The Ringer-Verse - The Dominance of 'Diablo IV,' the 'LOTR: Gollum' Fiasco, 'Street Fighter 6,' and the Future of Fighting Games

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

It is time to return to the world of video games with Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons! On this episode they discuss the latest blockbuster gaming reveals from Summer Game Fest (07:16). They then break down the debacle with the latest 'Gollum' game (12:23) as well as the domination of 'Diablo IV' in the world of loot-based RPGs (24:47). And later, they are joined by The Ringer's Justin Charity to discuss 'Street Fighter 6,' the 'Mortal Kombat 1' reveal, and the state of fighting games (35:54). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Guest: Justin Charity Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and hosts of What About Your Friends, a podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend Stephen Othello and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS asked back in the day, what about your friends? For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matter. 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 trumphia, proper training is required.

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This episode is brought to by Nass Energy, introducing new Nassi. NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-bound hour tropical tasting power, ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it. Do you remember them? The whispers of the damned. Word will not save you.

Show yourself. So. The soldier returns. And with such purpose, no longer the conflicted soul, I left behind. You deceived me. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, and I am joined by my co-op partner. my podcast clan made the player two to my player one or the player one to my player two

depending on which of us presses start first jessica clemens hello jessica hi i will not be pressing start first i will forget and i'll be looking at the startup screen just being like oh this is really pretty visuals we'll just we'll sit on the select character screen for a while one of us makes a move this is a momentous episode it is our first pod as a duo It's also the start of what we hope will be regular ringerverse coverage of video games featuring the two of us. We have both been searching for someone to talk about games with, just typing, looking for a group into the chat window of life. And then there each of us was just waiting to party up. And I'm so happy to have you at the ringer and at the ringerverse.

And I hope this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship and podcast partnership. Yeah, and I think we both come at gaming in different ways that I think people can relate to. But as a person that actively plays a lot of first person shooters and then a lot of story story and fighter games, I hope that like I can just share like, these are really fun. Everyone should play it. I just want to be able to be like, what game should I play and what game should you play? And with all the news and gaming so far, we have so much to look forward to. So much. Yes, we will share our interest here.

You'll make me play some horror games. I don't know what I will force you to play, but we cover all the consoles, all the platforms between us. So we will both keep popping up around the ringerverse, and sometimes we'll be joined here by other folks from the ringerverse or the ringer at large. But this will be your hub for all things video game fandom,

all companies, all platforms, all genres are fair game. We'll talk about big releases. We'll talk about trends. We'll talk about adaptations. We'll revisit some classics and do some. some drafts. Maori may or may not be invited to those drafts. Mallory cannot come.

Mallory cannot. She's banned from our drafts. And we will try to make these fun for non-gamers too. Everyone is welcome. Actually, we should invite Mallory to the gaming drafts because we might actually win some of those. Oh, we would win. We would win. Okay, never mind.

You're right. You're right. She's welcome on all the Ringiverse Gaming Drafts. So stay tuned to the Ringiverse feed and to at Ringiverse on social for updates on our schedule and also updates on what we're calling ourselves because we need a name for this show. We have some ideas, but we welcome suggestions,

which you can tweet at us or email us at our temporary address for this show, ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Turns out a lot of gaming terms are already the titles of podcasts, as we learned. So we're looking for a little help, but we will rely on the wisdom of crowds

in our own creativity. It's like when you have to name your character at the beginning of a game and I never know what to go. Do you have a go-to name in games? No, no, no, no. And they're all the exact same. They're all the exact same. I will name my character. I tried for Diablo finally being like, no, let me give it a really fantasy name.

And I don't think that without a censorship, I can tell you what that name is. Because I was, I didn't know what to do at the time. So I just typed in the first thing in my head, which was a weird body part. And so that's why. I want to know. No, I'm ashamed. Versus adult content. I'm ashamed of it.

So I'm really bad at coming up with names. When I used to stream video games, I went by Team Jacob because I love Twilight. Yeah. And I'm Team Jacob. And I thought that was fun. So I named myself that a lot of times. And I usually go with that. So if you're ever playing a game online, you see Team Jacob, it's probably me.

Or an unspecified body part that cannot be shared on this podcast. You'll tell me off air. It's a boob, but... I'm usually in such a rush to get started that I just put in my own name, which sounds weird when I'm playing Diablo and everyone's named like Lilith and Lorath and Astorath, and I'm just Ben. I don't really totally fit in. I'm more astonished that you were able to get the name than no one else didn't take that name.

That's true. So programming reminders, the Midnight Boys will be back on Friday with their instant reactions to the Flash, followed by Mint Edition, including Jess, on Pixar's Elemental on Sunday. And then there will be instant reactions and deep dives for secret invasions starting on Wednesday, going back to Midnight Boys on Wednesday, House of Our on Friday schedule. So it is a busy time for superhero movies and shows, but it is an even busier. Absolutely bonkers busy time for video games. So we have a lot to cover today.

Remember last summer when indie games saved the day? after all the AAA releases got delayed because budget games take more and more money and time to make. We love the Indies. They aren't going anywhere, but blockbusters are back in a big way. Franchise season started early this year. It is here to stay. We got a new Star Wars Jedi game. We got a new Zelda game. Now we have a new street fighter and a new Diablo. And very soon a new Final Fantasy, followed by a new Pickman and Moral Combat and Balders Gate and Assassin's Creed and on and on, Armored Corps. They have overclocked the calendar. So we have overclocked this podcast to keep up.

Hopefully we won't go over the clock. Arjuna's watching us. But we are going to talk about Gallum and the uncertain state of Lord of the Rings games. Plus another new game with a fantasy setting that we are relieved to report is much, much better than Colin. That's Diablo 4, where you are boob and I'm Ben. And finally, we will discuss Street Fighter 6 and the future of fighting. in games. But first, this would have been the week of E3, RIP.

And even though E3 was canceled for this year and possibly all future years, other events were not. So this was the week of the Xbox and Bethesda showcase and Summer Games Fest and Ubisoft Forward all on the heels of the PlayStation showcase late last month. We could cover all of that now, but there were, I think, five big games that got trailers and in some cases, gameplay footage and release dates that are right in the ringerverse wheelhouse because they are sci-fi or fantasy or based on IP that the podcast already covers. So these are the five.

I'm singling out here. Starfield coming from Bethesda September 6, which Microsoft called one of the most important RPGs ever made. Okay. So your role a little bit, Microsoft. It looks really good, to be fair. It gives you so many options to do stuff that looks so interesting. insane, remarkable. I just don't think, in a personal opinion, I thought Starfield would have been everyone's number one, but it seems like there's another one that you're about to get into

that I think more people were excited about. Well, I'm including Marvel Spider-Man 2 on this list. We got a release date, new details, October 20th coming from Insomniac. We also got Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, December 7th from Ubisoft, which has taken almost as long to make as an Avatar movie. It's surprisingly a first-person game that looks kind of a... like Far Cry, I didn't see that coming. We also got Star Wars Outlaws coming next year from Ubisoft. And finally, I'm going to throw in Fable from Playground Games. We still don't know when that's coming out.

It's a fable game. We never know. But at least we know it still exists. So of those five, which trailer made you more hyped than you were feeling before? It's not fair because I have to say Marvel Spider-Man, too. I'm so excited for it. I'm so excited for it. there's so many characters I'm so excited to see.

But, like, that Starfield was insane. It was insane to me. And so people were like, oh, if you had to choose me in Starfield, Marvel Spider-Man, too. And I'm like, this isn't fair. I'm like, it's not fair. I don't think I can choose. And I feel like Starfield's gameplay was so cool. And, like, building the ship is so insane.

And I love it. But I think more people were excited about Fable, which is surprising to me, at least. but maybe it's because Fable everyone's been waiting for and loves it. Right, yeah. And with Fable, you always worry that it's vaporware. It doesn't actually exist. So we got a trailer. We didn't get gameplay.

We don't have a release date, but it's nice to know it's out there. This might be predictable because it's me, but I'm going to say Star Wars Outlaws. What? Yeah. Okay. No slight on Spider-Man. Love Spider-Man. Love Spider-Man.

I'm farewell to the legend John Ramita, Sr. but I was already 95% confident that Marvel Spider-Man 2 would be great, just considering how good the first one in Miles Morales were. I had no confidence that Star Wars Outlaws would be good. I'm as tired of Ubisoft Open World games as anyone. The fact that they're developing three different open-world franchises at the same time made me worried. But I thought this game looked good.

It looks really fun. It has a hot droid. Everyone's going wild for the hot droid. It has a cute companion pet. It has no lightsabers that we've seen so far. It has an underworld heist story set during the height of the empire. It has a non-white, non-male protagonist. And as a white dude, let me say, my kind has been well served by Star Wars games.

We don't need another. Thank you for that. And maybe most exciting to me, it seems to have no man's sky style flying into space from the surface, which is something I wanted in Jedi Survivor. So I'm not going to say this game will be as good as Spider-Man 2, but I was already at a 9 or a 10 level of hype for Spider-Man 2, whereas I went from a 5 to a 9 in terms of how actively I'm anticipating this game just based on what we saw over the past few days.

Yeah. Outlaws looks very fun. I'm clearly going to play it. I think in the exact opposite way and no one get upset with me, I was like, yeah, I got so many Star Wars games. And, like, Jedi Survivor was not that long ago that I was like, I was like, this is fun, but I also just got this. I'm fine with this.

But Spider-Man 2, I don't, gosh, I think I'm, it's not fair. I wish Spider-Man 2 wasn't in this category because it's like, yeah, because of the IP alone, I'm going to choose Spider-Man 2. But Starfield is insane. Like, I am so excited to play that game. It's a new territory for me, at least. But, like, Star Wars, I was like, I wanted to be really great. I feel bad saying that I have really high expectations for it. because I'm going to go in with these high expectations,

and I don't want to, like, diss it too much. But if it's not perfect, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. Well, we will talk about it either way. Much more to come on those games, and we hope they all live up to the hype and do justice to their source material. However, I'm sorry to say that not every adaptation

makes its IP proud. Sometimes one turns into the Lord of the Rural. Rings, Gollum. Oh my God. Just we like Lord of the Rings. There is a long and rich history of video games set in Middle Earth, dozens of games dating back more than 40 years, but there's been a long lull lately. Several years passed between Middle Earth Shadow of War in 2017 and Gallum, which came out last month. And Gallum is not the comeback anyone was hoping for. Maybe Sam Gamge was. He hates Gallum. But now everyone hates Ghalm. The PlayStation version has a 34 on Metacritic.

The developer, Dedelic, issued an apology for the underwhelming experience, which is an understatement. I haven't played this game because as much as I love our listeners, I don't think I love them enough to play Gallum instead of Tears of the Kingdom and Street Fighter and Diablo. Yep, yep. But I have watched a lot of it, and I know it would take a whole podcast to answer this question. but briefly, what went wrong in your mind with the Lord of the Rings Ghalom? I will keep this as brief as possible. And to me, from watching the gameplay, because just like you, with Diablo Street Fighter, I'm not going to serve this time.

I'm not going to give this time. Yeah. I have standards, you guys, believe it or not, but there's some things I won't touch. And, dude, those gameplay mechanics and the visuals were so. so wild. I think you can, okay, maybe this is a stretch. Maybe this is a stretch. I will say, I give leeway to a lot of video games. I do because I play a lot of very, very small indie horror games where I'm like, yeah, this is like a prototype, but this felt like a prototype that they are, they sent out. It did it not? It was like so weird to me. And I was like, for an IP that's Lord of

the Rings, I don't think I would want to bet on that. Like, I wouldn't want to like, send this out and be like, everyone will like this. It's like, whoa, whoa. This is Lord of the Rings we're talking about. This is now you're just like kind of putting distrust in what your video games could be. But like, I think for me, it was the gameplay. It was the visuals.

It's weird that you die so easily all the time. And from anything, from anything. I think I understand where they were coming from. I think it could have been a really good game. When it comes to storytelling in games, I think visuals matter a lot because a lot of people take those visuals really to heart. And you can make a story silent and just visuals. But this, I was like, dude, the visuals are really weird, bad in my opinion. And as a consumer, it's just coming from a consumer.

I know it puts a lot of work into making the game. But as a consumer, I was like, ooh. Yeah, yeah. Gallum looks googly-eyed. He's kind of cross-eyed. It's not the Gallum that we're used to. The mission design, just the whole structure. the game seems like it teleported

from an earlier era of gaming and there were delays and you always hope well if there's a long delay then that means they're taking the time to polish it and fix it and it'll be just spectacular when it comes out but no sometimes it's still bad and broken and in this case again not to pick on the developer

but this was not necessarily their strength this style of game they're known for point and click type games and this is obviously a departure from that it's just full of bugs full of crashes. They gave it to us raw and wriggling

and Gallum likes it like that. But gamers do not. I'm not Gallum. I'm not a Gallum. But even if they fix the issues, even if they patch it, which they promise to do, I don't know that the core

underlying game there is enough to actually change the narrative here. In the nicest way, in the most respectful way, respectful way, I'm going to say this with full, trying to say this with full respect.

Did you read the apology? Yes. So when they were like, we're working to get it better, we're doing this. I was like, it feels like you're apologizing for the critics review of it and not apologizing for what the game was. And I was like, this, I don't think these updates that you guys are trying to fix will make the game better. I'm sorry. But that's just like my opinion. And I'm like, I don't know what you're going to do to this that's going to make me want to play it.

I don't know what you can do to this to make me want to play it. I think not as bad as like E.T. and like bury it and never remember it again. But I'm like, we maybe just pass. We just go on. Cast it into the fires of Mount Doom. Yeah. Cast it to the fires of Mount Doom. And then we just got to like go, we learned our lesson.

Right. We learned from this. They said we are committed to providing you with patches that will allow you to enjoy the game to its fullest potential. Now, its fullest potential may still not be very good. Yes. That's one way to phrase it. I guess what are you going to do at this point? It's already out there in the world.

You can't rebuild it. But we thought that was interesting not only because the entire internet piled on this game over the past few weeks, but it's an interesting time for the franchise for Lord of the Rings games in general because the Swedish gaming conglomerate Embracer Group in the middle of buying everyone and everything bought the license to Lord of the Rings films and games and merch and theme parks last August. And this week, Embracer announced maybe that's not actually going. Well, they announced some layoffs and consolidation and restructuring. And they also said, we know we need to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion and turn that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. Oh.

Always encouraging when the owner of an IP talks about exploiting it. We know we need to exploit this, which is one way to say, I guess we need to make money off it. Obviously, there are new movies coming from a partnership between Embrace, and Warner Brothers, new Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies. I don't know that anyone was asking for that, but we're getting it. And it sounds like we're going to get a lot of Lord of the Rings games. So we know about a few of them. There's actually one coming out sometime later this year.

We just saw a new trailer for it. It's called Return to Moria. It is a survival crafting game procedurally generated. Then there is a new MMO from Amazon Games announced last month. And Amazon obviously is all in on Lord of the Rings, so along with Rings of Power, and has some MMO experience. And you have some experience with their MMOs with New World, right? Yes, I love New World. I love New World.

And I think with a lot of MMOs, a situation that I run into, and I assume this is like the most surface level, I think we all run into it, is once it loses popularity, it becomes more easier to like play and manage with a lot of them. And that's what New World was. starting the game immediately, we remember that like that flashback, everybody go back to me. Close your eyes. Remember what it was like playing New World as soon as it dropped.

We couldn't get into a server for like 12 hours. It was insane. I kept going around like the East Coast everywhere to try getting into servers and I couldn't get in. Battling was really hard because there were so many people playing it.

But as like the time went on, it became easier to play. It was more manageable. And it was really fun. And I really had a good time playing New World. I just kind of like fell out. out of it. Like, I do a lot of the MMOs. I play for a really long time. And then I'm like,

okay, time to go into the next game now. Something else comes along. Right. So that's encouraging. There's also an unspecified Lord of the Rings game coming from Weta Workshop, which did the effects for Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. And there's an electronic arts free-to-play mobile game called Heroes of Middle Earth coming. But before we move on, what do we want from Lord of the Rings games? do you have a favorite or a best old Lord of the Rings game that you want future games to emulate or that you just have warm memories of? I want to hear your opinion, but I genuinely, I think for Lord of the Rings, as an MMO,

great idea, perfect world. The MMO they had from like ages ago is still active and people still play. Yeah, Lord of the Rings online. Still going strong. Or at least still going. I don't know how strong. I don't know how strong. I don't know how strong.

But it's still going, but it's still going. It's still going. So it's like, as an MMO, I think perfect. I personally was pretty young for like older. I remember my brother, my older brother would play battle for Middle Earth. And I'd watch him play all the time. And I was like, this is really wild and fun. But I think I was playing like Simpsons hit and run.

And I refused to like actually play the game by stuff. Such a good game. But I did play Lego. I played the Lego, Lord of the Rings. And I really had fun with that. So I think there's a lot of potential always for doing, Lord of the Rings game. They have a million. I just think as an MMO, that's the best idea because there's so much you can put yourself into in this role-playing world. Yeah. And I'm not a big

real-time strategy game guy. There have been some good Lord of the Rings RTS games. But for me, the Two Towers and the Return of the King, the EA movie tie-in games from about 20 years ago, those were really great, even though there's a checkered pass for movie tie-in games. Those were really good ones. I also like Shadow of Mortar. I thought that was good, too. The sequel, not as much. Unlike, say, Star Wars, I think not every genre works with the Middle Earth setting, right? I mean, you can have MMOs, you can have an RTS, you can have action adventure and hack and slash. You're probably not going to have a first-person shooter or a flight sim or a racing game in Lord of the Rings. I mean, if you want to try, like, if you want to give me ork cart or whatever, like, please feel free.

But it's slightly limiting. So if the license would allow it, you never know what they have. permission for, but something maybe set earlier in the timeline, the second age, like the series. You know, I don't love the show, but I like the show Rings of Power and I'm intrigued by the setting. So that might be interesting. I'd kind of like to see a telltale style narrative game potentially or just another good beat-em-up game set in the Lord of the Rings universe.

I would be fine with that. Well, my whole thing is like, yeah, love or hate the series, whatever you guys want. They did put a lot of money into the design of it, right? And it doesn't look too bad. So it's like if they put that money into this game, it will be insane. And that's the part that I'm looking forward to the most is I'm like, they, I think Amazon recognizes like, okay, our IP, other than like the boys and Invincible, our biggest thing and the Marvelous Miss Maisel is like Lord of the Rings right now. So they're literally like, let's, like he said, exploit it. Let's latch on to it.

Let's make sure it's what the fans want. And I think the design will be really good and has like all impact for that. And that's what I'm leaning into. I'm playing this to look around, go crazy. I want to fish and be like, ooh, this is a real trout. You'd think a gallum game

would have been great for fishing. Dude, I don't want to even. That's the thing because people might think, a gollum game, does that make sense? How would that game be good? But I kind of applaud the choice. It's a little bit different from what they've done before. You know, a gallum game and stealth gameplay.

It's kind of broadening what a War of the Rings game. could be. Now it turned out very badly, but in principle, it could have worked, maybe. So I have potential that it could have been better. Like, it's like the story's very compelling and good. I think like a stealth-focused game where Gallum is in prison could be very fun. And like you have to get all these puzzles to get out of it. I genuinely am so bad at storytelling and video games. Anytime I play any storytelling in video games, I'm like, this is insane and great. I could have never written this. So I don't know what I would have to tell them to like make it better, but I'm like, I think it's there. And it's dicey, but it's there. And I think we could have gotten the full way.

Yeah. It could have been our precious, but it was not. But we hope that if Embracer is exploiting the license, that players will not be exploited like the purchasers of Gallum will be. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchasing. with it big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%ter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. My desire for another good beat-em-up brawler set in the Lord of the Rings universe brings us to our next topic

because honestly, who needs to slaughter orcs in Mordor when you can slaughter so many monsters in sanctuary, the fantasy setting of Diablo 4. So if Gollum was a disappointing return after a long layoff, then Diablo 4 is a comeback that was worth the wait. And we have both been immersed in this game over the past week or so. The original Diablo way back in 1997 was inspired in part by a 1983 game called Moria,

which was sort of this proto-rogh like Lord of the Rings game about diving deep into the minds of Moria and killing the Balrog. And that's kind of what it is. I mean, there are Balrogs in Diablo, right? It's an action RPG series about hacking and slashing and slaughtering monsters and earning loot. It was officially released last week. It's the long-awaited sequel to 2012's Diablo 3. And there were high stakes going along with this game for Blizzard, which makes sense. Diablo because they've had a rough few years in any number of ways, on screen and offscreen.

I mean, discrimination and harassment suits and conflicts with Activision, their corporate parent, which has had plenty of its own problems, and high turnover as people have moved on in part because of those scandals. Failure to put games out, failure of Warcraft 3 reforge, cancellation of Overwatch 2 story mode. A lot of people had sort of soured on Blizzard. needed this one to be a hit and thus far it is. It's a success. Critical acclaim, fastest selling Blizzard game ever according to Blizzard. What are your impressions of Diablo for so far? I love Diablo. I can't stress this enough. I can't stress this enough. It's so good. I, it's so, like, I mean,

I knew it was going to be good for myself. I love occult things like this in games. I think it's very fun. I love dark stories, whether it's in movies or TV. So this, like, I know I was going to like it, but like playing it, I'm genuinely, I can't put it down. It's so much like the missions,

the side quests are so like obtainable. Like, it doesn't take too long to do. So you constantly keep going, oh, I'll take a break after the next one. I'll take a break after the next one. I'll pull away for the next one. But they're so fast, so easy to. And then if you get to the mission missions and you join with

a teammate from someone, like somewhere else. I've been playing with my roommates. I'm like, dude, this is more fun to be playing this with so many people. And I can't stop. I can't turn away from it. I love it. Are you playing right now? I'm just like, wait, what? Sorry, ignore me. Ignore me. Yeah, I feel the same way. Like, I think it starts sort of slow. There's a bit of a learning curve. You're more of a PC gamer than I am these days. I'm, more console first. And this is very much a PC style game even on consoles, right?

And so it took me a little time to adjust, like figure out the skill tree, figure out my inventory. We are both barbarians, right? Wait, you chose a barbarian. Ben and Boob, both barbarians. We should have coordinated. We should have tried different classes. But look, I like being a barbarian. I just like, you know, I'm not messing around with ranged attacks.

and spellcasting, I just want to swing my sword or my axe or my pike or whatever it is and just feel the visceral blood and the squelching. And that's what this game gives me. I just want to wade into just a crowd of wargs and swing my sword around and be rewarded with sprays of blood. That is what I want from Diablo. And that's what it's given me. So for the first few hours, it's a little repetitive. and there's a lot of pressing one button over and over and over again, right?

But then you start to figure out the formula and you start to unlock abilities and there starts to be a bit more depth to the combat and you get immersed in that world. And now I'm totally hooked just that core gameplay loot of pick up a quest, go to the place on the map, just to kill stuff along the way, get golds, get loot, get stuff, watch my stats climb. clear out caves, it's extremely addictive. It's just, it's hard to put it down. If you are, I'm just speaking to it, maybe avoid,

because if you're turning into this gaming podcast, you love games. But if you are tuning in because you just like me and Ben, and you don't play video games that often, I will say Diablo is a lot. It is a lot. I luckily, like, building the skill tree, there's always great resources online. Any kind of deck building game I play,

I look up how to build, like, the best decks. But I will say, I had more fun because what I did first was I chose my own abilities. And I think I had more fun reading and choosing my own abilities than building the supreme barbarian from online's world. I understand the online parts. But I'm like, when you make your own things, it's much more fun. And I think you should go that way first. And learning all of the gems and like adding them to your like armor to your weapons.

That's a lot of stuff to intake. I recognize that, but it's worth it. I swear, this is basically you're building the best fighter, the best thing, and you will rule the world. And then you'll end up being on Lilith's side, like me. Like me. You're rooting for Lilith. I mean, I'm level 21 right now. I haven't been playing that long.

I'm still sort of getting the hang of it. But I feel like I'm in the swing of things, literally, with my weapons at this point. And it's, I think it's a great game to play while listening to a podcast. Maybe some people are playing while they're listening to us right now, but it's not like mindless, but it is kind of repetitive in a good way, in a rewarding way. And, you know, you're just traveling around. You're just killing stuff. You're going from place to place. You can kind of have half your brain on that while you are listening to something while you're second screening or something. So shout out to anyone who is listening to the ring of verse while playing Diablo. I think it's like it's the perfect game, I think, to have some. something on as accompaniment, even though, like, the voice acting is great. Maybe I just like accents, a lot of accents in this game, but great voice acting, good score. I like the design of the world. I'm into the story so far, but it is like you can kind of turn off part of your brain while you're playing, which is, it's not an insult. I'm a subtitled person, so I've just been leaving,

like, I am usually, okay, so also I love horror games, you guys. Yes, I do. I love slasher games. But I'm still a scaredy cat. And so sometimes when you're going into different like caves or whatever and I get so deep and I'm alone and the music gets loud, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to listen to Rihanna. I'm going through here. Yeah, that's why I like playing with a friend or even if it's just like a stranger who appears and fights with me for a while. It's nice to have some company in that world. It's a scary place. So I'm like, oh, oh, this is scary. Music is loud and I know what I'm going to hit. I know what the boss is.

I'm like, yeah, it's going to be a demon or someone possessed again. But I'm genuinely like, maybe if I just put on like umbrella by Rihanna and Jay-Z, I won't be as scared. Yeah. But it's so fun. I am addicted to it. After this podcast, I will work and play it. Arjuna, I promise. I will work and play it.

Yeah. It's a total change for me because I beat Zelda partly so I could switch to Diablo, which is very different. in many ways, but also similar in that you can, in both games, just start a side quest and wander into a cave and suddenly several hours went by and you look up and you're like, oops, I meant to sleep tonight. But what's going on? It's a relief after Zelda that the weapons don't break. That's the nice thing.

I could just wail away for hours on these wargs and my weapons will not break, which I'm grateful for. The only problem for me is that it's not as toddler friendly as Tears of the King. I could play Tears the Kingdom with my. daughter right there. But when I tried Diablo once with her there, my wife was like, I don't think so, which was very fair. I don't think you got it. I don't know if you, I don't know if you got to it yet by your level, but you will see a half dead man attached to a tree. Oh yeah. I was there. He's an afflade man. And I went, oh, oh, wait, no, no, not the guy that was ripped apart by the

witch. Different man attached to a tree. Okay, to be fair, the skinless man from the wit was insane to me. I literally went, oh my God. And it wasn't even like, I'm sorry, you guys. As a dark person I loves horror, I was like, wasn't that he was skinless. It was the reason why he's skinless. That was like, oh, this is too much. He wanted it that way. Yeah.

Jesus. There were spoilers. Not major spoilers. There are some skinless people in this game. That's all you need to know. You probably could have anticipated that. You're going to run into some skinless people. But Lilith literally came up from hell.

So, of course, there's going to be skinless people. Yeah. I am really enjoying it. It's great. The formula is wonderful. They're trying to make this into a live service game, and I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but they didn't just load it down with micro-transactions,

like the mobile game, like Diablo Immortal. There's nothing too intrusive in that respect. And, you know, like this series, it's always made some major leaps. It's caused some controversy, like with Diablo 3 and the DRM protection and the always online. and the problems logging in and everything. Comparatively speaking, this launch has gone fairly smoothly. And I feel like they had a proven formula.

They knew this would work. They largely stuck with it, which some cosmetic improvements and quality of life upgrades. And it's just better in some small ways. And it was already really good and time tested. So I'm just, I'm happy to have it back in my life. Yeah. When I looked at it, I was like, I only had one bug. And that bug only drove me and said,

saying because I wanted to play the game. And when I say the one bug, it was, there was one moment where, like, all of us were having problems logging in that they fixed immediately. But it was like, it's going to take 1,000 minutes.

And I was like, 1,000 minutes. I'm going to play this now. I was like, so mad. I would, like, go to my room, watch TV and then come out and be like, is it done? Is it fixed?

I was like on Twitter searching because I was so in love with this game. I can't stress enough. If you haven't downloaded it, haven't played it yet, please do. It will take up all your time. It is your money's worth

because you will spend so much time in this world. So much time. So much time. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

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Our last topic, our conversation about Street Fighter Six and Fighting Games. And for this segment, a challenger appears. Joining us in the arena is Ringer's senior staff writer, Justin Charity, a man who is always spoiling for a fight, at least with words. I'm mixing my fighting game franchises here. But Justin, get over here. Yes, let's see. All mixed metaphors.

Every punchline has to be a mixed metaphor in this segment. Yeah. So there's been a bit of a break between mainstream fighting games the past few years. And the pandemic put in-person tournaments on hold. That didn't help. But the fighting game revival, is here. This is the year of big fighting games. We've got Capcom Street Fighter 6, which we've all been playing when we are not playing Diablo and other games, not including Gollum. That just

came out this month. It's the first mainline street fighter game since 2016. Mortal Kombat 1, not Mortal Kombat 12, but Mortal Kombat 1 comes out on September 19th. There is a closed network test for Tekken 8 coming next month. Riots Project L. in the works. Justin, you wrote about the future of fighting games late last year for the ringer.com. What a great website. So tell us what is happening here. What is the state of the fighting game genre?

Well, yeah, because it's like when I wrote about it, I was writing about multiverses, which by the way, multiverses, that was a wild ride. That went from being, what felt like, Fortnite level biggest game on Earth to evaporating overnight. They're taking it away and bringing it back, right? To try to drum up interest again. Yeah. But otherwise, right, it's sort of, I like to, I kind of pick Guilty Gear Strive as sort of

the beginning of this sort of, you know, the graph going up, as it were, in terms of fighting games really having this moment. I do feel like even with Strive taking off sort of late last year for a while now, yeah, it's like Street Fighter 6 was always going to be the kind of make or break, you know, can fighting games really like have their moment in the sun in 20, 23. I really like Street Fighter 6. I spent,

frankly, a lot of time in Street Fighter 5. I was never really that good at Street Fighter 5. I'm not that good at fighting games. I'm actually terrible at Strife. I think we're all not very good at these games. That's something we all have in common. Yeah, I don't think I've heard a single person been like, I'm good at fighting games.

But I think everyone just enjoys playing them. It's a lot of combos to have to like nail down that I'm really bad with my fingers. I have old lady fingers. I can't go that point. Well, I'm not terrible, but it's just like, I used to go to locals in Cleveland. And so that's, when you play with people

who are legit actually good at fighting games, you're like, yeah, I'm never identified. You know what I mean? Stay humble as Kendrick was there. I thought I was pretty good at Super Smash Brothers, the original. Me. Me.

Me. I wrote about this back at Grantland, but I actually went to a Super Smash Brothers tournament and played the best Super Smash Bros. Player in the world just like as a stunt. And he just destroyed me. Like it was a humbling experience. Not that I thought I could compete at that level, but that was like the one game I thought I was good at, relatively speaking. And it became clear I was not good at it compared to people who were actually good at it.

Ben, let's play against each other. Because that was exactly how I felt. And then I was humbled in a Seattle competition one day when I went, I thought I thought I was, I like, so confident smash for me, but then I was humbled. And so I know how you feel. Yeah. Well, Donkey Kong was my main in original smash, which I know is weird if you look at a tier list, but I just, I like the way that character played on N64s.

That probably didn't help, but that wasn't why. It's not like if I was a Pikachu main, I would have wiped the floor with the best smash player in the world. I still would have lost just as badly. But I feel like, I mean, I'm the filthy casual when it comes to non-Smash Brothers fighting games, I just don't even have a whole lot of experience. So I'd love to hear you to talk about your streetfighter experiences. Even if you're not good at it, you're probably better at it than I am. And Jess, I know you've been busy beating up monsters in Diablo, but have you had some time

for Street Fighter and what have you made of it so far? I also want to hear you have to say charity because I was like, I am, I'm loving Street Fighter Six, but I also am like, do I love Street Fighter six because I haven't had Street Fighter in so long? I'm like, do I miss it this much? But that world mode is really fun. And as someone that constantly is thinking for people that, like, are new to this, I'm always trying to get, like, my friends to play things with me. And I think the world mode helps them. But it was kind of confusing for me.

And maybe I am the odd one out. Have you played the world mode yet? The world tour mode is so funny because it really is like, what if yakuza, but actually Splatoon? Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, 110%.

And I like that, but it's just such a bizarre experience when you go through the actual sort of like interactions. You're just, Chun Lee is just outside of a restaurant. Yes, yes. Oh my God. It is the most cartoony thing. It is the most silly loony-tuny thing. But I'm having fun. I think it's more that I'm having fun building my own character because they made it to a degree that's so intense.

Oh, my gosh. You can change your chin in six different ways. And I'm like, that's insane. And for some reason, I still have the thickest neck in the game. I accidentally, I made... Yeah, you chose that, I guess, because this is one of the most in-depth character creators I've ever seen. And I've got to say, like, the more customizable, the character,

sometimes the less time I spend on it, because I see all the options. And I just get overwhelmed. I get decision fatigue. I just go with the default. I just, I don't have the patience to choose my lats and traps, like, Literally. Sliders to my shoulder muscles. Like, if I were actually good at the game and the shape of my character's body had some tactical

implications for like how I played or how often I got hit, I would probably be obsessed over that. And if you're really into that, it's cool that you could probably recreate yourself fairly accurately in the game. But I was just stunned by how many sliders and how many options there were. I learned a bunch of body parts that I did not know what the names were. Until they got there. Do I have one of those?

Yeah. But I do like that. I like that you got to build your character and being like, hey, just keep in mind that however you build your character does influence how you're fighting. And so just in case, I made my character with the biggest feet and hands possible. Because I was like, I want to make sure I get hands on everybody. It sounds like a great idea. Yeah.

You've got to kick and punch people. Sounds like it should be easier with bigger feet and hands. But I think it's fun. And we talked briefly about the modern and classic controllers, right? and I am a big dummy, a big dummy, and I'm playing on the classic regardless. Classic works easier for me. But I do like what the modern is doing.

I like what they're doing. I like the idea. They're teaching people that don't know how to play Street Fighter to play Street Fighter. And I think this isn't like allowing any beginner to play. And I love that first. I want that for everybody. Can we break that down?

Because to me it's important, like if you see in the community, right, like people talking about sort of the tradeoffs, right? it's sort of easier to do your super or your combos, right? If you use the modern control scheme and sort of what the implications of that are for the competitive scene. And those are all valid questions. Like I don't, you know what I mean? Like, difficulty in fighting game, like fighting games more than any other kind of game. Difficulty stuff matters.

How you sort of balance the game being difficult and accessible. That stuff matters. I think people underrate the idea that part of what it means in a pitch to casuals, even though it's not limited to casual modern controls, it's sort of, by sort of abstracting away some of the difficulty in like, how do I get a double quarter circle motion out, right? For somebody who just is, like, frustrated,

you're sort of more quickly introducing them to the idea that that's actually not what's hard about or challenging about fighting games, right? It's actually sort of knowing how to read situations, how to take your turn, how to sort of know your move set and sort of how it interacts with, other characters sort of framed data and stuff like that.

It's kind of like getting people quicker to the idea that like, yo, doing a sure you can might be like immediately intimidating, but actually like we'll give you a sort of tool, like we'll give you a sort of one button tool for a bit so you can see that actually you need to be thinking hard about other stuff, right? That at the end of the day,

the difficulty of doing the inputs, like that is not going to be the hardest thing. That people get lost in the sauce of realizing that, I think, when they get so hung up on the input stuff. Like, once you see it, it's scary. Yeah. It's so scary. It's not as easy as smash is. And not saying smash is easy because we were humbled.

We were humbled that day. But like, it's easy to do these ground pounds and do these things. Not as many buttons to press it in that sequence. Yeah. Exactly. I got, I love fighting games. I love them. And I think I do like them more for the story element than the actual fight.

in itself. I think it's really fun. But like, I remember how daunting it was to see all those keys the first time I played like injustice. And I was like, I can't do this. I was like, my hands can't physically do this. Are they tired after like five minutes of doing this? Like, I can't do it. So it seems very intimidating. And it's so hard.

Yeah, you're right, Charity. There may be harder things, but that is also a hard thing. And as the relative new button masher who really does not know how to play streetfighters, here, I will say I deeply appreciated the tutorials and the character guides and the modern controls. Because with the standard controls, I honestly had trouble getting past the tutorial. Like, that's embarrassing to say, but like it was actually hard to input those commands in the sequence that it wanted me to input them. And once I switched over to the modern, I was like, okay, I can do this. So it really did kind of make the water warmer for me to dip my toe in there.

And Capcom's making a big deal of that. They put press release out week one after the game's release and said, as a result of providing features for a diverse range of players, the title was met with broad acclaim, which is true, 92 on Metacritic, almost three times Gallum score. Driving sales to one million units worldwide and less than week, Capcom remains firmly committed to satisfying the expectations of all players, including noobs like me, the implication is.

And Justin, why do you think they're motivated to hold the hands of players like me now 36 years into streetfighter history? Like, do you see this as a bid to bridge the gap between the fighting games that date back to the 80s or early 90s arcades and then the smash-style IP-based brawlers, you know, smash and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and multiverses and Project L, which are both free to play? Are they seeing that there's an opportunity here in the market, that they want to try to be the game for everyone that can make fighting games more mainstream than they've been? Well, I think it's got to be hard for fighters, right, to look at shooters, right? Because if you think of shooters, you can be trash. You can be trash at Cod and have fun, right?

That's sort of the idea of skill floors and skill ceilings, right? You can be just straight up bad at a shooter and log into Apex or whatever. and have fun, right, for at least like some fraction of a match, right? And I think in fighters, there's just the more inherent thing of, and part of its matchmaking, part of it's the inputs and mechanics and stuff like that. There's a lot of factors that go into, it's harder in fighters than anything else, I think, to have fun out the gate. And I do think that, like, the whole scene is that's what they're trying to engineer around.

They're trying to say, like, we don't want the commercial growth of this genre of video game. Like, why can't we be as big as shooters, right? Like, why can't Street Fighter be as big as cod, right? I think it's the actual thing they're trying to answer. And I think you don't want to do that in a way that kind of compromises what fighting games even are. Right? And that's what some of the angst about, you know, too easy versus too difficult that you'll find in online communities that talk about these games. talk about the control schemes is about.

But yeah, I do think that they are looking at the future and they're saying, how can we scale sort of in proportion to the way that all these other online multiplayer video game genres have scaled in the past 10, 15 years. And that takes us to Mortal Kombat, one, which doesn't seem to have a simplified control scheme. I guess you could say Mortal Kombat is a little simpler to start with than Street Fighter potentially, but we got a new gameplay trailer, lots of. the details here. I know you check that

out. Charity, what were your thoughts on the new Mortal Kombat? See, Mortal Kombat is just made a point about like the story kind of elements of these games. Mortal Kombat, I think all fighting games have kind of like when I look

at them and they do the kind of exposition dump between sort of throwing the characters into matches. I'm just always like, this is stupid. Right? The physicality of the Mortal Kombat trailer, of Portal Combat One trailer, like I liked how a lot of it looked,

but you know how it's all cut with those transition scenes of people like attacking people in their kitchens. I was just like, it's so absurd. I eat it up. I love it. Well, that's the thing. I love it sometimes.

To be fair, in Street Fighter, I did go fast forward. But I think it's also because I'm like, yeah, I know the characters. I know what's going on. Like, I'm just trying to play. I'm just trying to get to Riu. I don't care about anything else.

But like in Mortal Kombat, okay, and this is also, I talked about this briefly before, I just like dark horror things. And Mortal Kombat is so gross and so, like, disgusting. Good crunch. I love it so much. The characters are so fun.

It's so crazy that I'm like. Can't play this game with my toddler next to me either, unfortunately. Yeah, you can not play this around children. Never. This game literally rips the spines out of people's mouths. But I'm so excited for, maybe it's because it's Mortal Kombat too. I don't know. Mortal Kombat to me, for me, is more nostalgic than Street Fighter.

I was more of a Mortal Kombat person than Street Fighter. So I'm genuinely like, I eat it up. I'm eating this story up. Yeah. I mean, the appeal has always been the gore to some extent, right? It's like, oh, we can have the red blood versus the green blood or the sanitized Nintendo version of the game going back decades, right? But I was going to ask you about the story because MK1 is rebooting the Mortal Kombat

universe and characters, I guess not for the first time. How much do the story and continuity matter to you in fighting games? I was going to ask, you know, can you explain the story of Street Fighter in 30 seconds or less? Like, there are some gaming franchises that are just, they've run off the rails story-wise, even if they were interesting at first. I challenge anyone to explain Assassin's Creed to me. Explain what is happening in the story of that game.

They're like, you know, hours long YouTube videos devoted to that. I don't know if Street Fighter is quite that complicated, but like, would you want that to be rebooted? If they said they were rebooting Street Fighter, would you be mad about it? Is that a positive or a negative? Charity, please correct me. Tell me this. Answer. Riddle me.

Ridle me this. Street Fighter, there's so many games. And didn't they retcon like a little bit of it? I assume they did. There's so much to it with, like, cloning people and then a spirit being unleashed and then a world tournament again and again and again just to be played as like a fake, a fake play, a fake game. I can answer that question in the form of a question, which is, did you ever watch NBC's Passions? No. Passions was a soap opera on NBC, but it was like a supernatural soap, right?

And to me, all fighting games are that, right? Like, they all kind of, if you're asking about retconning and like, wait, why is, why does this character now seem to be a different character and what is evil Ryu? And like, they're all NBC passions, right? That's what they all are in their DNA. The only one of them that sort of, I think, becomes so surreal and stupid that I'm like, I actually admire this as like guilty gear lore. But the rest of them, even Street Fighter. Yeah, I mean, people make fun of Mortal Kombat for its lore because they've had reboots and it's just such a. convoluted thing.

But Street Fighter is also convoluted and full of nonsense. You know what I mean? 100%. It's also like we get attached to different characters. So I don't think it's like the main storyline is like a few and a lot of major ones. But I think it's like even like Street Fighter 6, I'm like, I'm obsessed

with Kimberly. So I'm gonna I'm gonna keep playing as Kimberly. We skipped over that part in the street fighter and we were talking before. Who are you guys playing? Kimberly. You're playing Kimberly. I'm playing DJ. who got a rework in this. DJ's amazing.

Yes. Yes. I just, I genuinely always go to characters. I always like even make the characters. I'm like, oh, this is clearly the black girl.

I'm going to go play as her. But Kimberly genuinely is very fun. And I love her and her little story. And I've been playing as her like the entire time. And I need to branch out. I need to go off and play other characters. But I'm like, Kimberly's my name and no one can take her from me.

I'm going to cosplay as her. Like I'm addicted to Kimberly. She's very sweet, very fun, very bubbly. If you like that, you'll love her. The Mortal Kombat people who are listening to this are mad because I didn't talk about the gameplay. I'm so sorry. But what I meant to say when I was when I went straight to the story is just like, look,

I have no opinions of Mortal Kombat gameplay. I'm bad at Moral Kombat. I'm like, you know what I mean? Like I was a person who like at that pivot point in my childhood, I sort of had to turn off of the Mortal Kombat games because I was I was actively bad at Mortal Kombat. And so I'm rooting for that community. You know what I mean? in the run-up for that release date,

but I'm probably going to be playing Street Fighter 6. Yeah, there's sort of a summoning mechanic, a buddy system. You tap in another person who can come in and hit someone for you. It seems like that's one of the gimmicks that this game is based around. But, yeah, I mean, it doesn't even matter who I mean in any of these games because I have no discernible skill with any characters. That's okay. I'm not good enough with any of them for it to make any difference,

whom I'm actually playing as. But the story discussion brings me to the last thing I wanted to ask you about. Just an update and our hopes for the upcoming Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter films. Because there is a sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie in the works. It was said to be scheduled for filming this summer. I don't know if the strike is affecting things, but it has a script by Moonnights, season one head writer, Jeremy Slater, and the director from the Mortal Kombat reboot movie is returning to helm this one. And then there's also a streetfighter movie on the way, which

it sounds like will probably be directed by a duo of Australian brother directors, Michael and Danny Philippo, who are big gaming fans and have made sort of spoof fighting game videos just for fun. And they are also the directors of the A24 horror film Talk to Me, which sounds very much up your alley. Yeah, I'm so excited. Super gory, right? Got great reviews at Sundance. I think it comes out in wider distribution next month. So I think people are pretty psyched about those two being attached to this.

So again, it's like when it comes to making a movie out of Moral Combat or Street Fighter, you're not necessarily expecting deep emotional narrative for a plot that totally makes sense. Like, that's part of the fun of these films. And I enjoyed the Mortal Kombat movie. I thought that was pretty much what a Mortal Kombat movie should be, more or less. So give me more of that. I'm fine with that. But what are you hoping for expecting?

We're obviously in a new era for video game adaptations. We missed some prominent ones on this pod, but we will have many, many more to talk about in the near and medium and distant future. So now that we're in this era of everything being adapted and also being adapted in a more responsible way with more care and by people who are actually familiar with these properties and the movies have budgets now, it's a whole new world. So what would you like to see from Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter movies or just movies based on brawlers or fighting games in general? Personally, I remember I like the Mortal Kombat film too. I thought it was very fun and the little quips that were callouts. back to the game were very fun for me.

So I had a lot of good time. Also, there was a lot of gore. But I know that, like, a lot of people's frustration with it was, like, just the script in general and how it, like, was a lot to work with. And I think taking... And there was, I guess, no Mortal Kombat tournament in the Mortal Kombat movie. Yeah. There was no tournament. Yes, 100%.

Probably something they'll rectify in the sequel, I would imagine. I recognize. I recognize the flaw in the problem. But I think also looking at how good the last of us was in trying to not, like, take that fully to heart, but recognizing how, like, it's a little, little game knowledge, a little bit of, like, we're seeing the visuals from a game and it's staying to the plot of the game, but it has, like, we're taking so much of these visuals into heart and all this stuff. And I'm like, maybe make it, like, kind of more grounded in that situation.

But I'm also a big fan of ungrounded things and being as ridiculous as possible, which I think Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat is. So if they want to go off the chain, off the wall with how crazy and ridiculous, it is, I will still love it. But I think for people that are consuming it as only a movie format, keeping it as grounded as The Last of Us is maybe the way to go. This is just me, personally speaking. I'm not right in the movies. I'm not right in them. I think you're underscoring, though, you're underscoring, I think a problem that adaptations have a lot of times in the video game space, which is like, if you take The Last of Us, apart from it being this very cinematic

thing and its DNA already, like that game, its tone is clear, right? You sort of know. So, like, all that stuff, it's clear. Whereas I think when people have frustrations, people who are deep Mortal Kombat game partisans are probably more likely to not like that first movie. And I think a lot of it is sort of understandable, right? I think the frustrations apart from just the script, it's also, you know, coal. I think it's people feeling like they didn't take a lot of the source material or sort of the faithfulness seriously in that first movie.

But the challenge for fighting game adaptations, I think, is always that fighting games are always a little bit characters who are dead serious, like Giles' face. Just imagine Giles' face in the games versus Goofy, right? And again, it's like when you have something that is Street Fighter, but Street Fighter is in this new game is sort of Yakuza meets Splatoon, It's sort of, you're kind of asking the impossible or the nigh impossible for Hollywood director

to do something that bulls exactly down the middle and sort of pleases everyone, I think is really... Like, again, video game adaptations are already generally pretty hard and have a pretty tough track record. And I just think fighting games of all possible kinds of video games have a weird tone thing. That's just tough. And most people aren't playing them primarily for the story other than Jess, who's just

all in on the story of the character development. But yeah, it doesn't lend itself quite as naturally. But it depends on what your appetite and tolerance for camp is and cornyness and cheesiness, which those original movies from the early 90s, they're extremely early mid-90s. And that has its appeal if you're in the right frame of mind. right? So I don't know that I would want to see a super serious grim, dark prestige type adaptation of these properties. I mean, maybe more so than the originals, but if we try to force everything into the Last of Us mold, like that's what The Last of Us was in its original form. And it was modeled on cinematic properties that were like that or literary ones, right? And I feel like, you know, part of the video game adaptation revolution is finding and choosing properties like that that are well suited to an HBO adaptation. And part of it, I feel like, is also going back and sort of undoing the original sins of the early 90s

when those first faltering steps into live action adaptations of video games where, you know, after Super Mario Brothers, you just had brawlers and fighting games for a few years, double dragon and street fighter and mortal combat. And now I feel like just going back and doing justice to those, they're not going to be, you Emmy or Oscar nominated necessarily, and I don't know that they should aim to be, but if you could do them better than that first time, like, I feel like part of it is just exercising the demons of the major missteps at the beginning of adapting video games. And then we can move on to adapting some more recent games that maybe have more sophisticated storytelling than

existed in games and that was possible technologically in those early days, right? Because, you know, initially the games that got adapted were the ones that had deep roots that went back to the early days of the medium, relatively speaking, when there wasn't as much sophisticated storytelling going on. So it was always maybe sort of a suspect choice. But they're pleasures, their delights and joys in those movies. I think there still can be. Even if it's just like well-choreographed bloody violence, that's fine. There are a lot of good movies like that, right? So why couldn't one be based on a video game?

All right. Well, as the street fighter announcer says, perfect. Just this was a joy. Can't we to team up again. Thanks to Justin Charity for being our final boss. Thanks to Steve Almond for producing this episode and somehow suppressing his own gaming takes for the duration of this episode, which we will want him to share in the future. And thanks to Arjuna Remkepaal for letting us start a fresh save file on the ringerverse feed. So send us emails at ringerversegaming at gmail.com. Suggest topics, suggest names. Maybe we'll talk some Final Fantasy next time.

We'll see. And stay tuned for The Flash and Elemental and Secret Invasion and more. And we will hit Continue and talk to you soon. Bye.