade and there's also a story that is pretty good like out of any of the rogulights I've played like I this story feels like it has a lot more TLC put into it. It's it basically develops as you go and everything is contextualized within obviously like this this roguelite system of you're doing multiple runs. You are trying to get out of hell basically and what what led you here? Like why are you doing this? What is going on?

And it's all contextualized within Greek mythology and it's pretty fascinating. Yeah. And also like that item you can give to people for keepsakes. If you keep giving that item, you find out they have like personal side quest. So, one of the people I was giving the item to was just this warrior shade that's like living in Elysium that like he's bored of it he doesn't want to keep doing battles for eternity.

So I talked to him and I was like oh he was in love with Achilles. So now I'm like relaying messages between the two of them. And it's stuff like that of there's like a singer and who doesn't want to sing anymore without his muse but I keep meeting the muse and she fucking hates him.

And I'm going to figure out the difference between like Or what their difference is, and as I'm going, I'm like, oh, is he tried to rescue her from hell once, but it didn't work out, and I don't know why. So I'm trying to get further into the side quest to figure that stuff out. And it's all like, they took, there's maybe like 15, 16 NPCs in this game, and they're all extremely interesting. They're very well voice acted, too. Yes. That's a super giant special, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the thing, too, is there are so many reasons why this game is great. And, yeah, one of them is it feels like it is supremely polished, like from the voice acting being excellent to the, soundtrack and the music being great, to the sound design being awesome, to the art, like the visual art of the game being fantastic, the character design being fantastic. Like this game shines

aesthetically in so many different ways. That is really impressive. But yeah, to what Imran is saying, like, one of my favorite characters. Not for any, like, particular reason is Meg. But mainly because, like, she's the first boss that you'll run into towards the end of the first area.

And so you see her a lot. And they do like a, they have a lot of dialogue, like a lot of, um, uh, I'm not, not even like rotated in, like a lot of new dialogue for whatever you see her. And like, she'll point something out some, or you guys will have a different interaction each time. And it's like, oh, yeah, you're, you've come back again, huh? Uh, at Zacharius and Zagreus was like, oh, yeah, like, nice to see you, Meg. Like, you guys have that kind of relationship. And there are at points where you'll die and then you come back. And whenever you die, you go back to the house of Hades, um, which is, I guess, is, hey, Hades is house, I don't

know how I'll put it. Um, and like, people are just chilling there. And like, you'll come by Meg and Meg's just hanging out and you'll be like, hey Meg and Meg's like, oh yeah, I killed you, didn't I? And you'll be like, oh, yeah. Like, you'll have that kind of back and forth interaction with these characters that really cement the world in really cool ways. She's gotten progressively mad at me, mad or at

me throughout the game because I keep beating her. Then there's a thing you can do post-game, which is basically create modifiers for your next run. And one of the modifiers is called Extreme Measures, which changes up the boss fights in, like, fairly fundamental ways. So for Meg's boss fight, it takes her and her two sisters, the other two theories and makes them work together.

And she is not happy about that. And she's gotten more mad at me because I put that in. That's awesome. Awesome. I love how much cares put into it from like a narrative perspective to back up why the game is playing the way it is. So Imrodd, you've beat it twice already. Do you think how many more beats do you think you have in you? Look at the crazy.

Look at the crazy look in this kid's eyes. He's playing it for another week and a half at least. So like there's an once you beat the game, there's still story to do. It's like you, I'm not going to spoil up. but you do keep going back and doing the runs. I want to at least finish out this story, and I want to kind of finish everyone's side quest, but just like the idea of doing that is going to take so much time.

But the game, even I've put, I want to say, 25 hours, maybe close to 30 hours since Thursday. So I did not in any way tired of it yet. Like, I'm not, usually by at this point, rogue lights kind of annoy me a little bit, like, oh, it's the same content over and over. There's very rare exceptions like Spalunky. But this one, it's a very rare exception. just everything feels so good and everything feels so different each time with the different

like boons and weapons and all that. And it's still difficult, especially with the fact that I keep adding those modifiers onto there, that I legitimately see myself playing this game for like Greg said, maybe another week or two or honestly probably like another 30 hours. Emeril, can you describe your best build that you've gotten? Because that's the thing that I found very satisfying is finishing the first area and being like, I'm fucking unstoppable. Like, anybody come at me because right now my dash deflex all projectiles. I have a dash attack that'll then extend and then rotate off of five different enemies. Like you can feel like a god in this game if your cards get played right.

A really good build I had recently was I had the bone arrow and I attached to the Ares Doom thing, which causes more damage after it hits like about half a second later. On to the special attack, which shoots like nine arrows at the beginning. then I added four more arrows under that. So what I do is I just get right up onto people, then shoot that thing. It does like 15 arrows. Then each one of those arrows individually would do an extra Ares special.

And then I had Aphrodite as my summon. So whenever she got all, her bar got completely full, which would happen often because I also had a boon to increase the summon bar on its own. She would just straight up just do like 3,000 damage to every boss. So I was clearing out rooms extremely fast. And I also had the Poseidivide. and Boone to you're stronger in the first

10 seconds of every battle. So they would rush in just kill everything and then move on really quickly. To show how different this game can play between runs, like during our first impressions that we recorded that's on YouTube.com, it's kind of funny games that everybody

should go watch. Can I listen to it as a podcast? You can listen to it as a podcast, yeah, available on podcast services around the globe. Spotify, Podbean, all like it stuff, Apple. I was using the shield weapon that basically plays like your Captain America. You can throw it and it will boomerang off people

and you can basically bash people with it also. At a certain point during that run, I get a boon that is basically an upgrade that allows it so that every time I catch my shield, my next two attacks do more damage. And throughout that run, I was also upgrading my attack damage in general. And so that then became the strat of, all right, I enter a room, I immediately do my special to throw my shield,

catch it, attack enemies right away. all right, do that over and over again. And that is now like a new way to play the game just for that run because of the way my upgrades landed. Like that's how, that to me is like where this game shines in terms of how cool each run can be individually and how it keeps being fresh from run to run to run. Are there kind of bummer runs though?

Because in Dead Cell is another problem I had is there were certain weapons that if I started and that's what I got, I was like, I kind of just want to die to restart this. So between our areas in hell, if you can go to a fountain, you can purge a boon that you don't like and you can just sell it off for money. And then the next time you get a, like, you talk to someone, you will also have a boon for that slot.

Like slots like dashing, attack, special, stuff like that. So if you get something that you don't like, you can easily sell it and change it out for a new one. Or rarely a god will offer you the same kind of like slot, but a better version of it. So it's like, well, I don't like, I don't like poisoning people. This is not the one I want to get. Then suddenly Demeter gives me something that's like,

oh, this is actually way better than the thing I had before. Any closing thoughts on Hades? I really fucking like that game. Yeah. Everybody should go play it. This is my first Super Giant game that I've truly loved in this way. And so, yeah, like, if you played Super Giant games before and are somehow like being, you're like, okay, yeah, the art's cool and all this stuff, but the gameplay's not doing it for me. I'd say check this one out regardless.

Like, it is a really good game. I'm downloading it now on my Switch. yeah you all sold me it also runs really well on the switch that's good uh Greg I want to hear about going under right so piggybacking off of Hades right of course a dungeon crawler roguelight it was the thing that I've been you know every night obsessively turning on the PlayStation 4 and playing more Avengers and grinding out those characters you know no big deal don't forget I have a Captain America at 150 everybody uh how could I I I've been wondering you know what would break me of that habit and Do you remember going under, Tim? Do you remember seeing this during the presentations? Going under. It sounds familiar. Give it a quick Google.

I bet you will. It's this very colorful thing set in Silicon Valley. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the idea of, you know, Hades dropped. I started playing it on Switch. I enjoyed it. But then I turned it off and I went to the PlayStation 4 to play something else, Avengers. And then this code came in and I put it in.

And I've been shocked at the amount of hours I've put into going under now. Because when we did PSI Love You earlier this week, I had just gotten the code. And so what, bless I played like 45 minutes of it, I think, before we started recording. And since then, it's this weird thing now of starting up the PlayStation 4 at night, playing a few runs of Going Under, advancing that story a little bit more than jumping to Avengers. Going Under, though, basically is exactly what we're talking about with Hades, but set in this weird Silicon Valley. You are Jacqueline, you have started an internship at Fizzle.

It is another textbook startup that is selling a drink. much like LaCroix that is your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You don't have to worry about it. You can just drink it. And so I feel it does sound very familiar. And it has this thing that I think Watch Dogs 2 nailed so well of being such a perfect parody of San Francisco slash Silicon Valley where I don't think that was appreciated in Watch Dogs 2 unless you lived here and you walked down the streets and you heard people

have these exact conversations about their app or whatever. It's the same thing here of like they're doing these. forced stand-up meetings every morning and everybody under their breath bitching about them and it's like, oh my God, I remember going to these stand-ups at IGN. And it's like them argue about meetings and talking about disrupting the entire industry. And

I'm shocked because I think this happens all the time where you see an indie game during a presentation. Trailer looks dope, turn it on, and it doesn't actually click the way I was expecting to. Going under is funny on its own, even if you don't fully understand startup of

Silicon Valley culture. And then the gameplay itself is totally approachable and also very challenging at the same breath where the idea here is that you are this intern hired for marketing they're not giving you a marketing job you have to go down these slides into failed startups and fight the monsters that live down there so like the first failed startup i went after was joblin which was like it's a jobs for goblin app where so all these goblins are down there running around that you have to take out and get rid of uh the other one i'm working on now is winky dink which is their tinder and And so, like, when you go into this world,

the whole office is very much skinned in a scandalous, tinder-esque thing. And what I had no way of knowing when I started playing and started talking about it is the layers they keep adding to the game, where you go into, you know, when you drop into Joblin and you're going through there, you run into a room where there'll be different enemies you have to beat before you go to the next room. But sometimes there'll be a thing of like, all right, cool, there's a job challenge on this. and it's, you know, you'll be rated on the amount of stars you can get. So five stars for beating everybody really quickly or whatever,

or whatever the task may be. Over in Winky Dink, it's you get to choose the enemy you're about to face, and it's like Tinder, where it goes in there, and it'll be like, do you want to swipe right or left? Do you want to match or not match? You can go through and pick the one that will actually pop out and you fight them. And, you know, it's this weird, the combat itself is basic, right? There's a dodge roll.

You can pick up anything in the environment and fight. So, like, I keep fighting with tablet pens that electrify enemies, but there's pencils around there's two there's keyboards there's succulence lots of succulents to throw around and fight with so many succulents and they call them big suck i like a lot it's very much i love big suck you love a big suck i love a little winky dink but it's like yeah that's you know very much what it's like in joblin uh when you go over to winky dink right like i'm i'm picking up anime body pillows and fighting people with that and like when you're doing stuff you're getting like the heart in emojis matching off of it for certain things and that's all well and good uh like i said the combat's fun and there

there's a lock on to enemies. You can throw your items as well. But you only have a certain amount of hearts. You have to refill those at either the, you know, different coffee shops that are in these failed startups that you can go to and get your stuff there or off of enemies. When you complete certain tasks, an Amazon like drone comes in and drops you a box from your employer that has like, you know, provisions in it of congratulations, continue to move on and stuff like that. And you keep advancing through fighting all these different things and going. Like I was saying about though, the levels they keep adding to it. You know, I'm right there with you, Tim. of the things you asked about Hades, right, was, cool, is there progression between runs?

For me, that's always so important, right? Of, like, feeling like I'm getting something done. One of the things they do here really interestingly is, number one, you're getting an overall currency for the game. So as you bore down into these worlds and dungeons and keep fighting, you'll get the thing of like, oh, you're buying and you're increasing your health. And it's just for that run. When you come back up, you're still, you know, the three hearts when you enter the next time.

However, when you come out, there's different things to power up out there that. are the overall abilities you can get. So when you go in there and you find one of the abilities, one of the special rooms, if you've been leveling it up, you have it ready to go. And then the same thing, too, you're unlocking different apps as you go into this thing

that you can then use for combat, which will be like, you know, you can go in there and, you know, one of them is you can spawn somebody to help fight you, fight with you if you've picked up that app last and stuff like that. Again, to go into it, like you have different mentors

as you're meeting and your job here that are people that are working at the startup for you. So if you equip that different mentor, you'll get a buff when you go in. Like right now I'm using the first one I've unlocked, which is this woman who is the accountant. And so when I go down with her equipped as my mentor, I'm earning more money from the run

that I can spend more on the shops to keep everything going. And, you know, I talked about it in the thing with blessing, that one of the things I liked, obviously, was how funny it is to go to the coffee shop and buy this, and they have an avocado toast joke about home ownership, of course. But then there's like this guy who will give you a curse if you want, like you walk in and there's a free item. Sorry.

You know, I'd let you go for a long time here. You have, please. Like, the amount of words that you've said, the amount of things that you say, of course, too. Like, the world is in such disarray that this is all just normal, that we're just supposed to take this as if anything. Like, you're casually being like, oh, yeah, no, it's just the start of thing. And then there's the winky dink. And then it's just like all of this. So you go, yeah, you know, the avocado toast.

They make a joke about homeownership, naturally. You remember this thing. That was the reason when people were like, man, it sucks millennia. We can't buy houses and I forget which senator was like, oh, it's because you spend all your money on avocado toast. That was the indictment of our generation. Avocado toast is great.

It's true. I've had so much avocado toasts. And look at me, I don't know how else. Is avocado toasts just toasts with avocado spread on it? You would be surprised, but yes, that is what it is. And here's the other thing is like, I want to try this. This sounds great.

Dude, avocado toast should be a thing the Tim Geddy's hates on because it's like, get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. I can't, man. It's fucking good. I'm going to try it.

I didn't get a to tell us to first. Yes. Washington Post has a headline here. No, that's not right. Oh, God, I don't want to subscribe. Fuck, I can't see it. I'm locked out. That's how it is.

Sorry, I didn't mean to do you much. It's from May 15th, 2007. Millionaire to Millennials. Lay off the avocado toast if you want a house. An Australian millionaire thinks so. Not everyone is convinced. Tim Gurner, a 35-year-old, called out his generation on Australia's version of 60 minutes on Sunday.

When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocados for $19 and four coffees for $4 each, she said. That's how this all started. All right. He used to go visit the WikiDink. Anyways, though, you can, well, go, go, go, go. Well, is it that, is it that avocado is expensive? Is that what they're saying?

It's that avocado toast is a very basic meal. And I don't mean, like, a basic bitch thing. I mean, like, it's just, it's toast with avocados, maybe a cracked egg on it. You know, salt pepper, it's delicious. It's like remember when you could go out blessing and we went to like San Francisco brunch and you get the bill and you're like how much was this fucking avocado toast? That's what he's talking about. Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. I follow. Anyways, like I was saying before, you can buy items to help you. You can get a cursed item that will actually hurt you, but it'll only be for a certain amount of rooms. And once you take on that curse, you can then go in and use some of the different items they've put there. I already talked about that. I know on PSI love you. But then the other thing that they've done is they're layering in jobs on top of this where your coworkers or,

your bosses are giving you tasks so that when you go in there, you have not, it's not even just about finishing the run and getting to the boss, which is obviously the overall goal for each one of these dungeons. It's also about going in there and lighting 30 things on fire and, you know, going through these rooms and not taking damage. It's putting those gameplay modifiers and those gameplay rewards on as you go. And so it's this really interesting mashup of a really cool art style, really colorful and bright, a more realistic world, even though I'm just talking about the Silicon Valley part,

and then the crazy dungeons. And so it's this mashup of gameplay I really enjoy and a story I really like and a world is really cool. I'm looking at gameplay. This shit looks, it looks like if anyone's familiar with Bailey from WBE before she turned heel, it looks like if they turned her entrance

into a video game. 100%. Yeah, you're running around and you do kind of look like an inflatable tube man, right? Because it's like this weird thing. It has, it isn't as nearly impossible to control, but in terms of like a feel,

it's kind of got that noby-nobie boy thing going for it, I think, where it's like that colorful and it's tubey and it's, you're going through. And I just looking at it and liking it from the start to get in there and play and find the actual combat to be like, all right, cool. You're going to love this, Tim. All right, cool. I run into this room and there's the normal joblin's sure. Then there's one joblin in an electric car who wants to run me over.

Then there's this joblin who just wants to float in the air and throw things ranged at me. You have to actually sit there and come up with your strategy of how you're going to do it. Carrying three items at a time. You can look at it, like, and see what weapons on the ground are better. and the weapons you have by comparison and stuff. Like, it's a goofy game, but there's a lot, too, that I really dig. I am utterly shocked looking at this game and hearing

you talk about this game, that you seem to love it this much. Like, that's impressive. Does they have Catamari Domesi energy to it? Because that's kind of the vibes I get when I look at gameplay and screenshots. I wouldn't say as nonsensical as Catamari Damasi, right? Because I love Catamari,

but obviously it's crazy. But it is that thing of like, you pick up a stapler, and rather than it be a little stapler, it's this giant stapler that you can shoot staples out at the joblins as you run around and fight them, right? Like, it has that energy of like taking me... I understand what Tim's saying now. You said a lot of words just then, and I'm like, I don't know what the fuck

he just said. I don't know what it was about me, but this is, this conversation has been like weird or absurd. Like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, everyone else has just been sitting here like, cool. Okay. The bobblins, yeah. Oh, man. Bless. You also wanted to talk about Super Mario.

3D all stars. Oh my God. Give me the update, everybody. Where are we at? So I am almost 40 stars into 64. I am like nine stars probably into galaxy and I'm like maybe like one shine into sunshine.

I'm the same. Well, no, okay. I'm like 90 in 64. I'm at like six in sunshine. And I'm at like two in galaxy. I didn't boot 64 because I just played the PC port. I didn't play any galaxy because I didn't feel like getting the joycons out of the ring fit ringcon and be like, all right, I'll play this way.

So I mostly played Sunshine and, no. So like I've said before that I've not played much sunshine and it might remain that way. I don't know. The amount of sunshine I played, I played a little bit of the first level. like the whole intro sequence where the shadow Mario kidnaps Peach and then runs away, which is hilarious. I almost tweeted out like the video because it's just like a hilarious

cut scene period. Voice acting in the Mario Sunshine intro bit. It's so weird. Peach is talking. Absolutely bizarre. Like, I don't understand why she speaks so stilted. Mario! What the fuck is happening right now? It's so

strange and running around the level that comes after the Peach get kidnapped. nap sequence. I don't know. Like, something just feels off when there's not a long jump and there's not like a, like when Mario doesn't have his traditional slate of moves, it just doesn't feel right. Like, I feel like that is 80% of the reason I want to play these games.

It's a long jump. I think that's realization I made as I started to play Sunshine. Dude, no, you're just, you're, you need to get past that hump. And I think that you need to beat 64 and give Sunshine a real attempt. at wrapping your head around the controls because there is a long jump. It's just not the button you're used to. It is the dive.

And when you wet things and get that dive going, there is a fluidity to it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That Sunshine, Sunshine has some real special moments. And I was saying this in the first impressions. And the more I've played now, especially with the amount I've played of 64,

it's like, Sunshine controls extremely well. Like, playing as Mario and the control you have over him is like, it is unrivaled when you're comparing. it to Galaxy in 64. Sunrival has been better? Yeah. You have more control over Mario, man. I'm looking for Lucy is like not a chance.

I'm telling you. I'm playing Mario's... I'm playing Mario 64 right now and I'm hooked on it and I'm like, man, it is crazy how well this holds up. Like, it is... Look, I'm not... 64, I prefer any day of the week. It is a better game than Sunshine.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying in terms of just sheer controlling Mario. And that includes camera. 64 I don't think the 64 camera is that bad Hmm But like I can see

What's a little bit I'm using it fine here I can see where Tim's coming from But like Honestly Post-odesty especially Sunshine doesn't feel great Because like honesty

I know But I'm thinking like Honesty wins As somebody Like I know Blessing Has played honesty recently So I would say like Yeah I can see that feeling real bad

My control issue is that invert are non-inverted camera but inverted from the way it used to be ruins the game for me I just I can't I can't play it I've tried I put put the game in the switch multiple times now trying to get that to work for me and it just it feels like I'm running with my left hand I just can't do it and that alone has kind of ruined that game for me but yeah playing playing 64 in galaxy right now it is such a testament to how masterful those games are I'm liking Galaxy more so this playthrough than even my

previous play through, which was my first playthrough. I played it, I guess, a decade ago at this point. And I beat it and I enjoyed it. And I was like, that was fantastic. But I don't think I really thought about Galaxy in the way that, like, I didn't think about it in like a 10 out of 10 cents. I just thought about it as like a,

this is a fantastic game sense. And I kind of forgot about it. And playing it again now and going through the levels, there is a magic there that exists that. I don't know how they do it time after time. with exception of sunshine. Like, it is, it is crazy. And I'm just, I'm joking on sunshine.

Because I'm not pretty much of sunshine. I want to play more of it so I can actually have a good opinion on it. Or a real opinion on it. But, yeah, like, Galaxy holds up. Like, this game could have came out yesterday, and I feel like it would have made sense. Like, it's crazy how well Galaxy just holds up, period. And then, yeah, back to Mario 64.

How is this game still one of the best games ever played? Like, that's really my opinion on it right now. But this play-through, which is probably my 15th playthrough of this game, like it really cements for me that the first half of the levels are vastly superior to the second half of the level. Yeah, really? Rare exception. Cloud Cruz and Checkout Clock are not great levels over there.

They're not. And even Tall, Tall, Tall Mountain as well. It's like... What? You don't like Tall, Tall Mountain? So many of the stars require you to, like, go all the way up, and there's things that are just frustrating about that, that aren't challenging.

And the camera's a big part of it. But it's just like there's... too many little, like, tiny little things, like bridges you need to walk across. Yeah, there are. Oh, man. I fell off one of those earlier, like maybe 30 minutes ago. Tall Top Mountain is a good, like, regular platforming level. But to do seven stars on it means going through the same thing over and over and over again.

And that's my thing about looking at these three games next to each other and why Galaxy is just so good and is like a 10 out of 10. because it understands when to move on from an idea and from a level. In 64, it's like there's some levels that just don't deserve six stars. Like, they shouldn't be there. Two, three, maybe. Sunshine has the right amount of stars doesn't have the right amount of levels. Like that is a big problem. It's like we're kind of limited to not only how many levels there are,

but also how different they feel. Most of them feel and look very, very similar. It's so much water, too much water. Then Galaxy is just so great. where it's like, oh yeah, this planet or this galaxy, three stars. Yeah. The next one, six. The next one, four.

Because why the fuck not? Like, design in the game around, like, how much content is there. Don't try to force some things in, you know? I feel what you're saying, though. I'm kind of mixed with it because one of the reasons why I love Odyssey is because it allows, it dwells in those levels. Like, a thing I really like about both 64 and Odyssey compared to Galaxy is it really does feel like you have to get to no level.

and like, you know, coming back to a level after each star or after getting a moon, you feel like you kind of become one with it, and that becomes part of the game is exploring and really figuring out all the different secrets that exist within a level. But also, yeah, like the way Galaxy does it too is really good, where you are in and out and you are, all right, here's your goal, here's your path, boom, all right, here's another one, boom, you're done, and you're out, which is nice. The thing I'll all shout out, though, for 64 in the latter,

half of the levels is that I really like how they play around with the castle design when it comes to how you how you get to those levels and how you discover them. And so like with the the second snow level in the game, right, like that being a painting that's on the wall that's invisible in like IRL. IRL is in like Mario's IRL. But then you look in the mirror and you see it there and that's how you discover that level. Like that's cool. A big tiny world or whatever that world is called. Tiny huge island. Tiny huge island. Yeah. Like having Having the small painting then lead to the big painting, those being the same level, but you're transferring between them. Like, that's a genius concept.

Like, even in the water level, which I can, I can remember, I can never remember the name of it because it has a dumb name. I think it's called wet dry world. In wet dry world, I believe, like, the water level is determined by how high you jump into the painting, which is like, this is the thing that I've only noticed this play a few as far as, like, how many different ways in which they play around with that, which I think is really cool. Dude, Mario 64's Hubworld is just on another level, and you can kind of see it. Like, the common observatory in Galaxy is lame. The story elements are super cool, but they tried to, like, have that level of wonder,

and they just completely missed the mark on it. And that's when they get to Galaxy 2, they just turn it into a more traditional, like, just, you're on spaceship Mario or whatever the fuck. Just get to the next level. Yeah. Like, when I was a kid and discovering how to get into that haunted house, like, on your own without the,

internet or guys to help you. It's just like, that was a mind-blown experience. Like, hey, this one bill looks a little different. I wonder what happens if I do this. Holy shit, where am I now? Kind of thing. Dude, like the level design in general in that game, I posted a video of me and the,

in Cool Cool Mountain. And there's a certain path you can get, you can take to get to the star that is, uh, wall kick works, which is like, I think the last star in that level, which is like at the bottom of the level. As a kid, the way I found it was, by jumping on one of the enemies that'll make you spin

and then you can fly down there. I didn't, like, I thought that was just the way to get to that car. It wasn't until recently where I realized that there was a cannon that'll shoot you to a tree that you need to get to, that'll then naturally get you there. But, like, that's a testament to how good the level design is, is for so many of these different stars in the game,

there are multiple ways you can get there. And again, like, playing it today, it still feels, it still feels right, it still feels successful and it still has that level of, oh yeah, you're discovering different ways in which you can get to this thing, which I think is really impressive for this game that came out in, what, 96?

Yeah, and another thing to your point, bless about like the levels in really getting intimately familiar with them. I love that every level requires you to get 100 coins because I feel like there are sometimes that's kind of a breeze and then there's other levels where it's like, you're really desperately looking for another enemy to kill or like a nook and cranny that like you might not have found

and all that stuff. And that's where I'm at right now, where Hazy Maze Cave is just kicking my ass for this 100 car, 100 star, 100 coin star. Oh my God. I just keep dying. And I'll have like 90 something.

And then like I'll accidentally slip a little bit. And then he just starts sliding and falls down the hole. And I'm just like, you motherfucker. But I'm going to get 120. Got to do it. Do you remember the first time you, in a wet dry world where you canaan over to the other.

side of the map. Was that as a special of a moment for y'all as it was for me? Because that was like a moment for me when I had to figure that out. Dude, I was just watching a YouTube video last night about how that level is like creepy to people.

It's something. It's creepy to me. It's the first one you find when you go up the stairs. It's the one that the water rises. Oh, like the city and stuff like that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's something unsettling about it. And I watch this YouTube video that like did a breakdown of like what about that level is like fucks with people mentally and I was just like what the hell man I never got that vibe from it but no I've I've had that vibe

from it my whole life I didn't know this is something that other people experienced like jumping into the level and I think half of it for a kid for me was not knowing where the water was going to be was part of it for some reason like I would go into the level and if the water was at the very bottom I'd get like a weird feeling from it like oh I don't like this like I feel off my game like I could see it being weird like it's a ground town like there's just nobody there and it's like it was feeling

that's really high rule castle town at one point but like because it's the same textures and all that stuff. Whoa! How is this game still blowing my mind? That's crazy. You're so right. But like yeah, I can see it because of the water spider is going there.

Yeah, water spider's pretty creepy. And that one robot that just keeps flipping you and there's like nothing you can do. I freaking hate those guys. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh, Mario 64. What a game.

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Console Wars. Once a book by Blake Harris. Now a movie, a documentary. About the Conflict. And a press mailer that I got here. Oh, look at this thing. This came today. Don't mind me.

Look at that. The word consoles in the Nintendo font, and the word wars is in the Sega font. I wonder if that's because this movie is about the console wars in the early 90s between Sega and Nintendo. Yeah, it is. It is, ladies and gentlemen. Going around the table, we've all now watched this movie. Who has read the book? I have.

I have. I can't. It's so long. I can't remember if I finished it, but I definitely read it. least half of it. So, Imran, as somebody that read the book, watch the movie, give me your top level thoughts. So, top level thoughts are,

both the book and the movie are really impressive pieces of video game journalism, because they get interviews from a period of time that just, like, nobody really talks about or nobody really says anything about. And they get, like, Howard Lincoln and Peter Main and Tom Koenzy, we'll talk to anybody. But, like, they basically get these quotes from

this era that is so really shrouded in mystery. That's really just amazing. Also, it's the book and the movie both share the same thing, but they cast Kalinsky as a protagonist, and they do it in such a way that's a little off-putting in terms of like, it tells one side of the story that is not always accurate to the facts. And I'm not saying Harris is like making anything up or anything, but there's things that they ignore and kind of try to tell a certain version of it. Yeah, a very like stilted narrative for of like here is Tom Colancy fighting against all these people that are trying to take him down.

He was right the entire time. It's like that's not the way things actually happened as far as we know. They go over Altered Beast in a way that I was like, all right. That's how you're going to talk about it? Altered Beast kind of sucks. Let's be clear. Yeah. But yeah, there are aspects of that movie that I think are incredibly impressive and the book as well. And aspects that I think are very, very one-sided. Greg, what did you think?

I loved it. I thought it was great. I think if anything, it ends abruptly. That was my one main takeaway, right? As we get going and like there's so much time spent on the rise of the Genesis, you know, them trying to outplay NES in general and then outplay SNES. And them doing it is great. but then, right, I think it just happens so quick with Saturn, PlayStation enters the picture. Duh, it's true.

You know, and then it's like, it's over. You know, like, what, wait, what, like, I get that, like, there's, I felt like it was just really top, heavy in the front between the console wars, obviously, between Nintendo and Sega. But I don't feel that we get to a definitive conclusion before it goes off the rails with PlayStation end of the mix and Tom leaving and what happens with them or whatever. But all that said, I think it's a fascinating movie, a great documentary. Like it is one of those things, you know, to what we're talking about of, I think we all know, and I'm including the listeners and viewers in this, right? We all know the video game industry in its current state so well. And even that, you think back to me starting in 2007.

And while definitely people have come and gone, your Don Matrix, Jack Trentons or whatever, we still feel, I feel like that's common for our audience nomenclature and who these people are. To go this far back and see who Sega of America was, right, and how that was run, to see who Nintendo was at the time and these fights they're having at CES and these conversations and the underheaded tactics and like you talk about like how, you know, games journalism and press events and how it was the Wild West,

you look back to this, right? In like the early 90s when it really legitimately was like, you know, these like basically like the Toys R Us mafia of like who can get your machines in and what are you going to do with them? It's just a fascinating look at an industry. I feel like we know so well, but this part because we were kids even. we don't know as well.

Bless, as the kiddiest of all of us, age-wise. What you take away from this? I thought it was a really good watch. I wish there was more. I'm with you guys. I wish they got more into, all right, so what did happen with the Saturn afterwards? And how did that get to Dreamcast

and how that then end up with Sega being what Sege is today? I wanted to see more of that. It did seem pretty on the Sega side of things as far as like what the perspective of the story was, which is cool. Like at a certain point, you're going to need to pick a side, I guess,

when it comes to telling a competitive story like this, especially if you're going to come in and if you're going to bring people in and interview them. And I thought for the most part it was very fascinating. It was really fascinating watching this. And then the next day, getting the news that Xbox had bought Bethesda. Because that,

I feel like that contextualized, that move contextualized this. console war in a very interesting way where like legit it was sunday night i watched the movie monday morning i wake up and see the news and i was like oh we're living it it's still happening like there's still very much in competition like one is going for the other's throat uh that was a that was a pretty like fun thing to to see play out but yeah overall i i enjoyed the movie i don't know how much i necessarily even i'll say learn from it because i feel like a lot of this was information we kind of already knew but it felt more so like okay here's some details here

the people that are actually involved in the console wars and what actually led to things like Sonic being made and you know like the idea of them bringing in somebody who was a video game player to consult on Sonic's design and they're like

oh we don't like that but I guess like hey y'all know better than us so we're gonna do it that's the thing where I think we all know the broad strokes of Mario versus Sonic right Nintendo versus Sega but to get into the minutia as the book and this movie does right in terms of or I guess document of like, yeah, this is how it is, right?

And you see that, you know, them going over there to Sega of Japan, right, and explaining what they're going to do and them getting like angry. They're getting like visibly angry. But at the end, like being men of their word and saying like, all right, we said you could do it. So go do it.

Like, prove us wrong. And to see it escalate out that way, yeah, where you're talking about people who are playing the games and figuring it out. I had totally forgotten, if not missed, you know, when Nintendo started this play it loud thing, right? So they try to counteract the Sega. thing because they actually did put that much pressure on it.

I thought that was rad to see. Yeah, I really enjoyed it, and I watched it with Gia, and that's like the definite big test. Barometer. Of like, does this work as a documentary? And I think that in that sense, it did for the most part. And I think that that's the weirdest thing for me, where I actually learned a lot from this.

Like, I'm very familiar with so many elements of it, but there was so much including the play it loud stuff that you're talking about Greg, where I didn't live through that at an age that I could appreciate it. of it. And so much of the it taking Sega's side, I thought, really worked to the documentary's advantage as a film, like as a piece of content because I loved the switch about halfway through where then like you're with Sega the whole way through. And it's like, okay, but let's take it back to talk about Nintendo. Who Nintendo is, yeah. And I thought that was a really cool kind of twist. But it is weird

because it in so many ways seems like the type of documentary that's made that's like, you don't need to be a video game fan to watch this. Like it explains. a lot of different things and a lot of different elements that Gia could totally keep up with. But then there's a couple things that I'm like, wow, I'm bringing knowledge into this that if I didn't have, I'm missing a lot of context here.

And I think a big part there is the exactly what Nintendo did with the Atari 2,600 situation of like bringing the video game industry back from the dead. They mentioned the ET thing. They mentioned like, oh, yeah, the Atari. But it's like, I feel like the documentary should have done a clearer job

of being like, it was over. Like home video game consoles were not a thing, and Nintendo made them come back. And I feel like you can't just say that in two sentences. Like, it felt like an exposition when it should have felt like something that we were being shown and explained. And I could have done with more of that and a little less of the, like, very specific.

They get into the weeds so much about some of the marketing stuff. And it was just like, even for them to do that, I don't think at any point they said the Nintendo does or Sega does, or Sega does what Nintendo don't. They should have the commercial once, I think. But it's like that's a bizarre thing, right? Like for them not to even go into that, which is, you know, now we look back on it

and I feel like if you would ask just the general kind of funny games audience member, like what are the key standout things from the console wars of that era? They'd mentioned that phrase and they'd mentioned blast processing, right? And then the Sega thing. It was just, so there's a certain things.

Mario versus Sonic. And Mario versus Sonic. But I definitely enjoyed it and I thought it was cool. I thought a lot of the talking heads that they got were fascinating people and kind of like gave great perspective on whatever it is that they were talking about. And I also love that it felt like there was legitimate history between a lot of them. And even though they were not talking to each other, they were all, you know, it was just one shots. It was cut in a way that it really felt like these people had a respect for each. other even if some of them hated one another at specific times.

The court case situation I didn't know about and I thought was really interesting where it was, I believe Howard Lincoln, that was talking to, actually I don't know exactly who was talking to you, but he was essentially in court. Yes, the hearings, yeah, like he was essentially, he was essentially explaining that like, yeah, as Nintendo, we've been doing our part to protect the player talking about like violence and mortal combat. And I forgot, I forget if Nighttrap was part of that. that or if they mentioned that in the... That was part of those...

They showed in the montage. Yeah. Gotcha. But yeah, like Howard Lincoln was essentially talking about that. And basically, like, the person on the Sega side of things representing them was, I forget his name, but somebody who, who, who is it? Peter Main.

Peter Main, who was part of Nintendo before, but then went over to Sega and was part of, like, he was, he was involved in Nintendo when it came down to the NES, the shooter, the gun thing. You're talking about Bill White, are you? Oh, Bill White, sorry. Yeah, bad Bill. I don't know. Yeah.

Gotcha. But yeah, like him busting that out and being like, oh, yeah, Nintendo made this gun for people to use. That was a moment, man. The fact that there was real footage of that, it was like, God, damn, that was some dirty shit. But that was another thing is like, I remember hearing a lot of people talk about the console war's book and talking about like, dude, it got nasty between them. Like, this shit was crazy. And then see this documentary, I'm like, that was, that was as nasty as it got. yeah, there was some moments that I was like, I'm a little surprised

that went that way. But like there was a book Gio was telling me about that came out a couple years ago. There was about Uber and Lyft. Somebody in the comments is definitely going to know exactly the name of it. I don't know shit. But some things she was telling me about Uber and Lyft in their early years and the ways that they would compete for marketplace, market space in different areas.

It's like, that was some shady shit. There was a lot going on there. This kind of just seems like semi-tamed stuff and one guy switched sides. yeah i mean screaming at each other in the streets like they said right where they have that broken up it's them deflating each other's balloons it's them doing i think the underhanded they're not underhanded but like fucking crazy thing of getting a famicom or super famicom and getting super mario world and being like our game looks better than that and then

bringing it around to fucking trade shows and malls and being like hey kids which do you like better and having them vote and trounce them right and even the the stuff for uh you know opening a Sega store for all intensive purposes in Bentonville, right? So that you're like basically protesting on Walmart's doorstep. Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of radical stuff Sega did there, right? Yeah. And like, like, it would be like the, the console war part of this is an interesting story.

But like Tim says, it didn't get that like nasty. But I, the part that they, the movie mostly kind of glosses over and kind of mentions here and there is the, the rivalry between Sega of Japan and Sega of America. and I think that's the thing that should have gotten more play. And I think the reason they didn't, and like you mentioned the abrupt ending, Greg, because the way it would have ended in like history was Kalinsky pushed the 3-2X and it didn't go well.

And then he leaves after that because Sego, Japan, push the Saturn. And like that would have been a cool thing to go into, but because they had like this very established narrative of actually Japan just isn't listening to America, it wasn't the way it went and they didn't want to, I guess, change direction in the documentary. So, like, the framing of, let's talk about Sega versus the upstogs, or upstart Sega, underdog Sega, going against Nintendo and succeeding.

And then, whoops, documentary is over. It's like, you could have done a little bit more with this. And I think you just kind of, you pulled into punches a bit too much. I love seeing the E3 footage towards the end. Anyway, they're just like, oh, we just have a short presentation. And they just go up and say the price and the audience goes crazy. And they walk off. Like, that's so freaking tight.

And also, shout out to the comfort in. Such a good running thing throughout this entire thing. But why is he still there? Like, they said that. Still working at Sega, man. But I'm like, but why? I don't get it. I don't know.

I don't know. But yeah, it was definitely, I recommend watching it. Like, great, do you have the stats in front of you with that little box that you got coming to CBS? All access. It's right now. It's out. Oh, it's out. Today's a day.

Yeah. Oh, cool. There's a lot of fun motion graphics throughout the whole thing too that are kind of like fill in the gaps of things they don't actually have footage for and I appreciate it. Yeah, like the drawings, right? I kind of feel like video game documentaries don't need to do pixel art for every single thing. Like maybe this is because I just watched high score as well.

But like it's okay. Every video game documentary does pixel art and it does the thing at the beginning where they explain video games to make a lot of money. Like you don't do it like a music documentary and go like music makes a decent amount of money too. I want Daniel Dwyer Like no clip to do this kind of documentary Like a like their own version of console wars Because that was the thing that I was thinking of too

I was like okay yeah this is a good watch Part of me feels like no clip could maybe do it better In terms of like the pacing and the actual Production of it like I just like how they do it Versus the yeah the pixel arc kind of felt like a bit much This is very much trying to take video games And give it a mainstream thing right That even Gia could watch and I'm not saying that

Danny doesn't do that but Danny Danny takes our medium in our industry, right, and takes it as a very, I'm making a very serious documentary that if you're into serious documentaries, you're going to be a bat, whereas I think this one was a little bit more, let's have some flash, some color, let's get into this, and let's have fun with it

and draw off of that more. So we're enticing people even who don't care about video games. Yeah, and everyone, I'm totally with you about the pixel and stuff because I watched a couple episodes of high score as well. But what I appreciated about this one is, for the most part, there was always like one extra element to the design of it where it's like they tried to make it, it look like a Genesis game and they use Genesis type colors to show the different things

for when they were talking about the Sega side and the Nintendo stuff felt different. And I was like, that's actually cool because like this is being made designed by people that actually really get it and what makes this. But what I was kind of bummed about, extremely bummed about actually, is the weird lack of game music and game sound effects in this documentary. There are a couple moments where the Donkey Kong theme will play for a little bit. or they'll do some stuff. But the soundtrack felt very generic to me.

And there's a couple pop songs they played. They used salt and peppers push it to great effect. But I just felt like it kind of felt lesser than where it's like, okay, so you can get that license to use the video footage of these games. But why am I not hearing the stuff right now? But maybe that's just the type of fucking nerdy guy I am. But like from the video production side of this, I look at it. I'm just like, it feels cheap.

It doesn't feel authentic. Like, it feels like fake video game music instead of real video game music. Yeah. Like, like, one of the things for me is that, like, when I finished the book a couple years ago, it felt like a sequel to David Schaff's Game Over. Like, that was the story of Nintendo up until, like, Super Ness. And then it was like, okay, here's the console words until then from the perspective of Sega.

I want stuff after that. And, like, we just don't get that all that often. Like, we don't have the story necessarily of the, the creation of the Xbox, which I'm sure it would be fascinating. Or like, the Xbox and the Xbox 360 are at this point retro. And we, it would be, it's weird that we don't move past that for like their own documentaries. I guess like at a certain point, that stuff doesn't resonate as well. It was kind of funny.

Like clearly they were using like HDMI, like an analog NT for some of that stuff. And then like putting a CRT filter on it and then filming it with an off camera thing. But then they like, towards the end, they show a montage like all video games or video games like through the ages and they show Gears Award and so has a CRT filter on it like okay you guys I see what you're doing

you didn't quite get to the point you wanted to make there yeah totally now one thing I want to bring up that absolutely blew my mind and I might lose it in a lot of nerdcrant for this specifically being the type of gamer I am and like video game historian to the level that I am I had no idea that

PlayStation and Sega had a moment or Sony and Sega had a moment. I know about the Nintendo, Sony CD situation. I did not know about Sega. That revelation came from the book, I think. I think people didn't know it until the book was released. That's crazy. Yeah. It's insane. Like it's legitimately this, the entire industry could have been different if like one or two people along the way made different decisions.

Which is wild. Like the fact that they got to the point where Sega had the meeting where they were talking about, hey, there's this new chip set. and we can have like these awesome 3D games right and it was rejected because of beef between two departments of the same company that is then defining like the rest of video games like that's a little of where it gets a little inaccurate or not who knows it how accurate it's going to be

because it's always going to be different based on who was in the room and who wasn't but that's where it's like some people are going to say Kalinsky signed deals without Sega Japan's knowledge And so people are going to say like, no sake of Japan was just jealous. So we're not going to ever really know what happened, I don't think. Wild. Well, anyways, you guys should check it out. I think it's worth a watch for sure.

Like, even if it's not the best thing in the world, I think that in terms of video game documentaries that have a mainstream appeal, I do think that this is a step above, a notch above, maybe not too far, but like a notch above what we've seen before, especially just after watching high score, which is fine. Yeah. It's fine. High score is much more mainstream. It's not for people who, like, know their video game history at that point.

It's for people who are adjacent to those people. Yeah, totally. But anyways, this is... Oh, I want to say one thing that actually did blow my mind on that one. It's not video game related, that the Reebok pump did nothing. Oh, oh, my God. Insane. And so cool.

I love that shit. I love that, like, that paired with the blast processing conversation. I was like, marketing is a crazy. motherfucker. Yes. The guy was like, yeah, it actually made it worse. It made it for too warm.

I know it, but I'm sure it made me jump higher. I'm sure of it. And also, the last thing I want to say is there is a scene about 10 minutes into this where a dude is on a beach and a man from Japan comes out of nowhere to hire him. And I'm just like, I hope that that happened exactly the way that he was shown. That was my favorite part of the book.

I remember reading out on a plane on a trip. And I was like, what? They followed him to Hawaii on a beach to find him to make him come work. Could you imagine? I'm like, yo, get out of my face. I'm on vacation.

But anyways, ladies and gentlemen, this has been the Kind of Funny Games cast. If you want to stay for the exclusive Patreon post show, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Bless, do we have a bless who today? We do. We do have a bless you today. Oh, baby.

It's game time. Anyways, until next time. Love you. Bye.