Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Kinda Funny's 2025 Holiday Gift Giving Guide - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

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This episode's brought to you by Storm Lancers. Fight together, rise together. Storm Lancers is available this week on PC and Nintendo Switch 2. What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, December 8th, 2025. Of course, I am your host, Tim Yetis. I'm joined today by a stacked crew of amazing gentlemen. We have blessing at E. Oye Jr.

Good day, Tim. Greg Miller. I haven't been on content all day and I'm stoked. Let's go. I like that sweater a lot. Thank you. It's my only Black Friday purchase. Okay.

Vanessa Carlson put it up on Instagram. Hey, here's a code for Black Friday. I said, you know what, Vanessa, I'll do it. I'll do it. She's going on to her suit and should come back to San Francisco, all right? Best concert of my life. Had a hot date. Gia Harris.

All right. Took her to this thing. We enjoyed the shit out of this. Why? You got to sit down. Order a video. It was lovely. Start contracts to a couple months later.

Michelle Branch came. Slims wasn't it? It was Michelle Branch, me, G., we're there for 20 minutes. And Greg and Jen are like, we can't do this. We're let's go. I was like, I've waited for this concert. entire life. I love Michelle Branch, right? And I get

there and it's just fucking, we didn't get there early. So like, it's just a slam thing. Like, she's playing a garage show. Like, she's 20. I'm like, I'm out of here. This sucks. We couldn't even hear. And she started doing some record stuff. Records, not records. Reckers. You know, her country of her country. Oh, who could forget. And it was like,

but the mic was bad. I was like, this fucking sucks. Rest and peace. Bring back Vanessa Carlton. Bring back. Bring back. Stacey or Rico, Joe. You know what I'm talking about. Snowbike, Mike. How are you? Hi, Tim. Great to see you. Great to see you. And rounding out the group today, we have Andy Cortez.

Hello, Tim. Hello, Andy. This is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics here in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership. You can get it on Patreon.

You can get it on Spotify. You can get it on Apple Podcast. You get all of our shows ad-free and a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be part of this show, YouTube Super Chat. We want your holiday gift guide suggestions. What are presents that you're thinking about buying people? Gaming related, tech related, whatever you want to talk about. Go for it.

Remember, we're an 11-person business all about live talk shows. We already did one. Kind of Funny Games Daily. Chronically, The Paramount Skydance, launching a hostile bid for Warner Brothers Discovery just days after the Netflix agreement. This, no way this ends horribly for everybody. No way. Remember on Friday when I was like, I pulled out that comment? It was like, oh, this is, you know,

worst case scenario. I'm like, no, worst case scenario with Saudi Arabia being involved here we fucking go. Here we go. Jared Kushner again too.

They're like, oh, you all want to talk shit? You all want to talk shit about EA? We'll buy everything and fuck it up. After this,

we're doing the kind of funny podcast and after that we're doing a highly requested stream. Nick's going to play dispatch. Yeah. That's fun. We thinking he's going to like it?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I do think so. Good. Yeah. I think he'll be real with you,

Tim. He won't. Why won't he? He likes Aaron Paul. he has a very small attention span and this game takes a little bit of time this game's sexy yeah you know what I mean

it's crazy to say that when he's around me that that I have like the second worst ADHD it's real bad man he can't say his attention span is like so bad that he can't watch a cartoon that's basically what this is

he watches real bad he gets in that room and he gets uncomfortable you know what I mean like he if call duty's not on the screen that child is walking out the room you know what does he do here? You know what is he do here? We'll see what he does later today.

Five seconds in, Mike, it's going to be looking at his phone. You're looking at chat. And while you're watching the screen, like, there's some real important stuff happening right here on the screen. Right, right here. You guys have the power in there. That is true.

Yeah, he's the eldest in the room. You're not letting you do that. No, no, you can do it. If I can make a confession, there was a choice in dispatch. I had to re-roll like four times because I kept missing it. Because I kept looking at my phone. God. I was like,

Let me roll a checkpoint. Now look at my phone for a second. Look up and I'm like, fuck, I missed it. I had to keep doing it. We need y'all to support Nick, okay? Try to keep him on track. When he's looking at the chat, I need y'all to be like, eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize.

What's the most boring thing the chat could talk about that Nick wouldn't want to engage with? Wrestling. Yeah. Everyone just said Hulk Hogan. Oh, you've seen us turn bad. We get it, Nick. Hey, if you're a kind of funny member, today's Gregway is going to be Greg reacting to the Monster Hunter Showcase. That's right.

They're doing one at two o'clock. I figured I would do it there. Fun. Yeah. The way you said fun didn't sound. No, well, fun. I mean, it's just fun for you. Fun for you.

Yeah. Well, yeah. The show's called Greg Way. You know what I mean? It's true. It's true. It's not called Timway. Exactly.

Thank you to our Patreon producer, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney, the Somme, Twining. For now, I'll start with the topic of the show. Tots, stop, stop, stop,

it's kind of funny. He's 2025 holiday gift giving guide the super chat question of the day. What is your pick for a good holiday gift? this year and you can't say a or a frames okay that'd be stealing that'd be stealing although real talk we are sponsored by them we love them they're amazing gifts and like have who here's given an or a frame is a gift that's crazy there we go there we every single person have it's a perfect gift for mom you know what I mean it's perfect yeah I use that promo code here's the thing I didn't tell my mom I got it for her so for the long time she was like I don't I was like oh did you get that

picture he's like I you didn't tell me you sent that to me and this whole time we were like who's is this? And yeah, but they set it up there. There's the IRL one I sent today. You just keep a wide, Barrett, of the shot I sent.

Oh, that was wide enough. I apologize. Anyways, it's my message to Jen, but every so often on my aura frame it, my desk, something really cute of Ben or Jen comes around. I take a photo of it,

and then I send that to Jen. I'm like, I love you guys. Yeah. I love it because ours had auto updates. We're not sponsored today, by them, are we?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure we are. It'll pull. This isn't part of it. We really love aura. It pulls pictures from of my dogs. And it just kind of does the AI thing

which just like pulls all every white fluffy dog picture. And the amount of like memes of other pomperatings that aren't our pomperianians or whenever I see something like, Rogers base on YouTube. Like he has a pomeranian that looks like if Torreto and Moose were like combined. Yeah. And I'll like say pictures instead of her. So it's like every once in a whole,

just random dogs show up. See, I highly curate mine. Yeah. I definitely go through. I make a big production on sending it. Because I send it to myself, my dad and my mom then. Yeah. I mean. Wow. That orphan's best answer. But we're getting into a bunch of very specific things here. I was going to say blessing went out of his way with this to go through and give us categories. So bless give the categories to the audience so they can start percolating. Yeah, of course. And so of course this is kind of funny. He's 2025 holiday gift giving it there. I basically narrowed this down to five different categories. So we have one, one game for ages under 13. So you're giving a gift to a kid. You want to get them a new game. That's the first one. Second one, game for ages.

Over 13. Your buddy who you know is into video games you want to put them on. Third one, gaming hardware, console, PC, handheld. What's a big gift you can get for somebody in that regard?

Fourth one, gaming accessory, controller, the pillow that Andy likes, you know, what is something that you can get to somebody? The body pillow, he sleeps with.

And then the fifth and final one I have here, just a miscellaneous. Could be a membership, could be a nerdy, non-gaming thing, could be any fun gift. I love it.

And we're going to get into it. Remember, you all can super chat in. Kabob's already did. I'll give Mike $100 in Concord's micro-transaction currency. I don't think that game had my transactions. The full-price game.

Let's start with games for people under 13 years old. And I think the best place to start is with Greg Miller. Hello. He has a four-year-old child. That's true, Timothy. How are you? I'm good.

How are you? I'm excellent. What I will do is take you back to Thursday. All right? It's 2.30 in the afternoon. and I send a text message to the one, the only, Hayes. Kyle Hayes has been heard a lot of lately on this show because, of course, he's the man who played Metroid Prime back in college that I watched.

So I sent him and I was like, hey, Hayes, did you know that Metroit Prime? He's an actuary in St. Louis, a dad of two girls. He's very busy. Did you know that Metroit Prime 4 is out today? Would you even care anymore? I've mentioned you know less than five times this week on content because every time Prime comes up,

my only connection is you watching on GameCube. Playing the new one, I see why you dug it, because I love Betray Prime 4. And I say, miss you. He responds back, da, da, da, da, da, and the right. And we're going through and he goes, uh, I hope I can, I hope I, he's talking about his daughters, obviously, right? I hope and get them into it.

We got the girls a necks for, an N-EX, a next for Christmas instead of a switch two. I didn't know what a switch two existed until last week. And I, I, I, I, the text goes. This is concerning. The text comes in and I'm like, okay, cool. He clearly, the kids wanted a PS5. an N-E-X I learned about this the other day

because it was the third highest-selling console Let me do my whole big here I got a whole fucking plan Jesus Christ And I finally go I'm waiting for the bubbles I'm waiting for the bubbles Of him to explain what the fuck N-E-X is

And I go what's a N-E-X And he sends me Blows my mind by sending me The Amazon link to N-EX Playground Active Family Fun with Interactive Games He goes I think it's a motion-based system No controllers

Then he sends me A subredit games post that's Matt Piscitella explained the fact that N-EX is destroying right now if you didn't know. You can go to any of Matt Piscotella's latest tweets to hear about it. But here's one from December 3rd. US best-selling hardware skews for the week

ending November 22nd ranked on unit sold. Number one, Nintendo Switch 2, Mario Kart World bundle. Number two, N-EX Playground interactive gaming system. Number three, PlayStation 5, digital 1 terabyte. So that's neat. And he's been continuing to go on.

There's one BS. And I like, underneath Rebecca Valentine going the what? Because again, who the fuck has heard of the NEX? Matt Piscuitel had his own. He goes, the disco-stoo disco-record sales chart, but instead of N-E-X playground, instead it's an N-EX playground sales over the past three weeks. This is a Simpsons reference, of course. Disco-Steu doesn't advertise in it.

He has a chart of just disco. It's a very detailed dialed in Simpson's reference that you need to get in the same way you need to fucking go know what the N-EX playground is. And he responds with Matt Piscitellel, whose job it is to track the industry. Me trying to predict the industry. Pedro Pascal freaking out. So what if I told you, Tim? The Connect is back, everybody.

Yeah, it is. Hell yeah. As a subscription-based box for children. That you're recommending. I mean, here's my thing about it. This is quite the leap, Greg. Which part? Or just jumping a holiday gift giving behind.

Here's the thing you don't know about. I mean, I've gone. Oh, no, but this is my whole thing is I've jumped in and done research. Haven't played it or whatever. And more than anything, I think it's the fact that we are the kind of gamescast. We talk about video games. This is the number two selling hardware two weeks in a row or two once in a row or whatever was. Matt has another one up there that we've never talked about. So yes, I'm a bit abusing the title here of saying I recommend it when I haven't

touched it. But it's more we need to talk about it. And it is more the fact that I did my due diligence of hearing it from a parent. And then I went and watched several YouTube reviews of it. And if I was in a different spot, I think mainly with the layout of my house, I would buy it for Ben because it doesn't seem like trash. I think you look at it and it could easily be considered trash but here's what happens every weekend. We're gonna find out this thing

watches your kids or some shit. They're very clear in their description that it doesn't and it doesn't do that and it doesn't store it but if we want to be horrible I'd go for it. Anyways, every weekend we start Saturday and Sunday and we have our little me and Jen have our coffee Ben has his milk, we watch a cartoon, we play with

the game, we do whatever and then we go okay, what are we doing today? And then I a weekend there's several different things to do right obviously video games are there then of course there's doing a chore for the house that ben has to help with but another big one is move your bodies like we have to get out of the house you have to do something ben has too much energy we need to burn this motherfucker out you understand he's two tires he's too crazy and so looking at this i watched several reviews on youtube today about it this little ipatch yeah right to cover your camera well here's something you'd like about it uh we'd all like about it to a degree right uh the one of their big

pitches for it, which I understand, right, is up the alley of a GameCube, where it is the idea that, yeah, you go online to download the games, but you can play offline. So it is that cover the lens, toss it in your bag, take it to get your sleepover, take it to Gramas for Thanksgiving, whatever it is, so everybody else can get up and play. Obviously, not having had hands on it, I can't tell you how good the games are or how well they control versus the shitty motion games we've all played and all seen. This is a group stream, y'all. This is so smart, by the way. They got, this is a business proposition. Next pet puppy. They got bluey.

They got pep and pig. You can all laugh at me for not having done it. I wanted to bring something outside the box, especially for as a parent, we would be looking for something outside of the box with my kids. My sister asked me over Thanksgiving, my sister who has three kids, she's like, do they still make the Wii?

And I'm like, no, it's the Switch now, but they do have, like, she has a Switch. But she's still, she's not in the game of ecosystem. So she's like, oh, is there something motion, essentially? And I'm like, well, they do have Switch sports. Like they had Wii Sports is basically the same thing. But it's so, such an interesting conversation to have because I couldn't really sell her on it.

Like it wasn't an easy way to talk about it. This would be the replacement for that. Christopher Dring from the game business had a newsletter go out. I think maybe even today. It might have been yesterday though. And it's basically N-EX playground or I'm going to keep calling it next, but NEX playground reminds us to the importance of living room-based games. Over Black Friday week in the U.S., the N-EX playground accounted for 14% of all console sales,

ahead of the Xbox series S&X. According to Sarkana, the family-focused camera-based video game system was behind Nintendo to switch two and PS5. In the UK, PS5, account for 62% of the sales followed by the switch and Xbox according to Nielsen, blah, blah, blah. And it goes on the NACS isn't even available in the UK right now.

It is that idea we all talk about video games and how much we love video games and how, yes, I originally took this thing and started like, all right, well, what is Ben playing? What game would I recommend? It is that idea of the fact that this has infiltrated Hayes' house. And Hayes hasn't even

paid attention enough to know that there's an I wanted to make sure I brought it to the table here so we could all have a conversation. It's out of stock at Amazon. It's flying. I'm on the website. It's out of sight on the website. And that's what, yeah, I was seeing too. I don't, if you're a action, again, I'm cheating a bit because I wanted to talk about this thing and we have no other real avenue for it. I imagine if you're a parent, you already have heard about it and know about it to some degree. And if you aren't, you probably look at this and go, what a bunch of shit games. Because again, I look at this. Not only do I not think I have the house set up for it. Like, I just don't have a TV where I could put that box in

front of it that way. I also love Ben playing real games. I want him to play real games, but I love the Trojan horse of this of let's get a small, very simple, we showed the video, but right, it's USBC and an HDMI to the back of it. Let's get a small, simple device into people's home so they can play games and kids can find games again. And as much as Connect and PlayStation move weren't for us, I do think there is an avenue for good games that are out there. And so for them to have licenses like Sesame Street, which of course, back in the day on Connect, you know, Double Find made a Sepsney Street game. I remember they came on up in noon to talk about that.

To see that there, to see Bluey there, to see Peppa Pig there, to see just interesting enough looking games to get people going. I think it's a neat idea and I would like to actually touch it. Yeah, it's such a brilliant thing, I think, just on the business side again. Because even when you're talking about who the parents are today, like the new parents started coming up

are people that grew up with the Wii. I think back to even as a kid, having the generic console that had like 8-bit, 16-bit NES-inspired games that were just generic. games. We had that growing up or I would go to somebody's house or I'd go to like a school thing where they would have that because they're not going to buy a super Nintendo or whatever. And parents like it because, oh, we played games like this growing up. I'm sure the majority

of people that see this, the majority of adults with kids that see this are like, oh man, let me show you what it was like to play Wii sports, like not stop when I was young. $250. $50 for a three-month pass. $90 for a 12-month pass. That is the downside. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's probably more than that. And again, connect. But I think there's a fascinating conversation for us as the enthusiast game people, right? Of the fact that, yeah, Hayes is ready to throw down 250 and a subscription. He is getting a subscription. I followed up today when I was, I'm learning and trying to figure it all.

Like, they're willing to throw that much in there where they would scoff at the price of maybe a switch to, maybe a place, for sure, a PlayStation 5, et cetera, and so on. Right. The fact that this is able to get people through the door that way, it comes with five games bundled in. So, I mean, there's like whatever. And yes, over here chat saying subscriptions are everywhere. Yeah. I think it seems like they are feeding this. I watch one guy's one parent, you know,

dad parent reviewer, and then I watched his year long follow up a year later. And he was like, I agree. It's followed up. It's done all this stuff. So it's an interesting thing that I think I wanted people to be aware of. And yeah, if you see it on the shelves, I guess, buy it. Yeah, I'm sending the link to my sister right now. Andy Cortez, what do you got for children under 13?

First of all, I want to say, we need less Trojan horses. Like, there's already Roblox of Fortnite. But this seems like a good Trojan horse. horses aren't seeing their way through. They're staying in there. We need less chosen horses. Mine is a little cute-ass game called Wild Woods.

Wild Woods is a kind of four-player co-op thing where you're all little, you and your homies are just sort of moving this payload along, and it's top down and the art style is adorable, but it's also kind of rogue-lite-ish. it's has like a it came out an early access in December of last year and it was a uh i think it's sitting on like the most recent reviews because it is an early access title the most recent reviews are overwhelmingly positive they're like 95% score on steam and it's just you and your homies kind of playing a uh you know moving this payload along gathering little resources to keep the payload working and then battling enemies together and i think that the

the shared kind of, I actually haven't checked that this is a couch co-op, but I just really dig that it's like baby's first versions of a lot of different games in terms of

when we talk about games like, you know, Hades 2 and, you know, the more adult-style roglights, because I feel like it's a bit tougher to find games for kids that are diet versions

of what you get nowadays, you know? So I just really, really enjoyed the vibe of it and the tone of it. It's got, you know, really cute, controls in terms of how everything

operates and yeah I just really really dug the vibe of it. Yeah that looks cool. Bless, what do you got? I'm bringing here split fiction. It's game that of course we all know about a lot of us play split fiction. A lot of us really enjoy split fiction but it's my pick because I go back to the last Christmas

where I was in my I was at my sister's place in Houston I we put up, we picked up the Xbox that my nephews had and went on an Xbox game pass and I went on the games they already had downloaded and they already had it takes two downloaded and it was the thing of like oh man even for y'all who are i think at the time i want to say maybe five years old and nine years old they were already at an advanced gaming place enough to

where they could play this together enjoy this together and i think when you're talking about games that you can play in the living room co-op right have that shared puzzle solving trying to get to the next thing kind of experience i still think nobody does this like he's light right and i think split fiction is a good one for how much variety there is in there, even compared to something like it takes to you. It's what fiction having these different genres, sci-fi, you're playing as these different creatures or whatever you're doing moment to moment. I think it's just a good one that could work for kids under 13.

Hell yeah. I back that too. Mike, what about you? Yeah, Tim. You know, me and the kids this holiday season are really excited to gather around the entertainment center, get in the living room and have some fun. And I like to bring it back to my days as a kid, right? And I think of mom and dad getting us the N64,

gauntlet legends, right? How special that was, that fun couch call. And so I'm going to recommend Lego Party. Nice. I love Lego Party. And I think the kiddos this holiday season will love it as well. It is a fun cooperative slash competitive game where you're going to be screaming and laughing the whole entire time.

And I think we showed during our stream that SMG Studios really delivered on this one, right? Like they, we all kind of said, oh, no way. They can't compete with Mario Party. and they did. They brought an alternative to it on every console and platform, and it brings the fun from the mini games that will have you laughing and trying to compete against each other to just being on the map, following the guy trying to get that golden Lego block

and seeing who will come out on top. I think Lego Party is a perfect family-friendly game to jump in with. I still haven't started Lego Party. I missed the stream you guys did. I forget why. Is it, could I bring Ben into it now? Yes. 100%.

Okay. I didn't know how close. There has never been a better time. I didn't know how complicated mini games are and stuff to that nature. No, I think this will be an all-timer. I truly believe, like, when we talk about the Mario parties and how fun, and you can go back to any one of those with you and your friends and just play them, that's Lego Party.

It doesn't matter what time it is. It doesn't matter where you are. You can just turn this on and have a great afternoon. The matches were small, short, right? We played one. It didn't take that long. It didn't feel like it's a two-hour investment. You can get in and out pretty quick.

I think one is like 20 to 30 minutes, and then after that you go, higher, but like, that's what I'm looking for out of a quick afternoon with the kids, get them locked in, maybe have an end and let's try to get outside, but that's my recommendation. And there weren't any changes in it that made me say, I like this in Mario Party better. Like,

every change that it was making, I enjoyed more than what Mario Party was doing. Yeah. This was definitely the game I've had the most fun playing with other people this year. Oh, wow. That stream, I like keep thinking of it, like, man, I wish we could just play that. Yeah, we've got to get back to that. So much fun. And like, all the mini games were like either inspired or great takes on classic ideas that we've seen before.

Yeah, it is definitely one of the bigger surprises because when we first saw the game reveal, I was like, this is going to be absolute trash. And it was not at all. Even just the choice of putting the, what, you play the mini game and then based off your placement in the mini game, I believe that determines turn order for the next turn, which is this a really smart, you know, thing.

Also, you start off with the minigame, right? So it kind of like puts the mini games before the turns. I think, yeah, all the changes they made just felt like smart changes, game design-wise from Mario Party. Timmy, buddy through the Twitch chat says you can play Lego Party through Netflix and you use a phone or tablet as the controller. Nice. We won't be doing this trash. I don't know about that.

That sounds. I don't know if I'd stand by the control schemes of that. Sure. Playing that game with the controller. Some of those mini games were kind of difficult. Yeah. The little like. I mean, for y'all.

For some of us. For y'all. Plus us down here with that rocket ship. I was locked in. Give me an asteroids like game. I'll destroy it. Breaking news right now, Monster Hunter tweets, in light of the recent tsunami warning issue due to an earthquake off the coast of Japan, we've decided to postpone the Monster Hunter Showcase broadcast,

which was scheduled for today. We'll share a new broadcast date with you soon as it's decided. Damn, everybody stays safe out there. Please. Um, my suggestion for kids under 13 is Kirby Air Riders. Hell yeah. And for one specific reason, we got to fuck the kids up now. Whoa! We got to create the next generation of kids on a games cast.

They're going to be talking about back in my day, we played this one weird game that was unlike any other game you've ever played. Yeah. It might look like games you played. It doesn't play like those games. It plays differently. Kirby Air Riders is the exact definition of a holiday gift. You give this to a kid and they are going to be like, what the hell?

And they're going to get transfixed. They're going to just play this thing over and over. And all of a sudden it becomes their personality. And that is how we breed talent people. That is how we get the next generation of sickos. Kirby Air Riders is the kind of game that you don't ask for. 100%. You're giving it from your guy.

Uncle Timothy, you need to give it to Ben. I gave away the codes I got from this where I was like, I don't want to play this, but here's what happened. We went to the Nintendo store this weekend after making a joke go on how much I go to the Nintendo store on the last game scas. I went to the Nintendo store this weekend. Ben was walking around with me and guess who he fucking saw? Meta-night. Oh, yeah.

And he was under Meta-Nish and he's like, who is this? I'm like, it's Meta-Night? Who is that? And like, we left it. He could not shake fucking caring about Metonite. And on the goddamn bag, on the fucking bag. We've all been there. I have this.

We've all been there with Ben-A-N-Night, man. I bought this Samis Amibo. It's got this fucking sick color scheme. It's got a motorcycle. I'm like, Ben, look at this. He's like, eh. And he looks at the bag, he goes, and fucking Medanite.

It's on the bag for the Air Rider. What about this? You want a Metan-N-N-E-Wes? Like, yeah, I'm like, I'll put it on the list for Santa, but fuck, all right. God, that is, look at our boy. I met when I went to Denver for the, yeah, for my family reunion thing.

I met a cousin of mine for the, the first time. He was like, I think about six or seven, favorite game, Kirby and the forgotten land. Wow. I think the kids are ready for a Kirby takeover this generation. I love that, man. Blessing I saw that.

I feel like in 50 years, they're going to like do studies and like in the same way where they say like, oh, this family and these kids were exposed to nuclear radiation back in the day. Like these kids were exposed to Kirby Airwriters and their eyes like perceive things way better now. Real talk though, it's like I've said to so many times. But the way that Sakrider X games is unlike anyone else. And I do think that there is like a childlike wonder to playing this game before you know what a game is supposed to be, quote unquote.

Yeah. That allows you to just kind of think differently about video games and about the fun that they have. And the fact that we have this game with as much polish and budget as was put into it in 2025 on the Switch 2, the first year the Switch 2 is out is absolutely insane. I want to keep up the GameCube energy that Nintendo's been having recently. And I think that this is the definition of a game that you do not buy for yourself. you get gifted and it might become your thing. And it's a single button game.

You know, it's an easy game to play if you're trying to give it to a child. And then also like it's a game that has a high difficulty curve, which I think is good. Because like you get in and you can play it, you can have fun, but also you can evolve in it. Like over years, I remember the games I played as a kid where I'm like, damn, this is hard. But like, you know, you play Super Mario Brothers and you're playing World One over and over and over again. And it wasn't until I got a few years older to where it's like, all right, I'm in World Five, two. and I'm fucking doing it right now I'm in world six seven now I'm in yeah I think there's there's space for that I love that um six seven you mother fucking but it's just like it's not even a

twice twice five minutes plus come on man inspired me barrett um you inspire me as well you know what else inspires me games for kids over 13 because that's us in my time coach I have it games for big kids big kids everybody those big beautiful kids let's start with Greg hi what you're getting them big kids we know these are the questions usually that I hate where it's such an open-ended like what would you give someone over 30 i mean i would have a million fucking follow-ups to anybody if they wanted me to recommend them a video game but for 2025 just not knowing who i'm talking to and just shooting something luminous arise uh you know i think luminous is such a great puzzle game obviously no game is for everybody uh but i think this is such a great game uh such a

visual treat such an audio delight uh if i was saying just do a blanket statement of like i want to buy somebody a gift of a game and i don't know what to get them i'd say pick up luminous like what i mean it's a puzzle game i've loved for years and years and years and years and And this one does it incredibly well. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by any stretch of the imagination. But it's great. It's beautiful. It's got a bunch of cool tracks in there.

Why not? Andy. I chose a game called RV There Yet. And this is almost going to be the game that I put for the kids out of 13. But you can smoke cigarettes. And it's illegal to do it under the age. But at 13 is when you can smoke smoke cigarettes. We streamed RV There Yet several months ago.

And it's a multiplayer game. I've been wanting to return to ever since. It is such a fun, co-op, goofy-ass journey with the prox chat happening, with the amount of just silly physics things that can happen in the world. It's you and it's three other players and you're doing your best to get the RV over to the next spot. The RV is very breakable and if you bump up against the wall, you might sort of break the side of it and you need to hopefully have parts to then repair the RV. And, yeah, there's snakes.

There's animals. There's, you know, the, you got to, like, connect the winch to a tree so that you could maybe get yourself out of a muddy area. There's an insane moment where I had, you know, I, like, dived in or dove into a chasm, and I was just stuck down there. I was like, how the fuck do I get out of here? And Kevin was like, Andy, oh, my gosh, dude. I've been, he's been, he was the winch guy.

So he was the one, like, controlling the winch every, anytime we needed, like, you know bring ourselves towards a tree or whatever he said Andy I'm going to connect the winch to myself and I'm going to dive down there and then you could pick up your homies and he was like and then I'll bring us back up I was like fuck yeah dude and I see I see him just just up in the light like with the sun behind him it was like such a heroic moment for him and he dives into this chasm with me with the winch connected to him and he lands and he starts laughing maniacally as he's like diving and I thought it was just because it looked funny like the whole jumping animation and he said, oh my God, I left the remote control in the RV.

And so Kevin's just hanging there with this thing while I'm in this cast. And he's trying to like swing towards me and it's just a fucking disaster. This game is like filled with hilarious ass moments. I think it's like one of my co-op games of the year. That is awesome. That's really funny. Mike. That makes me happy.

Yeah. I'm so happy. You weren't here that day. God, yeah. I took a shot. I was glad that you guys played it without me. It's great. Tim, what do I want to get the big old, beautiful kids?

Tim. Oh, he's got props. I want to introduce them to Magic the Gathering. There's no better time to jump into Magic the Gathering, especially with all the fun universes beyond collapse. You know that over the past year now, we have really celebrated and played a lot of magic here in the office, thanks to Blessing and Greg teaching me.

I am back on the magic grind and I can't get enough of it. And I think with what they've done with Magic the Gathering Foundations, being a new way to introduce new players, having a foundational set that is like, hey, this is going to kind of touch everything, but also be focused on you learning and being able to play. They also now have the Magic, the Gathering Avatar, The Last Airbender set that also has a beginner box that I think does a fantastic job

in introducing new players, right? That's what I'm giving me, my friend Sarah, who loves Avatar, but it hasn't gotten that deep into magic yet. Yes, and so these packages include everything you need, right? They have 10 themed jumpstart decks that are half decks that you would combine together. So you start to dip into the multicolored decks of magic that will really show a player how to go. You get two game board play mats. You get two how to play guides, two reference cards, two spin down, health dice. They have everything in these packages ready to go for anyone to live.

learn and you can teach. We saw that with Greg and Bless. We literally sat here on a stream read the rules and they went card by card, went straight down the book and were able to at least learn the very basics and then be able to bounce off of that. That was amazing. That box is what started the journey for Bless.

It started the love for me, but I have not the time to go play and get good like Bless has to be obsessed because you're on another level. Water still warm. I'm coming. Don't worry. Especially when we can get Ben to where he, like today he got from the elves, a pack of playing cards. is that it's Superman on him. I taught him go fish.

And it was that idea, like, when we get to a point where I can start introducing this kind of stuff, I'll be all about it. Oh, hell, yeah. And there's a shop in the neighborhood that does, like, it's a kid, it's a game shop where you could go play magic, but they do kid nights or whatever. Anyways, back to this, one of my favorite stream moments is that you and me sitting down, not knowing how to play magic, learning through this foundation's box. And there's like, I forget what it is anymore, but there's a moment where something happens and we both go, ah, and like, you see us lean in and, like, it clicks, and we get it. And it was like, I would love.

love to get back to Magic. As a kid that grew up with a lot of sports, Tim, but also had a lot of friends in different groups, right? I had the theater group that I was very close with. I had friends that were just all about. I enjoy going to the local game shop and seeing the kids come in, whether they be with their parents or it's just like them and they're like preteen teenage years and them being exposed to like, hey, there are other kids that are out here playing the game. You're building this bond with this community that I think it's just the coolest around, right? down in Palo Alto they have GameLandia that does

kids-centric nights where they play commander and have fun and that place is packed with pre-teens to teens laughing and having fun and building this group of others that they might not ever meet and so I think magic has really set me off on this path of like expanding my kind of friend group

and beyond and I love that and so yeah I have to recommend Magic the Gathering for like that pre-teen to teenager I think really would go far with this kind stuff and hopefully put them on a cool path to meet new people and play a really great game. Love that. Bless.

Yeah. So, of course, for this category, you're talking about games for ages over 13. And that could be teenager. That could also be adult, right? And I think my mantra for this one, for my pick, is be the cool friend. Be the friend that has the opportunity to change your buddy's life. Because we all have a friend that, like, kind of plays video games or is into video games, but you might be to the nerdy one in your friend group if you're listening to this podcast.

You definitely are. Yeah, you definitely are the nerd. one of your friend you'd be listening to the podcast. Addison might be, yeah, no, Addison might be the nerdy friend. Be somebody's Addison is what I'm saying. And gift them the gift of Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

You know somebody that hasn't played Expedition 33 and they will thank you for it. Like you can change somebody's life going forward. That's my pitch. Yeah. I mean, I love that. I was going to put that one down for the exact same reason. And the reason that I didn't is because I already did that to all of my friends.

And that has been my year already of gifting them. That's add them being like, oh my God, this is amazing. seeing Snowbike Mike play through it. The amount that I've watched you, bro. It's so good. I saw your epilogue yesterday.

Oh my God. So good. But yeah, I could not second that anymore. But I wanted to go with a different one. And that is Hades 2. Because I feel like Hades 2 is be the cool friend, all of that. I feel like we're getting to the point that Hades is a quote unquote household name. But really, it's not, right?

When we're talking about getting just a little bit outside of the gamer spheres, I feel like this is still something that maybe they've heard. heard of before, but I don't think people quite understand how good it is. And don't talk to them about rogue lights or rogue likes or just be like, just play this game. It is essentially free. Like whether you're playing Hades 1 or 2, but obviously start with 2 now. If you have a Switch 2, you're looking for things to play. If you have a PC, it's, you do not need a crazy PC to run this. Any handheld can run this thing so well. It is just such an easy recommendation because I feel like it is the type of game. It's just like, I don't need to tell you anything. Just jump in. Just commit to

playing for an hour and you'll see if it's for you and chances are it's gonna be um and yeah i i just love this game so much and it's just so cool looking that even if you don't understand understand the gameplay and it's overwhelming because it kind of is like when you jump into this for the first time sure there's so many currencies there's so many systems there's so many things that you don't understand you learn all of them just by playing it and that becomes fun so yeah i think to both our picks right like these are the games that you can give to your normie friends and they'll fall in love with, right? If they like video games, they play video games at all, like they will get obsessed

with Hades, too. They'll get obsessed with Clairebscare. Mikey Mogg, superchats in, saying, I just finished Expedition 33, five minutes ago, and yeah, everyone needs to play this game. This is my game of the year. We're going to be right back with a couple more categories for holiday gift giving right after a word

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This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support our show by mentioning us at checkout. terms and conditions apply. And we are back with gaming hardware, console PC or handheld for this 2025 holiday gift guide. Let's start with Gregory. Me again. I've started out of the category. You're just going right down the order. Yeah, I think

probably shocking no one for me this year. I'm recommending the ROG Xbox Ally X. You know, he's want to call the Xbox ally, but there's too much. There's too much going on there. I know all the I wasn't on the review back in the day I agreed with everything you guys said though totally got where you were coming from as somebody who was already using the Ally X as my dedicated PC handheld this one is better than it in every way I love the grips I love the tech inside of it

as you all know I am a big idiot I only started playing PCs when PCs became hey this is good enough to just be awesome out of the box great thank you so much the amount of times I've seen in our Slack channel hey, we got this game, people dive in and go, oh, hey, actually it doesn't run on Steam Deck. And the fact that that hasn't been an issue for me on the AllyX, both with my old AllyX and this one, where it just is able to be a better PC and run those experiences for it. Again, what I had said before, both Allies have come in for review. But after that taste of the original Xbox, or I'm sorry, the original Ally X, when they announced this one, I said,

if they took away the original AllyX, X, I would throw the $1,000 at them to get this. And that remains true to this day. they came and said, hey, we need the Xbox review units back. I would say I will gladly go off and buy this on my own because I've had that much fun and it's been that transformative for me this year. Again, we've talked about this on a number of different shows, but this has been the year of me playing PC as my number one platform. Like my trophies on PlayStation are embarrassing. Most of them are from Ben playing other things and going into it. It's the ease of use of this.

It is for me personally. I know so many people are off put by the Windows NIST even of this ally or the ally before it. both of them have been great and I love how easy it is to swipe up on this one go into the desktop experience do whatever I need even before then the Xbox button to the thing my Bluetooth I was so worried pre-launch that getting this to do another Bluetooth controller or headphones would be booting windows would be doing this they have simplified it where that box or just the Xbox button to the things gets in there it works it doesn't pull me out of experience even when I do pull out of the experience it's fine I'm able to go do what I want to do you know I want to review horses okay

where do I get it? I got to go to Humble. Okay, I buy Humble, you know, via the laptop I was on, but then I'm easily able to go here, get it to the desktop that I like. I love the Ally X. I understand why people don't. The buttons are way too fucking loud. I have talked about this at length. Tim talked about it in the review. You can ask my wife, who's thrown me out of the bedroom while I was reviewing Octopath Travelers here and was like, as long as you're reviewing this game, you're not allowed to do it in bed. She's so stoked that I'm back on this switch kick now. But no, I love this damn thing. Hell yeah. Let's go then to, I guess me, with the Steam Deck OLED.

And this is a weird one. I really, I love the Steam Deck OLED. I feel like it's the type of product that is so rare in tech period where it is a game changer. Like it is such a, and it's been for years. But it changes the way you play games and changes the way you interact with video games. And specifically to me, you would not be surprised. It's the OLED that makes the difference. I really am blown away by the quality. of the screen and how well it works for so many different use cases. And I think the bigger pitch

for me on the holiday gift guide side of things is the Steam Deck OLED is what I put down, but really my answer is a device for cloud gaming. And I feel like whatever your specific use cases are, like that's such a great present for somebody else or for yourself, like a great gift to kind of enhance your gaming. And even if you don't think that it's for you or that you have use cases for it, I think you might be surprised at how much it might. kind of shift or change the way that you are able to play games. So if you're in the PlayStation ecosystem, despite it not being OLED, I think the portal is a great entry point. I think that everybody that I know that has gotten one surprisingly has been so happy with it for just the

amount of times it allows them to sneaking a little gaming that they wouldn't be able to otherwise. But I think that overall, if you have the money for it, the Steam Deck OLED is the best overall bang for your buck in quality experience because you get the best of cloud streaming for all the different systems, but then you also get standalone being able to play Steam games. So, and the price isn't outrageously expensive for, for what it is. But yeah, whatever cloud-based system you're looking for, or cloud-based hardware, I think you're going to have a good time now. If you want something a little smaller, and if you're a fan of the, like, PlayStation Vita kind of size and shape, the Retroid Pocket 5, I think is a great option because that also has an

incredible OLED screen. It is light as hell, and it can run all the clouds. services. So you can play all the PC games, all your PlayStation games, like everything on this thing. And it's awesome. And that's like $220. Something like that. But yeah, that's my pick. Andy? I was originally going to talk about the X-Rule after my wonderful weekend where you let me your X-Reels. But Mike has it on his list. So I'll let him- double team it right now. All right. Let's just talk about how great they are. They're awesome. I'm a true believer. I can't get enough of this. And I'm having so much fun going to friends houses, bringing my pair to them, and being like, let's play around

with it. And being like, press that button. Now press this button up on the sides. And we're plugging it into my Xbox, Raj Ali. We're plugging it into my Steam deck. It is so plugging into the phone. It is awesome. It is amazing.

Yeah. It's, I, now I'm at the point where it's like, I don't want to have a long flight without them now. Like, I did get sort of very spoiled to that point because I've not, I've never really enjoyed the neck down looking at the handheld thing anyway. I've never been a huge fan of that. And there have been times in the past where, like, certain backs of seats on airplanes have, like,

enough slots to where I have, like, a little mount, foldable mount thing that I bought on Amazon many, many years ago that I would, like, try to slot into where the books go, to where your barf bag is. Yeah, and, like, and it's a lot harder to do that now with how, you know, a lot of flights will have screens or whatever. But also try to, like, find a way because I, I hate, how much, like, how annoying my, my neck discomfort gets.

But, yeah, these things, having them on that flight. And then being in the hotel room was, like, so great, because I was just looking up at the ceiling, playing Absalom on, like, Nvidia G-Force now. It was crazy. Like, yeah, the X-Reels, I've become, like, a true believer in, holy shit. I now need to get this after Tim Lententen to me, and my life hasn't really been the same. put them as my pick because during the production meeting you said like you were joking i guess but

you're just like oh tim i got dibs on putting it out on the gift guy and so i didn't but like yeah without question xreal are the thing that i would recommend like obviously they can get kind of pricey i would recommend getting the xreal one the line that's called xreal one um so there's the ones and there's the one pros either of those are like they it's just worth the investment for every reason and he just said but like i use them so frequently whether it's for traveling i will not fly without them. Like that is such a game changer. But it is just laying in bed when Jesus sleep. And I have an amazing screen in front of me with like, I'm holding a controller comfortably. Like it's such a game changer. I want them so bad. It's, it's a hard thing to,

to me, it's like trying to tell somebody about a VR game. You don't know it unless you're looking and experiencing it where when you try to sell somebody on like the magic of Half Life Alex or something, it's like you don't really know unless you're there. And anytime I see advertisers for these things. They just I couldn't really see how good that that experience would be until you actually put them on. Yeah, you got to put on your face because I think

there's so many things like, all right, well, does it hurt my eyes? Does it do this thing? Is there really that much better am I, like, I have borrowed, I borrowed Tim's for the Coast of Yota thing where I was trying to make it work on a plane with a PlayStation 5. I got close. Which is insane. I got close. It almost worked. I need that low power

mode. I could get it on. I was watching, but anytime I'd launch the game, that's when that would draw to which power and crash out. But then, yeah, when I was doing Octopath review, I had a couple flights or maybe just one and tossed him in with the Rog ally. And it was like, fuck, I will not be able to go back on a long haul flight for this.

Because, yeah, I've never thought about the, you know, I'm huge. I'm uncomfortable on a plane no matter what. So I never really thought about the head down nature of it or bringing it up and doing whatever. And I had the switch where I would try to do whatever. But once I had this and had it, it was like, oh, and not only that, then having the equivalent of,

to an 80-inch theater screen, whatever. Seeing the amount of detail in the game that I don't, I had been ignoring for hours because I was playing primarily handheld, it was like, fuck, this is awesome. I've never felt so bad for Tim because Andy had his pair. And Tim and I had to go to Seattle together. And I walked down the aisle and Tim was hunched over with his switch, looking at Hades all uptight.

And like, that's me is right, Tim. Like, I have my phone that I watch all my movies on. The TV screen on the United App, just play something just to have something on it, right? And it's like, I'm looking down on my phone. I'm trying to hold my phone up. These things have changed everything for me. And I'm so thankful because it is amazing.

Yeah. For audio listeners, don't know what it is. It's not like this big-ass Apple Vision Pro thing that is a massive VR-looking headset. It is, they look like wayfair glasses. They go on your face and you wear them and they're awesome. Yeah, so many in chat asks, are they good for glasses? wears and for me as a glasses wear the one time I've gone to check them out they worked perfectly I was surprised by how good the vision was honestly but you had another

pick Andy yeah yeah the other pick I have is a purchase I made early in the year which is the retroid pocket flip two not the pillow for all of well that's that was gonna be in the gaming accessory area and I've I mean I talked the pillow to death like it's a brand con mechanism but this is the retroid pocket flip two which is on sale right now, probably for the holidays. It is a DS-looking clamshell device, a great emulation device, and with the strides that people have been making with,

like, hey, download this Android app and connect your Steam library to it, that has really kind of changed the game even more, where at first this was originally just going to be the emulation device. And the OLED screen is fucking fantastic. on this on this little handheld it is um 229 originally but i it's weird but barrett just brought that up the the price of it but like on one of the other screens it says that it's 179 so i'm wondering if that's just like a different color maybe it's on sale but the um yeah the the the the strides

that we've been making where there's an android app called game hub another one called game native i believe by a different kind of company that you access your steam library and it like does this virtualization that where those games normally wouldn't run on an arm chip or whatever like they are able to do so in a really weird way and you're just you're connected your steam library so it's it knows that you own these games and you are able to play smaller indie titles because roger brought up a great point to me many many months ago right before this stuff started kind of coming around where he's like i love my steam deck it's just too chunky for a device that like well I just want to play

Silk Song or Hades I got this device is like too big well I just want something smaller to run the really small indie titles and this the way the tech is advancing to get those indie titles to run on Android emulators is really really crazy but yeah I love this little device

haven't had a whole lot of of a chance to play it recently just because of all the games that have been out but I play through a shit ton of vagrant story on it as well as like link to the past and uh Final Fantasy 6 and all sorts of stuff like that. It's awesome.

Yeah. There's so many great products. I think that there's like a sweet spot of about $200 right now that it's going to get you something with an amazing OLED screen in whatever form factor you prefer, whether it's more vertical or horizontal and like all of that stuff that allows cloud gaming, allows emulation and it's now starting to allow this like more semi-native. Steam. It's incredible. Cloud gaming G-Force now as well, like crazy. It looks so damn good on the, again, it was always such a. tragedy when like the switch two comes out. I'm like oh man like my retrooid screen looks so much

better than this dude. Uh, bless. Yeah, I originally was also going to go with the steam deck OLED uh, not because I have one, but because I would like to be gifted one. Um, but and I was mainly going to go with that because my original pick was all sold out. The Inlock 3D has been out of stock for a while. I'm like, that's a one that I've recommended of friends to get people that they know that have nostalgia for the N64. But as of today, good news, uh, they announced a, new analog 3D skew. They have all the colors. They have all the colors. Wow. So they call them the fantastic

limited editions. They have one, two, three, four, about eight different colors here being they got the fancy names for them. Jungle, ice, watermelon fire, just, you know, fun colors, right? So the one we're looking at right now is the jungle, which is green. Of course, like the fire one is orange, the grape one is purple. Shipping in 2029. Well, that's the other thing to it, is that they say here on the website, guaranteed Christmas delivery. No way. Yes. And so if you're somebody who is trying to find something novel to get somebody that you know for Christmas, right? This will ship by Christmas and highly recommend it if you have somebody that has a nostalgia for it in their life, right? I was kind of surprised, honestly, when I posted some Instagram stories of mine when it came in. Also, I should shout out this $300. Pictures of mine when it came in where I got so many responses from people who are, of course, gamers, but then people who are non-gamers that saw the entity for quadrits and went, oh, what is this? Like, there was some.

so much fascination around it. If you don't know what the analog 3D is, of course, the company analog is known for making a lot of retro style devices. The 3D is the N64. And it's not just, it's not emulating N64. Like, it is a recreation of the N64 that allows you to play those games on 4K devices, right? And I don't know exactly how the technology works, but essentially like, you know, it is, stretching isn't even the word for it, but it's upscaling, yes, thank you, upscaling it to that 4K screen to actually make it work and make it look nice. And, and not requiring you to have the composite, you know, the yellow, red and white, or the, or the component, whatever, it's like, it's all modernized. Yeah, all modernized using HTMLI. Um, they also have

an original controller for it that is made by 8 bit though that is, I think, a very, very great modernization of the Institute 4 controller. Yeah. Like, it's so crazy holding this thing and being like, oh shit, this actually feels nice. This is how it should have been. This is how it should have been. We got to go back in time and change it. Like, this is actually very fantastic. And so the one, one, the one thing that I wish they did have was just like the regular color of it back in stock. It seems like that's still not the case. But if you were somebody that grew up

with the fucking colorful ass and 64s like many of us did, I think it's such a great option for Christmas. I'm gonna buy this. I mean, I'll go for the jungle green because I had that, but I have a box of N64 games. I probably have 50 to 75 N64 games that just sit there. The entire library. And it is my, I mean, my childhood.

It's all I ever think about. It's when I smile, I think of nostalgia. I think of those moments. It's like when blessed put that up there, it's like, I have to get this. So I'll be buying this right away. Hell yeah. Let's move on then to gaming accessory.

Once again, Greg, let's start with you. Hello, everyone. It'll start off boring and then get maybe more interesting. If you've ever followed me for any of my handheld, I always talk about sfbags.com and the city slickers. Of course, my Vita had one. My Switch had one. My Steam deck had one.

My, uh, ROG originally had one. Then they made a giant one for the, a bit, and this is Switch 2 in here right now. And then, yeah, they made a big one recently

for the Xbox with Rog AllyX. Again, uh, whatever handheld do you have. If you need a nice case, uh, the city slicker is the one that I've always gone with and loved the most. Uh,

so again, SF bags. I talk about all the time. Congratulations. Uh, yeah, you're like, Greg,

that's boring. It's the same thing as ever. Uh, I recently though, with the, um, Xbox, right,

was like, it's so, large that I was like I feel not that the city slicker's not good enough for it but when I'm really banging around there like my bag's tight I feel like the the rocks being so big makes my bag tighter with the grips

than it did even the one before it right that I was looking at it and I went and got the how do you say the J-O-S-E-S-Ox what how do you say it just Sal was how I always said it J-S-Ox yeah J-S-A-U-X they've been around forever right but they made a hard top one bigger one this double-decker one that I had them send over

or whatever, right? So on the top, you can put it in the ally, right, lock it down that way, protect the screen that way, have a hard top on top of it, but then even beyond that underneath it, you could put in the plug, you could put in the stand, I carry my battery pack and a USBC in there or whatever, just more for it.

There's a chat from Crean that says, those bags are great for spunking and looking for agent. So yeah, I just had two options there. Of course, SF bags I would live and die by. They've been great to us. I still use their backpack all the time,

the one I reviewed on here or whatever. So they're fantastic, but if you're looking for a little bit more half this one in general, too, feeling a little bit more bullet point proof for my big bags. That's cool. Love that. Andy, let's go to you.

My recommendation for little accessories, aside from the mechanism, gaming pillow, which is one that I've talked about ad nauseum throughout the year. The recommendation I'll go with is the Game Sur controller. It is a control that I've been, it's been my daily driver. I've been using this one the most this year. Second most is probably the scuff Valor Pro, which is also a very, very good controller.

This is a wired or wireless controller, and they normally retail around 80 bucks. There's some couple of special editions you see that are like 100 because they have different visuals to them. But it's the best feeling controller so far for me this year. Damn. It has the best of all. I can point to a lot of things on other controllers that, like, oh, I don't love the way this feels. I don't love the grip here.

I don't love the way that the back buttons feel. This one in, like, in totality is like my favorite one. I highly recommend this one. It comes with a little, like, charging dock, which I don't really use a whole lot. but the most important thing for, you know, I normally would recommend a lot of 8-bit do's because they're normally like $20 to $10 cheaper, but I hate having to remap buttons with those games,

like whenever I'm, or with those controllers, rather, whenever I'm gaming and I need to switch to Hades where Dash is on the A button, I can easily do it here on the hardware without having to open a third-party software on my computer, or if you're playing on Xbox, you don't have to then go to your computer and plug it in or whatever.

It's all just hardware-based remapping, which is I hope that 8-bit dough does that in the future because then I would go right back to 8-bit though. But I love these controllers. They rule. Yeah, I've bought a couple. Only problem is the gray nub

thumbsticks or whatever stain really easily if you're a Hot Cheetos easy. Yeah, be careful. Is it a Hot Cheetos user? Hot Cheetos, yeah, eat her. But when you put that hot Cheetos dust in the Y button, does it still work or well? I don't like this.

I don't like what I think. I'm going to stick with the controller talk here. I'm going to recommend the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller. Oh, what a beautiful. Six months in to the Switch 2 being a thing, I feel like there was a question early on of like, do I really need to upgrade to the two if I already have the one? And the more experience that I've had with the two and the few times I've had to use the one, I'm like, wow, it really, really is a hefty but worthy investment.

I think the HD Rumble 2 goes such a long way as we've experienced now through multiple games, whether it's Kirby Air Riders or Richard Prime or Mario Kart World and all of that. Like, it feels so much better. We talked about this on a recent show, but the actual premium feel of the plastic is... It's a silky magic that I just don't understand how they figured it out, like how it just feels so good to hold. Having the back paddles integrated is awesome. the gyro stuff on this is a dream for playing games like metric prime four recently but even going back to like the splatoons and all of that like this is such a fantastic Nintendo controller the analog sticks are just so buttery smooth like it is such an easy recommendation that I feel like is worth the upgrade if you have been putting it off and you're like I don't think I need it I think you do and it's a great gift I think this is the it's the perfect gift because there's going to be people that are like I don't want to spend that much but you'll make someone really happy when they're like you'll make someone really happy when they're like I don't want to spend that much but you'll make someone really happy when they don't need to spend it and they have this.

Nice. Bless. Yeah, to keep with the controller talk, mine is the dual sense edge. You can get right now for $170. I think that's like a discounted price on their website. I believe it's $200 usually MSRP. It's my favorite of the modern PlayStation accessory lineup that they have where I love how the like grip feels on the controller, the texture of it.

I love the paddles on the back, right? Like this is one of those ones where when I'm at work, because I keep my dual sense edge at home, when I'm at work and I'm on. stream or I'm playing games on my desk, it just doesn't feel right because I'm using the regular dual. It makes the regular dual sense, which is expensive as hell, feel cheap to me because I'm so locked into using my dual sensor edge controller. And so if you have somebody that's like really, really into PlayStation and you know that's their main platform of choice, I cannot recommend it enough. It's my favorite controller, period. I use this on every system that I possibly can.

Whenever I can. It's very, very high quality. Mike. Tim, Andy, there's a saying that you and I both know. Look good, play good. When I look good, I feel good. And when I feel good, I play good. And Tim, you know, ever since I started here, kind of funny, I've always said, as a kid, I always wished there was more gaming clothing. Right?

I always wanted cool PlayStation T-shirts, Xbox T-shirts, and they just didn't have that back then. And now we live in a world where Andy can rock this dope, Dark Souls T-shirt from the TikTok shop and beyond, right? There's so many cool gaming apparel brands now. And so, for me, I went to Culture Kings because you've seen me rock the, Culture Kings clothing before.

It's kind of big in boxing, but I think they have some really cool video game collabs if we scroll through this, that like video game players, kids would really vibe with, right? You have Master Chief, you have Skyrim here, you have StarCraft over there. You have Blizzard games like Diablo and Warcraft.

We go into Star Wars Battlefront too. And like these t-shirts are just so cool looking, right? And so if I could rewind time if I was back in high school college, even today, I still wear them. Come on. I just love a cool video game piece of apparel, and I don't think we get enough.

And I always want to highlight brands that I think are doing a good job, right? Maybe they're not for you, or maybe you see yourself or somebody you know that would want something like this. I think they have all the games you could ever ask for and more. So it's really, really dope. If you keep loading this, kingdom hearts on that, they have it all. Here's the thing, Mike. They've done a great job with that.

We grew up in an era that didn't have the video game shirts. And if we did, it was a freaking try force, okay? You know what I mean? And that was it. That was all that we were going to get. But we also grew up with a bunch of uncles and father figures and all this stuff. And they're wearing all the band shirts that they grew up with. This is just the band shirts for our era.

Right? We're going to just see a bunch of old motherfuckers like us wearing a bunch of simple and clean Kingdom Hearts shirts. And you know what? That's just, that's it. That's the wave. We're doing it. We're changing things.

I love this pick, Mike. Thank you, homie. Thank you. Now we're getting into the miscellaneous gift-giving category here with memberships. nerdy non-gaming things or any just fun gift you want to talk about Greg what do you want to talk about uh this Vanessa Carlton no I'm kidding uh on Greg way I talked about it a while back it wasn't like a full-blown thing it was just a question that got tossed out there but I'm going to toss out the super note nomad uh it is this digital notebook I have uh I am notoriously hard to shop for because

whenever there's something I want I just usually buy it right because I'm an adult uh and so this year when uh I actually ran into a review on IGN of them reviewing the super a nomad, right? Which is just a digital notebook so you can go in and write, draw, whatever. And I read their review and I liked it so much. And it was that, like, oh, man, I kind of missed journaling the Dragon Age journal I did when I was playing that. And I was like, I'd love to do that for more video games. And I was like, you know what, I'd love to journal in general or have a notepad with me at all

times to jot stuff down. And there's plenty of notepads I have, real physical ones. But, you know, they're too floppy. They got to write on my knee. I got to do this. And it just wasn't the vibe I wanted. And so I read the IG. and review went and looked at the price

I don't have it in front of me right now but it's on the product page and I was like you know what? No I'm not going to do it I'm going to walk away from it I walked away from it in months later was still thinking about the damn thing so I was finally like you know what Jen this is what I want for Christmas and she said okay great thanks that you never have anything I was fantastic and then she didn't give it to me right away and I was like well can I have it I know but it's like I'd be using it right now for stuff she wrapped it up and gave it to me and so I've been running around with this guy

jotting down notes I write I find it a better way to like I don't it's not that I hate texting or I hate emails or anything else but I want another thing so like I I write people letters now

like not real letters like I write the thing out and then I just send the screenshots or the PDFs or the images to people if I want to do that like if I like on a plane or whatever like I'm loving having a creative outlet to just doodle in do whatever I need to. Yeah love that very cool. I like the look of it.

Yep. Okay. mine is what I consider an excellent example for this prompt, which is this is a great gift for people because a lot of people are going to fight it because they hear it. They're like, I don't need that. I don't want that. But I'm telling you, it's going to change your life.

It's the Apple TV 4K. The amount of times people ask me, Tim, you love home theaters, you love all that stuff. Like, what are the must-haves? Must-have number one, OLED TV. Must-have number two, Apple TV 4K. In that order, you then can start getting more and more crazy. But here's the pitch. Don't think about it as an Apple device. People get so caught up and I don't like Apple. I don't care about Apple. It's not about that. It's about the absolute greatest way to get to your streaming apps with zero ads with beautiful animations. It is fluid as hell. And you might be like, my smart TV has all those things. Your smart TV also has ads. Your smart TV also has shitty looking you eyes half the time. It also has stutters. It also has horrible animations. Everything is just a little bit worse. This is the perfect. gift for somebody to make their life just a little bit better each and every day. And I have not

been wrong about this. Every single person I've put on loves it. To add on to you, Tim, right? I believe it was last year where Gary Wooda gave me one of these for Christmas. And I have, I have it in my living room. In my bedroom TV, I have the Amazon fire stick. And I don't want to talk shit about the Amazon fire stick. But I do want to talk about it's got me through some tough times. It's got me through some tough times. Let me tell you, I mean, it did keep me from finishing stranger things last night because it was stuttering, but that's a little different thing. When I tell you that, Tim, you're a 1,000% spot on on how better

of a streaming device this is than anything else that's out there. It is so snappy. It is so not. Even the controller, or the remote control feels pristine, like it feels like a premium product. I absolutely love this thing. It's funny because Nick gave me one of these for the holidays as well, and I love

this. It is the center of my living room. Where's everybody getting good? Nick loves me. What's funny about this, I do think there's that Gary and I are Gary and I. So whenever they put out a new one, we upgrade, and then we have ones to give out. So I do think that there's kind of this handbag.

Because guess where Nick got that one? I don't think he bought it. I'll tell you that. And so, yes, I love this. It is the center of everything for me. I use it all the time, Tim. And I love that it's connected all of my apps into one place.

It's easy to navigate. I am surfing all the time. I jump from YouTube over to Apple TV. I jump over to Peacock. I'm over on Paramount. I have Fox Sports. I have every app on that and I can jump back and forth

at an instant. It's awesome. And like, I'm not an Apple person. So I never would have gotten this, right? Like, I remember it was a conversation

that me and Gary had when I, he mentioned Apple TV and I was like, oh, whatever. And he like, gifted it to me as like a proof of, hey, like,

take this. You're going to want this. And for me, as somebody who does not touch Apple shit, period. Like, I'm an Android boy for life. I fucking love this thing.

Yeah. I also don't know if it's a, an update thing that I'm, about to complain about or something, but when I was back home and with my parents at their house in the RV, we don't play no games, and we were watching through Severance for the first time. And we were using the, we were largely using the Apple TV app on the LG OLED, right? And then I, we were like, oh, let's get this like Google Chrome thing, Google Chrome TV thing, like the newer version of it. Google TV. Yeah, Google TV is a newer version of it.

and the Apple TV app was not outputting in 4K. Everything else is doing 4K, but Severance was 1080P, lower res, bit rate, and I don't know if that's just an update thing or whatever, but I don't know if Apple was being like, no, no, no, you come to us for 4K, or you don't get our 4K on the competitor's device or whatever. And that did kind of suck,

but in that moment we went back to the LG app and, you know, things were a little bit better, but you're so right, Tim, where anytime my, anytime there's an issue with an app, it's always because the TV apps just don't get the quickest amount of love. They're always kind of on the back burner for updates, it feels like, and there will be, like, shitty bugs or weird issues with them

that they're always crashing on my dad's more recent LGC3, I forget which one it is, but yeah, the Apple TV, it feels like they get priority for updates and stuff. It's like the Steam Deck, right? Yeah. Like, where it's like, it gets the priority because, like, that, it is a device that, have and it is a nice metric. So yeah, you're getting the fastest updates. Like even the things like

YouTube and Twitch, like their apps are glorious to look at. There's also a whole bunch of other things that are very, very great about the system where the amount of game support is absolutely insane. Like the amount of cloud streaming things you can even just get on Apple TV. GForce Now is not there yet. That's going to be the game changer of when GForse now is available native on the Apple TV. It's going to be the easiest recommendation I could ever make to somebody. But check it out for sure. Bless, what do you got? Yeah, so Dropout is probably the best entertainment subscription that I've made in the last few years, and it continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.

So much so that if you're coming to the friends or to the, what you can call it, the favorite things party that we're throwing on Saturday, and you're watching this, turn this off. Where I'm doing a favorite things party this Saturday, right, which is a party where people, it's like a white elephant, except every single person brings three of the same thing. And there are rounds of, you know, people go up and they take what they like And so you're leaving with three gifts, but ideally it's your favorite thing that you've

gotten this year under the price of like $15. The thing that I'm probably bringing is a $15 dropout membership because you can gift memberships to people on their website. $15 gets to about two months a year for dropout, I believe it's about like $70. And when I tell you that so many people in my life fuck with the dropout content and really enjoy the dropout content, if you're somebody who's into D&D or are curious about getting into D&D, they got it. If you like game shows, if you like Game Showdown, they have shows like game changers and I'm actually, you probably seen clips of that those shows are phenomenal, right?

Like, there is a lot of comedy content, a lot of improv content, and like, I cannot recommend them as a comedy group enough. I think Dropout is absolutely fantastic. And yeah, like, I think a gift of a dropout membership could go a long way if you're trying to put your friends on. Yeah, I second this entirely. Like, it is one that I, gotten so much value out of from the content. And even when there's a month that goes by where just because of life, I don't have time to watch new stuff, I still keep the subscription because I'm just like, not only do they deserve the money, but like, I know I'm going to be back. And I know that it's going to like have a ton of new stuff that's worth watching. So good call. Love that.

That's true. Yeah. A lot of people calling out the full profit share stuff, which is really, really awesome. Yeah. Andy. Oh, my recommendation would be a humble bundle membership. You can pay 1499 a month to get a really cool bundle of a bunch of different indie games on Steam. And some portions go to charities. They have raised, so far, they have raised $274 million for charity. And they've supported 34,000 different charities so far. This month is save the children, where conflict erupts or disaster strikes, children lose the most, their homes, their schools,

our sense of safety. And it's just a really cool way to support stuff while also getting really good games. Like this month's Humblebill Bundle has nine souls in it, which is one of our faves from last year, and Streets of Rage 4,

like a dragon, Guyton, the man who erase his name. And there's always like random cool game. So I recently was kind of, I've obviously known about Humble Bundle for a long ass time, but just was never something that I ever looked into

until I was doing a recent kind of like giveaway code thing where I was like, hey, if you have codes to give away, you know, times are tough right now. Let's try to give away some games to people. And many games I got were from people's home, but I was going like, oh yeah, I pay like 15 bucks a month and they give me 20 codes. So here's random games that are like really good from like, oh shit, they have this game, which was a banger that came out three years ago. It's a lot of different games like that. And so, yeah, I would recommend that $14.99 a month. And the other recommendation I had was Nvidia G-Force now, which is just really cool.

kind of changed the way that I feel about cloud gaming. Hell yeah. Mike, close this out. Tim, I got two fun ones for you. I'll put out a good one right now. Recently, I've been on a big pin kick. I asked Blessing when he went to MagicCon to give me a MagicCon and I also bought a Sailor Moon Pin collection from our local game store. And I wanted to shout out a kind of funny best friend. I think it's very cool. I always say that all of you are so talented and amazing.

I'm just some random gibroni. and I love seeing what you guys put out there. And so if you're looking for a fun stocking stuffer, something small but thoughtful, I want to point you over to a kind of funny best friend, ginger pins shop over here has all of the cool pins that you could ever ask for from some of your favorite video games like Kirby, Expedition 33,

One Piece Pirates. I think they're cute. I think they're fun. She is pretty awesome and it's in the community. I think it's just a great way to highlight a lot of you out there that do awesome and incredible things. And so if you're looking for cute, pins, there's earrings here, even

desk mats and mouse pads, you can go check out Ginger Pins Shop for some cute stuff there. I just wanted to highlight a cool best friend. And then to finish, I want to get a little selfish, okay, because it's all about you guys and the gifts you're giving, but what about the gifts you're giving to me?

Snowbike Mike. And so there's one gift that I would like this year, Andy. Write this down, okay? Let's go to the next one. What is the gift that Snowbike Mike wants the most? It is the world of of Warcraft box set collection. From vanilla to, of course, the very latest.

I want every single world of warcraft. It's the question mark. No, it's not that. No, you put in the wrong link. So it just went to this again. I'm putting it in assets right now, Baird. I wanted it to be the jersey so bad.

I thought that was like a funny one too much. I'm debating on if I can pull that jersey off. I don't know if I can pull that jersey off. I don't think you ever really care. You just do it. So I want this world. Warcraft box set because Tim World Warcraft means a lot to me and those

boxes are iconic. They're special the PC boxes that just stand out. You think of walking down that PC aisle in the early 2000s at Target and you're like man these boxes are so fucking cool. But this is Jibroni out in Europe has this and I want all of these. I want to start and create the ultimate

World Warcraft box collection. I'm going to put them up on the walls. That's what I want. That's fire as hell. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. Oh, man, I love that so much. What are you going to get me?

Listen, we eliminate Mike from the thing. That's 10 of us. We just give 20 bucks. There you go. I want to get to some super chats to close out the show here. Mac and Awesome says, I just bought a mechanism gaming pillow as a gift. Also, thank you all for getting me through some of the absolute worst times of my life.

Big love. Shout out to you. Hopefully things are going better. And hopefully they enjoy the gift. A normal pillow just under your head right and you just got it on your lap. and it's just like, oh, weight-free. It's so good. Game for hours.

Let's see. The other laser says late birthday tax. It was yesterday. Happy birthday. Enjoying all my free foods from restaurants. Video game art books are my go-to. What do you all think is the best one? I think that's a great gift suggestion, actually.

The answer right now is the Expedition 33, but it's only in French right now. So you might need to wait a little bit for the English version. Cash Bandicoot 4. I love the colors. I love Crash. I love any gaming art book. If you have a Souls fan in your life, obviously it's really awesome to get the art books, which are great. But the one and only Vati Vidia, if you follow any Souls content, you may have been algorithmed already where the ad pops up and he goes, I'm writing a book.

And it is a book through Tune and Fairweather. Tune and Fairweather's been doing all of these sort of indie collabs with a lot of different creators out there. and it is essentially like a collection of a bunch of the different scripts he's written for all of his souls videos with like you know annotated stuff and images and all sorts of fun stuff but the quality of it also looks really really fantastic because they I've bought in a lot of different things from tune in fair weather I'm going to put it into assets right now Barrett but this thing looks so damn cool and they just put so much love into the physical look of these books. I bought a couple different ones from like the blood-born versions that they have from different authors throughout the

the Souls community like Smotown and stuff. There's a lot of really, really awesome creators out there. Alec Bobcoe says, I got an 8-inch small horizontal monitor as a third screen for a permanent Discord slash YouTube music screen. Great addition to a setup without taking up much space. Yeah, y'all might not know.

The prices of these little screens are like, it's like $30. Like you can get like these nice little things just for whatever weird use case you have. So definitely look into that. Yeah, that is a good call. I have a 1080p, like 8 inch monitor that I, because I was so tired of moving around YouTube TV to like every monitor

when I'm trying to like render or whatever. So I just ended up getting this monitor, putting it below my monitor. And it's just a little tiny screen and it's up there and it's great. And then last one I got for you is a great one. Jose Cortez says, or hear me out, send a letter. As a mailman, it's cool to see handwritten letters. come through. It's rare to see, but such a treat. I like that. You're biased. That's biased. You just want where you want to make sure you're jumping.

The male is fucking worthless. Well, everybody, let us know in the comments below what gifts you would suggest people get. And hey, what are you hoping you get this year? I'd love to hear that as well. We're about to do the kind of funny podcast. And then after that, we are doing the fun stream that is going to be Nick playing dispatch. So check that out. Until next time, love you all. Goodbye.