The Ringer-Verse - ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’ and 20 Years of ‘CoD’ | Button Mash

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Ben and Jess react to the news of a live-action ‘Legend of Zelda’ movie (2:54), the confusing release of the PlayStation Portal (9:40), and the Game Awards’ GotY nominees (18:40). Then, they discuss the backlash to (and their own impressions of) the latest ‘Call of Duty’ game, ‘Modern Warfare III’ (29:29). After that, they talk to Van Lathan about his history with ‘CoD,’ the evolution of first-person shooters, playing online multiplayer games as you age, and more (54:28). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Guest: Van Lathan Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may find this hard to believe, but 60 songs that explain the 90s. America's favorite poorly named music podcast is back. With 30 more songs than 120 songs total. I'm your host, Rob Harvilla, here to bring you more shrewd musical analysis, poignant nostalgic reveries, crude personal anecdotes, and rad special guests, all with even less restraint than usual. Join us once more on 60 Saws That Explain the 90s every Wednesday on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumfaya, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your

doctor about Tremfia today. Call 1-800-5-2-6. 77736 to learn more or visit trimfire radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech. Unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Benvenberg, a senior editor for The Ringer,

and with me as always is my co-host of the year, Jessica Clemens. Hello, Jessica. Hi, I'm Jessica Clemens. Signor. Signor. Sure. I'm only slightly sick this week, as you can tell.

You know, one thing they don't tell you when you have a kid is that you will be sick most of the time to some degree. Actually, they do tell you that everyone warned me, but I did it anyway. So here I am trying to speak. Sorry, everyone. You didn't sound bad until you started coughing and choking. And then I went, oh, there's something wrong here. Yeah, I'm going to clear my throat on mute and Isaiah will work his magic. So hold on to your hard drives, folks, because today we are talking about Call of Duty. eventually, at least. We've been playing the latest release in the series, Modern Warfare 3,

and we're going to talk about why the game is getting review bombed and whether we're trashing it too. And then in a special ring or verse crossover event, we will welcome the one and only Van Lathen to discuss the significance of the Call of Duty franchise

20 years and 20 games into hits history. Can't wait to talk to Van. This will be fun. This will be very fun. I'm very excited to talk about it was someone that has been playing at their entire lives. Yeah, old man van goes way back with Call of Duty. Which is really, yeah, which is really fun. I guess Call of Duty is much older than people remember that it is.

It's very old, but like, Van also loves G.I. Joe, which is very old. So I'm like, this is the youngest thing I think he's really interested in. Yeah, no, it's true. He's into current events, Call of Duty. I mean, I go back with Call of Duty too, back to the beginning, but I haven't been as hardcore a call of duty head as van. We've both been away from the franchise for a little bit, and we're checking back in, and we chose a time to check back in when Call of Duty is in crisis.

So we'll talk about how that went for us. But before we do our duty, we have a few news items to react to. The first being that Jess, we're getting a Zelda movie. Now, that in itself is not so surprising. We've been talking for a while about whether we wanted one and when we'll see one and how it would work. But we got an official announcement and we got some details here. Now, I love the announcement because Miyamoto always introduces himself by saying, this is Miyamoto, which is like, I wish I could do that. This is Lindberg.

I guess that's kind of what we do at the top of a podcast. This is Lindberg. This is Clemens. This is Miyamoto. It's sort of a flex, but also kind of boomerish. It's like if you have an older relative who signs their name at the end of texts, you know. But we're always happy to hear from Miyamoto. But here, he revealed that there's been a Zelda movie in the works for a while, maybe as much as a decade the conversations have been going on.

The surprise is not that there is a Zelda movie, but that it's not coming from Illumination, which teamed up with Nintendo to produce the Mario movie. It's a live action adaptation. And it's coming from Nintendo and Avi Arad, the longtime producer. It's kind of a divisive figure, a formative figure in the MCU, who has also kind of broken with Marvel, feuded with Marvel. A lot of Spider-Man fans, not big fans of Avi Arad sort of perceived as someone who is meddled in various projects, but has also been associated with some really big blockbusters as well as some bombs. So what do you make of this? Are you happy that there is definitely going to be a Zelda movie?

Are you at all worried about this specific one? I think I'm always going to be nervous about Nintendo doing a live action movie because the last one was just like so defining of badness. It makes me, it's like, okay. And they stop. They were like, we're going to take a right. And to be fair. We're going to take a very long, long, long. They had almost nothing to do with that movie.

They were like, yeah, you can just go make a Mario movie. That's what it kind of feels like now if they give it to Avi. No offense to him. The last movie he did was Morbius. And then I think his animated stuff was good, but then his live action is Mobius and Venom. And so I'm scared, but I have hope. I'm not like a diehard Zelda fan, so I'm genuinely like very optimistic. I'm like, oh, I'll probably end up liking it, but I'm also nervous with that person on it.

I'm concerned. Yeah, you can say I'm concerned. I'm not sure whether I'm happy that it's live action or not. I'm sort of surprised. Yeah, I wish they would have done animated and then just honestly kind of went to elimination. Right. I mean, I'm not sorry that it's not elimination because the Mari movie, it was inevitable that there were going to be more Nintendo big screen projects because the Mari movie is such an enormous hit, right? Second biggest grossing movie of the year worldwide, big on streaming also.

So, of course, there were going to be more Mario movies and. It figured that there was going to be a Zelda movie at some point. It was other biggest property. And I am a huge Zelda fan. So in theory, I'm excited. But I'm also scared. Yeah, it's the people involved. Like, I didn't love the Mario movie.

And you didn't either, right? I mean, it was fine. You know, it was good. It got out of the way quickly. It didn't overstay its welcome. It was a crowd pleaser. Kids liked it. It did the job.

It reestablished the franchise. But it wasn't inspired. It was kind of down the. middle by the numbers adaptation. And I sort of expected that we would get the same thing with Zelda. And now I don't know what we'll get. It feels like they, I mean, and this is Zelda too. Mario is very kooky, very silly, very whimsical.

And Zelda is also whimsical, but it's very dramatic. So I'm like, oh, they want as grounded maybe a world for Zelda and making it live action will just come across. I hope they get the budget that the Lord of the Rings show got. Yeah. Because that would be, I think they could go, it would, if they got the budget that Amazon got, ooh, it would be so gorgeous. It would be so gorgeous.

And I think they can have so much fun with it. I want them to have enough money to make whatever they want, but also make it as, ooh, earthy as possible. Yeah. I'd like that. Like, lean into the high fantasy trappings of Zelda just do it up. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough because it ultimately does boil down to the same basic story. as Mario, which is just, you know, your silent hero saves the princess, which is kind of the

template for both of those franchises. But there's a little more depth to the legend of Zelda and a little more lore as confusing as it can be at times. So I am excited, but I just, I could see it going wrong or just being kind of a basic boilerplate adaptation that just, you know, doesn't thrill anyone but doesn't disappoint anyone. That's almost. a better scenario than just going completely off the rails. You know who they're going to cast as Zelda? There's been a lot of conversation about that. It's going to be like Anya Taylor Joy.

I've heard that, yes. They're going to move her from Princess Peach over to this. Yeah. I will, I'm going to be, I'll be honest. I love Andrea Taylor Joy. I love her. I love ATJ. I love her so much.

My other favorite ATJ is Aaron Taylor Johnson. But Anya Taylor Joy is my first. I can't have her playing Zelda. I can't have her playing Zelda. stay in the Mario's. Stay away from this. I want them to pull someone that we'd never see.

I want them to pull literally someone that looks like an elf. I want them to get as, I just need a new world. I need it and I will feed into it. I think there's a way they can make this so high fantasy.

I'm literally on my knees crawling in like, give me, give me, give me. I agree with you. Yeah, people have been suggesting. I mean, people have been saying, oh, give us Tom Holland and Zendaya, right? You know, I just.

I will throw me. myself off a balcony if I step in there and I see Zendaya in Tom Holland. Any boyish character, oh, it's got to be Tom Holland, right? It's got to be Tom Holland. But I agree with you. I'd like unknowns, unestablished actors. I think that would be the way to go. This is the best way to start, too.

Do it here. And no one's going to come with like, oh, well, they were in Euphoria. I'm using every cast from Euphoria as an example. Because I think they also want the person that plays Jules from Euphoria to play Zelda. They asked her about it on the carpet. And she was like, oh, an elf? Hell yeah. I love that game.

And I was like, you're cute. And I love you. But I still need this to be someone I have never seen before. At least we know it's not Chris Pratt this time. Anyway, we're hoping for the best. We will hope that it's not a disaster and will be cautiously optimistic. In other news, the PlayStation Portal came out. And I mentioned this not quite as big news, but we have been awaiting this and trying to figure

this out ourselves for months, right? There are some new PlayStation accessories coming at, the PS5 Slim. The new stripped down version of the console is coming out this month. But this week, the PlayStation Portal comes out. Not to be confused with the PlayStation Portable, this is a $200 device that I think you could question why it exists. We've been wondering, why does this exist? How would we use this? Essentially, what it is is a handheld screen that you can stream PlayStation.

games to if you are on Wi-Fi, right? So you cannot stream games without streaming them directly from your PlayStation. And you can already do that with other devices. I mean, a laptop, a tablet, a phone, whatever it is. You can do remote play on those and you can connect some other controller to it. This, the hook, the gimmick is that it is a better, more ergonomic, more comfortable solution. It's essentially PlayStation controllers vivisected with a screen. You know, it's a screen with PlayStation controller grafted onto either side of it,

kind of like a Wii U game pad. And I've just been trying to figure out what is the used case for this thing? You know, it's $200, which I think a lot of people are like, okay, that's reasonable, but I'm not sure I would use it if it were free that often. What do you make of the PlayStation Portal? it's ugly, I'm not buying it. And I buy only things that are pretty. Everything I own is pretty.

No. When I first, I was like, not to be an asshole, maybe I'm just very ignorant to this because I had a PSP when I was in middle school. Sure, yeah. That I was like, I think I got more value out of my PSP than I did out of this. Like, I don't, I'm an adult woman. I'm an adult woman that has the PlayStation hooked up next to their TV. And I have one of my gamer chairs in my room.

And I go, okay. why would I get this thing? Why do I need this thing? And I don't. There is no reason I need this. It's not even, the Wi-Fi thing does really piss me off. I get it. It's cheaper.

It's easier. They're like, you can't download the games. It'll be too much. I'm like, okay, but that would be the only plus for me. The only bonus for me is that I can take this with me on the road. I take this anywhere else. I am fine sitting five feet from my TV. Right.

in a weird share in a weird position. Even if it's $200, it just doesn't seem like what, it's going to toss it to the side. Yeah, no, I mean, it's hard for me to come up with a scenario where I would use this just because you have to be on Wi-Fi. And also, you have to have a strong connection. And it works best if you're, like, sitting in your apartment next to your router that's also connected to your PlayStation.

So it might be dicey even if you're playing it while you're on a trip or you're at work. or whatever. I'm not going to judge. You know, you sneak into the stall and you play some PlayStation. Fine, do your thing. But there better be strong Wi-Fi

and it's probably not going to work unless it's a game that will work with low latency. Yes, yes. That and I'm not trying to be an asshole, but it's like the Switch games are made for the portable device. They're not made, but like people keep that in mind. I don't know how great it would be for my handheld

to be playing Spider-Man too. I don't know how easy. I'll be like, I can't sleep. What am I doing? I mean, we have not had our hands on this thing yet. And the people who have the reviews that have come out say it's comfortable. Like it looks weird for sure. But it feels pretty good.

It feels more or less like you're holding a dual shock, right? But what was that other one that came out? That was like an accessory that you just clip your phone into that was like the PlayStation. Right. What was that? Yeah, there are all kinds of controllers. You can, you know, snap your phone into something like a backbone or. Yeah, the back.

Yeah, or you can just connect a controller to it. I guess the use case for this, look, if someone gave one to me, I would probably use it occasionally, just because there are times when I want to play a PlayStation game and I don't want to tie up the TV, right? If, you know, my daughter, my wife are watching something, if I'm playing some violent game that maybe is not yet appropriate for my daughter, right? Like, it can be helpful to have the switch sometimes if I'm playing on one system or watching something, you know, my wife can play the switch or vice versa. So just to have a second screen or to be really decadent, you know, if you just like you want to play in the bathroom or you want to play in the bathtub or you want to play in bed or whatever it is. How often are you trying to play in the bathroom? This is the second analogy you use the bathroom for. No judgments.

I'm not saying from personal experience. that I've spent a ton of time playing video games in the bathroom, but I'm not not saying that. But look, if the PlayStation company's like, this is for those sitting on the toilet that don't want to walk away from the screen. No one else will want to handle my PlayStation portable after I've been using it. But I'm not saying there's no way you would want to use it, but I think it's limited. Apparently, the hardware's fine, like for that limited use. If you're someone who would want it for that, it does the job.

It's just that that seems like a pretty niche group. And what stands out to me is just how much the Switch maybe has inspired other hardware manufacturers and how much it's shaped the handheld market. Again, it's not like the Switch invented portable gaming, and I compared this to a Wii U gamepad. But the Wii U wasn't a success. The Switch is an enormous success. It's the third best selling system ever behind the PS2 and the DS. And it seems like more and more everyone kind of wants to copy the Switch without. competing against the switch exactly.

You have the PlayStation portal, which gives people an option to play PlayStation games in sort of a switch-like way, albeit not actually playing the game from the system itself. And then you also have the Steam deck, right? And there's a new version of the Steam deck, the OLED Steam deck with a new screen. And Valve came out and said, hey, Nintendo showed us, like, you can have an OLED screen in your portable system and people want that. But there's also a Steam Deck competitor called the Lenovo Go that just came out that has detachable controllers like the Switch, sort of like Joycons. And these are not direct competitors. These are, you know, PC solutions, right? Or Linux and Windows and streaming from the Steam store.

But I think that portable form factor and wanting to take games with you on the go and not just handheld only games that we used to play on a Vita or a PSP or a DS, etc. I think that's the influence of the switch because there are times when I have to travel with a PlayStation and not having the PlayStation slim, which is definitely slimmer but still pretty bulky. I had to take my PlayStation to my wife's family's house recently before our Spider-Man pod. It took up the entire suitcase, you know? So I'd be in the market for a way to play PlayStation games portably. Just not this way. I think I wouldn't crap on it so much

if I could download the stuff to it. I genuinely don't think I would but it's because I'm not always the only con for me in my gaming and my house because I live in a house of only gamers that is that Wi-Fi is not accessible everywhere and so I'm literally

like oh if I go traveling I don't have Wi-Fi there and then I don't have it here like I go between in LA I go between work in my house, which has Wi-Fi. That's great. But the only places I don't have Wi-Fi when I'm in the middle of traveling long, long, long distances

across the country or something. And I'm like, that's when I would want to use it. But then again, I am maybe the like 15% of consumers that have this issue that are like, that are like, well, I'm fine at my house. But what if I'm not in my house? Yes. If you're in the target market for this device,

we wish you well. And we hope you have $200 to spend on it. I mean, $200, $200 is, not bad. And when I say not bad, I mean like, I'm looking at like other consoles and I'm like, this is $400. Yeah. I'm like this $450. What am I doing? Yeah. I mean, those actually play games themselves that don't need to be streamed from another console.

That is true. Never mind. I take it back. Make this $100. Okay. All right. Then we'll talk. Last bit of news. Just today before we started recording, the Game Awards dropped its game of the year. nominees. The game awards coming up next month, December 7th, six nominees for Goody. All right. Alan Wake 2, Balders Gate 3, Marvel Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Brothers Wonder, The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. We have had podcasts about most of these games this year. Any initial reactions to the choices here, which of course

will not dictate our own choices and nominees when we declare the button mesh go to nominees next month. Yeah, that's true. I'm just very happy at how everyone's taking Alan Wake too. I'm so happy at how it's been perceived and how people are like, this is beautiful, this is very fun, I love it.

So it's crazy because I'm like, I ride or die, Boulder's Gate, ride or die Spider-Man too, but I'm genuinely like, I'm rooting for Alan Wake just because I'm like, this is a weird one. And I don't expect it to win, but I'm very happy that people are like, no, this should be up there. And I'm like, oh, thank God. Yeah.

No, I don't think there are any egregious snubs here. I think there are some snubs, which is inevitable when you're picking six games this year. Six, right? I mean, that's my main take on this is that why are we stopping at six? The Oscars went up from, you know, whatever to 10, right? basically doubled its size years ago, especially a year like this. Why can't we go to eight? Why can't we go to 10? Why can't we recognize more games, right? Because just inevitably, you're going to leave out some that deserve to be in the conversation. Obviously, there are other

categories and you can be nominated as the best RPG or best action game or whatever it is. But I would like to see just a broader cross-section recognized in that way. Absolutely. I also, it's like the Academy Award. has like 15 people that are you get four nominations for like every category but you get 15 or something for like the best picture so it doesn't make sense to just go with six and these are all I think you got you guys talked about this work a little bit they're all big studio games like huge studio not like not like minor it's like this is insomniac right and nintendo and capcom yeah right and they're all just enormous hits I mean balder's gate three obviously people didn't

see coming what an enormous hit that was But I would like if there were some exception to, you know, these are all sequels, right? And different sorts of sequels. That is true. That is true. It would be nice, I think, if there were some original IP in the mix here. And you can only go with the games you're given and these are all deserving selections. Well, but it's just. Are we surprised by ones that aren't on here?

A little bit, right? I'm not in the nicest, most respectful way. in the most nicest, nicest, nicest way Jessica can ever say this. Not surprised about Starfield. No, me neither. Not being on here. Not surprised about Diablo,

unfortunately, because I loved it. I guess there's also games that didn't have enough time, right? To be out for people? Who votes on this? Will you tell me? It's a really big cross-section of gaming outlets,

I think. It's not like the game awards themselves decides it's just many, many members of people who cover games. But I mean, some of these games are very recent. Obviously, we talked about Al-Wick last time. But I think it would be nice if there were room for some originals, even though at Baldersgate revitalized a franchise that it had born dormant for decades, right?

But still, just to see some fresh new IP in there would be nice. And if I had to remove one, and again, I'd rather add than remove. but Resident Evil 4 as as great as it is, I'm just not sure that I could put a remake in the Goody category, you know, like it can be best remake, it can be best whatever else. But I don't know that I could see myself giving Goody to a remake, however great it is.

Yeah, well, okay, so you don't think, I don't think Final Fantasy should be in there. But that would be one that you'd also be like, don't put it in there. I would consider, I mean, you mean Final Fantasy VII remake? Yeah, the one, yeah. Yeah, maybe that because it is, it's not just a straight remake. And I know RE4 isn't, it's not like, you know, exactly a straight remake either. But yeah, FF7, it changes things so dramatically that maybe I would make an exception for that.

Okay. But I get that. I see that. It's tough choices. I just didn't think it was that crazy. But I also wasn't the biggest fan of Super Mario Wonder, but I can acknowledge that it's beautiful and the music is fun and it's very whimsical. Yes. But also I was like Nintendo's both their games are going to make it out here, except for Pickman.

I'm sorry, Pikman did not make it. But I'd like to see something like Hi-Fi Rush maybe be mentioned there. That would be a way to get some original IP or Dave the Diver or. Oh, my God. You guys and Dave the Diver people, I haven't played it yet, to be fair. I have not played it yet, but every single person, every single, and I'm talking in the world will only up Dave the Diver. No, or, you know, squeeze Diablo in there or Street Fighter or Armored Core or Final Fantasy. I mean, these are more sequels of Liza P, right, which you're excited to play.

That's the one I was surprised. Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, make more room, as I'm saying, especially in an all-time great year. But I think I'm glad that gaming hasn't had a single award show with quite the cultural cachet of the Oscars or the Emmys or even the Grammy. these, right? Just because the Game Awards and Jeff Keeley, they aspire for this to be the Oscars of gaming, but it doesn't have quite the historical resonance that the Academy Awards do. You know, if you say best picture, everyone knows you're talking about the Oscars and it means a lot and people obsess over that stuff. I don't think even the Game Awards is at that point. If I said Game of the Year, you'd probably say, who's Game of the Year? Right. Like, there's so many outlets that give games of the year. We each have our own choices. And I kind of I don't like that. It's just, you know, gaming is so fractured. There's so many subcultures. There's so many different genres.

I like that we can all come to our own conclusions and we can have multiple award shows and no one of them dominates the discussion. So I'm not sorry about that. Oh, that's true. And also it's hard. Like with movies, it's like a three hour movie tops, three and a half hour. When you're playing a game, it's like, we played each one of these games except for Resident Evil. You don't have to play wrestling. Thank you.

No one should be playing. That's why when we do our gody pods, we bring other people on because it's just no one person has time to play every single great game in a year like this. Yeah. Exactly.

I'm just happy about Alan Wake. Me too. I knew Boulder's Gate was going to make it. I knew the Nittendos. Nittendos were going to make it. We were in my room. We were talking about the fan vote and Spider-Man too, not even making it on it.

And we were like, That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. But I wasn't surprised with this list of people. We will have the real gody discussion, the one that matters, the one that everyone's paying attention to. The Button Mash Game of the Year awards will be next month.

So get psyched. And we'll catch up on some games that we have not yet talked about or gotten to in our episodes leading up to that. And speaking of upcoming episodes, some programming reminders for you. This Friday, the Midnight Boys, we'll discuss Invincible episode three. And House of Our will cover. the new Netflix series Scott Pilgrim takes off, which Mint Edition, including Jess, will tackle next Monday. I'm looking forward to that show too. I just learned today that we're shooting next Monday. Yeah, that's right. I thought we were shooting this Friday. Well, that gives you

more time to enjoy the series. Excellent. And we will have another episode later this month. And so here's our plan for the next button mash. We've been in Blockbuster country for months now from Starfield to Mortal Kombat 1, to Assassin's Creed Mirage, to cyberpunk, Phantom Liberty to Spider-Man, two, to Super Mario Brothers Wonder. And today, Call of Duty, next month we're waiting into the Goody debate,

which will mean more Blockbuster talk. So next time, we're going to do a change of pace. We're going to go indie for a week. And we're going to talk about a few games that may have slipped through the cracks, may have been a little overlooked, because they came out in the past month or so when we were on this Blockbuster boss rush.

And so we're going to play a few bite-sized games, just three, four hours each, highly acclaimed, a bit of a fresh look for us. And we'll tell you what they are now so that if you're interested in playing along with us, you have time to do that. We're going to check out Slay the Princess, which is sort of a horror-themed visual novel that is getting great reviews. I think you will like it. I am only slightly scared, but I'm apprehensive. I'm looking forward to it. We're also going to play cocoon, which I shouted out on an episode recently. It's an indie puzzler, but sort of a simple, you know, not many buttons, not many inputs, but maybe a bit of a brain teaser. Thank you for indulging me. It's short. And also,

Jusanne, which came out recently and is a climbing game, just very beautiful, very peaceful, just climbing a big rock and trying to figure out what happened to the people who used to live there. So I think that will be a nice shift in tone for us and we'll check out some games that may have been a little lower profile, may have been a little overlooked as we've been going from Blockbuster to Blockbuster. So get started on those games. We'll talk about them next time. And you can contact us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com to let us know what other overlooked games we should check out because my list is long. I don't know about yours, but my pile of shame has never been higher. I only have like two.

I didn't play stray and I'm not interested in playing stray. Okay. Because I'm afraid that the cat will get hurt. Now we have the same concern. Yeah. I mean. I cannot see a cat. Oh my.

I will lose my. It's just. I'm fucking mind if I see a cat get hurt. Stray's great. I endorse it, but I understand that concern. But at least it came out last year originally. So it won't go to the go to the game.

I'm just late over all. Yeah. I mean, we're all late with games. It's fine. We get to them whenever we get to them. They're there for us. So today's game. in today's franchise.

Probably not going to be a goady contender. Oh, not by those reviews. No. Not by those reviews. So if you have $70 and hundreds of gigabytes in storage space, you can now play the latest but not greatest game in the Call of Duty franchise, Modern Warfare 3. And to clarify, this is not the Modern Warfare 3,

numeral 3 that came out in 2011. This is the new, the second Modern Warfare 3 with Roman numerals, which is not confusing at all. This trend towards games as sequels and reboots that have the same name as the original, I understand it in certain cases, you know, if it's Doom or God of War or Saints Row or something or even Lords of the Fallen last month. But it becomes incredibly confusing when you have modern warfare reboots that all have essentially the same name as past modern warfare games.

And then to make things more confusing, you have old map. from other earlier Call of Duty games in these games. And so if you've been out on the series for a while, just missed a few, you have to like read an explainer to figure out like, wait, which game am I talking about here? There have been a bunch of people getting confused. And, you know, as this game has gotten really lousy reviews, people will say like, oh, but the sales are incredible. And it turns out that they actually just Googled Modern Warfare 3 sales.

And they're finding the 2011 games sales. I mean, oh my God. I'm sure the sales for this game will be great too, but it's confusing, is all I'm saying. So that is embarrassing. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In the nicest way, I'm like, ooh, that sucks.

You're like, ooh, we're doing great. And then be like, this is 2011. Yeah. Look up 2023. Just from a branding perspective. Like people gave Microsoft a hard time for the Microsoft and then the Xbox and then the Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360 and then the series X and, you know, Series S and people getting confused about which model of Xbox they're talking about, but this is a whole new level. Anyway, this game, look, there have been lackluster call of duties for sure.

I'm not sure there's ever been a bad one, exactly, at least in terms of how it's been received. And this game is getting absolutely lamb-based from reviewers and players alike. So right now, the Metacritic score is in the low 50s. which is 20 points or more lower than the lowest ever call of duty before this. And the user scores are like 1.5 out of 10 or something. It's, you know, it's just people piling on to express their displeasure with this game. Again, in fact, people were review bombing the wrong call of duty game because they got confused about which game this actually is.

So I played the full campaign here and spent some time with multiplayer. You played some of this game too. What are your thoughts? I will probably, this is really funny because I was so angry during Assassin's Creed. I will probably have the most neutral thoughts about this because I don't, I'm not like the biggest fan of Call of Duty. And when I was playing it, I was like, yeah, this feels like Call the Duty. But there were a lot of glitches and a lot of mistakes. And it makes sense that it looks like it was rushed.

Every part of it. I was like, even the story wise, I was like, this is really rushed. I was like, they really threw this out and was like, oh, people will like it. So I, but I genuinely was like, yeah, this is a war game. I'm doing war things. I don't like it. I genuinely, I got further when I played it when I was younger than I did now as an adult. I'm scared and like triggered by it.

I don't like it. It's scary to play to immerse myself in a war experience and be like, this is fun. Is it the contemporary setting that does that to you more so than if you're playing, you know, World War II or some earlier conflict? Yeah. Yes. 100%. Uh, yes, absolutely. It, and that's actually a good thing to think about,

because I'm like, it doesn't hit maybe as hard when I've played in like World War II, I guess. But like when the, it's so, in the nicest way, most respectful way, very close to home. Um, and I've never played a game. I play high fantasy. Like, I love fantasy. I love Halo where I'm fighting aliens.

Uh, I never played a game where I was, was like, this is really grounded in real world situations. And even like when you're getting shot, it's like, yeah, three bullets are dead. And I'm like, this is too real for me. And I don't want to immerse myself in this. I don't want to do this. Yeah, I understand that. That's been a legitimate critique of Call of Duty going back sometime. I mean, since we got into the more modern settings of call of duty, you know, if you are depicting contemporary settings. And of course, it's fictionalized countries and conflicts, right? But clearly echoes of real life powers and wars and terrorist acts. And this is going back to the famous, infamous, no Russian level in modern

warfare two, the original modern warfare two, where, you know, you're taking part in a terrorist act in a city and, you know, you're in an airport and you're feeling terrible about that, right? And obviously there are ways in which games can make you feel uncomfortable and that's the point and it's done respectfully and thoughtfully and that discomfort your feeling forces you to confront things about real life conflicts and you know if you're complicit in them and all of that call of duty does not always take the care right with those depictions it is to some extent you know war propaganda right a little bit and so there are inevitably I think as subsequent games, including this one, have sought to recapture that shock value of no Russian, you know, there are sequences in this game, again, like terrorist bombings and, you know, civilians getting gunned down. Oh, my God. That scene, I was, I couldn't, I was losing my mind. I was just, I was like, I can't, I can't do this. I get it. And, and, you know, this game, obviously that, that has been a hallmark of this franchise. And, you know, this brings back, Makarov, who is the antagonist, one of the antagonists of the original modern

warfare is this Russian supervillain and he's kind of cartoonishly evil this time around. You know, it inevitably is going to make you think of real life people and real life suffering and conflicts that are going on right now in the world. Now that's been a staple of the series and lots of military shooters and that may or may not be a problem for some players, you know, a lot of people. People are like, nope. And a lot of people are like, this is a game. You know, I can separate this experience from real life.

And I understand that too. And I'm probably closer to the latter camp. Like, there are definitely some levels and some sequences that make me queasy. But otherwise, it's just, look, I'm shooting polygons here, not people, you know, and I can kind of dissociate myself from it. If you have a harder time with that, though, I totally understand and respect that. It also might not be I don't

I come from the most opposite end of like a gun family I wasn't raised around guns or anything like that never so I don't even know if it is truly how you load guns or do those things but it feels like it is even like putting the chest plates in

I was like is this real? Is this what I do? Do I have to put in a bunch of chest plates? Do I have to run and slide all the time? Yeah we could talk to bed about that because he comes from a little bit of a different background when it comes to that stuff. Yeah, I was like, I don't know, but it feels a little too correct. I'm used to shooting like a laser gun. Yes. Or like something stupid and silly in a different game. Other than me being afraid of it,

though, because of I'm afraid of war. Please don't draft me. The like actual, it felt, and maybe I'm wrong on this, correct me. It felt like every other call it, even like with your plane, when you're shooting, when you're using the guns, what you're doing. I was like, oh, there's not really a difference. It's just the difference in the storyline. And even then in the storyline, it wasn't as cinematic as the other times I've played. When I played the other times,

they were genuinely terrifying. Like, you're kidnapped with your friends and you have to run through a forest or something. This, I was like, oh, these cuts are just like, okay. It wasn't like long. It just felt like a little offshoot to an actual game. Like, here's a little taste. And I was like, oh, okay.

No, you're, you're, You're hitting on something that I think a lot of people have criticized it for and that I probably would too, which is that this feels phoned in. It doesn't feel like a full-fledged call of duty installment. No. Now, I'm not saying I didn't have some fun with it or that I was actively having a terrible time as I was playing, but I was not getting that hit of excitement and adrenaline that I typically do with call of duty on a consistent basis. Now, if you're someone who goes way back with call of duty, you get it every year. you're probably not going to be bothered by the story. You're either going to embrace that or ignore that the real life analogs and everything.

But you care about, you know, is the multiplayer good? Is the campaign good? Is this sufficiently different from past call of duties that it justifies my spending $70 on this game? And spending however many hours it takes to download and install it, right? And, you know, we didn't get codes here. So we were out there with the people dropping our $70 on this. thing. And I got to say the bang for the buck, so to speak, not great. It's not great. $70 is already, like, that's the steep end of game prices. And then I was like, oh, on this?

Yeah. No. And I'm like, I am not a fan and I can still tell you like, oh, this is lower than what my expectations were for this game because this is Call of Duty. It's Call of Duty. It comes out all the time. Everyone, every single one of them makes money. It has its own fan base. People are only streaming this one game. people will always, there is a fan base for this game. So I was like, oh, it makes sense that $70. This is the game. And then when I played it, I was like, whoa, this is not worth the $70, baby. And they're going to have to update that shit so quick.

Those glitches are so insane. I was like, oh, they're just killing people out of nowhere by accident. People are just falling. And then when they come back into the game, they're just dead again. I didn't have that experience as much playing on Xbox at least. I was, oh, yeah, see, that's the difference. But I, yeah, it's not, I'm so sorry. It's not worth a 70 bucks.

Just go watch someone else play it. And then you'll be like, oh, I shouldn't spend $70 on this. Yeah, like I'm fine with $70 games in principle. Obviously, I'd rather spend less. But, but, you know, people complain about rising game prices. Actually, they haven't even kept up with inflation in the long run. I mean, gaming prices have barely changed going back decades while everything else has gotten more expensive. And with so many games that give you so many hours of entertainment, I think

they're good deals. Even if $70 feels like a lot to drop on one entertainment product, if that product is going to give you dozens of hours of high quality entertainment, then I'm there. And also, I want to support video game development, which is difficult and expensive and, you know, takes a ton of people, right? And it's unsustainable seemingly as it is with these blockbuster games taking longer and longer to make and more and more money to make. But you've got to give the people something to keep them coming back. Except what you were saying, like how they keep churning out call of duties, that's the thing. They can keep making these things. They can really put whatever they want and put it in a new box and a new cover and say it's a new call of duty. And millions of people

will buy it is the thing. Right. So it's essentially Madden now where for years, Now, Madden NFL games have been getting lousy reviews, but that game still sells. It's still one of the best selling games every year. It's just an annual right and tradition. New NFL season starts going to get the new Madden. It's very similar with Call of Duty. You know, there are people who play just Call of Duty or they play Call of Duty and Madden and 2K or whatever, and the new one comes out. You get the new one.

You know, you may not even look at reviews or care what they say. And you're just like, I'm going to get it. I'm thinking of the people that like are the parents. parents that are like you get one game. Right. $170 game. And I will feel really bad for those kids that chose Monomor for 3.2. Two, three for the second time, part two, as they're like $170 game.

Because I'm like, damn. And my only bout is for Call of Duty. I don't think I would have, ah, Assassin's Creed was $70. I'd also still be upset. But no, just this one. It was just a weird game, but it also, I don't know, I guess for the fans of Call of Duty, it doesn't really hit different when you're like still shooting, sliding, doing all that stuff. You still get to do all that.

But for me, I was like, I'd just go back to Modern Warfare too and do this live. I mean, the gunplay is still satisfying, right? Just the kinetic feeling of firing. What I think falls short, the campaign is compact, it's brief, but Call of Duty campaigns are never really long. but they never really let up. It's just moment to moment. They just suck you in, and it's one set piece after another. And they're usually very linear, and you're just following along with price,

and he's just leading you through the level, and then you come across some big action sequence, and people are firing on you from all sides, and it's super exciting. And, you know, there aren't really branching pathways or choices that you have to make or anything, but the production values are so high that I'm, fine with that. It's just like playing a very visceral action game, and that's what I want Call of Duty to

be. And I applaud, I guess, trying to do something different. You know, this game has kind of like a open-worldy element. So a lot of the combat missions are what's called open combat structure, which is basically

you're not just following one preset path through a level. You have various objectives. So, you know, diffuse four bombs or to find Intel or whatever it is. And you can go in any order you want and you can just rove around this larger level. It's almost like Warzone, the Battle Royale call of duty. It's kind of like that ported to the campaign, but it loses a lot of the urgency of those scripted. Here's your one path through the level and it's going to be super exciting the entire time. There are just like stealth

elements that aren't very well implemented. You know, you can't really tell if you're actually sneaking and then there's just a lot less suspense and it just doesn't feel the same. So the highlights of the campaign, there's still some exciting missions, but they're more the exception this time than the norm. And they just kind of make me want more of that. I liked when Gears of War went sort of semi-open world. But in this case, it just isn't satisfying. It's like they kind of ported over their multiplayer framework to the campaign. And it just doesn't do it justice. Yeah.

We're talking about this. And I'm also like how many people are genuinely opening? This is what? They're like 20th Call of Duty. How many people are actually opening this and going for the campaign first? Because these are people that are already fans. So they're like, oh, I'm just doing this for the live experience or just go online. And because I'm like, I bet 90% of them did not open the campaign.

They're like, whatever. I use the campaign as like training wheels where I'm like, oh, this is going to help me get started and then I was like, wow, I'm terrified. And then you go online and you go, I just die. And that's like the hard part about Call of Duty and this is maybe just me, it might be YouTube, but I know it's van. We talked about it.

People playing it now are all experts. Everybody is so good. What the hell is the point of me playing online? I'm not learning anything. I'm not becoming better because I'm matched up with people that are playing it professionally. for some reason.

And maybe because that's who's left playing it or the kids that are just more, have dexterity better than my old ass. Like, I get it. But I was playing it dying immediately. I was like, this isn't fun for me. And I think this game specifically is for those fans of College Duty that are like,

oh, I'm just keeping up with it. If you're a new person wanting to play College Duty, don't start with this one. Honestly, go to Modern Warfare 2. That was where I started and I loved it. But don't start here. Because you're going to get your ass. handed to you and the campaign's okay.

You're right. Yeah, there are plenty of call duty people who probably don't care about the campaign. I'm still someone who loves single player gaming and this has been a great year for single player games, more so than live service games, a lot of which have struggled. But this game, even if you're there mostly for the multiplayer, still the value proposition isn't that great because there are no original maps in this game, at least not yet. It's all reskins and remastered classic maps from Modern Warfare too. which again, if you're a fan of that game, you're probably happy to go back to those classic maps and see them spruced up. But it's purely a nostalgia play.

There's just not much new here. So, yeah, if you're here for the death match and the various other modes, then you'll probably be happy and you can probably get a lot of entertainment out of this. But still, there's just not much new. And the zombies mode is not great. Like it's a very low effort. Again, almost war zone-esque zombies mode where you're just kind of plopped into this big war zone map and there are a bunch of zombies shambling around. And it's just not very suspenseful.

So even if you're there for the multiplayer, yeah, it'll deliver the pretty predictable, dependable good time. But it doesn't do much new. It just doesn't give you a whole lot that previous Call of Duty games weren't going to give you. I kind of, in the nicest way, I keep saying this because, I'm very sensitive right now, everybody, especially to the designers and the people that made the game's feelings

because it is still a lot of hard work. God, I'm going to say it. I wish that it was a good call of duty game so we could genuinely be like, it actually was really good because I don't want to feel like a person that shits on Call of Duty because I don't play war games,

but it was like so lackluster to me and I was afraid that I was like, oh God, none of these. are positives for me. I wish it was, because Modern Warfare too, I had so much, like, I liked it. I was also playing it with like 12 of my friends, so I was never that afraid. But this one I was just kind of like. Yeah, no, I'm okay with war games and even so.

And I've had a good time with old Call of Duty games. But this was not really the one to come back for if you've been away for a while. You know, it's like the original motto of the series in war, no one fights alone. In a lot of these campaign missions, you do fight alone. I am fighting alone. People are coming at me over the walls. I'm standing there with a sniper gun for some reason. And you're not even accompanied in these open combat missions by your teammates, your Task Force

one-for-one diehards, right? I mean, they're within radio contact, but they're not always with you. I like playing a game where I'm always with an NPC, you know? It just maybe it's because I'm an only child. I just like having someone else on the screen there. Well, they're not that helpful. Not to be that person, but they're not. When I was going with, we got the guy, we're going through like the mall or something with him.

And we're going past all the cars. This is where civilians are being murdered in front of me. And I'm trying my hardest to keep them alive. I was like, you're not helping at all in PC. I was like, I'm doing all the heavy lifting. What the hell is this shit? I was like, I'm afraid. Yeah.

I don't want to be here. No. You're not doing anything. I get it. And then, you know, you're playing this war scenario and then you die. And then there's like a Gandhi quote on the screen. It's like I don't need these inspirational. Oh my God.

I completely forget. Yeah. It's just totally, totally sometimes it could be a bit. Oh my God. Maybe I blocked that out. I genuinely remembered that and was like, wait, what? Yeah. We get the brotherhood and, you know, your foxhole friends and, you know, you make allies with these guys.

And I've never cared that much about Call of Duty stories, but people do. And these are characters people care about. And I just, you know, this particular campaign, it reuses them. I don't feel like it adds a whole lot to the narrative. And it doesn't really resolve in a very satisfying way. And I guess the last point, which will lead into our conversation with Ben, is that this game feels rushed because it was, right? based on reporting by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, this game was initially supposed to be just an expansion or DLC, and then it morphed into this. Now, it still feels like a DLC, which is very, oh, no.

You know, this game is developed by Sledgehammer games. They've kind of pushed back on that and said that the developers who were under the impression that this was just supposed to be an add-on were confused about the original plan. and actually it's been in the works for years, but according to Jason's usually pretty reliable reporting, this was really rushed that, you know, people had to crunch nights and weekends to get this thing out, that originally there was supposed to be a bit of a break, right? Because, again, it's an annual institution, just like Madden,

which is very rare in video games because it's so hard to make video games and to have to pump these things out on a yearly basis. Granted, you've had like four different developments. developers of Call of Duty and you have the different sub-franchises within the larger franchise. And so you have a staggered work schedule and you have multiple games in the works at any one time. But even so, it seems like there was a plan for there to be a break. And hey, let's regroup a little. Let's take our time similar to Assassin's Creed, where it was on basically an annual release schedule.

And then Ubisoft was like, you know what? We need to figure our shit out here. Let's press pause and let's figure out where we want this franchise to go. this franchise is so lucrative and is such a juggernaut that I think it's too big to fail, but it's also too big to press pause. It's like, hey, if we take a year off, we're foregoing billions and billions of dollars in revenue. Even if we put out kind of a half-ass product, people will buy that shit, right? Calla Duty is the Rihanna amusement.

Wow. Okay. They're going to have to figure that that's too high of a pedestal, too high of a pedestal. It is. I don't, I don't, why? I don't believe it. But it kind of do, because it's like, once she comes out with a song, even if it's not that great, it's going to still be a little bot. Right.

It's going to be a little bot. But there will be breaks between Rihanna releases, right? Whereas with this, I think it's just like, you know, Activision is depending on a constant stream of revenue from this series, as is Microsoft, which now bought Activision in large. part because of the Call of Duty revenue, right? And so I'm sure gamers, they want their annual fix of this franchise as well, but I just don't know that even the diehards would be satisfied this time. Like if you just want some run and gun, don't have to think too much, turn your brain off and play for a few hours. Like, you know, it'll give you that. I had a decent time with just the moment to moment of it. But overall, it does not deliver even what you expect

from an annual release in this franchise. 100%. I agree. Also, when I was playing the game, it was giving myself the ick. I felt kind of gross. And I was like, have you watched Schitt's Creek? Yeah.

When he's like, when he shoots his first gun, he goes, I feel like a Manson girl. I was like, this is how I feel now. I'm like, ooh, I'm toxic. I was like, e! Like, I was like, ooh, I'm going to be so crazy and aggressive. and then I got really scared. I turned into a little cat.

I was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I don't want to go to war. All right. Let's talk to someone who comes at Call of Duty from a slightly different direction. Transport your senses with Sol de Janado's limited edition perfume mist collection.

At Sephora, sprits on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with he fresco paraizzo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with cheeky bikini or capture sun-sunkiced bliss with Limonada Jolada, where zesty Brazilian Lemonade Accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora.

Every outfit starts with a choice. What am I wearing underneath? Something comfortable? And let's be honest. Something that keeps everything looking smooth. That's where Vanity Fair lingerie comes in. Their new smoothing wireless bra has four-way stretch fabric for all over smoothing, soft lightly lined cups for a natural shape,

and no wire comfort that will. last all day. All over smooth, all day comfort, vanity fair lingerie. Find yours at Target today. This episode is brought to you by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boris Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it, presenting the friar's turkey breast only from Borris Head. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite, Boershead, committed to craft since 1905. Well, when House of Ar and the Midnight Boys

crossover, we call it House of Midnight. When a Midnight Boy comes on to button mash, I guess we got to call it Midnight Mash. We are joined now by what if the Midnight Boys. Ben Lathen, hello. What's up, guys? How are y'all, midnight mash? That's a good one. That's a good. Yeah. That was good. Yeah, I think us crossing over with Hasavar, maybe our button, that can be our crossover video game themed. But Midnight Mesh, that works. So you have not played Modern Warfare 3 yet. And if you listen to the conversation we just had, you realize you're maybe not missing that much. However, you go way back with Call of Duty. You've probably been more into this franchise than we have. Tell us about your history with Call of Duty. Yeah. So, you know, I'm old. So I remember when the first person shooter rebellion happened, right? We remember we were talking about it, or the revolution, shall say. We were talking about this.

We were all at dinner. And I was like, yo, I was trying to think, like, what the first, first person shooter I ever played was. Like, what the first one ever was. And I was talking to my brother about it. And we had come to the decision that it was golden eye. And that was the first one that I was. fell in love with, but then bingoes, it was Doom. And Doom is definitely the first one that I played, right?

And that had to be like, maybe like 95 or something like that, maybe 96, whatever, somewhere around there. But the evolution of the first person shooter and what the game could be kind of hits its crescendo to me with the popularity of Call of Duty. because at this point we're all over the place, man. I played Halo, so calm. I played for a little while.

But then when Call of Duty really got to the point that it became sort of ubiquitous in video gaming culture, we were trying everything. It became about so much more, it was more complex first-person shooter than ones I had played before. Your loadouts mattered.

Like where you were, which type of the game. that so many people were on it. And it was controversial. It was really controversial in the way... I remember I had one uncle, rest of the piece of my uncle Charles, who whenever he saw us playing it,

he would just get super pissed off because he was an actual veteran. And he was like, you don't play video games about what people actually went through. Yeah, we were just talking about that. Yeah. Yeah, the game was that immersive for him.

When he saw it, it reminded him of actual war. It wasn't like, you know, we're on another planet. We didn't have swords. We were doing it. Like we were actually shooting. There was strategy and it was all that. And it was the first person shooter that was refined and elegant because you could play it at a really, really high level.

Was the part of it being so realistic, like the grounding experience? Is that what pulled you more towards that than like Halo or the other games just being as realistic as possible? Yeah. You had a halo phase, right, man? Yeah, I had a ridiculous halo. phase, right? Yeah. Halo was kind of the,

in between the, the call of duty situation. Because we went from Golden Eye to actually, Halo, I was telling him in this. And we played Halo and we played Halo, we played Halo, we played Halo,

and then somebody, just was a thing, somebody was like, man, this ain't realistic. We'll tell you I was, we got to get on that call of duty. And we started playing Call of Duty and it just took over for Halo.

But let me tell you something about the realism of Call of Duty. There's like a net. level. There was a game and it was called Ghost something. Oh, it was Ghost Recon. And that game was too realistic. Yeah. You know what I mean? So Call of Duty was a game

that brought all the video game madness to, you know, that you could play with. But it also was slightly more realistic in that it was grounded in real history. It had historically accurate weapons. It had historically accurate maps. So you felt like it was realer and you could still get that from it. But yet, like what goes recon, that was a real simulation and that was actually too much for me. That's so crazy because Call Duty was too much for me.

That realistic part of like sliding. But I don't, and I was telling Ben about this earlier, I don't know guns whatsoever. I don't know war whatsoever. And so I'm like, oh, this feels really realistic putting chess. plates in when you run out and like reloading this slow and taking four bullets and having to heal. And I was like, this is too scary for me. This is, I need to go back to Halo. That was the whole thing, like having to gear up, having to learn how to like, if you're playing teams, having to learn how like actually clear a room, having to have the right side on, having to

have the right, like, which weapon is actually useful for the job? And I'm not just talking about the power of the weapon because sometimes when you're playing an alien game, It's like, oh, okay, this weapon is great for this. This weapon is great for that. But this one, like, you have to know the tools that you need. Actually, to be honest with you, and this is probably pretty fucked when you think about it, is there were weapons that I learned about from Call of Duty.

Like, the game is probably pretty dangerous. In terms of educating. Oh, no. There, no. Look, I'm not saying, look, I don't want to get into that. that whole rap with you. But I'm just saying it's like, you know, you start learning.

Like, no, man, I don't want this. This is going to be this. I need this type of capacity. I want to be able to move, fellow with this. I want to be able to have all of this. And that was something you have to learn with Call of Duty because like once we got to a point

to people got really good, being really good at Halo is one thing. When you're really good at Call of Duty, you're unstoppable. We were talking about that as well too. Like a lot, I have a lot of times connected with some of the new games

because guys are playing for so long that I'm too behind the curve. You know what I mean? Guys know how to pilot? helicopters and all kinds of crazy-ass shit is crazy. Yeah. You know, going back to the beginning, it's hard to remember now, but Call of Duty came from Medal of Honor, which came out first.

And some people who made Medal of Honor, then they broke off and they try to make this Medal of Honor killer, Call of Duty, which they did. Medal of Honor is just about dead now. And Call of Duty is the biggest franchise in gaming. And I remember back then, Medal of Honor came out in 99. Call of Duty came out in 2003. And that was right when we were really solidly into the 3D era, the HD era was starting. Games were really improving graphically by leaps and bounds.

And I would show those games off to my parents or my older relatives, maybe like you were saying with your uncle, just to show them like, look what they can do in video games now. You know, like, dads are into World War II. Generally, like, I'm a dad now and I'm rewatching Band of Brothers in the Pacific. So it happens to all of us. I got to a I got to a certain era of my life like why I got to a certain era of my life and Coquica comes to the room

and she's like yo what the hell are you doing yeah and I'm like I'm watching something about the allies struggles in 1942 like we could have lost yeah she's like she's like what she's like I'm like this specific battle right here

if this doesn't go right the allies could have lost and it started off before then I was watching a man in the high castle and all of this kind of shit. I'm like, why does it happen? Seriously, like, Jess Ben, why do we get to a point to, like, Jess is not at this. I'm not at this point, but I do know that like,

the people that have been on TikTok and doing like, oh, men's Roman Empire kind of shit. They are doing that. I think a lot of people get to an age where they're like, yeah, I'm really into World War II like radios and looking into them. And I'm like, this is crazy. Why would you ever be interested in this? But it might be an age break.

for me. Yeah, it is. I remember showing my dad because he was hugely into World War II. And I was like, I guess maybe it was Medal of Honor or Call of Duty 2. You do the D-Day landings. Yeah. And it looked incredible at the time. I'm sure if you went back and played the original now, it would look like it was 20 years old. But back then, it was mind-blowing. I don't know if my dad was that impressed by it. But I was. And it's come so far since then where, you know, there are still some Call of Duty games in World War II, but it's modern warfare. It's futuristic. I mean, what was it? Call duty ghost where you're in space in zero G. It's like this franchise, it started with World War II. It started with, you know, mostly like single player with some multiplayer. Now it's just this juggernaut. It's just this Titan.

I mean, the Microsoft Activision merger billions and billions and billions of dollars at stake. And so much of it was we can't let Microsoft control Call of Duty because that swings the whole balance of power in the industry. Van, when you played Call of Duty, were you more campaign or do you just play multiplayer? So I'm such I'm a traditionalist man, I have to play the campaign through. Really?

Yeah, I do. Okay. You too. I have to play the campaign through. I don't know why. I enjoy like playing the campaign. I have to play the campaign through. That's so interesting.

I was telling business, I was like, you know, a lot of times I would cause problems because the homies will come over and they're like, yo, let's get on it. Come on, man, let's do it. And I'm like, nah, bro, I need to get to this checkpoint real quick. Let me get to this checkpoint. I need to liberate this part of Germany.

Get, like, get, let me get through this checkpoint real quick. I'm liberating France, bro. Get out of here. Get out of here. And so I have to play through it. Also, it helps me kind of get my bearings on the game. I feel like it's a practice run for me to be able to get to it. You know what else?

It's like the online thing was just like such a huge. huge deal here. Socom comes out and I remember I was working at Best Buy and you had to buy the Socom game and then you had to buy the little thing that like help you go online too or it came with it or you had to buy it or like whatever. And socom was the thing for a while and then literally in it seemed like it was three years like nobody was buying Socom. It was it seemed like Call the Duty grabbed whole of people and it just took over. Because I think also to just this point, a lot of these wars and a lot of these skirmishes have already been lionized in a way. They've already been like topped off in pop culture in a way.

It kind of made you want to go up back and be a part of them. Like Vietnam, you can be in platoon. You can be in Save it Private Ryan. And so the game did that. And then by the time you knew it, it wasn't a game. anymore. Every single one was like a big, big Hollywood movie production. Now it's all, now it might be the single biggest thing in culture, if you look at it in totality. Yeah. I agree with that. And, you know, it's branched out into you have war zone, which is trying to capitalize on the

battle royale phenomenon. You have call of duty mobile, which is huge. So it's just tentacles everywhere. For you, Ben, what does a new call of duty installment have to do to satisfy you? Because this new game is getting terrible reviews. Didn't get great reviews from us either because the campaign, it's pretty short, it's pretty phoned in. The multiplayer maps are all old, you know, new versions of old maps.

But it's very much like Madden where people will just buy the new one whenever it comes out without even knowing what they're getting necessarily. So what are you looking for in a new call of duty at this point? It's such a difficult question. It's almost like a question

to where you more know it when you don't get it. Yeah. And it's, and it's, I know it's hard for the developers. You bring up Madden. We were talking about Madden. And I'm going to buy a new Madden game every year. It doesn't matter what they do.

They could literally do Madden and say that it's with all Looney Tunes characters. And I would be like, oh shit, Mickey Miles is the captain of the Seattle Seahawks. I'm going to buy it. I got to have Madden, you know what I mean? But when I play the game, it's not so much. I mean, I'm not a game developer, but the game feels uninspired. Yeah. You can feel it.

You can, it's almost like you're playing it. And you know that they have you because they're not trying to do anything new or innovative with it. For me, call of duty is very simple. I like the campaign mode. So I want a robust campaign mode. Yeah. Yeah. I want it to be really robust to where if I don't feel like, you know, being called to

inward on multiplayer for one day, then I can just play the campaign and go through a whole thing. You know what I mean? If I just, if I don't feel like all of that stress, because let's be honest, also I'm older. I'm 43. Like, it's stressful getting your ass shot off, getting the helicopter crashing to you. Because then I start going, all right, fuck it. For six weeks, I'm going to do nothing but play fucking call a dude. And I can't do that.

So I need a robust campaign. and I also need the game to take me, even if we're going back to some of the wars and theaters that we've already been into, I do need the game to take me into some new places with some new ideas and push it forward in some way for me to just like, for me to rationalize buying. There's a way that you do this, right?

You either do the game gaming in the Kendrick Lamar way or the Drake way, which is, hey, we got, Drake has a drop every time. So it's only incrementally better, if it is, every time it drops. But then, like with an artist like Kendrick Lamar, it's six or seven years before you get a record, but it takes you in all kinds of new ways, you know?

I don't know if Call of Duty or some of these other franchises really have it down how they want to do it yet. Jess already dropped the Rihanna comp in this episode. But then this is different. This is different because Call of Duty is absolutely the Drake because Drake is now just about to go right back out on tour again. And it will sell out and it will do fine because he's Drake.

I want to go back to a little unbox, because how you feel about Madden, people do feel about Call of Duty. They're like, I'm going to buy it every time. I don't care what it is. I am a Call of Duty stand. So what is it that relationship between you and Madden that makes you want to buy it every time,

no matter, even if it was the Looney Tunes playing the Seattle Seahawks? Because I want to understand that grip that Call of Duty also has on people. History, I put so much time into it. Yeah. You know what I mean? I've been running the same offense since 2004.

Like, it's history. And this is another thing. And this is so pathetic, guys. Oh, no. There's a certain degree of pride that I take in being good at Madden. And call the duty players, they don't want to get bad at it. Think about this. Why am I still on the basketball court at 43?

Like, you can come to equal. and just see me not playing basketball, just getting shots up. Yeah. Just like shooting 200, 200,000. It's a part of who you are. At this point, the game has such a cachet, and I'm talking about Call of Duty here,

that being a Call of Duty player, it's both like relaxing for people. It's motivated. But for some people, being good at Call of Duty and playing Call of Duty, I'm not talking about the kids, because they're whatever. I'm talking about some people just doing this.

It's like a part of who they are. It's like a part of, of what they do. It's a part of their routine. And once a game or a piece of art has that type of hold on you, it's just really difficult to break it. Life has to pull you away from what it is that you're doing

rather than you just decide you're not doing it anymore. Yeah. And it does pull us away with gaming because with basketball, you could go to the gym, you could find a pickup game. Obviously with Call of Duty, you could fire up the new one.

You could just go into matchmaking and find people to play with. But complete strangers who might be, yelling at you and having all sorts of slurs, right? But it's different if you're playing with your friends, if you have a group, if you have teamwork, right? But it's hard to maintain that as you get older and everyone moves and scatters and you have partners and kids. Like the people I would play Halo with for hours, days on end, like, I can't just call them up right now and be like, yeah, let's go. You know, let's play. Like I haven't played with some of them. I haven't talked to some of them in

years, right? So in addition to the fact that people are just way better than we are, how do you find a community at this age, right? It gets tougher and tougher to do. I think you got to stick. You got to stick with your community. It sucks with. Halo's a weird one, to be fair, because Halo is like, the two people that I still play Halo with, used to play it competitively, like professionally and make money off of it. Now they're retired. They're 28 retired. Oh, 28 retired from David. Well, because those games, you make a ton of money, and then you just are the best. So then you're like, oh, I'm going to go to the indie circuits and just go win those. I mean, same happens with the smash bros, too.

It's like you just make money just gaming off people forever. But yeah, that question is extended to ban. How do you find that community? Well, I mean, with Madden, it's just I kind of jumped back into all of this stuff, even Call of Duty as well during the pandemic, right? So a friend of mine You guys might know him. He directed a movie called Chronicle. You guys ever saw that movie?

Yeah. Takes place in Seattle. Yeah. So he was the one that got me on the Call of Duty that you just download the Battle Royale joint that you were talking about. Orson. Yeah.

So him and I will play that. And so that kind of got me back into Call of Duty. It got me back into Shooters, period. Because I had to make a deal. in my household. The only video game I was going to play was Madden.

Because I had to make a deal. I had to say Madden is the only game that can be played because I like video games. So it'll be, it's interesting when someone is like all ready to go someplace

and you're like, okay, and you're ready to go to? Like dress to the nines. Like it's Oscar night. And then you're like, real quick, let me just get to this and it's like, no, get up, let's go. So I have to say,

the only game I was going to play it was Madden, that rule has been broken because we're back at the house now because of the pandemic. So there's so much extra time that I got back into shooters and getting back into them, you try to figure out who's available. That's really the thing. Yeah. And I was all my homies. I'm like, yo, y'all, still be on the Madden? Nah, dog, I'm not on it anymore. So I got in a real 32-person Madden League with Call of Duty. I have not been able to find a new community. I haven't been able to find a group of people besides me and Josh who actually will you play the game that I know.

And the multiplayer online joint is not as fulfilling to me because I'm so far behind. Yeah. It would be better if I could find a group and almost. An already established group. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

As we were talking about, I mean, before internet, before you could easily play online with people, you could convince yourself you were better at games than you were. Because if you were good in your friend group, or in your town or wherever it was, then you could think you were actually good at that game. But as soon as you get on the internet and you play people who were actually good, you realize how bad you are in the grand scheme of things.

That was the best part about Smash Bros. Was I genuinely was like, oh, I'm the best because I wasn't playing online versus people. And then when I got to college, I went, oh, so you motherfuckers have been playing for a minute. I thought it was just me. Yeah. Man, I should come on this fucking podcast all the time.

Let me tell you why. Y'all'm speaking some real shit. I told you guys that, like, I told Ben that I was a competitive Marvel versus Capcom 2 player for a little while. Okay. Like we went around and we played. And we would play against each other in Baton Rouge and we'll beat up each other and we would do all of this stuff. And then you would get better.

So I can't beat Trey. Nah, I can beat Trey. Now I can be Kevin. Both Trey and Kevin were better than me. But I can't beat them. And so once you get to a point to you, boom, and then you go to New Orleans and you get fucking destroyed. Like you know what I mean? You go to Houston and you get.

fucking destroyed, right? You just get ripped out the frame and you're like, God damn. And so now, though, every time you step on, I mean, they try to match you up based upon the level that you're at, right? But it never quite works.

Now, that's immediate. So you really got to take your lumps before you can get good at something. I will ask you guys something about the new ones since I haven't got a chance to sit down with it yet. Is the slander worth it? you mean like is it is the hype real the slander because I ever heard

my brother who is a fucking gigantic Call the Duty player he probably told me he was like I was like man I might not be able to do the podcast I have a chance to play the game but he was like now you still need to go on so go on and just talk about the fact that we've been playing this game for a long time

and then ask them if this game is as bad as I feel like it is or if I'm just buying into what everybody else is saying. So I have your question, Jabrilla. Me personally, Ben will have the most authentic, I think, answer. Because personally, I was playing it and I was like, oh, this just is a war game like

Call of Duty was to me before, scary as hell. But I could understand everyone's critique. It felt so rushed. And the storyline was like just too, it was too much, like put into like three, not even three hours. It's a quick, it feels like a DLC because it was supposed to be a DLC. and then there's so many glitches. They're going to have to update a lot of it.

If you're dropping 70 bucks right then, I think don't do it, not at all. And just watch someone else play it and then be like, oh, I got the gist. Go back to your own Call of Duty, play that, stay in that realm. That is how I felt. I was like, I think I believe the de-hype. If you're looking for something new from this franchise, then you're not going to get it here. If you're looking for something old, you might be happy. God damn, Ben.

Ben. And Ben might be looking for something old. They should put that on the fucking commercial. If you're looking for something new, I don't buy this. If you look for something old, maybe. Man, this for you. This for the old. That's so funny, Ben.

Because look, if you fondly remember Modern Warfare 2 and you just want to immerse yourself in multiplayer that feels like that in those same maps just looking better than they did back in the day, then you'll get that from this game. And maybe that's enough, especially if you've been out for a while and you just want to relive what that was like at the time. Because are there high points for you in the 20 games and 20 years now?

Are there, you know, of course, like Modern Warfare was huge. Modern Warfare 2 was huge. Do you have a favorite sub-franchise like, you know, Black Ops or Modern Warfare, advanced warfare, like all the variants, all the big twists and the landmark missions? And are there any experiences that stand out or even just experiences you had playing with your boys or whatever where there's like a call of duty story

that stands out to you. Modern warfare was the point where I really thought it couldn't get any better. Yeah. I really didn't. And that was the point to I was like,

oh my God, well, you know, it's almost like when everything is clicking and they know the ethos of what it is that they're doing, they get it and they just take it to that next level.

And I remember one of my homies had just gotten married and we were in Baton Rouge and we were there for like two weeks with the wedding stuff and we were just playing every single day high out of our minds, Popeye's chicken boxes everywhere. Just going nuts on modern warfare. And that game was, that game to me was, it was, it did a couple of things

that I didn't think that Call the Duty was not could do that they were going to do. In terms of, and it also, not just for the game itself, honestly, that game actually was one of the games that made me realize what a legacy industry video gaming had become. It's like how big of a deal a video game were. There was a couple of games I've played where I'm like, Jesus Christ, like there's a lot in here. There's like a lot here.

Bioshock. I don't know why, but when I played Bioshock, I was like, God damn, they put some thought into this, bitch. You know what I was like? I was like, I was like, I was like, Let me. I play a couple of games, but by the time you get to Modern Warfare, I was like, and then how the game was selling and all of that, it was just a big, huge, amazing deal. That's like, that's the height of my call of duty. I know that's spent some time now, but that's like the height of my experience with the game. Do you, do you think Modern Warfare, I just looked it up to make sure, because I remember playing Halo 3 around the same time I was playing Modern Warfare too. And I remember, I think Halo 3 came out first. Do you think Modern Warfare was like, like oh, dude, because everyone's like Halo 3 is personally, that's my favorite fucking one. Halo 3, I can replay over and over and over again and never get tired of.

But Modern Warfare 2 was so good. And I remember being like, damn, they really showed, they put Halo in its place. They did. And do you know what? I remember, I remember that like when Halo, when Halo 3 came out, I'm like, all right, time to get back on Halo. You know what I mean? Time to get back on Halo. But it was hard to get for it to get as much traction.

as, I mean, there have been a couple of games that came out over the years that were going to be, quote, unquote, Call of Duty killers. Like, Gears of War had a second and, like, you know what I mean? All of these games. But, like, when, when Call of Duty came out after Halo, like, we jumped right off of Halo. Yeah, exactly. And the campaign, the Halo 3 campaign still is a better campaign to me. I still enjoyed that campaign. That's my favorite Halo campaign.

But I didn't play as much multiple. player on Halo 3. I'm gonna be honest with you. I ate it up. I remember almost being put on the Becca bill because of it. The Becca bill is when you miss school so often that they forced you to go to school period by law because I think you're

missing. But I was playing all night and sleeping during the day. Halo 3 Live was so fun. The maps were so great and I just remember around the time Modern Warfare came out. My brother being like, move over. Like I have to use the console now because this game is taking all these boys by

storm. But people love that shit. Modern Warfare was a good time, though. The chicken, chicken and smoking in your room. Do you think that helps the demographic that is, not the demographic that is, when I played Call of Duty this newest one, I was like,

ooh, I feel like a man that's going to go crazy. Like, I felt like this was, it already immersed me into like a dark room gross place. Do you think that Call of Duty gives that vibe that makes you want to be like, Get all the boys together.

Let's be crazy. Absolutely. Playing the game now, just at the crib, it's almost, it's a little bit. This is another reason why I'm so into Spider-Man right now, because Spider-Man is like a singular thing. I can just do Spider-Man by myself. It's me and New York. I need nobody else.

Leave me alone. Call the Duty always feels like something I should be doing with my homeboys. You know what to me? Somebody always has a better way to do something. Somebody always wants to kill you. Somebody always. And so we're just sitting around and we're playing the game. against each other and we're laughing about in the whole nine and after a while the room is just disgusting.

Yeah, it was so quick because you're dying, it's like dying, healing, everything so fast, those hours fly by. I play a lot of, I guess, first person shooters online with friends. And I don't think you need to communicate as much as you do when you're playing call the duty. Like, call duty requires you to be always active with your friends talking about where you are in location, where people are shooting from. I play Valerant. I play Falun. I play Falun. I play Fortnite. I played Overwatch and I'm still like, yeah, I could still be quiet. Yeah, right, which is why it's not as fun with strangers, right? I guess the good news, if you feel a craving for Doritos as soon as you fire up Call Duty, I read that Doritos just

released something called Doritos Crunch Cancelation Software, which uses AI to mute the sound of the Doritos crunching as you're on chat while you play a game. It might be the best use of AI I've ever heard. I don't know what other troll comments you might hear or slurs, but at least the sound of the crunching Doritos. I'm never eating chips. I'm like consuming soup. And so people hear me slurping and my

friends roast me for it. Give me a soup that you can't hear slurp. It's funny because sometimes like when you're playing, not as much Mad Madden is a leisurely game. So there's always a play clock or there's something else. But sometimes you have to make the decision between

the food and the action. And it's always like, yo, yo man, I got, let me finish this drumstick real quick. I'm just going to get killed. Sometimes you have to make a decision between the food and the action, especially in a game that moves that fast. You know, food just came in. It's like, bro, hey man, take your shit. Take your, take it. I'm like, no, I'm in the middle of take it, bro, take it.

Because my shit is on the bottom. I'm like, shit. And then you're getting killed. Why are you getting food or call a duty? It's always a thing, man. You got to go quick. You'll learn to get into it. So I mute my mic and they'll be like, Jessica, where are you?

And I'm like eating aggressively. I'm like, wait, give me a second. If I crouch down behind this car, no one will see me. My entire team dies and I'm like, just give yourself away with slurping sounds the other people. Like, I know she's there. I know you guys, I know we don't have all day, but I want to say something else though.

Because you guys are more on this than I am. And I have some ideas about how we can all do stuff. I can get into this. You guys are more on this and out. Do you know another thing that like, kind of made me not have to have as many people around

and playing Call the Duty all the time Twitch and YouTube. Yeah. I can get almost the same experience watching somebody play the game. It then actually playing it. Like when I, I never, Call the Duty was never out of my life, right?

But I don't know, why it's so relaxing to watch somebody clear a room or watch somebody frag the same person over and over again or like watch one of these guys go through there and just have complete

mastery. Yeah. Of a spot or whatever and go, I got him, he doesn't even know it. Got watch this boom, dead. Fuck you. Go move over. I'm like, I love I can't, the only guy, there's a Madden guy named TD Barrett and I watch him play. He's very funny. He's cool. He's a Canadian.

guy, he plays against all these people, so I watch him play mad sometimes. Whenever I'm watching Madden, I'm trying to get better. But for me, like, watching Call of Duty, it's so cinematic. And sometimes it's moving so fast and they're playing a level. I really get a lot of enjoyment from watching people's Twitch stream and upload their YouTube's and recorded videos and stuff on Call of Duty. Do you guys feel the same way, like as it relates to other games and stuff? I used to watch, take this out, you will, people listening.

I used to watch Tim the Tatman because he would stream Call the Duty with his friends and they were so good at it that I was just like more and like how are you so good? Most of the times when I watch like Twitch streams it is to become better. It is like how can I be better like just as good as them. But also I look up the YouTube videos of people playing if I get stuck or lost and it helps a lot. Those people though that do their videos are so good and like you said, they're just like so good about playing this game that they're. They breeze through it and make it look so easy. And I, like, am in love with that because I run into walls. Yeah.

Or watching the pros with Call of Duty League or, you know, some. Oh, yeah. I watch the Valenitre leagues. Eastports leagues are in trouble. The Overwatch League just folded. But if you can watch those people at the top of their profession, they're artists, right? It's amazing. I mean, it's almost inspirational and intimidating.

Sometimes there's kind of like a fratty, rowish, you know, kind of toxic culture around, like, Call of Duty. and it depends on the game and the streamer, obviously. But yeah, I appreciate people who are really good at games. You just need to, I just want to bounce off that and echo it. Joanna said this once, and I stuck to it. It was about critics. It was like, it's not our job to tell you, like, give you our reviews and you hate them. You need to find the critics you like and then go listen to their critiques because then you'll actually, like, believe it.

And that's how I feel with gaming and watching people stream. When I'm watching Call of Duty streams, I did watch him the Tapman, but I started going towards, female call of duty streamers because I was like oh this is the energy I also want exuded from call of duty I don't want to feel like a nuisance just because I'm a woman playing this game to men playing so I'm always watching female streamers or just anyone that does identify as a male they're also more entertaining though because their personalities are less annoying yeah 100% as far as I'm concerned the lady twitch streamers their personalities are much more welcoming and less annoying and less

and they're also, they deal with so much bullshit from the guys that they almost, as a reaction, have to be funnier. They know how to come back. They know how to come back so quickly. Whereas when it happens to me, I just fold. I'm like, you know what? I should get off this game. We should all Twitch stream. We should all Twitch stream.

We should Twitch stream Ring orverse Twitch stream, but mastery. Where we're all together playing a certain game with Twitch streaming it so we can see who's got the goods. And it's not even about seeing who's got the goods.

I just want to watch Charles get his ass shot off in one of these games and just see how he reacts. I already know at, besides you two, I already know at the Ring Reverse who the best gamers are. I already know who they are. Is not Charles?

Nah, I die. It's not Charles. Jomi's, I put Jomey at the top. Jomey's at the top. Steve is mid. Steve is mid, but Steve is good at. Steve, Steve, if you guys ever go to Steve's house,

he has a little rig now. He has a little rig. He has a, like, he has a, he has a, he has a whole, his whole VR situation. Then he has a little setup on his game and computer.

He has a little rig, but I bet he's mid. I'm, depending on the game, y'all beat me at every game. I actually, at the house last weekend, had Jomi and Kai playing through some

the more objectionable parts of Spider-Man so that I could just swing around the city. But Call of Duty would be interesting. It would be interesting if we broke it off, put little teams together and had a little fun. It would be so great for the team bonding. We're all together post-live show I want to do that. I don't want them to see me be bad at the one game that we dance in

because Call-Duty, I will be bad. I will probably be pretty okay in any other field but Call-A-Duty. I'll be like, I'll be so scared I'll drop the damn controller. Like, I'm going to be like, I don't know what to do. All our friends who used to play call duty ditched us in an adult life. So now our new friends, our new family, our ring reverse family. We can connect.

We can play call of duty together. All right, we got to wrap up. But if we ever want to talk about call duty again, we'll have plenty of opportunities because there's a new call duty every year. So we can do this again next year, maybe under happier circumstances for the franchise. But one dud won't do this franchise in. College Duty can't be stopped, called Duty can't be contained. It will keep coming.

And Van, we hope you'll keep coming. This was fun. Thank you. We got to have you back to... Pause. Crazy. Sorry, but... You're doing great.

We got to have you back out and just clear the floor to let you talk about Super Mario Brothers 3. Oh, my God. That'll just be a whole episode. Don't even bring it up. That one is the best. Wait, you don't like it? Oh, Super Mario Brothers 3.

Yeah. That's the one. Okay. You guys make a mistake now. Promise me. I'm just saying. I literally single greatest life experiences ever around Super Mario Brothers 3. Yeah.

Transformative video game. Great, amazing. Like, it helped cure my depression throughout the pandemic. I actually went and got the, and played the game, and it helped me. I love the fucking video game. It's the greatest video game of all time to me. Agreed. All right.

Thank you to Van. Thank you to Jess, as always. Thank you to our Juna, Ramkapal, for senior managing the Ringaverse. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for producing. If you want to play along with us for next episode, Slay the Princess, Cacoon, and Jusant. Those are the three games we're going to be playing for our button mesh later this month. Email us at Ringaverse Gaming at gmail.com. Stay in touch.

We will talk to you soon.