Triple Click - Cops In Video Games

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

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Lieutenant Jim Gordon says that the violent billionaire Batman is the hero Gotham deserves, but what if, just maybe, Gotham deserves better. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. Today we're joined by a special guest to talk about cops, specifically the many different ways police are depicted in video games from Bioshock to Resident Evil to, yes, Batman. That conversation, and of course, one more thing, coming right up. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Maddie Myers. And welcome back to the show. Hello, hello, everyone. Hello to both of you. We're here again. Hello. Here we are again, doing the show.

Thank you listeners for being cool, for sharing the show. Thanks to everyone who's been sort of spreading the word about triple click. That has been very nice. Also, I hope that we all hope that you all liked the Final Fantasy 7 Beanscast. Yeah. That ran in the main feed for those who aren't members. We decided to put that out for everybody. So just to remind you, future Beanscats or bonus episodes that we do each month will be for members only.

but that one we wanted to put out for everybody and we had a good time recording it so we hope that you all liked it and yeah if you want to become a member of course you can do so at maximum fun dot org slash join and we hope that you do because it helps make it possible

for us to keep making this show yeah also just to give you all a heads up we wanted to tell listeners about beanscasts ahead of time if they're for games that they can already play so that you can all play along and be ready and sort of be caught up with the game in time for us to do it so toward the end of June we're going to do our June beanscast

on the video game control Rebony's control, which we never managed to do a spoiler cast about back when we were making Kitaki split screen, but all three of us loves. So we're going to be talking about control for June, and then for July, you can probably guess what it's going to be, but we are going to be doing a Beanscast on The Last of Us Part 2, which we will have all finished. That'll be toward the middle or end of July. So you'll have that long to finish the Last of Us Part 2 if you want to listen to the Beanscast when it first comes out. All right, let's do it. Let's get on to this show's first segment. So we are also joined today by a fourth co-host,

Evan Narciss, who listeners may know from his time, writing for Kataku and I-09, his work writing Rise of the Black Panther from Marvel, and many other projects that he is currently working on. Hello, Evan. Welcome to Triple Click. Hey, guys. Good to see and hear you guys again. It feels oddly familiar. Right. It's a reunion of people who now all don't work for Katakaku anymore. Yeah, that's what we're talking about, right? So we are doing a hot topic today, and our hot topic today is cops, specifically cops and police officers in video games and the ways that video games depict policing and police officers. The protest movement in the wake of George Floyd's killing by a Minneapolis police officer has brought new attention to the police and their role in enforcing systemic racism across our country, and as a result, that has provoked a lot of discussion about the role the media plays in the police's depiction and reputation.

Historically, polls have shown that the police are generally pretty popular, though that has actually noticeably shifted in the last week. I've seen some polls anyways that have indicated that this is changing, which is nice to see. There is still no question that police get sympathetic, if not central, billing in a lot of video games, just as they do, and a lot of movies and TV shows. We wanted to talk about how that is and how that works. So that is our hot topic for today. And I want to say up front, this is like a really big conversation, and the conversation we're going to have today is probably just a starting point

for that. There's a million video games about COPS, which is kind of why we're talking about this, but we're not going to be able to cover every single video game. So there's a lot more that we could probably talk about than we will on this episode. But we kind of each have one game as a sort of starting point, at least, to talk about, that we each sort of thought of. And I think I wanted to start with Evan's game, since it's a pretty broad one. So Evan, yours is, I guess it's a series, the Batman Arkham series. So can you talk a little bit about some thoughts? about the Batman Arkham series and their depiction of police? You know, it's funny.

You know, obviously the Batman Arkham games made by Rocksteady and by Warner Bros. Montreal, you know, they take their premise almost wholesale from the comics, right? Which is Batman is avenging creature of the night, that is the only thing standing between Gotham City and complete natural chaos, and that he's necessary because there's a, there's a, metahuman, like, disproportionate threat to Gotham City's safety usually represented by the Joker or any of the other villains, right? You know, but the interesting thing about Batman as a premise, especially like the kind of latter-day modern understanding of it, is like, it takes as a given that Gotham City is broken, right? Like society and Gotham City is broken.

Like the normal infrastructure, like just isn't enough to deal with their crime issues. whether it's street level prime, you know, or it's like super villain crime, you know, Joker level. You can argue you need a Batman for like the Joker, right? You need his, like, Commissioner Gordon and his boys are not going to get the job done there, right? But, you know, if it's like somebody, you know,

a street level interpersonal crime on the street, you know, you don't necessarily need Batman for that, right? Per snatching, for example, yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly, press snatching. like Maddie said. So, like, it's weird to think about that. And, you know, the classic, one of the classic critiques of Batman has been like, you know,

Bruce Wayne's a billionaire, right? Like, uh, uh, uh, uh, he still can't do anything else all he can manage to come up with. Why don't you find a mental health initiative instead of beating on criminals. And, you know, like, look, there have been lots of comic writers and editors that have, you know, at least try to make them an element of Bruce. Wayne's crusade to kind of make back Gotham City safer, right? So there has been, you know, at least lip service paid, some subplots and whatnot initiated to that effort.

But, you know, you're showing up to see Batman and punch people crying. And, you know, the Batman Arkin games are really good at that, you know? Like, you sneak around, you scare people, like you misdirect. And, you know, you swoop down and punch people. So, you know, I think, you know, Batman ultimately is a super cop here, right? Like he's reinforcing the status quo, right? Which is, okay, Gotham City is teetering on the brink. I'm the only person who can really save it from complete and total chaos.

And to do that, I have to have vast extra legal powers and a personal arsenal of all kinds of super insane military tech. Oh, and by the way, my car is also a tank. or is it my tank is also a car, I forget. You know, so he needs, he has this implicit coastline by the people of Gotham City. And, you know, grudging uneasy alliance with the cops as well, right? You know, sometimes they like them, sometimes they don't, but they still got that flashlight on the top of their building

that they turn on when they need his help. So most of they like him. You know, so it's like, what's interesting about the Batman Arkin games is like you start at the beginning of that series of Arkham Asylum, right? Which is like very much like a tight, focus, milieu for Batman to operate in, right? Like, it makes sense that's where the people who are beyond the pale get sent. And yes, it makes sense if he operates there, right?

But as you get further into it, you know, whether it's Orgin or Arkham City or Arkham Knight, you bring him into the city proper and you're like, oh, wait, there's nobody in this city. Like the streets are clear, right? So who are the people you're projecting again? Right? Like, so that cosign that you kind of, that that is implicit, it feels even more problematic or even hollow without the people there.

Like, who lives are you saving again right now? Because I don't see anybody on these streets other than like the random author admission. So that's one weird thing. The deeper you pull him into the city into this ecosystem that he's supposed to be saving and helping. like the more barren it feels, right? And, you know, like, it's funny that you mentioned, Kirk, some of the polling numbers for cop. My first reaction was like, well, who are you polling?

Right? Like, who are you asking? What's your sample group? Because you've got some of my friends. We're not sure we've got all that positive on the cop. Bing! Kirk here, from the future as I edit this episode, I realized that when I was setting up our conversation,

I didn't actually cite the poll I was talking about, but that poll is a 2018-2019-Vox Civis Analytics poll that actually does show that a majority of respondents, black, white, and Hispanic all had favorable impressions of the police, though significantly less favorable among the black respondents. The white respondents were at 79% favorable, 14% unfavorable. The Hispanic respondents were at 77% favorable, 20% unfavorable, and black respondents were at 58% favorable, 27% unfavorable. So significantly less favorable, just like heaven is saying, among the black respondents to the poll. And again, that was in 2018, 2019, and like I said, I've seen some polling just in the last two weeks that show that this is

already changing remarkably quickly. All right, back to the show. Bing! So, and that's the same thing with having the lack of people, having the actual lack of, like, NPC, Gotham City citizens in those games, you're like, well, who did you ask? Who said this was okay, Batman? Well, so that brings me to a question for you, Evan, do you think that like inhabiting Batman, the ultimate cop, the super cop, and, I mean, really, this can be extrapolated to all video games,

but do you think it makes the player like inherently more sympathetic of police? I mean, yes. You know, like, but the thing that's the thing that's so important and fascinating about this current like sociocultural moment they were in, you know, with regard to a mass kind of revolt and interrogation against a police brutality and its role in systemic racism is that like, yes, we are all fed from childhood. a basic kind of platform of propaganda about cops. They're here to help you if you're in trouble.

You know, I have a young daughter and I remember her police officers visiting her school and, you know, dropping off the coloring books and everything else. Like, you know, like, yeah, if you're in trouble, if you get lost, find a cop. And I won't go so far as to say that part of, of a public safety function of cops is unnecessary, right? You know, like, yes, you want to be able to tell your kid to find somebody appointed and vetted by society at large that will help them in the time of need, right? What you don't want is that same person to have, you know, impunity when they cross the line in a social contract, right?

Like, I want to be able to tell my kid, hey, somebody will help you if you're in trouble. Or if somebody breaks the law or the norms that we all agree to, like, you can rely on a person to help deliver you to safety and or justice, right? As it stands right now, the current iteration of cops in American society hasn't done a lot to foster that kind of trust. So, yeah, to answer your question, Jason, yes. the minute you tell somebody, be sympathetic with a person whose job it is to fight crime and keep people safe, you know, your mind immediately teleports the cops, right? But it teleports to that idealized version that we get sold as kids and the ones we want to believe that most policemen are. but you know you don't think about the ones that have been harassing and brutalizing people protesting the oversteps that other police officers have been doing.

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention the fact that it like legitimizes, I mean, Batman has a fucking bat belt full of gadgets, military weapons that like now we are seeing. And actually, I mean, we've been seeing for the best couple decades that real police also have access to, like, like, smoke grenades. Tear gas isn't quite as cool when a real cop is using it on peaceful protesters as it is

when Batman is using it on a crowd of thugs. It's a question of non-lethal techniques. You can call something non-lethal, but that doesn't mean that it's great. I think it's, I have to take to call it brainwashing, but it is propaganda, you know, that, that you're, that is hard to kind of like uncouple from your brain, you know. Look, if a friend of mine got into an accident, my first reflex would be to call my one, you know? I think that it's weird that you call a number to have a cop with a gun show up a lot of the time.

Like that's sort of like maybe there could be a number that caused somebody else to come. Right. So it's interesting that Batman Arkham Knight, which is a game that I revisited a couple years ago, that one is a, it's an interesting game in part because the idea is that Batman is losing his mind. So there's this almost kind of a deniability that the game gets into where because the Joker is taking Batman over, the ridiculous stuff. This is the game where Batman holds a villain, a criminal's head, a criminal's head, you know, under the tire and interrogates him while he like revs the tire and the tire gets

closer and the guy's like screaming and it's super messed up. And the idea is that Batman is losing control throughout this game. And that's actually like the plot is like the Joker's in his blood and taking over his mind. And then eventually he like reclaims control. But it's kind of a thin veneer, especially when you talk about the emptiness that you're talking about in Gotham City. There's this subject. So Maddie, I've been reading.

the new Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's book, which is an incredible book. And one of the really helpful subjects she talks about in that book is the idea that our society labels whole classes of people as criminals. Like, you become a criminal when you were arrested and put in jail, and then you're a criminal for life. Like, you lose so many rights and you're kind of segregated, and that's kind of part of the new Jim Crow that she's talking about. And video games, especially the Arkham games, do this, where it's like everybody on the street in Batman Arkham Night that you're like running over with the Batmobile as a rioter. Like, they're a criminal.

Yeah. And because games relies so heavily on strict categorizations, that guy's a bad guy. That guy's a good guy. Like, it just has to, he has a green arrow over his head. So he's helpful. He has a red arrow. He's a bad person. Like, they need to be very clear with things like that.

It oversimplifies everything to the point where you're, you start to realize that it's like you're viewing an even more intense version of the way that society has already been kind of set up by these structures. So it's reinforcing them without even thinking about it or questioning it, just because that's how you have to design a video game. So I guess that's maybe my question for any of you is, is there an innate quality to video games that reinforces a sort of cop view of the world? At least action games.

You kind of have to, like a specific type of game. Because the game I was going to talk about this is actually good segue, is Disco Elysium, which is a game in which you can be a fuck-up cop who goes around and meets a bunch of people who aren't heroes or villains, but are all kind of like messed up in their own ways. And that's kind of like an interesting contrast to the like heroic cop shows and like the law and orders of our world where like the investigators are the good guys

because in this you're kind of not. Yeah, is there a game that's more opposite of Batman Arkham Night than Disko Museum in every possible way? I mean, it isn't, it isn't though, because I feel like that archetype also exists where you have this detective character in TV or in Disco Elysium where even though they may be fucked up, maybe they woke up with a hangover, what have you, they still do get their man in the end. They still do solve the

mystery and you're rooting for them to solve the mystery and you want them to and you maybe even think that they have a right to go above and beyond like Batman does because you sympathize with them. You're playing as them in the case of a video game and therefore you're willing to pardon them for doing some very reprehensible actions. as a result because you know they're right. Exactly. So I would be interested in, so since Disco Elysium is fundamentally a noir, I think noirs are generally better at telling truer stories about police officers than like cop shows and procedurals. And I think since you can play the main character of Disco Elysium so many different ways, like you can be a like authoritarian

racist asshole or you can be like a total anarchist like who essentially quits the police force and doesn't want to be a cop at all, and then all these shades of gray in between. But I do wonder how many people played different ways and how whether it was more common for people to play it the way that I kind of played it, which was, okay, I'm going to be essentially a good cop at the end of the day, and I'm going to solve this crime and make Kim Kitsuragi like me and do it by the book. According to the rules that are so familiar to all of us. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Because playing within those rules, it feels good in a game. Like that's part of why this can be such a damaging archetype in a game, because the system in a game is always going to feel safe to you because it's a game. And so you can only operate within a given system. And so by like having good guys and bad guys, even in something like Disco Elysium where it's like, sure, there's some versions of it. But the story still plays out in more or less the same way no matter what. And you're participating in the system to allow that story to play out and you're rewarded by it playing out. Yeah. I would say that it gives more humanity to a lot of the people. that you can be oppressing in that game. Like it gives a lot more voice to people who are like, you're such a boot-licking cop, like, get out of my face. And it does kind of explore that a lot more

since the views of the people who wrote it come through more. But you're right that in the fundamental structure, it's there. And then just so many games like Spider-Man or, like, or Batman, like any game that's structured like an Arkham game, your job is to clean, literally to clean, right? I think it was Jim Rossingall. This is the game designer forever ago did a thing about how video games are fundamental.

mentally, especially action games about cleaning up. They're about tidying up, I guess, because he's British. And how, and I've always loved that idea. And there's the old, like, saying that cops, like, you're going to clean up the streets. We're going to get out there and clean up the streets. Which is, like, a really nasty thing to say on a lot of levels. It, like, implies that the people that you're cleaning up are trash, that this, you know, the streets need to be clean and free of people.

There's a lot of, like, implicit racism in that, too. And yet, so many video games are about that, that when you're in, like, the Batman world, the only thing in between you and a perfectly clean and tidy and beautiful Arkham is, you know, these people. These people who are people. And like a lot of them are don't deserve to be broadsided by a tank, you know, the way that you do. So let me segue here to the game that I wanted to talk about, which is Bioshac Infinite. And I kind of want to tell on myself a little bit or share a sort of embarrassing take that I had on the game back when it first came out. You weren't the only one. Oh, I mean, we all struggled with that game. Oh, yeah.

Remember who wrote the review on Katagu for that game. Ah. Oh, that's true. I guess that's true. So, all right, well, I'll just... Oh, man, I want to hear... After Kirk goes, I want to hear your thoughts kind of in retrospective. Well, let's all tell on ourselves.

For now, I'll speak for myself. And so I had a take on this game that it was basically so violent that I just found the violence really jarring and shitty. And I sort of, like, didn't like that game for a lot of reasons. But a lot of my reasons... at least early on, we're just related to the fact that the story goes so off the rails, just in every respect, not just in the fact that it begins to like both sides, a really clear imbalance in this conflict between this oppressive racist society and the underclass that

they're oppressing. But like, just everything. There's like ghost mom turns up and it just all goes to hell. And I was like, this is just kind of loses the threat. Yeah. But so I kind of like, when I played the beginning of that game, it's so beautiful. When you first arrive in Columbia in Bioshock Infinite. It's this beautiful setting. It's so gorgeous looking. The lighting and the music and the barbershop quartet singing, you know, God only knows. And it's like just this wonderful experience. And my take was kind of like, ah, man, wouldn't it be cool if video games didn't need to be violent and we could just live in that wonderful experience? Which is like, okay, whatever, Kirk from 2013, like, fine. But talk about missing the way more interesting

take and the truth of the matter, which I now completely see and would see. and I'm embarrassed to have missed it at the time, which is like, but this society runs on brutal oppression and it should be torn apart. And like the fact that the first thing you do in that game is like violently rise up against the cops is kind of rad? Like it's kind of great. Like it's like, or it's at least, you know, a rational, it's a reasonable response to this society once you learn the truth of it.

And so I look at that game now and that first part is actually a very effective way of laying out and kind of like exposing that sort of viewpoint, which I think a lot of white Americans in particular have, is like, I just want things to get back to normal. I just want things to be pretty and nice because my world is generally pretty and nice. And I had that same reaction, which I think is actually kind of revealing. So that was my at least a take on that game then versus my take on it now. You know, yeah, like I said, you know, as a caveat to what I wrote when I wrote it, when I was assigned to write

Byershock Infinite. We don't all have to do the like Mia Kulpos on our Biococinfinite coverage, but go ahead, continue. Yeah, I don't think you have to justify it. I was just curious to hear your perspective. You know, again, I played and wrote about the game the same way a lot of us have as reviewers, under extreme duress and lack of weight. Right, right.

And, you know, what I have to say is not all that different than what Kirk just said, which is that, you know, unintentionally or not. And I think some of it is intentionally, Biottock Infinite is a kind of incredibly apt commentary on the process of America making myths about itself, right? You know, and they do lay bare some of the hypocrisy underneath, for example, the myth of American exceptionalism, right? Like, yeah, the both sides of them is terrible, you know? But like, when you look at that game, it's like, oh, right, America is just an engine. that constantly

refreshes itself on telling himself how awesome it is, you know? All the while, marginalizing people, then I have some other people writes, you know, creating a massive,

exploitative, socioeconomic, like, reality that trampled people on your foot. But what you see is the god rays coming through the clouds,

you know, what you see is like the crazy roller coaster ride. You know, what you see is like, the time travel that glorifies certain parts of the history, but not other parts. You know? So like in that way, I feel like, huh, you know, and that's what I was reacting to when

I played the game. But like, to your point, Kirk, it's like, if your critique is reinforcing some of the things that you're critiquing, that kind of might be a problem. Yeah. Yeah, you're blowing it. Like that, you were blowing it. By a shock infinite is like the video game equivalent of those Venn diagrams that everyone was posting on Twitter where it's like, you can be okay with all of these things.

But you can't as it turns out. And to like specifically call out the both sidesism that we're talking about, it's like the fact that this game's major fuck up is that after there is an uprising and the largely black underclass of this racist city rises up violently and begins to overthrow their oppressors, the story then pivots and turns it into this thing where like both sides are equally bad and there are straight up lines of dialogue about how like, oh, but like violence begets more of it. Like it doesn't have the actual view of how these things work because it kind of misrepresents

the fundamental dynamics that were at play in the society in the first place. Yeah. And that is like a huge failing of the game. But I think it was easy, especially in 2013, at least for me, to sort of overlook that or to miss it until I saw people pointing it out and realize, oh yeah, that is kind of fucked up. Like there were people who missed it because of, like you said, all the other things that going on in the game. Yeah, it's a very dense game that's full of things. Yeah, it is very easy to

not think about that. And most people didn't. I think it was Lee Alexander, who was like the first, at least the first I saw to like really dive into that stuff and like really made me think about the game in a new way. Yeah, we republished that on Katakka because I was like, okay, we need to get this on Katakka because I want to get that out there. Yeah. I think it's also true that games that are that violent just sort of beget that's sort of liberalist critique of being like, oh, well, violence but gets more violence, right? And it's kind of, all violence is bad because that feels like such an easy statement to make. And I think it's something that people still say a lot and probably feel a lot.

And at one time, certainly 2013 Maddie wrote some takes that were along those lines that were like, well, you know, if every, every, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And that's how violent video games are. Whereas now I go so much harder. And I'm like, actually, there are situations where violence is the only option, like, for example, example if you're fighting for your life. Like, there is no other way out of that situation than violence. And that's not something that games always feel okay with grappling with. And I feel like BioShack Infinite is a really sad and good example of a game that just ends

on that facile note of like, well, actually all violence is bad and you were bad for participating in it without looking at the structures around that violence and the ways that it was enacted on different kinds of people in that game's. world. It's easy to get lost because you're just thinking about the twist and like the crime stack multiple dimensions and like there's a lot going on that. It's like you don't really. It's very, I think it's very

clearly reflected in some of the discussion of the protests and then the way that the protests would sometimes turn violent treating it as though there's some kind of equivalence between thousands and thousands of peaceful protesters and some people like breaking windows and like police officers whose whole

job is to like protect the public showing up in army gear, be the shit out of people indiscriminately on the street. Like there's any kind of equivalence between that. There just isn't and it couldn't be any clearer. And I think, you know, if BioShack Infinite came out today, people would be like, fuck, no. Like there'd be a way stronger reaction to it, which is cool.

Maddie, I want to hear about... About Resident Evil. Your game, because you suggested one that I wasn't expecting, which is interesting. So I want to hear your take. Oh, yeah? But it's like one of the... Our examples of a hero cop story that I feel like I've had to reevaluate so many times over the years because...

Yeah, it makes sense. As a kid playing Resident Evil, I feel like I thought Jill Valentine was just the coolest. And there's still like a part of me that feels that way about her. And I've had to seriously interrogate it in the past decade of my life. I mean, character design goes a long way. It does go a long way. But it's also undeniable that like as a character. So Jill Valentine is the heroine of several Resident Evil games. And many Resident Evil heroes are cops and Jill is one of them. And the reason why she enlists in the Racken City Police Department is explicitly to clean up the streets. and save people from zombies, which are the threat in this game. Like, it's a very binary situation where the American government's response to a widespread pandemic is more cops. It's not familiar at all, not even a little bit. But Jill is the heroine in this situation, and it's her job and you as the player relating to her to clean up the streets against those big, bad, elitist scientists whose studies just went to gosh darn far.

And like, those are the villains are like this sort of perceived intellectual elite. And a lot of, a lot of like anti-communist stories usually are about zombies and the idea of like too many people working together. And unfortunately, Resident Evil has some shades of that. And like this idea that there needs to be a hero cop who's going to stamp out that violent uprising of mindless masses who for some reason are attacking all that we hold dear. And it's, it's very black and white in that. game. And I feel like when Resident Evil 5 came out and it's like just a pretty explicitly racist game, like people were surprised by that. And they were like, wow, like this is a really different direction for Resident Evil to be taking. And like, I'm shocked by how racist this game is. But in retrospect, I don't feel like we should have seen it that way. I feel like we should have seen some of those signs along the way in terms of just the stories that those games were actually telling and about who gets to be a hero and also like what force is justified and like, who the villains are, you know?

Yeah. Worth noting it was a series made in Japan, by the way. In Resident Evil 5, there was that sort of question of, like, the minute you saw primarily black people being the zombies and just getting shot, like, it definitely, like, suddenly people were like, oh, this whole premise is kind of fucked up. But it gets at another one of those things where there can be like, you know, oh, well, they're not, this isn't racist, this isn't a metaphor, like they're just zombies. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. There's people with the zombie infection. Like, it's just a cop murdering, civilians, but they're zombies. So like, that's not actually what it was. And I think there are,

there are people who will, who will defend Resident Evil Five story being like, well, in the end, those, you know, and it's, Evan is, Evan has, Evan is reacting to that. Two middle fingers out for those people, for anyone who, people who cannot see Evan right now. So, yeah, like, there's, there's always this, like, annoying deniability that turns up, where if you want to have a real conversation about what's actually happening, you kind of have to reckon with it and just put down some of that stuff. Like some of that like, oh, but they were just zombies, so that's not really what's going on. It's just a game.

It's pretend. It's a fantasy. Can't we have fun fantasies anymore? But then you see people out there assuming that all cops are just like the cool homicide detective that they've seen on TV or played as in a video game and that therefore we need cops because they're all actually really good at their jobs and how dare we deny them all of these infinite protections and Batman tanks because they need them to do their jobs.

And that's like what we've seen and all of these media properties over and over and over again. Yeah, I have to wonder if we'll continue to see that. Because just the last week for me just watching videos, these like sickening videos on social media over and over and over again of the protests, it's pretty, it's changed. I mean, it's changed my view and I already didn't have a super positive view of the police. But seeing that shit has just been like totally mind-blowing. And I think that it has been for a lot of people. Like it's really been a shift in how I see things. So I guess we'll have to see.

how it unfolds, but this is, like I said, this is an ongoing conversation. There is a lot more we could talk about. There are like a thousand games we didn't get into because, like we said, so many games are about cops. So we're happy to hear from listeners if you want to write in about this. We are interested in what you think about police and video games or this conversation or anything else. Feel free to write us at triple click at maximum fun.org. We're going to take a break. But Evan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you guys for having me. It's a lot of fun. Cheers. Yay, Evan. Good to you guys again. We are the host of My Brother, My Brother, and me,

and now nearly 10 years into our podcast, the secret can be revealed. All the clues are in place, and the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin. Embedded in each episode of My Brother, My Brother, and Me is a microc clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones all around this big, beautiful, blue world of ours. So start combing through the episodes.

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Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues. My brother and my brother me, it's an advice show, kind of, but a treasure hunt mainly. Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps, my brother and my brother and me, the hunt is on.

Hi, I'm James, host of Minority Corner, which is a podcast that's all about intersectionality. It's hosted by James with a guest host every week. discussing all sorts of wonderful issues, nerdy and political. Pop culture, black queer, feminism, race, sexuality, news. You're going to learn your history, their self-empowerment, and it's told by what feels like your best friend. Why should someone listen to Minority Corner?

Why not? Oh my God, free stuff. There's not free stuff. The listeners of Minority Corner will enjoy some necessary LOLs, but mainly a look at what's happening in our world through a colorful lens. People will get the perspective of marginalized communities. I feel hurt. I feel seen. Like you said, you need to understand how to be more proactive in your community,

and this is a great way to get started. Join us every Friday on Max Fun or wherever you get your podcast. Minority Corner, because together we're the majority. And we are back just in time for one more thing, the segment of the show where each of us talks about one more thing that we want to talk about. And Maddie, I see your tantalizing one more thing. I'm so excited to hear about it. So why don't you go first?

The people are waiting. The people are clamoring for the conclusion of whatever happens. happen to my wonderful girlfriend's Nintendo Switch, which bricked itself a couple of weeks ago, unceremoniously, after she had logged tens and tens of hours in Animal Crossing, so many hours that she was embarrassed to even show me her playtime. And her island looked amazing, and it has been lost to the ages. So here's what happened with that. Okay, what? We decided to return the broken switch and get our money back and buy a completely new switch, which was was not that hard to do. Nintendo switches are out there. It's a kind of a pain in the butt,

and I ordered from an Amazon seller who seemed legit, and it turned out it was legit, because the switch arrived and it worked. But I did have to do a little bit of research, and I also don't like supporting Jeff Bezos, so I had to hold my nose and order it anyway. I didn't. It costs about the same either way. I mean, switches now cost $500, which they ordinarily don't cost, but that's just what they cost now. However, it was a birthday, gift and I have a job at Polygon.com and I could afford to get my girlfriend a very nice birthday gift and so I did. Very nice of you. I know. I'm great. I'm an incredible, incredible person. It's so true. But so after the new switch arrived, we hadn't returned the old one yet. And the fun thing about

the old switch was that even though it had been bricked, it actually still worked but only in dock mode. So for a while, she could still visit her Animal Crossing Island if she was like willing to use. the big TV in the living room. And so I was like, great. Like, we'll set up a new switch. We'll make sure it works. And then we'll, like, tour your old island one more time. And then we'll, like, mail the switch away and send it off.

This did not work because as soon as we set up the new switch and, like, synced her old stuff, her old island completely disappeared. And as it turns out, Animal Crossing has not yet developed the system that I mentioned a couple weeks ago, whereby you can transfer your old island to a new switch. They are supposed to develop that later this year, but it is not yet ready. This is not a good time to have not developed that system. I know, I know. I know.

So her old island is actually gone forever as it turns out. God. How can Nintendo be like the best game developers on the planet, but also the worst at anything involving the internet? I know. They do it this way because they don't want people to cheat at the game, which I actually understand. Who cares?

They don't want people to be cloning items. Sheating in Animal Crossing is a grand tradition. Look, I know. I kind of understand, but it's also stupid as hell. So, like, she had to make this new island. And by this point, she's convinced herself that she likes the new island better than the old island. And she's, like, redone everything just the way she wants. And it has a happy ending truly.

But RIP, Dina's old island. That island is lost forever. Well, this is the stunning conclusion. I will be interested to hear the, like, post-credit scene of how she's doing with her new island. only because I've long been fascinated by the sort of Zen approach to losing game progress and game saves. And this is like her first really big experience with a thing about being a gamer, a hardcore gamer, that you might lose like hundreds of hours of progress in something, and then decide if you care enough to start over.

And especially with something like Animal Crossing. Yes. Although it is worth noting that I think that since she was so far in the game already, I think she was probably more at peace with losing it and starting over because she had already seen so much of the game that she could then restart and enjoy all of it all over again. But like from a lens of being like, I already know how to play this and I know exactly what I want to do. So she might have felt differently if she'd lost it like a week in as opposed to like a few weeks in. But yeah, it was definitely like stressful for me as a partner who's really excited about her girlfriend playing games more because I was like, please don't let this make you think that games aren't cool because they're actually really cool.

It's the video game equivalent of the first episode of the TV show that you show your friend is like the worst episode they've ever already. It just happens to be terrible. You're like, no, normally it's not like... Normally switches work. My switch has worked for years. And it's like, is that even a helpful statement? No, it's just shitty. They don't always do musical episodes. Kirk, the video game equivalent of that is the actual video games where you have to play for 20 hours before it's good. But yeah, it's funny because,

As kids, a lot of people grew up with the PlayStation 1 may remember that memory cards often would just like fail on you. I played a lot of RPGs that would just like one day I would just get open up the PlayStation and it would be like all my safe hours are gone. And the young, intrepid 10 year old of that is me with like all the time in the world, I just would start replaying from the beginning. I was like, oh, cool. Why not?

Somehow that never daunted you and your love for lengthy RPGs. Kirk is a proponent of replaying games. I feel like this is all part of that. It is, and I am a proponent of replaying games. I always say video games are better the second time. The thing you're saying, like, replaying Animal Crossing, again, would be cool because there are some little things like I would do layout differently, knowing how it was going to end up.

I know Patricia Hernandez wrote an article about this, about people who had burned themselves out. Yes, which I cited. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, I cited. And I was like, actually, my co-worker Patricia wrote this article about all the different people who restarted their Animal Crossing games and their experiences.

And one of the people in that article also, her switch, was destroyed and she had to like go through the morning process and like decide to get a new switch and so on. I mean, you know, people are out there having their islands be yanked away. Yes, but in that kind of game where you can like so kind of ruin the game for yourself by like breaking it by kind of cheating actually, you know, by time warping and stuff. And then you can be like, you know, I sort of wish I hadn't done this because now there's no joy left in this game for me and I want to start over. Though I got to say I've been trying to restart Divinity Original Sin too because of the definitive edition thing

where I have to start the game all over again to get the new content. And that game, I'm like, it's just so long that I think at some point I'll do it, but I am actually struggling to start that one over. I've got a new game going, but every time I sit down with it, I'm like, holy shit.

Like, I have to build this whole super complicated RPG party again. Well, that's a tough game because of its very nature. Like, it's a game that you can't just grind your way through, like mash a through. It's game you have to think every single step of the way, like every single battle. There are no grind battles or filler.

battles. So because of that, which is a positive thing, it's also a hard game to, like, replay and jump back into. Right, right. The experience of replaying is a little different. Because you really have to think. You can't just, like, watch TV and just like mash A while you're half paying attention and divinity to get to where you were before. To catch up to where I was. That's true. One day I'll replay that game, though. Jason, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is a game I've been playing for months now since before we even started Triple Click. Pursona 5 Royal. I think it's the only game you've ever played, right? But get this.

Jason's only game. Get this, guys. This weekend, I finished persona 5. Congratulations. Time for new game plus. I have played all of Persona 5 twice. That's crazy. Pretty wild.

How long did it take you the second time? Well, so the timer I left on a few times while I was doing other stuff, so I don't know. My timer is at like 140 hours. I think more realistically, I played probably like 90, 100 hours of the game. Add another 100 from the first. time I played it and it's just like wow. Oh, your timer was it? A hundred and forty hours. Yeah, 140 hours is what my timer said. But I think a lot of that was, oh, you know, 140 hours. I think a lot of that was just like me leaving the TV on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I know how it's my

steam counter on some games is like totally out of the web just because of it. Okay, so a few things. First of all, what an incredible video game. Like, it's good. Oh, you liked it? Interesting. It's a really good game. Man, just the, the music and the vibe and the art style. And everything about that game is fantastic. The new stuff, so it's impossible to talk about any of the new stuff without spoiling it. But I will try to vaguely, broadly describe it. And so basically, the way it works is, and Kirk, you'll appreciate this a little more than Maddie because you finish the game. First of all, Akechie, still has a role to play.

Akechie is one of the characters who had kind of like an anticlimactic role ending in the original game and was kind of like left underdeveloped and underserved at the end. he winds up coming back in this new stuff, and so he's developed a little bit more in a really cool way, a way that I liked a lot. So the way it works is the game ends like it normally does, and then there's an entire new month of stuff, and in that month there's a new palace that you have to go and defeat,

and even just talking about the nature of the palace is a spoiler in and of itself. But it all involves these new characters who are introduced throughout the entirety of Percent of Five Royal. There's Kasumi, who is this new character. She's a gymnast with a sword, and she becomes like a party member at some point. Sure, gymnast with a sword. Common character archetype.

It's a video game. Yeah, she is red hair, red hair. And then there's a guidance counselor who you can use as a confidon and go and talk to and stuff. Is it a hot guidance counselor? It is a hot. Everybody in this game is just very... I assumed as much. I just wanted to double...

They're all anime hot. And so you can now, like, using this extra semester, you can, like, boost up confidence that you hadn't had a chance to before, which is cool. That's nice. You can max out some of the social links you've never seen before, which I found fun. You can get some of all of your party members, you can get to rank 11, like social link 11, which is like a boosted thing that lets you evolve their persona again. There's a lot of just like mechanical stuff that I didn't even bother playing with. It's so long. It's so grinding.

I was like, man, this game never ends. but it does some interesting things in terms of storytelling. Now, first of all, don't get me wrong. This is not, like, Kirk, I would never tell you to go play this again just for the new stuff. Like, the new stuff is cool, but it's pretty thin. It's not even close to being worth buying this game and playing this game again for. It'd need to be on Switch and in like 2023 for me to play it again. By then, then, I'm like portable in that many years.

Sure, but right now, no. Definitely. but like even even if you even like I wouldn't even tell you to do it even if it was on switch now like it's not it's really not anything special but it's cool it has some interesting questions about like happiness and the nature of like reality and like it asks it kind of asks you um well it kind of the question the fundamental question that it asked is would you accept like a fake reality knowing like that in which you are happy your unhappiness your depression was cured, your problems were cured, or like your dead family members were brought back to life

or whatever, in exchange for knowing that, like, you're in a false reality. So the matrix. Yeah, it's sort of a matrixy thing. But yeah, it does some interesting things. There's some cool boss fights, some great music, some fun moments, some cool character development. Like I mentioned, Akachi, and then the new character, Kusumi is a really, really cool, interesting character arc. but overall it's just like more persona it's the type of thing where like if you're a persona super fan

you probably already played through this twice but like it's built for persona super fans um but yeah i i don't know if i'm like glad that i played at all but i did play at all and yeah it was cool that happened i mean it was cool i had been craving like when this came out i had been really craving just like really wanting to hang out in cafe leblanc again with like coffee and curry and music and the rain and all the stuff that makes persona so great. And Maddie, if you decide to play it one day again, you might enjoy this stuff. I'll probably go back to it.

I mean, yeah. I loved it. Up your alley. Yeah, I think it's very much up your house. It's just that it's 100 hours. You know, there are a lot of other games. I also enjoy. Yeah, that's the problem.

It's just that it never ends. And like, it could have, they could have cut out like two palaces and the game would have been perfectly fine. I mean, I can already tell that, even just from the first 15 hours that I played, which could have used some editing, TdH. Like, I could find a few things we could have cut out from there. But the thing is, this game is made for people

who just want to be, like, spend 100 hours playing it. So, like, the people... Yeah, the target audience, like, doesn't want the editing. They want to see every single repetition of like, oh, what are we doing now? Oh, we're doing this. Oh, we're going to do this. Oh, I love it.

Really? Does anyone enjoy seeing the same conversations over again? Some people must. Is it maybe comforting? Yeah. People find the rhythm kind of comforting. Yeah, the rhythm of it. Fair enough.

There's a big difference between. a hundred hour game and like a 60 hour game just like there's a big difference between a 60 hour game and like a 30 40 hour game. Yep. Those are kind of the tier. So 40 was the first difference and 20 to 30 was the second. I'd say 30, 40 and then like this I'm doing this off the top of my head. No, I'm just telling you the difference in numbers.

Like the difference between 160 is 40 and the difference between 60 and like 30 and 40 is 20 to 20. Oh, we're just doing math now? Yeah, I'm just telling you the difference. It's like is it logarithmic? I'm not a mathematician. Where like it starts to matter less because there's been so much of it. Like that, but when you get to 100 hours, like I remember this from reviewing persona five,

you're like, oh, this is fine. And you're like 50 hours. I remember looking at the clock and be like, oh, this is like a long game, but it's fine. When you start getting past 80 or 90 hours, especially when you're reviewing a game, it's just like, this is fucking long. Like I've been playing this game for so long, like for my life, as far as I can remember. Just every night. Did that happen even The Witcher also?

Wasn't that that long also? The Witcher was very, very long. and it was 80 hours, the first time I played it, though it's really a much more than a hundred hour game. The second time I played it, it was a lot longer, but I played it over a way longer period of time. But yeah, the first time, it was the same thing. I remember thinking, oh, this game isn't really that long,

and then at the end be like, that game was really long, just because it was like an 80-hour game, which was that length. I mean, good long. One other quick thing on this very topic. I know that a lot of people out there have been wondering about my trails habits these days. I just wanted to update everybody. I was playing Trails of Cold Steel, too.

I decided finally it was so much of a slog. It was like never ending. It did all the things that you guys are talking about, including the thing I just mentioned about the conversations. Like, oh, we have to do this. Oh, everybody having to chime in. Oh, we're doing this. Oh, we're doing this.

So I decided, fuck it. I'm going to read a recap of Trails of Cold Seal 2 and just skip to three because I just got a code for three on my switch. So I have done it. I've pulled the trigger. Watch some recaps. I was like, holy shit. There are a lot of twists at the end of this game.

And also, like, recognize. And like, the game really never ended. Like where I thought I was near the end, I was not even near the end. So I'm very glad I did this. Sounds like a JRP to me. Yep, yep. All right, Kirk, what's your one more thing? So my one more thing is a different tabletop game than I played the video game

version of with my tabletop group. And it was pretty fun. And I wanted to just talk about it a little bit. So that game is a card game called Sentinels of the Multiverse, which I have talked about on this show before. It's a very fun, cooperative game that is essentially, like, knock off comic book characters. So everyone, there's like kind of a Batman type and a he's a superhero, Superman type. And you have a each hero is like a deck of cards. And then

the villain is just a deck that auto plays itself. So everybody playing gets to play a hero. And you're in like some setting. You change the setting depending on where you're playing. And that's a deck of cards too that plays as you go around. And it's kind of like you have to figure out how to combine your superpowers and abilities to fight this super villain and their evil minions and save the world. And I've got the card version of this and I've played that with my group and there is a version of this on Steam. That's the video game version. And we decided to play it because we've been playing Laura's Waterdeep, which is kind of like a, you're kind of siloed in that game. Like you're just building your strategy by yourself. So we would be playing it and we'd be

in the Zoom call or whatever we're on Discord, I guess. Can you play it by the way with only one person having Steam or does everybody, or only one person has to have the game or does that? Both of these games, everybody needs to own the game. So in order to play it on Steam. Obviously, in life, just one person can own it. But we, when we were playing Lords of Waterdeep, we were finding it's a really cool game, it's very crunchy, but we weren't talking a lot just because a lot of the time, you're just looking at this very complicated board and trying to figure out your strategy. And there's no need for you to communicate with other people, really.

So occasionally you'll play a card that kind of impact somebody else, and they'll be like, oh, hey, like, you know, up yours or whatever, but that's kind of it. So there's a lot of just silence as we played, and it wasn't that fun socially. So we decided to try Sentinels because that's cooperative. and it was really cool, like that aspect of it was great. The thing that I noticed about this game is playing a video game version of a game that you know that you've played the analog version of is weird because it's so efficient and so fast that the rhythm of the game is completely different, and Sentinels was very that way.

Like, every time we play Sentinels, you spend a lot of time reading the cards and the cards are really cool and you kind of are talking through what's going on, and we're not ultra-familiar with it too and each game is kind of different. So you're like, okay, wait, what's happening here? right, does that count as this? Like, who does this guy doing? We played this card. What does it say?

Can I read it? Can you read it again? There's a lot of that stuff. Where in the video game version, it's like, go. And then just like 40 things happen. Like the entire villain turn plays out in about five seconds. And you're all taking damage from stuff. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Like, what happened? So it took us a while because we hadn't played in a while to just like remember the rules of the game and be like, wait, what just happened? Like, why did I get a nemesis bonus when I did the, oh, because I'm his nemesis. Because like, that's how that works. And you don't even have the rulebook. you're not handing it around. So it was such a different experience that I don't know if I would, I would say if

anyone who's going to play this game, which is very fun to play with a group of friends, especially like kind of nerd. It's like mid-level in terms of crunchiness, like kind of game, friends who are into like nerdy stuff. It is great and worth playing. But I would say still watch like a YouTube tutorial on the tabletop version first. So you can see people playing it and have them lay the cards out for you and explain the rules so that then when stuff happens in the blink of an eye in the video game version,

you can at least understand how things are happening. But it was cool. It's so funny you're saying this because I've been playing online poker with some friends. That is exactly what I was thinking because you keep inviting me to it. And I feel like it's going to be weird as hell because I've never played. You guys both have a standing invitation to come play. No, Kirk doesn't. Only I do.

Just an uninvited. But yes, the way it works is we've been using poker sars. And the way it works is there's like it just goes so efficiently. The cards move so fast so you don't even have time to absorb like a dramatic. That sounds so weird. It's good and bad. It's like bad for really dramatic hands where it's like what just happened. Like you don't get to dramatically lay down your cards or whatever and shuffle the coins around the table.

It's nice when there's a time limit on every hand. And like sometimes when you're playing in real life, people will get distracted and it'll be like, come on, man. Like a hand might take 10 minutes and like you'll barely play or it'll take hours and hours. Sure. Because it moves so quickly, we can actually like limit our games and we wind up capping them to like two and a half hours or three hours max, which is much shorter than like a typical poker game in real life. So that has its pros. Yeah, there's a time-saving aspect, even with Sentinels, where the game was just a lot shorter, which is kind of nice. Like, we got done just a little earlier

and we could go do our thing. But yeah, it's funny how a lot of those inefficiencies of a tabletop game, just the time spent rule wrangling and looking at things and reading over the instructions is like kind of a vital part of the experience. And when you remove it, it does significantly change what you're doing even though the game is basically the same. And I thought that was pretty interesting. Before we say goodbye, I just have a quick random question for you guys. So I'm curious as to like, are you guys, have you guys thought about seeing friends or like making plans with friends?

Because my wife and I are actually, we just planned a trip where we're going to go away for a week with like a couple friends of ours. And we're just going to like be extra careful. You're expanding your pod. We're going to be extra careful a couple weeks beforehand. And we're just like, because we're just like, how much long? or is this going to go? Like, we'll be careful. Like, we'll probably get tested before and just to be safe. I'm curious, have you guys thought about doing anything like that? Because it feels like,

if we're waiting for a vaccine, it might be literally two years before we, like, get a vaccine. So at a certain point, we're all just going to have to decide what risks we're going to take. Well, Massachusetts has sort of started some reopening procedures and I think is going to wait and see how it goes. And so I've sort of been following along with that because that's where I live. and my girlfriend and I both did like socially distant picnics like with our parents. Like I, she and I drove to her parents' house and like did a socially distant picnic there. And then we drove to my parents' house and did the same thing. So I think more people are doing stuff like that.

I am not yet at the stage of like wanting to go on a trip with another couple, but I also get why one might be at that stage. And that's fine. And I think we'll just see how it goes in a few months, which is a sad thing to say. but I think it's the only way we'll know how it's really going. What about you, Kirk? Yeah, we've been going to some friends' houses who have like backyards and we'll bring op over and she runs around and we'll sit kind of, you know, safe distance from one another

and hang out. And it's been really, really nice just to see our friends. It sure would be nice if I didn't live in New York City. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a nice thing about living somewhere with yards. Have you considered not living in a major metropolitan area? Like Kirk and I don't.

There's some things to recommend it. So to what you were saying, Jason, we have been talking about. talking to a couple of friends about, we just floated the idea of doing just what you were saying and being really safe and going on a trip. And just the feeling of there being something on the calendar to look forward to. That's exactly it. That is exactly it. Was so emotionally intense. Like I was like, this is the bravest feeling. And I wasn't expecting that. It was like, it just felt like I've been living in a world with no future for so long because everything got canceled. That was wonderful. And I was like, that was worth it on its own. Even if we don't wind up going.

Like just the feeling of like looking at July and thinking, I'm going to do it. something one weekend with some friends. We're going to go to a national park and walk around. And it's like, that alone was really great. So yeah, that's where I'm. Yeah, I'm curious to hear from listeners what their plan is like long term in the next few months. Like if they're going to start relaxing things for themselves, if they're going to wait for their states to give orders, what are people going to do? Especially U.S. people, because I know that in every country has kind of its own guidelines. And obviously the three of us are in the U.S. Yeah, right in with that. And I'll be curious to hear sort of how you're all doing with it.

Well, that is our episode. Thank you. Everybody for listening. Thanks, Jason and Maddie. That was fun. And thanks to Evan for coming on to talk with us as well. We will be back very soon with more Triple Click. Until then, I'll talk to you both later. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month.

Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com, on Twitter at triple clickpod, and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported.